Google and Amazon Compete Over Shuffle Readers

As I’ve said many times, I love my Kindle. The device is a complete “game changer” for me in terms of how I think, and consume, the written (?) word.

What I’ve been discovering is that I read more efficiently when I “shuffle read” in a similar fashion to how I listen to music now. Rarely do I listen to just one album all the way through, and even more rarely do I listen to an album on a physical CD. Instead, everything I listen to is set up via playlists on iTunes and then transferred over to my iPod Touch.

In a similar fashion, what I’m discovering with the Kindle is that I get more reading done (and enjoy it more) when I’m given the freedom to read 50 pages from one book then quickly flip over to another for a few minutes and read there, then bounce back to the original book.

That’s not to say I don’t enjoy getting wrapped up in a good story or even an in-depth academic book such as something from Brueggemann. However, when it comes to reading for pleasure, shuffle reading is the way to go for me.

it looks like Google and Amazon recognize this growing trend and are racing to grab market share and attention by offering more access to more books on more platforms:

Google and Amazon to Put More Books on Cellphones – NYTimes.com: “In a move that could bolster the growing popularity of e-books, Google said Thursday that the 1.5 million public domain books it had scanned and made available free on PCs were now accessible on mobile devices like the iPhone and the T-Mobile G1.

Also Thursday, Amazon said that it was working on making the titles for its popular e-book reader, the Kindle, available on a variety of mobile phones. The company, which is expected to unveil a new version of the Kindle next week, did not say when Kindle titles would be available on mobile phones.”

I’ve tried the Google eBook site on my Touch over the last few hours. Admittedly, it’s not as polished or enjoyable as the Kindle. However, it’s a start and it’s pointing to the future.

Will physical books ever go away? Of course not. However, as more people learn the benefits of the Kindle and eBooks (even in the academic sphere), there will be exponential growth in this market, especially when it comes to reading for pleasure.

Donatio Bushi

Should be interesting to watch how the Obama administration handles the delicate ego’s of the many evangelical faith-based organizations that the previous administration relied on for to solidify their base during election years (oh, and for the social work stuff as well):

Obama says faith shouldn’t be used to divide | CITIZEN-TIMES.com | Asheville Citizen-Times: “Obama is also telling the gathering that the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships that he is announcing Thursday won’t favor any religious group, or favor religious groups over secular groups.

He says it will help organizations that want to ‘work on behalf of our communities,’ without ‘blurring the line'”

It’s good to hear a President speaking ecumenical language and not imparting governmental favor or sanctioning upon one denomination, faith or creed but recognizing the place of government to be a neutral party that allows itself to hear, rather than speak, the prophetic languages of faith communities.

After all, (to channel one of my old prof’s from Wofford College), it has been all downhill after Constantine.

Of Pig Bones and Pillars: Why Josiah Matters

As much as I’m drawn to Dura Europos, the interesting convergence of narrative interpretation, post-colonial criticism and historical authenticities surrounding the study of 7th and 6th century Judah as played out in the Deuteronomistic “History” of Joshua thru II Kings (and Jeremiah and parts of Hosea, Genesis, etc) is too fascinating to avoid.

I really do uphold the position that Hezekiah and Josiah (especially Josiah) are the main characters of the OT (from a narrative point of view) and all the actions, theologies, histories, and imaginings of creation can (I would say should, but that’s my own reading) be read through a Josianic lens.

Questions of historicity, royal theologies, centralization of politics and the worship of YHWH, cultural hegemony… it’s all in the Deuteronomistic History.

Fun, and incredibly important, stuff to ponder for us as we move out of a world dominated by the ideas of nationalism into something very different where cultural theologies will be as, if not more, important than historic realities.

It would appear that following the destruction of Philistine Gath, and the apparent existence of a political “vacuum” in part of the region of the late kingdom of Gath, the kingdom of Judah, perhaps under Hezekiah, takes over parts of the lands of the former kingdom of Gath, including the city of Gath itself.

What is interesting though, is the fact that despite the clear change in ceramics, when we analyzed the animal bones from the 8th cent. BCE level, there still was a lot of pig bones – very untypical of the Judean sites. This may very well indicate that while the political control, and cultural affiliation of the site moved towards Judah, at least some of the original “Philistine” population remained on site and sustained their traditional dietary habits.

link: A Judean “pillar figurine” from Gath « The Tell es-Safi/Gath Excavations Official (and Unofficial) Weblog

Intelligent Design is Bad Theology


Looks like a fun book (Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution
):

Seeing and Believing: “Miller brilliantly exposes ID for what it is: a farrago of theological assertions and discredited scientific claims designed to inveigle a religious view of life into the biology classroom. IDers have no defined program of scientific research. Although they spend huge sums of money on public relations, they have not produced a single scientifically refereed paper supporting the empirical claims of their ‘theory.’ Miller correctly concludes that ‘the hypothesis of design is compatible with any conceivable data, makes no new testable predictions, and suggests no new avenues for research.’ One of Miller’s keenest insights is that ID involves not just design but also supernatural creation. After all, the designer has to do more than just envision new creatures; he must also place them on Earth. And if that is not creationism (a label that IDers loudly reject), I do not know what is.

For Giberson, ID is not just bad science (or more strictly, not science at all), it is also bad theology:

The world is a complex place, and there is much about the universe that we still don’t understand. We are centuries away from closing the many gaps in our current scientific understanding of the natural world…. But it is the business of science to close gaps, and it has long been the central intuition of theology to find a better place to look for God…. Promoting ‘design’ in isolation from God’s other attributes is a dangerous and ultimately self-defeating way to get God back into science.

Rather than reconciling religion and science, then, ID puts them in further conflict, damaging both in the process. That is why so many theologians as well as scientists have testified against ID in court.”

Read the whole review from Jerry Coyne at The New Republic.

Testing My Faith

[Later Addition/Redaction: As Prof Bibb points out in the comments below (and go read his fantastic blog, btw… I’ve been subscribed for the last few weeks and it’s one of my fav reads now), this is satire. And yes, I’m an idiot for a) not catching that and b) not doing my homework and clicking over to Edward Current’s YouTube page (lots of great stuff as well).

So, on with my righteous indignation…]

Besides my head literally exploding from the recursive and numerous logic fails, this video, it does point out a rather concerning strand that is influencing contemporary “theologies” associated with some members of movements such as the emerging church: the push against intelligence and asking questions.

In the video itself, we get the summary statement of these sorts of theologies:

“Maybe God created the evidence infinitely difficult to understand on purpose to test our faith in his son, born of virgin, and sent to die so that he could rise again and cleanse mankind of our sins. God is infinitely intelligent, you know?”

Well, we don’t *know* that since that would indicate we understand the nature of God. Some of us humans describe God with that descriptor, but it’s not something I’d ever claim to *know*. Language is important, folks.

Even more unsettling is the assertion that God would be a manipulative deity playing sleight of hand tricks with dinosaur bones and soil strata so that a very small percentage of our species (white, middle class North Americans living in the late 20th/early 21st century) could find redemption based on superior faith.

Trusting God is good and right. Trusting our tiny and inept brains to fully comprehend the nature of the deity, the cosmos and conceptions of absolute truth is idolatry.

I’ll stop there.

(BTW, William of Ockham was a very devout monk.)

Thanks to Pharyngula for the find.

Danes, Swedes and Post-Religious Morality

Growing up outside of a faith community (and in my hometown context, that meant Southern Baptist) until I was 13, my friends would often ask (even at our young age) how I knew right from wrong if I didn’t go to church. Those experiences have always stuck with me.

Of course, those questions made sense because as kids in the 80’s we were constantly on the alert for the godless communists that wanted to obliterate us and our Christian way of life. However, now we have the construction of al-Qaeda as the boogey people, so we demonize extremist Muslims rather than godless commies.

While these sorts of studies are hard to correlate data wise, it is interesting to observe how “post-religious” states such as Denmark and Sweden line up against more “religious” states like the US or Mexico or Brazil or Iran:

The Virtues of Godlessness – ChronicleReview.com: “Many people assume that religion is what keeps people moral, that a society without God would be hell on earth: rampant with immorality, full of evil, and teeming with depravity. But that doesn’t seem to be the case for Scandinavians in those two countries. Although they may have relatively high rates of petty crime and burglary, and although these crime rates have been on the rise in recent decades, their overall rates of violent crime — including murder, aggravated assault, and rape — are among the lowest on earth. Yet the majority of Danes and Swedes do not believe that God is ‘up there,’ keeping diligent tabs on their behavior, slating the good for heaven and the wicked for hell. Most Danes and Swedes don’t believe that sin permeates the world, and that only Jesus, the Son of God, who died for their sins, can serve as a remedy. In fact, most Danes and Swedes don’t even believe in the notion of ‘sin.'”

So, the question becomes what impact does religion have on our conceptions and intentional acts of realized morality? Are these positive or negative effects? Was religion formulated and born in an era of our species’ development when we needed a construct of some “other” force or entity to ensure community ethos, empathy, sharing, and foundational morality?

If so, what good is religion?

What Will Archaeologists Think of Us? Or Do Post-Moderns Dream of Electric Sheep?

Being that I’m of the historical mindset, it’s something I ponder often… what will our archaeological legacy be if the bits that we are creating even survive the coming millennia?

I’m not alone:

I sometimes wonder what future archaeologists and historians will understand about our society. It may seem unthinkable that future scholars would have as much disagreement about basic things as we do about the ancients, but I’m sure it seemed just as unlikely to those great old civilizations. Will historians understand our religious practices? Cultural and political systems? How much of our language will be opaque idiom? Let’s face it, bits and bytes are much less durable than papyrus, clay, and stone.

Fun stuff to ponder since we aren’t recording our decalogues on stones and stele anymore (somewhat unfortunately).

Are we the Myceneans 2.0?

NASCAR Folks on Twitter

TallGlassOfMilk has a great listing of NASCAR fans, bloggers, press, teams and tracks that are on Twitter.

I absolutely love this for a number of reasons.  It’s tremendous fun to watch an event (like a race) and interact with folks in real time on the web.  CNN and Facebook proved that during Obama’s inauguration last week.  Plus, it’ s even more fun to be at a race in person and interacting with folks on Twitter (tried it last year during two races and it really added to the overall experience.

So, if you’re on Twitter and a NASCAR fan, head over and let’s get our little community going:

http://drinkthis.typepad.com/answer_this/2009/01/nascar-on-twitter.html