June 2006

Not exactly Douglas Adam’s electric monk but some Cistercian monks who run a successful office supplies e-business supporting themselves and various charities. See Wired 14.07: Monk Ebusiness. (LaserMonks - slogan “Real Savings. Real Monks.”)

I hope something like this can work in the real world. Producing plastic from biomass, that in turn can be recycled does seem much better than just producing it from oil. See Wired News: Just One Word: Fructose.

Useful tip about digital library cards over at: Cool Tool: Digital Library Cards.

Heidi Campbell’s new blog, When Religion Meets New Media, has a link to this article Muslims craft their own video games | csmonitor.com. Looks like an interesting game. I wonder if it’ll be available here in NZ?

Related to this is the development of Middle Eastern comic books. At this point they follow American formats reasonably closely, but open up the possibility of developing their own style more close related to local themes. See Silver Bullet Comics: Special AK: AK Comics and Heroes of the Middle East and AK COMICS Inc.

Marvel comics have a venture in the Middle East too, though Teshkeel Comics.

Here are some different ways that technology gets defined. Which one do you think is best? What might you suggest as a better definition?

• Technology is concerned with the human community creating and inventing assorted tools, machines and mechanisms to manipulate and exploit the natural world. Furthermore, technological application shapes not only nature, but also the human community.
• Technology is applied science and engineering.
• Technology is what society uses to address its needs by using it ‘to produce goods and services for the creation of wealth and for human culture to flourish. Needs and wishes come first and the technology simply fulfils them.’
• Technology is ‘a sociotechnical system in which hardware, technique, and a particular ideological frame of reference combine to aid in the pursuit of essentially pragmatic ends, generally associated with the augmentation of human capabilities.’
• ‘We ask the question concerning technology when we ask what it is. Everyone knows the two statements that answer our question. One says: Technology is a means to an end. The other says: Technology is a human activity. The two definitions of technology belong together.’
• ‘Technology is therefore no mere means. Technology is a way of revealing.’
• ‘the application of organized knowledge to practical tasks by ordered systems of people and machines’ (Barbour)
• technology is ‘a system based on the application of knowledge, manifested in physical objects and organizational forms, for the attainment of specific goals’ (Volti)
• Technology (technique) is ‘the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity.’
• Technology is ‘a distinct human cultural activity in which human beings exercise freedom and responsibility to God by forming and transforming the natural creation, with the aid of tools and procedures, for practical ends and purposes.’

Everyone at home is sick (since last Thursday in some cases). I’ve just spend the afternoon in bed as I try to get the best of a sinus infection. Tomorrow though, everyone is back at school, kindy and work which should mean forward progress on the thesis after that last 5 days of “spinning wheels”. (Actually more like not getting into first gear.)

There’s a little box in chapter one that says - “Insert my own definition of technology here”, followed by a seriously large number of bullet points. I’ve had a clear idea in my head what it is, but been struggling to reduce it to a pithy sentence or two. Tomorrow that should all be a thing of the past.

Well, I still can’t do it - but this robot can. In about 36 seconds. Watch the video at TechEBlog » Rubik’s Cube Solving Robot.

A couple of links relating to ethical considerations of emerging technologies.

No sex please, robot, just clean the floor - Sunday Times - Times Online notes the call by some for ethical guidelines to be developed with respect to robot/AI research. Ethical guidelines for both developers and users.

BetterHumans.com : An uplifting evening with James Hughes. Simon Smith ponders whether you should make your pet (or other animals) more intelligent if you had the power to do so. Again some interesting reflections here (though Deep Blue Sea did come to mind seeing as dogs and cats are carnivores).

Is it just me or is this just a little macabre?

All Blacks give blood for fans - 24 Jun 2006 - Rugby.

This looks like getting the old grey cells buzzing. Always interested in seeing where people across the spectrum think digital culture will go. See Aula Network.

This is funky. Playing virtual tennis in real space with your cell phone. I love augmented reality technologies (see Greenflame: Augmented Reality, Children’s Books and Ritual), and the video clips at the HITL (NZ) web site have some interesting demos. (Just wish they were in Quicktime or MPEG formats - never know how WMV is going to perform on the old iBook)

See: Wired News: Next Game Controller: Your Phone and Human Interface Technology New Zealand (Videos).

Article I missed when it came out a few months back, but directly connected to the thesis edits for next week.

See Science & Theology News - I, robot? Ethical considerations of cyborgs

Crittenden said cyborgs may provoke humanity to engage in what he calls “self-deselection” — the idea that in replacing parts of our bodies with mechanical devices we will essentially be replacing ourselves with another species. Our technologically based culture is the first step in the descent toward self-deselection, he said.

“Although many scholars see positive uses of the cyborg imagery,” he writes, “I argue that they downplay, or in many cases entirely ignore, the dangers. Dangers that, if they come to pass, are apocalyptic.”

Had to do a “quick and dirty” translation of a Latin phrase today, and looking around the place I came across this neat little program that gave me a start: A Latin-English Dictionary Program - WORDS. Runs on PCs (incl. Linux) and Mac OS X and given some Latin returns “an analysis/morphology (declension, conjugation, case, tense, etc.) of each word individually, the dictionary form, and the translation (meaning)”.

Most helpful.

And of interest to the geeks out there, it’s written in Ada. Visions of COSC 202 and 302 float before me. (202 PDF tests a long time after I did them are here : test1 / test2)

World Cup goalkeepers complain that the new Adidas soccer ball behaves differently from the traditional ones constructed from hexagonal panels. Article here suggests possible reasons why. See Wired News: Flight of the Bumble Ball.

There’s probably a sense of déjà vu here for Kiwi rugby supporters, after Adidas’ first attempt at a rugby ball was described by some as “a pig and a lemon”, and was dropped in favour of another brand. Still the lemon (it was fluorescent yellow originally) might be back soon. See Game gets kickalong as new ball passes test - Union - www.theage.com.au.

Article on genetic determinism - Science & Theology News - The Daily Dose: Genes are my co-pilots points to another at That Wild Streak? Maybe It Runs in the Family - New York Times.

Reminds me of this from a paper I read recently.

Hansen, Bart, and Paul Schotsmans. “Cloning: The Human as Created Co-Creator?” Ethical Perspectives 8, no. 2 (2001): 75-89. (Abstract)

It is equally compelling to investigate how a ‘gene theology’, insofar as it is formulated on the basis of a belief in a sort of predestination, reasons. Here the genome takes the place of a Janus-faced God who arbitrarily rules over and disposes of everything. On the one hand the human is literally bound by the invisible threads of DNA. Human life is reduced to the performance of a drama whose ‘dénouement’ has been determined in advance. The divine DNA directs the play and humans act it out. In this perspective of God’s providence the separation and autonomy of humanity over against God is eliminated. On the other hand, the illusion is created that once the genetic structure is untangled a total control of the further evolution of human dignity and scientific and technological development becomes possible. (pp.82-83)

This happened a while back but the site still has audio, presentations and papers for download. See TransVision 2004 : Faith, Transhumanism and Hope Symposium.

Had a brief look at this today. Looks really interesting.

God’s Earth, Our Home || Social Justice Commission of the Anglican Church - 5 studies based on faith and the environment through the lens of ‘Ecology and Economy’, a lecture given by Rowan Williams.

Produced by Social Justice Commission of the Anglican Church (NZ).

A glimpse into the hypothetical future? Have a look at Genpets.com - Bioengineered Buddies! (It’s not real, in case you were wondering)

Wired News: Androids Dream of Soccer Glory.

Presentation | Drupal as an Instructional Design Tool.

MEDIATIZED STORIES. Mediation perspectives on digital storytelling among youth — Intermedia Home Site

The project explores how people – youth in particular – use self-representation in digital storytelling to shape and share their lives, and tries to understand these processes through theories of mediation and mediatization across media studies and the field of education.

Just came across my first theological paper in a respectable journal that referred to some terms being critiqued as “weasel words“. Must be somewhere in the thesis to use that. I’ve often wanted to replace lines like “the concept demonstrates certain deficiencies…” with “the author was obviously high as as kite when they dreamed this up…”

Well, I’m inspired. Coke and Mentos Fountain at EepyBird.com. Science on the cutting edge.

Trying to think of how it works as a theological analogy so I can use it in class sometime.

The second volume (Earth, Sea and Sky) of New Zealand’s official online encyclopaedia, Te Ara, should be online by now.

See also: New Zealand’s source for technology news on Stuff.co.nz: Te Ara can learn from Wiki. (The third volume will be open for public contributions)

Links and comments on the use of performance enhancing drugs used by children and teenagers in education. See Better Humans : Simon : The kids are alright with smart drugs

Selection of articles on spirituality and religion in comic books.

At the comics shop, religion goes graphic - MORE NEWS AND FEATURES - MSNBC.com.

Sequential Tart: Tart To Heart (vol VI/iss 12/December 2003) : Spirituality In Comics.

Discussion spawned by X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills at Religion in God Loves, Man Kills - Captain Comics Round Table.

Newspaper article on a new report produced for the Families Commission on the “digital divide’s” effects on poorer children. See New Zealand’s source for technology news on Stuff.co.nz: ‘Digital divide’ affecting poorer children

The official press release is here: New communication technologies and family life.
The report is here: http://www.familiescommission.govt.nz/download/blueskies-weatherall.pdf

Helpful little article on getting a WordPress installation going under WindowsXP. See [Geeks are Sexy] technology news: Installing WordPress Locally Under Windows XP.

Science and Theology New have been running articles recently about biotechnology and its interaction with religion. There are a couple of interesting ones I’ve seen in the print edition that haven’t made it on to the web site yet, but this one is there now.

Science & Theology News - God’s genetically modified image

This looks helpful - The American Film Institute has produced a programme to aid students to use film to explore various subjects from literature to math and science. See AFI Screen Education. I wonder if there’s an NZ equivalent around.

I’ve been looking at various ways in which people have appropriated Hefner’s metaphor of the ‘created co-creator’ and today I was following up a paper by Anne Kull (University of Tartu, Estonia) that drew parallels between the concept of the cyborg articulated by Donna Haraway and the dual-natures of Christ found in the Incarnation. Kull argues that Haraway’s cyborg and Hefner’s co-creator are parallel stories attempting to make sense of human being within technoculture.

Kull, Anne. “Cyborg Embodiment and the Incarnation.” Currents in Theology and Mission 28, no. 3-4 (2001): 279-284.

From the editorial for that issue (by Ralph W. Klein),

Anne Kull considers the views of Donna Haraway regarding the relationship between human beings and nature in our technological age. Haraway believes human beings have become “cybernetic organisms,” or cyborgs, through the marriage of machine and life. The cyborg has as much affinity with technology as it does with the wilderness. Cyborgs are hybrid entities and have the potential to disrupt present dualisms that set the natural body in opposition to the technologically recrafted body. Nature is a co-creation among humans and non humans, machines, and other partners. The concept of the cyborg makes it possible to affirm our createdness with a new specificity, along with the creativeness of the rest of nature. Since the incarnation of Jesus is so contrary to common sense, it is useful for critical positioning and for destabilizing categories.

Some interesting ideas in there, and Kull uses the idea of the hybrid to link together a whole bunch of ideas that I’d like to tease out sometime. In her paper she concludes,

Deliberately posing as a hybrid creature, Jesus can show the arbitrariness and constructed nature of what is considered the norm(al)—and often, significantly, natural. The borderland of history and consciousness, where crossings are never safe and names never original, allows for differently articulated stories for humanity. (p.284)

While I was reading the paper I was thinking about this image which I’d seen a while back.

Article about criticism from both liberal and conservative groups over the teaching of the Bible as literature. The proponents argue that for a proper understanding of literature, art, music and history in the West a knowledge of the Bible is essential. And so, have developed a programme that teaches the Bible as literature to give insight into other aspects of culture and history that draw upon its language and imagery.

See Science & Theology News - Controversy simmers over teaching of the Bible.

The article here at Technology Review: Emerging Technologies and their Impact: Cheap Drinking Water from the Ocean talks about developments using carbon nanotube-based membranes for desalination. If implemented the technology could significantly reduce the cost of desalination and help alleviate water shortages. The membranes might also be able to be used to filter out various gaseous emissions such as CO2.

I’ve added a new page in the resources section about Philip Hefner’s concept of human beings as “created co-creators.” I was trying to collate all the related material for a thesis chapter into one place and I hadn’t seen a similar collection online anywhere. So I’ve made an outline of the concept with a couple of bibliographies attached.

The bibliographies are more of a sample selection than the definitive list, but now I have a place to refer people to when they ask for more information about the metaphor. Within my own work I take Hefner’s concept and rework it, so it’s useful for me to have it around too.

See The Created Co-Creator resource page.

Catching up on some podcasts today I listened to this one from ABC’s The Spirit of Things. Some good thought provoking material, which intersects with the thesis chapter I’m editing at the moment (created co-creator stuff). See The Spirit of Things - 4 June 2006 - Epiphanies: Lord Robert Winston

I read a lot. For pleasure and work. But it’s not the primary way I like to engage with ideas and stories. I prefer diagrams and other graphical representations to complement the written text. So today I was looking forward to swinging past my regular comics shop and picking up a copy of Action Philosophers Volume 1: Giant-Sized Thing. Philosophers (and theologians) in comic book form - cool.

Alas, they had sold out already and I have had to backorder a copy. Who said philosophy was unpopular?

Related links:

Interview with the creators over at Comic Book Resources - CBR News - The Comic Wire.

Action Philosophers! at Evil Twin Comics (with online samples).

And no, this does not mean that there’s a career out there for spandex-clad theologians. We’ll leave that to Bible Man (action figure here) and Dave Zimmerman.

Sometimes you just have to admire some people’s obsessions. Not only does it look good, but it feels right too. See The “Ultimate Thing” costume.

The NZ journal Stimulus experiments with blogging.

See Stimulus Journal Blog

Read this article about “new and interesting” ways to be “buried” today (Wired News: A Boom Beyond Burials). Made me think of Tolkien’s Numenor in the Silmarillion.

Thought-provoking image from Mondolithic Studios: Mondolithic: Brave New World

Looks like the new Serenity comic book series from Dark Horse will be called “Better Days”, and will be set before the Serenity movie. It will explore some of the unresolved plots from Firefly and will be written by Joss Whedon and Brett Matthews (who did the first series). Can’t wait.

Random links - with a geeky theme, of course.

William Shatner Rocketman - Google Video. Inspirational.

Leonard Nimoy - Ballad of Bilbo Baggins (MZK) - Google Video. Unforgetable.

More from Nimoy and Shatner at Frogstar - Star Trek Fan Page. Outstanding.

Shatner’s rendition of “Rocketman” reminded me of this version, Socketman, written by Unix hackers (available from MDFS::Docs.Humour.Computing.Songs). Unless you’ve been involved with porting code from BSD to SysV (and vice versa) it’s probably lost on you. Still remember the trauma of starting a new job working with SVR3.2 on AT&T 3b2’s, typing “emacs” and it not being there still lives with me.

Also, if you’re up for something really impressive check out Starlords:

Starlords juxtaposes similar pieces of familiar media structures.It experiments with sampling what is normally seen in entirety and in context (the films) and then linking them in time and space to a popular music track normally heard sampled, here played in its entirety. These cultural entities, two of the biggest juggernauts of global propaganda, share similar plots, soundtracks, characters, creatures and actors (Christopher Lee). They have large monetary and business interests as convoluted as the epic digital graphics engines, weaving fantasy worlds of white heroes from humble origins and dark lords with all-encompassing surveillance and power structures.

The Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand (PCANZ) have a couple of discussion papers up on their web site rethinking about mission. Produced by Garry Marquand (Moderator) and John Daniel (National Mission Enabler) they look at shifting from an institutional model for mission to a network-based one.

Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand // Media: Re-Forming Ourselves For Mission.

From the web site

Please find attached two papers outlining some thinking and possibilities for the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand. The first, “New Mission Paradigms” (PDF format) is primarily the work of Garry and is focused on the Presbytery level of our structure, the level at which we believe there is the greatest frustration and weakness. We suggest you open this first to review the introductory material. The second, “From Pentecost to Parousia” (PDF format) is primarily the work of John and focused on the theology of mission for today’s world.

Related links:

Greenflame: Reading Ronald again
Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand // Our Ministries: Local mission - About local mission and what the National Mission Enabler does.
Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand // What’s Presbyterian?: A vision for churches working together - Garry Marquand’s vision for the church and mission.

I was going to write something here but I’m actually at a loss for words to express how the following makes me feel. I just keeping thinking about what the 8th Century prophets might say.Converting Video Games Into Instruments of God - Los Angeles Times

” ‘Left Behind’ has the Antichrist, the end of the world, the apocalypse,” said co-creator Jeffrey S. Frichner. “It’s got all the Christian stuff, and it’s still got all the cool stuff.”

So the “cool stuff” is reveling in the slaughter of the the faithful or infidels, depending on what side you’re one? I think not.

Still trying to see the link here between what’s described in the article, and the grace, mercy and peace of the triune God who’re we’re called to follow.