Evolution of Electronics

The April Practical Electronics magazine (PE) has an interesting article on the evolution of electronics. I myself have done a lot of electronic design, using discrete components -- the "nuts and bolts" of electronics. The PE article describes how electronics today, compared with a generation ago, is "fundamentally uninterested" in that. The author Clive Maxfield concludes:

"So here we are, surrounded by devices which are smaller, smarter, quieter, and vastly more capable than anything our younger selves could have imagined, yet often sealed, abstracted, and inscrutable."

The photo shows a modern electronic "black box". Who needs to know what is going on inside?

Well-Disguised Bug

For want of anything to post tonight, here is a photo that I took in South Africa's Suurveld. It is a full-colour photo of a well-disguised bug sitting on some shrivelled flowers.

‘Western’ Sermon

One of the assignments of my homiletics students is (will be) to grade a sermon they hear. I therefore applied the assignment to a sermon I heard in Church today. This seemed an unusual mix of great positives and great negatives. The preacher was experienced. The sermon was both topical and exegetical. He knew how to make his point -- although he did so loosely. The main failing, in my view, was that it was a typically Western sermon. God's power in particular was largely implied -- rather than being brought into focus. OBSERVATION: And this tended to make the sermon more abstract than concrete. With divided feelings over its great strengths and great weaknesses, I graded the sermon 50%. Perhaps, if I thought more like a Westerner, 75%.

African Materials

I am preparing three seminary courses for the second semester of 2026. The seminary is largely African. I am therefore deliberately seeking out African materials. My reading matter is about 30% African. My video materials are approaching 20% African. OBSERVATION: The biggest problem is the amount of African materials available (not). Apparently 5% of written materials -- theological materials -- is African. Apart from a want of materials, though, there are other problems. Black authors and producers are so often prophets, apostles, self-made people. They often adopt non-mainstream theologies, too. But one needs African input. It may be substantially different to Western fare, and balances it out.

Short of Information

Just over a year ago, my brother-in-law R (wife E's younger brother) rolled his car, broke a leg and, apparently in good health and good spirits, died a few days later. It was a men-only funeral, since it was an unnatural death. Then police forensics called. They had found a small hole in the back of his head, they said. OBSERVATION: The family have been distressed about the circumstances of his accident and death. I myself suspected this: with a hole in the back of his head, he jumped in the car, rolled it, broke his leg, and the hospital missed the head injury. But there is not enough information to work it all out.

Suicide Letter

A close friend of mine died by suicide. They left a long suicide letter. Now that we have entered the era of AI, I ran the letter through AI for comment. They claimed it was a rational suicide. AI considered, in bold letters: "The 'rational suicide' claim is contested." AI commented further:

"This letter reads as a testament to a brilliant, wounded, fiercely independent person who has made meaning out of suffering for a long time and has now decided that meaning-making itself is the burden. It is not a crazy letter. It is not a stupid letter. It is a very sad letter disguised as a liberating one."

OBSERVATION: This is what I thought without AI. I thought it was a mistake.

AI and Academia

The debates are raging in academia about AI. Wife E said something that made sense. Back in the day, calculators came along, and we didn’t need to think any more to do 1 + 1 = . Now, AI has come along. Again, we don’t need to think as hard as we did before. Yet both calculators and AI raised our game. OBSERVATION: The general feeling in academia seems to be: you can't stop the flood. AI should not be quoted verbatim, though. If it must be, then with a reference.

Beached Whale

There has been much drama surrounding a beached whale in Germany (it finally died). Here are workers entering the whale. When I was a boy, a whale beached almost in front of our house. Islanders chopped it into great chunks of meat -- and I was given a vertebra as a gift, to use as a seat. So I sat on my seat near the shore, and watched the world go by.

‘Premium’ Connection

I have a "premium" connection to the Internet in Cape Town -- yet this is sometimes too slow to be practical. This morning I began to upload a 2GB backup to the Cloud. The Cloud reported: "92 hours remaining ..." OBSERVATION: Often, our lack of speed does not matter. E-mails mostly go off all right, and so do posts. But not always. Downloading and uploading is not as slick, however, when it comes to larger files connected with my seminary. These may take a few minutes each. The same for overseas news. One's computer may easily stall for a minute before the news comes on.

Emotional About My Car

I get emotional about my car -- particularly when it breaks down. It is the original VW Golf -- a classic car. Here, the distributor failed, and it needed a tow. When they returned it to me, it was not merely fixed, but behaved like a different car. I am still getting used to it.

Tea, Anyone?

This was a popular photo, and I don't even know who she is. She was serving tea at seminary. An 18mm wide-angle lens means that one does not merely see her face, but all of her -- and so her attitood is revealed. You may click on the photo to enlarge.

Homiletics Book

Someone asked me whether I could recommend a book on preaching (homiletics). Yes, I can. Pastoral Preaching (2017), by Conrad Mbewe. It is a good one, although it is not as rigorous as some. Interestingly, it is one of very few such books which comes out of Africa.

Accounts 10+ Years Old

One often has to do with simple ... absurdity in government organisations. I approached the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) -- because it looked as though a medical scheme had taken money off my bank account without my permission. They said send us all your bank records ("accounts", they said) 10+ years old, or we shall cancel your complaint. One could say various things here, but this is what AI comments: "It is physically impossible for anyone to produce a decade-old bank record." OBSERVATION: This is what one might call a "pretext for war". I am treating it as discrimination, because it is a demand that lies beyond the normal treatment of the citizen.

Bullet-Proof (Not)

The situation surrounding the Iran war seems reminiscent of what can happen in the Church. We have a Constitution. That Constitution is a covenant with God. It is perfectly clear. It covers everything. But wait a moment. What is the definition of a war? And the definition of a ceasefire? And peace? And how long is a war? Are we at war or at peace? What is a Constitution? And so on. The most iron-clad Constitutions can run into trouble. OBSERVATION: But they shouldn't.

Homiletics Seminar

Two days ago, I attended a seminar on homiletics (preaching) by Dr. Rondey Ragwan. I felt that it was of a high quality. He engaged a lot with the audience, too (or tried to). He focused on the interpreter (Theology of Self), the text (Theology of Scripture), and lived realities (Theology of the World). OBSERVATION: I asked the final question of the seminar, to which Dr. Ragwan reponded, "Is my transport ready?" There was laughter all round. My question was: what is indispensable in the Church. The consensus was: preaching, certainly.

POSTSCRIPT: Here's a photo that someone else took of the event. It is interesting to me because it demonstrates what a difference dynamic range makes to a photo. Many cameras -- including mine -- permit one to set this. With higher dynamic range, the difference between light and dark is not so stark. No camera has a dynamic range as good as the human eye.