Google Books and the Espresso Book Machine: the bookstore of the future!
By Rosie Perera | September 19, 2009 at 4:49 pm
I came across this article today:
Google Books and the Espresso Book Machine: Instant Paperbacks from Digital Books
This is cool, but I also hear the death knell of small independent bookstores which can’t afford a machine like this. They were already dying anyway, but this puts another nail in the coffin. There’s little room for nostalgia in the future. Sniff! I’m a hopelessly conflicted romantic with über-geek tendencies.
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Ben Stiller on Twitter
By Rosie Perera | September 10, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Stiller discusses Twitter with Mickey Rooney (a voice of wisdom)
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Does God tweet?
By Rosie Perera | August 11, 2009 at 8:41 pm
There’s an interesting panel discussion on social media in today’s Washington Post “On Faith” column.
Thanks to new digital technologies, you can ‘tweet’ prayers via Twitter to the Western Wall or prayer requests to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. You can pray the rosary or pray the hours from your laptop. You can participate in worship services and discuss holy texts via Facebook. You can create and join faith communities on Second Life. Are social media tools a blessing or a curse for people of faith? Should we use digital technology to commune with the divine? Does God tweet?
Panelists responding to these questions include Robert Parham, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, Mathew N. Schmalz, Richard Mouw, Bob Edgar, Randall Balmer, Brad Hirschfield, Ramdas Lamb, David Wolpe, Herb Silverman, and Susan Jacoby.
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The God of technology, or the god of Technology?
By Rosie Perera | August 10, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Dave Evans has a good article on faith and technology in the latest issue of Comment. Some key quotes:
The key is not just the technology’s availability, but how available it makes us. The purpose of technology is to buy us more time to be available to other things, or to makes us more effective in some endeavour (and so allow us a greater avail upon the world). Good technology is all about availability.
…
Technology is attractive because of the God-given allure of the new new thing—but it’s also “sticky,” in that for many of us, it entraps our attention, making us so focused on it that we become less, not more, available.
…
Ever so subtly, technology becomes the object of our attention, rather than the tool of it. Developing an availability consciousness will help us guard against accidentally slipping into making a god of Technology, rather than responding to the God of technology.
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Faith to move mountains, or just ingenuity?
By Rosie Perera | July 22, 2009 at 10:37 pm
A retired Michigan carpenter named Wally Wallington has figured out how to move rocks weighing 22,000 lbs. using only his own strength, gravity, and extraordinarily simple ancient technology. Pretty amazing! Archaeologists and engineers have been mystified as to how prehistorical people could have erected the huge pillars of Stonehenge (according to Wikipedia, “various authors have suggested that supernatural or anachronistic methods were used, usually asserting that the stones were impossible to move otherwise”). But Wally might just have figured it out!
Here’s his website where he explains the physics of how he does this (click through to Page 2 and beyond for the details):
Forgotten Technology
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Humorous commentary on how we take technology for granted
By Rosie Perera | July 8, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy
How quickly we become incapable of living without things that so recently were amazing new inventions. Our sense of wonder is replaced by an attitude of entitlement. I agree with comedian Louis CK. Perhaps we should spend some time every now and then going back to the “old ways” of doing things, in order to renew our appreciation for the technology we use.
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Flutter: spoof of Twitter
By Rosie Perera | June 18, 2009 at 6:10 pm
This is really funny!
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Twitter as a tool for freedom of speech
By Rosie Perera | June 15, 2009 at 8:51 pm
This is totally cool!
I’m not a Twitter user, though I’ve been watching with some interest as it has become a huge social phenomenon. I think much of what it gets used for is a waste of time and clogs people’s mental space. But this is one time when I can’t help but say “praise God for Twitter!” I’m sure you’ve all heard about the rallies and violence in Iran after the sham election which Ahmadinejad supposedly won. Phone and Internet service has been cut off in Tehran, but people are still able to get messages out via Twitter, and many are live-tweeting about what’s going on. A massive effort among Tweeters worldwide has prevented Twitter from going down for planned maintenance tonight during tomorrow’s daylight hours in Iran.
Here is Twitter’s official statement:
A critical network upgrade must be performed to ensure continued operation of Twitter. In coordination with Twitter, our network host had planned this upgrade for tonight. However, our network partners at NTT America recognize the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran. Tonight’s planned maintenance has been rescheduled to tomorrow between 2-3p PST (1:30a in Iran).
Our partners are taking a huge risk not just for Twitter but also the other services they support worldwide — we commend them for being flexible in what is essentially an inflexible situation. We chose NTT America Enterprise Hosting Services early last year specifically because of their impeccable history of reliability and global perspective. Today’s decision and actions continue to prove why NTT America is such a powerful partner for Twitter.
This is historic! How exciting for those who get to be part of it. I’m still not about to sign up for a Twitter account. I’m content to watch from the sidelines. But I do think this is one way that Twitter can be a force for good in the world. Perhaps it will help the Iranian people to evict a totalitarian regime. Let’s pray they can do it peacefully, through the spread of truth, rather than rioting.
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The Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics
By Rosie Perera | March 16, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Written by the Computer Ethics Institute (whose website is now defunct), posted on the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) site:
1. Thou shalt not use a computer to harm other people.
2. Thou shalt not interfere with other people’s computer work.
3. Thou shalt not snoop around in other people’s computer files.
4. Thou shalt not use a computer to steal.
5. Thou shalt not use a computer to bear false witness.
6. Thou shalt not copy or use proprietary software for which you have not paid.
7. Thou shalt not use other people’s computer resources without authorization or proper compensation.
8. Thou shalt not appropriate other people’s intellectual output.
9. Thou shalt think about the social consequences of the program you are writing or the system you are designing.
10. Thou shalt always use a computer in ways that ensure consideration and respect for your fellow humans.
[Rosie’s response] Those (in my opinion) should be a very basic minimum of computer ethics for Christians. Other things could be added, such as “Thou shalt not esteem thy computer as a god, neither shalt thou consider it to be thy salvation, nor expend all thy wealth towards it and its peripherals,” “Thou shalt not use a computer in ways that harm the environment” and “Thou shalt not use a computer in ways that cause you or a fellow human to sin.”
Most of the items on that list are pretty clear and uncontroversial, and need not be qualified. However, #2, #3, and #6, could be open to some discussion.
#2) This hinges on the definition of “computer work.” If someone else is using a computer for nefarious purposes, and you are in a position to stop it, especially if someone is in imminent danger, then yes you should interfere with their computer work! For most people, though, this would mean merely that you should contact the appropriate authorities who could do something about it. But if you’re a sysadmin, then yeah, by all means, kick the b***ards off! And then contact law enforcement if it’s something really serious like child porn or terrorism or securities fraud.
#3) Suppose you have good reason to believe your child is being stalked by an child pornographer online (she has expressed things to you that make you think this might be the case). You darned well better look in her computer usage trails to find out, with proper explanation to her about why you’re doing it and her implicit permission to let you protect her thusly. Incidentally, for young enough children, it should never get to this stage, as you should be supervising their online use at all times. I’m not clear on how you determine when your child has reached the age of computer responsibility when you should trust her with a bit of privacy in her own use of it, while still being available to project them if necessary. But it’s a gradual letting go accompanied by training in safety. Just as you eventually let your kid walk unaccompanied to a friend’s house once you trust he knows well enough how to avoid being hit by a car. (At least you did back in the good old days when cars were all you had to worry about for your kids.)
#6) I agree with this one, but at the same time I decry the pricing policies of software companies that make it nearly impossible for the poor to have access to their proprietary goods. (The Open Source movement is beginning to change this in some places like India, but it is still a problem worldwide.) While I don’t condone people copying software, I know that the economic reality in Third World countries is such that a lot of people are using pirated software because to buy the legitimate stuff would cost several years’ wages. I have chosen to look the other way, even when I was working at Microsoft and we were supposed to report known cases of software piracy to a special hotline.
I think Christians in Technology need to be at the forefront of a discussion on how to change this reality for poor countries. In our advanced world of North America, Europe and high-tech parts of Asia, access to computers and online information is becoming a necessity for work and life. It is going to one day be the case in Africa and South America as well.
According to Scripture, we will always have the poor with us, but perhaps we should treat them as the Bible would have us treat them. What would it mean to leave the technological “gleanings” for them, for example (cf. Lev 19:9-10 and Deut 24:19-20)? Maybe instead of selling used software on eBay or destroying outdated versions of Microsoft products that can no longer be sold, we should give it away for free to those who can’t afford the latest greatest. And perhaps companies like Microsoft should provide support for older versions of their software for more than 2-3 years, so the poor won’t be left in the dust when they come late to the table.
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Online community?
By Rosie Perera | March 6, 2009 at 2:49 pm
The first of my bi-monthly articles as Comment magazine’s technology columnist has been published online. This column’s focus is technology and community:
http://www.cardus.ca/comment/article/897/
There is no forum for commenting on articles there (ironic for a publication called Comment, eh?), but I invite your responses here.
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