James's Weblog

Premier Christian Radio just posted a question on Facebook:

A quarter of Church of England services do not have a single child in the congregation, increasing fears of a gradual ‘extinction’.

I hit an annoying trouble using the "Stroke Outline" feature of Photoshop Element 14. I then solved it. So I'll share it here for the benefit of others who encounter the same issue.

Stroke Outline

"Stroke outline" allows you to do something quite simple: You can colour in the outline of a selection. You can choose the colour, the thickness in pixels, and whether the outline will be inside the selected area, outside, or will centre on the border.

Daniel chapters 2-7 are written in Aramaic; the rest of Daniel (chapter 1, and chapters 8-12) are in Hebrew.

The most obvious way to divide Daniel into two is to note that Daniel chapters 1-6 contain stories about Daniel, whereas chapters 7-12 contain visions seen by Daniel.

I'll just park this here for future reference.

Sometimes you see writers say that certain parts of the Bible are written in the "apocalyptic" style of writing.

Recognising the "genre" of part of the Bible can be very important when it comes to reading it properly. For instance, parables and historical narrative communicate in very different ways; you'd completely misread the gospels if you confused them.

“There seems to be one fundamental law of a very solemn kind which touches this question of judgement; and when I turn to the ancient prophets and recall the limited area of history they had at their disposal for making their inductions, I am always surprised at the curious aptness with which they seem to have found the formula in this connection — a formula which they put in a special position of priority.

Some commentators worry themselves about the fact that Daniel 4 is a mixture of first person account (Nebuchadnezzar speaking) and third person account (another narrator, writing about Nebuchadnezzar). They think this indicates that Daniel 4 was originally two different accounts, clumsily edited into what we now have.

A while back, I had a bit of a problem with someone, not me, opening bank / credit card accounts in my name. That meant I had the opportunity to contact the fraud teams at a number of banks.

Bishop N. T. ("Tom") Wright, formerly Bishop of Durham, is a well-known biblical scholar. He has produced works that showcase his careful work, such as Jesus and the Victory of God (paid link).

In hot weather, sometimes an iced coffee can be just the thing. Here's my recipe (makes about a pint / 550ml).

Needless to say, as with all things coffee, GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out. That's to say: Start with good quality coffee beans. I'd recommend something medium-light roasted. If you roasted yourself, dump no later than the very beginnings of second crack. If you've bought the beans roasted, go for freshly roasted ones without oils showing.

A friend recently asked on Facebook about whether to use a Facebook Page or a Facebook Group for his newest project — or indeed whether to run both.

For what it's worth, here was my advice (now elaborated upon):

General Rule of Thumb: Choose

My general rule of thumb (which may be flawed) is that groups and pages have different pros and cons.