Greenflame

When I can get a moment on the PC at home I’ll download and have a play with WorldWide Telescope. Looks interesting, but I need the PC to run it - no Mac version.

And I’ll get around to looking at Google Sky too.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away Darren wrote in an email “i’ll do serenity asap…”. That was June 2006.

Now, however, he’s started the great Firefly Study Series and you can find the first parts at:

• Firefly Study Series - Introduction | Youth Ministry Blog
• Firefly Study Series - Episode 01 - Serenity | Youth Ministry Blog
• Firefly Study Series - Episode 02 - The Train Job | Youth Ministry Blog

He’s also noted the link (via Tensegrities) to a series of Firefly clips over at Cowgirl Jazz.

Last September it was my turn to graduate with the PhD at the University’s spring graduation. Last Wednesday I was on the other side of the fence, participating not as a graduand, but instead as faculty. Quite a different experience, from carrying the Theology banner through the streets at the head of the Theology students, through to being an academic marshall at the ceremony, and watching the students get capped from ‘on stage’ rather than in the audience.

All in all, a good (though different) kind of day.

A while back I saw the graphic novel “The Homeless Channel” being mentioned around the net. Part satire, part social commentary, part something else, the story is based around a cable reality TV show that provides 24 hour coverage of the homeless people in the city and the lives of people that intersect with that TV show. It sounds intriguing, and quite different from any other graphic novel I’ve seen recently. I’m going to try and see if I can get hold of a copy.

Comics Bulletin has a couple of pieces related to it: The first is an interview with the creator, Matt Silady, while the second is a review of the novel.

1. Matt Silady’s Homeless Channel: Not Just Basic Cable: Interviews & Features Archive - Comics Bulletin
2. Homeless Channel Review - Line of Fire Reviews - Comics Bulletin

The creator, Matt Silady, also has a preview of the novel and a movie trailer of the story.

• The Homeless Channel Preview
• The Homeless Channel Trailer

Useful Problogger article on different ways of getting a design for your blog - from the free through to the expensive. See Problogger: How Do I Get a Professionally Designed Blog?

Turning MS Word files into web pages can be a really painful experience - particularly if you have to go through them by hand looking to change or modify them. I’ve had some days when I’ve given up trying to get Word content into a nice web format and just gone and recoded the content from scratch. However, I might give some of these tools a trying in future - Convert Word Docs to Web Pages - Wired How-To Wiki.

You would think that there should be a really good introductory survey article, essay or book chapter out there that describes various distinctives within Christian spirituality - either by theme or by historical period. Something that looks briefly at each of things like monastic tradition (desert and cloister), mysticism, mendicant spirituality (Franciscan & Dominican), Lutheran, Anglican, Reformed, Holiness/Wesleyan etc.

Now, I know there are some good books out there like the one’s below - but what about a magazine or introductory academic article? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Books that do this include:

• A Brief History of Spirituality (Blackwell Brief Histories of Religion) by Philip Sheldrake
• Exploring Christian Spirituality: An Ecumenical Reader edited by Kenneth Collins
• A Brief History of Christian Spirituality by Bradley Holt
• The Blackwell Companion to Christian Spirituality (Blackwell Companions to Religion)

As does something like Foster’s Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith does this.

I shall continue my trawling of journals, books and magazines…

This looks interesting - a public lecture coming up at the University of Auckland by Edward James (Professor of Medieval History, University College Dublin) on Tolkien and Lewis.

When: May 14
Where: Library Theatre B15
Time: 6.30pm

Here’s the blurb:

Tolkien and Lewis, two Oxford academics, were drawn together firstly by their love of medieval literature; their friendship took a new turn when Tolkien was instrumental in converting Lewis to Christianity; but the best known fruit of their friendship — and the main reason why both are remembered today, throughout the world — are the fantasy worlds which they created, Middle Earth and Narnia, and the books in which these worlds are found: The Lord of the Rings and the sequence of books beginning with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Their fantasy worlds are both expressions of their deep Christian commitment (Tolkien called his book “a Catholic epic”), but they reveal the differences between these two scholars just as much as their similarities.

Link: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: Friendship, religion and fantasy - The University of Auckland

In one of those “around the houses” moments I rediscovered the Facing the Challenges of Transhumanism: Religion, Science, and Technology blog attached to Arizona State University’s Templeton Research Lectures - Facing the Challenges of Transhumanism: Religion, Science, Technology project. Something to keep track of over the next few months.

Hat tip to a BetterHumans.com : “General repudiation of Transhumanism” posting - which is less than enamoured with the ASU blog.

Related links:

• Greenflame · Arizona State University - Templeton Research Lectures on Transhumanism
• Greenflame · Arizona State University gets grant to study transhumanism

These looks interesting - new prosthetic hands that allows for greater control of fine motor skills. See New Prosthetic Hand Has Grip Function Almost Like A Natural Hand: Each Finger Moves Separately