It has come to my attention this afternoon that the Brain Tamaki website that I blogged about yesterday is most likely a very well designed fake website that has fooled a number of bloggers across NZ. Here is the output from DNC WHOIS look up on the site this afternoon, the only thing that gives away a possibility of the site being fake is the @gmail.com email address.

All week the New Zealand news media has been digging hard into Destiny Church and Brian Tamaki over the walkout of the head pastor of the church’s Brisbane congregation. Some of the media reports have been a little over the top in their criticisms and approaches such as TV3’s John Campbell who has gone from being a very good investigative journalist to be a little bit creepy in his abilities to stalk people involved in the Church. Another major criticism of the church has been the fact that it uses and EFTPOS machine for receiving offerings. In the last 10 years I would have not been in a single church that did not have an EFTPOS machine for receiving offerings.

Having said this I commend the actions of Andrew Stock who stood up for what he believed in a walked away from the church. There are a lot of things that Destiny practice and believe that I fundamentally disagree with. However, until this morning, I have been muted in heavy criticism of the church as other blogs have been doing this well. I also hold a strong belief in John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” And that the differences in beliefs between church denominations come down to additions of man and not God and that fundamentally the majority of churches that have John 3:16 as their base are on the right track.

However as pointed out by Scrubone at Half Done and before that Dave at Big News, Brian Tamaki has now gone beyond the point of just being another brand of Christianity with his personal website declaring: “Bishop Brian Tamaki is the physical manifestation of God.”

Manifestation is one of those “church words” that you hear tossed about from time to time, “manifestations of the spirit” for instance. But I am certain that I have never heard someone be described as the “manifestation of God”.  To figure out exactly what Tamaki means by this I looked up the dictionary definition:

manifestation
–noun

1. an act of manifesting.
2. the state of being manifested.
3. outward or perceptible indication; materialization: At first there was no manifestation of the disease.
4. a public demonstration, as for political effect.
5. Spiritualism. a materialization.

I think point 3 sums up what Tamaki is saying. Tamaki is saying that he is the materialization of God. That makes me sick to the depths of my stomach for a “church” leader to be saying that. There is only one person ever who was the manifestation of God and that was Jesus Christ.

Unless Tamaki is trying to say that he is the second coming of the Messiah then he is very badly off track in his beliefs. Anyone who truly believes in the words of God written in the scriptures needs to get out of that church because it is no longer a church it is as the media has been reporting now  a cult of personality.

Furthermore in doing some research into this post I came across this:

The Manifestation of God is a concept in the Bahá’í Faith that refers to what are commonly called prophets. The Manifestations of God are a series of personages who reflect the attributes of the divine into the human world for the progress and advancement of human morals and civilization. The Manifestations of God are the only channel for humanity to know about God, and they act as perfect mirrors reflecting the attributes of God into the physical world.

Now I know that Tamaki is not practicing Bahá’í, however, it just shows the terribly poor choice of words that have been used.

Over at Auckland Trains Jon C notes: “the Western Line performance stats for January were 36.1% punctionality. Southern was only 73%.”

In other words on the Western Line 2 in every 3 trains is late. And on the Southern it is better but still 1 in every 4 trains is late. How can this be even remotely acceptable performance?

I did a quick check of the Sydney train performance stats, for January they had a 97.4% on time performance. 1 train in every 40 is late. That is 10x better performance than the best that Auckland can deliver. And yet people in Sydney are constantly moaning about the poor performance of the rail network.

A major shakeup needs to happen with Auckland’s rail network. Being electrified by 2013 is too far away, by then no one will be left to use the service.

I filmed this a few weeks ago but forgot to upload it until now, it is a little random as I just let the computer decide what to chop together.

Seriously Awesome Short Film from Godzone

Hat Tips: @vodafonenz and Get Frank

I just watched the Top Gear America Special on TV it is a few years old but I had not seen it before. The end of the episode has a really serious side to it and Jeremy Clarkson provides a real stinging but truthful social commentary as shown in this clip:

In the past I have completely hated tracking cookies and the way in which ad websites track your browsing habits across multiple pages, sites and visits. However, as the web has developed tracking cookies have become more and more the accepted norm to the point now where I accept most cookies and have even installed them onto my website to track visitor movements in the form of Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is a very powerful tool for being able to analyse your visitor numbers and browsing habits. Over the last six months I have been using the data collected to shape my blog posts in such away to attract more visitors but also retain the regular ones I have with things of interest and stop posting about those things that the data suggests people are not interested in. The main change in topic area as a result of this has seen me blog less about politics – leaving that to the heavy weights of Kiwiblog, No Minister, Frogblog and others. In place of these blog subjects I have been focussing more on computers, science, religion and general news related topics. This has seen the number of posts made decrease slightly but an increase in the number of comments made and a steady level of site visitors and a large rise in the number of visitors to the site’s RSS feed.

Below are the main highlights of the Google Analytics data from September to February, please note the visitor numbers are only those hitting the main site (as Google Analytics does not track RSS hits), Google Analytics also filters out bots, spiders and other automatic crawlers and aggregators so this is some of the best data I have on actual true human visitors to the site.

Visitors plotted by week

Breaking down the visitors by city is a really nice way to see how the blog is having a worldwide reach. Sure the vast majority of my visits come from New Zealand, but the data also shows many visits (in order from most visits) from London, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Singapore, Dublin, Perth, New York, Manchester, Los Angeles and more than 1,700 other cities around the world.

The breakdown of visitors by web browser makes for good reading especially as Firefox is beating Internet Explorer.

When you then add in the operating system into the mix Internet Explorer and Windows comes back to the top though.

The search keywords is one of my main sources for determining what topics I should blog on, as you see no politics related searches here:

So that’s it, I use Google Analytics to “spy” on visitors and but will happily share most of the data with you. The only thing I have excluded from this round up is the list of the most popular blog posts – but they are listed in the sidebar anyway (updated monthly). It will be interesting to see in another six months what has changed. In particular if changes in my personal life (moving countries) will affect my blogging and in turn affect my visitor numbers and trending.

Earlier today Thomas Beagle on Twitter posted “Kind of weird to think about water sloshing around the planet.” This made me stop and think for a second not just how weird it is, but also how powerful it is.

The 8.8 magnitude earthquake which struck on Saturday was big enough to issue a Tsunami Warning for all these countries:

CHILE / PERU / ECUADOR / COLOMBIA / ANTARCTICA / PANAMA / COSTA RICA / NICARAGUA / PITCAIRN / HONDURAS / EL SALVADOR / GUATEMALA / FR. POLYNESIA / MEXICO / COOK ISLANDS / KIRIBATI / KERMADEC IS / NIUE / NEW ZEALAND / TONGA / AMERICAN SAMOA / SAMOA / JARVIS IS. / WALLIS-FUTUNA / TOKELAU / FIJI / AUSTRALIA / HAWAII / PALMYRA IS. / TUVALU / VANUATU / HOWLAND-BAKER / NEW CALEDONIA / JOHNSTON IS. / SOLOMON IS. / NAURU / MARSHALL IS. / MIDWAY IS. / KOSRAE / PAPUA NEW GUINEA / POHNPEI / WAKE IS. / CHUUK / RUSSIA / MARCUS IS. / INDONESIA / N. MARIANAS / GUAM / YAP / BELAU / JAPAN / PHILIPPINES / CHINESE TAIPEI

In the case of Auckland, New Zealand it is about 10,000km from the epicentre of the earthquake. Not only is it amazing that water can travel so far over such a big distance and have a massive effect* on a country so far away, it is also impressive the speed at which the wave travels. New Zealand has felt the effects of the wave 12 – 15 hours after the earthquake, to put that in comparison the flight time from Chile to New Zealand is 13 hours on an Airbus A340. The Tsunami wave is travelling at around the same speed as a jetliner. That is a very scary thought.

The Tsunami may not be a tree but the age old philosophical question of “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound?” is answered very much yes with the way in which the entire world responses to the threat of a Tsunami.

—

*Massive Effect – I don’t take this to mean widespread distruction, I take this to mean Tidal Surge Chart showing a water movement of 1m+, Widespread Civil Defense warnings, Evacuations of people from low lying costal areas, cancellations of events and warnings for people to stay off beaches, pretty much anything that impacts the daily lives of many thousands of individuals.

I have now been living in Sydney for four weeks. Already I am being told that I have lost the sharp edge off my kiwi accent, but that still does not stop at least one daily occurrence where I either can’t understand something simple someone is telling me or vice-versa.

To aide my fellow kiwi’s when they grow wings and come over here too I have been collecting a list of my most interesting and funny situations where kiwi slang/words have been greeted with blank confused stares.

• Blobbing / To Blob Out – This one even has its own entry in Wikitionary, To relax idly and mindlessly.
• Dairy – In Australia known as a Convenience Store.
• Flat (or Student Flat) – In Australia Flat refers to a type of house in particular a granny flat.
• Flatting – This word does not exist in Australia. The closest word with the same meaning would be shared housing. Somehow that doesn’t have the same ring to it as it’s kiwi counterpart. (Also I get the feeling that the whole right of passage going flatting coming of age type situation is different here.)
• Hori – I had a very hard time explain this one. Wikipedia explains it as used for something that is unattractive or shoddy
• I speak good England! – Not really kiwi slang as such, but more when someone says something with either terrible spelling or grammar.
• P – Pure Methamphetamine. In Australia known as just crystal meth.
• Paper – University term for the equivalent of a school subject, in Australia known as a course. Where paper in Australia refers to a research paper.
• Refill pad – This is a British English word, but here is known as a lecture pad or loose lead ruled pad.
• Sweet As – no worries.
• Toying / To Toy With – Messing with, teasing, playing games with.
• Tramping – Hiking or Bush Walking

I have also noticed some interesting differences in styles and behaviour. The three key areas would be:

• Clothing – Take note, black tshirts and jeans are not everyday wear. Shorts are very much in – mostly because it is too hot to get away with jeans all year round.
• Hug/Hugging – It is common to greet and say goodbye to friends in a social setting with a quick hug in New Zealand. I did this to a friend over here and they took three steps back not sure how to react. Looking into the background of this more it seems that this cultural difference stems from a combination of New Zealand’s large Pacific population and Eastern Europeans who both commonly greet with a hug and a kiss to the cheek (although the kissing has never been NZ culture to my knowledge).
• Sunglasses – Almost everyone in New Zealand will wear them whenever they are outside, not as common here.

There are also two good Wikipedia posts on New Zealand English and New Zealand Words.

On the bus to uni this morning I read a really interesting article on a possible link between myopia and the amount of time spent outside.

The article is in a last November issue of New Scientist Magazine – Generation specs: Stopping the short-sight epidemic. To get the full picture make sure you read the full article it is very informative, but to keep with New Scientist’s 200 word extract policy here are the highlights:

Today, in some of the worst-affected countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan, around 80 per cent of young adults are myopic, compared to only 25 per cent a few decades back.

Rates are lower in western countries – between 30 and 50 per cent – but myopia seems to be rising steadily here too. What could be causing this mysterious epidemic? It is clear that genetics alone can’t explain the condition, and the long-standing theory that reading was to blame has failed to play out in subsequent studies.

The article then goes on to explain a possible link between the amount of time spent outside in bright natural sunlight and looking further ahead to build depth perception and its effects on the development of short-sightedness.

Since time spent indoors seemed to be such an important risk factor, Saw and Rose asked whether it might explain the extraordinarily high prevalence of short-sightedness in Asia. To find out, they compared two groups of 6 to 7-year-old children, one in Singapore and one in Australia. The team looked only at children of Chinese ethnicity, to rule out genetic differences between races as an explanation for higher myopia rates in certain countries.

The result? On average the children in Sydney spent nearly 14 hours per week outside, and only 3 per cent developed myopia. In contrast, the children in Singapore spent just 3 hours outside, and 30 per cent developed myopia.

I don’t have any real issue with my eyes but I do suffer eye strain at times from over using electronics, but maybe those stories my mom used to tell me about developing square eyes hold some truth.

From Darling Harbour on Sunday night, almost the entire show (missing first few seconds).

The video was automatically cut together by my movie making software so it is a little bit random in places.

I was surprised to learn that NZ Bus has decided to reject the Athiest Bus Ads that were to run on the buses in Auckland.

The ads were to read “There’s probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

However Auckland bus operator NZ Bus is not going to run the ads because of complaints.

I find this move odd and think in the long run that it is sets a bad prescient. The ads are not worded offensively and they are not provocative either.

If christians and other religious folk are willing to scream when prayers are removed form school, parliament, and other places etc, then surely they should be willing to stand beside the athiests when they are expressing their views with the same freedoms that they demand at other times.

Overall this is a bad move and look for the religious folk.

Jon at Auckland Trains covers from a New Zealand perspective the release of the new transport plan for Sydney.

The main features of her plan:

• The $4.5 billion Western Express CityRail Service to slash travelling times from western Sydney to the city. It will achieve faster and more frequent services with a goal of up to 50 per cent more services and 17 per cent more passengers on the CityRail network on an average weekday. This will occur through: Separating a dedicated track from all other traffic;
• Construction of a new five kilometre priority tunnel –City Relief Line – will be built from 2015 in the city to separate western services from inner-city trains to provide shorter journey times;
• Construction of eight new platforms to increase capacity at Redfern, Central, Town Hall and Wynyard to relieve congestion;
• New express train services will be introduced for the Blue Mountains, Richmond, Penrith, Blacktown and Parramatta; and Increase CityRail’s capacity on all lines and allow the introduction of express rail services to western Sydney.
• Start of work on the $6.7 billion North West rail link from Epping to Rouse Hill with six stations at Franklin Road, Castle Hill, Hills Centre, Norwest, Burns Road and Rouse Hill in 2017;
• A $500 million expansion of the current light rail system – bringing its total length to 16.9 kilometres with up to 20 new stations and almost 10 kilometres of new track – a more than doubling of the distance of the existing route.

I added my two cents to the discussion on his blog:

Having just moved to Sydney from Auckland only three weeks ago I have had to quickly adjust from using a car on a daily basis to having to use a bus on a daily basis and a train about twice a week.

The public transport system here is a lot bigger than Auckland and is a lot better in same ways, having said that at rush hour it is a nightmare.

There are two key problems. The first is the centralisation of all routes at the city centre, there needs to be a lot more cross town services both buses and trains. Second a lot of major bus routes need to be replaced by high capacity trains or light rail.

The shelving of the metro is a good idea. However they need to get all buses off the central CBD and replace them with trams/light rail like Melbourne, they also need to extend the train from Bondi Junction down to the South Sydney Beaches and then back up ANZAC parade to Central, this would reduce massive congestion through this area of Sydney which has been left out of this new plan.

As far as the west and north go I haven’t been there much but the investment needs to go in rail not roads and not buses.

And there you have it, my first blog on Australian politics, albeit a bit of cut and paste.

Three very weird headline news stories from the NZ Herald this afternoon.

West Coast cannabis haul slumps 42pc

The West Coast’s reputation as the second most popular cannabis growing area in New Zealand after Northland may be under threat.

The headline and opening line of the story makes it appear that cannabis is a major export earner for New Zealand.

a “standard fault” caused delays of about half an hour

Auckland commuters on the Western line faced 30-minute delays this morning when a train broke down and had to be pushed down the tracks.

I don’t see how a train breaking down and having to be pushed to another station can be considered a “standard fault” and be treated as such a minor and simple operational issue. It is little wonder Auckland has such poor public transport given the “meh” type response to this sort of issue. The Auckland rail network has only 3 routes on it and yet it seems to have more failures than any other major city that I know.

Hotplate mistaken for a landmine

A tense situation involving an apparent land mine under a Mount Maunganui house was defused after Defence Force bomb disposal unit members identified the mystery object as an old and corroded hotplate.

I know that you can’t take bomb threats/concerns as jokes but really a hotplate as a landmine? And how the hell do you defuse a hotplate!