Another very busy week this week – two significant birthdays (mine included a zero in it, and fourth-born reached a significant milestone too), lots of end of year stuff, more other stuff (which was quite stressful), Kim had lots on as she finished up work to start a new job in the new year, and the kids finished school mid-day Thursday.

So now, for the next 10 days or so, they’ll be a brief blog interlude while we all enjoy a break from work, school, kindy and various commitments and spend some time with each other and our wider families.

This year the Pohutukawa trees all seem to be in fine form – even the little ones that were planted this year on the road side by the local school. The colour is refreshing at this busy time.

Have a good Christmas everyone.

A few interrelated things in the past week or so about genetic testing, discrimination and Alzheimer’s.

Firstly, PBS carried this article (and video) about the ethics of testing for Alzheimer’s – Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . COVER . Alzheimer’s Testing . December 14, 2007 | PBS.

Which, in turn, relates to this part of Radio NZ’s Nine to Noon programme on Thursday that looked at genetic discrimination in insurance cover – MP3 here.

And then this from Terry Pratchett, who notes that while he’s been diagnosed with very rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s people note that he’s not dead yet. (Are there eulogies on the net already?) – Discworld News © PJSM Prints

When I was at high school I used to make regular trips into Wellington’s Carter Observatory to attend astronomical society meetings, so I was sad to see this article today noting the loss of jobs and national status there. Many good memories of heading up the cable car to the observatory and planetarium at the top of the Wellington Botanical Gardens. Places like that fired my imagination to engage with science by firstly wanting to become a scientist, and then more recently to look at science’s relationship with other things like religion. It appears, like many of these things, that the money could only stretch so far – concentrate on education and the research drops, on the research only and it becomes disconnected from the public (and stimulating young scientists). So much, perhaps, for funding a broad ‘knowledge economy’.

See: Jobs lost in Carter Observatory restructuring – Stuff.co.nz.

Hopefully, once the dust settles, there’s something to continue in some positive form.

Other links:

• Carter Observatory, Carter Observatory Distance Education, Carter Observatory (academic), and Carter Observatory – Wikipedia
• Auckland Stardome
• Mt John – Physics and Astronomy – University of Canterbury – New Zealand, Mt John observatory in Lake Tekapo – Tekapo Tourism, and Mt John observatory with Earth and Sky – Lake Tekapo, New Zealand.

As someone interested in both transmedia narratives and the TV show ‘Heroes’ I was really interested to read this article recently.

Confessions of an Aca/Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins: “We Had So Many Stories to Tell”: The Heroes Comics as Transmedia Storytelling and to find the link to the online ‘Heroes’ comics that add to the TV episodes at Heroes TV Show on NBC: NBC Official Site

More links to transmedia storytelling at Greenflame · Transmedia.

Interesting articles that popped up on young-earth ‘creationist’ geology, and the problems it causes, not for secular geologists, but rather for old-earth Christian geologists.

Original NYT article at: Rock of Ages, Ages of Rock by Hanna Rosin (Nov 25, 2007). (Login needed).

Commentary on the article here at Young Earth Creationism Makes Life Difficult for Everyone | Liveblog | Christianity Today.

I long time ago I flatted with a postgrad geneticist-microbiologist who had the crazy idea of trying to make bioluminescent bananas (so they could be picked in the dark ). Apparently, bananas are the wrong type of plant for the bioluminescent symbiote he wanted to use, though potatoes would have worked.

Now I see this – SKorean Scientists Clone Cats That Glow: Wired News – AP News – and I wonder, what ever happened to my old flatmate?

The last week and the next one are full on with all sorts of family activities. Monday was fourth-born’s ‘official’ kindy farewell, Thursday was first-born’s school prize-giving, Friday night Kim and three children part of the church’s Christmas drive-thru, today three of the kids were in the Christmas pageant at church, and then there are two family birthdays this week. Combine all this with other stuff that’s happening (summer holidays start mid-day Thursday for the kids, Christmas preparations, fitting in some work and other things) and it’s all really busy.

Oh, and third-born and I made chocolates yesterday at her insistence. Just simple molds with milk and white chocolate but they look (and taste) really good. Mmm.

After some initially using the PHPWebsite content management system way, way back as a proto-blog I shifted to using Blogger, and then over to Movable Type 2 because it afforded me more control over the blog (and added things like categories). And then Movable Type 3 arrived and the licencing became confusing and more restrictive so I just kept on chugging along using the functional, but now relatively obsolete, MT 2. Finally I came to WordPress (via some playing around with Drupal and Mambo/Joomla) and it works pretty well (especially with Ecto).

Now, in part in response to the success of WordPress, there’s an open-source version of Movable Type 4 available, which might just make me go back and have a look at it if I need to set up a new blog on my own server. I quite liked MT – and back when it was more widespread there were all sorts of interesting sites providing helpful tips and themes etc. (Just like for WordPress now).

More details at: Six Apart Reinvigorates Movable Type with New Open-Source Release | Compiler from Wired.com and Movable Type Open Source – MovableType.org – Home for the MT Community.

BTW – I see PHPWebsite continues to evolve. I liked using the early versions, and I might have a look at it again next time I need a CMS.

Duncan Macleod (AKA Pacific Highlander and of Duncan’s TV Ad Land) has a short piece reflecting on Christmas in Journey (produced by the Uniting Church in Australia, Queensland) about celebrating Christmas in our everyday world. See Jingle all the way.

A couple of interesting things this week relating to copyright.

Firstly, the National Party had to recall the DVDs it had produced to promote John Key because it contained music that was the same as or very close to a Coldplay track. See Faux Coldplay forces Key change – Stuff.co.nz and Key out of tune with Coldplay – NZ Herald.

And secondly, an article on the increasing tendency for the enforcers of copyright to go after everyday people who are oblivious of what constitutes copyright breach over ‘performance’ of a piece – in this case someone playing music in the background at their factory/store during a one-off sale. See Feature: For your ears only by Joanne Black | New Zealand Listener.

Fair enough in the first case, but in the second I guess it’s not safe to hum a tune in public any more?