Notre Dame Cathedral Burns in Paris

This is terribly sad – a genuine iconic landmark has gone. Perhaps forever.

Can we resolve the gospel accounts of Holy Week?

The word ‘gospel’ means ‘announcement of good news about something that has happened’; a central part of the Christian claim is that, in the death and resurrection of Jesus, God has done something, and so we cannot evade question of what exactly happened and when. Sceptics (both popular and academic) make much of these apparent inconsistencies, so there is an apologetic task to engage in. And understanding how these issues might be resolved could potentially shed new light on the meaning of the texts themselves.

How the Five “Love Languages” Can Help You Win at Relationships

Interesting to see an idea break out of the Christian arena and get more widespread attention. I enjoyed this intro:

This term was coined by longtime relationship counselor Gary Chapman. His book, Five Love Languages, is admittedly full of cheesy truisms (“keep your love tank full”), and it sounds like a bad quiz you’d take in Cosmo. It’s a pretty fluffy read overall (and some notions are kind of antiquated), but there’s a reason this whole love language thing has taken off: it makes a lot of sense, and it works.

Is It More Efficient to Stand or Walk on an Escalator?

It’s a question you may well have wondered on from time to time.

Teen builds working nuclear fusion reactor in Memphis home

The Memphis teen finished his reactor and achieved fusion at the age of 13. He’s regarded by experts as the youngest in America – maybe even the world – to accomplish it. Jackson built a steel machine made up of vacuums, pumps and chambers that is capable of smashing atoms together through force in a smoking hot plasma center that releases a burst of fusion energy.

Not quite sure what I was messing around with at 12 and 13 but it certainly it wasn’t building a nuclear fusion reactor.