Pope Preaches Precaution

The Pope thinks the internet is a mixed blessing, touting its utility as an open forum, but warning against becoming lost in the virtual jungle.  Prophet and Pope agree?  LDS.org is stuffed with articles both praising The New Familysearch website and warning against Pornography.  Cyber-peril has united old foes.  Religion is now about guiding disciples correctly, rather than bashing all foreign sects with claims to divine authority.  Now all we need is for believers to realize the war is over.

Data Deluge, Dismaying Divining Devastationists

A lecture I attended today highlighted how technological growth has affected American Culture, speeding humanity to an unhealthy pace.  The telephone was used as a case study, citing the deliberate dialing procedure of the rotary, the excited pace of touch-tone, the acceleration again of single touch speed-dials, ending with the novel concept of speech recognition, meant to shave off even the bit of time usually spent pressing the speed dial buttons.  This same lecture provided me with the interesting reading posted below:

From Movable Type to Data Deluge

Both the lecture and the reading seem to agree that our world is headed to a society of Cybermen from Dr. Who.  I find this conclusion quite untrue.  Being one of the oldest alive who can say I've had a computer in my house since birth, I submit that if anyone were to be inseparably tied to the digital world, I'd have been handcuffed by USB extension cords long ago.  Granted, I do own a cell phone and have a Facebook account, but I do actually remember how to turn off the phone, and have discovered that actually talking to people is much more fun than sitting in front of a monitor, granted I have a big one, and typing at them.  There is hope for humanity's rising electronic generation, we just need to occasionally go outside and remember there is a sun.

Overview of Obstacles to be Overcome

Dear Readers,

Occasionally it happens that I get the urge to buck the system.  This often gets me labeled as one who objects to rules, simply because they are rules.  Let me lay that to rest by pointing out that even the formation of this blog is in accordance to an expectation laid out by a professor: that all students in my class create and keep a blog.  His reasons for requiring a blog are to provide an open forum for class topics and to aid in the development of writing skill.  These objectives are quite ordinary and well thought out, thus I have complied with the related expectation.  There are, however many expectations in the world as a whole that are not as well founded as my professor's.  This blog, while serving to fill a requirement in a class, also will report my opinions on various objectives placed on an Engaged Male Caucasian College Student, highlighting those I believe to be either obscenely obtuse or outstanding in either outcome or modus operandi.

Happy Reading!