computer graphics

This kind of talent makes me envious ...

john schmidt - michael

The PianoGuys meet Mozart ... cool stuff ...

engineering flowchart

This helpful Engineering Flowchart was brought to my attention by Ben Thomas.

you ate my halloween candy

Wow!!! What kind of kids are we raising?

status posting

Wonder where you should post your status? Here's help [click to enlarge].

technology

Trevin Wax posts an excerpt from John Dyer's From the Garden to the City. What did the Apostle John think about technology? Here is the excerpt ... what do you think?

We mentioned the apostle John’s view of technology found in 2 John 12, where he wrote, “Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete.”

John was comfortable using the communication technology—pen and ink—of his day, but he did so with a set of values that were contrary to the tendencies built into the technology of writing. Whereas a letter requires that one isolated person write a message and then another isolated person later read that message, John says that his joy is never complete until he is physically present with his community.

And yet, aware of this problem, John used writing because he understood both its helpfulness and its problematic value system. From that perspective he was able to use technology in service of the embodied communal life that Christ taught him. When John could not be physically present with his community, he was comfortable using technology to communicate with them. But he was always careful to state that he considered technologically mediated relationships to be inferior to embodied relationships.

For John, both embodied and disembodied communication were “real”; he simply believed that only face-to-face reality offered him “complete joy.” The great temptation of the digital generation is to inadvertently disagree with John and assume that online presence offers the same kind of “complete joy” as offline presence.

Our problem is not that technologically mediated relationships are unreal, nor is the problem that all online communication is self-focused and narcissistic. Rather, the danger is that just like the abundance of food causes us to mistake sweet food for nourishing food, and just like the abundance of information can drown out deep thinking, the abundance of virtual connection can drown out the kind of life-giving, table-oriented life that Jesus cultivated among his disciples.

Social media follows the device paradigm in that it masks the long, sometimes arduous process of friendship and makes it available at the press of a button. Yet, just because social media follows the device paradigm does not mean that we should abandon it any more than we should abandon air-conditioning. Though such speculation is rarely useful, we can only assume that if the apostles were alive today, they would continue using the technology of the day. Yet, as John modeled for us, they would do so with their value system in mind, always seeking to use technology in service of embodied life, not as a replacement for embodied life.

strandbeests

BBC One's report on Theo Jansen's Strandbeests ...

"... you discover all the problems which the real creator must have had creating this world."

bloodlines

Bloodlines by John Piper is one of the three books I just got on my new iPad. I look forward to reading it on this trip.

test post

Testing new app.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

oscillating strings

I thought this was cool ... via an iPhone using rolling shutter.

labels

I'm not planning to use Ecto anymore to create posts ... it looks like I can do all I want directly in Blogger. With that I will stop Technorati and start using Blogger's labels. Here's what I'm thinking ... input?

• Prolegomena - the study of methods and presuppositions before one does systematic theology (sometimes this involves the study of how God reveals himself).
• Bibliology - the study of the Bible.
• Theology Proper - the study of the doctrine of God.
• Christology - the study of Jesus.
• Pneumatology - the study of the Holy Spirit.
• Anthropology - the study of humanity.
• Soteriology - the study of Salvation.
• Ecclesiology - the study of the Church.
• Eschatology - the study of last things or end times.
• Angelology - the study of the angelic beings.
• Technology - the study of technical stuff
• Gelotology - the study of funny stuff

coffee lover

I love my coffee. Here's everything you wanted to know about coffee but were afraid to ask.

comments

I appreciate Shuan's perspective on disabling comments to his blog:

All complaints should be directed towards a section of society to whom the concept of even vaguely civil discussion means nothing. This collective waste of flesh, bone, and dangerously limited brain function have caused me to dread opening each and every "New Comment" notification I've received over the past twelve months or so, to the point where I now cannot continue justifying the moderation of these imbecilic, repugnant grunts when it takes up such an inordinate amount of my willpower and, more importantly, time. I'd rather spend my hours happily expanding the archives of Letters of Note than clean up after a keyboard-wielding gaggle of cowardly, dim-witted, knuckle-dragging reprobates who have nothing better to do than gleefully splash their fetid saliva all over my efforts and then roll around in the puddle until I'm able to press "Delete Comment." I refuse to waste another minute.

intelligentsia

Now that's proper espresso/cappuccino.

Technorati Tags: coffee