Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

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Evernote or OneNote?

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I’m ready to go (almost) completely paperless in a more efficient way, and it seems like these are the top two programs for that:

1. Evernote

  • I’ve used the free version a bit over the last few years, but I haven’t used it extensively.
  • The premium version costs $45 per year.
  • Michael Hyatt highly recommends it.

2. OneNote

  • I own OneNote 2010, but I’ve never used it.
  • It seems like an efficient tool.
  • It doesn’t appear to have an iPad app. (Update on 12/12/2011: It now has an iPad app.)

I’m leaning towards going with OneNote since I already own it. (I wish Google Notebook didn’t stop development.)

Suggestions?

Related: I use Zotero to organize my library.

Institutions

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“Institutions are by nature large and inflexible beasts with fiefdoms that must be protected and rules that must not be broken.”

—Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Super Freakonomics, p. 103.

Gone Rafting

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I plan to leave today for an eight-day rafting trip through the Grand Canyon, so this blog will be quiet until July 18.

I’ve had several friends go on this same trip with Canyon Ministries in previous summers, and they all loved it. Some people who go on this trip are young-earth creationists, some aren’t, and some are undecided.

Here are some previous reflections on this rafting trip:

How Not to Write a Book Review

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Dan Reid explains how.

(Reid is senior editor for reference and academic books at InterVarsity Press, where he has worked since 1986.)

His first “reviewing sloth” is most significant:

The author failed to write a different sort of book, the sort of book that I prefer; and so I dislike this book.

iPad Resources

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I shared some iPhone resources in January 2010, and now I’m ready to share some iPad resources.

I bought an iPad 2 when it came out in March (32 GB, black, Wi-Fi only), and I’m glad I did. Here are some resources that may help you use the tool more efficiently.

1. iPad Apps

The iPad comes with several built-in apps, and over 65,000 apps are available through the iTunes Store.

Here’s a screen-shot of my apps (in addition to the built-in apps) as they appear in iTunes (click on the image to enlarge):

1.1. My Favorite Reading Apps

There are many other useful apps that I’ve chosen not to use for various reasons (e.g., PIM, news, sports). I use my iPad primarily for reading, and these reading apps are my favorites: [Read more…] about iPad Resources

Dignity

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This week I listened to the audiobook of Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (Nov. 2010). Wow. What a story.

One of the book’s motifs is that POWs craved dignity as much as they craved physical necessities like food and clothing:

Few societies treasured dignity, and feared humiliation, as did the Japanese, for whom a loss of honor could merit suicide. This is likely one of the reasons why Japanese soldiers in World War II debased their prisoners with such zeal, seeking to take from them that which was most painful and destructive to lose. On Kwajalein, Louie and Phil learned a dark truth known to the doomed in Hitler’s death camps, the slaves of the American South, and a hundred other generations of betrayed people. Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man’s soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrendered it. The loss of it can carry a man off as surely as thirst, hunger, exposure, and asphyxiation, and with greater cruelty. In places like Kwajalein, degradation could be as lethal as a bullet. (p. 183, emphasis added)

What is “the only real foundation for human dignity and human rights”? Humans are created in the image of God.

Charlotte’s Web: A Model of Good Writing

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Last month Tony Reinke encouraged me to read E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web (1952) to my daughter. Not only would my daughter love it, but I could learn a lot about how to write better.

That was good advice. My daughter Kara and I read it together in late April and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was her first “chapter” book without pictures on every page. I watched the 1973-film several times as a child, but I had never read the book (nor have I seen the 2006-film).

E. B. White knows how to write. Simple. Clear. Elegant. Magical.

That didn’t just happen. White worked tirelessly at it. He revised Charlotte’s Web many times until the wording was just right. (White contributes to the first of the “Six Useful Books on Writing” I list here.)

I love how the book ends. Someday I hope my friends can say this of me: “It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.”