My co-workers at Chase frequently razz me about being a ‘hold-out’ Windows user. Why would I continue to use Windows when you could use a Mac or Ubuntu Linux. Incidentally, my laptop is set to dual-boot Windows XP and Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon. My standard answer is that I have too much software in the Windows platform for a full switch to a different platform. My other answer (oft unspoken) is that there is a learning curve (and I’m lazy).

My brother-in-law was asking me about what I thought about Macs the other day. Personally, I think they’re pretty cool. Steve Jobs and the gang has built a Marketing Machine around a simple aesthetic and a powerful platform, and he is going to win over the 20% on the outside of the technological bell curve. These people are both the new users who like what Macs look like and don’t have enough experience on Windows to lose experience points from their ‘learning Windows learning curve’ by having to learn a new OS. The other people that Jobs attracts are power users, in particular those who are involved in developing media–Designers and Programmers of different types.

Jobs will probably never get the middle of the market, the average business user, and therefore students will continue to use Windows, because they will eventually have to use it in the office someday. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle that will not slow down for a really long time, unless Bill Gates does something really bad (perhaps another Windows Vista :).

So, it looks like I’ll be staying on a PC, and laughing at the Mac commercials for a long time, at least until I go from the top 85% to the top 90% of the user bell curve.

Star Wars + Transformers

As a child born the same year that Darth Vader made his debut on the silk screen, I was both intrigued and apalled during my latest trip to K.B. Toys. In the front of the store was a collection of Star Wars toys. Interested in what James will probably play with as a kid, I ran across the latest toy:

The Star Wars Transformer.

At first glance, that’s either the coolest thing ever or the wierdest. The coolness of the toy is that you get both Vader and his spaceship in one toy. If that’s not cool enough, get the Luke Skywalker rebel alliance action figure. Now you can have hand-to-hand combat AND fight each other with blasters too.

Luke Skyformer

On the other hand, the wierd part about the Star Wars Transformer is that the characters of Star Wars and the characters of Transformers are based on two completely different mythologies. A modernist would be throwing up in the toilet even thinking about it. After all the ideal of modernism is purity of style and story.

The postmodernist has no problem with a toy of this nature though. The juxtaposition of these two seemingly contradictory things rather than explained away are allowed to simply coexist, even encouraged. After all, you end up with an incredibly awesome toy!

I kind of waver between these two worlds. On one hand having discrete pure toys is a good thing. On the other hand, if all you care about is having some fun, why not combine them in one.

In internet technology the closest thing to this idea of juxtaposition is the Web 2.0 idea of the mash-up. The basic idea is to pull content from other sites into yours and vice versa. As you combine different data sources, you form a hybrid between the two. In fact two of the biggest internet companies, Google and Yahoo, are actually encouraging this behavior by asking outside programmers to hack their site.

Juxtaposition. It’s bigger than you think.

Lockdown

On Lost on Wednesday, Locke was stuck in the hatch and the blast doors came down. Who know what that’s all about, but there was an interesting image on one of them. If you want another look, here it is.

• Black and white with great analysis.
• Color W/ Latin Translations

Ok, fine. Everyone else has a blog entry on Web 2.0 so I’ll put my two point oh cents in the social networking pot. Here’s the collective conscience of Web 2.0.

While I think that definitions for various technologies are helpful, I think the problem with defining the next generation of web apps is that there are way too many perspectives and too many ideas to put together into a three point outline.

From my perspective, the ideas of web 2.0 are about how people want to use the internet (philosophy), and what the internet is able to do (technology) to provide these needs. Throw in a couple of collective intelligence experiments like Wikipedia and there you have it. Seriously, I like what O’Reilly has to say on the last page of his O’Reilly: What Is Web 2.0? article.

Web 2.0 Design Patterns

In his book, A Pattern Language, Christopher Alexander prescribes a format for the concise description of the solution to architectural problems. He writes: “Each pattern describes a problem that occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core of the solution to that problem, in such a way that you can use this solution a million times over, without ever doing it the same way twice.”

1. The Long Tail
   Small sites make up the bulk of the internet’s content; narrow niches make up the bulk of internet’s the possible applications. Therefore: Leverage customer-self service and algorithmic data management to reach out to the entire web, to the edges and not just the center, to the long tail and not just the head.
2. Data is the Next Intel Inside
   Applications are increasingly data-driven. Therefore: For competitive advantage, seek to own a unique, hard-to-recreate source of data.
3. Users Add Value
   The key to competitive advantage in internet applications is the extent to which users add their own data to that which you provide. Therefore: Don’t restrict your “architecture of participation” to software development. Involve your users both implicitly and explicitly in adding value to your application.
4. Network Effects by Default
   Only a small percentage of users will go to the trouble of adding value to your application. Therefore: Set inclusive defaults for aggregating user data as a side-effect of their use of the application.
5. Some Rights Reserved.
   Intellectual property protection limits re-use and prevents experimentation. Therefore: When benefits come from collective adoption, not private restriction, make sure that barriers to adoption are low. Follow existing standards, and use licenses with as few restrictions as possible. Design for “hackability” and “remixability.”
6. The Perpetual Beta
   When devices and programs are connected to the internet, applications are no longer software artifacts, they are ongoing services. Therefore: Don’t package up new features into monolithic releases, but instead add them on a regular basis as part of the normal user experience. Engage your users as real-time testers, and instrument the service so that you know how people use the new features.
7. Cooperate, Don’t Control
   Web 2.0 applications are built of a network of cooperating data services. Therefore: Offer web services interfaces and content syndication, and re-use the data services of others. Support lightweight programming models that allow for loosely-coupled systems.
8. Software Above the Level of a Single Device
   The PC is no longer the only access device for internet applications, and applications that are limited to a single device are less valuable than those that are connected. Therefore: Design your application from the get-go to integrate services across handheld devices, PCs, and internet servers.

ABC ran a story on college students and spirituality. In case you missed the story when it aired on Good Morning America on Wednesday (12/6), you can check it out here: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=1375842&page=1

I used to think that college students were just unspiritual, because they didn’t all believe the exact same things I do. But the contemporary culture of our day, a postmodern world, is very open to different kinds of religious experiences. Perhaps the right way to talk to college students about Christ today isn’t what it was before. Looking at a bunch of empirical data to come to a universal absolute systemized worldview worked well before, but there is a different starting point today.

I think the biggest error we can assume today is that if people don’t respond to our methods that they are bad, especially if they worked before. We tell ourselves that we haven’t changed but they have, so it’s their fault. Yet I believe there is a great opportunity today to get beneath mere intellectual faith and share our real life experience with Christ. We need to share what Christ really means to our heart, not just a bunch of propositions.

I believe that if Christians stop resenting the culture and begin understanding it, we will make a big impact on society and how the culture is shaped during the next hundred years. But my hope is mixed with hopelessness. It seems like so many of us are resistant (myself included for many years) to framing our beliefs in a new world. Brothers and sisters, if we do not begin redeeming the culture, our faith will continue to become irrelevant and effectually disappear. And by the way, redeeming the culture does not mean making it modern again.

I welcome comments, and this will not be the last post on this subject.

“Inspired by the world’s obsession and devotion to the iPod, iBelieve is a replacement lanyard for your iPod Shuffle. It is a social commentary on the fastest growing religion in the world. And it only costs $12.95.”

I guess if you want to mark yourself as a Christian, this will do it. Although, along the way, you might want to do it actively too. If you want to show them what you believe, try:

• acts of service to show your concern
• actively listening to understand
• not thinking of yourself more highly than you ought, but in humility
• show respect to others, despite differences

Being generous to others may be a greater social commentary than a plastic cap that symbolizes that I’m significant because I’m on a winning team and you aren’t. Food for thought.

Today I was watching Forest Gump on TV. I don’t have to go in to much detail about how popular this movie was and still is. First of all, Tom Hanks is probably one of the best, most-versatile actors today. He has been successful in many different roles, because it is so easy to empathize with him. I think it is because he incarnates the roles he plays and lets the emotion of the character come out. But, this is the topic of a different post.

As I watched Forest Gump I thought about what makes this movie so appealing. Is it the lovable characters? Is it the fun storyline? Is it the themes of hope amidst trials? While I don’t think there is one answer for the success of this movie, one thing stands out to me. Gump and Jenny traverse the decades of American history and culture through very different paths. All of us can relate to how either Gump or Jenny moved through a rapidly changing culture.

It is interesting how Gump is woven into US history. While a tide of cultural and political changes crash down, he simply stands tall and walks through it somewhat oblivious to what’s going on around him. Perhaps he is the symbol of modernism. His saving grace is that while those around him are swiftly changing, he just forges ahead with a head full of facts and simple truth. Gump is the conservative.

If Forest is modernism, Jenny is a symbol of postmodernism. She’s swept away by the emerging culture, so much so that she loses her identity amidst the crowd. She has no reference point to her life, because everything is relative to her. Jenny finds pleasure, but only with pain right beside it. Jenny is the liberal.

Forest loves Jenny, but doesn’t know how to win her to himself. Every time Forest tries to rescue her from the recklessness of her life, their relationship is put in turmoil and Jenny runs away from him and Forest walks away alone and disoriented. She can’t love a man who won’t let her live passionately. It’s not until Jenny is much older and the mother of young Forest that she realizes that she has messed her life up and loves him too, but not long after that she dies.

Forest and Jenny are opposites. Forest is the stable, factual thinker who doesn’t care about the future, only the past and present. Jenny is the progressive, emotional dreamer. All she cares about is what suits her future fancy. Forest is the left-brain conservative and Jenny is the right-brain liberal.

In the beginning of the story Forest falls in love with Jenny, because she is kind to him while everyone else dismisses him as different. In the end Jenny falls in love with Forest, because he is generous to her despite the mess she made of her life. The two need each other. Without Jenny he is empty, cold and alone. Without Forest, she is on the edge of danger and despair. This, I believe, is why people like this movie so much. It’s the story of two different people in a world in the midst of two vastly different ideologies.

The story of Forest Gump and Jenny. In our hearts we desperately want the two together. But is there hope for the modern and the post-modern to marry? The answer this movie gives is yes, but only through a generous, persevering love and pain and sorrow.

I found these videos at Off The Map. I have found them challenging and encouraging.

A New Kind of Christian

Brian McLaren explains the paradigm shift that we are going through as we transition from the modern to the post-modern eras. He shares his perspective on what this looks like and implications for the church. His revolutionary book, A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey is a must read for pastors and leaders who are attempting to understand this paradigm shift.

• A New Kind of Christian (1)
• A New Kind of Christian (2)

Missional Series

Brian McLaren shares his thoughts at a live Off The Map event on new approaches and paradigms about being a missional Christian.

• Evangelism as Confrontation
• Evangelism as Connection
• Become a Missional Christian

More McLaren [mp3s]

• at Cedar Ridge