"I really can't think of another important device or service that is as morally bankrupt, stupid, and plain worthless as Microsoft's Vista. Someone should do jail time."

-- Director Barry Levinson in his latest Esquire "Digital Man" column

We will soon start at Element a new series called Coffee Shop Theology, in which we're going to answer submitted questions and address submitted topics (similar to Mark Driscoll's recent "Ask Anything" series, although we had our idea before we knew about his). We received nearly 40 submissions, which our leadership team narrowed down to 13 options for voting.

Voting is open to the public. If you're reading this, this means you.

Go to www.elementnashville.org/coffeeshop and vote for the question/topic that most interests you. The top 8 vote getters will be messages in the Coffee Shop Theology series.

If you can figure out how, vote as often as you'd like for one topic or for several.

Go vote!

Glenn Lucke on illegal downloads:

My own experience in discussing this topic with students, including Christian students? Overwhelmingly they refuse to stop stealing, even when they acknowledge that they have stolen. I engaged literally hundreds of students about this topic at UVa, and after all the discussing, two root reasons would emerge from the students: 1) I can (technology enables me) and 2) I want to.

With a few exceptions, Christian students engaged in the same stealing, and deployed the same anti-Christian reasoning. One student finally became persuaded that it was stealing, so resolved to steal no more, but wouldn't pay for the 1,000+ songs she had already stolen, nor delete them.

Again, with a few exceptions, the only way to make a dent in the Christian students? Tell them of my personal friendship with Caedmons Call, and how Caedmon's band members related to me their perspective about having their hundreds of hours of hard work taken from them for free. Then the students would say, "Oh. Well, I won't download their stuff. I'll buy their stuff."

Meaning, these students were incapable of submitting themselves to abstract principle, but, if they felt some sentiment for a personal connection, then they might adjust their behavior. Effectively, the Ten Commandments only had force in their lives if they had positive sentiment for the person wronged in a violation of the Commandments.

Some reader will write in, as often happens here, and defend this state of affairs.

It happens almost every time we discuss it here, as well. In a post on lawsuits about four years ago, one commenter even suggested, should I ever be published, it'd be okay to buy a copy of my book that was illegally photocopied by someone selling his copies cheaper.

"I can" and "I (might) want to" was in full effect there, and the concerns of the artist (me!) over supporting his family with his work wasn't in play.

A commenter (Ken) wrote the following earlier in the week in a comment thread here at Thinklings.

"Perhaps it is by design, but your blog does not play well with Google Reader. When I use Reader on my iPhone I see the feed but every time I go to read a post I get an error. Using Reader in my browser works --- I can read the posts --- but the post titles (which are usually links to the post itself) are not links at all."

I believe I've addressed these problems; at least Google Reader now seems to be rendering our feed correctly in a browser, though I haven't yet tested it on a phone. Do any of you pull Thinklings in on a feed reader? If so, could you let me know what reader you use and if it's working right for you, or if you're having any problems? Leave a comment if you can.

And, of course, thanks in advance for your help in improving Bloo. This will aid me in my nefarious plot to make Bloo the supreme blogging tool in the Blogoverse!

[Bill strikes his Darth Vader pose].

Lifehacker has a post on how you can get a free copy of Windows Vista Ultimate by letting the benevolent folks at Microsoft snoop on your computer usage for a few months.

Any takers?

I just bought my non-tech-savvy mother-in-law a laptop computer (on her dime) via dell.com. When I made the purchase I had the option of the machine being built as an XP machine or a Vista machine. I chose XP.

I've heard some nasty things about Vista, and, even though it's newer, I thought she'd probably be better served with an XP lapper.

I hope I made the right choice. After all, Mac OS X was a few hundred dollars out of her price range.

When you sign up for a Youtube account, you have to enter the characters depicted in one of those oddly distorted images. There's an out for those who can't perform that task for whatever reason. The link to that secondary option, right below the image, is marked: "Can't Read?"

Popular Mechanics has a list of the 25 Skills Every Man Should Know: Your Ultimate DIY Guide. It's updated to include some computer/web related skills that manly men need in today's world. According to the folks at PM, you ought to be able to:

1. Patch a radiator hose (Check)
2. Protect your computer (Check)
3. Rescue a boater who has capsized (I guess. I've never rescued someone who's capsized, but I've spent some time on the boat and I know better than to jump in after a drowning guy.)
4. Frame a wall (Check)
5. Retouch digital photos (Not interested. My wife does all the photo stuff.)
6. Back up a trailer (Check, although interestingly, my wife is better at this than I am.)
7. Build a campfire (Check. But who actually does it the old-fashioned way?)
8. Fix a dead outlet (Check)
9. Navigate with a map and compass (Check)
10. Use a torque wrench (Check)
11. Sharpen a knife (Check)
12. Perform CPR (Never been trained in it, so unless what you see from watching TV counts, then no.)
13. Fillet a fish (Check. But it's just not worth it.)
14. Maneuver a car out of a skid (Check. But knowing how to do it and actually being able to execute in the moment are two different things.)
15. Get a car unstuck (Unstuck from what? I'll say check.)
16. Back up data (Check. The irony is that I lost the first incarnation of this post about 3 sentences in when my browser froze.)
17. Paint a room (Check)
18. Mix concrete (Check)
19. Clean a bolt-action rifle (Oh yeah, baby.)
20. Change oil and filter (Check)
21. Hook up an HDTV (Considering I don't own one, I'll have to say no. But how hard could it be?)
22. Bleed brakes (Nope)
23. Paddle a canoe (Check. But does this really qualify as some kind of special skill? Who doesn't know how to paddle a canoe?)
24. Fix a bike flat (Check)
25. Extend your wireless network (Would this be anything more than buying and installing the relevant hardware, of which there are several types? I've never done it, but I'm not sure how it counts as some critical skill. Setting up a wireless network would make more sense here.)

The above link takes you to the list, and this link takes you to a skill-by-skill descriptive breakdown of the list so you can make up for your shortcomings. How do you measure up?

This list seems deficient in a lot of ways. Of course it's a PM list, but a little more balance to what makes up a skilled man would be nice. I'd be happy to hear suggestions in the comments.

Tony Morgan asks if podcasting is dead.

Interesting points to consider.

I was a latecomer to the podcast phenomenon (as I am with nearly all new technologies and innovations), and I still am not the podcast fiend some of my friends are.

I subscribe to probably 10 podcasts, but only listen to 1 or 2 a week. They are mainly sermon podcasts.

What is your subscription to listening ratio?

We've talked about the "video preaching" in multi-site satellite churches before, and then I was only half-joking about "What's next? Video worship?"

Well . . .

:-)

I wonder if that'll be the title of a book one day. I fear -- unless he's keeping meticulous records -- all of his correspondences will one day be lost.

Seriously.

On the other hand, it's not just him I wonder about (although he's the most likely Thinkling to reach fame through his writing), but I wonder about everyone's missives these days.

When was the last time you actually wrote a letter, sealed an envelope, and dropped it in the mail? If you're like most people I know, you don't do that. You email instead. You blog instead.

I guess it all comes down to whether or not you take the time to archive your digital files, and whether or not those digital files will be easily accessible twenty, thirty, fifty years down the road.

I'd love to peruse some of the emails Jared and I zipped back and forth to each other during our college days. But I didn't save them ...

Did you, Jared?

While looking into getting a web presence for my business, I started thinking about buying domain names for my kids. So I was intrigued to see this article, a version of which appeared in my local paper a few days ago.

It seems a lot of parents are having the same thought-- buy your kids domain names, and do it now, while the virtual real estate is still available.

A small but growing number of parents are getting domain names for their young kids, long before they can do more than peck aimlessly at a keyboard.

It's not known exactly how many, but the practice is no longer limited to parents in Web design or information technology.

They worry that the name of choice might not be available by the time their babies become teens or adults, just as someone claimed the ".com" for Britney Spears' 11-month-old son before she could.

The trend hints at the potential importance of domain names in establishing one's future digital identity.

Think of how much a typical teen's online life now revolves around Facebook or News Corp.'s MySpace. Imagine if one day the domain could take you directly to those social-networking profiles, blogs, photo albums and more.

There is the question-- how much will a .com name matter in the years to come? Will it be the online equivalent of telling people your name is your mailing address, or will the practice of manualling entering domain names eventually fade to obscurity?

There's no guarantee, though, that domain names will have as central a role in online identity. After all, with search engines getting smarter, Internet users can simply type the name of a person into Google.

"Given the pace of change on the Internet, it strikes me as a pretty impressive leap of faith that we're going to use exactly the same system and the same tools ... 15 to 20 years from today," said Peter Grunwald, whose Grunwald Associates firm specializes in researching kids and technology.

I haven't bought domain names for my kids yet, but I'm thinking about it-- especially since they're getting almost to a point where they can use the computer independently. I also thought about trying to buy the domain name for my daughter's first and middle names, since she'll eventually get married and drop her last name. Unfortunately, somebody already has it. But I checked her website, and she looks really old. So maybe I can backorder it.

Anybody out there who has done it or is thinking about it?

I just got this email from Apple:

Dear Eric,

Your service request has been completed and your replacement IPOD NANO shipped on 2007-08-29. Please allow two business days for delivery (five business days if your product has a personalized engraving).

Booya!

After a day and a half of spotty coverage, I think Thinklings is back up and running.

Not sure what happened. I contacted our webhost this evening and things seem better now, so . . .

This question is for all of those iPod users out there.

My wife's iPod Nano petered out the other day. The screen went blank and when I tried to charge it on my computer it didn't do jack squat.

I tried changing out the charging cord, doing the old iPod reset and giving it a lucky rub -- nothing worked.

So I went on to Apple's website and filled out an application to get it serviced or replaced under the warranty. Since the unit is more than 180 days old, I had to pony up $30 for shipping and handling. (I hope you're enjoying the steak dinner I just bought you, Mr. Jobs.)

Anyway, Apple sent us a box that we're supposed to use to send the Nano back to them (we got it today), and after getting the box, I thought, what the heck, I'll plug it into the computer one more time. . . . After a few blinks (it appeared to be shutting itself off-and-on several times) it fired up and started charging again like normal.

Arghh!! I just payed Apple $30 now the thing is working! I'm thinking about sending it in anyway, and writing out a letter to them, detailing the story.

Any advice? Anyone have any success -- or failure -- dealing with Apple?

I'm a techno-moron, so I thought I'd throw this out to see if any of our geeklurkers can help a brutha out.

I would love to add a reading list to Gospel-Driven Church in the sidebar menu pretty much like the one I have at BCC is Broken. But I can't figure out how to transfer the code format to do it. The new blog uses the new version of Blogger with the allegedly helpful sidebar element formatting, but a reading list with images of the book covers isn't a choice. (There is the option of doing a reading list, but not one that includes images.)

And when I copy and paste the html from the BCC is Broken template into (what I think is) the correct spot in the GDC template, nothing shows up.

Any help?

Swedish Woman Gets Superfast Internet

She is a latecomer to the information superhighway, but 75-year-old Sigbritt Lothberg is now cruising the Internet with a dizzying speed. Lothberg's 40 gigabits-per-second fiber-optic connection in Karlstad is believed to be the fastest residential uplink in the world, Karlstad city officials said.

In less than 2 seconds, Lothberg can download a full-length movie on her home computer - many thousand times faster than most residential connections, said Hafsteinn Jonsson, head of the Karlstad city network unit.

Jonsson and Lothberg's son, Peter, worked together to install the connection.

The speed is reached using a new modulation technique that allows the sending of data between two routers placed up to 1,240 miles apart, without any transponders in between, Jonsson said.

"We wanted to show that that there are no limitations to Internet speed," he said.

Peter Lothberg, who is a networking expert, said he wanted to demonstrate the new technology while providing a computer link for his mother.

"She's a brand-new Internet user," Lothberg said by phone from California, where he lives. "She didn't even have a computer before."

His mother isn't exactly making the most of her high-speed connection. She only uses it to read Web-based newspapers.

This morning Thinklings has been upgraded to Bloo production version 1.0 (release candidate 2).

A few cool new things in this one that I'll get to in a later post. In the meantime, the main thing you'll notice is that Thinklings once again supports multiple categories for a post.

Fellow posters - let me know if the interface to select and remove categories when you post makes sense to you.

Those of you who are Bloo users: I haven't released this version out into the wilds of SourceForge just yet. Will do in the next few days or so.

Watch me for the changes . . .

Yes I love technology
But not as much as you, you see
But I still love technology
Always and forever
-- Kip

Hey, I love technology too. But I don't think I love it enough to do this.

Even at the height of my video game days -- which are pretty much behind me now -- I still wouldn't have fathomed camping out to score a Gamecube or a Playstation. I guess I'm just not an early adopter of technology. I'd rather wait a few months to see how people respond and to see if the particular product will actually be around once all of the hype dies down.

Speaking of hype: nothing lives up to it. I'm sure the iPhone is a cool gadget, but it won't change your life. Unless, of course, you're stranded on an island and you need to use an iPhone type device to call the rescue boat that's a few miles off shore ...

I was fortunate enough to get a cool gift last weekend: a video iPod! I'm daily discovering all the cool things I can do with it (besides playing music), and I'm always hungry for more!

Do any of you experienced iPod users out there have any tips on cool things to do with a 'Pod?

I've been looking for a chess program for it, but so far no luck.