Suggestions requested

Here is one of the larger panoramas from the trip to Peel forest. As you see there are some major issues with it. I deliberately took images to form a step like panorama how ever I'm not exactly sure what to do with the bit's that aren't photo. In this one I've just mad them black and stuck a frame around it however it looks rather odd. So any body got some suggestions to improve the image?
And no going back to take more photos to fill it in properly is NOT and option.

Busy at uni.

Got to love camera phones don't you? This is after 15mins work with the gimp. Any way it's of one of the rooms I've spent ALOT of time in over the last year or so!

A Simpler Origin for Life

A look at the current state of Abiogenesis (chemical origin of life).

Scientific American.com: A Simpler Origin for Life

Fundamentals of Christian Faith

What do you think the critical key points of Christian faith are?

Thinking about it I can only really think of 3 that I consider completely and utterly required for one to consider ones self Christian:

• That God exists.
• That Christ existed and was the son of God or God incarnate or something similar (what ever the correct theological term is for that).
• That he died and rose again.

I do not however consider these to be requirements for admittance to heaven (should it exist) or to be a good person and so forth.

Can any one think of any other absolutely fundamental ideas for a Christian or disagree with any of the ones posted above?

Personally I'm not so sure that the 3rd one listed above is critical.

Cheeky Vista sale!

Dragon PC Vista Ultimate ed OEM version
You know how legally OEM software isn't supposed to be sold with out new computer hardware? Well these guys are certainly following the letter of the law they're selling Vista Ultimate ed OEM with a 1gb Pen drive, computer hardware eh ;-)?!
Which makes sense in an odd sort of manner seeing Vista can use a Pendrive as additional Cache memory for the computer making a Pendrive effectively part of the computer.
Any way the result is you can get Vista Ultimate 32b ed off them for NZ$320 compared to say NZ$650 for the Upgrade 32/64b version from DickSmith.
The other amusing thing is if you managed to buy it with out the pendrive they list it for NZ$333, so what do you know that 1GB pendrive is worth -$13.

Sketches of a Mind - Communication & A Changing God

We seem to be quite a hard species to communicate, we certainly have enough problems occur within our species due to communication failure. Following this sort of line of thought I was thinking about how God has attempted to communicate with us some many times and how so many times it has failed miserably due in most cases to humans losing interest or going off to do there own thing.

Any way here are some of what I think are different methods the bible portrays God using to communicate with us through out history, in a rough sort of chronological order.

1. God the Immortal Farther: Walking with us, teaching us, showing humans this world. Problem being first time he goes on "holiday" or something and stops paying attention for a little bit what do you know? People have started doing stuff he suggested was a bad idea forgotten the message!
2. Distant, Wrathful, Almighty God: Resetting the world (perhaps?) because only one chap will listen and things have deteriorated to a point It can't stand! Chosen people/family's tested to see if they're worthy and truly follow It. Third party non-human messengers and so forth, a God who seems at home in Myth and Legend. Seemed to work fine for small groups of people or individuals, but didn't seem to scale up.
   
3. Classical Mythical God: Chosen leaders, hero's and nations. Miracles Pillars of fire, rescuing and creating an entire nation. Establishment of structured religion, High Priests, Sacrifices. Punishing those who stuff up or turn from them, and those who oppose It's chosen people and nations. Unfortunately doesn't seem to work very well at all even while the miracles are happening people turn away or want more.
   
4. Prophetic God: Prophets and Prophetic Kings, divinely appointed leaders, direct but less flashy miracles, working through the Prophets. The established religion supports and follows the prophets. Cycles of punishment and intervention announced and guided by the Prophets. People connect with the prophets they may not like the messages but they understand them and follow them while the prophet survives. Slowly gets less and less effective though until only a few people accept and follow the prophets.
5. Distant God V1: Steps back from human affairs reduces intervention lets people cope for them selves. Suddenly some people realise that some things missing and fall back to the Established religion, placing greater and greater importance on it. Eventually though the religion becomes to established, less about God and more about the man made rules, laws, tradition and appearance.
6. Human God: The next/final step up from Prophets. Christ. God becomes human, takes human form. God living with us experiencing what we are, eating, drinking, sleeping and ageing with us. Eventually dieing for us. Humanity fully embraced, Mortality experienced the uncertainty of human existence comprehended and the uncertainty of what comes after! A tragedy of miscommunication finally understandable in human terms. Something that reaches out and touches the human "soul" in a manner that we can comprehend. This provides a personal human faith, a real flesh and blood being we empathise with, comprehend to a degree, someone we can seek to understand, to follow, to love and believe in. Promises that it isn't the end that there is hope for a future.
7. Distant Loving God V2: The message delivered in an understandable form, allow it to remain a human faith something people hold to as a matter of faith and belief. Reduces the temptation for humans to blame every thing on God and seek God to do every thing. Waiting till the promised time when humans have truly understood the message.

The Future what comes next?
The End?
Another form and stage should humans forget the current one?

What do people think?
Do you agree disagree with this sort of series of views of God?

More links, Gui's and Isaac Asimov on Religion

Don Norman's jnd.org / UI Breakthrough-Command Line Interfaces - The second coming of the CLI? well worth a read if your interested in computing.



The Reagan Doctrine by Isaac Asimov - Isaac Asimov looks at a statement by Ronald Reagan saying

"that one couldn't trust the Soviet government because the Soviets didn't believe in God or in an afterlife and therefore had no reason to behave honorably, but would be willing to lie and cheat and do all sorts of wicked things to aid their cause. "

Dumbing down evolution to kill it

Dumbing down evolution to kill it - Los Angeles Times Worth a quick read, it's not an in depth article or anything but it does make a few good points.

Supreme Commander Demo

I've been playing a bit of the Supreme Commander demo recently. It's kind of cool made by the chap behind Total Annihilation it shares a number of similarities with it, lots of units, cool graphics an interesting tech and design. One of the more interesting things about it at least from the demo, would be it appears that the strategy elements are finally getting a bit more love. Most of the RTS tend to focus a lot more on micromanaging units something that by far better fits the definition of Tactics rather than strategy, for SC though the units and buildings generally seem smart enough that your left concentrating on the bigger picture troop movement, location, and balancing your building with your resource consumption it's quite a nice change. Any way if your into RTS gaming then I'd suggest giving the demo ago (warning the demo is 1gb).

Speculum Update

A few images from Jim's birthday.