Today was spent doing admin stuff before heading off to the Science and Theology Consultation conference in Canberra tomorrow morning. Smallest child had a tummy bug relapse so he was around too.

Swinging through Melbourne tomorrow and Friday (no direct flight to Canberra) and catching up with a few folk there. Now trying to get my home office tidy before I go so when I come back it’s ready for immediate use (and Kim can get to the other side of the room to her desk). There are four of us going from the Auckland region that I know of so I won’t be the only Kiwi there. Printing out a couple of the conference papers to read in the plane, and looking forward to being a in room full of people who think science-theology is worth talking about.

Also hoping the conference will shed some light on vocational possibilities in the Australasian region.

The Sci Fi Channel is creating a reality TV show around a superhero that you design and portray. See SCIFI.COM | Who Wants To Be A Superhero?

The potential for spandex-clad inanity is mind-boggling.

Stephanie posts some good thoughts on why there should be no more Star Trek series at TV: The Failure of “Star Trek: Enterprise”.

On my favourite Star Trek movies – definitely ST II : The Wrath of Khan and ST : First Contact.

Least favourite – ST V : The Final Frontier. Every time I’ve seen it I’ve wonder how they could have made Star Trek so bad. Still it does have that great line of Kirk’s – “Excuse me… Excuse me… I just wanted to ask a question. What does God need with a starship?”

Skimmed through A Tale of Two Kitties – Christianity Today Magazine while in at the library today which put me in the right frame of mind for Duncan’s link to the McPassion movie (see Duncan’s TV Adland » Blog Archive » McPassion Movie). Watched the movie and was reminded that Steve talks of ‘spiritual takeaways‘, though maybe not quite in this sense.

The journal Nature has a special issue on the future of computing at looking at the next 15 years. Future of Computing: Web focus : Nature. Currently the articles are available as free content.

Article on computer gaming promoting creativity and stimulating the imagination at Wired 14.04: Dream Machines.

It appears from the (unintentional) research being carried out by my children that the breakfast cereal Weetbix possesses strange transdimensional properties rivaling the TARDIS. Indeed, if a child takes a Weetbix (is that a plural?) and then crushes it into a bowl, flakes of wheat are relocated through minute wormholes in the space-time continuum to various parts of the kitchen. Parts of the kitchen, I might add, that cannot be reached under the regular laws of physics. Once again we are faced with the evidence that breakfast cereal is indeed part of a larger alien conspiracy to replace tasty food with pencil-shaving analogues.

I picked it up here at Faith and Theology: Footnotes or endnotes? but it started here at Frankly, Mr Shankly: TF Torrance, footnotes and endnotes. Then it evolved to here to Aaron Ghiloni’s poll pointed to by Faith and Theology: The footnote controversy.

At the end of the day – “Endnotes – just say no!”

A gadget that allows authors to sign books and meet readers while in another location. See Guardian Unlimited Books | News | Atwood sign of the times draws blank.

Spent the weekend filling in a gap between thesis chapters and adding some comments in a chapter about how different models of the imago Dei are challenged by techno-science. Came across this quote in my notes when looking at how the imago Dei maintains both a connection to the divine and to creation.

It is dangerous to show man too clearly how much he resembles the beast, without at the same time showing him his greatness. It is also dangerous to allow too clear a vision of his greatness without his baseness. It is even more dangerous to leave him in ignorance of both. (Pascal, Penseés [1659])