Weekly Links: some good reading from around the Web

SOME INTERESTING LINKS FOR YOUR SUNDAY AFTERNOON, SET OUT IN MY USUAL CATEGORIES OF FAITH, FAMILY, AND FICTION...

Faith 

-"Bible Basics: A Baby Believer Counting Primer": cool-looking Kickstarter from an fellow alum of THI.

-"One, Holy and Broken: Conflict in Christ's Church":

A church I attended suffered the pangs of conflict, and unfortunately, this was nothing new in my experience. As my wife and I moved around the country for graduate studies and then different teaching positions, four of the six churches we attended suffered deeply from conflict during the handful of years we were there (the other two were riddled by conflict before and after our time there). Based on our limited experience, to attend and participate in the life of a congregation, to be a member of a church is to participate in conflict.

Family

-"It's 'digital heroin': how screens turn kids into psychotic junkies": Important stuff. Particularly this bit:  

Once a kid has crossed the line into true tech addiction, treatment can be very difficult. Indeed, I have found it easier to treat heroin and crystal meth addicts than lost-in-the-matrix video gamers or Facebook-dependent social media addicts.

-And, to add to the category of What-I-Am-Going-To-Do-If-I-Ever-Get-Stupid-Rich: "Data Scientist Creates Fully Optimized Road Trip Map to Every National Park".

Maybe we can do a tenth of it every summer for the next decade ...?

Fiction 

-First thing to mention under the "fiction" category is a fun Twitter even I'm participating in this month: #WIPjoy! Founder Bethany A. Jennings calls it a month of "celebrating our works-in-progress and encouraging one another in our writing" and you can read more about it here. 

I'm having so much fun participating in it this month! And it's early in the month, so if you want in, there's still time. Just head on over to Twitter...

-"Mike Birbiglia's 6 Tips for Making It Small in Hollywood. Or Anywhere": Good stuff for any of my fellow creatives.

Have a lovely weekend!

-Jessica Snell

Weekend Links - Screen Time, the neuroscience of CrossFit, and more!

Some good reading from around the Web for your weekend:

"Parenting Advice on Screen Time":

There are NO well-designed, well-executed empirical studies on how much is too much screen time in terms of video games. So parents are out of luck gleaning any “hard” advice in that domain from the research literature. There’s plenty of media hype, but none is based on good data. TV is the only exception and indeed less is best . . .

"CrossFit, neuroscience, surviving the zombie apocalypse: Is your workout a fraud?":

The modern gym has been deliberately designed to not require any coordination, accuracy, agility, or balance. The attributes of fitness that bind the body and brain together have become the exclusive province of athletes, dancers, and the few lucky children who still climb trees, pop bicycle wheelies, and hang upside down from monkey bars. The stripping-away of coordination, accuracy agility and balance from physical culture – from our modern notion of fitness – has made us weaker, because power, the ability to apply maximum force, requires neural circuitry that’s impossible to develop on a pulley cable.

"This is what happens in your brain when you’re writing": I found this article really interesting - esp. the differences between the brains of experienced writers vs. inexperienced writers.

"Unhappy Hipsters": hat tip to Anne Kennedy. This link has had me laughing for over a day now!


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Video games I actually like

I only play video games, maybe . . . every other week or so?

But about every two weeks, that's what sounds most relaxing, and I give it a go.

They're always the same kind, though. I like the making-order-out-of-chaos style of games. :D The ones where not only are you straightening out a mess, but it's possible to straighten out the mess, and there aren't any distractions from straightening out the mess.

Gee, with four kids, why would I possibly find that relaxing?

So, here's what I like (and I feel like an old lady admitting that these are the ones I like):
-Tetris
-solitaire
-Doctor Mario

See? I am so not hip and happening. There was an old Super-NES game that involved juggling Yoshi eggs on flippable plates that I loved too, but I haven't been able to find it again.

So, here's my question: if you share my tastes, do you have any new ones to suggest to me?

-Jessica Snell