James Ogley

Button order in YaST

James Ogley james at jamesthevicar dot com — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:14:00 +0000

Stefan: This is really good news. When I first proposed the GTK+ front-end for YaST as part of the GSoC last year (or was it 2006?), part of the proposal was that YaST-GTK+ should be HIG compliant. I personally think this should still be the goal in order to make it fit seamlessly into a GNOME install on openSUSE (or indeed any other distro that people choose to package YaST for).

Be safe on Facebook

James Ogley james at jamesthevicar dot com — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 19:16:00 +0000

A few people I know ("friends") on Facebook have recently had messages/wall posts sent in their name that link to malware. It seems to me that these issues demonstrate two things to avoid:

Using Internet Explorer. This should be the case anyway incidentally.
"Remembering" your details. This should also be the case anyway - on any authenticated site.

You see, having your details saved within IE makes it very easy for Mr Malware to post in your name, in the background, without you knowing anything about it.

Don't do it. Don't use IE. Don't save authentication details. Do neither of these things. Make the world a better place.

Planet SUSE is alive again

James Ogley james at jamesthevicar dot com — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:53:00 +0000

Thanks to Zonker for dropping me a line while I was away to let me know Planet SUSE was unavailable. Sadly, there was little I could do from the middle of a field in Somerset - even with my new Nokia N95, having not yet installed PuTTY on it. Anyway, it's now back - as am I.

Enjoy BBC Radio in Banshee again

James Ogley james at jamesthevicar dot com — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:22:00 +0000

Banshee 1.2.1 has been released. Loads of fixes in it, so before doing anything else ...

One notable fix is Fix ASX and mms:// support. This means that, if you're using the gstreamer packages from PackMan, you can enjoy the full-range of BBC radio stations within Banshee again.

To do so, simply download the BBC radio playlist and save it to ~/.config/banshee/plugins/stations/user - restart Banshee and you should have a new category BBC Radio within the Radio section.

I don't know for how long the BBC are going to maintain this service though as they seem to be moving everything to the iPlayer.

Catching up with myself

James Ogley james at jamesthevicar dot com — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:59:00 +0000

Drove over to Somerset on the Wednesday of New Wine and we went to Wookey Hole with K, M and M which was a wonderful day.
On Thursday of last week, I demonstrated my awesome ability to go yet another year without dieing - check me out! I'm now 32 and still going strong. If I was a goalkeeper, I'd be hitting my peak now.
For some reason, the older I get, the younger and more student-like I seem to dress. In keeping with that, yesterday I bought a pair of blue Converse All-Stars - probably the trendiest pair of shoes I've ever owned.

Fiscal Conservative vs Tax & Spend Liberal

James Ogley james at jamesthevicar dot com — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:33:00 +0000

New Wine and New Brooms...

James Ogley james at jamesthevicar dot com — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:14:00 +0000

New Wine started yesterday, A's there with K, M and M and it sounds like they're having a good time, the weather notwithstanding. I did all three services yesterday, starting a series on Elijah for over August. Being targeted at All-Age Worship at St P's, they'll not be online as they don't work well in a purely audible format.

I'm taking advantage of an empty house (CJ is staying with P&T) and cleaning it. I've done all of upstairs today and tomorrow, downstairs will get what's coming to it. I'll be heading over to Somerset on Wednesday (thanks to K lending me her car for the week) and then doing the outside of the house on Thursday.

Wednesday

James Ogley james at jamesthevicar dot com — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:23:00 +0000

Final midweek communion before the August closedown this morning. I did something that we used to do occasionally in Gamston - when we got to the epiclesis, we paused in silent prayer, waiting on the Holy Spirit for equipping and anointing. I used Prayer D where it is worded "Send your Spirit on us now ..." for this reason.

A haiku for this evening (a rather lazy haiku admittedly):

Curry, curry, rice
Curry, curry, curry, naan
Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.

Lazy blogger - bad! Bad!

James Ogley james at jamesthevicar dot com — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:39:00 +0000

So, when I don't blog much in a while, I get hassled by some people. Some people do it nicely, others are all like "so, why aren't you blogging then?" (see how "street" I am?) I've not blogged much in July so far because I haven't had the time or frankly, the inclination. Sometimes one just needs a rest from broadcasting what's going on in one's life to the whole world.

Anyway. Yesterday, I basically got sent home from our church prayer meeting by the various people who saw me as looking pretty rough (which is indeed how I was feeling). It was just as well too because almost immediately after I got home, CJ embarked upon what is now a 19 hour or so bout of sickness and it was definitely a two-person job to clean him and comfort him. We thought he was over it this morning but he started again after his nap so A's taken him to the doc's.

Adam - male?

James Ogley james at jamesthevicar dot com — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:26:00 +0000

In my sermon on Sunday, I made reference to the possibility that in Genesis 2, where Adam (prior to Eve's arrival) is called the man in English translations, it's perhaps not a great translation and that "he" may not be male until woman arrives. I invited people to ask me about it afterwards and people who have seen me have done so but here's some thoughts on it (and I hope the Hebrew script shows up okay):

A lot of recent biblical scholarship suggests that "the man" is not the best way to translate האדם (ha-adam) in Genesis. There's another Hebrew word איש (eesh) which is the usual way of indicating a masculine "man" (as opposed to a woman - אשה (ishah)). In verse 23, when we are told "she shall be called 'woman' for she was taken out of man, the distinction is made and she is אשה and he is איש. The two words share the same root in Hebrew.

The most helpful suggestions of how to describe האדם in Genesis are either "the human" or "the groundling" - I prefer the former as it makes it easier to see that Adam is the archetype for the whole of humanity.

It's also worth noting of course that some of the scholars who take this line are less kind to poor Adam, one even translating it as "the clod" (of earth presumably) - they tend to be working from a feminist perspective with which I have no inherent problem but which - sadly - sometimes lose some academic rigour in their hermeneutics.

Update: I think the Hebrew script now works - it certainly does for me in Firefox on openSUSE 11.0.