"At some point, putting the phone down becomes a matter of spiritual warfare."

Great post here on parenting in our age of ever increasing technology.

Is The Tablet Dying?

Zal Bilimoria with some interesting thoughts from the tech world.

The tablet couldn’t possibly shoulder all the expectations people had for it. Not a replacement for your laptop or phone — but kinda. Something you kick back with in the living room, fire up at work and also carry with you everywhere — sort of. Yes, tablets have sold in large numbers, but rather than being a constant companion, like we envisioned, most tablets today sit idle on coffee tables and nightstands. Simply put, our love for them is dying.

Read the rest.  

This Video is Genius

"The most important skill for 2014 is deciding what you will pay attention to."

Good post here from Adam Jeske.

I Live in a Paperless Universe

So does Tim Challies.  He explains how by using Evernote.  I am not as in deep with Evernote as he is, but I am headed in that direction.  It's super handy.

Get Off The Phone Now!

Amazon to deliver by drone? Don't believe the hype

This guy is not buying it.

We Are Obsessed With Personal Promotion

Lost At Sea, in Space, in the Cloud

Brett McCracken:

Are these movie and TV narratives reflecting the unforeseen isolation of the iPod age? As we further individualize our mediated and cultured lives and embrace the freedom to dance to whatever cultural beat we like, are we simply left spinning and dizzy? That’s certainly the way I felt after watching Gravity and, to a lesser extent, All is Lost: dizzy, unsteady, destabilized, sea-sick. I was left feeling hungry for ballast, for anchors, for solidity; for something outside of myself to offer orientation.

Because going to Blockbuster on a Friday night used to be overwhelming enough. But at least the options were finite. These days the sheer ubiquity of all that is available, all that is recommended, all that is buzzed about in ceaseless streams of 140-character bursts, leaves me with a bit of vertigo: spinning like Sandra Bullock in Gravity, pulled in a million directions at the mercy of vacuity, untethered and uncertain which way is up

Read the rest.

The 50 Greatest Breakthroughs Since the Wheel

Interesting list here.  Amazing to think of all the things we take for granted that have not always been around.

I Think This Might Be My Favorite Feature of the New OS X - Mavericks

Dictation.  It works quite well.  And the upgrade is free in the Mac App Store.

iPhone in the Blender in Super Slow Motion

Wasteful, yet entertaining.

The Story of the Original iPhone

Interesting story about the pressure and work it took to launch the first iPhone and define a new generation of technology.

A Radical Approach to Managing Your iPhone

Need less distractions?  Try this guy's method for a week.  I dare you.

How to Get 1GB of Free Space in Your Dropbox

Click here to learn how. I downloaded the app, got the space, and then just deleted the app because I don't use it but I still get to keep the Dropbox space! Handy. I use Dropbox all the time. If you don't, you might want to consider it.

3 Handy iPhone Hacks

Infographic: The Amount Of Online Activity That Goes On Every 60 Seconds

Click on the image to see larger.

What's at Stake with Internet Pornography

Russell Moore:

In light of British Prime Minister David Cameron’s actions on Internet pornography, here’s why I think we ought to care about digital porn.

There’s a situation in counseling I come across all too often: a couple will typically tell me first about how stressful their lives are. Maybe he’s lost his job. Perhaps she’s working two. Maybe their children are rowdy or the house is chaotic. But usually, if we talk long enough about their fracturing marriage, there is a sense that something else is afoot. The couple will tell me about how their sex life is near extinction. The man, she’ll tell me, is an emotional wraith, dead to intimacy with his wife. The woman will be frustrated, with what seems to him to be a wild mixture of rage and humiliation. They just don’t know what’s wrong, but they know a Christian marriage isn’t supposed to feel like this.

It’s at this point that I interrupt the discussion, look at the man, and ask, “So how long has the porn been going on?” The couple will look at each other, and then look at me, with a kind of fearful incredulity that communicates the question, “How do you know?” For a few minutes, they seek to reorient themselves to this exposure, wondering, I suppose, if I’m an Old Testament prophet or a New Age psychic. But I’m not either. One doesn’t have to be to sense the spirit of this age. In our time, pornography is the destroying angel of (especially male) Eros, and it’s time the Church faced the horror of this truth.

Read the rest.


Books by Russell Moore:

• Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ
• Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches
• The Kingdom of Christ: The New Evangelical Perspective

Texting and Driving

You know you never do this, right?

Walt Mueller:

This morning I was reminded once again of just how much our world has changed thanks to technology. I was heading down the local interstate to meet a friend for breakfast in Lancaster. While I didn't look at the drivers of every car and truck I passed or that passed me (that would be dangerous you know!), I did spot several drivers splitting their eye time and concentration between the road and the device in their hands.

In an effort to imagine the equivalent behavior when I was first learning to drive forty years ago, here's the best that I could come up with. . . . my driver's ed teacher telling me to spend half of my driving time looking at the floor of the car. I know. . . it's absurd. But it's no coincidence that my first car accident (I was 16 and it wasn't my fault!) occurred when a man came around a corner too wide because he was looking on the floor of his car for a paper that had blown off his seat. Crash. Boom. My employer's pickup truck was totaled.

Some of the latest stats on teens who text while driving are frightening. In 2011, nearly 40% of high school students admitted to texting while driving at least once in the last thirty days. I'm guessing that the viral spread of smart phones has made that statistic obsolete. It's gotten so bad that experts are now calling texting while driving a "national epidemic."

Drinking and driving has now been eclipsed by texting and driving as the number one cause of teenage deaths on the road. The Cohen Children's Medical Center in New York reports that texting while driving has resulted in injuries to 300,000 teens each year. . . and 3,000 teen deaths.

Texting while driving is now widely considered more dangerous than drinking and driving. That's why my home state of Pennsylvania and numerous other states have outlawed the practice. But judging from what I see on the road, the law doesn't seem to be making much of a difference.

Here is a MythBusters episode where they test the drinking and driving vs. texting and driving scenario.

A Helpful Reminder When Recording Video With Your iPhone

Don't be "that guy".