The truth revealed…

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For many years - Saturday mornings have been my favourite time of the week. Now that I have lived and worked in Goroka for almost two years this little quirk still holds true. Most Saturday mornings you will find the two of us wandering around town, interacting with locals and clan members that we happen to bump into, having a chew and a joke with the street sellers, perhaps doing a little shopping at the main markets and occasionally having a couple with Uncle Fred down at “Las Wara”.

A couple of months ago I decided to take some photos as we were doing our Saturday morning meander around town and I would now like to share some of these snaps with you.

Here they are…

(One of the back streets around West Goroka)

(Posted to the “Goroka Town” photo album)

(Markets straight ahead and Peace Park coming up on the right)

(Posted to the “Goroka Town” photo album)

(Goroka Post Office)

(Posted to the “Goroka Town” photo album)

(Looking out across the airport towards the back mountains)

(Posted to the “Goroka Town” photo album)

(Local lad poses for the camera)

(Posted to the “Goroka Town” photo album)

NB: Expect the unexpected and anything but the expected will happen.

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Here’s a few stories that I stumbled across via my newsreader over the past week…

Open Source continues to challenge mainstream hegemony

Newsforge on: The tanking economy and OSS

The economy is falling as fast as temperatures in November. Recession seems certain, if it’s not already here. The stock market’s performance resembles Disney World’s Space Mountain roller coaster. And every open source vendor, every Linux project, will be touched in one way or another….

The power and interactivity of blogging

Tavurvur on: Profiling the PNG Blogging Scene

I wrote this Blog’s first post only a couple months ago. It took me thirty minutes to write that post. And It took me ten of those minutes to realise the power of blogging. Nobody told me how addictive blogging is - not addictive in the sense that it’s something you need for yourself. No…..

Time to dig up a little dirt here and there…

The Melanesian on: Oligarchy, defeatism and the rule of law

THREE MONTHS AGO IN AUGUST I published an article entitled Cabinets of mendacious Curiosities which offered a commentary on the pscyhology of lying and deceit that is so much part of politics. The article was inspired by prevailing disagreements over the legality of a deal brokered between the PNG Government and a consortium of companies to produce liquified natural gas (LNG) over the next 50 years. The deal promises to bring into PNG an anticipated annual revenue of about K2.76 billion….

Anyone know the whereabouts of Glenys Köhnke?

Tavurvur on: Time Belong Tumbuna

If there’s one thing I’ve come to realise about literature on Papua New Guinea it’s this: there are more books about PNG outside of PNG than there are inside the country. I don’t think you’d find many people who would disagree with that statement. It’s a sad fact but it’s true. Because of this, I started a personal library collection of books about PNG a couple of years ago and I’ve been slowly adding to it - book by book….

An excellent resource for Free and Open Source Software (FOSS):

Newsforge on: openDesktop.org provides super-portal to free software sites

When users want the latest in free and open source software (FOSS), they are likely to think first of sites like freshmeat, or perhaps Softpedia or GnomeFiles. However, as the FOSS community has divided into specialized communities, sites for new releases have proliferated, to the point where it is difficult to keep track of them all. Since 2007, openDesktop.org has provided a portal for many of these specialized sites. Under the slogan “Let’s build the desktop of the future,” openDesktop.org provides a quick overview of new software that is independent of desktop or distribution….

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Well… this little cartoon should cheer you up !!

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Yesterday I stayed home and had a good old fashioned “sicky”. By 8am in the morning I had already made four very fast trips to the thunderbox - a case of being genuinely crook - so I decided to stay at home and take it easy. The old tummy had a mind of its own and would of kept a team of gastro specialists busy for hours. Never mind - an upset stomach (from time to time) is something that all folks living in the tropics learn to live with.

I took the opportunity to post some more photos to my online album. I’m still not up to date yet - about 100 more to go and then I’ll be current. I have had this aim for years now to post a story and a couple of photos with the actual photos taken on the same day. Perhaps a few more days of going through reams of toilet paper, staying at home and posting the rest of the photos will allow me to actually achieve this. Perhaps!!

Here’s a few of the photos that I posted today…

(Giving a flash drive sent to me by my brother John to Henry Tom - IT Officer)

(Posted to the “Goroka Give Aways” photo album)

(Yours truly working up a red tongue at the NSI sporting fields)

(Posted to the “Chauka Womens Soccer Club” photo album)

(Gelo enjoying a suck on a lolly pop)

(Posted to the “Home (Gonix)” photo album)

(These women are carrying flowers from their own gardens to church on a Sunday morning)

(Posted to the “West Goroka” photo album)

NB: Life can be pretty extraordinary when those ordinary run of the mill moments are experienced as anything but ordinary.

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* Law of Mechanical Repair
After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch and you’ll have to pee.

* Law of Gravity
Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible crevice furthest away from you.

* Law of Probability
The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.

* Law of Random Numbers
If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal and someone always answers.

* Law of the Alibi
If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the very next morning you will have a flat tire while running late for work.

* Variation Law
If you change lines (or traffic lanes), the one you were in will always move faster than the one you are in now (works every time).

* Law of the Bath
When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone rings

* Law of Close Encounters
The probability of meeting someone you know increases dramatically when you are with someone you don’t want to be seen with.

* Law of the Result
When you try to prove to someone that a machine won’t work, it will.

* Law of Biomechanics
The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

* Law of the Theatre
At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle arrive last.

* The Starbucks Law
As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.

* Murphy’s Law of Lockers
If there are only two people in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.

* Law of Physical Surfaces
The chances of an open-faced jam sandwich landing face down on a floor covering are directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet/rug.

* Law of Logical Argument
Anything is possible if you don’t know what you are talking about.

* Brown’s Law of Physical Appearance
If the shoe fits, it’s ugly.

* Oliver’s Law of Public Speaking
A closed mouth gathers no feet.

* Wilson’s Law of Commercial Marketing Strategy
As soon as you find a product that you really like, they will stop making it.

* Doctors’ Law
If you don’t feel well, make an appointment to go to the doctor, by the time you get there you’ll feel better. Don’t make an appointment and you’ll stay sick!

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A couple of days ago I wrote and posted a poem (ranting) about social networks after reading Masalai’s article on how we are slowly becoming “Prosumers“. And last night whilst I was having a little “tinker” under the hood - the configuration screen of the Sociable plugin for Wordpress screamed out at me.

Sociable is a social bookmarking plugin that allows me to place any one of over 100 bookmarking style buttons at the end of each post - you might have seen it before…

In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, and can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private domains. The allowed people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, or via a search engine…

The bookmarking buttons that I have chosen to enable on my blog are as follows (from left to right): Digg, Technorati, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Twitter, Email to a friend and a Print this post option. Note that Sociable allows me to choose from 100 bookmarking services (youuuch!).

Here’s what the Sociable configuration page looks like…

…98 little boxes to be precise!!!

Whilst I was staring at the screen and pondering upon the number of choices - I came up with the idea of a rating system based on the number Social Networks that one belongs to.

And this is what I come up with:

- Zero networks: surely a hermit.

- Between 1 and 10 networks: an antisocial.

- Between 11 to 20 networks: an aspiring socilaite.

- Between 21 and 50 networks: deserves the title of socialite.

- Between 51 and 70 networks: a regular party-go-er.

- Between 71 and 90 networks: the life-of-the-party socialite.

- Between 91 and 100 networks: has contracted an acute case of socialitis.

- Beyond 100 networks: sick-as-sick can be!

Where are you on the scale?

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This is a question that many Papua New Guineans would automatically assume that they know the answer to. Let’s investigate this question a little further. The issues in this country are very complex and finding effective solutions to these problems, in my humble opinion, will never be as simple as just saying this country needs more god or religion. In fact, I would go so far to say that if religion was the answer to PNG’s woes then Papua New Guinea would already have reached a status of Super Power.

And whilst on the subject…

The three things that irk me about religion in PNG:

1. Street preachers : with their red eyes almost bulging out of their eye sockets - they rant and rave like lunatics, angry-like and with a look of fanaticism on their faces. Be careful of fundamentalism no matter what the faith!
2. The late night and loud crusades : music blaring and preachers screaming over poor quality and cheap chinese made loud speakers. With absolutely no respect nor consideration for decent neighbours trying to get some rest or a good nights sleep after a hard day at the office.
3. Hypocrisy : I was raised a Christian - the “H” word and the “C” word are synonymous. Look good and pretend to be the most devout on a Sunday (or Saturday) and then - on weekdays… well that’s another story all together. What happened to walking the talk!!

Fellow blogger “Tavurvur” published an article a few days ago titled: “The Rise of Islam in PNG“.

According to the report, PNGeans began converting to Islam in the early 1980s and there are now more than 4,000 followers in the country with recent reports of entire villages converting at the same time.
Why the gradual increase in PNG Muslim numbers?

Heaven forbid! Could this possibly lead to a change one day in PNG’s constitution?

The article towards the bottom of this page was originally published on this blog back in November, 2005. I’m a firm believer that some things are worth two posts or even three. In my books this article is a classic and will probably end up upsetting many religious folks out there. My apologies in advance however - we do live in a society that not only allows for but encourages freedom of expression. Besides - this is my blog and for the better or worse it just has the one author!!

I once heard said that the difference between religion and spirituality is: “Religion is for folks that don’t want to go to hell and spirituality is for folks that have been there”.

And in my own words: “Most folks that display strong spiritual traits in their lives are probably not religious and occasionally you will meet a person proclaiming to be religious whom is also spiritual”.

What really confounds me is how any one person or group of persons can lay claim to having a monopoly on truth. I reckon that if all the great spiritual masters that have walked this earth since the dawn of time ever had the opportunity to gather and have a round table discussion they would inevitably agree on most items. There would of course be some differences but these would only be trivial points. In essence all spiritual teachings since the beginning of time have much more in common than not.

If you would like to view or download the scanned copy of the following article just click any where here and follow the instructions.

The Times

BY RUTH GLEDHILL, RELIGION CORRESPONDENT

RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards , high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.

According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.

The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society. It compares the social performance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality.

Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its “spiritual capital”. But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills.

The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: “Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.

“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.

“The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”

Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist, used data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and other research bodies to reach his conclusions.

He compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy.

The study concluded that the US was the world’s only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhoea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from ” uniquely high” adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested.

Mr Paul said: “The study shows that England, despite the social ills it has, is actually performing a good deal better than the USA in most indicators, even though it is now a much less religious nation than America.”

He said that the disparity was even greater when the US was compared with other countries, including France, Japan and the Scandinavian countries. These nations had been the most successful in reducing murder rates, early mortality, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion, he added.

Mr Paul delayed releasing the study until now because of Hurricane Katrina. He said that the evidence accumulated by a number of different studies suggested that religion might actually contribute to social ills. “I suspect that Europeans are increasingly repelled by the poor societal performance of the Christian states,” he added. He said that most Western nations would become more religious only if the theory of evolution could be overturned and the existence of God scientifically proven. Likewise, the theory of evolution would not enjoy majority support in the US unless there was a marked decline in religious belief, Mr Paul said.

“The non-religious, proevolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator.

“The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted.”

Remember what Karl Marx once said:

“Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

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A few months ago I wrote a short poem (Ranting) about blogging - I titled it “The Blogging Curse“. A recent story on the Masalai Blog titled “The Conversation Prism” reminded me about that poem and prompted me to write today’s Ranting.

The bursting growth of ‘social media‘ is grabbing allot of us by the eye balls and dragging us into a new era where everyone is a click away and where the content producer is now also the consumer. I think the word now is that we have become ‘Prosumers‘…

The poster on Social Media that Emmanuel included as part of his story really got the old noggin spinning…

The Conversation Prism

(For a larger view of this poster - just click on the image itself)

Time for a rant bro…

Let’s talk man,
let’s rave,
let’s share a story or two…
a la nouveau.

Podcast it,
stream it,
or blog it…
I’m in man!

Register,
confirm,
and login…
the worlds your oyster!

Bookmarking,
wikis,
and communties…
you name it!

Stumble it,
Google it,
or Fark it…
Mr Wong, Mr Wong!!

Conversations,
comments,
ratings and tweets…
a network is born.

Humans,
machines,
and the ether…

Redd-it,
Digg-it,
or Trip-it…
Is the future already here?

What the hell are they talking about?
What is this lingo?
What is it all about?
I just want to converse!!

Connect,
talk to me,
and plurk…
Give me a HI-5 dude!!

The rich get richer,
the illiterates get left behind
and a new age is born!

The age of social media
is upon us,
electronic hugs,
and chat rooms…

Agent Smith…
Is he real?
Who will you be today,
when you login?

Friendfeed,
Lifestream and Swirl,
Just Jott it down
or Kwiry,
when all else fails,
just pingme!!

And so on and so on folks…
it goes on and on,
100’s of the twitters!!

Interact,
participate,
and network!!

Humanity part 2.

NB: I just tallied all of the Social Networks that I’m a member of and I’m almost embarrassed to admit that they add up to 30! (please don’t tell anyone)

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After a very busy and intense couple of weeks I would like to lighten the mood a little and share with you a few news items that have passed my way recently. From PNG Coffee to Secret railways, from brawling PNG journalists to optimisation tips for Wordpress, from the Open Source debate to vandalism. It’s all here folks!!

One of the best things about living in PNG!

Kev on: Arabica and Robusta

Rummaging through the pantry cupboard for some spices for my pickled cabbage project I found several bottles of instant coffee. I thought that Joan might be doing a Nell. Nell was my dear grandmother who, when late in her life started buying daily amounts of bacon and chicken. We had to dispose of quite a lot of her hoard and my mother managed to restrict gran’s cash…

A good place to start for uninitiated in SEO:

Maile Ohye on: Google’s SEO Starter Guide

Webmasters often ask us at conferences or in the Webmaster Help Group, “What are some simple ways that I can improve my website’s performance in Google?” There are lots of possible answers to this question, and a wealth of search engine optimization information on the web, so much that it can be intimidating for newer webmasters or those unfamiliar with the topic. We thought it’d be useful to create a compact guide that lists some best practices that teams within Google and external webmasters alike can follow that could improve their sites’ crawlability and indexing….

Eventually a bridge we must all cross:

Jeff Chandler on: Weblog Tools Collection: 10 Optimization Tips

Even though WordPress works pretty well out of the box, there is still a number of optimization tips that can be accomplished to make WordPress function that much better. Vladimir Prelovac has done an excellent job describing ten optimization tips that you can use on your own WordPress installation. The tips and techniques range from optimizing database tables to implementing caching. There should be at least one or two tips within this article that everyone can implement on their own blog…..

Another Microsoft vs Linux debate!

Werner Heuser on: The NetBook OS Question: Windows XP vs. Linux

The netbook revolution is upon us—possibly due to the gotta-have-it factor more than anything else. After all, netbooks practically scream “buy me” from store display tables as a result of their featherweight designs and low prices. Since Asus kicked off the category in the U.S. with the original Eee PC 701 in October 2007, netbook sales have skyrocketed. Both consumers and business users seem to find their virtues irresistible—that is, at least as second computers. Netbooks are generally too limited, particularly in keyboard and screen size, as well as storage space, to function well as main laptops. …..

Nothing like a good secret!!

Tavurvur on: TOP SECRET: Cairns to Port Moresby Railway

We have documented 150 different railways which have been constructed in the country over the years, together with the many hair-brained schemes to build grander railways. In the end, our key conclusion it is not that it is technically difficult to build railways in the country, but that the state of political, institutional and economic development in the country is such that it would not be possible to manage the thing in an efficient and sustainable manner. Selection of the book title “end of the line” just about sums it all up.. …..

Why can’t Papua New Guineans just have a couple and be happy?

Malum on: All-in brawl at Papua New Guinea media awards

Simmering tensions mixed with alcohol have been blamed for Papua New Guinea’s media night of nights turning into an all-in brawl, Australian Associated Press reports. The 2008 PNG Media Council awards ceremony on Saturday night erupted in a fight requiring Port Moresby hotel security to step in and pull apart scrapping guests. The fight came late in the proceedings, after speeches on the importance of media freedom and accurate reporting. Fighting between staff at PNG’s Post-Courier newspaper, owned by News Limited, and colleagues from PNG’s National Broadcasting Corporation marred what was generally considered a successful evening. …

Something insane about burning down your own house!

David Ulg on: Mount Hagen’s Kapal Haus in ashes

Below is what is left of the famous Kapal Haus after the fire had completely destroyed the entire building. WHP is back to square one! Hope plans are in place to erect an identical building soon…

What does a squid have to with faster Internet?

Newsforge on: Speed up your Internet access using Squid’s refresh patterns

Bandwidth limitation is still a problem for a lot of people who connect to the Internet. You can improve your available bandwidth by installing Squid caching proxy server on your network with configuration parameters that will increase your byte hit rate, giving you about 30-60% more bandwidth….

Will we one day see a change to the PNG Constitution?

Tavurvur on: The Rise of Islam in PNG

ABC News Papua New Guinea correspondent Steve Marshall recently produced a story about the growing number of Papua New Guineans converting to Islam in the country. His story raises a number of interesting points and questions concerning the religious future of PNG. According to the report, PNGeans began converting to Islam in the early 1980s and there are now more than 4,000 followers in the country with recent reports of entire villages converting at the same time….

Here’s an example of Web 2.0 in action!

Emmanuel on: PNGARNet - Who’s on it?

Head over to Malum Nalu’s Blog for a report on the PNGARNet (Academic Research Network), finally being used at the University of Goroka. After hearing about it coming closer to fuition earlier this year at the ICT Workshop at UPNG, I’m keen to hear more on how developed PNGARNet is and what Universities….

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