Google Rankings

For reasons perhaps known only to themselves, Google push some posts down the rankings. Far and away my most popular post at the moment is Mystery Musical Instrument -- which I see by the data behind the scenes. However, it is not under my Popular Posts in the right hand column. OBSERVATION: Posts get weighted by Google, so that the ones with the most views may not be seen on the Popular Posts list -- as in this case. This can become annoying where one is running a more serious blog, and selected news and views are suppressed.

No Driving License

Oy vey. This week I drove into our local Driving License Centre without a valid driving license. They pointed this out to me very gently -- then, without me even asking, or knowing what they were up to, they busied themselves with a temporary driving license (shown). OBSERVATION: Often enough, law and order in South Africa is too, too lax -- yet it can work in one's favour, too!

Doing Things With My Books

This year, I have received many requests to do things with my books -- a few requests a week. One wants screen rights. Another wants me in a study group. Another wants to feature my book. And so on. I have not answered any of them so far, as these are so often ruses. It is quite possible, however, that there are some genuine ones in the mix. For instance, I looked up the man who wants screen rights. He is indeed a producer, with credits on ... Rotten Tomatoes. 

Mystery Musical Instrument

Last week, I completed my mystery musical instrument -- rather, I finished a proof-of-concept -- see my post of 26 February 2026. It is potentially a very sophisticated instrument -- I merely proved that it would work minimally. Today I submitted the design to a publisher in Australia -- and we shall see. OBSERVATION: The question is whether they would publish for the idea's potential, or only see the bare-bones proof-of-concept, which may be too crude. It would potentially be big, because it is groundbreaking.

Responding to Church Conflict

A question that came up in my recent leadership seminar was, how to respond to conflict in the Church? Someone said, "Pray." However, in Paul's Epistle to Titus, which we were studying, there is nothing about prayer. The answer there is: do something about it. Confront the people concerned. Admonish them. Reject them. OBSERVATION: Which surely does not exclude prayer.

AI and Government Correspondence

Many times, I have found AI to be useful when I fed it correspondence. Most recently, I received an e-mail from a government official. It didn't look right to me. They wanted to talk to me, off the record, about a serious problem. I consulted DeepSeek AI -- I fed it the correspondence. DeepSeek replied that, under the circumstances, the official concerned was putting her entire career at risk. "This is precarious for her." It recommended serious action. OBSERVATION: This is the Programme Implementation Co-Ordinator of the Department of Social Development. And a core question: did they deliberately put their career at risk? I did take action, as DeepSeek recommended -- and sent the Co-Ordinator DeepSeek's summary analysis.

Linguistics

The way that people use words every day, they are usually absorbing the flow of them, and not paying special attention to individual words. One of the most useful things I have done is to study linguistics -- and one of the most useful things about linguistics is that it makes one keenly aware of individual words in the flow. OBSERVATION: There are various ways that this is useful. One catches significant words in counselling. One picks up key words in sermons. One finds core words in question-and-answer sessions. And so on.

Easier Than Stick Drawings

Towards the end of last year, I completed a fictional philosophy called The Lost Philosopher. But I felt that it really needed illustrations, if it were to be complete. With my previous artist apparently being out of the running, I experimented with what would be possible without help (I am no artist myself). I found this style, on the right, which is easier for me than stick drawings. I used MyPaint. OBSERVATION: There has been strong interest in the book from agents, but no acceptance yet.

Listen to My Leadership Seminar

On Saturday, I presented a two-hour leadership seminar at the Bible Institute of South Africa -- to kick off this year's Christian Leadership Programme. While I focus mostly on core themes of Paul's Epistle to Titus, I spend the first half hour looking at the huge fragmentation and proliferation of Churches in South Africa since 1994. At one stage, one new Church was formed every two days. What happened? Why? One may listen to the seminar here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAf8L0pPLuw

Invention 48: New Guitar

I believe this invention would significantly change the use and sound of guitars -- or any stringed instrument. You saw it first on this blog. A guitar's strings are strung between two fixed points: the headstock and the bridge. Now imagine that we make one end float. Most likely, we would make the bridge float. Now we have strings strung from the headstock to a floating bridge -- and via strings or coils, we take the floating bridge to another headstock above the lower bout -- two strings or coils, or however many desired. Between the floating bridge and the lower bout headstock, we have therefore inserted a kind of springline reverb. OBSERVATION: This would make two differences to the sound of the traditional guitar. The plectrum striking the strings would be felt by all strings, and all strings would feel all strings' vibration. Moreover, the floating bridge could be used for a vibrato effect. Call it a Scarborough Guitar.

Church Elders

Paul's first instruction to Titus, in his epistle to Titus, was: "I left you behind in Crete, in order that ... you may appoint elders in every town." Yesterday I asked the participants in the leadership seminar that I presented: "If I were to say to your Church, 'Would the elders please meet with me over here,' how many Churches would know what I was talking about?" 8 out of 32 participants put up their hands, which is one-quarter. OBSERVATION: A rather telling figure, if this was the first thing Paul wanted to see in the Church.

Leadership Seminar

Today I presented a leadership seminar at the Bible Institute of South Africa, to kick off this year's Christian Leadership Programme. Here are participants discussing a question that I put to them. There were 30-40 participants -- numbers fluctuated during the seminar. OBSERVATION: I expected first-year responses to questions, but this was a particularly sharp audience.

Fisheye Comparison

This is a lens comparison, just for fun. The photo on the left was taken with a TTArtisan 7.5mm lens ($140). The photo on the right, with an AstrHori 10mm lens ($80). Both are fisheye lenses. The TTArtisan has an obviously wider angle of view. The AstrHori has a bluer tint -- and shows less contrast, due to a cloudy day. However, the AstrHori yields an amazing shot for an $80 lens. Where it all falls apart for the AstrHori is in low light (f/8 fixed aperture vs. f/2 for the TTArtisan).

South African Business

The purchase of my newest computer was another showcase of South African business at work. My Lenovo computer blew out in a township -- we were literally having power failures every few minutes. I called up Lenovo, and asked them whether they had the same machine, a 300e. Oh, they didn't know. they said, no idea -- I could go look on their website. Indeed, there it was, on the website. I should just contact Lenovo, it said. Well, I had just done that. So I called in at a Computer Mania store. Did they have the Lenovo 300e? No, they said, sorry, they couldn't help. Perhaps, I suggested, they might have something similar? Oh, ah, yes, now there was an idea. And I bought an Asus Chromebook. But this was a demo model, without an operating system. So I had to go back to Computer Mania. Before I left the store, they gave me a brochure, which showed me all that they'd got. And there was the Lenovo 300e!

Designs In Production

Spot the difference. Many of my designs have gone into production -- mostly with some additional engineering. This is one example among many. Top left is the Programmable Robot, designed by me, containing a microprocessor (its "brains") from Revolution Education. Top right is the Microbot, containing a microprocessor from ... Revolution Education. My design was merely copyrighted (not patented). So they were entitled to develop my idea.