The Lingering Lemon of Death

monday mtoy, sunday mtoy, and easter

latest installment.  i see on youtube that the average viewership of these things is slowly decreasing with each episode.  when nobody is left who watches them but me, i''ll stop.  until then, MORE VBLOGZORZ!

 

Eclesthetics, Part 2

Skipable if you are not interested in re-thinking Christan Theology in the 21st century.

This one is much longer than I wanted it to be, but I spent the whole evening getting it down to this, and so here it is.  Part 2 covers why I think Ecclesthetics might be an interesting topic of conversation.

 

Introducing Ecclesthetics

For those of you who know me from the world of high technology, bear with me, videos on the subject of software and technology are coming. I just need to get a few of these on the topic of faith in the post post post modern era done first.

Today I want to introduce a series, and I will leave it to the always brilliant and entertaining Michael Toy to introduce the series.

toyota, debugging, lawyers, journalism

so, a few days ago a guy is riding in his toyota, and the car goes insane.  it starts accelerating with no help from him.  he steps on the brakes, nothing happens.  he eventually stops the car by using the emergency brake, and gets out, and toyota scoops up the car to figure out what happened.

reading an account of their findings so far, toyota is mystified, and even hinting that maybe the driver was wrong about what happened.  they come off sounding kind of evil, like they are trying to deny the obvious.

in software development, we see this all the time.  someone reports a problem, and we absolutely cannot reproduce it.  we file it in the "users are stupid" file.  we don't know which stupid thing they did but can't remember, and we don't care, but we know that whatever they did, it was that stupid thing which was the problem, and not an actual bug, since we can't reproduce the problem.

eventually though, if you are wrong, you will notice that the "users are stupid" file is getting kind of full.  then you have to pick up all those reports and move them into the "programmers are arrogant and blind" file.  when you make this switch, you are now asking yourself, "what did i miss?  what impossible thing is happening to make this event which i believe cannot happen, which i cannot cause to happen, happen over and over again when other people use my software."

this is most likely what is happening in the toyota sudden acceleration problem.

in the world where there are lawyers, things get weird.  because while toyota knows there is a problem, but doesn't take action, there is a horrible liability monster.  in this case, the liability monster was so big, that it was cheaper to replace millions of gas pedals than it was to admit that they are still looking for the real cause.

right now, it is in toyota's best interest to stonewall the press, and act like they are trying to sweep everything under the rug.  because if they say "we think that there is a lurking problem in our cars which causes a very small number of them to accelerate suddenly, but we have no idea what it is", that is like walking down main street with a "please sue me" sign taped to their back.  so in this case, our legal system prevents us from knowing what is really going on.

i wish THIS could be part of the story.

video blog -- mtoy after theology after google

This is mostly an experiment. Here's something which I rant about all the time, only this time composed as a video. Maybe I will rant less, having recorded it as a video.

the color white -- i have questions

today i was in church and the topic was the first of a several week series leading into easter. the theme tying the series together was color. each week would center around a concept and a color. week one is the color white.

white is the color of purity, of chastity, of holiness, of redemption, the color of jesus. true, we do find many of those images in culture and literature, but no mention that in the ears of many, white is the color of privilege, of blindness and injustice.

is church a space where we should be able to say the word "white" and assume that it is ok that we are talking about a particular spectral property of light, and not about human relationships?

is church a place where we avoid using metaphors of color, for fear of touching on subjects that are uncomfortable or controversial?

is church a place where we can use a series of colors as a sermon theme, and somehow bring healing and redemptive power to bear on the way that mentions of color tend to divide us.

in sequences like this, the third choice is always supposed to be the "right" choice. i am actually happy with people who choose either of the three. however, sitting through the sermon helped me to realize that i am pretty interested in figuring out what choice three looks like.

what to do about questions

always enjoy reading naked pastor, here's something which i liked so much i had to share.