Not hope at all

A stop-motion photography video that my good friend made. Great piece of work.

Darwin's God

If you do not want your belief in evolution to be challenged, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK!

Written by Cornelius Hunter, Darwin's God explores the relationship between the theory of evolution and its metaphysical assumptions. Hunter argues that the core of evolutionary theory hinges on presuppositions about the nature of God. Evolution, fundamentally, is thus very religious.

Having read several books on evolution and design, I still never cease to be impressed by the ideas these authors have to offer. Personally, this is probably the strongest book I've read that exposes the weaknesses and frailty of evolution. It does not offer an alternative solution, but this was the author's intention (he does so in his second book, Darwin's proof). Hunter very bravely tackles the most common and powerful arguments for evolution, and (even to my surprise) dismantles them within pages.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the evolution/faith debate. It's written with accessible language, and basically cuts to the chase by engaging with evolution at its very heart. Strong evolution supporters will probably find this book very unsettling, if only because of how deep it cuts. It's hard to describe just how revolutionary it's been in my own thinking. I'm happy for anyone to read this and discuss some of its ideas with me. Let me know if you'd like to borrow it.

These quotes (on the back cover of the book) summarise it very well:

Biophysicist Cornelius Hunter argues perceptively that the main supporting pole of the Darwinian tent has always been a theological assertion: 'God wouldn't have done it that way.' Rather than demonstrating that evolution is capable of the wonders they attribute to it, Darwinists rely on a man-made version of God to argue that He never would have made life with the particular suite of features we observe. In lucid and engaging prose, Hunter shines a light on Darwinian theology, making plain what is too often obscured by technical jargon.
- Michael J. Behe

This wonderfully insight book will prove pivotal in the current reassessment of Darwinian evolution. Darwinists argue that evolution has to be true because no self-respective deity would have created life the way we find it. Hunter unmasks this theological mode of argumentation and argues convincingly that this is not merely incidental but indeed essential to how Darwinists justify evolution.
- William A. Dembski

Old desk, new desk

In 2005, I started my first year at UQ and lived in a little rented apartment in Station Road, Indooroopilly. My room came with a queen-sized bed (a very springy one), which was nice, but it meant that there was little floor space. The only way I could fit a desk into my room was if it was no more than 1.1m long.

At IKEA that year, I found the perfect fit - the Mikael workstation.

It fit in the room like a glove. It had a nice amount of file storage space at the top; I could put CDs and my printer on the shelves, and it even had a built-in whiteboard! The only problem was that I had a CRT monitor then (about the size of the one in the picture), and it meant that I had very little actual desk space. It was nearly impossible to do any work on the desk.

A few years later I bought an LCD monitor, which improved things.

I now had some desk space, and so could actually complete uni assignments on time. Mostly.

Then I became a school teacher. Believe it or not, marking large amounts of papers is one of the job descriptions, and I found myself forced to use the dining table, or my desk at work. Claire and I moved house, which afforded us more space for a larger desk, but I could not find anything suitable that wasn't extravagantly priced.

And then came Edison (from Super AMart)!

Edison was shorter than Mikael, but provided more than 3 times as much desk space! And the best thing was, at the time, it was reduced from $299 to $199! I grabbed it as soon as I could, and, after about 6 hours of assembly, it now stands proudly in my (still unpacked) study.

Built-in CD rack, filing cabinet, keyboard drawer, cupboard, plus a huge desk extension...it's almost like having two desks rolled into one! What a beauty. I can enjoy my computer workstation on the right, plus the massive space on the left for marking and writing reports and generally being messy. Mmm. I hope to have this desk for a long long time.

And since I like doing this, here's another desk challenge for you. You'll need to click and enlarge the last picture for this. Can you find on my desk the following:

• Box of cadbury roses
  
• Your rights at work sticker
  
• A pair of scissors
• My gorillapod
• Warcraft III box set
  

Up & Go!

It started some time early last year, when I discovered in the cereals aisle of the supermarket a new product called Up & Go, by Sanitarium. It looked just like any ordinary popper (packet drink), until I read on the back that it had the same amount of protein, energy and dietary fibre of Weet-Bix and milk! It came in several flavours (at the time) - vanilla ice, strawberry, choc ice, banana, and banana & honey. It also apparently had:

• Less than 1.5% fat
• No artificial colours
• 10 essential vitamins and minerals
• e.g. 50%RDI calcium, 50%RDI folate, 50%RDI vit B12, etc.

I was very intrigued. And so I bought a packet to try.

One thing you should know about me is that when I get up in the morning, breakfast is the last thing I want. I need around a good hour to be conscious enough to tackle a meal. Cereal is my usual breakfast, and is not the most appetising thought when you're groggy. Having said this, I do actually like big breakfasts, like bacon and eggs and hashbrowns etc. But I still need time to work up to it.

The problem comes with my waking up lifestyle, because I usually don't give myself much time in the morning before I have to leave the house. Typically, if I need to be out the door at 8, I'd get out of bed around 740. I don't need much time to get ready in the morning. And you can see why that's at odds with breakfast.

Up & Go tastes like a thick shake. It's best served chilled (said the packet, again) and takes about a minute to finish (brainfreeze notwithstanding). And it's actually pretty good. It took maybe a few mornings for it to grow on me, but now, I'm hooked.

Up & Go was definitely made for people like me. For lazy morning people who can't be bothered to make a big breakfast, and so grab a little packet just before they leave the house and have their breakfast while walking to the train, or on the bus, or when they reach work/school.

Choc ice ended up being my favourite flavour by far (banana/honey second), and it's hard to believe that I can drink a little packet of chocolate milk every morning and have a (relatively) complete breakfast! The most amazing thing about this is that I actually feel full for the rest of the morning. It's like cheating! Only not!

Up & Go, however, is a bit more expensive than your regular breakfasts, on the shelves for around A$1.50 a packet. But every now and then, a sale will bring it down to A$1 a packet (in packs of 6) and that's when I stock up. I mean, $1 breakfasts are great! And so...with slight embarrassment, here is my current Up & Go stock in my pantry cupboard:

Yum. You can see I'm branching out to try different flavours.

Having said all this, I typically only have Up & Go on school mornings, because I usually go quite early to prepare for the day, and can easily have breakfast then, or even as I walk to school. I recently brought Up & Go to my minister's house for a planning meeting, and he went: "You're becoming like those overweight people in Wall-E who drink all their meals!" He's right, but hey, only for breakfast! So far :p

Too much growth!

Last year I made a two-part timelapse video of a seedling germinating, titled Gives Growth and Gives More Growth. (Gives Growth is perhaps my most favourite video that I've made.)

The plant I used came from Australian Geographic, and came in the package of a little can called "Message Bean". It said nothing about what type of plant it was - only that once germinated, it would have a special message imprinted on its seed-leaves.

Anyhow, some of you might have wondered what happened to that plant after my 14-day project. Well I ended up planting it in a wheelbarrow in my garden (in Indooroopilly), and basically left it alone :p I also stuck a wooden pole for it to climb up around. At several points over the next few months it looked close to dying. I watered it irregularly, figuring that I didn't have any use for it anyway.

A few weeks ago, as we were packing up our unit in Indooroopilly and clearing out the garden, this is what greeted me:

The monster! Untangled, it had probably grown to about 6 metres long, with vines and branches reaching all over, all through the clothes line and even across into the neighbour's yard! Madness. Imagine time-lapsing that. Sadly I had to take it all down. It's amazing how life just keeps on going. God is incredibly clever.

Hercules - the Legend

Not Hercules the greek god but Hercules the Mazda 2, our beautiful car.

Hercules has saved our life more than once, most outstandingly during the cyclone that hit The Gap in November last year where we were trapped in church without power and without any road access. Hercules took a huge hit for the team - a massive tree landed next to him and a big branch flew towards the church. If not for Hercules who happened to be parked right outside the church sliding doors, the branch would have smashed through the glass and seriously injured 5-6 people who were standing right there, including 2 young children and Claire.

What a legend.

The storm damage really dealt a big blow to Hercules, but thank God, Suncorp decided not to write him off and fixed every panel that was damaged! We ended up with an almost brand-new car!

Another incredible thing he did for us lately is move practically our entire house. Two weeks ago Claire and I moved from Indooroopilly to Everton Park. This was mostly because I started teaching at Northside (I can walk to school now in 12 minutes!) and our church is in The Gap, which is northwest-ish. We ended up having a delivery truck to help with the really bulky stuff like the beds, fridge, dining table, sofa set etc, but apart from that, we managed to move everything else through Hercules! Not in one trip of course...maybe about 20 trips in total :p But still!!

Because the Mazda 2 is classified as a fairly small car, it's assumed that it would have a small storage space too. You couldn't be more wrong! Once all the seats are down, Hercules has more space than many medium to large sized cars. He even has enough length to move my full sized digital piano.


Everything you see in these next few photos was all transported to our new house through Hercules over a period of 2 weeks.

What a legend.

I should mention that our place looks a lot nicer than that now :p Our getting it was yet another story of God's grace. More on that another day.

The mouse that changed my life

A mouse entered my world a couple of months ago, and ever since then, my life has been changed for the better, forever.

Enter: the Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000! (a mouthful, I know!)
Allow me to explain.

I just began teaching at Northside Christian College this year, and over the summer holidays they installed in every classroom a projector, a set of speakers, and a simple trio of cords (VGA, LAN and 3.5mm audio) for easy laptop set up. In addition to that, they also gave every teacher this year a new laptop (thanks in part to Mr. Rudd) - a DELL Latitude E6400. To be used for school purposes of course.

All this has meant that I can walk into class and have the powerpoint presentation for that lesson up and running within 30 seconds, if my laptop is already on. And boy has that influenced my teaching. During my pracs last year I taught mostly without powerpoint slides, which has it benefits too. But if you know how to use them, having visual slides are pure gold.

Anyhow, I found that during my lessons, I was often locked within a 1m radius of my laptop, because I needed to hit the spacebar to change slides. I figured that a way I could free myself from this was to get a wireless mouse, so I could operate the slides from anywhere in the classroom.

Most wireless mouses have an operating range of about 1-2m. If you want anything beyond that, you'd have to go bluetooth or 2.4Ghz, and that costs upwards of $60. And then there was the issue of battery life, the type of tracking technology, etc. After a lot of homework, I ended up with the best mouse ever.
Microsoft has a large range of keyboards and mouses, but in particular has designed one mouse that suits every need of the presenter. And that is the Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000. Here's a quick run through of its features:

• 10m wireless range, thanks to its 2.4 Ghz bluetooth transmitter
• High definition laser tracking technology
• Dedicated buttons for presentation (in particular Powerpoint)
• Media remote control functionality
• A built-in laser pointer (!)
• An on/off switch

By this point, you should be lying on the floor in shock.

So on one hand, this mouse looks just like any ordinary mouse (bar a cord), with a couple of extra buttons on top. And indeed, it works just like a mouse, except much smoother, and from up to 10m away from the computer (which is ages!). But turn the mouse upside down, and voila - it turns into a remote control, or a presentation device! If you're in windows media player, those buttons will move back or forwards through tracks, play/pause, even adjust the volume. If you're in powerpoint, those buttons will move back or forwards through slides, and even blank the screen. And if you press the yellow sun-like button, it becomes a high-powered laser pointer! How crazy is that?

This means that in Mr. Ting's classes, he can roam around the whole classroom (very effective for controlling behaviour - proximity) while keeping total control of the presentation of his lesson via his wireless mouse. I've even been able to give the mouse to students while at their own desks for them to "write" stuff on the screen (using powerpoint's Digital Ink - aka the pen tool) or complete drag and drop activities, etc.

Even cooler is the fact that my laptop has an inbuilt bluetooth receiver, which means I don't even have to plug in the bluetooth receive dongle! I just turn my mouse on and go!

And to top it off...this mouse retails at A$130, but I got it for $50! :) All thanks to internet shopping (never pay retail price!), plus a cashback offer that microsoft was offering earlier this year - 25% off retail price for all keyboards and mouses. Beautiful.

I absolutely love my mouse, and amusingly, so do my kids. (When I first used it, one grade 8 stared at it for ages before finally saying - "that is so cool".) It's made my lessons very flexible and dynamic, which is something I strive for.

If you're someone who needs to do a lot of presentations and like to move around, this is definitely a mouse for you. Otherwise, stick to your own mouse. It's probably all that it needs to do for you already. I just wanted to share how this mouse has changed my teaching life ;)

Using the holidays wisely

And I'm on holidays again! Well, it's my first holiday as a teacher really. Term 1 just ended last week, and I have a 2 week Easter break! (Yay for private schools! :p State schools only get 1 week for Easter, usually.) A necessary break, it is, though. Term 1 was rather tiring. I've been told that term 1 is often the busiest term in the year, for teachers. Especially so at Northside, where almost all the school camps fall in term 1. And the first term is even crazier for brand new teachers, apparently. I've definitely had my ups and downs, but so far absolutely no regrets about doing teaching. It's never boring!

There's lots on my plate this holidays (which is already 1/4 over, really). This is roughly what I plan to do, although I'm aware that I'll probably won't finish all of it:

On a personal level

• Reflect and pray and read the bible
• Spend good time with Claire
  

With regards to church

• Work with my minister on planning the Good Friday and Easter Sunday services
• Letterbox drops in The Gap, advertising the above services
• Start teaching the drums to a kid in church
  
• Lifegroup social!
  

School work....

• Write unit plans for term 2 (not a small job!)
• Finish tabulating results and writing reports for term 1

Day-to-day stuff

• Unpack the many boxes that still litter my house
• Start exercising!

Leisure! (aka computer games)

• Finish Lego Starwars II
• Begin and complete Red Alert 3: Uprising
• Begin Warcraft III (kinda old game, but still good! I started it in 2002 when it first came out but didn't get far.)
• Blog more
  

I'm going pretty good so far... here is proof :p


Not bad huh. The stud sprouting fountain made of gold studs is what you get when you complete the game. Plus a big sense of satisfaction.

Stay tuned.

Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

My desk

I'm currently in school, in a spare period, marking 30 grade 8 exam papers. Fun fun fun. This is what my desk looks like right now:

Yup. On the top left shelf are the other 100 or so papers I had to mark over the past two weeks. Man it's tiring. Although, having said that, once you get into it, it's actually...almost fun. It becomes routine, giving the ticks and crosses... and it's quite nice reading responses and seeing your students think and realising they did actually listen to you in class. A bit.

And you may have seen it in the picture, but look what else I got today:

Pretty sweet hey. I knew there would be something good about teaching...

Anyway, here's a challenge. Try to locate the following items on my desk (you may need to click to enlarge)

• Cenovis multivitamin bottle
• Clone trooper
• Lego batman
  

Tell me if you find any! Back to work for me.