After reading David Wells’ newest book Above All Earthly Pow’rs I’m very interested in the ways in which technological development affect our thinking and living. I came across an article (whose title is the title of this post) at Wired News about a growing trend toward simplicity.

Momus at Wired News writes:

Periods of affluence are followed by a yearning for the simple and primitive. Is this why trendy new real estate in Tokyo features an outside bathroom?

You can read the article here or listen to it here.

[tags]technology, simplicity, affluence[/tags]

I occasionally check out a technology site called Digg. Users submit technology news to Digg and other users can “digg” the story. The stories with the most “diggs” reach the front page of the site. Users can also comment on stories. Scrolling through the comment sections of a story makes me wonder whether there’s value to allowing comments. Often the commenters (sp?) rip apart the person who submitted a story they did not like. I suppose the anonymity of the Internet makes people feel they can be “tough guys”. I doubt these people would act so “tough” in person.

This sort of thing is not limited to technology sites. Visit any of the top Christian blogs and you’ll find similar comments. There are so many wannabe theologians out there who are quick to pronounce a blogger’s post to be unorthodox. I think there would be much less of this if it wasn’t so easy to leave comments. What bothers me the most about it is that I often get sucked into reading all the pointless comments. Thus I become as lame as those leaving the comments!

[tags]Internet, Digg, blogging[/tags]

Once a quarter a few likeminded churches in the area gather together at Westminster Seminary (California) to worship God on a Sunday evening. Tonight was one of those nights. I took my oldest son with me (my wife stayed home with our youngest who was having a rough day and needed to go to bed early). John Sale of Valley Center Community Church preached on God’s sovereignty over the storms in our lives. John is very passionate about the Lord and it comes through very clearly in his preaching. My four year old leaned over to me at one point in the sermon and said, “He’s excited about God, right?”. His question reminded me of a series of messages by John Piper entitled “Preaching as Worship”. The messages are about preaching and one point Piper makes is that preaching is the song of the preacher. In other words preaching should be exultation in God not merely a demonstration of knowledge of Greek, Hebrew, or biblical history. I was excited that my four year old son could recognize when someone is passionate about God. What an example for him to see!

[tags]preaching[/tags]

What’s imeem you ask?

imeem is a new online service that lets you easily communicate with your friends and family and find new people and groups over the internet.

With the imeem software download you can:

• Share your media and recommend new music, films and video to friends
• Store and share photos
• Send instant messages
• Create and share blogs
• Find new friends and form public and private groups (we call them “meems!”)

I downloaded imeem today and added my AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, and Google Talk buddies. I haven’t actually tested it out yet. As I use it more I’ll post what I think of this new service.

[tags]imeem, instant messaging, social technology[/tags]

My wife has recounted a slightly embarrassing, but funny moment from a few days ago.

[tags]humor[/tags]