This looks very interesting. I’m not sure how it differs from flow-charting a biblical passage, but I’m definitely going to spend the time to learn how it works (~ 1.7MB vid loads automatically - not great design).

Any time spent focusing closely on the Word of God is precious and never wasted.

Via someone, via someone. Probably Craig.

They are going to sell a billion of these.

It’s no accident the screen looks like the iPhone. All hail the Halo Effect, mighty servant of capitalism.

Reckoner is amazing. (iTunes store link).

Beg/borrow/steal some good headphones, dial up the vol, and get completely lost.

Don’t stare.

Is out for Windows, Mac, Linux and Solaris. Download here.

I’ve never been much of a fan, but apparently this release is good. And it’s better than pirating MS Office.

College exams start four weeks today, 10th November.

So begins the 400m sprint to the finish line. I am going to win this year. And I’m going to cross the line with much chest beating and self-congratulation.

For fellow students, Moore College or otherwise, here are some tips on studying from Ze Frank. It’s called Study Then Sleep, and I post it every year around this time.

Mild content warning.

I snapped a screenshot on Friday of the the row of photo-lead stories highlighted on the SMH site. Here are three of the five:

These didn’t appear in that order, I joined them, but they were all there at the same time in the five photo-lead stories above the fold.

I think it’s disgusting. Playboy, lesbianism and porn, right in your face.

It seems to me the site is including more and more sexual content. If there’s a story on a formula 1 driver, they’ll have the headline link next to a photo of some of those formula 1 models in tight shorts. The models don’t have anything to do with the story, but the smh people know that they’ll get lots more clicks if they show some (-one elses) T & A.

Stories with sexual content are big attractors, and the nature of online presentation means that Fairfax can get instant data on how many people are clicking through to various stories. The temptation to do a disproportionate number of stories with sexual content, many of them salacious, is evidently very high, in the quest for advertiser dollars.

There’s an ongoing conversation about the sexualisation of our children. I’m worried we’re sexualising ourselves.

In addition, I often feel like I’m being guided to certain stories by the site, herded toward stories where advertisers have spent big money. These are the ones with catchy content: celebrity, sexuality, controversy, along with the ubiquitous saucy picture.

I still much prefer reading the print version of the Herald, because I resent feeling shepherded when I use the online site, and the print version at least makes it feel like I’m contributing to the decision-making process.

What do you think? Is it getting worse? Are they to blame? Is there anything we can do to turn back the tide?

(Incidentally, there is a text version of the smh site, but it’s just the headlines, which makes it next to useless).

The proposed bill to legalise abortion in Victoria is before the Legislative Council (the Senate). It’s been described by its opponents as being at the extreme end of ‘pro-choice’ legislation. I agree.

Here’s a link to the bill on the Victorian Parliament site (PDF docs). It’s a bit confusing how it’s laid out at first.

The first two docs are the initial bill, the ‘Introduction Print’ is the bill, and the ‘Introduction Print Explanatory Memorandum’ explains the aim of the bill and the legal context.

The first table, ‘First House Details: Legislative Assembly’, shows what happened in the lower house. There were a number of suggested amendments by various representatives. These amendments included things like removing the requirement for someone who conscientiously objects to have to refer the women seeking an abortion to another medical practitioner who they know does not have a conscientious objection, as well as providing protection from discrimination for people who have such an objection.

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Dan Phillips from Pyromaniacs suggests a ‘novel’ approach to marriage counselling.

It’s good.

I agree with the first commenter:

Hmmm - you mean there is Pastoral Marriage Counselling that doesn’t look like that?

I cannot even picture “pastoral” counselling unless it resembles this.

Old news (Mar-Apr 2007), but excellent reading.

Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga (who’s brain is the size of the sun) details ‘The Dawkins Confusion’, reviewing Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion.

Dawkins seems to have chosen God as his sworn enemy. (Let’s hope for Dawkins’ sake God doesn’t return the compliment.)

Sn. Ap.

J. Mark Bertrand shows why one of his passions (well printed and bound Bibles) is less of a triviality than you might think.

Hopefully the new RL Allan ESVs will arrive soon. I’ve been expecting mine since May, if you can believe that.

Incidentally, Mark is also the author of Rethinking Worldview: Learning to Think, Live, and Speak in This World, published by Crossway. I don’t know what it’s like, but it might be of interest to a Philosophy 3 student doing worldviews at the moment.

These are too funny.

The first gives us new lyrics to the Take On Me music video, by matching the words to exactly what happens on screen. If you were alive in the 80s, you know this song.

The next one is audio only, but is a song called Title of the Song, using a description of the words to a love song, rather than the actual words. You’ll see what I mean. The infectious laughing of the original hearers only helps.

Via kottke. Again. Subscribe to kottke.org.