General

Okay, the blogging break ended up being a little bit longer than anticipated, and I’m still trying to decide what to do with blog. It’s been going since August 2003, developing from the previous phpWebSite-based site, through various incarnations. It was really helpful while writing the PhD and in the post-PhD period but I haven’t quite figured out what I want to do with it now - especially when I don’t have a lot of energy for it at the moment.

Still, inspiration might strike…and the blog break has been good in the interim.

On holiday down south for a couple of weeks. Next year should be less busy than this year so I’ll have more time to pay attention to the blog (I hope).

Have a good Christmas.

What’s up with our potatoes? Cooking them is like a lottery at the moment - even those tagged ‘gormet’. Uneven cooking, hard ‘bits’, strange discolourations, the list goes on. Had some really nice looking new potatoes yesterday, boiled in their skins just right. The nice ones were divine with a little butter, salt and pepper. The others were terrible and disappointing to all at the table.

Could this be the problem? Radio New Zealand News : Stories : 2009 : 11 : 17 : NZ potato damage hits chip processors.

See also: Potatoes New Zealand: Psyllid

Important to know this stuff
See What’s Inside a Cup of Coffee?

This looks interesting. Could be fun for the school holidays. I’m sure there used to be a kit you could buy in toy shops years ago that allowed you to do something similar.

See Make a Super Ball - Wired How-To Wiki

A course at the university open to the general public that turned up in the email today.

The Sensory Evaluation of Wine - Centre for Continuing Education

Looks interesting.

It’s been a while since I had a chemistry set at home or did any university science lab work, but this book looks cool - if somewhat dangerous. Definitely something one of my old flatmates from undergrad university days would have been keen to try out.

See Cool Tools: Theo Gray’s Mad Science

Settlers of Catan is one of the board games we have played on and off for that past 10 years or so. The kids like it too - especially the Cities and Knights expansions. Here’s a recent write up on the history of the game: Monopoly Killer: Perfect German Board Game Redefines Genre.

We’re on the lookout for the board game for 2009 for us all to play. Any suggestions?

I don’t know what the pizza would taste like, but I’d like to see one of these machines in action sometime. See Chefs in a spin over pizza machine.

Very, very busy for the past couple of weeks. Normal blogging may resume next week.

I wish my friends and I had had one of these when we biked everywhere as undergrads.

LightLane’s Lasers Make an Instant Bike Lane | Autopia from Wired.com

Summer vacation, plus lots of stuff at work, general lethargy, plus preparing for things (e.g. the School’s stall at Parachute), means it’s a slow blogging month.

Two related links for today:

Firstly, Learn how to be happy points to the website CALM (Computer Assisted Learning for the Mind) at the University of Auckland highlighting mental resilience, healthy relationships, and finding meaning in life as the combined sources of genuine happiness.

Secondly, Science & Religion Today: Spirituality (Not Religion) Makes Kids Happy points to a study out of the University of British Columbia highlighting that “feeling one’s life has meaning and value (the personal aspect) and deep, quality interpersonal relationships (the communal aspect)—are strong predictors of happiness.” The full journal article appears to be available here for the moment.

Related link: Greenflame · Philosophy : A Guide to Happiness

Merry Christmas from the Antipodes where, after the traditional bad weather in the week up to Christmas, things seem to be warming up.

Low key Christmas this year - at home with Kim’s folks here - and some time to recharge the batteries.

Dinner tonight will be Butter Turkey - last year I curried that left-over turkey and the kids loved it and all this year they’ve been asking for a repeat performance. So it looks like Butter Turkey or similar will become a Garner Christmas tradition.

Still suffering from shock after yesterday’s “*very* large spider in the lounge” incident, I discover Landcare Research’s Bug identification web site.

As far as I can tell it wasn’t an Avondale Spider (famous for starring in Arachnophobia). Chances are the beast in question was a Vagrant Spider - though I’m not ruling out some mutant spawn of a radiation leak.

Honestly, I’ve never been the same around spiders since I read "Web" (John Wyndham) and "Spiderworld: The Magician" (Colin Wilson) as an impressionable youth.

Related links: Fear of Snakes, Spiders Rooted in Evolution, Study Finds and HITLab Projects : VR Therapy for Spider Phobia

Just nice to go to the playground, walk around the lake and feed the ducks.

A couple of quizzes from Elections New Zealand on MMP voting in the upcoming general election.

The first one - MMP Quiz - is pretty easy (if you’ve been paying attention during recent general elections).

The second one - Advanced MMP Quiz - had me stumped in a number of places.

A good chance to test yourself and your electoral knowledge.

Even though there are intimations of spring in the air it’s still very, very wet out in the back garden. So wet that one of our smaller trees fell over the other day - not very windy, but the roots just couldn’t hold onto the sodden ground any more. The same too with the spinning clothes line - it’s pole does appear to be slowly sinking into the ground under the weight of wet washing over the past few weeks, which has never happened before.

Also, I see the cricket stumps have been set up outside for backyard cricket, but I think my children are dreaming that it’ll be dry enough to run around out there in the next week.

Looking forward to summer and a little less rain (not no rain, just not everyday).

At least that’s what it feels like at the moment. Lots of jobs to do before mid-semester break at the end of the week: postgrad class last night, endless admin tasks, assignment marking, a research paper to be making urgent progress on, and of course preparations for this Saturday’s Courses and Careers Day at the University of Auckland (which I’ll be giving the theology lecture for, as well as being on the stall for some of the day). Plus, there’s an ICBC meeting on Monday to be prepared for too.

Anyway, if you’re interested in finding out more about theology at the University of Auckland (whether for a programme like the BTheol or Graduate Diploma, or as part of something like a BA or BSc conjoint programme), and want to come and talk to some staff and current students it’s all happening this Saturday on campus. (See the link above for details).

I’m looking forward to the end of next week when, in theory, some of the minutiae of the first term has disappeared.

Random web links that have been sitting in my Firefox bookmarks toolbar this week.

• bbfc - the official website of the bbfc. - which I’ve found useful for more detailed descriptions of films when deciding which of my children will watch something.
• Humanity lost in digital classrooms - Eureka Street - a more pessimistic view on IT in the classroom.
• Libraries step into the age of iPod - Stuff.co.nz
• Stuff’s guide to web comics - Stuff.co.nz
• BBC - Radio 4 - Woman’s Hour -Women Turning to Spirituality - an interesting (though a few years old) audio programme.
• First Hour: Modern Christian Orthodoxy :: Sunday Nights - interesting because I’ve be thinking and reading about the relationship between orthodoxy and orthopraxy.
• Uncle Sam Wants Your Brain | Wired Science from Wired.com - article on the recent US report in neurotechnologies in military applications.

New game in the house - Citadels - which has been pretty much thrashed to death over the past few month. Everyone from fourth-born (5 and a half) up has been playing it and it looks like it will remain in play for the next month or two. A bit like a cross between San Juan and the card game “Scum” or “President”.

More about it at Bruno Faidutti - Citadels.

ALA | Select Bibliography of Children’s Books about the Disability Experience is a list from the American Library Association that “contains some outstanding books that portray emotional, mental, or physical disability experiences, most published between 2000 and 2006.”

Just filing the link here because it might be useful at some point for the “Spirituality and Well-being” course I’m co-teaching next semester.

Hat tip to: Select Bibliography of Children’s Books about the Disability Experience « Nano, Bio, Info, Cogno, Synthetic bio, NBICS

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.

The end of another hectic weekend is upon us - having just returned from an afternoon down in Hamilton for a most excellent wedding. With all the kids now into the football (soccer) season, Saturday mornings are a logistical exercise in getting the four of them to four different venues on a Saturday morning (think, traveling salesman problem), and then all the other things that are on at the moment. Last weekend it was football (x4), a birthday party to attend, and an out of town visitor for the night on Saturday, followed by a most of the day inter-school Krypton Factor that two of the kids were in on the Sunday. This weekend it was football (x4), first-born’s birthday, an engagement party, family staying over night and then the wedding in Hamilton today.

And anyone who thinks watching your kids playing football is relaxing needs their head checked. I’m still recovering from the highs and lows of yesterday’s performances.

I’m thinking it’s time to look at the next few weekends and see what can be culled from the events calendar. These things are all good (like all the people we saw today at the wedding who we haven’t seen for ages) but every Monday we’re a little more tired going to work.

Three weeks into the new job and it’s been very, very busy.

So far I’ve been to a large number of meetings (School of Theology and University), met faculty (incl. a nice lunch at the Catholic Institute of Theology (next door)), helped lots of students with course selections and enrollments, organized my courses for this semester (including a new online course we’re offering this year), come to grips with the university IT systems, familiarized myself with the uni’s online learning management system (CECIL), continued my predecessor’s work on a new online course on spirituality for second semester, attended various training sessions, attended various orientation events (including a nice commencement chapel service), organized a powhiri for new students next week, attended a powhiri for myself (and another one next week), run the undergraduate section of the School of Theology orientation day on Friday, and put in a proposal for the AAR consultation “Transhumanism and Religion”.

I’m very tired but I think I’ve won more than I’ve lost, and I’m really looking forward to teaching starting next week now all this preparation work has been done. My fellow faculty and staff have been brilliant at helping me get established.

Next time though I’ll hopefully start a new position with a little more time before the start of the academic year, and with a more graceful transition into the job.

No blogging rhythm at the moment. I imagine in a few weeks time things will get more regular again. Until then posting will be intermittent.

Yesterday we all went out for a family trip to Whatipu, one of the West Auckland beaches. It was a pretty grey and overcast day, but the temperature was warm, and the company we met up with was good. Sort of a rite of passage for us all - the last act before our new routine start tomorrow (Philip’s started school, Kim’s started her new job, and tomorrow I start mine). From tomorrow, all is different (but hopefully still as good as it’s been).

My youngest (5) was given a Cambridge BrainBox - Electronic Kits for Children and Schools on Monday and it rocks. Really simple way to build electronic circuits that make radios, alarms, lights go on and off, and (most importantly) fans fly up and hit the ceiling. He loves it and has spent that last few days assembling all sorts of things (and blowing the fuses in the set a few times). I can’t believe we didn’t get something like this ages ago (though we have Lego, Meccano and other similar things). The press-stud approach works really well for his hands and it’s robust enough to carry around to show people.

I’m sure it has potential for use in a children’s talk at some point.

2008 has rolled around and brought with it a whole lot of changes for us. Our youngest turned 5 over Christmas and so will be starting school (no more preschoolers!), Kim started a new job locally, and I’ve got a full-time theology teaching position here in Auckland. So all our family schedules and rhythms will be changing and it will take a little while for that to shake down.

From mid-February I’ll be lecturing in practical theology in the School of Theology at the University of Auckland. The interview was the week before Christmas, and I’m only now just getting my head around actually starting the job in a few weeks time. Some of the exact teaching details are still to be worked out, but I have a reasonable idea of what’s coming up. After so long in the journey to this point it all feels a little unreal.

I imagine it’ll be a year of challenges and opportunities, especially as I get to grips with the change in role to full-time lecturer, and the nuances of teaching theology in a university as opposed to the other places I’ve taught it before. Still, it’s a great relief to be starting and to know what we’re doing, and also to be able to stay in Auckland for the foreseeable future and not have to uproot the family. And, given where we live, I can take the train to work each day and avoid the traffic because I’ll be based full-time at the city campus.

I’m already fielding some of the questions and comments that Simon noted over at Simply Simon: Practicing theology. Things like, ‘Practical theology? Theology is practical?’ or ‘Practical theology? Isn’t that an oxymoron?’. I imagine that sort of thing will be fairly regular for a long as I’m teaching and researching in practical theology . I am looking forward to working in an area that lends itself to interdisciplinary work, as well standing at the intersection of scripture and tradition on one side and the issues and concerns of our society and cultures on the other.

So new things, new experiences, and a new life (of sorts) in 2008. After the frustrations of 2007 we’re all looking forward to it.

Came across these podcasts from Radio NZ the other day. I haven’t listened to the Split Enz documentary at all, but the kids have been enjoying the Storytime stories. The former might be of interest to those outside of NZ who like the Finn brothers music, but haven’t listened to their early stuff.

Enzology - Radio New Zealand’s story of Split Enz - Enzology

Enzology is Radio New Zealand National’s documentary covering the history of New Zealand’s most iconic band - Split Enz. Five years in the making, this ten-part series covers the history of the band from their beginnings in Auckland as an acoustic ensemble in 1972, to their final concerts as an Australia-based, internationally acclaimed pop band in 1984.

Radio New Zealand National : Programmes A-Z : Storytime Treasure Chest

Back in the past couple of days from 10 days away in Rotorua and Kawerau with both of our families. A really good time to catch up with everybody and for the kids to renew friendships with their cousins. Games of cricket, swimming, family walks in various forests, barbeques, catching up with old uni friends, and a trip out to the Ohope Beach Outdoor Book Sale to pick up a few second-hand books all part of the holiday.

Great to be away together, and also nice to be home now.

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.

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?

Duncan Macleod posts an interesting set of links pointing to the use of the web to create a ‘viral’ YouTube clip to highlight the conflicting values within Unilever’s campaigns to market their Dove and Axe (Lynx) brands. See Unilever Hypocrisy Exposed » Television Adverts at Duncan’s TV Ad Land, and the associated link Dove Viral Draws Heat From Critics - Advertising Age - News. I guess it’s all about selling, not a product primarily, but a brand that triggers associations with particular values in the consumer and thereby loyalty to that brand.

Related links:

• Lovemark - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
• gapingvoid: expressive capital

A list of the top re-read books in the UK. I was surprised at how many of them I’ve re-read.

See booktrade.info - Book Trade Announcements - Oops…I Read It Again!

does my ADSL internet speed slow significantly (a crawl?) when it’s raining hard?

On Saturday we all walked down to the local police station for their open day (See Police open doors to the public - Western Leader). It’s one of those places, like hospitals, that you don’t normally get to look around unless you’re preoccupied with some crisis or other, so we thought we’d go an look around the cells etc. The fire and ambulance services were there as well, and you could climb in the ambulances, fire engines, and police cars; dust for fingerprints in the SOCO (CSI) lab; watch the hazardous situations robot do its thing (my favourite); watch the search and rescue people abseiling with a rescuee in a sled; and, if you were my kids, get licked by police puppies. Plus there were various static displays.

I was surprised at how many people were there, and it looked like a successful PR exercise for the local constabulary.

One of the activities (for kids) was the speed gun running test. From a standing start, sprint up the driveway (steepish hill?) for about 15-20m and they’d clock how fast you’d go. My four kids, being ultra-competitive, did it lots of times seeking to be the fastest. When we were leaving they (and Kim) pressured me into doing it, all of them firm in the belief that I would be slower and they could mock me. Alas, they were incorrect, and my speed just pipped my eleven and nine year old sons.

(Insert glorious victory dance here, and bragging rights for the next few days)

I’m sure I’ll be faster than them for at least a couple more weeks During the soccer season though (with multiple practices a week, plus games) I imagine I will finish an inglorious last in such events.

England 12 - 10 Australia
France 20 - 19 New Zealand

I have it on good authority that the sun won’t be coming up tomorrow and that the Rapture Index will be increasing

School holidays + other things means that this will be a slow blogging week.

Yes, indeed. It’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Arrr!

Death by PowerPoint is an interesting online slideshow presentation about how not to do slideshow presentations (via Tensegrities » Powerpoint “stuff”).

A timely link as I’m currently collating material about the effective use of presentation software.

One of my favourite authors, Madeleine L’Engle, has died at the age of 88. I first encountered her work at primary school when I borrowed A Wrinkle In Time from the school library. I read it several times, and then forgot about her work until a few years back when I was working on an essay about principalities and powers in the apostle Paul’s writings and I came across a footnote in a commentary pointing to her book A Swiftly Tilting Planet and her portrayal of the Ecthroi. I borrowed that book from the library and was hooked again.

Since then I’ve bought a boxed set of her Time Quartet, and coincidentally read Many Waters at the same time as I was working on translating texts from Genesis 1-11 in a Pentateuch course. I thoroughly enjoyed her spiritual autobiographical work Bright Evening Star: Mystery of the Incarnation.

If you’ve never read any of her books, do yourself a favour and check some of them out. You might have to look in the ‘young adults’ section, though that’s how the books were marketed, and not necessarily whom they were written for.

Related links:

• Her official web site: www.madeleinelengle.com
• Obituaries at Episcopal Life Online, New York Times, and Reuters.
• Christianity Today has reprinted online their 1979 article Supernatural Sagas of Good and Evil about L’Engle along with a link to an interview and some other material.

Today the electric kettle (jug) needed to be replaced. A trivial event, you think - simply go out an buy one. After all, all a kettle does is heat the water in it to boiling and, if you’re lucky, then turn itself off. Useful for making tea and all that.

So off I went (with fourth-born in tow) to various shops - having done the obligatory pricing research via the net. Now a kettle is a personal sort of thing. You start the day with it, you end the day with it. It tracks you through the day. Choosing a kettle is a matter of great reflection (more so if stainless steel), and so one needs to go and look at them, pick them up, pretend to be ‘mother’ with one, flick switches, check out temperature-dependent colour-change panels, and take lids off and put them on.

Ah, the lid. Many a kettle today tempted us with its sleek lines, vast capacities and filter funnels, but if you can’t get the blessed lid on and off quickly, safely and have it stay on securely then the kettle is useless to me. Filling the kettle is not some optional step (unless you only possess a kettle to look good on the kitchen bench and match the toaster and blender).

Some kettles had flimsy designer lids that will not last the distance (of all components we break lids most often); others had cool push-button, slow motion automated lid opening mechanisms (which fourth-born thought were great, and hence I relegated to the pile of kettles that might be treated unwisely as toys by children who are learning to use one); and several had lids I (with my multiple degrees) could not figure out how to open. I do not want to have to be trained to fill my kettle. Early mornings are bad enough without struggling to make the morning cuppa.

I left with high hopes of finding a new kettle to bring me to a place of heightened oneness with the universe (through the sacrament of tea) and instead left three shops a broken man and without a kettle. (Though I did pick up a new Pyrex bowl to replace the one I dropped last week).

On a whim I popped into a different store well out of our way. Serendipitously it was ‘the great kettle sale’ day there - 50% off! Bought identical kettle to the one that was retired today. No lofty heights of new kettle experiences for me - though I know how to get the lid off it with my eyes shut (so to speak - because that would be a silly thing to do, wouldn’t it?).

Based on my experiences in the past 6 months there’s definitely an element of truth in this recent post on JonnyB’s private secret diary.

Well, low tech in the sense that they don’t need batteries. Still need the internet to access the web pages that tell you about them and, in PocketMod’s case, create the file to print out.
PocketMod: The Free Disposable Personal Organizer
CreativeIQ: Discover PocketMod. The low-tech PDA.
Introducing the Hipster PDA | 43 Folders

Article in the NZ Herald notes that it’s illegal to borrow material from some public libraries if you have a communicable disease. More details at Law bans sick book borrowers - 15 Jul 2007 - NZ Herald: New Zealand National news.

Right up there with the recent segment on Radio NZ National’s This Way Up, where they sent a keyboard in to the lab to see what was living under the keys.

Back home after having my gall bladder removed by laproscopic surgery yesterday. No problems with the operation and feel quite good apart from some tenderness. Still a bit of CO2 fizzing around inside though. Asked to keep the gall stones but they turned out to be more of a sludge than nice stones - so that’s another children’s talk idea out the window.

When I was researching the thesis I read about this system - Workmates - da Vinci Surgical System. Was planning to see what they used yesterday but forgot once they started pumping anaesthetic into me. Oh well, next time?

Well, not quite. There aren’t enough positions around to apply for a new one every day
Still, at the start of every week I go through all the emails that get sent to me from various job sites and tertiary educational institutions HR systems, check university, church and college web sites, plus RSS feeds relating to jobs in humanities etc. Also send out emails to prospective employers and check in with other folk. I’ve met some nice folk doing that, just no-one with a job.

By Tuesday each week I feel a bit like Cecilia in the cartoon below.

PHD Comics: Untimely accident

Must be somewhere that needs/wants a theologian with expertise in doctrines of creation, eschatology, anthropology and research interests in their intersection with science, technology, ecology, media, pop culture and spirituality. (Plus a love of the OT and expertise in providing IT/internet support for and the teaching of distance theological education). It’s not as if they’re irrelevant topics for the church today.

Interestingly, the most recent positions I’ve seen advertised in Australasia have all been for OT specialists. See:

http://www.ttc.wa.edu.au/employment.shtml#Academic
http://jobs.search4.co.nz/job/view/sxnyr/

Would appreciate a flaming angelic messenger (or even a talking donkey) about now.

The Dominion Post has some pretty summaries of the 2006 census up on its web site available for download. How the data is presented is as interesting as the figures themselves. See NZ by the numbers - Features - Dominion Post

Related links:

2006 Census Data - Statistics New Zealand
Selected tables - Statistics New Zealand

I love this cartoon strip! We had a fridge just like this one in the honours room back in the Canterbury computer science department. Inherited each year by the next generation of honours and masters students, the fridge was guaranteed to taint any item placed in it with a strange taste within an hour or two.

See: Piled Higher and DeeperL The Lab/Office Fridge

The cover story, “In the name of God,” from the Easter issue of the New Zealand Listener and which asks the question “Is religion dangerous?” is now available online.

See Cover Story: In the name of God by Philip Matthews | New Zealand Listener.

Interesting to see the writer interplay another thinker (Keith Ward) with Richard Dawkins, rather than just spout off Dawkin’s lines.

Had a wee spell feeling under the weather over the past 4-5 days, and ended up in the hospital for four days. This was the view from my bed (if I sat up), over Lake Pupuke in Takapuna. Weather was a little bleak, but that didn’t stop all manner of rowers, sailors and others entertaining me with their antics on the lake. Met many interesting people along the way, but the bed was bl**dy uncomfortable.

Back home now, but taking it easy. Ah biology, you have to love it.

I receive an email. It’s a friend asking for my assistance with something as a handyman. I read the email again to make sure I read it correctly. It still seeks my advice. I sit down for a bit to recover.

I decline to show said email to my wife fearing derisive laughter, and instead post about it on the net, where my two readers can bask in the glow of my ‘do-it-yourself’ aptitude. I have become an ‘expert’ sought out for my practicality. I feel at one with the universe.

Tomorrow I shall find my toolkit from where it’s buried in the shed. In the meantime I surf over to hardware shop web sites to mentally, emotionally and spiritually prepare myself. With great power comes great responsibility.

One of my friends (who shall remain nameless) gave me one of these. With friends like these…

Took my two youngest children to the beach today as something different to do during the school holidays. Over to Long Bay on the North Shore, the weather was glorious, the kids splashed in the sea, played on the playground and rode on the little train. Then down to Takapuna for lunch with Kim - and we got to see a graduation procession through town for Massey University complete with pipe band.

A nice day and here’s a snap of the beach this morning.

Life seems to have been busy of sorts lately.

• Lots of visitors at Easter and then through until today (including Steve the Emergent Kiwi who stayed for a couple of nights last week).
• School and kindy holidays.
• My oldest son’s birthday + party.
• Kid’s soccer practices in full swing for the season start next Saturday.
• Some part-time work (including being paid to drive around a set route in the Auckland traffic over a 12 hour period with a GPS to time how long it took at different times of the day).
• Preaching last Sunday out in the country at a congregation associate with our parish (I’m on the lay preaching roster). Nice service out there, and I preached on the theme of hope out of John’s Gospel. Preaching again this week at our regular church.

Lots of little things - but they all add up.

He drew a deep breath. ‘Well I’m back,’ he said.

Time for a break from blogging, while other things take priority.

Have a nice day/night.

Meme: n. A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.*

Paul at fishers, surfers and casters tagged me with the task “name five reasons why you do (not) respond to memes”. So, here goes.

1. Sometimes I respond because a friend tagged me, and I enjoyed their response to the task.
2. Sometimes I don’t respond because I think the topic is boring.
3. Sometimes I want to see how my ideas and thoughts match up against others down stream.
4. Sometimes I respond because I like the idea of information being free “in the wild”.
5. Sometimes I respond because I can’t think of anything else to blog about.

And sometimes I don’t want to tag anyone else. Nuff said.

Apparently, we had three earthquakes (tremors) last night. Didn’t notice them myself, though I may have thought it was a heavy truck going past the house.

More information at Earthquakes shake Auckland region - 22 Feb 2007 - National News - New Zealand Herald and GNS: Recent Earthquakes.

Or, in the words of Shirley Bassey and the Propellerheads, ‘it’s all just a little bit of history repeating’. And specifically, we’re talking about the black costume in Spider-Man 3 coming out in the next few months.

So, if you’re interested in the history of the black outfit (which is making a comeback real soon now in the comics), check out this THE OLD BLACK: LOOKING BACK AT SPIDER-MAN’S BLACK COSTUME - NEWSARAMA.

Of course, it remains to be seen how they might incorporate the Venom storyline without completely botching the original origin.

Australia looks to phase out incandescent light bulbs within three years, replacing them with alternatives that last longer and use significantly less power. The NZ situation looks like it’s going down the same path, though not as fast. See Standard light bulbs to be switched off - 21 Feb 2007 - National New Zealand News - NZ Herald

Following on from Friday (NZ defeat Australia by 10 wickets) and Sunday (NZ 337/5 beat Aus 336/4), tonight New Zealand chase down Australia’s 347 (getting 350 in the 49th over).

Three - nil.

(That’s one day international cricket for all you non-Commonwealth people.)

And yes, Australia were short of a few players, but in that last game NZ were without three of their best (Oram, Vettori and Bond).

Three nil!

Woohoo! Bring on the World Cup.

Oh yes, and the Hurricanes beat the Blues at the weekend to cap it all off.

When you’ve done the special effects for Lord of the Rings and King Kong, what’s left to do? Apparently the answer to that question is Black Sheep.

Hat tip to Pacific Highlander: Black Sheep Horror Film.

Popped down to Hamilton for a few hours yesterday. Not to watch the ‘Canes beat the Chiefs, but instead to attend our friend Ross’ graduation with his BCNZ graduate diploma. Good to see him finish, and to catch up with him and Jo and other familiar faces from down there. The graduation ceremony was nice, but a little sad as the Waikato branch has closed recently.

Ross suggested many years ago that our house group do a church history paper though the BCNZ regional learning centre as something different to do, which was another step on both his and my journeys in theological education.

Nice too, to drive though the countryside around Hamilton.

Hurricanes 39 - 32 Chiefs

I’m happy. Though, I imagine those in outposts such as Leamington are less so.

Of course, no matter what the result this isn’t good.

At one end of the house was National Radio’s programme “Deep in the South Pacific of Bass” which looked at the development of NZ reggae. At the other end of the house, facing Corban Estate (several hundred meters away), the sound of Herbs and others singing at the

Waitakere Sounds - Waitangi Day Concert. Synchronicity in summer.

Now, later on, its moved on to John Rowles singing a selection of favourites and you can hear the crowd singing along.

Last year we were introduced to Alhambra and its various expansions. It quickly replaced the regular Settlers of Catan: Cities and Knights, Tigris and Euphrates, and Carcassonne and its variants as our game of choice for 2006. Currently in NZ only the basic game and the first expansion are available in English, with the expansions we use being in German (and requiring the presence of our regular German-speaker game player). The picture on the right is of a game we played with all four expansions simultaneously - great because it was a real brain stretcher trying to work out a winning strategy with so many ways to play and win it.

Alhambra links:

• Queen Games: German creators of Alhambra
• Alhambra - Winner of 2003 Spiel des Jahres: Uberplay - English distributors
• Alhambra at Boardgamegeek
• Alhambra (board game) at Wikipedia

Other games for 2006 which we also enjoyed included the card games Mamma Mia and Coloretto, and the older boys like Oceania.

And for 2007? We’ve started playing Ticket to Ride (Marklin edition) and San Juan, both of which we really enjoyed. And maybe we’ll have a look at Metro.

See also: Greenflame: Carcassonne Extreme

Wired AP News - Creators Put Politics Into Video Games covers computer games as a medium for political discourse.

See also: Greenflame: Serious Games, Digital Storytelling and Public Perceptions for more links to this. (Might become its own category in the near future).

New Year here now (and just on the other side of the world). A quiet day with the immediate family and a couple of gatherings of friends to visit.

I’m not sure what the new year will bring for us, but all the best to you all for your new year adventures.

Back home after Christmas break away down in Kawerau with Kim’s family. Here’s a shot of the Tarawera River that flows though the town (though this shot was taken walking up to the Tarawera Falls - see Greenflame: Water, rock and forest).

The photo above is of the floor of the office at home. You can see the carpet!

This has not been the case for the past few months when the carpet has been obscured by layer upon layer of papers, print outs, books, bags, folders and anything else that got sucked into the maelstrom. Indeed, it looked like it was gaining enough mass to implode and form its own mini black hole. Now however, the floor is clear, books returned to supervisors (who may have forgotten I even had them), paper filed or recycled, and I can walk directly to my desk. I might even vacuum at some point.

Steve tagged me, so here are five things you may not know about me:

1. I can’t stand brussel sprouts, and am intolerant towards cauliflower and broccoli. Perhaps I have a green-hating gene?
2. As a computer science postgraduate I was given a “Mostly likely to become Elite” award by the faculty.
3. I originally went to university to study chemisty and astronomy, and before getting sidetracked into computer science passed undergraduate astrophysics and astronomy papers.
4. The first comic book I ever remember reading was the Legion of Super-Heroes story in Superboy #201 where ERG-1 recovers his corporeal form and defeats the robot that has immobilized the legion. Alas, all retconned out of existence now.
5. I like to diagram things to understand them better, and often reduce pages and pages of terse text (particularly theological writing) to visual representations.

I don’t forward chain letters (that’s a sixth thing), but if you feel inspired consider yourself tagged.

Kim and I spent a pleasant evening at the book launch of Cathy Ross’ book Women with a Mission - Rediscovering Missionary Wives in Early New Zealand published by Penguin. Some nice speeches and an opportunity to see Cathy and Steve again briefly. Nice also to see a PhD thesis transition into an accessible book. If you’re interested in NZ or missions history it may well be up your alley.

A most excellent week this week. Performances by the children at school assembly, taking my youngest on foot through the church’s drive-thru nativity so he could pat the animals (including the llama dressed a a camel) and see the rest of the family dressed up, got the sign-off from my supervisor on the final draft of the thesis so I can now submit when I’ve printed and soft-bound it, shared a long birthday party with the youngest yesterday with lots of friends (his, mine and ours) dropping by through the day, and many other things.

A large cardboard box can be many things. A boat, a rocket ship, a toy box, a stable for ponies or a zoo for animals, but combining boxes robustly for kids’ games never seems to work well. Saw this today and wondered whether there’s something similar in NZ. Must check the next time I’m at the hardware shop.

Cool Tool: Mr. McGroovy’s Box Rivets

For an old retro gamer like me this is amazing (but not the price, unfortunately). The only drawback is that it doesn’t have an Konami games, such as the incomparable Gyruss, a game that has consumed more of my money than any other.

See Dream Arcades.

We’re all back home from the trip down south as of late this afternoon.

The 6 of us drove West Auckland to Raumati, Raumati to Blenheim (via the Picton ferry), Blenheim to Christchurch, Christchurch to Kaikoura, Kaikoura to Upper Hutt (via ferry again), Upper Hutt to Rotorua (slowly through the around Taupo cycle event), and Rotorua to West Auckland. 2486 kms according to the odometer.

Have unpacked (sort of), put children to bed, shopped for food for school lunches and breakfast tomorrow, deleted spam, and am now look forward to sleeping in my own bed (with my own pillow!).

Some shots from the “road trip”

Raumati Beach (north of Wellington) looking south to Pukerua Bay and Mana Island.

Kaikoura looking north.

Lyttleton Harbour on a bleak, windy day.

St Martins in Christchurch at the park.

I see the NZQA’s comments here made it into cartoon over in North America here.

Auckland Regional Council’s Stadium Decision web page has a link to the feedback survey for the Auckland stadium decision. No idea how it’ll shape final decisions, but a place to express an opinion. (Seems to be identical link to one from Auckland City Council page).

Have arrived in the Riviera of the South Pacific (Christchurch) after driving down from Babylon (Auckland). A good trip - the ferry was smooth, if windy - and good hospitality has been enjoyed. Only hitch so far was the youngest getting car sick just north of Bulls and requiring a change of clothes due to chucking. His siblings not impressed with him.

Very strong winds yesterday made driving from Blenheim to Christchurch hard work, but the traffic was light and very few people seemed in a hurry. Had the best fish and chips I’ve had for years in Kaikoura - the fish was outstanding.

Photos to follow at some point when I get a better connection - we’re in a place with no landline connection so even dial-up isn’t an option.

Best billboard of the trip so far was the Tui one in Blenheim - “A stadium for all New Zealand. Yeah, right.”

(And petrol station attendants want to know what Aucklanders think of the stadium proposal. Personally, I’m all for the final to be held at Lancaster Park.)

Rob and Jenny’s wedding was great. Nice and laid back, with a deep sense of peace and calm about it. A good day with good company, not the least Naomi (bridesmaid) who handled lots of the organization. Where are the pictures, I hear you ask?

End of the week. Handed my supervisors the last bit of the thesis and returned an excessive number of books (50+) to four different libraries around Auckland. Tried (and failed) to buy a digital camera, but picked up the latest GL, GL Corps and Ion comics in town.

Tomorrow, we’re off to the wedding of a couple of friends. Should be good.

And then we’re all off to the Riviera of the South Pacific (Christchurch) via the Heavenly City (Wellington) for a couple of weeks. A much needed break to catch up with friends and family, and to restore the our souls.

An interesting site that aims to teach young children reading skills. See Learn to Read at Starfall - teaching comprehension and phonics.

Hat tip: Cool Tools: Starfall.com.

This is a clever idea but really…

A Sunshade for Planet Earth — Kaiser 2006 (1031): 3 — ScienceNOW

A technological solution to a problem that more about the human heart than anything else.

Quite possibly the most helpful (and interesting) web site I’ve seen for ages. Love those animations.

See Animated Knots by Grog

With it now being over 48 hours since Waikato (37) defeated Wellington (31) (also known as the Cathari) I’ve recovered enough to extend my thanks to all the Waikato supporters who emailed me (and left the odd comment here) after the game. Your thoughts are, as always, much appreciated. (See, such magnanimity.)

Anyway, I enjoyed the game (if not the result) and thought the Waikato team were more hungry for the win.

And I’m pleased Keith Robinson made the All Blacks (and Marty Holah should be there too). Also pleased to see Conrad and Ma’a going too as they look the goods at the moment.

Woke up this morning to this news item on the radio alarm clock. Not a good way to start the day. (Audio at: Radio New Zealand: Morning Report: Auckland University Reputation (Windows Media Stream)).

Still, job interview tomorrow. (And I have no idea how that will go)

I guess it’s time to decide whether I want to be:

• a theologian/religionist who engages with technology (very few jobs around to follow that path)

• a technologist who engages with religion/theology (more jobs, but less resources to do the engagement with).
• something completely different (needs flaming angel at the foot of the bed).

Wellington 30 - 15 Auckland at Eden Park.

Otago or Waikato next week.

Bring on the final!

I like the food column in the Listener each week. A nice mix of chatty information as well as a recipe or two.

A few weeks back the regular writer, Lois Daish, wrote about how for many families dinner (or tea) revolves around a simple repertoire of seven favourite meals. In the article she cites a couple of people’s lists of what these are and makes the comment,

The principal ingredients chosen by both women are amazingly similar. Their favourite meats are minced beef, chicken and lamb, and both regularly cook pasta and rice dishes that don’t include much meat. However, the way they approach these ingredients is rather different. Sarah seasons her food very simply but takes a particular interest in its texture, defining her food according to whether it is crunchy or moist or tender. Hester, on the other hand, enjoys more intense flavours, such as mustard, tomatoes and chilli, and most of her food is moist rather than crisp. For her, the story behind the recipe is important.

See Food: What’s for dinner? by Lois Daish | New Zealand Listener (September 9-15 2006 Vol 205 No 3461).

So, seeing as I cook most of the evening meals, I thought I’d try to put my list of seven meals that we tend to have regularly. (Not that I’m trying to start a new meme or anything, but I’d be interest in knowing what other people’s most frequent seven are and how many they cook for.)

Garner Repertoire of Seven Frequent (and Favourite) Meals (cooked for 2 adults and 4 children)

1. Tex-Mex (Enchiladas, Burritos or Tacos depending on which child voices an opinion) plus salad.
2. Breakfast sausages, onions, vegetables, and mashed potato.
3. Butter chicken, green beans or peas, and rice.
4. Boiled corned beef/silverside (not the tinned stuff) cooked with peppercorns, bayleaves and golden syrup in the water, potatoes and carrots cooked with the meat, and cabbage. Leftovers for sandwiches or another dinner.
5. Casserole of some sort – Typically beef stew (with potatoes and vegetables in stew) or oven-cooked beef stroganoff with rice and vegetables.
6. Cold meat (ham, salami, chicken, leftover corn beef), bread, olives, cheese and salad.
7. Pasta meal - typically lasagne.

Now I like well-seasoned food, and particularly Mediterranean, Indian and Tex-Mex cuisine. But some of my family don’t, so we compromise and the food tends to be only mildly spicy (if at all), and I add sauces/pepper etc. to mine later at the table.

A follow up to the post a few days ago on e-mail being for old people. Seems that some tech-gen youth are deciding that the face-to-face, flesh and blood, incarnate path is the one to take. See Wired News: Some Tech-Gen Youth Go Offline. From the article,

“True friends,” he tells them, “need to learn when to stop blogging and go across campus to help a friend.”

At the end of a frustrating week the real Wellington turned up to play Canterbury in the Air New Zealand Cup quarter-finals.

Wellington 36 - 23 Canterbury.

Often, we beat Canterbury in the round-robin and then they thrash us in the semi-finals. Not this time.

See Wellington bulldoze Canterbury - Stuff.co.nz.

Spent the day wrestling my CV into some sort of hybrid beast. I have an academic CV and a technological/IT CV but needed a blend of these for a job application I’m making. Given that there’s nothing going around the place for theologians at the moment (<insert long list of reasons here - mostly to do with no one having any money>), I’ve decided to explore other avenues (and hopefully return to theological teaching/research at a later time).

Seeing as technology and education are another of my (many) interests I’m looking around in that area at the moment.

Related links:
Fernando’s Desk » Blog Archive » Location Should Be No Barrier To A Desire To Learn.

P.S. Must admit it’s bl**dy frustrating. I have all these ideas and research projects in my head about religion, media and technology and no outlet for them at the moment. Plus, I keep running into the general apathy/inertia about Christian engagement with technology that’s also frustrating. Everyone wants Powerpoint (or like) in church - no one wants to think about appropriate technology or how technology shapes society.

UC Berkley have released some course lectures and other talks over at Google Video. Nice way of promoting your yourself, while also being useful to some. See UC Berkeley on Google Video.

Soccer prize-giving today for the kids football club this morning, followed by the end of year BBQ at the club for one of the kids soccer teams. Sitting still for a couple of hours, followed by kids vs. parent touch rugby and soccer has left me hobbling a little - It was the glorious run down the left wing to score a try that did it. Reliving the speed of youth, followed by the painful reality of a sedentary lifestyle and advancing age. Good company, conversation, fun, food and drink - glimmers of the kingdom in unexpected places. The team and it’s associated parents, brothers and sisters, and other supporters becomes family-like.

One of the interesting things about the meeting today was finding out that the local Baptist church is a financial sponsor of the club through their community trust. This combines with their willingness for their property to be used for fundraising activities by the club - like kids’ discos. Nice feeling seeing them mentioned positively in the speeches, and good to see some of their visible input into the local community.

Presented last night for the (semi-regular) meeting of the Auckland group of STAANZ (NZ systematic theology association) held at the Methodist Ministry Training Unit right in the centre of town.

The presentation came out of the final section of the thesis (and some random ideas that generated recently) and was entitled “Living in the borderlands : Cyborgs and the imago Dei”. Looked at the concept of hybridity that arises within contemporary technoculture, especially the clash of ontologies between organic and inorganic, human and non-human, artificial and natural, and asked the question of whether the Christian tradition has resources within it to engage with this world.

Good feedback (as always) from the group, and encouragement to continue pursuing this direction. The group is mixed across a range of spectra - denomination/tradition, conservative/liberal, male/female - which always generates interesting dialogue.

Up to my ears in footnotes (interesting anatomical imagery comes to mind) so haven’t had much time recently for blogging. However, a few random thoughts at the end of the day.

• Congratulations to the Black Ferns for winning the Women’s Rugby World Cup for the third successive time. Awesome.
• Wellington 26 - Canterbury 24. Someone buy Ma’a Nonu a drink.
• Finally got hold of Green Lantern #13 to finish reading the story arc started in GL #10. Many comments that may come out later but from a research point of view the story made for an interesting clash of cyborg ideologies. The review here was pretty spot on and of the four parts of the arc it was probably the weakest.
• Fanfare about the iTunes Music Store and new iPods etc. in the email starts to grate a little when NZ still doesn’t even have a ITMS for downloading music. Ah, the joys of being in a digital backwater.
• Bizarre iPod accessory of the week - the iBreath - a combination FM tuner and breathalyzer. Really.

Andrew Butcher has posted a variety of links on his blog to a new Massey University report he co-authored about immigrants to NZ facing discrimination when seeking employment in spite of being well (or over) qualified.

See Immigrants face employment discrimination. The full report: Butcher, Spoonley and Trlin (2006) Being Accepted: The Experience of Social Exclusion and Discrimination by Migrants and Refugees in New Zealand, (PDF 665KB) is available for download here New_Settlers_Discrimination_Report_no_13.pdf

There’s also a link to the radio interview about the paper at Radio Interview - Immigration research.

It was Father’s Day last Sunday here in NZ and my family, knowing me like they do, gave me a DVD containing the three “robot” episodes of the Six Million Dollar Man. I have been since explaining to my children that when I was their age the show permeated all of my childhood existence. We played Six Million Dollar Man in school lunchtimes, there were branded ice creams with stickers, board games and posters (I remember sending off to TV One to get one).

And there were the action figures! 12″ high with the rubber skin you could peel back to see the “bionics” and the glass eye to look through, mine came with the engine that Steve Austin would lift if you used the ratchet button on the back. And the trendy 70’s tracksuit! If only I’d saved mine - I see they’re collectors items now.

I really, really wanted the Bionic Transport and Repair Station, but apart from that add-on (and some of the board games) I can’t remember seeing any of the other merchandise here in NZ. I was pretty happy though to go through the spinning tunnel from the Bigfoot episode at Universal Studies a few years later though (as was my sister when she got to sit in KITT and it conversed with her).

Maybe it was Steve Austin who shaped my ultimate direction to researching the religious implications of cyborgs? I must make a note of what my children are watching.

Mary Hess has a good point about the nature of science with respect to the reclassification of Pluto recently. True science continually articulates and revises its view of the world - it is dynamic rather than static. To keep Pluto as a planet, because that’s what all the textbooks in schools say, defeats the nature of the scientific enterprise. More at Tired of “Pluto ‘plaints”.

Also, the process that produced the reclassification demonstrates that science is also a communal process with social dimensions.

Bodyhack: Footballers Save Umbilical Cords. Only was a matter of time before it happened, I guess. I wonder what other sorts of profession are doing it.

I’m an avid watcher of cooking shows, and if some interesting sport or science fiction isn’t on you’re likely to find me watching (in the spare seconds I have in my life) something on Food TV, which shows a selection of from mostly the US, UK and Australian. (Way, way back in the dark ages of the internet I used to read rec.food.recipes everyday).

So imagine my delight to find that there as a whole lot of search plug-ins for Firefox that search cooking channels and recipe sites. See here for a list.

However, I still can’t see the appeal of Iron Chef America.

Tagged by Jo (over at JoBloggs: book meme) here’s my perspective on the current book meme:

1. One book that changed your life.

Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike, The UNIX Programming Environment.

2. One book you’ve read more than once

Tracy Kidder, The Soul of a New Machine.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island

Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow.

4. One book that made you laugh

Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys.

5. One book that made you cry

Douglas Coupland, Microserfs.

6. One book you wish had been written

Theology and cooking: Recipes for a whole community.

7. One book you wish had never been written

Tim LaHeye and Jerry Jenkins, Left Behind.

8. One book you’re currently reading

Janet Browne, Charles Darwin: Voyaging.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read

Steve Ross, Marked.

10. Tag five people

They’ll know when it happens.

Meme originates at Ben’s Faith and Theology blog.

P.S. Congratulations to Jo for submitting her PhD thesis. All the best for the examination.

I’ve read some pretty positive (Christian) anthropology recently, but then you come across something like this and you just have to wonder: Woman mails five-foot python | Oddly Enough | Reuters.com

Follow up from Greenflame: Friends in need at Manawatu Standard: Mum, sons safe in Cyprus, but yet to contact family. Good news for them, though the overall situation continues to be dire.

When you see your friends in the newspaper you hope that it’s for something good, not necessarily this -
Family dive for cover as shrapnel strikes - 20 Jul 2006 - Lebanon

Kyrie eleison
Christe elesison
Kyrie eleison

Praying for them, and all in that part of the world.

Two roommates, one hidden camera, one energetic dance routine, 2 minutes of internet fame. It all comes together here at glumbert.com | media | Dance, White Boy, Dance.

The last week has seemed incredibly busy. School holidays combined with two birthdays in the immediate family, my wedding anniversary, kids’ soccer, preaching today out in the country at Riverhead, plus normal family stuff, plus ongoing thesis stuff. Exhausted just thinking about it all.

New Music Video From David “The Hoff” Hasselhoff - “Jump In My Car” - Google Video.

And I thought “Hooked on a Feeling” was dire.

So bad, it must be good.

Thanks to Matt (Problem Attic. Jump In My Car) for bringing this to my notice.

Sonalog have developed an exo-skeleton with a MIDI interface that can control sound and vision. I can see the emerging church equivalent of 1970-80s interpretative dance happening - ouch!

Science & Theology News - Is altruism encoded in our genes? - read some other stuff on trans-kin altruism yesterday so this was relevant for me.

New Zealand Herald - Andrew Stone: Gospel truths hit the Mark, Matthew, Luke and John - Wednesday 05, July 2006 20:59.00 PM - on God-talk billboards.

Science & Theology News - The Daily Dose: Excommunicating stem cell researchers. More at Telegraph | News | Vatican vows to expel stem cell scientists from Church.

NZ Herald: Bono-funded computer game causes row in Venezuela - 06 Jul 2006 - Lifestyle & Leisure

15 years, 4 children, and 3 cities. The adventure continues.

Useful tip about digital library cards over at: Cool Tool: Digital Library Cards.

Is it just me or is this just a little macabre?

All Blacks give blood for fans - 24 Jun 2006 - Rugby.

Had to do a “quick and dirty” translation of a Latin phrase today, and looking around the place I came across this neat little program that gave me a start: A Latin-English Dictionary Program - WORDS. Runs on PCs (incl. Linux) and Mac OS X and given some Latin returns “an analysis/morphology (declension, conjugation, case, tense, etc.) of each word individually, the dictionary form, and the translation (meaning)”.

Most helpful.

And of interest to the geeks out there, it’s written in Ada. Visions of COSC 202 and 302 float before me. (202 PDF tests a long time after I did them are here : test1 / test2)

World Cup goalkeepers complain that the new Adidas soccer ball behaves differently from the traditional ones constructed from hexagonal panels. Article here suggests possible reasons why. See Wired News: Flight of the Bumble Ball.

There’s probably a sense of déjà vu here for Kiwi rugby supporters, after Adidas’ first attempt at a rugby ball was described by some as “a pig and a lemon”, and was dropped in favour of another brand. Still the lemon (it was fluorescent yellow originally) might be back soon. See Game gets kickalong as new ball passes test - Union - www.theage.com.au.

A glimpse into the hypothetical future? Have a look at Genpets.com - Bioengineered Buddies! (It’s not real, in case you were wondering)

Wired News: Androids Dream of Soccer Glory.

Presentation | Drupal as an Instructional Design Tool.

MEDIATIZED STORIES. Mediation perspectives on digital storytelling among youth — Intermedia Home Site

The project explores how people – youth in particular – use self-representation in digital storytelling to shape and share their lives, and tries to understand these processes through theories of mediation and mediatization across media studies and the field of education.

Well, I’m inspired. Coke and Mentos Fountain at EepyBird.com. Science on the cutting edge.

Trying to think of how it works as a theological analogy so I can use it in class sometime.

The second volume (Earth, Sea and Sky) of New Zealand’s official online encyclopaedia, Te Ara, should be online by now.

See also: New Zealand’s source for technology news on Stuff.co.nz: Te Ara can learn from Wiki. (The third volume will be open for public contributions)

Newspaper article on a new report produced for the Families Commission on the “digital divide’s” effects on poorer children. See New Zealand’s source for technology news on Stuff.co.nz: ‘Digital divide’ affecting poorer children

The official press release is here: New communication technologies and family life.
The report is here: http://www.familiescommission.govt.nz/download/blueskies-weatherall.pdf

This looks helpful - The American Film Institute has produced a programme to aid students to use film to explore various subjects from literature to math and science. See AFI Screen Education. I wonder if there’s an NZ equivalent around.

Read this article about “new and interesting” ways to be “buried” today (Wired News: A Boom Beyond Burials). Made me think of Tolkien’s Numenor in the Silmarillion.

Made it to the final but the red and black machine halted our run. All credit to the Crusaders, who made the most of their opportunities in difficult (understatement of the year) conditions. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a rugby game played in such bad fog. Gripping to the end, given both teams have scored several wins right at the end of games this season.

Also, South African referees aren’t always my cup of tea but I thought Jonathan Kaplin did very well.

I’ve you’d asked me at the start of the season whether I’d take a 7 point loss to the Crusaders in the final then I would have jumped at it.

So congratulations to the ‘Canes. You’re looking like you’ll become a regular force in the S14 now.

Roll on Ireland, Argentina and the Tri-Nations, and Wellington in the NPC later in the year.

Fishing through some stuff recently sent to me by my folks (who kept such things) I came across this certificate from playing club rugby as a young lad. So obviously, with the Super 14 final tomorrow, it’s time to announce my availability for the ‘Canes should they need me (and as John Campbell once said, 40-odd thousand other people are injured).

I seem to remember we weren’t a bad team. Won more that we lost back in ‘76 (if my memory of those distant times is accurate). I used to play at 2/5 so if Tana or Ma’a pull up lame tomorrow I’m sure I could nip down and help out. As an “impact player” off the bench, of course.

Link to old club: Paremata-Plimmerton Rugby Football Club.

Hurricanes 16 - Waratahs 14

And a nail-biter to the end. More at Planet-Rugby.com: Hurricanes sneak into the Final.

Hurricanes to host the Warratahs tonight at the Cake Tin in the first Super-14 semi-final.

Be still my beating heart.

(Web colours modified to reflect eschatological hope)

Go the ‘Canes!

Wired has an interview with Douglas Coupland about his new novel jPod (official site), an sort-of sequel to Microserfs (one of my all time favourite books). See Wired 14.05: A Tale of Two Couplands.

The 2006 Human Rights Film Festival is on during May in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch. Picked up a promotional booklet from a local newsagent yesterday and had a skim though. All of it looks interesting. Of particular interest to me is the following,

FROZEN ANGELS
Germany/USA 2005, 91 mins, Directors: Eric Black & Frauke Sandig

No holds are barred in California’s reproduction dream world. The perfect child comes with the promise of a college degree, manners, healthy genes, athletic body, correct gender and skin colour, all chosen from a catalogue. It’s a designer’s creation. Man plays God.

(More details here at Sandig’s website)

Also playing in the festival is,

NGATAHI: KNOW THE LINKS (FESTIVAL CUT ONE)
Aotearoa/New Zealand 2004, 55 mins, Director: Dean Hapeta, Subtitles

Dean Hapeta (Upper Hutt Posse) traces the links between minority cultures, exploring the rich diversity of music, politics and society in his self-billed ‘rapumentary.’ A truly international documentary, with a strong New Zealand flavour, Hapeta creates a mosaic of compelling sounds, visuals and ideas.

Back in early 2004 I posted about it at Greenflame: It’s raining again and the links there are still active.

Just read Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys at high speed. Loved it. Couldn’t put it down. (Unlike his “American Gods” which I never finished). Will be trying to get the audio book read by Lenny Henry. This, of course, might be the result of fond childhood memories of Anansi stories - though I have no idea at all where I would have heard them.

I read “Wolves in the Walls” for the first time to my two older boys last night. By the end of the story the three other adults here were listening intently too. They were gripped with tension and laughing at the same time. I wish I could get to the stage show.

Also just finished Peter F. Hamilton’s Commonwealth Saga (Pandora’s Star / Judas Unchained). Hamilton’s picture of the future is in essence transhumanist with longevity and the practical elimination of death. Having said that it’s a fairly uniform picture of posthuman existance - unlike the work of Alastair Reynolds, whose work has included the tensions and interrelations between a post-humanity fragmented by the ways different groups applied technology to augment the human person. I found Hamilton’s work quite readable, while the ideas in Reynold’s are more interesting (though harder to read, I found).

Somewhere along the way I also read J.D. Frazer’s “Money For Content and Your Clicks For Free : Turning Web Sites, Blogs, and Podcasts Into Cash” - which had some good material in it - especially about building online communities.

And I finished Richard’s Burridge’s “Faith Odyssey: A Journey Through Lent”. (Greenflame: Star Lent) It was okay - though I found that the same sources (e.g. 2001, Narnia (SF?), Harry Potter (SF?)) tended to get used repeatedly. I really wanted the science fiction net cast wider (and I was probably grumpy that my favourite books, shows and films weren’t used often (or at all)) - but the weekly themes worked reasonably well to tie the science fiction references, biblical texts and reflections together.

And finally I had a quick skim through the list of 200 “top” science fiction books looked for in academic libraries to see how many I’d read. Quite a few it turns out. See Kevin P. Mulcahy, “Science Fiction Collections in ARL Academic Libraries”, College and Research Libraries. January 2006, Vol. 67, No. 1. Abstract below,

This study assesses the extent to which ARL academic libraries collect science fiction novels. A core list of 200 novels, published between 1950 and 2000, that have either won science fiction awards or been cited on “best” lists were checked against the holdings of 112 ARL libraries. Findings suggest that science fiction is not extensively collected at most libraries studied. The study also assesses differences in how novels are collected by date and by nationality and gender of author. To support in-depth and serious research in a field of increasing scholarly interest, libraries may need to reconsider their collecting practices.

Oh, and I read Arthur C. Clark’s “3001″ because Burridge kept referring to it and the other 2001 books - but it wasn’t really worth the effort.

Anyway, the bedside table is now looking a little bare.

Feeling deluged by the thesis and the effort to get it finished (before it finishes me off )

Blog posts will therefore be few and far between for the forseeable future.

More at gapingvoid: selling more stormhoek.

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.

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.

Noticed that the second installment of Radio New Zealand’s Are Angels OK plays this Tuesday night on National Radio. From the web site,

A series of programmes arising from a collaboration between eminent New Zealand writers and physicists. The project is named Are Angels OK and is the work of The Royal Society, The MacDiarmid Institute and the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University.

Anyway, in looking at the web site I see that the four installments are also available via the net. (Set your options to MP3 on the RNZ site to avoid getting a Windows Media stream.)

This looks cool. Point it a star and get the star’s name. Wonder if it works downunder? See: SkyScout.

Scotland beat England in the 6-Nations! Woo hoo! First France and now England. Party time up north. See Planet-Rugby.com : Hadden lauds his ‘magnificent’ Scots.

Saw this today - wind generation that uses a different sort of “propellor” that is quieter than the regular sort. See Quietrevolution. The LED-lit version looks good and might be able to be intergrated into the cityscape with minimal impact.

The UN World Food Programme has a video game out to educate people about different aspects of emergency food relief operations. it looks well done and runs on both Macs and PCs, with the only hitch being the several hundred megabyte download.

More information at WFP Foodforce - The Game, The Reality, How to Help and Wired News: U.N. Game Wins Hearts and Minds.

See also Greenflame: Education Arcade, day 1 for some links on edu-gaming.

On a related theme AKMA has some thoughts on religion in online multiplayer games and virtual worlds. See AKMA’s Random Thoughts: Faith In Terra Nova.

ADSL link has given up the ghost and doesn’t look like it’ll be back soon. However, I did get lots of stuff written over the past few days with it down. Divine providence?

Time to update the desktop wallpaper in anticipation of the season. And I know it was just a pre-season game but beating the Brumbies by 40-6 on Saturday felt good. Wallpaper availble here Hurricanes - Hurricanes Wallpaper.

This morning I am awakened by children. Lots of children. Loud children. For a moment I think that the Pied Piper of Hamlym may have arrived. Then I remember the it’s my four plus three others who are staying. My brain struggles to come up with a collective noun to describe them. Possibilities include a squabble of children, a cacophany of children, and a riot of children. My brain final settles on the obvious - an apocalypse of children - before returning to the familiar world of strange dreams about my thesis.

Every now and then I need some graph or grid paper. But I’m never organized enough to go an buy a pad of it. So this looks like just the trick. Cool Tool: Free Online Graph Paper / Grid Paper PDFs.

In the bad patch after lunch where it’s hard to concentrate on anything. Plus the rain is horizontal outside and the roof over the BBQ area outside my (home) office window is making disconcerting sounds as the wind rips though. Sheesh, it’s like being back in Wellington.

Back home after a very nice week down in the Bay of Plenty and the Waikato catching up with friends and family. Came back with a heap of secondhand books from various places including some from the open air secondhand book sale over in Ohope. Apparently the people there spend the year collecting books from garage sales and such and then over the summer sort them by genre, author and topic and put them out in cartons on their front lawn. Organised enough to handle credit cards, to have shade cloth up over the lawn and they claim to have about 20,000 volumes. I didn’t count them but I do know there were a lot of books there and more were being carried in all the time.

It’s taken a while over the last day or so but they’re all in Booxter now and on the shelves. Just bought a new bookcase and now we’re running out of space again. Must be time to get rid of some books. Yeah, right.

Interesting article on the work of geoarchaeologists in bringing to light new information on ancient Phoenician harbours. See: Ancient Harbors Rise Again — ScienceNOW.

Saw the book “Virtual Archaeology” (Maurizio Forte) in the library yesterday but was already carrying an armful of books so had to leave it behind. Next time maybe.

Tonight’s dinner was interrupted when the spontaneous singing of “A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree” foundered on the eighth day of Christmas - seven eels a swimming and nine sacks of pipis but eight what? The answer of course is “Eight plants of puha”.

Now for those of you who don’t know what this is all about, back in 1981 Archdeacon Sir Kingi (Matu) Ihaka (Interpreter, Anglican priest, broadcaster, songwriter, Maori language commissioner) adapted the traditional Christmas song to have a more New Zealand feel to it.

You can get the full lyrics and mini biography of Kingi Ihaka at NZ Folk Song * A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree.

In the process of looking up the lyrics I came across Mama Lisa’s World Blog - “Conversations about the languages and cultures of the world, especially the songs and traditions of children”. If you go to this link you can get not only the lyrics to the Pukeko song but also notes on what some of the different things listed are. Currently the blog is listing Advent songs and poems from around the world.

Photos and other information about the said bird at Fish and Game New Zealand - Pukeko.

Especially as it would allow you to relocate critters to a better place. See Cool Tool: Bugzooka.

A very busy week last week and now time to ease into Christmas.

Had a nice birthday weekend with family and friends - Saturday morning at the Mainly Music Christmas gathering at church that Kim had organized, followed by walking through the last night of the ‘Drive-Thru Nativity’ at church that evening (that Kim also helped organize). We all walked so the kids could pat the sheep, calves and donkey and it was good - simple but good. Sunday spending time watching Mark at soccer coaching (IPDP - more info here), collecting bark for the garden and then having friends around for dinner.

Now we await the influx of my family, building to 19 staying here and at a friend’s for Christmas plus celebrating another birthday this week too. Easy after the past week or too (esp. For Kim who’s been the busiest).

These look cool. Anything to save 0.5 seconds in a day.

If you are ambivalent about TV advertising (esp. with the huge amount on NZ free-to-air channels) then this is alarming. Wired News: TV Writers Must Sell, Sell, Sell. To overcome ad-skipping technology etc. more pressure to put more product placement directly into scripts.

So we can’t bowl at the death in one day cricket but it looks like we can chase well.

We (NZ) just chased down Australia’s 331 to win! (And set a new world record doing it)

After getting 320 in a losing chase last Wednesday tonight we didn’t stumble at end.

Hats off to McCullum, Vettori, Styris, Oram and all the rests of the Black Caps.

Still having problems but two rays of sunshine. Firstly, I’ve managed to get Ecto to post. And secondly the problem isn’t just me. Others using the similar ADSL set ups are having bizarre issues too accessing the odd site which means the problem (and the ISP have confirmed this) cannot be passed off as an issue at my end with my equipment.

Still having problems but hopefully for not much longer.

Hurling the ADSL equipment out of the window would alleviate some stress but then I’d have to go and fetch it.

For some bizarre reason I go away for the weekend and return to find that the only web site in the world that I cannot access through ADSL at home is http://www.greenflame.org. Yet I can when I dial-up with the same ISP. Very, very annoying. But why? And why now after almost 3 years of using ADSL to access the site?

It’s not the iBook because the WinXP Acer and Kim’s Win2K HP laptop also have the problem, and I’ve tried various browsers too. It’s not the server because it’s visible on dial-up and I can FTP in to the site and ping it. Just web connections.

Can’t see any restrictions in the ADSL router. Why on the 24th Nov did it work and then on the 29th die a death? Web server logs don’t show my IP traffic even getting there.

Argh!

Update: Well, it’s definitely just me. Others can post comments (thanks, Paul) and a variety of other people using different ISPs have viewed the site just fine. And it’s only port 80 by the looks of it. I can view pages if I use ports 8080 or 443 (SSL). Bizarre.

The Slouch!Buster looks interesting. I wonder if anyone imports them here?

The Nadachair and Slouchbuster are based on the ropes that Tibetan monks use to sit upright for hours on end when meditating. The monks use these ropes between their knees and back to help them stay upright. The Slouchbuster is a small, much more elegant version than ropes. The Nadachair is a larger version.

Kevin Kelly compiled a list of his 100 must see documentaries and documentary series which includes “Hell House“. The latter being a documentary about a church that creates a “virtual Hell” to scare people into the Kingdom.

Full list at Kevin Kelly — Cool Tools — True Films.

Persuasive Games produce a variety of games with the objective of stimulating thinking and experience of real world issues with a view to persuasion, instruction, and activism (or at least, social awareness). Saw a link to their latest game ‘Airport Insecurity’ today when following up some virtual reality links.

Ian Bogost, Partner, and Game Designer at Persuasive Games, commented “Airport Insecurity simulates standing in line, and calls attention to our oblivious acceptance of security practices. The point of the game is to draw attention to the relationship between our perception of security, the reality of its effectiveness, and what rights we’re willing to give up on faith. The government has classified negative GAO reports on the TSA, and we culled as much data as we could from news archives to recreate a representation of how airport security currently works in America. We hope the game will challenge citizens to ask harder questions about the relationship between policy and civil rights.”

More also at Water Cooler Games, a site that looks at “the uses of videogames in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment.”

I borrowed An Ordinary Joker: the Life & Songs of Peter Cape from the library on Saturday. It’s a collection of biographical pieces, his poetry and a CD of him performing some of his songs. Cape wrote a variety of pieces in the gap between the the Second World War and the rise of global communications when New Zealand was beginning to struggle with its own self-identity in the world. Some of these have entered into Kiwi culture including “Taumarunui (on the Main Trunk Line)” and “She’ll be right”. Cape was a writer, poet, actor, musician, priest, journalist and producer among other things and the book talks about those sides to his life.

The NZ FOLK SONG site has this to say (as well as links to lyrics and scores)

(JA) Peter Cape is best known for his songs ‘Taumaranui On The Main Trunk Line’ and ‘She’ll Be Right Mate.’ He was the voice of those rural New Zealand men who had been transplanted to the big city suburbs. He expressed their yearning for that lost way of life with its physical and emotional simplicity, where men may have been socially inept, but were proud of being physically self reliant.

Personally his poem “Trinity” and the New Zealand Christmas poem/song “Nativity” are my favourites.

Wired News: Real Story of the Rogue Rootkit has a follow-up to the Sony BMG copy-protection debacle, including the really good question of why the anti-virus and security software we all “have” to use on Windows didn’t pick it up. And also that the DRM software may have used other software outside of the scope of that software’s licensing.

I wonder if the Sony offer to replace affected CDs will happen here in NZ? Must check my CD collection.

Looks like Sony will (temporarily, at least) stop producing the spyware DRM on CDs. See Wired News: Sony to Suspend Antipiracy CDs. User Friendly had a related cartoon also this week. (To understand the cartoon see here if you’re not up with geek jargon)

See also: Greenflame: DRM Hell.

Update: Looks like the User Friendly cartoon might be part of a series (see here for the next one)

The Seattle Times: How to outsmart automated phone systems and The Seattle Times: Business & technology: Dial-a-human shortcuts have advice for those who wish to subvert automated call centres. It’s US focused but I guess you could apply the same principles to generate a list relevant to you own location.

If you click the link it will generate an essay for you with the appropriate style and vocabulary. See The Postmodernism Generator: Communications From Elsewhere.

That’s pretty impressive. I wonder what other “dialects” you could get it to speak?

Not so much an article about science-religion animosity but one about how copyright holders use intellectual property rights to influence policy direction in the wider world. So copyright here isn’t about making sure the people get acknowledged and paid fairly for their work but rather about issues of power and control. Interesting.

See: Wired News: Evolutionists Are Wrong!.

At the end of what feels like a long and stressful day this made me smile.

Everything Sounds Like Coldplay Now.

I’ve started following these recent stories about Digital Rights Management approaches to music. I don’t buy a lot of CDs - rather buy books instead - but I always check the back for DRM because it can screw up listening to the CD on the iBook. Now I’ll really check closely in case I end up installing a software on the PC that opens the door to remote access by others by simply trying to play the CD.

DRM this, Sony! - CNET.com.

Mark’s Sysinternals Blog: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far (Technical discussion of what Sony’s approach does on your Windows PC)

The Big Picture: DRM Crippled CD: A bizarre tale in 4 parts - Opinion on DRM being used not to prevent music piracy but rather to prevent it playing on a competitors product (e.g. iPod).

In the last few days I received in the mail a couple of things from the Families Commission - Komihana a Whanau. One is a summary of their Focus on Families report which is a “study set out to improve understanding of successful outcomes for families with dependent children and the things that help and hinder family wellbeing, as described by the families themselves.” Both summary and full report are available at the link above and from skimming the summary looks to have some useful information in it (including what sort of things they think are relevant to the discussion). Media release here.

I’ll be interested to see whether the report gets used by Christian groups. The setting up of the Families Commission was claimed as a big win by the United Future party prior to the election and UF was one of the parties conservative Christians were “encouraged” to vote for. Whether those same conservatives bother to use the results of the commission, or see them as “tainted” by the State, will be interesting to see.

Also in the mail was their new newsletter “Family Voice” available here (as a PDF file). Apparently you can subscribe to getting it electronically but the web site isn’t clear on how to do that. I guess send them an email and ask how to do it.

Whether or not you agree with the government and its various bodies I figure its always a good idea to read things like this. Sometimes you see things to support and other times things to disagree with, but you’ll be informed. Also pretty much everyone will send you multiple copies for free and often there are “discussion” documents.

A few years back we got a whole lot of stuff from the then National government on their “Code of Social and Family Responsibility” (1998) which we discussed in house group and then made our own submission. Excellent material for working out some of our perceptions of the gospel and its outworking in the real world (as well as how to maintain unity in the face of internal disagreement).

Well, Radio New Zealand has revamped its internet presence with a relaunched web site. Now there are live audio streams, archives of some programs for seven days and RSS feeds (text only) for news and programming (National & ConcertFM). No podcasting explicitly and it’s still a few steps behind larger media providers like ABC radio in Australia and the BBC in Britain. Still a significant step in the right direction.

Live audio streams are available as Windows Media only (boo hiss!) which means having an extra program running on my iBook, instead of just leaving iTunes running for both radio and local files. But if you click the “Audio” button on the main page the pop-up window has a link to allow you to change the default from Window Media to MP3. Then the programmes come down the wire/wireless as pseudo-streamed MP3s.

Good things about the site - they’ve divided up some of National Radio’s flagship programmes intelligently. So no longer do you only get “Nine to Noon” in 1 hour streamed chunks but now its divide up into segments (say by interview or topic slot). Nice to see the 7 day archive as opposed to the 24 hour one previously. And the site worked well on my Mac and they’re dipping their feet in the RSS waters. Plus recipes and details about books and music talked about are there now.

Not so good - No podcasting (including no RSS feed for audio) - Can’t set my Mac to grab “Morning Report” to listen to at 9am after the kids have gone to school. Many of the programs I like - e.g. At the Movies, The Sampler, Touchstone, Spiritual Outlook, Home Grown aren’t available and possibly won’t be because it often explicitly deals with non-Radio NZ copyrighted material (see their disclaimer “Not all audio is available due to copyright restrictions”). See Enz game by Russell Brown | New Zealand Listener for the farce here. I’d like to get my music and movie reviews and “thinking” programmes etc. with a NZ slant but at the moment my iTunes points offshore for all of that.

So I’d give it about 6/10 (up from the 2/10 it had before). Good progress but still a long way to go.

I’ve made some changes to the layout of the site - primarily to fix some Windows IE problems and to tidy things up. All the posts, RSS feeds etc. should still have the same URLs. Some of the old documents from the original Blogger based site are missing for the moment.

If it looks bizarre/broken try refreshing the browser to reload the stylesheet.

Other minor changes will be made over the next few weeks. Spent a while thinking about where the links in the entries should be underlined. Couldn’t make up my mind to I’m trying no underlining at the moment to improve readability.

In the end I decided to tinker with the existing Movable Type 2.6 set up that did everything I needed rather than move over to MT3.2 or WordPress. If I was starting a new project that would probably be WordPress-based.

A very windy and wet day here. Went out to Riverhead to preach on Ps 13 and the role of lament this morning. I enjoyed the service and the sermon seemed to go well. Apart from that a lazy Sunday afternoon watching “Robots” with the kids and thinking about the next week. The smell of Kim’s chocolate chip and oat biscuits cooking has just reached the office. Mmmmm.

A few books on the go this week.

Firstly, I picked up Richard Bauckham’s Bible and Mission : Christian Witness in a Postmodern World the other day in a sale pile for $5. A collection of four reworked essays delivered to various audiences in Britain and Ethiopia, including material relating to the place of globalisation and fundamentalism in the world.
    

Secondly, “Understanding Artificial Intelligence” which is a collection of essays put out by Scientific American. A fairly easy read with some of the familiar names (e.g. Minsky, Brooks, Moravec etc.) popping up. (I think there’s an eBook version out too, though my trusty paperback works better on the train.)

And finally, Guy Gavriel Kay’s “The Lions of Al-Rassan“. An alternative history, or at least a novel set in a world not to dissimilar to our own, based around the tensions in a land like Moorish Spain.

Over at Political Compass there’s a graphical representation of the NZ political scene.

Hat tip to Subversnz

We had our pre-election sermon this morning, with a list of things to consider when voting - from issues of “system morality” (from comments on Stu’s blog) through to others of “personal morality”. I tend to be a multi-issue voter so it was good to see more than one issue up for all to see (and to see the justice, mercy and creation care points on the list).

Anyway here’s a list of web links I’ve been collecting with respect to the election here in NZ. Some are more helpful or provocative that others.

• http://www.nzvotes.org.nz - The Maxim Institute sponsored election site - has brief party comparisons. Variety of opinion pieces too - including Sam Chapman’s piece on the Politics of Race Relations in NZ.
• http://www.policy.net.nz - Another site comparing party policies to more depth than the above site.
• www.election.org.nz - Official election site - all you need to know about MMP.
• http://www.parliament.govt.nz/ - New Zealand Parliament site. All you need to know how NZ parliament works.
• The Churches’ Agency on Social Issues election page - A Christian agency (Methodist, Presbyterian, Churches of Christ, and Quakers) dealing with social, economic, ecological and political matters in Aotearoa New Zealand. They’ve published a document “Before You Vote” (PDF) that looks at social and environmental issues to consider.
• Vision Net NZ - Election. Vision Net’s PPT about how the party vote works. Personally, I think Slide 3 “What does the Lord require…?” doesn’t really capture the Micah 6:8 text the title was lifted from, but it does have helpful information on how the party vote works.
• Variety of Reality articles
  • “Neither to the Left nor to the Right”
  • “Is the Left Right and the Right Wrong?”
  • “The Left is not Right”
• Every Child Counts election material.
• PointSeven - A Make Poverty History campaign.
• New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services (NZCCSS) election material.

I’ll post others as I come across them and if I have time.

Picked up a bug last week that