Something that keeps coming back to me right now is how much we don't say to each other of our thoughts. In un-christian society, keeping one's thoughts to oneself greases passage and allows people to move past each other while remaining unaffected and untroubled by the contact. Little is transferred between people and each generally remain as they want to be.
I'd more or less moved on from this topic, but a post on a friend's blog reminded me and triggered these thoughts. Ineke had posted links to videos by Rend Collective Experiment, and the lines on The Cost (last one on this page) reminded me:
I'll chase you through the pain,
I'll carry my cross,
'Cause real love is not afraid to bleed.
Would we be different if we were willing to bleed a little for each other, to be able to be open about the stuff we thought and felt, instead of being socially lubricious (good word that!) and sliding smoothly past each other. Me, I'm guilty as anyone of that, except for very occasionally when I might forget.
Monday, 8 April 2013
I'm not really a great shopper.
But it was nice to receive a couple of things in the post today from Amazon: a ball & socket head for a monopod to let me take steadier pictures, and the book Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna to maybe help me see churchy things a little more clearly. I'm sure neither are perfect - the B&S head is cheap and gritty, and it's likely that the book isn't necessarily the accurate historical account I'd really like - yet at the same time they should both help anchor things a little more.
@Marc V - I seem to have developed your habit of reading multiple books. Currently on the go I have Reimagining Church by Frank Viola, War and Peace (yup, the door stop size classic - Kobo reader) A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition To The Zambesi by David and Christopher Livingstone (Kobo app on the phone), the Confessions of Saint Augustine (kindle app on the phone), and I've just finished a biography of General Ulysses Grant (Kobo app on the phone).
And that is an interesting observation, that I'm reading multiple copies of electronic books, not on a single device, but spread across multiple devices and applications, just as if they were hardcopy books. To be honest, e-readers are OK for linear reading only, and seem particularly useless for any kind of reference reading. No-one seems to have found a way to let you 'flick through' an e-book effectively yet, and as such that makes them of very limited use. That said, I AM consuming books through them more than if they were not available, but certainly less so than if I did not have the internet and instead were to visit a library on a weekly basis. There's something about separate books being SEPARATE, rather than living in a kind of information soup that seems right, and having multiple works active on the same device tends to blend things together. I guess reading has always been a tactile and olfactory experience as well as one of the mind, and I miss the smells of an old or a new book.
Anyway, we're mostly set for Zim. Maybe need a little clothes shopping still: I've thrown away worn-out underwear since the last time we had a holiday and I'm still wearing many of the tee shirts, now with small holes, that we bought before our trip to Canada in 2006, and while they aren't exactly in rags they have also become more than a little tired.
And that's another thing: where to go next year. But that will have to wait for another blog post.
@Marc V - I seem to have developed your habit of reading multiple books. Currently on the go I have Reimagining Church by Frank Viola, War and Peace (yup, the door stop size classic - Kobo reader) A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition To The Zambesi by David and Christopher Livingstone (Kobo app on the phone), the Confessions of Saint Augustine (kindle app on the phone), and I've just finished a biography of General Ulysses Grant (Kobo app on the phone).
And that is an interesting observation, that I'm reading multiple copies of electronic books, not on a single device, but spread across multiple devices and applications, just as if they were hardcopy books. To be honest, e-readers are OK for linear reading only, and seem particularly useless for any kind of reference reading. No-one seems to have found a way to let you 'flick through' an e-book effectively yet, and as such that makes them of very limited use. That said, I AM consuming books through them more than if they were not available, but certainly less so than if I did not have the internet and instead were to visit a library on a weekly basis. There's something about separate books being SEPARATE, rather than living in a kind of information soup that seems right, and having multiple works active on the same device tends to blend things together. I guess reading has always been a tactile and olfactory experience as well as one of the mind, and I miss the smells of an old or a new book.
Anyway, we're mostly set for Zim. Maybe need a little clothes shopping still: I've thrown away worn-out underwear since the last time we had a holiday and I'm still wearing many of the tee shirts, now with small holes, that we bought before our trip to Canada in 2006, and while they aren't exactly in rags they have also become more than a little tired.
And that's another thing: where to go next year. But that will have to wait for another blog post.
Sunday, 7 April 2013
Saturday, 6 April 2013
This isn't what I expected.
Looks like I'm preaching tomorrow on Baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Should be just in time for Pentecost. :-)
Should be just in time for Pentecost. :-)
Friday, 5 April 2013
Various things on the go right now.
But tonight I'll probably be installing Pear Linux 7 to update my system at home. Probably.
Earlier this week I installed openSUSE 12.3 on a spare hard drive to give me access to better photo manipulation software - DigiKam 3.0 has image control information to correct RAW image files for the Fuji HS30, and hopefully that will fix some of the lens distortion artifacts.
In other news, I'm coughing so much that sometimes lights flash and bits float around inside my eyes. Bluergh. But at least I'm not ill.
Sat here, I have the sun streaming through the window, warming my back. Now THAT is a nice change.
Earlier this week I installed openSUSE 12.3 on a spare hard drive to give me access to better photo manipulation software - DigiKam 3.0 has image control information to correct RAW image files for the Fuji HS30, and hopefully that will fix some of the lens distortion artifacts.
In other news, I'm coughing so much that sometimes lights flash and bits float around inside my eyes. Bluergh. But at least I'm not ill.
Sat here, I have the sun streaming through the window, warming my back. Now THAT is a nice change.
Thursday, 4 April 2013
Wednesday, 3 April 2013
I'm going to have to find another image host.
Photobucket has started showing 'mature dating' and 'lonely housewives' adverts, and that really isn't helpful to anyone (except the guys making money off the porn sites). They don't even offer the 'pro' paid version of the site without ads any more, but only additional space. I already have more than 1500 images up there in a couple of Gb and have used less than 20% of the available storage.
This doesn't work for me guys. Not at all.
This doesn't work for me guys. Not at all.
A re-evaluation of digital content as property?
From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22000668 a system designed to permit resale of digital audio tracks by completely removing them from the seller's computer has been declared illegal. To me, this changes the way I would see such content, and would remove ethical barriers to copying content without payment. I might still obey the law - because it is the law - but if I 'buy' something and am then told that it is not mine, it also makes me think that it was not 'theirs' to sell in the first place.
Probably not a particularly good argument, but this doesn't look like it's headed any place good.
Probably not a particularly good argument, but this doesn't look like it's headed any place good.
Where do you go as a fundamentalist?
And I AM still at heart a fundamentlist, yet I also want to read the bible with understanding that God has given me, rather than shutting my eyes, ears and mind tightly in order to accept the absurd so that I can be 'in faith'.
Now this post isn't a pop at anyone, but it is definitely a result of my interactions with others. My stance on a whole bunch of stuff has been affected by friends - people I love and respect - but have found at times that I cannot agree with. It has been prompted by this thing of "just read it and do it", with the unspoken suggestion that if you don't do it and believe it like I do then you have it wrong.
Cue this post from Hamo at Backyard Missionary.
There's a danger in permitting interpretation, and it isn't an imaginary one, nor a straw man set up to protect the fundamentalist way of thinking. Some would suggest that truth is relative and everyone's point of view is valid. I cannot accept that is the case - there MUST be absolute truth in absolute reality, even if that reality *appears* different from where we are standing. The problem for us as humans is that we only see our own reality, and therefore struggle to interpret what that truth is, but that does not take away from the absolutes of truth and falsehood.
The tricky bit comes when we start defining what is true.
It's as though we've been given telescopes of varying quality to examine the world through, and some can actually see quite clearly while others have a terribly blurry view of things, while yet others will have been trained to interpret black as green and white as yellow, valleys as mountains and seas as deserts etc. This becomes a problem when we start thinking about absolutes of what it means to be a Christian, since by the nature of the argument, one man's absolute is another man's negotiable, and that doesn't detract from the accuracy of his observation!
So for me, when I start reading tricky parts of the bible - like God authorising the use of slaves, wiping out nations to the last woman and child, the connection between human sexuality and the manner in which it represents the interaction of God with the church to name but a few - then I start asking what was God's heart behind this likely to have been and why would He apparently do things that are repugnant to us. This enables me to be closer to God, to maybe understand Him and the principles he works by a little more instead of trying to hold my 'faith' out like a magic talisman - I have it in my hand and I'm using it like I've been taught, so it MUST be obeyed/protect me.
And sometimes I suspect we doubt or fail to understand the width and breadth of the grace of God to us.
It's as if all our misunderstandings were fine (because they're ours, and we have enjoyed God's grace) while those of someone else are not. That's not to say that we cannot have some assurance about what is right and true, because we can observe the results of certain beliefs and ways of living in those around us, and of those throughout history. If nothing else, it might convince anyone with a passing knowledge of English history that religious dogmatism and evil were close bedfellows. And hopefully we can also listen to the Holy Spirit, and allow Him to bring life to what are otherwise nothing more than words on a page.
So bearing with one another in love would seem to be at least part of the answer to living with theological differences. I'm sure it's not the only part, just as I'm sure there IS absolute truth available, but hopefully with some of God's grace we can work out and through our different understandings, and maybe even come to eventual agreement. I'm trying to avoid using caveats again at this point, because the flip side of this is that we may never speak the truth to each other - in love or otherwise - and therefore all continue as blind and foolish and mistaken as if we'd never been in relationship with anyone else. As an aside, on Saturday in the men's group we're talking about endurance and 'staying power' from the book we're following, and the need to endure and hang on, even when we hurt and are deeply unhappy. It's been my experience that sometimes I have to hold myself in the place of frustration, pain and unhappiness in order to grow a bit more, see a bit more clearly, maybe even fulfill some of what God has planned for my life.
In this context I've been considering the idea of the church having 'the mind of Christ' when it comes together, but I've been in enough church meetings (and church tradition also rather confirms this) that if one were to assume the mind of Christ were always and only at work in gatherings of churchy people then Jesus must be a furious schizophrenic. But THAT discussion is another blog post.
Now this post isn't a pop at anyone, but it is definitely a result of my interactions with others. My stance on a whole bunch of stuff has been affected by friends - people I love and respect - but have found at times that I cannot agree with. It has been prompted by this thing of "just read it and do it", with the unspoken suggestion that if you don't do it and believe it like I do then you have it wrong.
Cue this post from Hamo at Backyard Missionary.
There's a danger in permitting interpretation, and it isn't an imaginary one, nor a straw man set up to protect the fundamentalist way of thinking. Some would suggest that truth is relative and everyone's point of view is valid. I cannot accept that is the case - there MUST be absolute truth in absolute reality, even if that reality *appears* different from where we are standing. The problem for us as humans is that we only see our own reality, and therefore struggle to interpret what that truth is, but that does not take away from the absolutes of truth and falsehood.
The tricky bit comes when we start defining what is true.
It's as though we've been given telescopes of varying quality to examine the world through, and some can actually see quite clearly while others have a terribly blurry view of things, while yet others will have been trained to interpret black as green and white as yellow, valleys as mountains and seas as deserts etc. This becomes a problem when we start thinking about absolutes of what it means to be a Christian, since by the nature of the argument, one man's absolute is another man's negotiable, and that doesn't detract from the accuracy of his observation!
So for me, when I start reading tricky parts of the bible - like God authorising the use of slaves, wiping out nations to the last woman and child, the connection between human sexuality and the manner in which it represents the interaction of God with the church to name but a few - then I start asking what was God's heart behind this likely to have been and why would He apparently do things that are repugnant to us. This enables me to be closer to God, to maybe understand Him and the principles he works by a little more instead of trying to hold my 'faith' out like a magic talisman - I have it in my hand and I'm using it like I've been taught, so it MUST be obeyed/protect me.
And sometimes I suspect we doubt or fail to understand the width and breadth of the grace of God to us.
It's as if all our misunderstandings were fine (because they're ours, and we have enjoyed God's grace) while those of someone else are not. That's not to say that we cannot have some assurance about what is right and true, because we can observe the results of certain beliefs and ways of living in those around us, and of those throughout history. If nothing else, it might convince anyone with a passing knowledge of English history that religious dogmatism and evil were close bedfellows. And hopefully we can also listen to the Holy Spirit, and allow Him to bring life to what are otherwise nothing more than words on a page.
So bearing with one another in love would seem to be at least part of the answer to living with theological differences. I'm sure it's not the only part, just as I'm sure there IS absolute truth available, but hopefully with some of God's grace we can work out and through our different understandings, and maybe even come to eventual agreement. I'm trying to avoid using caveats again at this point, because the flip side of this is that we may never speak the truth to each other - in love or otherwise - and therefore all continue as blind and foolish and mistaken as if we'd never been in relationship with anyone else. As an aside, on Saturday in the men's group we're talking about endurance and 'staying power' from the book we're following, and the need to endure and hang on, even when we hurt and are deeply unhappy. It's been my experience that sometimes I have to hold myself in the place of frustration, pain and unhappiness in order to grow a bit more, see a bit more clearly, maybe even fulfill some of what God has planned for my life.
In this context I've been considering the idea of the church having 'the mind of Christ' when it comes together, but I've been in enough church meetings (and church tradition also rather confirms this) that if one were to assume the mind of Christ were always and only at work in gatherings of churchy people then Jesus must be a furious schizophrenic. But THAT discussion is another blog post.
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
So the sun was shining
And I snuck out of work around 5ish to go take photographs of the valley, now most of the snow has finally melted. It was also an excuse to start learning how to use the Fuji HS30 a little better: maybe I'll do a mini-review, but in quick summary, handling is good, zoom reach fantastic, but image quality very low - the images straight out of my old Samsung are significantly superior in terms of definition and noise. It's all down to sensor size again.
Anyway, here's a quick sample, most processed from RAW files. More in my photobucket account.
Anyway, here's a quick sample, most processed from RAW files. More in my photobucket account.
Saturday, 30 March 2013
Yesterday I kissed
Chris.
In the dark hallway at Heyford Park Chapel.
It was like being transported back to the very first time we ever kissed, in the hallway of her parents house in Westfield road, Croydon. We'd met just a few days previously, pretty much started off together immediately being close together, arms round each other. I'd then popped over to see her after work, and she was in her school uniform still (we were 17 and 16) and as I was leaving to come home we stopped and kissed in the hallway.
After 31 years of marriage, it is amazing that kissing my wife can take me right back to that first time. There has never been anyone else like her for me.
In the dark hallway at Heyford Park Chapel.
It was like being transported back to the very first time we ever kissed, in the hallway of her parents house in Westfield road, Croydon. We'd met just a few days previously, pretty much started off together immediately being close together, arms round each other. I'd then popped over to see her after work, and she was in her school uniform still (we were 17 and 16) and as I was leaving to come home we stopped and kissed in the hallway.
After 31 years of marriage, it is amazing that kissing my wife can take me right back to that first time. There has never been anyone else like her for me.
Friday, 29 March 2013
Thursday, 28 March 2013
PCC criticised over council role
I just read that headline on the BBC news website. Whilst criticism is inevitable, it turns out we aren't famous after all.
Smiley courtesy of the BBC.
Smiley courtesy of the BBC.
Wednesday, 27 March 2013
Sinister goings on in Blighty?
I've not (yet) read Orwell's 1984, but the idea of a Ministry of truth does not seem great to me.
Bear in mind there is significant spin in the article too, never the less, curbing the freedom of the press is seldom a good idea in a democracy. Curbing their excesses, certainly, but not the freedom to expose unpleasantness and deceit. Hopefully this won't stick.
There is a bitter-sweet irony that it should be The Guardian that probably put a big enough weapon in the hand of the rich and powerful to take away press freedoms, but then the left often did want to regulate the press.
Bear in mind there is significant spin in the article too, never the less, curbing the freedom of the press is seldom a good idea in a democracy. Curbing their excesses, certainly, but not the freedom to expose unpleasantness and deceit. Hopefully this won't stick.
There is a bitter-sweet irony that it should be The Guardian that probably put a big enough weapon in the hand of the rich and powerful to take away press freedoms, but then the left often did want to regulate the press.
Monday, 25 March 2013
So today we had a hospital visit.
After just over 7 weeks, it seems Ben is doing really well. His femur, that was in several bits, is knitting together nicely and the grafts and other holes that were stapled back together are all doing well. There's a lot of movement in his left leg now, and although the muscles have atrophied, he's able to hobble around without crutches a little.
There's a long way to go, including getting the scar tissue from all those wounds to detach from the bone below, but he's making good progress and we're very pleased.
There's a long way to go, including getting the scar tissue from all those wounds to detach from the bone below, but he's making good progress and we're very pleased.
Saturday, 23 March 2013
I've been trying a few new distros recently.
Ben reckons I change operating systems as frequently as many people change underwear. I HOPE that's wrong, because if so, there are a lot of seriously disgusting people out there, but I DO like to experiment.
I installed Pear Linux 6.0 32 bit 5 months ago (feels like longer) having run pear 3 as a trial distro alongside Sabayon and then moved across to Pear 4 about this time last year when Sabayon kept falling over (they sometimes ship mis-matched graphics drivers and kernels - I don't know why, but it's a long term problem). I've been happy with Pear mostly - it's reasonably quick, visually pleasing, does most of what I want. But it's also designed to look a bit like OSX, though with fewer annoying design flaws, and some versions of key software like DigiKam and GIMP were very out of date.
I happen to have a spare 320Gb western 2.5" drive (warranty replacement from my Macbook) so bunged that in the case and had a look around at what took my fancy.
Mint 14 KDE
This is a nice looking distro if you don't mind some of the same issues with Pear regarding old packages and slightly staid looks. It works really well from the 'box' with DVDs playing back, audio working correctly, recognising network connections and printers. DigiKam was at 2.8 (which was better than 2.5 in PL6) Libreoffice at 3.6 and KDE at 4.9. It's very nicely sorted to install, and went in painlessly. This is linux for the refugee from windows Vista, 7 and 8 who has a real hankering for XP again, but with modern functionality.
Also good - I hooked up a Fuji HS30EXR camera and it was immediately recognised, images imported into DigiKam and both .jpeg and RAW formats (RAF in this case) fully functional. The 3 images below including the woodpecker were all edited while I was trying Mint 14. However because this is an older version of DigiKam the correct data for correcting lens aberrations in RAW images wasn't available, and they showed distinct distortion.
Some of the standard KDE irritations were still present, like mounted DVDs not always ejecting predictably, but generally working very well indeed.
Open SUSE 12.3
I downloaded this on the first day it was released, just a couple of weeks back, and it was a big download at 4.3Gb plus another 340Mb for the non-free codecs etc (more of that later). Installation was reasonably easy, with a clean installer (new in this version IIRC) however it also failed to install the non-free software off the separate DVD despite that checkbox being ticked. It's really nice to have the option of different types of file system and security setup, so it offered Btrfs alongside ext for fs management and also LVM (which essential makes your HDD unreadable outside the OS).
This version has really upped the ante for SUSE IMO, with a much cleaner, darker desktop theme. All the usual KDE facilities to change EVERYTHING about the desktop and interface are resent and correct. Also correct were recent versions of software including KDE 4.10, DigiKam 3.0, GIMP 2.8.2 and Libreoffice 4.0. Kernel was at 3.7, and this seems significantly quicker than distros running 3.5.
The non-free codecs etc didn't install off the DVD, so a general hunt had to be made for libdvdread, LAME etc etc. In theory there's a one-click facility that should run the first time you try to play a DVD and fail, but the script that downloaded failed to work, so I had to manually add the repository for the non-free stuff & then choose to install. Not a problem for me, but a BIG issue for a total noob. Disappointing, because the guys at SUSE have put a huge amount of work in, and tried to make things like this work as easily as they can.
Next downer, importing images from the Fuji into DigiKam completely failed, and I had to copy/paste from the camera memory as if it were a USB drive to my hard drive. However the RAW file tools do include data for the HS30 to correct lens faults etc.
The same characteristics of KDE were present in openSUSE as Mint KDE, however KDE 4.10 felt a little slicker, possibly quicker, and looks classier in the SUSE livery. The toolbar icons and plasma control centre have been tweaked, and it *feels* more intuitive.
Sabayon 11
I have this love-hate relationship with Sabayon. It's the best of all the KDE-based distros, with the most bleeding edge software versions, sharpest screen images, greatest number of packages available and it just looks better than anything else.
But.
This distro just isn't stable, and I know that at some stage an update will break it. Last time it happened when it was my main OS I had to go in and rescue all my data using the command line to transfer files to external drive. And because it forces the user to have their drive partitioned under LVM then it's not possible to simply access the HDD externally & recover data that way.
So I ran it as a live DVD.
Sabayon is home for me, as Linux Desktop environments go. It's like XP but better, screen fonts are the crispest you'll see in any Linux system, everything looks really good and, generally, everything works really really well. All the negatives that go with KDE still apply, but this is where my heart is. Even as a live DVD it was quick and responsive, and that's not common.
Pear Linux 7 beta 2 Corella
Which is what I'm typing this from tonight.
This is the latest and greatest pear Linux. It's what OSX might have been if they'd not made some bad design choices in window management, and it's nearly as quick, running off a standard HDD, as Mountain Lion is running off an SSD on my dual core Macbook. If you're a Mac lover and you've got a winbox laying around then do yourself a favour and install this as a dual-boot option when the final release is made.
New in this version is a better dock, a take on Time Machine (not tried yet) improvements to system tools and a good polish to the interface. Software versions have been updated, so it's running the 3.7 kernel (hence the speed lift) DigiKam 2.8, GIMP 2.8.2, Libreoffice 4.10.
It's being released in 2 versions: desktop and server, both 64 bit only right now. Once the release candidate is out then I shall migrate from Pear 6, adding in Thunderbird for email (Gearymail - who?) Audacity, something to rip CDs and a few other tools I've come to use along the way.
Faults?
It looks & feels quite a bit like OSX. I also had to install libdvdcss manually, though that may be different in the final release. There are some inconsistencies (just as you find with OSX) with non-native applications not all conforming to the Pear interface. Overall though it's a good OS, and I'll probably stick with this for some time.
Nerdgasm over, normal service will be resumed shortly.
I installed Pear Linux 6.0 32 bit 5 months ago (feels like longer) having run pear 3 as a trial distro alongside Sabayon and then moved across to Pear 4 about this time last year when Sabayon kept falling over (they sometimes ship mis-matched graphics drivers and kernels - I don't know why, but it's a long term problem). I've been happy with Pear mostly - it's reasonably quick, visually pleasing, does most of what I want. But it's also designed to look a bit like OSX, though with fewer annoying design flaws, and some versions of key software like DigiKam and GIMP were very out of date.
I happen to have a spare 320Gb western 2.5" drive (warranty replacement from my Macbook) so bunged that in the case and had a look around at what took my fancy.
Mint 14 KDE
This is a nice looking distro if you don't mind some of the same issues with Pear regarding old packages and slightly staid looks. It works really well from the 'box' with DVDs playing back, audio working correctly, recognising network connections and printers. DigiKam was at 2.8 (which was better than 2.5 in PL6) Libreoffice at 3.6 and KDE at 4.9. It's very nicely sorted to install, and went in painlessly. This is linux for the refugee from windows Vista, 7 and 8 who has a real hankering for XP again, but with modern functionality.
Also good - I hooked up a Fuji HS30EXR camera and it was immediately recognised, images imported into DigiKam and both .jpeg and RAW formats (RAF in this case) fully functional. The 3 images below including the woodpecker were all edited while I was trying Mint 14. However because this is an older version of DigiKam the correct data for correcting lens aberrations in RAW images wasn't available, and they showed distinct distortion.
Some of the standard KDE irritations were still present, like mounted DVDs not always ejecting predictably, but generally working very well indeed.
Open SUSE 12.3
I downloaded this on the first day it was released, just a couple of weeks back, and it was a big download at 4.3Gb plus another 340Mb for the non-free codecs etc (more of that later). Installation was reasonably easy, with a clean installer (new in this version IIRC) however it also failed to install the non-free software off the separate DVD despite that checkbox being ticked. It's really nice to have the option of different types of file system and security setup, so it offered Btrfs alongside ext for fs management and also LVM (which essential makes your HDD unreadable outside the OS).
This version has really upped the ante for SUSE IMO, with a much cleaner, darker desktop theme. All the usual KDE facilities to change EVERYTHING about the desktop and interface are resent and correct. Also correct were recent versions of software including KDE 4.10, DigiKam 3.0, GIMP 2.8.2 and Libreoffice 4.0. Kernel was at 3.7, and this seems significantly quicker than distros running 3.5.
The non-free codecs etc didn't install off the DVD, so a general hunt had to be made for libdvdread, LAME etc etc. In theory there's a one-click facility that should run the first time you try to play a DVD and fail, but the script that downloaded failed to work, so I had to manually add the repository for the non-free stuff & then choose to install. Not a problem for me, but a BIG issue for a total noob. Disappointing, because the guys at SUSE have put a huge amount of work in, and tried to make things like this work as easily as they can.
Next downer, importing images from the Fuji into DigiKam completely failed, and I had to copy/paste from the camera memory as if it were a USB drive to my hard drive. However the RAW file tools do include data for the HS30 to correct lens faults etc.
The same characteristics of KDE were present in openSUSE as Mint KDE, however KDE 4.10 felt a little slicker, possibly quicker, and looks classier in the SUSE livery. The toolbar icons and plasma control centre have been tweaked, and it *feels* more intuitive.
Sabayon 11
I have this love-hate relationship with Sabayon. It's the best of all the KDE-based distros, with the most bleeding edge software versions, sharpest screen images, greatest number of packages available and it just looks better than anything else.
But.
This distro just isn't stable, and I know that at some stage an update will break it. Last time it happened when it was my main OS I had to go in and rescue all my data using the command line to transfer files to external drive. And because it forces the user to have their drive partitioned under LVM then it's not possible to simply access the HDD externally & recover data that way.
So I ran it as a live DVD.
Sabayon is home for me, as Linux Desktop environments go. It's like XP but better, screen fonts are the crispest you'll see in any Linux system, everything looks really good and, generally, everything works really really well. All the negatives that go with KDE still apply, but this is where my heart is. Even as a live DVD it was quick and responsive, and that's not common.
Pear Linux 7 beta 2 Corella
Which is what I'm typing this from tonight.
This is the latest and greatest pear Linux. It's what OSX might have been if they'd not made some bad design choices in window management, and it's nearly as quick, running off a standard HDD, as Mountain Lion is running off an SSD on my dual core Macbook. If you're a Mac lover and you've got a winbox laying around then do yourself a favour and install this as a dual-boot option when the final release is made.
New in this version is a better dock, a take on Time Machine (not tried yet) improvements to system tools and a good polish to the interface. Software versions have been updated, so it's running the 3.7 kernel (hence the speed lift) DigiKam 2.8, GIMP 2.8.2, Libreoffice 4.10.
It's being released in 2 versions: desktop and server, both 64 bit only right now. Once the release candidate is out then I shall migrate from Pear 6, adding in Thunderbird for email (Gearymail - who?) Audacity, something to rip CDs and a few other tools I've come to use along the way.
Faults?
It looks & feels quite a bit like OSX. I also had to install libdvdcss manually, though that may be different in the final release. There are some inconsistencies (just as you find with OSX) with non-native applications not all conforming to the Pear interface. Overall though it's a good OS, and I'll probably stick with this for some time.
Nerdgasm over, normal service will be resumed shortly.
Borrowing from others again
From a Facebook contact in Africa, posted today.
One thing is quite evident with men; they are subject to similar condition as you, they change without notice if condition does not favor their continuous friendship. Their strength, knowledge and level of tolerance are very limited can snap at any time, but God is never limited in anything and His mercies endures forever. There is not situation that is above God’s knowledge and ability, none is too difficult for Him to address adequately according to His thoughts and plans for your life.
Quite. A good reminder we all tend to see things from our own position, and are susceptible to moods and feelings, while God knows the beginning from the end and is not subject to whims and offence.
One thing is quite evident with men; they are subject to similar condition as you, they change without notice if condition does not favor their continuous friendship. Their strength, knowledge and level of tolerance are very limited can snap at any time, but God is never limited in anything and His mercies endures forever. There is not situation that is above God’s knowledge and ability, none is too difficult for Him to address adequately according to His thoughts and plans for your life.
Quite. A good reminder we all tend to see things from our own position, and are susceptible to moods and feelings, while God knows the beginning from the end and is not subject to whims and offence.
Tuesday, 19 March 2013
Beware the undertow.
I seem to be borrowing stuff from other people right now.
Years back when the internet was a little younger there was a forum that consisted mainly of US Christian musicians and worship leaders with just a few non-American participants. Fernando with his desk off on the left there (pun half intended) was one such. Eventually the forum ceased to function, but I've remained in contact with some of the other guys from the US too, including Mikey Mahoney, and when I read his latest blog post on personal Christian development one particular section seemed very relevant to where Heyford Park Chapel is right now.
Talking about moving in God's river, being waste deep:
BTW I'd recommend reading the full series of 'Bumper Sticker Christianity' posts on Mikes blog.
Years back when the internet was a little younger there was a forum that consisted mainly of US Christian musicians and worship leaders with just a few non-American participants. Fernando with his desk off on the left there (pun half intended) was one such. Eventually the forum ceased to function, but I've remained in contact with some of the other guys from the US too, including Mikey Mahoney, and when I read his latest blog post on personal Christian development one particular section seemed very relevant to where Heyford Park Chapel is right now.
Talking about moving in God's river, being waste deep:
BTW I'd recommend reading the full series of 'Bumper Sticker Christianity' posts on Mikes blog.
Monday, 18 March 2013
Free - as in beer?
A friend on a non-mountain biking forum (the second fastest declining forum) had me thinking about my aversion to paying for software.
It's curious, but I don't mind doing so for business use, but hate to do so for home use. When it comes to work, generally I'll live with the same setup for a long time 'getting my moneys worth' I guess. At home things have been much less stable in terms of applications, and early on I had a lot of different programs (they weren't called apps then) to try that never seemed any good - PC Mag CD culture I guess. So although the applications I was able to evaluate that way worked, they mostly seemed like junk, and if I'd actually had to pay for them I'd have been pretty miffed (an example would be Serif for DTP - unstable and buggy, M$ word was a lot better simply because it didn't keep falling over). At the time I never had a problem paying for the PC games I played, but there never seemed a reason to pay for applications for 'doing stuff' when tools that were just as good and sometimes better were available free on the internet.
There's also the freetard counter-culture that I find myself drawn to, even if there's a side of me that is repelled by it. It isn't particularly simply being able to get stuff for no money (and I won't pirate software, music and films) but the whole ethos of the 'computer hobbyist' who does what they do for kudos instead of cash really appeals. This is how I am at work too, and will happily offer other people knowledge and advice for nothing where I'm able.
So it's a bit more complex that just wanting stuff for free as in beer, although that doesn't do any harm either. And we all use and enjoy 'free' stuff too, don't we?
It's curious, but I don't mind doing so for business use, but hate to do so for home use. When it comes to work, generally I'll live with the same setup for a long time 'getting my moneys worth' I guess. At home things have been much less stable in terms of applications, and early on I had a lot of different programs (they weren't called apps then) to try that never seemed any good - PC Mag CD culture I guess. So although the applications I was able to evaluate that way worked, they mostly seemed like junk, and if I'd actually had to pay for them I'd have been pretty miffed (an example would be Serif for DTP - unstable and buggy, M$ word was a lot better simply because it didn't keep falling over). At the time I never had a problem paying for the PC games I played, but there never seemed a reason to pay for applications for 'doing stuff' when tools that were just as good and sometimes better were available free on the internet.
There's also the freetard counter-culture that I find myself drawn to, even if there's a side of me that is repelled by it. It isn't particularly simply being able to get stuff for no money (and I won't pirate software, music and films) but the whole ethos of the 'computer hobbyist' who does what they do for kudos instead of cash really appeals. This is how I am at work too, and will happily offer other people knowledge and advice for nothing where I'm able.
So it's a bit more complex that just wanting stuff for free as in beer, although that doesn't do any harm either. And we all use and enjoy 'free' stuff too, don't we?
Sunday, 17 March 2013
Pictures from the weekend....
Spring is close and the goldfinches are getting uppity.
This was taken during the snow falling Saturday morning (it even settled on the woodpecker while it was feeding).
Beautiful sky.
This was taken during the snow falling Saturday morning (it even settled on the woodpecker while it was feeding).
Beautiful sky.
Vicarious spirituality
I've written a much more extensive blog post, having read Hamo's A Vicarious Spirituality on the Backyard Missionary blog, but it's a bit too current to share, and is safely saved without publishing. However the original article is too good not to share still, so please click the link above and have a look.
Saturday, 16 March 2013
The tiredness from yesterday
May have been a bit more than tiredness. Today has not been a good day, healthwise, and I'm not sure tomorrow will be either, though we live in hope.
Friday, 15 March 2013
I've not been this tired in years.
It's been a hard, busy week.
I've been running a production process since Tuesday close to capacity while trying to cope with the cold I developed last week, pretty much living on cold relief capsules. At the same time there's lots of church stuff on, so have been out every night except Wednesday, where I got home at 8.50pm after the longest day of the process, ate dinner and then prepared for the Thursday night meeting.
And so today.
This was the final stage of the process, after product has been dried overnight in a racking system at around 30'C and 7% humidity, with the room in which this is performed eventually becoming a similar environment. Interesting, if your eyes are already scratchy and burning, throat tickling and sore from coughing. Not so good if you've forgotten to bring the cold medication to work with you, and the effects of the last dose have started wearing off.
Sympathy? Nah mate, in a way this was self-inflicted.
Normally this stage of the process is a 2 man job, one pouching product, the other sealing and boxing it. Usually takes a couple of brisk hours instead of all day, like today. By the end I could barely walk, and I still had to empty the suite I'd used, wash up containers etc. It's been years since I've been this tired, barely able to even talk.
Bliss was coming home to an encouraging, loving wife who let me collapse, eyes shut, on the settee while she got on with dinner, having just arrived back herself. I'm dosed up again and the body isn't shouting at me anymore, hence able to type now.
Tomorrow we stack logs away from the delivery that came on Tuesday. Wonder if Sunday could be a day of rest?
I've been running a production process since Tuesday close to capacity while trying to cope with the cold I developed last week, pretty much living on cold relief capsules. At the same time there's lots of church stuff on, so have been out every night except Wednesday, where I got home at 8.50pm after the longest day of the process, ate dinner and then prepared for the Thursday night meeting.
And so today.
This was the final stage of the process, after product has been dried overnight in a racking system at around 30'C and 7% humidity, with the room in which this is performed eventually becoming a similar environment. Interesting, if your eyes are already scratchy and burning, throat tickling and sore from coughing. Not so good if you've forgotten to bring the cold medication to work with you, and the effects of the last dose have started wearing off.
Sympathy? Nah mate, in a way this was self-inflicted.
Normally this stage of the process is a 2 man job, one pouching product, the other sealing and boxing it. Usually takes a couple of brisk hours instead of all day, like today. By the end I could barely walk, and I still had to empty the suite I'd used, wash up containers etc. It's been years since I've been this tired, barely able to even talk.
Bliss was coming home to an encouraging, loving wife who let me collapse, eyes shut, on the settee while she got on with dinner, having just arrived back herself. I'm dosed up again and the body isn't shouting at me anymore, hence able to type now.
Tomorrow we stack logs away from the delivery that came on Tuesday. Wonder if Sunday could be a day of rest?
Thursday, 14 March 2013
One of my fave scriptures
Proverbs 27 v6
Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.
Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.
Sorry the blog is so quiet.
I'm just really busy with work & church and that leaves little space for anything else.
Except a cold :p
The only way to have much time right now is to stay up late, and that's not great on several levels, so things are just ticking along for a bit. I'd been trying to play guitar a bit more recently - strengthen the hands a little, but haven't picked one up with any seriousness in 3 weeks, so that's somewhat gone by the board.
Inside I'm OK, still the same, but just keeping going where I need to and not doing too much where I don't.
Except a cold :p
The only way to have much time right now is to stay up late, and that's not great on several levels, so things are just ticking along for a bit. I'd been trying to play guitar a bit more recently - strengthen the hands a little, but haven't picked one up with any seriousness in 3 weeks, so that's somewhat gone by the board.
Inside I'm OK, still the same, but just keeping going where I need to and not doing too much where I don't.
Monday, 11 March 2013
Saturday, 9 March 2013
And now for something rather similar.
The fruits of a little experimentation.
Lapland Bunting.
Pair of Reed Buntings.
Lapland Bunting.
Pair of Reed Buntings.
You may be wondering what's been happening round here?
Well, to be quite honest I'm pretty sure I'm being lied to in a fairly free and manipulative manner, and am really hoping that God will graciously reveal what's going on and expose the manipulators for who and what they are. As for me, I'd rather sit back and watch what He does, rather than start passing judgement myself, since that's a fairly sure-fire way of being dragged down to someone's level and then beaten on experience.
Clear as mud? Yup.
But OTOH I'm gradually coming to the conclusion that walking on eggshells while talking to people who seem comfy driving the steamroller of their wants over the feet of those that might supply them isn't getting anyone anywhere.
There's something almost as good as punning over mixing metaphors.
Clear as mud? Yup.
But OTOH I'm gradually coming to the conclusion that walking on eggshells while talking to people who seem comfy driving the steamroller of their wants over the feet of those that might supply them isn't getting anyone anywhere.
There's something almost as good as punning over mixing metaphors.
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