Untitled Bench

Posted on by
Reply

I used to name photos, but I haven’t yet thought of anything for this one. Maybe by the end of this post I’ll have come up with something.

This evening I took a walk to EMU, it is conveniently located a couple’ hundred yards from the apartment, and it has some cool settings to take photos, so I decided to take advantage of some of them.

This is pretty much just a bench, and I have several versions of this shot – all taken in manual mode with the same exposure time and aperture, however each different. The first was taken with flash, the second was taken with a covered flash, and the third was taken with no flash. It is amazing the differences just between these three settings.

Taken with a Fujifilm Finepix S9600 Digital, Shutter Speed 2s, a Focal Length of 14mm and an F-stop set at F/5, on ISO200.

My Media-space

Posted on by
1

I thought it was time to give a glimpse of my media-space before I get too far. Starting from the left, the white box is my wife’s – it’s all DVD’s, it also has my NZ DVD player in it, waiting for me to buy a step-up transformer for it. To the right of that, on top is the TV, bought for us by Kelly’s sister and brother-in-law, topped with some of my card games. Below that is a DVD player and a VCR ($10.50 at a thrift store, works fine!), to the right of that is a 17″ monitor, below which is Telly – my P3 server. It is a Pentium 3 running at 866MHz, with 512MB RAM and a 160GB PATA hard disk. It runs Debian, and doesn’t do much at this point (although it has a bunch of my files, and an IRC bot that I use). Below Telly is the stereo, thanks Katie.

Behind the black to the right of the right-hand speaker, is the 550VA UPS, holding all the PC’s online and surge protecting everything else. The black, for reference, is a CD wallet containing all my music CD’s, 130-odd, and Cookiemonster, a presently unused Dell Latitude C610 – Pentium 3 Mobile, 733MHz/1Ghz, 256MB RAM, and an 80GB hard disk.

Right of that is the desk. 3 Computers here – The Dell is a Celeron 2.4GHz, 512MB RAM and I believe a 40GB Hard disk, this is the wife’s, however she has the laptop so it connects the other machines around the desk to the wireless upstairs. It also runs another IRC bot, that links two channels across two networks. (See http://www.livebravely.ca/)

Above the Dell, are 2 external hard disks connected to the white PC beside it. They are 160GB (Silver) and 320GB (Black) and are mostly used for backup and video editing. The white PC is the Windows Desktop, it is an Athlon 3200+, 1GB RAM, 320GB Internal PATA hard disk, running Windows XP Pro. Above this is another Dell Latitude laptop, this one a Pentium 4 Mobile 1.8GHz, with 512MB RAM and a 40GB hard disk, it is in testing as an Asterisk PABX (phone system) server. To the right of all this is just storage for various cables.

Don’t say it, I already know. I’m a geek. Or a nerd. Or both. Or some combination. However you choose to look at it.

Letter to the Christian Internet Community

Posted on by
Reply

Prologue:

For the longest time, Christian IRC channels and networks have been targets for individuals looking to become power-hungry by getting onto staff, for dirty old men to pick up gullible teenage (or even pre-teen) girls (or boys) for a dirty evening of dirtiness, for annoying losers with too much time looking for an argument, or merely looking to annoy as many people as possible. They have been sought by people legitimately looking for help, for spiritual guidance, for a replacement to a real church with physical fellow-shipping, whether that be for lack of acceptance in their church, lack of ability to go to a church (e.g. physical and/or mental disabilities), or laziness.

Personally, I don’t feel the Christian IRC community (or the church as a whole) takes all of these seriously enough, nor does it allow for open discussion of certain topics deemed inappropriate for whatever reason. I believe the Christian Internet Community as a whole needs to work together more to promote our God in a positive manner, without the unnecessary bad-press created by negligence, by arrogance, by meanness, by downright idiocy and stupidity.

Not that I like telling the world how to change, in this post I will outline how and why I feel the Christian Community on the Internet needs to change, with a strong focus towards the IRC community. To the owners, to the operators, to the users, and to the attackers and disrupters, this is my letter to you all.

Continue reading →

Migration of the Masses

Posted on by
1

Prologue:

I realized, through writing this, why so little is done about immigration issues. It is almost impossible to make any changes without someone, somewhere, becoming very offended. Whether it is the racist voters who threaten to vote against anyone who makes it easier for the “damn Mexicans” to “take our jobs!” (working in chicken plants, or as janitors, or other such lowly jobs as their communities end up working in). Or if it is those who feel that they are people just like everyone else, who have every right to live on the land and breathe the air, and be unpunished, despite breaking a large number of laws (illegal border crossings, the various fake and/or forged documentations, etc). It doesn’t seem overly difficult to cross the border already, and any change that makes it easier for anyone to enter the country increases the chance of ‘terrorists’ slipping through cracks, generating a security risk. I understand that what I outline is not a perfect solution, but I believe it should be at least considered, and adjusted as appropriate for implementation. But hey, what do I know – an outsider, an immigrant myself, albeit a legal one.

Continue reading →

Pleasing response to a complaint

Posted on by
1

This is the kind of response that all organisations dealing with complaints should take notes from.

CCNet, or the Christian Chat Network, is well known in many circles as being very strict regarding rules and enforcements. For a long time, one could expect that even for writing this, I would be banned for a month, no questions asked.

Allow me to outline the complaint I had.

Here are my (edited outside chatter) logs from earlier today.

Jul 31 12:21:59 <Guest26178> this site is ok, but it is bare bones.
Jul 31 12:22:05 <PurpleHighlights> it’s been almost a year now I think since I’ve been on Second Life
Jul 31 12:22:12 <Kathe> whats second life?
Jul 31 12:22:18 <BrianB> it’s an online virtual world
Jul 31 12:22:23 <BrianB> i created an account and never used it
Jul 31 12:22:32 <Guest26178> they have come out with a new browser for it.
Jul 31 12:22:39 <Guest26178> it is free for basic membership
Jul 31 12:22:40 <Kathe> well i’m sorry you don’t like the set up here Guest26178
Jul 31 12:22:43 <Guest26178> but you can’t own land.
Jul 31 12:22:51 <Guest26178> it is ok
Jul 31 12:22:51 <PurpleHighlights> though for the other membership you pay, the basic is free
Jul 31 12:22:55 <Guest26178> for what it does
Jul 31 12:23:02 <BrianB> secondlife isn’t exactly moderated either
Jul 31 12:23:11 <BrianB> in fact there have been law suits over people’s, uh, “actions” in the game…
Jul 31 12:23:12 <PurpleHighlights> I’ve payed for imvu, I got hooked on imvu & bought my avatar, now a vip member have a access pass
Jul 31 12:23:17 <Guest26178> well Brian, you can get banned in SL. So it is moderated.
Jul 31 12:23:29 <BrianB> it isn’t moderated like this place
Jul 31 12:23:36 <PurpleHighlights> yes ppl can also get banned from imvu if they’re not careful
Jul 31 12:23:40 * Kathe things ccnet has enough ‘characters’ for her
Jul 31 12:23:45 <Guest26178> to use second life you need to download their browser.
Jul 31 12:24:01 <BrianB> well i was on IMVU last night and about fell over when i saw the first chatter’s nickname that i ran into, very ugly
Jul 31 12:24:04 <PurpleHighlights> I’ve had a friend banned from imvu, I don’t know what she did or said, but she went against the imvu tos
Jul 31 12:24:17 <BrianB> that’s why i chat here, it is safer 🙂
Jul 31 12:25:08 <Guest26178> here is an example of what you can do in SL.
Jul 31 12:25:27 <All_TGB_to_God_[Deut_18_13]> and btw….
Jul 31 12:25:32 <Guest26178> I went there one Sat. night and there was a Christian concert going on.
Jul 31 12:25:35 <All_TGB_to_God_[Deut_18_13]> i think ShoutLife is much better….
Jul 31 12:25:41 <BrianB> well
Jul 31 12:25:45 <All_TGB_to_God_[Deut_18_13]> even though i have never been to SecondLife, though…
Jul 31 12:25:46 <All_TGB_to_God_[Deut_18_13]> BUT..
Jul 31 12:25:51 <Guest26178> you sat in an ampitheater and watched it on a big screen.
Jul 31 12:25:53 <BrianB> the problem is waht else gose on around you….
Jul 31 12:25:55 <All_TGB_to_God_[Deut_18_13]> i really do like it HERE, though !! 🙂
Jul 31 12:25:59 <BrianB> that’s why we keep a clean environment

Continue reading →

U don’t like brekfist in bed?

Posted on by
Reply

This is funny on two levels – first the idea that the cat would bring something like a dead squirrel to its owner for breakfast, and secondly, the fact that that is exactly something one of my wife’s family cats would do. Kreamer is very much an outdoor cat, and regularly brings home gifts, we can only assume the purpose of which is to provide for the family. Little does he know that a dead mouse or bird would barely feed one person for the 2 or 3 days between meals he provides, let alone the 5 that lived in the house up until about 6 months ago..

U don’t like brekfist in bed?

U don’t like brekfist in bed?

Hello world!

Posted on by
Reply

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!

Hmmmm. This will be an interesting experiment in blogging.

As a photographer, a thinker, and social nobody, this will be a very interesting time.

So, about me.

At time of writing I am aged 22, I am an immigrant from New Zealand to the United States, having moved in April 2008 to marry my wife in May.

I’ve been a Christian throughout my life, and while I’ve had to stand back and reconsider all options on several occasions, I’ve always found it to be the most fitting based on the evidence in hand.

Today, I came across several quotes by a speaker I knew and loved to hear anyway, that affirmed all the more why I like him. Tony Campolo is a man who is not afraid to speak what he believes, and to back it up with biblical evidence. Just a couple of quotes to fill in space:

  • “I have three things I’d like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a shit. What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night.” — Tony Campolo
  • “But I contend that if we’re providing total medical coverage for every man, woman, and child in Iraq, shouldn’t we at least be doing the same thing for every man, woman, and child in the United States?” — Tony Campolo
  • “Conservatives are people who worship at the graves of dead radicals. Stop to think about that. The people who started this country, George Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, these were not conservatives; these were the radicals of the time. In fact, conservatives always look back on people who they despised and make them into heroes. If you were to listen to the religious right today, they would make you believe that Martin Luther King was one of their flock. In reality, they hated him and did everything they could to destroy him.” — Tony Campolo

I’m also a regular reader of the webcomic XKCD, which describes itself as “A webcomic of romance,
sarcasm, math, and language.”

I enjoy coding in PHP/MySQL, IRC‘ing, photography, and miscellaneous other geek-type activities.

I expect this blog will contain snippets of all of the above, and more. As I rant about the triumphs and tribules of modern Christianity, life in rural Virginia, experiences with idiots on IRC, and miscellaneous other things that happen to find themselves here.

I trust you will enjoy reading it, at least as much as I will enjoy writing it.