backpacks to the future

(7 comments)
2007.04.25
I've noticed that pretty much everyone wears backpacks the way they were meant to be worn these days, i.e. square on the back using both straps. But back in high school, the only people who did that were serious backpackers and nerds.

I use a courier bag right now, but if I ever switch to a backpack, I am probably always going to sling it over one shoulder, no matter how bad it is for my back, or how much extra wear that one strap gets. Because, you know, that's what was cool in 1991.

Sigh.


Slate of the Moment
Explainer on the end of the Catholic doctrine of limbo for the unbaptized babies. What caught me was the footnote:
On the other hand, some Lutherans, Anglicans, Episcopalians, and orthodox Christians hold that everybody remains in an "intermediate state" until the return of Jesus Christ on judgment day.
As far as I know, the whole idea of going off to heaven or hell immediately upon dying is "extra-Biblical"; or at least I realized that the Salvationist doctrine I grew up in claimed that people were just stone cold dead until bodily resurrected at the end of the world... the thing is, I think most Salvationists have the common kind of image of souls quickly winging their way up or plummeting down.

Actually, the whole idea of a body/soul separation doesn't show up all that much in the Bible I think.


Cartoon of the Moment
Today's xkcd was especially clever... I guess it's the same charm I pointed out for indexed... geekish humor that you have to work to figure out, which makes it that much better.