So guess who designed the website and branding for The Ordinary Restaurant? Local whizzes Fuzzco. Check it all out here and their blog is there.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • * South Carolina

Tomorrow is knee replacement surgery for yours truly, which means blogging will be impacted. Having not been through this before, it is not worth guessing how it may be impacted because recovery and therapy is different in each case. But it will shift for sure.

The procedure itself takes place early tomorrow morning.

I/we appreciate your prayers--KSH.

Filed under: * By Kendall • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Health & Medicine

Google is set to introduce a subscription music feature to compete against fast-growing new streaming services like Spotify, according to several people briefed on its plans.

Google is planning to introduce the new service on Wednesday at Google I/O, the company’s annual conference for software developers. The subscription feature will be connected to Play, Google’s online media hub, complementing its download store and “locker” feature, which lets people store their digital entertainment collections in the cloud, according to these people, who spoke on condition of anonymity before Google’s official announcement.

News of the announcement first appeared on The Verge. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Music • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life

Today 12% of websites are pornographic, and 40 million Americans are regular visitors—including 70% of 18- to 34-year-olds, who look at porn at least once a month, according to a recent survey by Cosmopolitan magazine (which, let's face it, is the authority here). Fully 94% of therapists in another survey reported seeing an increase in people addicted to porn. It has become a whole generation's sex education and could be the same for the next—they are fumbling around online, not in the back seat. One estimate now puts the average age of first viewing at 11. Imagine seeing "Last Tango in Paris" before your first kiss.

Countless studies connect porn with a new and negative attitude to intimate relationships, and neurological imaging confirms it. Susan Fiske, professor of psychology at Princeton University, used MRI scans in 2010 to analyze men watching porn. Afterward, brain activity revealed, they looked at women more as objects than as people. The new DSM-5 will add the diagnosis "Hypersexual Disorder," which includes compulsive pornography use.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Pornography • Psychology • Sexuality • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology

"We are very excited to expand our relationship with Google and Charleston Digital Corridor to offer residents and visitors several hotspots to connect to the Internet," said Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley. "Having this Wi-Fi network makes life easier for people doing business here and helps our tourists find the attractions they want to visit. And in the case of the trekker, get a sneak peek of the places before you visit. It's all done at no cost to the taxpayer."

A Google community grant to the Charleston Digital Corridor supports the Wi-Fi network, and the project uses no public funds. The Charleston Digital Corridor Foundation is responsible for maintaining the network.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • * South Carolina

"It has been said that preachers should preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. However, Carol Howard Merritt and Derrick Weston are more likely to read the Bible on their iPhones with Google News open in a computer browser window. As young pastors in a historic mainline Christian denomination, the partners of God Complex Radio are determined to lead Christianity into the 21st century and translate the values of the Christian faith to the next generation.

Through the production of a podcast and the development of media, join Carol and Derrick as they welcome writers, speakers, thinkers, musicians, and poets who are (and are destined to become) the voices of the next generation of the faith."

Check it out.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Media • Religion & Culture

They come in all shapes and sizes, claiming a dizzying variety of capabilities. They date back decades, or just a year or two. And when you think there couldn’t possibly be much more than 50 marketing agencies in this relatively small town, another one seems to pop up.

Public relations, advertising, web marketing, however you want to “brand” it, digital media is a growth industry in 2013 Charleston.

While not entirely new, the prevalence of do-it-all media shops is becoming hard to miss. What’s behind the message machine?

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Media • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • * South Carolina • * Theology

The digital age is changing not only the words we use but also their meanings. Have you noticed, for instance, that “Christ follower” is replacing “born again” and “evangelical”? Take a moment to peruse the list of who Rick Warren follows on Twitter:

A handful of individuals describe themselves as “born again.”
A couple dozen use “evangelical.”
Almost 800 use some form of “Christ follower” or “Jesus follower.”

It is not just “follower” that is on the rise. Thanks to Facebook, “friend” is, too. Subtly yet profoundly, these concepts are being transformed in ways that alter how Christianity is understood and lived.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals

Beijing is engaged in systematic cyber spying on the US military and private businesses to acquire technology to boost military modernisation and strengthen its capacity in any regional crisis, according to the Pentagon.

In its annual report to Congress on the People’s Liberation Army, the Pentagon gives new emphasis to the threat of cyber-espionage from China, an issue that has been the subject of top-level complaints to Beijing by Washington.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Economy • The U.S. Government • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • China

BOB ABERNETHY, host:....The president referred to self-radicalizing. What—how does that work, and what can the Muslim community do to prevent it?

HARIS TARIN (Muslim Public Affairs Council): Well, the phenomenon of self-radicalization is where individuals who do not find a place in mainstream Muslim institutions, places like mosques and organizations, they don’t find a place for their fiery rhetoric, for their violent, extremist rhetoric, so they go online, and they listen to sermons, and they listen to individuals like Anwar al-Awlaki or Adam Gadahn or other folks who misinterpret the religion to give it a violent, violent ideology, and they fall prey to these individuals who are basically online predators, and they get influenced by these individuals to address their grievances through violence....

Watch or read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Religion & Culture • Urban/City Life and Issues • Violence • Young Adults • * Economics, Politics • Terrorism • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam

In fall 2011, Sebastian Thrun, a research professor at Stanford, and Peter Norvig, the top scientist at Google, teamed up to develop and teach a free, online course on artificial intelligence. Their aim, as Norvig said in , was to develop a course at least as good as, if not better than, the course they teach together at Stanford. They'd put the result online and make it available to everyone, for free.

Over a 160,000 students signed up. About half that many, he explains, participated in some way through to the end. And 20,000 finished the course.

This is an astonishing example of the way MOOCs — massively open online courses — may be able to transform education as we know it, changing it from the privilege of an elite into a shared commons that is open and free to everyone.

There are grounds for concern, though....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Education • Science & Technology • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Speaking at a gathering of digital advertisers in New York City last night, Mr Schmidt refused to forecast when internet video would displace television, instead declaring: "That's already happened."

"It's not a replacement for something that we know," he added. "It's a new thing that we have to think about, to program, to curate and build new platforms."

YouTube recently surpassed the milestone of a billion unique users a month. Only the Google search engine and social network Facebook are frequented more often by those browsing the internet worldwide.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Movies & Television • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life

The Bishop of Niagara is suing a blogger over online material he claims was fashioned to hold the spiritual leader of 25,000 Anglicans up to ridicule and contempt.

The defamation lawsuit claims that Michael Bird, Hamilton-based bishop for the 90 parishes in the diocese, which includes Hamilton, has been pilloried on the blog as a weak, ineffectual leader, portrayed as a thief, described as having a sexual fetish and labelled an atheist.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Canada • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Law & Legal Issues • Church/State Matters • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Canada

No fair looking until you guess, then go and read it all.

Update: Since I know people are going to ask, you can find the Archbishop of Canterbury's tweets here.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Globalization • Religion & Culture • Science & Technology • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

Mr. [Reed] Hastings said he realized that the company’s attempt to both raise prices and separate into two companies, one the legacy DVD-by-mail business and the other the up-and-coming broadband streaming business, was trying to do too much too fast. Angry subscribers abandoned the company in droves (800,000 in the fourth quarter of 2011 alone), revenue missed estimates and the stock plunged.

“I messed up,” Mr. Hastings wrote in an unusually forthright September 2011 blog post. Citing the precedents of AOL and Borders Books, which struggled or failed to make the digital transition, “my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn’t make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming.” But in the rush to accelerate the transition, he wrote, “In hindsight, I slid into arrogance based upon past success.” He also made a video apology.

Mr. Hastings said he didn’t expect the apology alone to “turn it around,” adding, “I wasn’t naïve enough to think most customers care if the C.E.O. apologizes, but I thought it was honest and appropriate.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • History • Movies & Television • Psychology • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life

Here is the link, it is two parents with the young babies, and it is just fantastic.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Science & Technology • * General Interest • Animals

Security experts at Twitter were fighting a seemingly losing battle yesterday against the Syrian Electronic Army, a shadowy group that sparked panic on financial markets this week by faking a news report about an bomb attack on the White House.

The group, which purports to support the regime in Damascus, hacked the Associated Press news agency’s Twitter account and reported that explosions in the White House had injured President Obama, sending markets into a tailspin, and wiping $136 billion (£89 billion) off the [value of the top 500 U.S. stocks in seconds]....

Read it all (requires subscription) and there is a lot more there from the WSJ.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Media • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Stock Market • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Syria

Pastor Rick Warren will join Ed Stetzer on his webshow, "The Exchange," Tuesday afternoon to talk about his 27-year-old son's suicide earlier this month.

Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research, will host The Exchange live from the Exponential church planting conference in Orlando, Fla., where Warren had been scheduled to lead two Bible studies.

Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, Calif., agreed to an interview with Stetzer about what pastors need to know about grief in their congregations, how his son's death has changed him and what church leaders can do to raise awareness and reduce the stigma of mental illness.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Children • Marriage & Family • Psychology • Suicide • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals • * Theology • Anthropology • Eschatology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

Imagine a world with machines that wash, press and dress you on the way to work and vacations via hologram visits to exotic beaches. In his new book, The New Digital Age, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt does just that — but it's no gee-whiz Jetsons fantasy.

Schmidt partners up with Jared Cohen, a foreign policy counterterrorist specialist poached from the State Department now working for Google Ideas. Together they forecast a raft of new innovations and corresponding threats that will arise for dictatorships, techno revolutionaries, terrorists and you.

Cohen and Schmidt chatted with NPR's Audie Cornish about negotiating the shifting balance between privacy and security in a rapidly changing technological landscape.

Read or listen to it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Books • Law & Legal Issues • Psychology • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Whatever struck you, provoked you, moved you; whatever part of it which you believe is most significant or worthy of further consideration. Remember the more specific you are, the more other blog reads can participate in what you say--KSH.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • History • Law & Legal Issues • Police/Fire • Psychology • Religion & Culture • Urban/City Life and Issues • Violence • Young Adults • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Economy • The U.S. Government • Politics in General • City Government • State Government • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Russia • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology

The FBI today released photos and video of two suspects in the deadly Boston Marathon terror bombings case, appealing to the public to help law enforcement officials find them.

“Somebody out there knows these individuals,” said Richard DesLauriers, special agent in charge of the Boston FBI office. He said the two men are considered “armed and dangerous.”

DesLauriers described the two men as Suspect No. 1 and Suspect No. 2. Suspect No. 1 was wearing a dark hat. Suspect No. 2 was wearing a white hat.

DesLauriers said Suspect No. 2 was observed planting a bomb, leaving it in place shortly before it went off.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Law & Legal Issues • Police/Fire • Science & Technology • Urban/City Life and Issues • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Economy • The U.S. Government • Terrorism

In 2011, a researcher for Twitter discovered that bible verses, inspirational messages, and other tweets from religious leaders were incredibly popular among Twitter users. That discovery led the company to begin actively working with members of religious communities. Claire Diaz-Ortiz, who leads social innovation at Twitter and who spent many years abroad working with nonprofits, travels the world helping religious leaders get started on Twitter and offering advice on how to use the technology more effectively. In 2012, she worked with the Vatican to create the “@Pontifex” Twitter account for Pope Benedict XVI. We spoke with Diaz-Ortiz as she met with former White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships executive director Joshua Dubois and National Community Church lead pastor Mark Batterson in Washington, DC about Twitter’s work with religious leaders, the popularity of religious tweets, her experience working with the Vatican, and her advice on the best ways to use Twitter.

Watch it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Religion & Culture

Cybersecurity needs to be taken seriously by everyone. We continue to think of cyberthreats in military or classical warfare terms, when in fact cyber can simply render the military paradigm irrelevant. The whole information and communication technologies (ICT) infrastructure must be regarded as an “ecosystem” in which everything is interconnected. It functions as a whole; it must be defended as a whole.

Today, almost everything we do depends on a digitized system of one kind or another. Our critical infrastructure — our electrical, water or energy production systems and traffic management — essentially interacts with, and cannot be separated from, our critical information infrastructure — private Internet providers, lines of telecommunications and the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (Scada) systems that run everything from nuclear power plants to delivery of milk to our supermarkets.

Understanding that cybersecurity means defending the entirety of our societies, we need to re-examine many assumptions of security. In cyberwarfare, it is much harder to identify the attacker, and therefore to know how to retaliate.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Almost a month on from the election of the first Latin American pontiff, the head of the Vatican’s Council for Social Communications says Pope Francis is pioneering new ways of sharing the faith with people in and outside the Christian Church.

Archbishop Claudio Celli travelled to Santiago del Chile at the weekend for a conference on the challenges and opportunities facing the Church in Latin America in our era of rapidly developing digital technologies. The conference, which opens on Monday at the Catholic University of Chile, brings together some 400 communications specialists from across the continent.

At the heart of the discussion, Archbishop Celli says, lies not just the question of how to use the new technologies, but rather of how to bring the Word of Christ to men and women living in an increasingly digitalized world. The new Pope, he says, is already showing us an innovative approach to communicating that Gospel message…

Read and listen to it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Globalization • Media • Religion & Culture • Science & Technology • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

The proprietor of this page, Paul Solman, posed a few specific questions to me. The first: How does the quality of online discourse compare to in-class discussion at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Duke, where I've taught?

My answer is that so far (and as I note, the class has just begun, so it may be too soon to say), the only way to answer this question is to start by differentiating between the average discussion quality and the discussion quality of the outliers, because you get a very different picture when you examine them separately.

In terms of average quality, we have to consider the environment of a typical four-year university student, which leads to a very different approach to academics. These students often live on campus, show up to class and have their meals on campus...[as] a result, they have more resources, time, and attention to devote to their studies, as well as friend groups who share the same collective experience. Taking this unique kind of atmosphere into account, the average quality is higher in regular classes.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Education • Science & Technology

In the season of Lent 2013, the Titusonenine blog needs to shift in terms of its focus and character.

There are a number of reasons for this, but let me cite several.

First, I have had a significant change in my personal circumstances. My father, as a number of you know, came down to South Carolina suddenly in 2012, in need of skilled nursing care. Since getting him an original place to be looked after, we wanted to move him closer to ourselves here in Summerville if possible, and recently a spot has opened up at the Presbyterian Home here (they now call themselves “The Village at Summerville”).

Dad has just moved to this new facility in early 2013. He is 80, and neither of us is getting any younger. My wife and I would like to see him more often, and this is a wonderful opportunity.

Also, my right knee has been a continuing and worsening problem. A number of years back I had surgery for a torn meniscus. Then a couple of years ago the pain began to inch up to the point of being more and more of a distraction and obstacle. It was time to go to the doctor (yuck). I have now been to two specialists, both of whom say I need a knee replacement. When this was first proposed, I nearly screamed (by the way I am not getting older and not in denial either [g]). Now that both of them and my wife and my co-worker at the parish where I serve have said it is time, the jig is up. It looks like the procedure will be in the late spring. I need to get ready.

Second, the situation in the diocese is demanding. The conflict with the national Episcopal Church is a real mess and it is not only personally and emotionally draining, it is spiritually challenging. True, is also an opportunity, but I need to retool the engines so to speak in order to live into that possibility.

Thirdly, the parish where I serve is headed into a new Lenten series entitled “into the wilderness.” The more I wrestled and prayed with the theme the more appropriate I sensed it would be for me to be more in the wilderness also in terms of a blog break.

Finally, although I can scarcely believe it, this blog has been in operation for ten years as of next month. Somehow that timing, also, makes this choice appropriate.

In any event, with the exception of some Anglican and South Carolina news and developments, blog posts will focus on theological and devotional topics as well as open threads on edifying discussion topics, and I will be posting occasionally with help from others.

I wish all of you a blessed lent 2013, and ask your prayers for myself, my family and the diocese of South Carolina. Thank you for your readership, participation, and support—KSH.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • * By Kendall • Harmon Family • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Lent • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Health & Medicine • * Theology • Pastoral Theology

Over the years, we have a posted a lot of entries with favorite links for Lenten resources and devotional reading. I’ll link to some of those previous compilations at the end of this post. However, such compilations quickly go out of date. So, here is a list of some of the blogs and websites that I expect to be reading pretty regularly during Lent 2013. Note my emphasis in the links below is to focus on sites that I expect will provide frequent and edifying devotional or prayer entries throughout Lent, as opposed to specific Lenten resources or individual articles or blog posts...

Read it all and check out the links.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Lent • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet

Richard Bejtlich was a cyber-specialist for the U.S. Air Force in the 1990s, a time when the U.S. military was going on the offense in the cyberwar. He remembers the day he realized how important a software vulnerability can be to a cyberweapons designer.

"Myself and a couple other guys, we found a zero day vulnerability in Cisco routing equipment," Bejtlich recalls. "And we looked at it, and we said, 'Did we really find this? Can we really get into these Cisco routers?'"

They could, and so Bejtlich and his colleagues reported it to Cisco. They thanked him and said they'd fix it. Days later, he was talking to some friends who worked on the offensive side of the unit, and they had quite a different reaction to them reporting the bug to Cisco.

"They said, 'You did what? Why didn't you tell us? We could have used this to get into all these various hard targets,'" he says.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • The U.S. Government • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Many psychological tests have the so-called “lie-scale.” A small but sufficient number of questions that admit only one true answer, such as: “Do you always reply to letters immediately after reading them?” are
inserted among others that are central to the particular test. A wrong reply for such a question adds a point on the lie-scale, and when the lie-score is high, the over-all test results are discarded as unreliable. Perhaps, for a scientist the best candidate for such a lie-scale is the question: “Do you read all of the papers that you cite?”

Comparative studies of the popularity of scientific papers has been a subject of much recent interest [1–8], but the scope has been limited to citation distribution analysis. We have discovered a method of estimating
what percentage of people who cited the paper had actually read it.

The title of the paper is "Read Before You Cite!" No fair clicking the link until you have guessed, then check out their argument--KSH.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Books • Education • Media • Psychology • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology

1 Kings 18:21 describes a crucial moment of decision. It's the final showdown between the God of Israel and a false god called Baal. Elijah calls God's people to choose once and for all between the living God who delivered them, and this false god who has captured their affections: "'How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.' But the people said nothing."

They seem unable, or unwilling, to make a choice. They want to hedge their bets, sit on the fence, and keep their options open. How different are we Christians in the 21st century? Would you prefer to make an ironclad, no-turning-back choice, or one you could back out of if need be? Do you ever find that you're afraid to commit? Do you reply to party invitations with a "maybe" rather than a "yes" or "no"? Do you like to keep your smartphone switched on at all times, even in meetings, so that you are never fully present at any given moment? Will you focus on the person you're talking to after a church service, or will you look over her shoulder for a better conversation partner?

If so, you may be worshiping the god of open options.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Media • Movies & Television • Psychology • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

How has constant connection and endless distraction changed the church's task? How are we to advance our ministries without compounding the problem? How do we shepherd overwhelmed sheep?

Possibly the biggest transition since the onslaught of media-saturated culture is that the church's trajectory is being shaped less by where church leaders are trying to direct it and more by the responses of their followers. A leader's course matters less when those being led won't or can't follow due to an avalanche of distraction, competing messages, and overly stressed lives.

Most of the training we receive focuses on the ways of a leader. Allow me to suggest a more pertinent question: How do digital-age believers follow?

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Psychology • Religion & Culture • Science & Technology • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s new book, co-authored with a former State Department superstar named Jared Cohen, doesn’t come out until April. But The Wall Street Journal’s Tom Gara got a hold of an advance copy and has been going through some of its ideas about the future of the Web. Particularly interesting are Schmidt’s comments on China, which, according to Gara’s reading, seem to portray the country as a rising threat not just to Web freedom but to the Internet itself.

Schmidt and Cohen write that China is the world’s “most sophisticated and prolific” hacker, according to Gara. Their book reads, ”It’s fair to say we’re already living in an age of state-led cyber war, even if most of us aren’t aware of it.” But their predictions for where that might lead the Internet, according to the Journal’s report, include the dark possibility that it could split apart entirely.

China’s willingness to use aggressive, sophisticated hacking to get ahead, Schmidt seems to argue, will grant the country and its state-linked firms a significant advantage in the global economy.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Books • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life

Why is Facebook such a repeatedly bad actor in its relationship to its users, constantly testing and probing for ways to quietly or secretly breach the privacy constraints that most of its users expect and demand, strategems to invade their carefully maintained social networks? Because it has to. That’s Facebook’s version of the Red Queen’s race, its bargain with investment capital. Facebook will keep coming back and back again with various schemes and interface trickery because if it stops, it will be the LiveJournal or BBS of 2020, a trivia answer and nostalgic memory.

That is not the inevitable fate of all social media. It is a distinctive consequence of the intersection of massive slops of surplus investment capital looking desperately for somewhere to come to rest; the character of Facebook’s niche in the ecology of social media; and the path-dependent evolution of Facebook’s interface.

Analysts and observers who are content with cliches characterize Facebook as sitting on a treasure trove of potentially valuable data about its users, which is true enough. The cliched view is that what’s valuable about that data is names associated with locations associated with jobs associated with social networks, in a very granular way. That’s not it.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life

Thinking about Google over the last week, I have fallen into the typically procrastinatory habit of every so often typing the words "what is" or "what" or "wha" into the Google search box at the top right of my computer screen. Those prompts are all the omnipotent engine needs to inform me of the current instant top 10 of the virtual world's most urgent desires. At the time of typing, this list reads, in descending order:

What is the fiscal cliff
What is my ip
What is obamacare
What is love
What is gluten
What is instagram
What does yolo mean
What is the illuminati
What is a good credit score
What is lupus

It is a list that indicates anxieties, not least the ways in which we are restlessly fixated with our money, our bodies and our technology – and paranoid and confused in just about equal measure. A Prince Charles-like desire for the definition of love, in my repetitive experience of the last few days, always seems to come in at No 4 on this list of priorities, though the preoccupations above it and below it tend to shift slightly with the news.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Globalization • Psychology • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life

The arrival of the Pope on Twitter has generated all types of reactions. The fact that the Pope has become a user of the second largest social network on the Internet has become the subject of much discussion. Everyone has an opinion about what this development means. Some interpret it as a desire to become more "modern," to bring the Vatican "up to date," and in doing so, improve the Pope's image and, by extension, that of the Church. This is an easy interpretation, albeit rather superficial, and one that is quite far from grasping the depth and scope of this initiative.

Several of the messages that the Holy Father has delivered for the most recent World Communications Days have provided the keys for more substantial interpretation. In these one can see how the Church has admirably understood that fact that the Internet is not only an instrument for communication, but rather, it is above all an area, a place where people meet and develop relationships.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Globalization • Science & Technology • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI • * Theology • Anthropology

How closely does your Facebook profile resemble your actual life? If we only knew you from a Twitter feed, would you think we really understood your hopes and dreams, your joys and fears? Facebook may ask what you're feeling, but the rest of us don't really care. We can't even keep up with the drama in our families, among our closest friends. How can we handle the momentary peaks and valleys of hundreds, even thousands of friends? So we outline an online persona in black and white and only color in the parts we feel safe to expose. You only know I'm sick if I can find a witty way to tell you. You only find out I'm in despair if I can link the encouraging Bible verse God tossed me as a life raft.

You can fool anyone online for a while. Are you really surprised Te'o fell for the ruse? It's a small jump from crafting your online profile to inventing an entirely fake persona. Imagine the myth you could perpetuate when you're not even bound by the confines of all three dimensions.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Marriage & Family • Psychology • Science & Technology • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • * South Carolina • * Theology

I may have to take back all the bad things I’ve been saying about Vatican communications. (Okay, some of them.) First, the Pope starts Tweeting, and now they roll out an app.

And … it’s actually a pretty good one! Given how crummy the Vatican’s own website is, this is nothing short of amazing.

The Pope App (free, iOS, and Android forthcoming) could have been all kinds of wrong, from the function, to the name, to the icon. (Icons matter on mobile.) Instead, The Pope App hits most of the bases in style. The name is light, direct, and almost saucy. Just imagine the ponderous Latin names that were probably kicked around. The icon has a bold yellow silhouette of Papa Bene. The only strike I can really level against the rollout is that it’s iPhone-native only, with no native iPad support, and no simultaneous Android.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Globalization • Religion & Culture • Science & Technology • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

The Asia Society of Houston hosted the most recent TEDx Houston event in November 2012, and the Rev. Patrick Miller was asked to share his wisdom gained through his work as a priest and a boxer.

Read it all and see what you make of the talk.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Religion & Culture • Science & Technology

Governments continue to ask Google for more data about its users, with more than two-thirds of requests in the U.S. made through a subpoena, which usually doesn't require asking a judge for a search warrant.

User data requests of all kinds have increased by more than 70 percent since 2009, Google said in its biannual "transparency report" that tallies government requests for users' data. For the six months from July through December 2012, the company said it has received about 21,389 information requests for some 33,634 users -- up slightly from 20,938 requests for 34,615 users during the first half of the year.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • The U.S. Government • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

...for much of adulthood, I formed aspirational crushes. It wasn't ever deliberate, yet somehow I usually fell for men whose esteem or rejection came to influence my self-worth. In a phrase Tim Keller often uses (probably quoting Lewis or Tolkien), I longed for "the praise of the praiseworthy."

With this mindset, even little tastes of intimacy or access to a crush acquired a disproportionate sense of value, and every exchange mattered far more than it should have. Yet in the end, any intimacy I found in via Google search … or even electronic communication with the crush proved largely false.

It took me a long time to figure out why. Then one Sunday morning in a church class on dating, I heard this formula: Intimacy = talk + time + togetherness. As John Van Epp explains in his book How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk (on which the class was based), Internet-based relationships are often rich in talk, but can transpire very rapidly and may develop across great distance.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Men • Psychology • Sexuality • Women • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

Maybe it was because they had met on OkCupid. But when the dark-eyed musician with artfully disheveled hair asked Shani Silver, a social media and blog manager in Philadelphia, out on a “date” Friday night, she was expecting at least a drink, one on one.

“At 10 p.m., I hadn’t heard from him,” said Ms. Silver, 30, who wore her favorite skinny black jeans. Finally, at 10:30, he sent a text message. “Hey, I’m at Pub & Kitchen, want to meet up for a drink or whatever?” he wrote, before adding, “I’m here with a bunch of friends from college.”

Turned off, she fired back a text message, politely declining. But in retrospect, she might have adjusted her expectations. “The word ‘date’ should almost be stricken from the dictionary,” Ms. Silver said. “Dating culture has evolved to a cycle of text messages, each one requiring the code-breaking skills of a cold war spy to interpret.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • History • Marriage & Family • Men • Psychology • Science & Technology • Women • Young Adults

As our world continues to move online, the Internet must make room and the web must stretch.

For Google, which hosts countless websites, emails, documents, videos and more, that means more storage capacity, which means more data centers.

The Internet search giant took a big step in that direction Friday, revealing plans to double its previous investment in Berkeley County by spending another $600 million on the data center complex there....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • * South Carolina

Our Vision

Our vision is for the gospel to be recognized as public truth again. We want to see Christians owning the gospel in all aspects of their lives, and demonstrating its positive impact at all levels of society—individuals, communities, sectors, and the entire marketplace of ideas.

Our Mission

Our mission is to take the gospel public. Through our research and our grounding in the calibre of theological education found at Regent College, we aim to provide and embody fresh, reliable, and well-informed expressions of the gospel that reveal its truth, necessity, and relevance to all spheres of public life....

Check it out thoroughly.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Education • Globalization • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Canada • * Theology • Seminary / Theological Education

It’s a baby boomer’s nightmare. One moment you’re 40-ish and moving up, the next you’re 50-plus and suddenly, shockingly, moving out — jobless in a tough economy.

Too young to retire, too old to start over. Or at least that’s the line. Comfortable jobs with comfortable salaries are scarce, after all. Almost overnight, skills honed over a lifetime seem tired, passé. Twenty- and thirty-somethings will gladly do the work you used to do, and probably for less money. Yes, businesses are hiring again, but not nearly fast enough. Many people are so disheartened that they’ve simply stopped looking for work.

For millions of Americans over 50, this isn’t a bad dream — it’s grim reality....[and] though there is no single path, there are success stories that offer hope....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Children • Marriage & Family • Middle Age • Psychology • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market

If you have not seen this material, you need to. Read it all (16 page pdf).

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Media • * South Carolina

The Church of England today released figures for its Christmas Twitter campaign #ChristmasStartsWithChrist.

Launched in November 2012, congregations and clergy in the 12,500 parishes of the Church of England were encouraged to get out their smartphones and livetweet the joy and meaning of Christmas in a series of 140 character messages to the 10 million people who make up the UK's 'Twitterati'.

Churches from across the country took part in the campaign, tweeting their sermons using the hashtag "#ChristmasStartsWithChrist" to share their Christmas messages. Figures revealed today show almost 9,000 tweets sent using the hashtags "#ChristmasStartsWithChrist" and "#CSWC" with peak traffic occurring on Christmas Day at around 11am (GMT) and a smaller peak on Christmas Eve at 11pm (GMT).

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Christmas • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Media • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK

It’s Friday night, I’m on vacation, and I’m trying to decide where to attend church on Sunday morning. I ask Siri on my iPhone, “Find Grace United Methodist Church, Any City, U.S.A.” Before I can even blink, I’m on the website and know that Grace UMC has worship services at 8:00, 9:15 and 10:45 a.m.

Then I click the “I’m New” button where I read a welcome from Pastor Mike Adams and have my most important questions answered before I choose to walk through the door for the first time: “Who are you guys? What’s really important to you? When do you get together? Is there anything for my kids? How do I find you guys? How do I get ahold of you?”

I’m feeling comfortable about what to expect when I arrive, a map is right there on the home page, I like what I read about the church’s ministries, and I already feel connected with the pastor. I’m sold. I’m heading to Grace UMC on Sunday morning.

Every congregation in the United Methodist Church has a new front door. It’s the Internet. People don’t use the Yellow Pages to find a church anymore, nor do they glance at the church ads in Saturday’s newspaper....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Media • Religion & Culture • Science & Technology • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Methodist • * Theology • Pastoral Theology

Imagine if Martin Luther and John Calvin had YouTube.

Armed with Gutenberg’s printing press, the two reformers wrested Europe from the grip of the Roman Catholic Church and changed Christianity forever.

What would they have done with a medium that can zip text, music, and, perhaps most importantly, videos across the globe in a matter of seconds?

“The importance of YouTube, the importance of the Internet is huge for the next coming generation of the church,” Jefferson Bethke told NPR earlier this year.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Globalization • Religion & Culture • Science & Technology

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet

This week, an ancient and largely inaccessible treasure was opened to everyone. Now, anyone with access to a computer can look at the oldest Bible known to humankind.

Thousands of high-resolution images of the Dead Sea Scrolls were posted online this week in a partnership between Google and the Israel Antiquities Authority. The online archive, dating back to the first century B.C., includes portions of the Ten Commandments and the Book of Genesis.

"Most of these fragments are not on display anywhere," says Risa Levitt Kohn, a professor of Hebrew Bible and Judaism at San Diego State University.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Education • History • Religion & Culture • Science & Technology • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • * Theology • Theology: Scripture

The Chinese government is once again imposing new restrictions on Internet use.

A decision approved today by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress institutes an "identity management policy," according to China's official Xinhua news agency. Such a policy requires Internet users to use their real names when registering with an online provider or mobile carrier.

Though most Chinese Internet users already use their real names to sign up for online accounts, the new policy makes it the law.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Law & Legal Issues • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Asia • China

Filed under: * By Kendall • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • * International News & Commentary • Canada • England / UK

Whatever struck you, moved you; whatever part of it which led you, like Mary, to ponder it in your heart--KSH.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Christmas • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet

Try to be as specific as you can as it will help readers enjoy it more--KSH.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Christmas • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet

May I take this opportunity to wish all blog readers a blessed and happy Christmas 2012--KSH.

The Elves add: We also wish readers a very Happy Christmas. All Christmas Entries are here and here are some main ones:
Blog Open Thread (I): How, Where and With Whom are You Spending Christmas 2012?
Blog Open Thread (II): Your Reflections on the meaning of Christmas this Year
Christmas Service from the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, Tower of London
A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge
Carols for Christmas
The Queen: Christmas Broadcast 2012
Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From the Morning Bible Readings
A Prayer for Christmas Day (II)
A Prayer for Christmas Day (I)
A Prayer for Christmas Eve (II)
A Prayer for Christmas Eve (I)
Kendall Harmon's series: Introduction to Acts

See also the Online Christmas Worship listings available on Stand Firm here

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Christmas • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet

We are going to take a break from the Anglican, Religious, Financial, Cultural, and other news until later in the Christmas season to focus from this evening forward on the great miracle of the Incarnation--KSH.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Christmas • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet

South Korean pop sensation Psy’s “Gangnam Style” has become the most-viewed YouTube video of all time, with the infectious music video approaching 1 billion views worldwide.

The wildfire popularity of the four-minute song and dance video, uploaded just six months ago, represents an inflection point for the online video site, as YouTube’s entertainment offerings expand beyond candid homemade videos such as “Charlie Bit My Finger” or such made-for-TV moments as Susan Boyle’s “I Dreamed a Dream” performance from the show “Britain’s Got Talent.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Globalization • Media • Science & Technology • * International News & Commentary • Asia • South Korea

More than six decades since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls - and thousands of years after they were written - Israel on Tuesday put 5,000 images of the ancient biblical artifacts online in a partnership with Google.

The digital library contains the Book of Deuteronomy, which includes the second listing of the Ten Commandments, and a portion of the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, dated to the first century B.C.

Israeli officials said this is part of an attempt by the custodians of the celebrated manuscripts - often criticized for allowing them to be monopolized by small circles of scholars - to make them broadly available.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • History • Religion & Culture • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Israel

Everyone seems to be amazed that the Pope is tweeting – and there was a news story the other day about bishops in England using Twitter for their Christmas messages. The surprise reminds me of the way people pretend to be astonished when clergy admit to having heard the occasional rude word (never mind clergy actually using them…) or having watched a soap. It’s taken for granted that we’re far too unworldly for all this.

Even speaking as someone who struggles with any kind of technology, I don’t think it should be assumed that all my fellow clergy are or ought to be as dim as I am in this area. And I don’t buy into the panic that sometimes gets stirred up about social media and electronic communication. OK, we all know it can be poisonous and destructive at times. But there’s another side to it.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • --Rowan Williams • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Christmas • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Religion & Culture • Science & Technology • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Theology • Christology

Like many women these days, Aran Hissam, 35, of Melbourne, Fla., posted the news that she was pregnant on Facebook. On the morning of an ultrasound last year, she debated on the site whether to learn the baby’s sex, musing “to peek or not to peek?”

When she failed to post an update later that day, friends started to contact her. Ms. Hissam decided to return to Facebook to share the news that her unborn baby, a girl, had been found to have fetal hydrops and given no chance of survival.

“I wanted to communicate the news to get people off my back,” Ms. Hissam said in a telephone interview recently. Although her husband was at first surprised that she would share such emotional news publicly, she said, Facebook seemed like one of the least difficult ways to get the word out.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Children • Health & Medicine • Marriage & Family • Psychology • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology

With Pope Benedict XVI's new presence on Twitter, people from all over the world can now post papal messages with just the push of an on-screen button.

While many have welcomed the pope's foray into the virtual world, his @Pontifex handles and "reply-able" posts have also meant that rude and crude comments have come with the mix.

Twitter is "an open communications platform," and the Vatican has readily embraced what the full-fledged exercise of freedom of speech entails, said Msgr. Paul Tighe, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, which organized and runs the pope's eight language-based Twitter accounts.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has always prided itself on being one of the most pragmatic organisations of the United Nations. Engineers, after all, speak a similar language, regardless where they come from. Even during the cold war they managed to overcome their differences and negotiate the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITR), a binding global treaty that even today governs telecommunications between countries.

But the internet seems to be an even more divisive than cold-war ideology. The World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai, where the ITU met to renegotiate the ITR, ended in failure in the early hours of December 14th. After a majority of countries approved the new treaty, Terry Kramer, the head of the American delegation, announced that his country is “not able to sign the document in its current form.” Shortly thereafter, at least a dozen countries—including Britain, Sweden and Japan—signalled that they would not support the new treaty either. (Update (December 14th, 3.20pm): Of the 144 countries which had the right to sign the new treaty in Dubai, only 89 have done so.)

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Globalization • Law & Legal Issues • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

A new ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts is described as "an eclectic expression of church that is as cutting edge as the moment and as ancient as first-century Palestine."

The ministry, Clearstory Collective, says it seeks to reach out to college students and other young adults, homeless and otherwise marginalized people of faith who have become disaffected by the institutional church and who seek informal and often spontaneous faith communities. It is doing so through technology.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Science & Technology

Pope Benedict XVI hit the 1 million Twitter follower mark on Wednesday as he sent his first tweet from his new account.

In perhaps the most drawn out Twitter launch ever, the 85-year-old Benedict pushed the button on a tablet brought to him at the end of his general audience Wednesday.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Religion & Culture • Science & Technology • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

Read it all. (For more information on Father Kimel, please see this previous post about his decision last year to join the Orthodox Church).

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Orthodox Church • * Theology

Some cyberattacks over the past decade have briefly affected state strategic plans, but none has resulted in death or lasting damage. For example, the 2007 cyberattacks on Estonia by Russia shut down networks and government websites and disrupted commerce for a few days, but things swiftly went back to normal. The majority of cyberattacks worldwide have been minor: easily corrected annoyances such as website defacements or basic data theft -- basically the least a state can do when challenged diplomatically.

Our research shows that although warnings about cyberwarfare have become more severe, the actual magnitude and pace of attacks do not match popular perception. Only 20 of 124 active rivals -- defined as the most conflict-prone pairs of states in the system -- engaged in cyberconflict between 2001 and 2011. And there were only 95 total cyberattacks among these 20 rivals. The number of observed attacks pales in comparison to other ongoing threats: a state is 600 times more likely to be the target of a terrorist attack than a cyberattack. We used a severity score ranging from five, which is minimal damage, to one, where death occurs as a direct result from cyberwarfare. Of all 95 cyberattacks in our analysis, the highest score -- that of Stuxnet and Flame -- was only a three.

To be sure, states should defend themselves against cyberwarfare, but throwing vast amounts of money toward a low-level threat does not make sense.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Twitter’s message limit of 140 text characters is ideally suited to the brief attention spans of these relentlessly distracted times. But an 85-year-old man will soon re-confirm another trend: This social media craze is no longer limited to the young.

Pope Benedict XVI will start posting tweets on Wednesday under “the handle” @pontifex, a term that means “bridge builder” in Latin.

That Monday announcement from the Vatican reveals another modernizing attempt by a generally old-school pontiff, born in 1927, to reach 2012 audiences. The pope plans to accept questions about matters of faith via the hashtag #askpontifex. Presumably, he’ll offer uplifting insights designed to bring souls who have strayed back into the fold.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

Britain's senior Anglican bishops will be tweeting their Christmas Day sermons for the first time this year.

The Archbishop of Canterbury and the archbishop-designate, as well as clergy and congregations around the UK, will be celebrating the birth of Jesus in a campaign making use of social media.

Worshippers in the Church's 16,000 parishes are being encouraged to tweet on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Christmas • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking

Police forces with strong social media presences have better relationships with the citizens they are policing, researchers claim.

Their study involved several European countries.

They found that in countries where the police social media presence was less strong, "unofficial" pages were popular.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Law & Legal Issues • Police/Fire

As you read these words, does it make a difference if they are in print or online?

Yes, if you accept one conclusion of an official inquiry on the British press released last Thursday.

The report’s author, Lord Justice Sir Brian Leveson, offers many recommendations on how to restore the integrity of British newspapers after recent scandals, which included hacking of personal cellphones, even one belonging to a deceased girl. His main proposals to Parliament are to pass a new law and use a government regulator to help hold newspapers to account for lapses of their own ethical codes.

While he is optimistic that traditional newspapers can be reformed – although his peculiar solutions may be a slippery slope to censorship – Sir Brian is strangely pessimistic that news consumers can ever trust much of what they read in the new digital media.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Law & Legal Issues • Media • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

The question of who rules the Internet and how is being debated at a 12-day conference in Dubai.

The World Conference on International Telecommunications, which started Monday, aims to draft a new treaty to underpin international telecommunications regulations. The current rules were put in place in 1988. The conference is sponsored by the International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations agency for information and communication technologies.

The bid to change the rule book has unleashed fears of a grab for centralized control of the Internet by the U.N. The process has also come under criticism for its lack of transparency, with documents unpublished and proposals up for debate kept secret.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Globalization • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • UAE (United Arab Emirates)

The Vatican unveiled Pope Benedict XVI's Twitter account on Monday (Dec. 3) as it announced a series of new initiatives aimed at raising the church's online profile.

The pope's account, @Pontifex, drew nearly 200,000 followers in the hours after the announcement even though Benedict will not officially start tweeting until Dec. 12. That's when the pope plans to answer questions about faith submitted to him via Twitter through a special hashtag, #askpontifex, set up by the Vatican.

At least initially, the pope's tweets will be related to his official speeches and activities but their scope might be extended in the future, for example in response to natural disasters.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Globalization • Media • Religion & Culture • Science & Technology • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

[I know that]...Christian participation in the media circus is a dilemma. But it is not a new dilemma, it is basically the dilemma of the Incarnation: God himself becoming vulnerable in the world of fall and sin. A dilemma which challenges us to be realistic and not fool ourselves: I know that the IT world does not create a better life; I know that the aggressive stream of pictures and words and music is like an epidemic that can attack my soul. But I also know that without the salt and light of the Gospel the world will perish, without the involvement of Christian professionals at all levels the world will be a wasteland and the media will become reflected images and caricatures of ghosts and goblins. Only Christ-followers have what it takes to fight the ghosts. It is our mandate to find room for the God-dimension and, by the same token, the human dimension in the orbit of satellites and the chat room of social media. Without our presence as authentic and credible role models, the world shall definitely amuse itself to death (as John Naisbitt said).

I am not blind to the problems facing us as Christians in the media – the struggle to reinvent ‘relevance’ in the midst of a church that often has drowned in irrelevance, the challenge to overcome our own secular nature because so many of us have ceased to think ‘Christianly’, and the urgent need to avoid a process by which the media transform the Gospel into entertainment (a la the electronic church and some ‘Christian’ talk shows)...The Lord of the dance requires the best – and gives his gifts to his people accordingly.

Read it all..

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Media • Religion & Culture • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

As you sat across the Thanksgiving table basking in the warmth of family and the aroma of chestnut stuffing, most likely you did not remember the vicious comment your Aunt Jennifer made about you a few years back. You didn’t dwell on Uncle Julio’s unkind reference to your drinking last Christmas or what cousin Duwan said about your girlfriend during that dreadful vacation at the shore. At family holidays, we tend to embrace our relatives even after months or years of not having seen one another, regardless of the quarrels we have had in the past.

We may chalk up our generous forgiveness to the festive spirit of the holiday, but the real reason has nothing to do with Thanksgiving; it is because of how we humans remember — and forget. Cognitive experts tell us that forgetting is fundamental to how we make sense of the world. Forgetting helps us survive, by making sure we don’t dwell in the past.

In the digital age, that mechanism of our humanity is under threat.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • History • Psychology • Science & Technology • * Theology • Anthropology • Pastoral Theology

The holiday season is officially upon us. There are gifts to buy, recipes to perfect, and cards to be addressed. And while we may all spend the next frenzied weeks trying really, really hard not to let what’s important get lost in the shuffle, sometimes things slip through the cracks.

We intend to give back. We intend to get involved. But there are many options to choose from — and before we know it, we’re celebrating the New Year.

I want to make it easy for you. I want to show you how a holiday gift through World Vision can transform lives

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Stewardship • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Globalization • Religion & Culture • * Theology • Christology

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • * Theology • Pastoral Theology

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet

Teaching Introduction to Sociology is almost second nature to Mitchell Duneier, a professor at Princeton: he has taught it 30 times, and a textbook he co-wrote is in its eighth edition. But last summer, as he transformed the class into a free online course, he had to grapple with some brand-new questions: Where should he focus his gaze while a camera recorded the lectures? How could the 40,000 students who enrolled online share their ideas? And how would he know what they were learning?

In many ways, the arc of Professor Duneier’s evolution, from professor in a lecture hall to online instructor of tens of thousands, reflects a larger movement, one with the potential to transform higher education. Already, a handful of companies are offering elite college-level instruction — once available to only a select few, on campus, at great cost — free, to anyone with an Internet connection.

Moreover, these massive open online courses, or MOOCs, harness the power of their huge enrollments to teach in new ways, applying crowd-sourcing technology to discussion forums and grading and enabling professors to use online lectures and reserve on-campus class time for interaction with students.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Education • Globalization • Science & Technology

You can be sold in seconds.

No, wait: make that milliseconds.

The odds are that access to you — or at least the online you — is being bought and sold in less than the blink of an eye. On the Web, powerful algorithms are sizing you up, based on myriad data points: what you Google, the sites you visit, the ads you click. Then, in real time, the chance to show you an ad is auctioned to the highest bidder.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Media • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life

There have been many relevant articles and pieces of information related to the situation here in the diocese of South Carolina in recent days. I have waited until today to post them since I did not want them lost on Veterans/Remembrance Day yesterday. Please note that I post material here which is in circulation but which is, in some cases, factually false, and in others, embarrassingly biased against the diocese. I trust readers to read and sift things carefully and make their own judgments. If you have questions, ask--KSH.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • TEC Polity & Canons • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • * South Carolina • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

Hearing, in short, is easy. You and every other vertebrate that hasn’t suffered some genetic, developmental or environmental accident have been doing it for hundreds of millions of years. It’s your life line, your alarm system, your way to escape danger and pass on your genes. But listening, really listening, is hard when potential distractions are leaping into your ears every fifty-thousandth of a second — and pathways in your brain are just waiting to interrupt your focus to warn you of any potential dangers.

Listening is a skill that we’re in danger of losing in a world of digital distraction and information overload.

And yet we dare not lose it. Because listening tunes our brain to the patterns of our environment faster than any other sense, and paying attention to the nonvisual parts of our world feeds into everything from our intellectual sharpness to our dance skills.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Health & Medicine • Psychology • Science & Technology • * Theology • Anthropology

...I can’t resist saying just this. I hope you will take with you the memory of our northern saints as you learn what it means to inhabit this office. In Durham, you are the direct successor of Aidan, founder of our diocese, and of Cuthbert in whose shrine in the Cathedral you have often prayed. In a blog earlier this year I compared Rowan Williams with Cuthbert as ‘off-beat’ bishops. I wanted to say that a Christian leader needs to be a bit elusive, not always saying or doing the expected thing, not afraid of being surprising and keeping people guessing.

Already the public wants to pigeon-hole you: evangelical rather than catholic, pro this and against that. You are bigger than that, as anyone who knows you will confirm. You know that it needs great self-awareness to resist these easy either-ors. It also takes resilience and courage to be your own man in leadership. It depends on keeping the spiritual garden watered by long and regular spells of solitariness, meditation and prayer. I know how important this is to you, to go to the heart of faith and keep it alive and fresh. I hope the pressures of high office drive you more and more in the contemplative direction which is the source of wisdom. I believe they will because your personal authenticity is so important to you. And I believe that you will surprise, inspire and delight us too.

When Donald Coggan was installed as archbishop, his secretary mis-typed ‘enthronement as ‘enthornment’....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet

Share your voting experience - how long did you wait? Any interesting observations or conversations? Where and with whom are you watching election returns tonight?
Whatever thoughts you chose to share. Please if at all possible real names and locations highly preferred. The more specific you can be the better--remember you are writing comments for people in other locales that include other countries, etc.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • * Economics, Politics • US Presidential Election 2012

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

Faced with falling congregations, the Church of England is finding digital engagement via Twitter, Facebook and blogging sites a powerful and important part of its ministry and mission.

Sister Elizabeth Pio based in Southsea, Portsmouth, is the Anglican nun behind @bethanysister -which has attracted a followership of over 1300. She uses the site as an electronic notice board, sharing spiritual insights and prayers as well as her take on current affairs and even football matches.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Globalization • Media • Science & Technology • * Theology

Writing is hard. All by itself with no bells and whistles, when it’s just your thoughts pulsing through your mind, filtered through your heart, and fighting to get out of your fingers as articulately as possible – it’s hard.

But we, we are living in the age of bells and whistles. In a day and time when being published, being read, is easier than ever – the task itself has become harder.

The responsibilities of writing have been weighed down with drudgery. Writers aren’t simply creatives anymore. We are publicists, agents, assistants, marketers, back-scratchers, promoters, tech gurus, networkers, platform-builders .

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Books • Poetry & Literature • Psychology • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • * Theology • Anthropology • Pastoral Theology

State officials say someone hacked into the Department of Revenue, exposing about 3.6 million South Carolina tax returns.

Gov. Nikki Haley said Friday about 387,000 credit and debit card numbers were also exposed, and 16,000 of those were unencrypted. State officials are urging anyone who has filed a state tax return since 1998 to call a toll-free number to determine whether their information is affected.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Law & Legal Issues • Police/Fire • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Economy • Personal Finance • Taxes • Politics in General • State Government • * South Carolina • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

It is with sadness that the Anglican Church of Canada and Augsburg Fortress Canada announce that the Anglican Book Centre at 80 Hayden Street will close on Jan. 18, 2013. Canadian Anglicans will still be able to order resources online and by phone through Augsburg Fortress Canada.

"Religious book and gift stores across Canada have faced significant challenges resulting in the closure of over 120 stores in the past 10 years," said Andy Seal, Director of Augsburg Fortress Canada/Anglican Book Centre.

"Sales at our Hayden St. store have decreased each year since 2009. By 2011 Toronto sales were 28% below the break-even level. In spite of hard work and innovation, the trend has continued in 2012."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Canada • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Books • Religion & Culture • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • * International News & Commentary • Canada

Children are getting “unrealistic” expectations about sex as a result of watching online pornography, a study indicates.
The survey conducted by Plymouth University discovered that youngsters are regularly watching porn from the age of 11 and some are “addicted” to it before they are sexually active.
It found that watching the material gives them expectations that are impossible to fulfil and can cause problems in later life once they are in a relationship.

Read it all (requires subscription).

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Children • Pornography • * International News & Commentary • England / UK

The man often credited as being the father of internet defense says it's still unclear where a recent wave of hacking attacks targeting the U.S. financial industry are coming from.

Gil Shwed is the co-founder and CEO of Check Point Software Technologies. Many recognize him and the company's other co-founder, Marius Nacht, as the world's pioneers in cyber-security. Shwed developed his expertise designing systems for an elite technology unit in the Israel Defense Forces years before the internet became a daily part of our lives.

Shwed said today "Iran is definitely capable of launching these kinds of attacks but so is just about any other developed country...."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military

“Companies are having to retool their thinking, saying, ‘What is it that our customers are doing through the mobile channel that is quite distinct from what we are delivering them through our traditional Web channel?’ ” said Charles S. Golvin, an analyst at Forrester Research, the technology research firm.

He added, “It’s hilarious to talk about traditional Web business like it’s been going on for centuries, but it’s last century.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • History • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life

Check them out.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Media

A generation of children risks growing up with obsessive personalities, poor self-control, short attention spans and little empathy because of an addiction to social networking websites such as Twitter, a leading neuroscientist has warned.

Young people’s brains are failing to develop properly after being overexposed to the cyber world at an early age, it was claimed.

Baroness Greenfield, professor of pharmacology at Oxford University, said a decline in physical human contact meant children struggled to formulate basic social skills and emotional reactions.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Children • Health & Medicine • Psychology • Science & Technology

Newsweek, the 80-year-old US current affairs magazine, is to become an online-only publication.

The last print edition will be on 31 December, reflecting the trend for newspapers and magazines to move online as traditional advertising declines.

Newsweek merged with the internet news group the Daily Beast two years ago.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Media • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life

Watch it all and follow the link to get your own street tour access.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life

Behind the ephemeral "cloud" of cloud computing, the network we use for everything from checking our email to streamlining our health care system, there lies a very tangible and very big computer infrastructure.

But besides a glimpse at some of the hardware in 2009, there has been little information about Google's data centers, the warehoused collections of servers that have given the company the foundation for its vast Internet operations.

Today, the company is throwing open the gates to the world — digitally, of course. It has released a site featuring photos of facilities from Belgium to Finland to Iowa and launched a guided Street View tour of one in Lenoir, N.C.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life

Among the words they are looking at--FAQ, Disco, and Bellini....

Read it all and visit over here as well.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • History • Poetry & Literature

The. Polls. Have. Stopped. Making. Any. Sense.

--From Nate Silver of the New York Times 538 blog on the day in September where one poll had President Obama 14 ahead in Wisconsin, and another had Romney ahead by 3 in New Hampshire.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Media • Psychology • Science & Technology • Sociology • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A.

Detective Doug Galluccio hadn’t finished unpacking his new desk when he got his first call from a school resource officer about a sexting incident.

A seventh-grader at C.E. Williams Middle School had taken nude photos of herself and sent them by cellphone to five male classmates. Those ended up posted online.

That was in 2010 when Galluccio became Charleston’s first full-time police officer dedicated to the Internet Crimes Against Children task force. It was his job to help investigate the incident....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Children • Education • Marriage & Family • Sexuality • Teens / Youth • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology