Pilgrim Notes

Reflections along the way.

Category: Society & Culture (page 7 of 13)

American Popular Culture

November 16, 2006 / / 0 Comments

While trying to find out some words related to treasure chest, I stumbled across an old Catholic comic book series and eventually ended up at the Authentic American History Center. This site provides a fascinating collection of American pop culture artifacts that reach all the way back to the revolution.

There are pamphlets, comics, images and audio files from the Revolutionary War, Civil War, early 1900s, WWI, WWII, and each decade up to the present. The topic range from religion to politics to other elements that captured the national  consciousness.

Way cool! Plus the Catholic comic book Treasure Chest was pretty interesting as well.

I am my own social network

November 14, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Skimming through the backlog of emails and feeds, I discovered this earth-shattering news: my brain is a social network: no wonder I hear voices all day long. Roland Piquepaille ran a piece about this last month on ZDNet. Looks pretty interesting. Our brains seem to have something like gates that can open and close, allowing information to pass through or not. For a range of articles along these lines, see this issue of Science and be sure to check out all the PDFs at the bottom of the article.

Integrity and Integration

November 10, 2006 / / 2 Comments

For multiple world, our modern/postmodern world has forced many of us to split our lives and now even our identities into multiple slots such as work and home, public and private, inner and outer. Now many thinkers even suggest there is no real person behind the roles we play. I don’t have time to respond to that here, but I disagree.

The nature of personhood is more complex and interconnected than modernism may have realized and the Church Fathers offered a far more nuanced view of the person than the modern idea of the individual. This tendency to create separate identities between home, office, house of faith, hobbies, friends, and the multivarious online social computing personas is dis-integrating. It does tend to make us think there is really no me to me: just another face, another mask. This potentially could lead to many negative and even dangerous manifestations.

Since I believe the person is real, I believe that integration of these various worlds and identities are important. Thus my values at home are the same at work are the same among my friends are the same in the online world. I try to be the same person everywhere (inner and outer).

Thus this blog does not section off technology away from faith away from art or other interests, and that’s why I put the Pope Benedict XVI quote earlier. It captures some of the essence I think the word

Now enough from me. I’ll have to spend more time on this on my Floydville blog sometime. If anyone disagrees, feel free to let me know. 🙂

Disruption and Opportunity – The World of Web 2.0

November 10, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Reporting on the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Michael Calore suggests that “the theme of the summit is ‘disruption and opportunity,’ and it could be argued that it’s also the mantra of the entire Web 2.0 movement.”

Totally. Breaking down the walls between the giants and the dwarfs, the air of Web 2.0 seems intoxicating. With open source, startups, the culture of generosity, the innovation explosion, Web 2.0 is about expanding horizons and connecting people on more and more levels in multiple venues. This seems to be springtime of possibility. Will it last? Doubtfully but for now, the surge of creative juices and dripping like a giant coconut rolling around on the beaches virtual beaches bordering the ocean of Eureka.

Some of the cool developments Calore mentions include a music mentoring site called In the Chair, 3B (that allows you to put websites and photos into a personalized 3D space), Turn (a target advertising portal that uses data analysis to create perfect matches – sounds like the business version of EHarmony), and more. All of the developments continue to focus on the growing importance of a social computing model.

Of course, the Web 2.0 Summit wasn’t all about geeking out. Lou Reed showed up to brighten everyone’s day.

Excellent Social Network Resources

November 7, 2006 / / 0 Comments

I discovered a wonderful source of information on social networking this evening at The Belonging Initiative. They’re committed to fostering belonging and ending isolation among people with disabilities. The vision is wonderful but their comments extend beyond the vision to each of us. With the growing sense of isolation in this nation, and the explosion of social nets online, these social networking analysis resources may be a great help for those interested in exploring social networking.

Social Browsing

October 31, 2006 / / 0 Comments

I know America bowls alone, but soon we will no longer have to browse alone. Medium lets you watch what your friends are browsing at in real time. Makes me think of how Netflix lets you see what your friends are watching.

On one level this looks pretty cool, but then again, I’m not sure how often I would use it. I like chat for quick notes back and forth, but I am not one who likes talking on the phone for long periods or chatting for long periods. I prefer face-to-face talking when possible. But it still looks cool and more communal than other site sharing concepts.

Living a Life of Dialogue

October 31, 2006 / / 1 Comment

Here’s a great quote from a man whose writings have deeply shaped my life:

All real living is meeting. – Martin Buber

I could write a few paragraphs of commentary or I could simply let it stand and encourage you to think about that for a little while today. Good words.

Changing the World One Laptop at a Time

October 25, 2006 / / 0 Comments

I’ve been in Chicago this week at the Forrester Consumer Forum: Humanizing the Digital Experience. I’ll try to post some notes later this week, but I had to put up a few thoughts on one session that almost made me jump up a shout “Hallelujah!” Of course, I wasn’t sure how these “corporate folks” would respond to a Southern Pentecostal boy whooping and dancing.

Nicholas Negroponte spoke this morning about his vision of putting  a laptop into the hands of every child in the world and how he is working to make that happen. This wasn’t just blue sky dreaming. This is a clear vision that will make a dramatic launch of putting $100 laptops into the hands on children in several countries as a precursor to a larger distribution.

laptop.jpg
Working with corporations, researchers, and country leaders, Negroponte’s  One Laptop Per Child non-profit is stunning combination of problem-solving, business planning and long term visioning for our world. The implications of how this could impact learning and development as well as communication, bridge-building and more are staggering.  (Not to mention the impact upon computer technology .)

But don’t waste time listening to me ramble, visit his site and  find out what’s happening for yourself.

Web 2.0 goes to church

October 24, 2006 / / 2 Comments

What does Web 2.0 have to do with church? Well, that’s a question I’ve been pondering some lately, thinking about how the world of social networking has interesting implications for people of faith. Turns out someone else has been thinking about this. Dawn sent me a link for Church Marketing Sucks: a blog look at church, Seth Godin, word of mouth, and more.

Look People in the Eyes Today

October 19, 2006 / / 2 Comments

Don’t forget that the people around you are humans and not machines. Here’s another great quote from Charles Wagner:

People burn with ardor for humanity, for the public good, for righting distant wrongs; they walk through life, their eyes fixed on marvelous sights along the horizon, treading meanwhile on the feet of passer-bys, or jostling them without being aware of their existence. – Charles Wagner 

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