Month: December 2007

  • 10 Signs Your an Internet Junkie

    I think Kim has aimed this directly at her husband.

    Even still, it is a good list.

    10 signs you are an internet junkie.

    1. You watch TV while cruising the internet.

    2. Your keyboard has crumbs in it

    3. You begin to talk in html language when describing a link to your best friend

    4. You met your best friend online

    5. You check your email more than you sit down for meals

    6. You can’t go to bed until every Myspace, Facebook, email, website and forum of yours has been checked for new messages or comments.

    7. You have more internet friends than friends.

    8. Your couch has a permanent TV tray in front of it so you can rest your lap top.

    9. You base your decision where eat out on whether or not they provide free WiFi

    10. You post from the toilet

  • The Economy of Fear

    Economy of FearBack in October I wrote about The Economy of Hate speech on the internet. Here’s a review of the math in the blog world when writing hate content:

    Normal content + traffic = $1

    Hate content + traffic = $5

    Remarkable content + traffic = $10 

    Today I want to talk about something that runs rampant inside Christian publishing of all kinds. Instead of writing remarkable content they capitalize on fear. Listen to any Christian radio station or walk through any Christian bookstore and you’ll see that about 50% of the content is fear-based. Instead of focusing on truth or on the Bible, you’ll hear and see plenty of content that sensationalizes something minor for a profit.

    Add this to the math:

    Fear content + traffic = $5 

    For every cultural phenomenon, there is an equal and fear-based Christian equivalent. Harry Potter is “bad” (according to some) so let’s make some money by publishing books telling people how bad Harry Potter is! Christian pundit James Dobson has made a lot of money with his catch phrases “an attack on truth” and “an attack on the  American family” or “liberal activist judges.” Just listen to more Focus on the Family and you’ll know how to protect your family from atheism, homosexuals, and judges.

    Nevermind the fact that these are the stupidest statements in the world. If something is true you can’t attack it because it is truth. And my family is not under attack if my next door neighbors are gay. (When was the last time you heard of a gay family leading a raid on heterosexuals neighbors?) But you sure can make money on telling people to be afraid of stuff like that. Why? Because fear is a short-term motivator. If you scare people they will buy. (Or give to your cause. Or visit your website.)

    The Golden CompassOf course, the latest edition of the fear-based Christian media spewed out their sales pitch against the release of The Golden Compass. This is a fiction-based children’s movie with a decidedly atheist bent. In listening to and reading the Christian media in the past few weeks one would have thought that The Golden Compass was certainly related to the Antichrist! Even right leaning FoxNews got into the act by capitalizing on the movie with a plethora of fear-based coverage. Did they do this to protect unsuspecting Christians from those mean atheists out there? No. I think they were motivated by money. There is an awful lot of money to be made by scaring people. Advertisers love traffic to a website and television ratings. And fear sells in America more than sex. (When was the last time your local news led off with a story about sex? It always leads off with something to scare you.)

    Each time I see the Christian media freak out about a movie, song, candidate, or other cultural influence I feel called to help people see through it. Follow the money trail! Think critically and ask, “Why is this person scaring me?” “What’s in it for them?” Ratings? Web traffic? Book sales? Donations? If James Dobson raises another $5 million for Focus on the Family, what’s in it for him? What does he lose if he can’t raise that money? What’s in it for a Christian website that increases traffic with fear-based content by 20%? Why is it that FoxNews has a group of people on their panel who are “experts” on a topic? Who published their books? What’s in it for Fox? What’s in it for the panel members?

    Remember… The Last Temptation of Christ was going to destroy Christianity forever. So was Footloose, The DaVinci Code, and Harry Potter. Likewise,  movies like Passion of the Christ, Lord of the Rings, and Chronicles of Narnia will lift Christianity up and millions of people will come to Christ, right?

    Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m just a cynic. Or maybe I’m just stupid and these things really do affect the effectiveness of Christianity in today’s culture. But my assumption is that Jesus is God no matter what.My assumption is that my family is in the hands of God. My assumption is that the word of God is unshakable in its inspired form. And my assumption is that God isn’t pleased with the money changers who use fear to motivate financial transactions in Christians.

    I long for a Christian media who paints an accurate picture of the world. I long for James Dobson to care about real issues that don’t monetize like poverty in his town, poverty in the world, AIDS in Africa, and children sold into slavery.  I long for the Christian media to look around and use their influence to lift up the name of Christ and motivate Christians to live a life worthy of all that Christ has given to them.

    And I long for a Christian media that generates sales based on remarkable content instead of cheap fear. 

  • Proud to be an American

    With a political year looming, this is a good reminder about who the American people really are. This video comes from Fenway Park on a day dedicated to people with disabilities. Check out what happens when the singers struggles with the National Anthem.

    HT to Douglas Karr

  • First Two Elf Videos

    This is for today’s service at Romeo

    And this is for Married Life this coming weekend

    All told, I have 5 original videos in today’s service. I think that’s a record.

  • Children of the 80s Unite, Part 5

    Video games were invented in the 80s. OK, that’s not true. But they definitely became a household item in the 80’s. Here’s a tribute to video games from 1978-1984.

  • Less than perfect Apple experience

    Dress MacSo I don’t get flamed, let me first say that there are a lot of things I like about my new iMac. It’s pretty and it has loads of power.

    OK, that’s out of the way. Now I can complain about the things I’m not thrilled with on my new computer.

    1. It arrived with the wrong operating system. This cost me more than a few hours of my life. While it’s true I didn’t have to pay for Leopard, Apple shouldn’t have sold me a computer with their old operating system at full price without telling me. When I’ve complained about his to other Apple users I’m basically blown off as if this weren’t a big deal. It’s a big deal. I consider my time to be valuable.
    2. It won’t “just connect” to my Windows network at home. I have fiddled with it for ages trying to get the new operating system to talk to our XP Home desktop and my XP Pro laptop. The only solution I could make work was getting my laptop to talk to the Mac one way. In other words I can use a Windows computer to access the Mac but not visa versa. I’ve read dozens of tutorials and helps and it won’t work. That’s not cool in my book. It takes less than 2 minutes to do this in XP… 4 days and still not working on the Mac.
    3. There is really no introduction to Mac/Leopard available. I would consider myself pretty web/tech savvy when it comes to Windows and it has taken me a week to feel like I know how to do some things. If it weren’t for Patti and a few other long-time Mac users I probably would have just taken it back to the Apple store and went out and bought 2 new Windows desktops. At least with Windows I know how to make stuff work. Seriously, if they are looking for flocks of hardy Windows users to convert they are going to have to make the learning curve a whole lot less. I haven’t even figured out how to install new programs yet… at least not “the right way.” When I booted the thing up the first time I wish there was an introduction I could have watched to teach me most of the stuff I’ve had to ask about.
    4. Customer support is actually pretty average. Other than being American-based and not available 24 hours I don’t see anything atypical about being hung up on, put on hold for long amounts of time, and otherwise not helped. I explained my problem to a customer service person and she actually laughed at me. Way to make me feel like a million bucks, lady.
    5. Too many things that your expected to just know. Apparently you aren’t supposed to put DVDs with paper labels in an iMac. When I discovered this on an Mac users forum I was pretty annoyed. It’s just like the fact that my computer didn’t have Leopard installed… I was supposed to just know that too. So it took me a couple hours but I finally got that disc out.

    I know I sound ungrateful. This is a very pretty machine. My kids love it. Heck, I love it. But my experience is so far is that Mac just proves everything Seth Godin wrote in All Marketers Are Liars. The marketing department created a “lie” (e.g. marketing strategy) that their users believe. And they believe it to the core. Whether or not Mac is better than Windows isn’t even the discussion. The assumption that the user base has is that it is a superior product in every conceivable way.

    My point here is that I want people who are switching (as I am) to know that it’s not as easy as you think it’s going to be. Switching platforms is a radical change in how you use a computer. I am not saying “don’t do it” but at the same time I want potential people for the switch to know that it’s not a matter of taking the thing out of the box and plugging it in either. It’s a big change. It’ll take you a long time until it feels natural. All the time I am switching back to my laptop because I can do something easier, faster, and better on Windows than I can on Mac.

    Put that in a commercial!

  • Saturday Tunes

    saturday tunesSaturday in December. Want to guess what that sound is today coming from the malls of America? That sucking sound is the sound of people opening their wallets and buying Christmas presents. While we are off to the mall and Kohl’s, here are the the next 10 tunes that will be playing in the McLane-mobile. As always, no cheating and ratings included. (Want to see more of what people are listening to? Check out Mykel’s playlist this morning)

    1.  Love by Grey Holiday *****
    2. Fast Enough by House of Heros ****
    3. Anthem for American Teenagers by Jon McLaughlin **** (This title is so misleading!)
    4. To the Only God by David Crowder and Shane & Shane ****
    5. How Can I Keep From Singing by Chris Tomlin ****
    6. O,For a Thousand Tongues to Sing by David Crowder Band *****
    7. Bearing Witness by Collective Soul *****
    8. Let God Arise by Chris Tomlin ****
    9. Beautiful Disaster by Jon McLaughlin ***** (This is an anthem for the American teenager)
    10. The Thief by Relient K ****

  • Children of the 80s Unite, Part 4

    Time for some dance music. The 80s had some of the best and some of the absolute worst dance music ever. Here’s a sample.

  • Goodbye Creepy Guy

    Goodbye Creepy Guy

    For as long as we’ve lived in this house I’ve tried to keep our wireless network open. My feeling has always been that access to the internet should be free and high speed whenever possible. And since I love open wireless networks when I travel I thought it was only fair that I shared in the love.

    But the flip side is the weirdness of someone you don’t know sitting outside your house on a laptop.  You wonder… what are they doing? Are they trying to hack my home network? Are they trying to look at pictures of my kids?

    This morning I saw some creepy guy slither out of the driver side of his minivan and get in the backseat, reaching for his laptop. I’m not an expert at picking out pedophiles but I do watch To Catch a Predator on MSNBC and I started to feel like Chris Hansen. To test this theory I walked to the basement and powered off our wireless router. Sure enough, in about 5 minutes he crawled away.

    When I powered it back up, I just went to the configuration IP and set a password. Sure, I know WEP can be cracked by anyone… but I just feel slightly better about it now.

    I know several people come over to use our house as a wifi tea room. You all are still invited! I’ll just give you my password.

  • Paul’s Thougts of Christmas

    PaulPaul is 4. He is mostly into Power Rangers and otherwise lives in his own pretend world of karate chops, animals, adventures, and other play things. And while Paul rarely looks like he is paying attention in KidsTown he really learns a lot.

    Here are some things we talked about this morning:

    • When the advent calendar is over, it’s Christmas.
    • Christmas is about someone’s birthday, but not Santa’s.
    • Santa is just pretend, but Jesus is “for real.”
    • Christmas is Jesus’ birthday.
    • Why do we get presents on Jesus’ birthday? “I don’t know.” (He’s right, it makes no sense!)