7 Quick Takes (5/18/12)

— 1 —

Sign-ups for the Ideological Turing Test are now closed.  I’ve emailed all the participants and they’re hard at work on their entries.  Because of the number of submissions, I couldn’t contact everyone who signed up to confirm they were not participating.

Later today, I’ll have a link to a sample ballot, and I’d appreciate your feedback on any demographic questions you want me to ask.

— 2 —

Remember last weekend, when I mentioned that JT Eberhard was asking people to list the apologetic arguments that really needed answers?  (And then remember that an error prevented you guys from commenting on that post?)  Well, JT has revealed why he was asking: he’s writing an atheist handbook that will address a lot of the questions you guys and others want answered.

Comments are working again over here, so I’m still interested in what Christian arguments deserve better answers from atheists.  And if you want to help out JT, he’s taking title suggestions.  His commenters have ended up in a very nerdy argument on this topic.

— 3 —

A lego artist has put together Dante’s nine circles of Hell.  My favorite is definitely Circle Three:

— 4 —

Meanwhile, at my alma mater, some of my classmates and a couple staff have filmed a moving It Gets Better video:

Though after the admissions department pitch (“That’s Why I Chose Yale“), I was really hoping that this, too, would be presented in the form of a musical.  (Or at least would also incorporate the Freestyle Dueling Association).

— 5 —

Cowbirds in Love has an amusing transhumanist-related cartoon.  Here’s how it begins:

(click the image to see how it ends).

— 6 —

I don’t really have any strong opinions about this article from GQ where Eric Puchner seeks out a cooler version of himself.  I just really liked this anecdote:

For some reason, I told Kyle about how I’d asked my daughter recently what she wanted to be for Halloween, and she’d said “a confused chicken.” This apparently meant dressing up like a chicken but pretending not to know what she was. I couldn’t help thinking she’d hit upon a deep ontological truth: the idea that who you were would be obvious to everyone else but yourself.

— 7 —

I was skeptical about the appeal of this video of Alan Rickman making tea in super slow motion, but it does turn out to be pretty entrancing.  If you find your interest waning, you may want to skip to 4:10.

(h/t Gizmodo)

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!