sol95's Xanga

Need Help!

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 05:54:04 GMT

This is an open post to any budding photographers out there who still read my (rarely updated) blog...

I've been a keen photographer since 1990 and got my first SLR in 1988. There was a 15 month phase when I was at uni where I was shooting on average 3 rolls of film every 2 weeks. For those of you who remember film photography, this was not cheap! :P

Of course, I've now moved on to a DSLR which is MUCH cheaper than film!

But I have yet to find a solution to this one big issue...

What's the best bag?!?!

So, if you guys have found what you think is the perfect bag, let me know.

My kit is a body + grip, 4 lenses (1 long zoom with hood reversed, 2 mid-sized zooms, 1 small prime) and various bits and pieces like cables and memory cards and chargers. Also a tripod on occasions.

Celtics Win It!

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 02:54:27 GMT

All the so-called experts were tipping the Lakers.

As for me, I was tipping the Celtics - in 6 (check earlier post).

And the result?

The Celtics win title number 17 in 6 games! :)

Good on them! They deserved to win!

Global Slavery Today

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:50:08 GMT

2008 is the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in America. This is a wonderful thing to celebrate, but what many people fail to realise, myself included until very recently, is that slavery persists today in the modern world at an alarming rate.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN in 1948 states that “slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.” But the numbers prove that these admirable words are only rhetoric.

Here are some very sobering points:

1. There are more people in slavery now than at any other time in human history.

In its 400 years, the transatlantic slave trade is estimated to have shipped up to 12 million Africans to various colonies in the West. 12 million people in 400 years.

Compare that to today. Conservative estimates have 28 million people in slavery throughout the world this very day.

2. The value of slaves has decreased.

A slave in 1850 in the American South cost the equivalent of approximately $40,000 today. The cost of a slave today averages around $90, depending on the work they are forced to carry out.

A young adult male for menial labour might only fetch $40, whereas an HIV-free female might attract a price of up to $1000.

Because slaves today are so cheap, people have become disposable and their living conditions are worse than ever before as a result of their value.

3. Slavery still exists in the Western World

In America, estimates by the US State Department suggest up to 17,500 slaves are brought into the US every year. The total number most likely exceeds 1,000,000 people in the US today.

4. To buy all slaves out of slavery could cost as little as $40 per family.

The $40 figure was provided by the Center for Global Education, New York. To put this into perspective, all slaves in the world today could be bought and freed with one week's cost of the war in Iraq.

Here is an eye-opening recent article

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Sat, 31 May 2008 10:09:22 GMT

Even though I'm a Lakers fan, I say Celtics in 6.

Wishful Thinking!!!!

Fri, 23 May 2008 02:54:01 GMT

In this day and age, does he really think someone's going to give him a lift?!?!

My Computer...a retrospective

Mon, 19 May 2008 16:49:50 GMT

A while ago, I posted a retrospective of the mobile phone/PDA gear I’ve used over the years. In that blog, I mused about the possibility of taking a stroll down memory lane in terms of my computer use over the years.

The time for that stroll is now. So without further ado, here I go… :)

IBM PC (1982-1983)

This was my very first introduction to a home computer. In August 1981, the original IBM PC was released for general sale, and in so doing started off a home computer revolution. It was way too expensive for an average family like us to buy, but as my dad worked for IBM, from early 1982, we were allowed to use one of the company machines over the weekend.

So each Friday, as the time ticked down to the final school bell, I’d be a bundle of excitement, looking forward to running home to play Tic-Tac-Toe, Hangman, Othello, or Boggy Marsh on a program set called FriendlyWare. I didn’t find out until much later that this was an exclusive in-house program, and wasn’t released to the public until 1987.

These weren’t the fancy graphics-heavy productions of today. The computer would boot into a DOS prompt, which was basically a black screen with a few cryptic symbols in green on screen. As for the game set, it was programmed in BASIC and used ASCII art characters.

Forget about riding around on my BMX with my mates who lived on the same street. It was “Let’s gather around this green monochrome screen to play these oh-so-addictive games!”

I also had a chance to use the updated IBM XT and AT models in various occasions, most notably during the IBM Computer Camps that were held for the children of IBM employees during the Christmas holidays. This was a week long course where students were given magnetic strip photo IDs, and went to various classes on different computer software platforms in the morning, culminating in a 2 hour free for all in the afternoons.

MicroBee (1982-1987 @ school)

Around the same time, my school decided to set up some computer rooms. And the computer they settled on was the BBC Acorn Microbee. Once a week from the end of 4^th class, our class would parade up the corridor to what was once a storage room that had been converted into the Computer Lab.

There we learned the most rudimentary of programming skills which, in hindsight were so primitive, yet still did not fail to amaze us. For example

10           cls
20           print “My name is Steve”
30           goto 20
40           end

Seeing the screen fill up with “My name is Steve” line after line was rather mesmeric!

This same computer was used in my high school as well. And in 1985, when I was in year 7, we had the amazing breakthrough of colour screens instead of the green or amber monochrome. Needless to say, whenever we had Computer Science classes, students would dash to grab one of the new colour computers instead of being saddled with old technology!

By about 1987 though, these computers started to get phased out and were replaced by Apple’s Macintosh computers.

Commodore 64 (1984 @ friend)

We live in a world where we now have ultra-fast broadband internet connections and your average home computer is capable of rendering almost photo-realistic graphics on the fly. Yet people still complain how slow their computer is.

If you had one of these babies in your youth, you'd really understand the meaning of slow in computing terms. It's not that the computer itself was slow, but the time it took to load programs. But more on that later...

At a time when I was saddled with a computer that had a monochrome screen and little if no games, to be introduced to the Commodore 64 was like moving from Black & White TVs to full and glorious colour! You see, the Commodore 64 was a cheap and cheerful computer that would hook up to your home TV and worked in COLOUR! Mind you, there were only 16 colours available (I think…), but a 16 colour palette is still better than a colour palette of 1!

And this computer was literally a games machine! Sure, you could use it to do word-processing and various other things which would now be categorised under the term “productivity suites”, but no one I knew who had this computer used it for anything else other than gaming. And there were lots and lots of games available for this.

But the catch was the time it took to load each program. The basic Commodore 64 model came with a small little side unit which was used to load programs for the computer. This drive was literally a cassette tape player. And to load the programs which were stored on normal cassette tapes, you’d press play, and you’d have to wait until it got to the end.

So the usual routine to play a game on this computer would be to turn it on, put in the cassette tape of your desired game, press play, then go outside for about 20-30 minutes while the program loaded. Then you’d come back in and start playing. Sometimes, the load up didn’t work properly, in which case you had to rewind the tape, and play it through again!

Great memories of head-to-head split-screen Pitstop!

IBM PC JX (1985-1988)

We finally bought our own computer in 1985, when I was in year 7. My dad still worked at IBM, so it was an IBM computer. More to the point, the newly released IBM PC JX. It came with a new 3.5” disk-drive, instead of the older 5.25” drives. We also splurged and got a mouse, joystick, and lightpen for the computer, along with a latest-technology colour inkjet printer.

One problem though…my dad didn’t buy any software for it, let alone any games. All we had was DOS.

So when I complained that we needed software, my dad’s response was jaw-droppingly astounding. He gave me a thick book and told me, “Write them yourself.”

The title of the book was “Computer Programming”.

At this point, it’d be nice if I could say I then went off and read the book cover to cover and then proceeded to write my own amazing programs. But in reality, I just went and asked my friends who had IBM PCs for their programs, most of which were games.

Yes, I know. But in my defence, I was but a young teenager who hadn’t even heard the word “copyright”, let alone knew and understood what it was.

This computer was the very first one that I used to do some of my assignments. Typing stuff out and printing it in colour, albeit only 4 colours, was a huge advantage in terms of getting better marks. But this was also the time I realised the importance of saving your work meticulously.

I had just finished typing up what ended up being an 8 page project with pictures on coal for science. I was very impressed with my work, and glad I’d finished, I had a stretch, including my legs. As I stretched my legs, they caught the power cord coming down the back of the desk, and I managed to pull it out.

There was a sudden flash on screen, then…black. As my heart skipped a beat, I vainly tried to convince myself that what had just happened really hadn’t. But yes, I’d pulled the power on my computer.

I turned it back on, hoping against hope that my work would magically appear on screen. To no avail. It was all gone.

Well, I did type it up again that night. But it was a lesson learned. A very painful one!

Apple Macintosh (1985-1986 friend)

Towards the end of 1984, a new paradigm in computing was introduced – the Apple Macintosh. What everyone takes for granted today in terms of a graphical user interface that you navigate with a mouse wasn’t always the case. My first 5 years of computing was about DOS and cryptic and totally bewildering sequences of symbols and codes to get the computer to do things.

As I got into year 7, my friend at school, who happened to live right next to the school, had a new Macintosh. So every now and again, whenever I was at his place, I’d have a go of this amazing new computer which was so small and so cute, yet could do so much more than my clunky IBM PC could, and all with the ease of moving the mouse to control the cursor onscreen.

I was hooked!

And when the school started to phase out the MicroBees and replaced them with Apple Macintosh SEs along with scanners and programs such as PageMaker and the original Photoshop, I really wished we could get a Mac instead of an IBM. This was never going to happen. Because firstly, this was a time when decent computers (like the Mac or IBM PCs) were in the $3000-$4000 range, and there was no way my dad was going to pay $4000 for a Mac when he could get an IBM for less than $2000 with staff discount. But more importantly, my dad thought the Mac was a toy and gimmick and was intensely loyal to IBM.

So all I could do was admire the Mac from a distance until such time as I could buy my own.

A few years ago, I saw someone in my apartment throwing out a Macintosh SE. I asked if it was still working, and he said yes. As he didn't mind me taking it, I did. And I still have in my study an Apple Macintosh SE that was made in 1988 and has a 20mb hard-disk that still works fine.

to be continued...

Reflections...

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 11:38:31 GMT

My song is love unknown,
My Saviour’s love to me;
Love to the loveless shown,
That they might lovely be.
O who am I, that for my sake
My Lord should take, frail flesh and die?

He came from His blest throne
Salvation to bestow;
But men made strange, and none
The longed for Christ would know:
But O! my Friend, my Friend indeed,
Who at my need His life did spend.

Sometimes they strew His way,
And His sweet praises sing;
Resounding all the day
Hosannas to their King:
Then “Crucify!” is all their breath,
And for His death they thirst and cry.

Why, what hath my Lord done?
What makes this rage and spite?
He made the lame to run,
He gave the blind their sight,
Sweet injuries! Yet they at these
Themselves displease, and ’gainst Him rise.

They rise and needs will have
My dear Lord made away;
A murderer they saved,
The Prince of life they slay,
Yet cheerful He to suffering goes,
That He His foes from thence might free.

In life, no house, no home
My Lord on earth might have;
In death no friendly tomb
But what a stranger gave.
What may I say? Heav’n was His home;
But mine the tomb wherein He lay.

Here might I stay and sing,
No story so divine;
Never was love, dear King!
Never was grief like Thine.
This is my Friend, in Whose sweet praise
I all my days could gladly spend.

This is a hymn not many people today remember. It was one of my favourites from my youth. I went to a Christian school, and we sang this regularly during our chapel services.

For those who don't know it, have a listen here...

So to sing it once more this past week brought fresh to me the beauty of the lyrics and melody of this hymn, but more the unfathomable grace of our God who would save such a wretch as I.

It's currently 5am, and I've been awake for about an hour in my hotel room in LA.

The past 3 days, I was in Louisville, Kentucky for a pastors' conference, the Together For the Gospel Conference. God has used it greatly to lift up and encourage me soul.

16 months of flat out ministry in a church plant had been quite exhausting, so it was wonderful to have this time to be fed. But more than that, to hear from 8 wonderful keynote speakers to stay the course and remain committed firmly to preaching the Word of God alone, without resorting to human means or techniques has been a real boost.

To preach Christ faithfully in and out of season, and to minister His grace to those in my flock as an under-shepherd.

I've Had Enough of Garbage Dispensers....

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 11:28:06 GMT

WARNING: This is a semi rant...besides, no one really reads Xangas anymore. If you're one of the few, post me a message. :)

With that disclaimer out of the way, here goes.

I preached on end-times issues today. Today was the first Sunday after our series on Job, and I couldn't wait to preach on this. It's been bubbling up inside of me for a while, and I took the first chance I could to preach on this topic.

You see, I really don't appreciate the recent influx of total randoms who make their way to Sydney in general, and to the Korean-Australian 2nd generation in particular to teach one narrow interpretation of what will happen in the end-times as Christ returns.

Why does this rub me up the wrong way?

Throughout the vast bulk of the history of Christianity, equally committed and faithful Bible believing Christians have held to 3 main views about end-times. In the past 200-250 years, a 4th made an appearance. This was more a reaction against the move towards liberalism in many churches, so well-meaning, but poorly trained lay leaders in America took everything in the Bible literally, even to the point of nonsense. It's against this backdrop that dispensationalism grew. In the 20th century, this view became very popular in American churches, and by default, in Korean ones as well.

While I cannot see how the speculative scenarios of the dispensationalists can be argued for purely from a biblical standpoint, I accept that there are people who hold to this view who are faithful and committed Christians. People I happily acknowledge as my brothers and sisters in Christ.

However, what has got me riled is the insistence, both covert and overt, among some of the randoms who have made a flying visit to Australia that this view is the ONLY correct way of interpreting and understanding end-times issues.

This plainly is not true, and such an insistence does no service in edifying believers in Sydney.

Not only that, the current situation in Sydney makes this even more serious. Within 2nd generation Korean-Australians, there is a huge lack of pastoral oversight. There are only 7 fully trained, qualified, and ordained English speaking ministers of the Gospel who have a Korean heritage here in Sydney. Into this pastoral vacuum come these randoms teaching a message which is based on fringe issues on which Christians hold differing views. And they teach this view implying that it is the ONLY view that is correct.

This is a perfect recipe to cause confusion!

I've had enough of garbage dispensers.

And today, I preached on the way Reformed Theology understands and holds to the end-times issues. If you'd like me to elaborate, then drop me a message or email, and I'll get back to you in person. But suffice it to say that not many people have had a chance to hear an explanation of end-times as traditionally understood and held by the Presbyterian church.

Note, just because such a view has been traditionally held, it does not automatically make it right. I grant that much in tradition is wrong, but just because something is tradition does not make it wrong. And in this case, the traditional view adopted by Reformed Theology is, in my estimation and examination of Scripture, the simplest and most harmonious way to understand the end-times issues in the context of the whole of the Bible.

I'm really sick of randoms who come and stir up people for seemingly no other reason than to bring glory to themselves.

Sydney, do you want God?

Then let's not make Him in our own image, but take Him completely as He reveals Himself in Scripture.

BTW: The new Starfield CD is excellent!

LOL!!!

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:13:28 GMT

Love It!

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 06:16:40 GMT

BTW, it's a magic-eye thingy. click the above image to enlarge, then you know the rest. :)