freshbytes

Sorry to disappoint, but no, this isn’t a post about freshbytes closing down. :p

No, this is just another weekly post in the freshbytes pile.

So anyway, change happens. Sometimes for the good, but sometimes for the bad. I think sometimes that because change is different it is often accepted poorly, but there are genuinely times that change is for the worse, or, it makes things far worse than they originally were – but that’s for another time.

In any case, something recently changed in Kingston; the Cheesecake Shop closed down, and Dominoes opened up.

Now, when I say the end of an era, the cheesecake shop had a special importance to me, because back in Year 11, I managed to buy a chocolate mud cake for a very special person.

It was completely hilarious.

So on that ill-fated day back in 2007 (pretty sure it was a wednesday), I went for an early Maccas breakfast with some of the guys. It was also the day of the particularly special person’s birthday, so I knew I had to do something. The cheesecake shop was just around the corner from that particular Maccas, so off I went. Choosing some cake wasn’t easy – oh the sizes, range, types! Chocolate cake, mousse cake, there were so many types of cake to choose from!

In any case, I managed to walk out with some chocolate mud cake.

Upon my arrival at school, I stashed the cake in a teacher’s fridge, ready for the end of the day, and with it, last period maths method with Mr Lineage.

Last method maths arrived, and with it, the most excellent cake. I walked to maths especially early – the day before, I had told Mr Lineage that we were going to do something special, so he’d already setup a table and everything for the cake. I plonked the cake down, took my seat, and waited with bated breath.

(The day before I had also told Adam to bake a cake because Mr Lineage said we had to – by some miracle he believed me, and had also brought along a cake. That he baked himself. LOL.)

Anyway, the moment came, and the very special person walked in. She was taken by surprise, of course – never believing that anyone would have gone to all the trouble. Sure, I didn’t bake mine myself, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

I guess you had to be there, but it was pretty amusing at the time. She ended up eating the caked baked by her own cousin, instead of mine – and that mattered a lot to me at the time, but seems so trivial now). I ate some of mine – it was incredibly tasty and delicious.

And also a lie. (Oops, geek refence here).

Now the cheesecake shop is gone, and there will be no more cake buying for me… Aww.

Comments below.

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: cake, cheesecake, chocolate, dominoes, kingston, maccas

It’s not all bad, is it? :p

We’ll start from the start, then.

To be perfectly honest, the cover is a little bland. Okay, so more than a little bland. It’s downright ugly and boring, in my opinion. Compared to past year’s covers, it’s pretty boring. Enough about the cover, though, otherwise we’ll be here all night…

No, the cover wasn’t the worst thing about the Magazine – not even close. Nor it is the fact that there is no spine design, just an inky blackness. Rather, it’s the brutal inconsistency that runs like a plague throughout the entire 128 pages.

Consistency is the key factor here, folks. Without it, there is no sense of “yeah, this all reads like the same book”, or, “yeah, this magazine looks and feels the same throughout”. Consistency in any publication is what will make it have a sense of balance, and without it, that balance just isn’t there.

Sure, some factors of the magazine display some semblance of consistency – the gold stripes adorning the top and bottom of each page are fantastic examples of this, as are the page numbers (something that should damned well be consistent anyway).

It’s the non-consistencies that break it – the different font sizes, different fonts themselves, the rounding/non-rounding of photos, the different placements of photos, etc, etc. The list goes on! At some points, it’s like the pages themselves have markedly different designs – from where the pictures are placed, where the text is, and to how the page is “styled” – from page to page, it’s remarkably different – and not in a good way, either.

So, who to blame? I suppose part of the problem (and definitely the cause of each page looking different) is that each page is “done” individually – while there’s a “page template” (using the loosest definition of the word), there is no “style guide”, or at least not one that is strictly adhered to. Someone works on a page without any input from anyone else, and then declares the page “finished” when he/she is satisfied that it looks okay. Then, they proceed to work on another page – without referring back to the previous page for what that looked like, and so on and so forth. It’s no surprise that each page looks different…

I suppose the “doing each page individually” methodology would work if there was just one person working on the magazine as a whole – that way, that person would know how each page was styled, and could stick to a “routine” when doing the pages. But damn, I’d hate to be that one person – talk about a lot of work! I suppose it would be okay if all the content was provided for you – all pictures greyed and named, etc.

What also doesn’t help is the fact that the “editing” process mucks around with the page itself – removing photos when all the other photos are of lesser quality doesn’t help.

Ah, whatever. Hopefully all those days are behind me now – time for some fresh faces to step up to the plate.

You’ll notice that I used a lot of quote marks in this post – what I’ve said inside them doesn’t necessarily reflect what their actual meanings are. By this, I mean that the “editing” process isn’t necessarily just fixing typos.

Comments below.

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: 2008, calvin, consistency, consistent, inconsistency, inconsistent, magazine

Here’s a short vid I made when the awesome Radi8 team went to the Hobart event of the Relay For Life 2009 event up the Domain.

If you’re asking, the backing music is “Break Me Down” by Christian City Church. I can’t seem to find it on iTunes at the moment, though. Apologies.

Enjoy!

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: 2009, awesome, for, hobart, life, radi8, relay, team

It’s about time we had a post about the internet.

After all, the internet is serious business (eneyclopedia dramatica, and therefore Not Safe For Work).

To further illustrate how serious the internet actually is, I found this lolcat for you to enjoy:

Your parents aren’t kidding when they tell you to be careful on the internet – don’t chat to people you don’t know, don’t give out any personal details to sites you don’t trust, etc etc. I’m sure you’ve all heard it before.

Unfortunately, sites like Omegle are too funny to give up. Omegle is a site for you to chat to random strangers about anything from your day to the last game you played, with no real obligations to them other than to chat. It’s completely anonymous, but there’s nothing stopping you from giving out personal details (don’t. It’s not recommended).

Please note that I use Omegle purely for the lulz – for the “laffs”, if you will. It’s more than hilarious trying to convince people that “you’re from the internet”, playing the numbers game (getting people to count with you – either with prime numbers, or if you’re really daring, mersenne primes), or just seeing how fast you can get the other party to disconnect. I’ve also found that convinving people you wrote the lyrics to Rick Astley’s  “Never Gonna Give You Up” smash hit is pretty funny, as well as TYPING IN ALL CAPS.

Also, asking (reasonably) complicated maths questions like “What part of ƒ’(x)=kƒ(x) do you not understand?!” as an opening statement also confuses people to no end, usually resulting in hilarity (for me, not for them).

Overall, Omegle can be hilarious. So hilarious, in fact, that I’ve started a Tumblr blog that will contain all the hilarious Omegle conversations I’ve had. You can check out the site here – if you want to contribute, hit me up on my email address: bennylingbling at gmail dawt com. This site is made in conjunction with i3network and it’s creator, Adam D.

That’s about it for now. Later on today, I’ll post up a vid of Relay For Life 2009, and all the lulz that ensued there. It’s uploading as we speak – and my internet is being really slow as a result.

Be safe on the internet, peoeple. I’m being serious about this – there’s nothing funny about it. Do NOT, whatever you do, give out personal details like where you live, your real name, or your phone number – anything that can be associated to you. Even your real email address – make one up.

I’m serious. It’s not worth it. DON’T DO IT!

Comments below.

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: 2009, for, internet, laffs, life, lol, lulz, omegle, radi8, relay, thanks, thanksforthelulz, the, tumblr

Just a quick note: for moments like these, I have a Note on my iPhone (so I can write things on-the-go) which contains a list of any inspiration that I come across in my day-to-day travels. Essentially, I use this note for back-up blog posts that I can put up here when I don’t have anything else to say – which happens quite In it, I found this title: “Where is the middle ground?” with the sub heading of: “Things aren’t always in black and white.” From these, I’m going to attempt to concoct a post on… how things aren’t always in black and white. Dear reader, join me on this adventure, where you’ll see how a freshbytes blog post is really done – late Sunday nights…

So, where is the middle ground?

Society these days is all about making decisions. However, you run into a couple of problems when you have more than one decision to make – and they’re all as enticing as each other.

The decision making becomes harder still when you have to choose something that’s, for example, the lesser of two evils. Or, when you have to choose between sacrificing the few to save the many, or to sacrifice many to save the few (I for one hope you’re never in this situation. Unless your last name is Obama and you’re the POTUS. Or you’re the POTUS in The Rock.)

I’ll admit that those examples are a little extreme, but do you get the picture? Not all decisions can be made instantaneously – to this end, I’ll take my time to decide whether I want fries with that, thank you very much.

From what I’ve posted already, you can see that I’m just rambling – there’s no actual content yet. Since I have no idea what I was thinking when I wrote those two lines (note to self, must describe events in detail), there’s not much else I can say about this. However, we will plod on…

What most people don’t realise is that most of our choices have consequences. If you don’t stop at that roundabout, then you’ll have a crash, and possibly become paralysed. If you have fries with that every single time, you’ll become obese. Sure, not all of these are strictly true, but again, do you get the picture?

Hmm. This is become futile. I’m running out of examples… Time for closing statements, I think.

At the end of the day, it’s up to you to make the decision. Pray to whatever diety you believe in to give you wisdon in your choice – but most importantly, once you’ve made you choice, stick with it!

…aaaand, that’s a wrap. There’s only so much a guy can ramble on for…

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: black, consequences, decisions, ground, middle, white

So last week I posted something up which managed to generate a bit of controversy. I certainly didn’t intend to, but hey – if it’s one of those side-effects, then I’m okay with that.

Joe and I has some back and forth about children and Christianity, and what it all really meant. It grew into something more, when we started discussing Christianity in and of itself – Jesus’ teachings, how can people believe the Bible when it was written by humans after Jesus’ death, and so on. Joe certainly put up some interesting questions – questions that I, (ashamedly), haven’t had a go at answering – yet.

Oh – before I go on, read the entire thread here. If you’re just after Joe’s response (which I’ll be addressing in this post), then you can read that here.

Sorta what I’m getting at is that most of Jesus’ teachings are common sense are they not? and they aren’t original to Jesus’ either look up the Egyptian sun God “Horus”.

Jesus’ teachings are common sense? In a way. Sure, most of them are, but they go beyond that – far, far beyond that. There’s literally hundreds of interpretations of any text depending on the context, and rings true for the Bible (and, by extension, Jesus’ teachings) as well.

As for Jesus and Horus – you’re absolutely right – the Egyptian god Horus does indeed have an astounding amount of parallels with Jesus. Third link in Google revealed this page, which gives a succinct summary of these parallelisms between Jesus and Horus. (As a quick side note, the website itself is published by a multi-religion group of people who, by their own words, “lack agreement on almost all theological matters, such as belief in a supreme being, the nature of God, interpretation of the Bible and other holy texts, whether life after death exists, what form the afterlife may take, etc”.)

In regards to the parallelisms between Jesus and Horus, well, that’s just difference of opinion as well as a different religion completely. As with all of these comparisons  between religions (it happens in Matthew Reilly books as well, haha), you have to as the question: well, which one came first? Did the Egyptians rip off the Christians? Or was it the other way around?

The answer to that question isn’t as obvious as it may seem – it comes back to that old question of evolution vs creation, and depending on which version you believe your answer will undoubtedly vary.

Also in my outdated argument I want to mention validity. If Jesus took the time to right his auto-biography before his suicide mission that would of been convenient, but instead it was left (as were all the Bible Chapters) hundreds of years after they had happened (if they happened).

I just can’t seem to believe the validity and correctness of a book that has been written by men who were guided by god. Also, the men were guided by god too, who decided what shall be removed from the bible. Bible is edited even today, so the editors are, too, inspired directly by God.

The question of “how can I believe something that’s been written by humans” has often been asked by myself as well. While I haven’t yet come up with a satisfactory answer, there’s something that I’d like to introduce you to – faith.

Ah yes, old faith. Faith, the thing that makes us believe things that seem impossible, faith, the intangible explanation for 101 different things, and yet, faith – the one thing that ties all of Christianity together.

At youth today we were discussing belief and doubt – not dissimilar to what we’re talking about now. One of the questions that we discussed was “List three things that can help you to continue to believe in Jesus through times of doubt”. You can be sure that I put down faith. Another member of the same youth group responded by saying that “you don’t have to know everything, sometimes you’ve got to live with a little trust, and faith in God” which I though was a bloody excellent way of putting it.

Bear in mind that I’m not saying that you should live with blind faith – there’s a difference between being educated and following stupidly along with the crowd (or, knowing the difference between the hot plate is hot, and believing that it isn’t).

At the time of Jesus, everyone agreed that the old testament was the right way, written by people inspired by god, thus their writings were true to them. Why should their righteousness disappear during time?

Most Christians are saying that some parts of the old testament are wrong in modern culture, like the one which encourages you to bash your enemies children’s skull to a rock or stone women who are not virgin when married.

SOOO yes confusing indeed.

If by “righteousness disappear over time” as your way of saying that I implied that the old testament was outdated when I said that Jesus’ two commandments superseded the 10 commandments, then you’d be a little off. To clarify: I’m not saying that Jesus’ teachings (or anything in the new testament, for that matter) supersede, or are more important, than anything in the old testament. However, they definitely supplement what’s already there.

Take this for example: the old testament says “an eye for an eye”, “sacrifice animals as a form of repentance” – two of which are obviously not in use today. The whole point of not preforming those actions now is that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, so we don’t have to sacrifice animals every time we want to repent for our sins.

We also don’t take out our neighbour’s eyes – you’ll take note that Jesus said “love your neighbour as you love yourself”. Obviously, this means that you can’t just go and do unto them what they did to you – instead, “calm words will soothe even the most ferocious beast, like water on hot coals” (or something along those lines, I can’t exactly remember the quote).

Ooh – see that there? A contradiction between the old testament, and the new testament. Which one do we follow? The latest version, the new testament. Why? Because we’re following Jesus’ example, as he was the ultimate example – perfect in every way, without sin. And I guess that’s what being a Christian is all about, hey?

Now, to leave you with final thoughts:

Confusing indeed. The Bible certainly brings up some intriguing schools of thought, and there is stuff in there that even pastors and clergymen can’t understand. Instead, they pray to God for clarity of thought and wisdom, because that will eventually lead to understanding.

What about stuff like predestination and free will? There’s no way I’m talking about that here (‘cos that’s a whole other bag of worms), but sometimes, the Bible can bring more questions than answers – but as a Christian, I’m not saying that we should have all the answers anyway. Where’s the fun in that?!

Comments below.

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: answers, argument, bible, christian, christianity, faith, God, heated topic, Jesus, new, old, questions, testament