peterandthegoose.adversaria.co.uk

Results day

Goose — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:25:01 +0000

Today I received my A Level results. I got an A in Physics, Maths and German and a B in AS Further Maths. This is sufficient to get into Imperial College, my first choice university. It’s a strange day with some people terribly happy and some people devastated. Two of my friends will be unable to go to their universities of preference until some apparently anomolous results are sorted out. They are both significantly better students than myself.

Kudos to Ben Youd, however, who got four As and a distinction. That’s just madness. I think his subjects were Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Art, which is all the more impressive since none of his subjects end in the word ’studies’.

Today we also received the good news of the birth of Joshua Trinder (8lb 10oz) to Paul and Ida. So there was good news from more than one direction.

In Tenerife

Goose — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:53:50 +0000

stevec77’s photos on flickr

I am currently in Tenerife, more after I get back on the 5^th

Firefox 3

Goose — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:27:08 +0000

Today’s the day! Download firefox 3… If the page works…

Note to self: don’t tell everyone in the world to download something on one day if your server can’t cope with the pressure.

Update

I am now downloading firefox… At 9kb/s. Whoop-de-doo. Speed!

Because I was bored and wanted to try out a new web browser, I added Safari to my extensive collection of web browsers (IE7, Firefox 2 (for the next few minutes, at least), Lynx and Opera). It’s horrible. I always wanted to download Safari, because it uses the KHTML rendering engine, as Konqueror does (which I never really liked either). Uses Safari for windows is like using a browser rendered at 800×600 and maximised to fill a regular screen.

Sam’s Baptism

Goose — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 16:59:00 +0000

Sam, who has recently become a Christian, was baptised today. We had a service in Hartshill, and then went on to Park for the actual baptism. Jonathan Gravil led the baptismal service, and my father supervised. A picture can be seen below:

It has been a while since we have had a baptism in our church, and this one was certianly special. Several of her family and friends came. For the morning service, my dad continued the series he had been preaching on John, and by God’s providence it turned out to be John 3 this particular morning. We finished with a church meal.

At the same time, we also thanked Trevor Knight for his ministry in our church. He has now moved on to Emmanuel Evangelical Church in order to have more contact with his family. He was presented with a copy of ‘Sermons on the Incarnation’ by CJ Alexander.

“Intelligent people less likely to believe in God”

Goose — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:52:15 +0000

I was reading an article on the Telegraph website about Allen Stanford’s aims to establish cricket as a sport in which discussing weighty issues, like buses travelling outside the cricket ground; pigeons dying due to high flying balls and so on and so forth, would give way to a boring game styled after football, when I stumbled across an article with the slightly leading title, “Intelligent people less likely to believe in God“.

I have very little doubt that the results of the survey are true, and that in academia, Christianity is very little represented. However, I don’t believe this is a shocking thing at all. The Bible speaks in several places of God choosing ‘the foolish things of the world’ and so on. One of the most remarkable things about the disciples was that they were uneducated, and yet put the religious leaders to shame. I think we become easily discouraged in witnessing when we cannot refute abiogenesis well enough to convince an atheist, or explain that the universe had to have a cause, and Jesus is eternal, and so he’s a worthy candidate.

We are not witnesses to a concept of God, we are witnesses to the Lord Jesus Christ, who rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of the Father. Perhaps we should remember the answer of the man born blind, when he says:

Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.”

The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes.

As Christians, a miracle of healing has taken place in every one of our lives. There are countless examples of lives transformed by Jesus. We do not understand all of how this healing has taken place, we know only the surface of the man who performed it, and yet the fact it has taken place is not something that will be changed when we cease to have a clear view of some of the doctrines we found easy and obvious as children.

We do not not need to be scientists to be witnesses of Jesus, and we do not need to be discouraged when those who say they are (although the man on the street very rarely actually has any idea beyond the complete blarney they propogate on TV) give questions we cannot answer. None of this post is written to suggest that we should be ignorant or uninquisitive.

I teach you how to cheat: Updated… AGAIN!

Goose — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:12:25 +0000

Over the past couple of days, I’ve been working on a little bit of decision maths. A secret in Boggle is to remember word patterns, so when you see a group of letters on the board, you know there are several ways of rearranging those letters to get a killer score. Alastair, over on the Bogglers, has been listing anagrams of 4 letter words for precisely this purpose. He asked me to find all the 4-letter anagrams in the SOWPODS dictionary. I created a program that cannot only find the 4-letter anagrams, but the 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 letter anagrams too (not that there are any 1 letter anagrams to find)

Initially, the program was rather inefficient, and I was only able to find up to 5 letters in a reasonable amount of time. I have now vastly increased the program’s efficiency, and a complete list of every anagram in the dictionary is available.

Just so Google finds it easier to find this, I’ll just clarify that these lists contain all the anagrams which are acceptable in the SOWPODS dictionary

A bit of a preview

Goose — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:02:50 +0000

I rebuilt our church webpage. You should take a look. It will be moved to the correct address when my dad has finished his bit

Blog Cuss-o-Meter

Goose — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:27:18 +0000

How bad is the language on your blog?

I got 3.9%, which, if I’m not mistaken, is quite a bit considering I’ve never cussed a single swear on this site, unless you consider innocent British excalmations of frustration as swear words… [HT: Boar's Head Tavern]

I mean, let’s put this in perspective here… That’s less than youtube. What on Earth?

Alastair’s is apparently entirely squeaky clean. I’m guessing this test is blind to the January 2007 archive page.

OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets

Eine kleine Deutschprüfung

Goose — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:06:58 +0000

Ich habe heute meine schließliche deutsche Prüfung gehabt. Leider, habe ich letzte Nacht schlecht geschlaffen. Meiner Meinung nach, waren die Frage aus dem Prüffungsblätte ziemlich einfach. Ich denke dass ich habe denen gut bestanden. Anderseits, musste ich einen 275-300 Wörte Aufsatz auch schreiben. Das war nicht so gut. Ich habe nur c.200-220 Wörte geschrieben, und habe ich in denen viele Fehlern gemacht. Das war 25/60 der Noten, und 1/12 der ganzen A-Level-Noten. Jedoch, habe ich gute Noten in jeden anderen Anteil des Deutschsprachkurs. So Gott will, würde ich doch nächstes Jahr Imperial College besuchen.

My father back safely from Burma

Goose — Sat, 31 May 2008 21:03:49 +0000

At about 1 today, my dad arrived back in Stoke.

I have left this a little long, since I knew yesterday that my father had arrived back in London without difficulty. I want to thank all of you who prayed for my dad while he was away for your love and the time you gave. Also, if you gave a gift for the work in Myanmar, I want you to know that it was recieved well and was an encouragement to the people of Burma.

Sometimes we pray for things, and forget to thank God for the answers we receive. I want to tell you about some of the answers we received for our prayer requests concerning Burma. If you remember, we asked for prayer for 7 things:

Gifts for Burmese Christians arrive without trouble from authorities.

Thank God, my father arrived into Burma without trouble or a long delay, and had no trouble at all with the authorities.

My father is given understanding concerning immediate needs, and acts according to God’s will in the distribution of funds.

My father returned from Burma satisfied that the gifts he had passed on to the believers had been distributed wisely, and had no regrets concerning this.

The believers in Burma are encouraged by my father and his gifts.

Here I will include a quote from a Burmese Pastor who shows an answer to just this prayer:

It’s my joy and priviledge to share the feedback of Pastor Phil Roberts coming to us in times of a crucial need. First of all, I must say a special thanks to Pastor Phil Roberts for coming to us and helping us to meet our immediate needs. His coming to us in this darkest hour in the history of Burma is a great comfort and encouragement for all of us in Yangon… …He came to us as a practical solution for many of our problems in Yangon. Therefore, to God be all the glory.

My father is saved from illness and fatigue and other trouble during his time, and that where possible, those around him are too.

My father returned safe and well.

That the relief money given does not cause any problems spiritually for the believers, since in their money it is a vast fortune.

Only God knows this, but the rejoicing that we have been priviliged to see in the believers who have received the money, and the heartfelt thanks to God convinces us that this prayer has been answered.

That the response of the believers in Burma is a light to those around them.

My father has made it very clear that this prayer has been answered.

That the whole time spent in Burma is to the glory of God, and that God’s hand is upon everything accomplished during this time.

I believe we have good reason to thank God for the time my father was able to thank God, and we echo with the Burmese Pastor, to God be all the glory.