I’ve delivered simple, clear and easy-to-use services for 20 years, for startups, scaleups and government. I write about the nerdy bits here.
— @joahua
Wow. This is seriously the slowest machine EVAR. I presume it’s not just this one, and hence conclude: Mac Minis suck when it comes to burning DVDs (or any task that actually involves much processing power, for that matter!) It is somewhat redeemed by Apple’s software’s comparative speed, but when it comes down to quantifiable tasks like burning a disc… yeah, it’s crap.
I’m not sure I’d trust my cosmetic surgery (which, you know, I have done so regularly) to a place that have lasers and crashing computers… note the message on the screen: “…Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.” Oh yeah? What about my arm!?!
Pew, pew! Lasers!
*ahem*
I wasn’t driving.
The trip up took about… 3 hours or something ridiculous, coz a bus flipped (no one was seriously hurt but there were helicopters and blocked lanes and stuff). Hence it getting dark.
The theme of the weekend was “Now and Then” (as in “now, and then”, not the colloquial expression meaning “occasionally”), looking at various bits of the Bible with about 3,000 people from across NSW (and a decent number from other states, too) in a big shed, albeit a big shed with a stage and stuff. Basically, it was looking at how we should be living now in view of ‘the end’, and also the nature of that end — a guy called Luke Tattersall (one of three speakers for the weekend) looked at Revelation, which was… interesting. It’s probably the first time I’ve seen that part of the bible really approached, which was good.
Another great part of the weekend was just hanging out with people. I met a whole bunch of new people at the place I was staying, and caught up with old friends (as in… friends who have been friends for a long time, not ex- friends!) and got to hang out with various people from church (everyone was staying pretty close to the site this time, which was cool).
These are the people who were staying in the same place… yep, Lauren was there (pleasant surprise… wasn’t expecting there to be anyone I knew!). If you think you can see something green on my face, you’re right. One of the talks suggested going around sticking green/red stickers on everything that would/would not last past death… I had a green sticker for some reason on the last day so wound up wearing it on my face. It eventually came off and is now on my camera. Go figure! (My little Optio is pretty durable, but I think past-the-end-of-the-world is pushing it.)
Oh, and you must excuse the visual horribleness of that photo. I’ve tried to clean it up as best I can (making parts worse, but it’s more balanced in terms of colour now), but the person taking the photo was utterly convinced that having people in full sun would be a disaster (for the photos). I have no idea how she came to this conclusion: suffice to say, it is abundantly clear she was completely wrong ;-)
Scrabble is the new cool game. Or, more accurately, a variant of scrabble that involves making words as letters are turned over and stealing them from the opposing team by coming up with variants derived from the same word spellings. Great fun! (I’ve heard this called “Grabble”, if that means anything to anyone).
To the tune of “It’s a small world afterall”: I also managed to catch up with Katy and Jo Mason… which was odd, because they totally didn’t have any link to each other beforehand, but somehow knew the same people and wound up at the same house one night. As did I.
Aside from all that, there was a picnic one day and this picture was taken of a kid sitting on someone’s lap, listening to an iPod in utterly engrossed fashion. I include it here for its sheer visual awesomeness.
This article is actually pretty impressive (for a left-wing, secular publication) in the views it presents. Well, I say this because I agree largely with what’s said (and didn’t expect I would). Nathan Tasker is definitely on the mark:
[…] He’s cautious about labelling the trend a “revival” because an emphasis on numbers can miss the point. “I see the shift in numbers. I see a rise in youth going to church. I see youth groups trying to respond to that by being culturally relevant. But sometimes they end up being culturally irrelevant because they forget what makes them true.” […] “I sometimes wonder if our church growth might be just because it’s another thing you can add to your list. For every person who’s singing along in genuine worship, there’s always another one who sees it as the next cool thing to do. Spirituality becomes today’s atheism; it’s just as narcissistic.”
I’m vaguely surprised this got published, actually. An interesting read.
