So I’m waiting for my hosting provider to turn on a few things so I can install Movable Type how i want it and I start thinking about how nice it would be to have all the blogs I read on a single web page with their latest headlines. So I’m thinking RSS/XML aggregation but on a web page I can access from anywhere in the world not just using a reader on my iBook.

The result of this is the: GreenFlame Blog Portal. A quick bit of HTML and PHP tinkering with the help of zFeeder and it’s all done.

(I know that MT has a nice plug-in for doing this sort of thing but I was bored – and it may be weeks (months) before I get MT up and going to my liking)

No, not the rugby team but a deep sense of being a stranger in a strange land. And it seems to have been getting worse over that last six months. Owen Marshall’s “South Island Prayer” seems to fit the bill for me,

God
Don’t let me die in Auckland.
Rotting in the heat before your
eyes are closed: a greasy take
away after the soul is gone.
Jesus, no.

Let me go with the old Southerly
Buster: river stones in the grey
flecked sky and that white wind
to keep your chin up.
Christ, yes.

In town yesterday I picked up a second-hand copy of Flock: The Best of the Mutton Birds and it has their song “Wellington” on it which starts

I wish I was in Wellington, the weather’s not so good
The wind it cuts right through you and it rains more than it should
But I’d be there tomorrow, if I only could
Oh I wish I was in Wellington

And my trip to Christchurch last year made me long to head south.

Anyway, enough moroseness. The CD also has the song “Dominion Road” on it (Auckland song) which I like and made me think about what other songs are there out there about NZ places – there must be heaps (though maybe not about Hamilton ) A good example is Taumaranui on the Main Trunk Line by Peter Cape. So I’m on the hunt for a list – any clues?

I discovered this the other day. The Internet Archive is “building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.”

What is does provide is access to music and video material that has been placed out there for people to view and use – just right if you’re looking for a video clip or music segment for something. (When accessing an archived page, you will be presented with the terms of use agreement for that material). Helpful for Alt.W people looking for text, sound and video.

My current favourite video clip is: Horses on Mars from the SIGGRAPH Animations Library.

3.6 billion years ago, A microbe is blasted off its home planet from a meteor impact and embarks on a journey through the inner solar system. After spending time on other worlds, it decides home is best and tries to return – only to head in the wrong direction by mistake. Unable to ever return again, it has a stunning vision of home – and what lies ahead for it. The imagery mimicks the look of electron microscope imagery. Created on a Dell workstation donated by Intel. Maya and Maya Composer donated by Alias|Wavefront. RenderMan courtesy of Pixar.

Enjoy!

I use Endnote to handle all my thesis references and bibliographic data – in fact I’m note sure how I’d live without it as an academic writer. But it does cost a reasonable amount (unless you’re covered by a site licence like at a university where it’s normally available for students and staff for a minimal fee while at the institution).

In today’s TidBITS newletter I see that Research Software Design, makers of PAPYRUS are offering for free their bibliographic and notes software that runs under MacOS 7+ (Classic for OSX) and for DOS/Windows. So if you’re running an older system and doing academic writing have a look and see if it helps.

Steve Taylor (e~mergent kiwi: traffic) and Maggi Dawn (which one’s Evil: power point or church? ) have been commenting on the use of PowerPoint on their blogs (esp. within church). It’s a medium that I both love and hate – it never quite does what I want it to, I always end up with both an electronic presentation and my printed out slides in front of me (with extra handwritten notes on them because the notes field is too small), but I like being able to update my lecture slides quickly (as opposed to having slides that are out of date). I’m still waiting though to see an effective use of PowerPoint to augment preaching or worship-leading though. (Although I have seen some effective things when people step outside the “normal” ways of doing it – just note within traditional forms). I’ve also sat through some excruciating student presentations where there is no content just “bells and whistles” (Institutions could do well to define a standard templates that students use so less time is spent on presentation and more on content – unless the mode of presentation is the content!)

What I really want is a piece of software that combines a decent outliner, mind-mapper and presenter.

Wired carried a couple of interesting articles on the “angelic” and “demonic” nature of PowerPoint back in Novemeber 2003. Here are the links:

Wired 11.09: Learning to Love PowerPoint by David Byrne:

“Although I began by making fun of the medium, I soon realized I could actually create things that were beautiful. I could bend the program to my own whim and use it as an artistic agent. The pieces became like short films: Some were sweet, some were scary, and some were mysterioso. I discovered that even without text, I could make works that were ‘about’ something, something beyond themselves, and that they could even have emotional resonance. What had I stumbled upon? Surely some techie or computer artist was already using this dumb program as an artistic medium. I couldn’t really have this territory all to myself -or could I?”

Wired 11.09: PowerPoint Is Evil by Genevieve Liang:

“Imagine a widely used and expensive prescription drug that promised to make us beautiful but didn’t. Instead the drug had frequent, serious side effects: It induced stupidity, turned everyone into bores, wasted time, and degraded the quality and credibility of communication. These side effects would rightly lead to a worldwide product recall.”

Sojourners Magazine has a couple of interesting essays on the nature of the relationship between evangelicals and liberals (framed within the context of the US Presbyterian church). Each essay is written by a self-confessed “evangelical” and “liberal” respectively and look at what each can learn from the other.

Why the Evangelical Church Needs the Liberal Church, Sojourners Magazine/February 2004 by Richard Mouw.

Why the Liberal Church Needs the Evangelical Church, Sojourners Magazine/February 2004 by Barbara Wheeler.

I was struck by Wheeler’s image of the church:

“a tense, edgy, difficult church made up of zenoi, strangers, who cling to each other for dear life in the same chilly, rocky baptismal boat because we are headed to the same destination: a better country.”

and

“This image of the church as a band of strangers who accept our discomfort with each other as God’s way of moving us forward may seem grimly Calvinistic. The image certainly flies in the face of the best marketing advice about how to grow your church or denomination: Create a warm, friendly enclave where like-minded people can find refuge from the tensions of contemporary life. Churches like that are what the proponents of a cool, clean division of the denomination claim to have in view.”

How much are our own churches, emergent or otherwise, like the enclaves rather than like the parables of the net, or of wheat and tares, in Matthew’s gospel?

Last night I took my two eldest boys, Mark & Christopher, to the party put on by Waitakere Libraries for all children who take part in the summer reading programme. This is an excellent programme put on by various libraries around the country and in Waitakere is sponsored by the various local Rotary clubs. Here’s how it works:

In November children sign up for the programme at a local library that becomes their centre to report back to. The children commit to read for at least 1.5 hours per week from library books and over the next six weeks to check in at least 4 times with the librarians. A librarian sits down with each child and talks to them about their books and reading, what they enjoyed or didn’t like.

Each child gets a pack at the start of the programme that has log sheets, activities etc. in it. At each check-in they get a stamp/sticker on their chart and a small reward (based around a theme – this year “dinosaurs” (Jurassic Joyride was the programme title)). Then at the end of the programme the children get invited to a party (held at Te Atatu Community Centre) with magicians, clowns, a disco, food and drink and prizes for best costume, best dancing and for completing the programme (all kids who complete it get a medallion, certificate and a book).

My observations of the programme:

• The children like the interaction and stimulus of being engaged by the librarian about their reading.
• We go to the library more often than normal.
• Our boys reading skills pick up markedly.
• It free – no costs to the families except time. (The party is free too).
• At the party the ethnic mix of children (& their families) was huge.
• 500 children signed up in Waitakere – they had to cap numbers!
• 80% of children completed their contracts.
• It’s now been running every year since 1998.
• It’s fun.

It’s pretty inspiring really. Compared to some of the things I see churches etc. doing I think we might be better throwing our resources into the hat like this – incarnational action and the Kingdom in the real world. Improved literacy, kids and families having fun, crossing all sorts of ethnic and financial boundaries and being part of the community.

Some more information at:

Summer Reading Programmes
and
Waitakere Kidz Newsletter for Dec 2003 (PDF file)

Oh and by the way, Christopher won an amazing Origami stegosaurus for outstanding dancing!

A new survey of Internet users proves we bloggers do have a life after all.

Instead, the typical Internet user is an avid reader of books and spends more time engaged in social activities than the non-user, it says. And, television viewing is down among some Internet users by as much as five hours per week compared with Net abstainers, the study added.

‘Use of the Internet is reducing television viewing around the world while having little impact on positive aspects of social life,’ said Jeffrey Cole, director of the UCLA Center for Communication Policy, the California university that organized the project.”

The full story at: Reuters News Article : Internet ‘Geek’ Image Shattered by New Study: “

Emergent Kiwi has a nice, new, spartan blog up and running. Update your links now!

Every now and then I dip into Richard Briggs’ book It’s been a quiet week in the global village. It’s light, thought-provoking and the format of a series of reflections or vignettes on Christian life and mission in the contemporary world works for me. Today I saw this in it.

Seems to me that we’re not good at imagining what we really want for a perfect day. But then, fortunately, these things are not ours to decide. The way the God lifts impossible burdens off our shoulders is always one of the things I’ve liked most about him. It makes life more interesting. It makes it liveable.

Seemed to fit with some other blog entries I’ve read recently.