Two weeks ago the Sunday School class looked at the story in Judges 15 I believe, where Samson kills a thousand men with the jawbone of a donkey. Last week we put together an infomercial to sell or market the jawbone. Using the jawbone of a deer, belonging to my father-in-law, we unscriptedly performed in order to create what we disrespectfully call, Ass Bone.
Continuing from yesterday’s shot, DFT7226 is again seen hauling the same freight Northbound still, this time at the level crossing at the North end of the town of Otaki.
On May 15th, 1988, a Southbound excursion train hit a milk truck on this same crossing. Fortunately noone was injured, including my dad, who was driving the train. It is also significant because it was my second birthday, and my mum had the joy (end sarcasm) of receiving the ‘dreaded’ phone call from the company, saying he’d been in an accident.
Again, taken with a Fujifilm Finepix S5600 Digital, Shutter Speed 1/613s, a Focal Length of 6.3mm and an F-stop set at F/7.1, on ISO200.
I remember showing this photo to a friend at work once, and he said “That looks like a Honda. About 1990, an Accord?”
It was taken while driving (no, don’t do it) a Honda Ascot (based on the Accord), 1992 model. 4 Cyl 2.0L, 4 speed Auto, very nice car to drive. In the mirror is one of my loves, a train. This a Northbound Freight, headed by DFT 7226, somewhere between Waikanae and Otaki (I believe! I know it’s South of Otaki, North of Paraparaumu).
Taken with a Fujifilm Finepix S5600 Digital, Shutter Speed 1/320s, a Focal Length of 10.8mm and an F-stop set at F/4.5, on ISO64.
One of my personal favorites, this shot was taken late on a Friday evening, at the Ava Rail Bridge near Lower Hutt, New Zealand. This is a Wellington Commuter train, heading North towards Upper Hutt.
Standing on the Eastern bank of the Hutt River, the train comes towards the camera. It will then continue, turning a curve North under two road bridges, meeting the Gracefield Industrial Siding and stopping at Woburn station, before continuing.
Taken with a Fujifilm Finepix S5600 Digital, Shutter Speed 10s, a Focal Length of 6.3mm and an F-stop set at F/3.2, on ISO200.
So this morning I came across another rant-topic and this is aimed particularly at Christian broadcasters, but also at the media in general.
Lies within the media are probably the biggest reason why few people pay attention and why those who do are so misled or uninformed about the reality of the world today.
The case in point is the story told on a Christian Radio station this morning: A child goes to school for the first time and coming home after their first day the parent asks the child what they learnt. The child replies “I learnt that there is no way to prove that Jesus ever existed!”
There are several problems with this story, allow me to outline them.
Firstly, let us look at the first day of school logically. Elementary school is primarily for learning the basic subjects – English, Math, etc. Theological debates or discussions typically wouldn’t occur until at least Middle School, or more likely High School.
Even then, and this becomes the second point, they cannot be initiated by a teacher. The teacher may prompt, but cannot explicitly begin a discussion. The teacher also cannot teach their personal beliefs as fact. If it isn’t in the curriculum, it isn’t being taught. And if it is it should be being reported to the appropriate authority, and not reported on by the media.
This has been a trend for the longest time and it’s not just within the media, it’s by word of mouth also. Here are 3 simple ways to check if what you’ve heard is true:
In the case of the story above, it is possible that aspects of it are true, but if mis-told down the line then it becomes what it is today. Consider a High School student on the last day, happening on a theological debate where the comment arises – that it is possible Jesus was not a real person. The student comes home and tells mom and dad. The parents tell the story to a few people that the student was taught Jesus wasn’t real. Keep this going down the grapevine and it only takes a few steps with mis-tellings, incorrect recallings of the story etc and it becomes a 5 year old going to Elementary being taught as fact on the first day.
It seems silly but if you’ve ever played “Chinese Whispers,” or even just observed people in groups, you’ll realize it translates into reality dangerously closely. Next time you receive a “Hey check this out” email, go and take a look at Snopes website, an amazing resource for finding out if the rumor being spread is true, false, a combination or was unverifiable. A good 90% of emails I receive like this are either blatantly false, or are mostly false merely with enough elements of truth to be believable.
Here are some common examples, particularly related to the religious group:
As you can see from the written evidence these are all lies, and from a little research and/or thinking it can be proven in quite simple terms that the claim is false.
My plea to the Christian community, to the media, stop mindlessly passing on stories, stop making up stories that could be taken as fact, in all seriousness it just makes us look bad that so many are so gullible, and makes the truth look that much less truthful.
A particular day trip with some friends found me at the top of Paekakariki Hill, standing at the lookout on a brokenly clouded day, with a camera. What better opportunity? This is one of the dirtier sea-lines in New Zealand, naturally to the Australian side 😉
To the left of frame is Mana Island, and mid-frame is Paekakariki town. One can fairly easily make out State Highway 1 and the North Island Main Trunk rail link heading south towards the camera.
Taken with a Fujifilm Finepix S5600 Digital, Shutter Speed 1/613s, a Focal Length of 6.3mm and an F-stop set at F/6.4, on ISO64.
One of the IRC Networks I work with (UCCN) is looking at a proposal drawn up recently to allow children under 13 to join us and chat on the network. To begin with, it looked very difficult to do this in a law abiding manner. Then it looked really easy. After studying the “How to Comply” page on the FTC site, it turns out it is somewhere in the middle.
While it will indeed require some changes in the network configuration, as well as in staff policies and such, the most difficult aspect is the consent phase. Ensuring that parents are who they say they are (or at least having a record that verifies to a legal standard that they are who they say they are) is the hardest thing to do.
All in all, the best method found so far is a signed form from the parent sent by post, or by fax. For our purposes, this will also hold some verification information, and technical details regarding the children in particular.
It also means network changes, only permitting underage users to do specific things, and blocking anything else that might endanger them, or that would be out of our control as administrators, and their guardians while on the network.
The other difficulty is going to be designing and building a secure database system for storing the personal information, that will log who accesses what. This is one of my areas of expertise, however, so it shouldn’t be too high on the hard-scale.
Taken over the beach at Petone, near Wellington, New Zealand, the sun sets over the Horokiwi hills.
Not much to say for this one. The wharf is visible near where the water meets the land.
Taken with a Fujifilm Finepix S5600 Digital, Shutter Speed 1/653s, a Focal Length of 6.3mm and an F-stop set at F/6.4, on ISO64.
To the left of frame, is a street. About 150m down this street, to the right, is another street. Another 200m down this street is a house. This is where I lived for just shy of 22 years. To the left is visible a bus shelter, where I would wait having missed the first bus I should catch in the morning. Often missing the second one also.
This is Wellington Road, in Wainuiomata, New Zealand, looking roughly South, I believe.
Taken with a Fujifilm Finepix S5600 Digital, Shutter Speed 0.8s, a Focal Length of 14.8mm and an F-stop set at F/8, on ISO200.
I haven’t been taking too many interesting photos recently, so I’ve decided that at least through to the end of the month I will blog a few of my old photos every couple of days. These were taken on my old Fujifilm Finepix S5600 (5.1MP) Camera.
I very much enjoyed owning this camera, (less than a year before I upgraded to an S9600, 10,000+ Photos later) and would recommend Fujifilm cameras to any and all. The S9600 has been described as “the closest to an SLR a camera can get, without being an SLR.”
I trust you will enjoy viewing these photos as much as I enjoyed taking and posting them.