Blog - Page 40 of 198 - Sam Harrelson

Voice Isn’t the Next Big Platform

This piece is originally from Dec 19, 2016, but interesting to revisit as we enter the home stretch of 2017 (and what a year it has been):

In 2017, we will start to see that change. After years of false starts, voice interface will finally creep into the mainstream as more people purchase voice-enabled speakers and other gadgets, and as the tech that powers voice starts to improve. By the following year, Gartner predicts that 30 percent of our interactions with technology will happen through conversations with smart machines.

via Voice Is the Next Big Platform, and Alexa Will Own It | WIRED

I have no doubt that we’ll all be using voice-driven computing on an ever increasing basis in the coming years. In our home, we have an Amazon Alexa, 4 Amazon Dots, and most rooms have Hue Smart Bulbs in the light fixtures (oh, and we have the Amazon Dash Wand in case we want to carry Alexa around with us…). I haven’t physically turned on a light in any of our rooms in months. That’s weird. It happened with the stealth of a technology that slowly but surely creeps into your life and rewires your brain the same way the first iPhone changed how I interact with the people I love. We even renamed all of our Alexa devices as “Computer” so that I can finally pretend I’m living on the Starship Enterprise. Once I have a holodeck, I’m never leaving the house.

And perhaps that’s the real trick to seeing this stealth revolution happen in front of our eyes and via our vocal cords… it’s not just voice-driving computing that is going to be the platform of the near future. In other words, voice won’t be the next big platform. There will be a combination of voice AND augmented reality AND artificial intelligence that will power how we communicate with ourselves, our homes, our environments, and the people we love (and perhaps don’t love). In twenty years, will my young son be typing onto a keyboard in the same way I’m doing to compose this post? In ten years, will my 10-year-old daughter be typing onto a keyboard to do her job or express herself?

I highly doubt both. Those computing processes will be driven by a relationship to a device representing an intelligence. Given that, as a species, we adapted to have relational interact with physical cues and vocal exchanges over the last 70 million years, I can’t imagine that a few decades of “typing” radically altered the way we prefer to communicate and exchange information. It’s the reason I’m not an advocate of teaching kids how to type (and I’m a ~90 wpm touch typist).

Voice combined with AI and AR (or whatever we end up calling it… “mixed reality” perhaps?) is the next big platform because these three will fuse into something the same way the web (as an experience) fused with personal computing to fuel the last big platform revolution.

I’m not sure Amazon will be the ultimate winner in the “next platform” wars that it is waging with Google (Google Assistant), Apple (Siri), Facebook (Messenger), and any number of messaging apps and startups that we haven’t heard of yet. However, our future platforms of choice will be very “human” in the same way we lovingly interact with the slab of metal and glass that we all carry around and do the majority of our computing on these days. It’s hard to imagine a world where computers are shrunk to the size of fibers in our clothing and become transparent characters that we interact with to perform whatever we’ll be performing, but the future does not involve a keyboard, a mouse, and a screen of light emitting diodes for most people (I hear you, gamers) and we’ll all see reality in even more differing ways than is currently possible as augmented reality quickly becomes mainstream in the same way that true mobile devices did after the iPhone.

Maybe I just watched too much Star Trek Next Generation.

Even Hackers Take Summer Vacations

Pretty staggering July stats from Wordfence regarding attempts to log in to WordPress installs with guessed user / passwords. People still don’t use secure passwords (or more preferably a password manager)…

The average number of daily brute force attacks increased 21% from last month, which was up substantially from May. Daily attack volumes were incredibly stable throughout the month, with no big peaks or valleys. It’s almost like the attackers went on vacation and left their malicious bots running on autopilot.

via The July 2017 WordPress Attack Report

What Time Should We Post to Our Facebook Page?

I get this question quite often, especially from churches and non-profits:

“What time of the day should we post to our Facebook page to make the most impact?”

It’s a tough question to answer given the number of variables and because every church/group has a different set of Facebook followers and likes. You’ll find a number of posts on the web giving you suggestions as well (such as this one from CoSchedule). However, churches and non-profits are different beasts than companies, so you have to keep that in mind when finding a good time for your posts.

Here are a few graphs we put together from four different churches and non-profits we work with at Harrelson Agency (anonymous and with their permission). The graphs display the times when the fans of a Facebook Page are using Facebook on their computer, iPad or mobile device over the span of the last month on average. All have relatively the same size of Facebook audiences (and are close to the same size in terms of members).

This is completely anecdotal data, but it looks like the peak time for the most users being online is around 9 PM (that’s especially true on the weekends). Some days like Mondays had fewer users on Facebook but the graphs display a pretty interesting average over the past month. So if you’re looking for the most immediate eyeballs, the afternoon into the evening is a better bet than first thing in the morning or into the late evening (though there are some advantages to that as well).

So take from that what you will… I think it’s pretty interesting. Keep in mind that there is a great deal of variance and data points to employ if you’re looking to come up with a specific marketing plan around Facebook posts. This is just to provide a rough approximation based on a data set that I came across and thought was intriguing.

And you should probably not post an important update at 3 AM.

The Cyrus President

It’s not uncommon for clergy to laud political leaders; religious groups celebrated President Barack Obama as well. But the tenor of recent days is distinct: evangelical leaders such as Lance Wallnau—an avid devotee of dominionism who participated in Trump’s meetings with pastors during the campaign—wholeheartedly endorsed the Cyrus comparison for Trump. In December 2015, he declared that God had anointed Trump “for the mantle of government in the United States,” adding, “He’s got the Cyrus anointing.” David Barton, head of “biblical values” group Wall Builders, also said in June 2016, “[Trump] may not be our preferred candidate, but that doesn’t mean it may not be God’s candidate to do something that we don’t see.”

via Why Christian nationalists love Trump – ThinkProgress

“It is not Christianity”

Interesting piece from the Sr. Editor of The American Conservative Rod Dreher (also a big fan of St. Benedict).

The rapid erosion of American Christianity is a reality that sincere “Church Going People” (as we call them here in SC) need to accept. I personally believe it’s a societal net-positive to have a large number of Americans get out of bed, put on dress clothes, and hear a good sermon that tells them to love another and that they are not the center of the universe once-a-week. That’s not the reality of many / most churches of course… but I do like to romanticize the Sunday morning experience. We can’t pretend that’s the norm in 2017 and beyond and that our young people and young families will eventually go back to church any more than we can hope that they will find the joy of telephone landlines in the near future.

Whatever “comes next” after American Christianity will be shocking, “not normal” and “not my type of church” if the Age of Trump is any inkling…

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is a pseudoreligion that jettisons the doctrines of historical biblical Christianity and replaces them with feel-good, vaguely spiritual nostrums. In M.T.D., the highest goal of the religious life is being happy and feeling good about oneself. It’s the perfect religion for a self-centered, consumerist culture. But it is not Christianity.

via Trump Can’t Save American Christianity – The New York Times

Nerd Post on Firewalls

We work on a lot of websites built on WordPress at Harrelson Agency.

Some of those are complicated builds that cost tens of thousands of dollars and require constant maintenance. Some of those are relatively static sites for a non-profit or small business built on a shoestring budget of just a few hundred dollars. What all of the sites we build have in common is a firewall (we use Wordfence a great deal but also have other means and normally work at the endpoint).

What I’ve found in all my years of marketing and business consulting is that web security is so overlooked by companies, churches, and non-profits large and small. WordPress powers a ton of websites out there, and as a result is frequently a vector of attack and hacking attempts. Make sure your web devs / “tech people” or neighborhood kid that you hire to build or work on your site knows at least a little about infosec and opsec or you’ll be paying for your budget-built website eventually.

Here’s a nerdy, but interesting, post from Wordfence on what makes them different from cloud-based firewalls…

When choosing a firewall for your WordPress website to protect it against attacks, you have a handful of choices. Wordfence is one of the only effective “endpoint” firewalls available. The alternative is a “cloud” firewall from vendors like Sucuri (now owned by GoDaddy) and Cloudflare.

via Why Choose An Endpoint Firewall Like Wordfence

The Way to Successful Teams

I’ve been a part of successful teams and unsuccessful teams… I think these traits are spot on given my experiences (especially psychological safety):

Contents
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1. Dependability.
2. Structure and clarity.
3. Meaning.
4. Impact.
5. Psychological Safety.

1. Dependability.

2. Structure and clarity.

3. Meaning.

4. Impact.

5. Psychological Safety.

via Google Spent 2 Years Studying 180 Teams. The Most Successful Ones Shared These 5 Traits | Inc.com

Embracing AI

Future generations would look back and be amazed that 21st Century life was so people-centric, he said, especially in fields, such as car driving, where human fallibility put more lives at risk than was necessary.

via Kasparov: ‘Embrace’ the AI revolution – BBC News

Wrestling With the Text

I’ll be preaching on Genesis 32:22-31 (Jacob wrestles God / Angel / River Demon / Jungian Archetype … depending on your persuasion) at First Christian Church Columbia, SC on August 6. This is probably my favorite text in the entire Bible and I’m excited that it comes up in the lectionary next week.

I always wonder how others read this story. Leave me a comment here or on Facebook, Twitter, email etc and let me know.

I’ll post the sermon when I’m done, but maybe you can impact in how that turns out.

“The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.

When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’

So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’ Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And there he blessed him.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’ The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.”

Screenshots

At least 3 times a week, this panic strikes me when I see screenshots on the web…

screenshot

via xkcd: Screenshot

Episode 116: No One WANTS to Vote Against Romans

Gospel of Mary? Bel and the Dragon? The Apocryphon of John? Two Corinthians? Dr. Thomas Whitley and the Rev. Sam Harrelson are joined again by David Ray Allen to cover the second round of the Thinking Religion Bible Bracket Challenge and give a great overview of biblical books you might not have read in a while.

Special Guest: David Ray Allen Jr..

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Thinking Religion 115 and Hermeneutics

Thomas is in Philadelphia this week but we still managed to sneak in a podcast episode. We start by going over the very important but often-overlooked general idea of hermeneutics and why we should take them seriously in the Age Of Trump (AOT from here on out). Then we hop into the Bible Bracket Challenge. Sorry, Ruth.

Dr. Thomas Whitley and the Rev. Sam Harrelson discuss the concept of hermeneutics and continue their ongoing quest to decide the best book in the Bible from the Thinking Religion Bible Bracket Challenge.

via Thinking Religion Episode 115: Your Hair Is Like a Flock of Goats

Episode 115: Your Hair is Like a Flock of Goats

Dr. Thomas Whitley and the Rev. Sam Harrelson discuss the concept of hermeneutics and continue their ongoing quest to decide the best book in the Bible from the Thinking Religion Bible Bracket Challenge.

Praying in Public

I don’t get it. It’s just pizza, man—I don’t know if we need to ‘beseech’ the ‘Father of lights in whom there is no variation or shadow due to change’ to bless it to ‘our bodies, hearts, and hands that we might serve thee.’ It’s not even good pizza.”

via Local Man Takes On Persona Of 17th Century Puritan When Praying

The Babylon Bee is a satire site, but that doesn’t mean that there’s a lack of biting reality in most of its posts. I can definitely confirm a lifetime of hearing prayers full of “beseech”ing and use of lingo that is out-of-date in any context.

Praying in public has always been something of a fascination for me and I’ve always been interested in the multivarious ways that contemporary Christians here in the US (primarily in the South) do it. Whether it’s before our football games or at our NASCAR races, it’s an integral part of the culture as much as fights over bbq sauces and whether Jimmie Johnson is better than Dale Earnhardt (he is).

I wonder what the drive is to use such language in prayers (especially ones at restaurants or in public gatherings)? I know that I’ve been a part of group prayers, say before a meal at a crowded and small restaurant / fast food joint… particularly with youth groups) where the prayer leader (typically male) rolls forth with a choice number of King James idioms that always feel as if they’re more of a performance in order to pique the interest of others outside of the group.

It gets particularly fascinating when we mix formal and antiquated language with very casual references to our “smokin hot wives” and “Goodyear’s performance.”

Maybe that’s the point of praying in public for many people… witnessing or evangelizing in a mini-one-act-play. I’m certainly not ashamed of my faith or never pass up a chance to talk about Jesus (I scrawled “ASK ME ABOUT JESUS” on my beloved green Vans in the 8th grade… I still wear those). But when I do lead a prayer in public or when my family prays before a meal at a restaurant as we often do, we try to be reverent or at least make the prayer more about thanksgiving than performance art.

Perhaps it depends on whether you like 1 Timothy or Matthew better. It’s sort of an “is the dress gold or blue” thing, I reckon:

⁸I desire, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument; ⁹also that the women should dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing, not with their hair braided, or with gold, pearls, or expensive clothes, ¹⁰but with good works, as is proper for women who profess reverence for God. ¹¹Let a woman^b]”>[b] learn in silence with full submission. ¹²I permit no woman^c]”>[c] to teach or to have authority over a man;^d]”>[d] she is to keep silent. ¹³For Adam was formed first, then Eve; ¹⁴and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. ¹⁵Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.

Matthew 6:5-8

⁵“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. ⁶But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.^a]”>[a]

⁷“When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. ⁸Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

When your daughters destroy your Spotify algorithms

There are downsides to having a family Amazon Echo hooked up to your personal Spotify account…

Evangelical Crisis of Faith

The 20 percent of white evangelicals who did not vote for Trump — many of whom are conservative politically and theologically — now seem to have a lot more in common with mainline Protestants. Some in my own circles have expressed a desire to leave their evangelical churches in search of a more authentic form of Christianity.

Other evangelicals are experiencing a crisis of faith as they look around in their white congregations on Sunday morning and realize that so many fellow Christians were willing to turn a blind eye to all that Trump represents.

via Trump threatens to change the course of American Christianity – The Washington Post

Episode 114: Sorry About Luke

Dr. Thomas Whitley and the Rev. Sam Harrelson are joined again by David Ray Allen Jr. to cover the next round of the Thinking Religion Bible Bracket Challenge… with a few surprises this week!

Special Guest: David Ray Allen Jr..

2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17 Day

With Amazon’s Prime Day and Chik-Fil-A’s Cow Appreciation Day (dress up like a cow and get a free chicken sandwich… my wife is actually doing this… seriously… I’ll take pics), made-up holidays are all the new marketing rage. In a funny way, this reminds me of those commercials from my childhood in the 80’s and 90’s that car dealers would run (throughout the year, I might add) announcing “Toyota Dealer Holiday!” etc.

Funny how that’s come back around due to the buzz Amazon has created.

Speaking of Prime Day, good read on how to spot fake reviews on Amazon(there are a number of those and will only get better as AI improves).

Good read on “The Magic of AI” here featuring Amy Ingram of x.ai fame. I’m actually a fan of x.ai and if you are a client of mine or ever need to make a calendar appointment with me, you’ll speak with Amy.

She’s very nice.

But persistent.

I like her.

I was able to correct the mistake by emailing this message: “Amy, this is an in-person meeting at my contact’s office. Please use the address from her previous email.” Done! No assistant could have made the change faster, including notifying both parties.

I don’t even know what to say about this:

It’s hard to get your head around this (at least if you’re me), but I’m guessing it’s an attempt at “controlling the message” before the NYT leaked the emails. I don’t know… astonishing… as is all of 2017 politics.

Android Police has a strong lead on a rumored mockup of the Pixel XL 2 (?) that’s coming this Fall (Octoberish). The Pixel 1 is my daily device and probably one of my favorite mobile devices I’ve ever used (I’ve used a lot). Shut up and take my money.

Episode 113: Your Grandmother’s Favorite Book in the Bible

Dr. Thomas Whitley and the Rev. Sam Harrelson are joined by David Allen Jr., a Morehead-Cain Scholar at the University of North Carolina, to cover the first few matches of the Thinking Religion Bible Bracket Challenge. David brings his own unique understanding of sports to help Thomas and Sam make the tough calls that must be made.