Living Martyrs

I’m not talking about your intra-cranial grey matter. Because that stuff is expensive! But you might be paying too much for the memory that you need for your gadgets and cameras and stuff. I just bought the fastest 2GB SD card I’ve ever seen. It’s listed as 150x, which is still related to CD reading speed if I’ve understood that right. Whatever the benchmark is, it’s fast. Really, really fast. And I bought it for $12!

Don’t buy your memory at a department store, not even an electronics department store. Get it from a computer store. Those guys don’t mess around with their prices. Which you may read to mean that the other guys do…

This puts the photo in photosynthesis! There’s no question that darkrooms are becoming a rarer breed. But just before they go extinct, they take off in this crazy new direction. This is such a simple but amazingly effective idea. And it’s oh-so environmentally sustainable, to boot. (Hat-tip to Strobist.)

See more of these artists’ experimental stuff here.

Some suggest that photography needs a new name. If this technology is an indicator of the future, I’d have to agree. Something unique happens when the geeks and the artists start converging. I’m not usually a fan of music videos — they always seem to be too “something”. But this one really connects with the music (gotta love Radiohead), and it works.

You can find out more about this over at Lens Culture. The one thing that really struck me is that we have scientists and engineers going out of their way to make precise, crystal-clear data. And artists show up to throw some grit in their machines. I love it.

I was in an unfortunate, but ultimately very interesting interaction recently. I was accidentally included on an e-mail list notifying me that someone I don’t know has cancer which has now very likely turned terminal. This was either sent or cc’ed to a rather large number of people. And some of those people are, shall we say, ‘not friendly’ — apparently belonging to some twisted little isolated group of self-professing Christians. They instantly jumped on this news, declaring that the cancer victim brought it on himself. That it is his sin that caused this. Reasoned, tactful responses to these declarations unloaded the floodgates of Hades.

Everyone on that list has now been repeatedly broadcast this group’s views, which include several variations of “You’re all instruments of Satan.” And then, upon being soundly criticised by some (brave? foolish?) people, they have the audacity to say that they are being judged by their appearance and not the reality. And, of course, they question anybody’s right or authority to judge them at all. This while handing down their own astringent (not to mention unsolicited) judgements liberally.

It’s actually been pretty remarkable watching this unfold. Their style of “debate” is to preempt (pertinent) accusations by throwing out (baseless) ones of their own. It’s actually wickedly effective*. It goes like this: If I first call you a liar, and then make a baseless truth claim, your counter-accusation that I am a liar is infinitely weaker. Or if I tell you that you’re distorting scripture, and then do that myself, how could you make a sensible response? Or best yet, if I call you delusional, then how can you respond that really I am the delusional one? It would reduce you to 7 year-old see-saw name-calling. I’ve tied you up in knots and made you look like an idiot before I even let you speak.

In the initial case, with the horrifyingly spiteful responses to the cancer announcement, I was very tempted to say “Rather than being a judgement from the Lord, this cancer is actually His blessing: with friends/acquaintances like this, who wouldn’t be grateful for an ‘out’!?” But I didn’t say that. Because that’s not the kind of Christian I choose to be. But man, sometimes that choice is hard!

Instead I effectively just told them to “Shut up!”. But why bother? They never listen…

*that is to say, effective only at heading off rebuttal, and insulating you from needing to really engage the issues at hand. Not at all useful for actually convincing anybody of anything. Or, uh, making friends…

I find myself kind of adrift right now. The feeling goes pretty deep. I’m a party to a lot of initiatives, a lot of little programs that are designed to achieve fairly specific objectives. But the big picture connecting all (or each) of these little pieces is really sketchy. And I’ve been asked here: “If it was up to me, what would that big picture be?” Well I appreciate david’s input on a recent post. I’ve arrived at the perspective that we aren’t out to change the world. The instant our goal is to make something bigger than ourselves, it’s doomed.

Stay with me here: I believe that it’s possible to be part of something important, it’s even possible to start something important. But the instant the grand vision becomes the goal, and not the biblical principles of “acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with our God”, our compass breaks. In whatever part of life — even something as noble as beginning a new church. There are questions of legacy. Of perpetuity. And sustainability and growth. All of those things stifle faith which centres our dependency on a loving, caring God. Strangely, self-reliance and God-reliance can’t really co-exist. I say strangely because in our culture I think it’s safe to say that it’s a given that it can.

Fundamentally, I often ask myself what we have to offer. As Christians. As North Americans. As citizens of a large, diverse planet — when we extend our hands, what’s in them? We have a lot of advantages in comfort level over most of the people in the world. But there are significant strings attached, because that comfort becomes insidiously addictive. I don’t say that it’s wrong. I just assert that it’s bloody difficult to keep it right. And sharing that addiction is not service.

So boiling it down, I think what we need is an action plan that we can keep in front of us every day. The grand gesture on (very) foreign soil isn’t realistic for that purpose. Nor is it reasonable when there are so many unmet needs close to home. Dickens’ phrase “telescopic philanthropy” comes to mind. (Wow! I just used something from Bleak House. I can’t tell you how much I detested that book in high school!) It’s too easy to be carried by the feeling of accomplishment accompanying a big excursion with a tangible result (e.g. a construction project). And then we begin the machine which works toward that experience again. In two years.

If we hope to understand what we have to offer, in hopes that one day we can offer it, we’ve got it backwards. We simply need to start offering it, whatever it is. Every day. Personally I’m not interested in where the trends are headed, or where the courses have been charted. It is my nature to look to the margins to serve. And there is no shortage of them. No shortage at all.

I had a little mp3 player that I loved. I loved it more than Apple fans love their iPods. It was a little Samsung unit with a 30GB hard-drive, and capability to not just record with an internal mic, but also record a line-in signal as well as. In a pinch it could also play videos, and show pictures, though with rather diminutive 1.8″ that might just be pushing it. But for playing music, it was top notch. Its battery would allow me nearly two weeks of regular commuting time, and the odd road trip thrown in. But that chapter is over. ‘Cause it takes a player more robust than the little Samsung to survive a full wash-and-dry cycle in the laundry. So yeah, don’t do that with your tech toys.

I’ve got an Archos 605 that I bought on Boxing Day. It’s decent enough, but I bought it primarily to be my walking photography portfolio, and its battery doesn’t allow extended play of music or video. I get a lot of comments and compliments when I show off my pics — it’s got a great screen — so it was a smart move despite its limitations. But I wanted a player that I could throw around, that could store a good chunk of my music, and that could stand to be away from its charger for a while. I was an inch away from buying a new Zune, but it’s critical to me that my tools and toys be as open as possible, and you need Zune software installed on every computer you use to deploy it (apparently). As I’m right now in the process of switching between about 5 different boxes (not exaggerating!), that wasn’t a great option.

What I settled on is the Zen 16GB. It’s the same player that my siblings bought my parents last Christmas. I’m making a few compromises here — it has less capacity than the player it replaces. But it’s solid state memory so you can play soccer with the thing and listen to it on the way home. (Of course trying that might just have you writing your own “Don’t Do This…” post.) It has comparable battery life to the outgoing one. I can do impromtu voice (or whatever) recordings. (It goes without saying there’s no line-in. There’s never going to be another line-in…) And it’s also infinitely upgradeable as it has an SD card slot built in. Hey, I have a few of those kicking around. It’s got a decent screen and can playback video, but, of course, it doesn’t lick the shoes of the Archos. (In fact I was tempted to pop another $100 in and get a second Archos but I’d be stuck with the same battery issues. Deal-breaker.)

My only fear is that the Zen is small enough, and light enough, to also find its way undetected into the laundry. Here’s hoping we can avoid that.

If you haven’t heard of VII Photo Agency, you need to check it out. Named after the number of founder photographers that joined forces originally, VII is committed to excellence in humanitarian photojournalism. Or as they put it: “While the stark realities of the battlefield loom large, VII turns its gaze with equal intensity to more subtle forms of conflict and documenting the changes and development of society and culture worldwide.”

From everything I’ve ever seen from them, they’re nailing it!

There is definitely a crisis in the imbalance of power between male and female. In North America there’s been enough push-back over the last century or so that it may not seem at all stark, or even important anymore. After all, the field’s more level than it’s ever been. But clearly, that’s not happening everywhere.

If your impression from my last post on the subject is that I don’t think there’s a problem, this link should clear that up (**warning some of these pictures are gut-wrenchingly graphic!**). There is. It’s real and it’s obvious. And shocking.

My problem is that knowing that doesn’t help me know what to do about it.

I just made a Wordle. (This is created from my recent wedding post.) And now, you can do it too. This little graphic design trend can/must end now — it can’t survive the over-exposure of this technological onslaught. I wonder what it’ll be replaced with.

But I don’t wonder too hard, ’cause whatever it is, the programmers will catch up even quicker to it, and kill it with more deadly accuracy. Frankly, I’m not sure how I feel about all that.

At work, I take a great deal of inspiration from a blog called Color Lovers. (When not using their name, I will revert to my preferred spelling of ‘colour’) These guys find colourful things from many diverse places in the world, and work to create an understanding of not only why colours work together, but also how those palates can be applied to other design. It can be quite useful for not only design work, but other areas of creativity like art and photography and music. Wait, no, not music.

It’s actually a great exercise to look at a picture and try to select colours out of it that might work together. You can get really eye-catching results and horrid ones from the exact same picture. So you know, be careful out there!

I just found out about an effort called The Girl Effect. Essentially its goal is to empower young women in poverty-stricken nations to improve their (whole!) world. The logic is that when girls have better education, they can make a better and bigger contribution to society, economy and in turn education. Now, I applaud just about anything that brings hope on any level. But this feels a little simplistic to me. Does it make a difference knowing that Nike is behind it?

This is why working internationally is very difficult. Because you are torn between working with and through the culture, or trying to directly change it. And when it’s the extension of a corporation with a relatively bad public image, it just smacks of disingenuousness. Is it trying to right its wrongs, or is it just trying to improve its reputation? (Is it even aware of the Western-centric cultural implications at work? With its primary goal to be a money-making enterprise, can it be trusted to carefully navigate those?)

Do you believe the fundamental assertion of The Girl Effect? Or does it seem to you, as it does to me, simplistic, even sexist? (For the record, I would love to have my cynicism about this soundly clubbed.) The comment board is open.