DirecTV (to which I happily subscribe) will have an interactive, multi-screen presentation of the Masters this year. How providential that this is the same year in which I was afforded the opportunity to go hi-def, widescreen, plasma, and large. I may need to take a 4-day weekend.
After all, it’ll be the start of Tiger’s Grand Slam year.
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Via Phil Cooke at The Change Revolution:
Media theorist and writer Neil Postman (Amusing Ourselves to Death) has a pretty brilliant comparison of the two visions:
“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with feelings instead of facts. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions. In 1984, Huxley added, that people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. We must face the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”
Uh.
Yikes.
I’m going to go find a hole and hide there until time travel is invented and I can back a few thousand years when we didn’t have to worry about any of this.
Online backup of important data is not only the wave of the future, it’s already here. I recently helped my grandmother buy a computer from Dell and one of the options was online backup via Dell (at an extra cost, of course). There are many, many companies that offer backup services. iBackup.com is an online storage site and may have something that sets it apart from the pack. Their software creates a mapped drive or folder on your computer for easy drag-and-drop saving and backing up of your important files. Subscription plans vary based on the amount of storage needed, from 5 GB at $9.95/month or $99.50/year to 300 GB at $299.95/month or $2999.95/year. These prices are comparable to other services, and, when it comes to your important documents, pictures, and videos, it’s a price you’ll be glad to have paid.
Unfortunately, my mouse usually takes the brunt of my frustrations. The "program" can be purchased (seriously) at www.screensmasher.com.
I’ve been busy the last few weeks attempting to get my church to tread into this century. There’s more we could be doing via the Internet, but it’s difficult to steer a large group of people to adopt new technologies for communication. So here’s a list of a few things I’ve incorporated over the last few weeks:
1. A blog specifically tailored to a new Bible study class covering the book The Worshiping Artist. Why we hadn’t tried this before, I don’t know. Discussion seems to be going well thus far. Also, the leader of the study (also the Worship Pastor of the church) is updating it himself. If you’re interested, check out www.fbcgt.org/dale . I’m also working on getting staff members to blog about their points of interest.
2. A forum for all church members. It has yet to be published, but if you’re reading this then you’ll be treated to a sneak peek at www.fbcgt.org/thehub . Forums may be a little foreign to some people, but they’re highly useful once understood. They will, hopefully, be used for the multiple ministries at the church, events around our city, for each individual Life Group, and also for leaders and other groups that might require a certain level of privacy for their discussions. I may be most excited about the prospects of this forum, but I’ve also been in this position before of starting a forum for a church, only to have it’s popularity wane in relation to the amount of time it’s "new."
An aside about the forum – it’s called theHub because I’d actually already created a forum called "the forum" using different software than what I’m currently now using. I had been using bbpress, as it syncs with wordpress, our publishing platform, somewhat easily. Unfortunately, it’s not as mature as some other options out there. One of the main problems for me in regards to that is the inability to restrict certain discussions to certain people or groups. So I turned to the big daddy of forums, phpbb. While I’ve never used it before, I’m learning it and liking it. And I like the sound of "theHub." It is a central meeting place, after all.
3. Video Podcasts. We’re not doing this yet, but we’re very close to it.
Slowly, surely, and with many a technical glitch to go, the church creeps ever onward into the vast, uncharted waters of the Internet.
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Why don’t you take a Kissimmee vacation? The irony in that is that it’s close to Disneyland and I just posted about a Baptist church.
The views expressed on this blog are solely my own and are not representative of my employer.
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