Consuming Technology

Technology tends to consume and absolute technology consumes absolutely.

I was at a conference recently where often, when there was a break, the participants tended not to get up, stretch, get a cup of coffee, chat with those nearby or even go to the bathroom. Instead they sat there. They were not mesmerized by the presentation they had just heard. They were mesmerized by their screens—handheld or laptop—checking email, tweets, Facebook, news feeds and more.
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Heads Will Scroll

One of my favorite YouTube videos spoofs what a medieval help desk would look like as monks sought to transition from the traditional technology of the scroll to the new technology of the codex. Keeping the debate alive between eBooks and pBooks is Lev Grossman in the New York Times. His observation? That eBooks are a step backward from pBooks.
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Discovering the Gospel of Mark

For the last ten years I have lived with the Gospel of Mark–poring over its text, tracing down every Old Testament allusion, reading books, commentaries and journal articles, teaching the book in week-long intensive courses, letting its currents roll over me. All this is no accident, because I am the inheritor of a tradition.
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There’s No Such Thing As Good Writing

As fellow editor Gary Deddo likes to tell the story, his ninth-grade English teacher was the perfect stereotype. Glasses, tight face, hair in a bun, outdated dress that came up in a tight collar around her neck, leaning over her desk and in a crackly voice exhorting her students, “There’s no such thing as good writing. [Dramatic pause.] There’s only good rewriting.”
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Schaeffer’s Gift

My first exposure to InterVarsity Press came when a friend, George, handed me a copy of Escape from Reason by Francis Schaeffer over forty years ago. It was the original edition imported to the U.S. from Britain. I was in high school at the time and had heard of some of the philosophers and theologians and artists he mentioned. (Being raised Catholic, Aquinas was at least familiar.) Many were completely new, however. Even though I only had a vague sense of what he was writing about, I devoured the book.
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Making Money on Nothing

When I was on vacation, playing cards with friends, someone said, “Hey, have you seen these? Try one.” It was Hershey’s new Kisses Air Delight.

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It’s the same Hershey’s Kiss you’ve always loved, but now “gently blended into a light, airy texture.”

What this means is that you are now paying the same amount of money for less chocolate. In place of the missing chocolate, Hershey’s has added an ingredient that is entirely free to them—air.

I don’t know what you think of this, but I think it is brilliant.

It’s time for publishers to do the same–make money on something that costs publishers nothing or on something they do anyway but don’t currently charge for. If they did, the problems of the industry would disappear. Here are a few ideas I’m working on:
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Remembering John Stott

John Stott passed away today at the age of ninety. And it is as if a giant oak of the Christian landscape has fallen. As he has faded from public view in the last few years, some may not appreciate the massive effect this strong, humble leader has had. Not only in his native England, but in North America and across the world his beneficial influence was felt. In Heart. Soul. Mind. Strength. Linda Doll and I looked back on his life’s work in this way:
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