I must also find a better way of indexing them so that I can be more likely to remember or find them when one would be useful for students... So for example if you have a small topic that you think your students could do with a short different voice (in more ways than one ;-) explaining add it to my wish list and who knows you could have a new targeted resource!
Labels: bible, open.biblical.studies, podcast
¶ 2:11 PM
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- nothing happens, and the user has to manually look up the reference for themselves
- you (since I do not yet) subscribe to a clever plugin that converts you reference into a link to an online Bible that the plugin writer fancies (often the ESV) which the reader is stuck with even if they hate the XYV and would prefer the original Aramaic (it was that part of Daniel you cited wasn't it?)
- they are "simple" so even dumboes like you and I can use them, they are not just for technogods
- they are "conventions" so we can choose whether to use them or not, but if we do good things happen, like when we follow the conventions of the form of literature we are writing
- they "embed semantics" - that means that they "know" what you mean, and other services can understand that your reference to Amos 5:13 is just that, a reference to a Bible verse or passage
- this enables "decentralised development" - which means that today, tomorrow or in two years time, Jo or Joe can write a cool tool which sings the Bible in properly cantored Hebrew, or presents a PDF of the beautifully illuminated page from the Book of Kells, or whatever... and you can use it, or your user can use it - even if you have never heard of the tool.
Here are the three posts so far that discuss the proposal. Do take a look. Forget yawning at the techno-speak, but think about how this will work from a user's point of view. And encourage this development, so it does go on to become a convention. Because that is what is needed for it to work.
Sean's "modest proposal":
and OpenBible.info suggests some neater simplifications:
Sean responds and agrees:
WARNING: the post above was written by a technical ignoramus, but it will be corrected and updated as soon as anyone with greater knowledge explains the need!
Labels: bible, bible.software, blog, open.biblical.studies
¶ 9:14 AM
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Just how lazy have folk become that they are so troubled at having to actually look up a verse that they have to devise a way not to?
What will we ever do if electicity is lost.
By 
Jim, at
May 28, 2007 10:29 AM
I think, Jim, that the rot really started when people began to use Papyrus scrolls just because they were easier to carry than those authoritative stone (or aesthetic clay) tablets, but really set in hard when those Christians started to use codex form "books" just because they made documents more portable and gave random access. The discipline of unrolling the scroll to a reference is so holy and scholarly...
By 
Tim, at
May 28, 2007 10:49 AM
Hello Tim!
Well first it's nice to see that I'm not the only one gifted with a hint of sarcasm. ;-)
Personally I think everyone ought to have to cart around a big clay tablet. It would cut down on those crazy preachers flinging their bible back and forth from hand to hand, rolling the cover back like some sort of snail.
By Jim, at
May 28, 2007 11:31 AM
Oh, but a decent lump of clay is so satisfying to toss firmly from hand to hand to demonstrate one's mastery at preaching, I can't wait till I can authoritatively toss a proper stone tablet. The MusculizerKingPro that I'm buying from the TV ad should help a lot.
By Tim, at
May 28, 2007 11:45 AM
In the South they have a saying which I think fits here...
'yu aint right'
;-)
By Jim, at
May 28, 2007 12:41 PM
Jim: I don't want to squelch the fun, but not having to look up verses isn't the point at all. If the references are identified, it means the search engines can index content that way. That will let you more effectively search for discussions about passages you're interested in, without having to guess which book name abbreviation or format somebody used. For that matter, if you're interested in Amos 5:13, you might want to be able to search for references to Amos 5 (because a discussion of verse 12 or 14 might be relevant to you).
By Sean, at
May 28, 2007 1:35 PM
Thanks, Sean. It was fun while it lasted, but a genuine thanks for the reminder, I had overlooked the possibilities with search engines, if this got to be an established convention.
By Tim, at
May 28, 2007 1:57 PM
BTW since the project is on Librivox we have to use a translation that will allow us to put the result in the public domain. ¶ 8:58 AM
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Hi Tim - I finally got to listen. Five voices in concert could be quite effective. I think the WEB Bible was the most effective. The eth suffixes in the archaic versions made for more difficulty hearing. This is partly because of the archaism and partly due to the accent. Your reader has a pronounced short e vowel. The word breath for example comes to my ear as brith and it takes me a moment to decode it. One could get used to it. I think too that the speech is long - and more spondee - or unexpected accentuation of verb and object is required. 10 times - is this the eleventh round of speeches? then he lists his complaints - somehow we need to hear them in groups of 3 and 4 or we will lose focus - I am thinking here of the limitations of the listener related to a list of 7 (+/-2)things. I think Job's character must understate the list so as not to be heard as whining but as a matter of fact complaint about things he has no control over. And what inner light causes that change to I know that my go'el lives? It is the same gift of light that the psalmist receives - how can this be put across aurally? - by understatement, pace, pause, etc. I would want to hear the human tone - hope without a shadow of piety.
By Bob MacDonald, at
May 26, 2007 8:23 AM
Regarding the first comment:
Thanks for letting me know what specific problems you have with my accent. I briefly considered imitating a different, more well-known accent (i.e. one that appears on TV outside New Zealand), in order to make myself more easily understood, but I don't know if I'm skilled enough to pull it off without creating more problems than I solve. A better idea is probably for me to slow down a little, so that listeners can have time to interpret my accent. Of course, the readers haven't actually been chosen yet; I was just the first person who happened to get around to recording a sample chapter for comparing translations.
By the way, if I've correctly understood what you're saying, you seem to have quite a different understanding of Job from me. You see a "matter of fact complaint", whereas I see strong emotions like anger and frustration all over the place. Sure, Job's words seem quite sedate in the prologue, where he says “Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. Yahweh gave, and Yahweh has taken away. Blessed be the name of Yahweh.” (although he had just torn his robe), but in his very first speech he seems to be quite frustrated, to put it mildly, effectively saying "I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all!". (Now, am I making reference to Bohemian Rhapsody, or was Queen making reference to Job? Probably only the former, given the divergent contexts.) Of course, I may be mistaken. Since I'm not a reader of ancient Hebrew, my opinions on Job are based only on the English translations I've read, a little commentary, and my own personal experience of chronic illness.
<><
By , at
May 27, 2007 4:44 PM
Accents are really difficult in this online world. What sounds perfectly normal to one person sounds strange to another. We've had some people write in about PodBible that they only like this or that reader! For this project different accents will be less of a problem than they potentially are on PodBible because each speaker will be heard for several chapters at a time.
Questions of interpretation are more "problematic" because to read is always (intentionally or not) to provide a reading! I think on that one we'll just have to choose readers and parts and then let them interpret - perhaps we could (a) get each reader to do several small chunks and then pick people for parts and (b) discuss the interpretations a bit - though I think I prefer the idea of letting each reader work it out for themselves. That was in a way part of the motive for the project. Like different actors "reading" MacBeth differently - though without the director ;-)
By Tim, at
May 28, 2007 5:57 AM
PS The slowing down idea is probably a good one, for all the readers, if we do as I hope have an international team everyone will sound "strange and foreign" to some listeners!
By Tim, at
May 28, 2007 5:59 AM
Thanks! ¶ 8:03 AM
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Tim: nice idea - I think the three friends have lovely names. I was not able to get the audio files from librivox due to popups and advertisements. For translations, I wonder if you know Mitchell's http://www.amazon.com/Book-Job-Stephen-Mitchell/dp/0060969598
I have not looked at Job in Hebrew and it has been a long time since I read it last (2 or 3 years) but I do remember enjoying Mitchell
By Bob MacDonald, at
May 23, 2007 11:15 AM
The problem with a translation published in the last 75 years or so is that it is still in copyright, and for Librivox we need to supply the audio in the public domain.
Since you (and possibly others) had problems with the free service he used to make the files available I'll put them here...
By Tim, at
May 24, 2007 8:54 AM
Sugirtharajah, R.S. "Scripture, Scholarship, Empire: Putting the Discipline in Its Place." Expository Times 117, no. 1 (2005): 2-11.
A large part of the problem, Ryan, is that the academic systems in which we operate either do not give us credit for writing "popular" works, or only give us small credit. So, the recent "Performance Based Research Funding" exercise in NZ which grades lecturers seems to give more credit for the more esoteric publications, and little or no credit for writing aimed at ordinary readers. Such writing does not count as research, but there is no other grading system in which such work does gain brownie points!It seems to me and this is just a generalisation that theologians have some amazing insights into the Bible their work is so wordy and unreadable or widely unavailable that it’s only read by other academics. Its also seems that half the time of a theologian is spent taking small and not so small pot shots at other theologians.
Before I started this course I had never heard of any of the people we now study, and I would say it would be the same for most of you in the class. Unless you actively seek to know more, as we have done by studying theology, you never come across all this insightful work which brings me to my point.
What is the goal of a theology and theologians?
Is it to win the battle of popularity and bragging rights by publishing more books, however unreadable by the average person, and proving more of your pears ideas wrong then they can prove of yours?
Or is it to disseminate their insights to the church community as a whole so that we can benefit from their work. I know which one it should be but since I have never seen or heard of them in the 20 years I have spent at various churches I would have to say it’s the former which is a shame.
Is theological dissemination going to be left to people like us who take what we learn from the masters and spread it ourselves to those in our churches?
As a result of the way these systems discourage "popularisation", good biblical studies scholarship is seldom communicated in places that non-specialists read. Except by a few scholars, some of whom deliberately write books that will communicate to non-specialists. These scholars usually do not have stellar careers - they are most often employed by church-based theological colleges (seminaries), and so tend to be more conservative.
However, the way in which generations of pastors have failed to communicate much of what they studied has also led to a huge gulf between (almost) any sort of academically rigorous biblical studies and the way the Bible is read and used in church.
In Conservative churches, where the Bible is still regarded as the (or a very important) authority, the way in which scholars cite Bible passages to support points they are making has been understood as prooftexting. Most people in churches who seek to follow "the Bible's teaching" believe that one or two Bible verses can be read alone and mean something! Then add the approach to Scripture (largely driven by 20th century American Christian fundamentalists) that sees it as all of a piece, dictated word for word by God, and something like a makers manual for a car. By now you have effectively killed the Bible and turned it merely into a convenient cudgel to be used for beating your opponents to pulp.
In "Liberal" churches the situation is, if anything, worse. The Bible is seen as a merely human book, that it ceases to hold much authority at all, and is at best a source of some carefully selected or Bowdlerised stories to tell to Sunday School children (of whom there are very few left to listen). The resulting Politically Correct censored Bible has little of value to say, for its message is merely be good people and be nice to each other!
Now, after my moan, the good news! Thanks to the Internet it is easier today to get hold of good, stimulating, intelligent material about the Bible than ever before. There are dozens, perhaps now hundreds, of blogs written by biblical scholars. Many of them, like those listed in the side bar of this blog, and those they list in turn, present a good level of scholarship in ways that are easy to read. Soon there will be a wave of bibliopodcasts (or whatever we come to call audio files presented by biblical scholars). For now there are few, and most are not regular bite sized chunks, but solid meaty lectures. However do try guiding people to hear Amy Jill Levine of Vanderbilt Divinity School talking about Jesus and Women. Then they'll be begging you for tickets to her Auckland lecture!
And if that's too long for them, send them to hear my latest experiment 5 Minute Bible podcasts. They attempt to break complex ideas about studying the Bible seriously into short "bites".
Labels: audio, bible, open.biblical.studies, podcast
¶ 3:03 PM
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This is a great post. Thanks also for pointing me to Amy Jill Levine. I listened to the audio of her lecture.
So first, as a Baptist (not quite, but nearly, life-long) I'll be - I hope - endearingly honest about this, I am (still) a Baptist precisely because of the congregational and Christ-centeredness of Baptist life. The picture of "voting on everything" simply misunderstands. In an ideal church meeting (which does not exist, see Genesis 3) we would vote on nothing. The Church (the local gathered community of Jesus followers) would pray, discuss, argue, debate, and finally recognise, which way the Spirit is blowing and follow.
Baptists, endearingly, seem to be quite honest about this. There is no major over-arching vision statement or document of beliefs. On most theological issues they give a pretty wide berth. As I have said before, it's a great ecumenical approach.
Having said that, I find the whole congregational governance thing a bit hard to stomach. It's just a bit reactionary for my tastes. But perhaps that's because I was once involved in a Baptist church where we voted on everything down to the copy machine budget.
In the real world, we often often end up voting. That's because of contagious heteropraxis [If you don't understand see Rhett's Feeling Strangely Warned and substitute "praxis" (doing) for "doxy" believing.] what I mean is that we hear of congregations voting, and our society votes, we're democratic, so the church copies the world. When we do, we think of Church as "democratic" what a heresy! We should be pneumocratic, governed by the Spirit of Christ. And that's why Baptists should be Bible centered, because we know the mind of Christ through the Scriptures that witness to him.
So, Rhett (and anyone else ;-) if that's "reactionary" then I'm an old reactionary - boots and all!
Labels: baptist
¶ 8:09 PM
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"When we do, we think of Church as "democratic" what a heresy! We should be pneumocratic, governed by the Spirit of Christ."
Amen!
<><
By Tim, at
May 18, 2007 10:07 PM
Sorry, to avoid confusion with the author of this blog, I should remember to comment here as tjm1983.
<><
By , at
May 18, 2007 10:10 PM
[Now the context is different, the two places I've been teaching for the last few years are both at the same academic level, in NZ - as in the UK and Australia - we don't commonly use a graduate degree like an MDiv for clergy-training, but one is a Theological College: faith-based and essentially ministry-focused, the other is a secular University, with a much wider range of students. Different, with different joys and challenges, but I have loved both.]
One paragraph in his comments "fitted" my experience and feelings better than the others:
The difference is not so strongly marked for me, but since the University students come from a much wider range of backgrounds:
- denomination: Carey students are either Baptist, or members of an Evangelical denomination or from the Evangelical wing of the Anglican or Presbyterian Churches - the University students are from anywhere or nowhere in terms of church, I've sometimes had Donovan's "Universal Soldier" in the class: (s)he's a Catholic, a Hindu, an Atheist, a Jain, A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew - actually I wasn't aware of the Jain... but maybe!
- race: most Carey students are of predominantly European descent, that is true of the majority (though only just) of University students too but only just, at Carey most of the non-Europeans are Asian, at the University they are Māori, Polynesian.
- destination: most Carey students envisage some form of professional Christian ministry at the end of their study, many University students do too, but many do not.
I love teaching both groups. (Cf. Scott's point 2.) I admire the ministry students' commitment passion and faith, but I fear their narrowness and legalism. I admire the University students' openness, but I wish some of them could "catch" the deep and life-changing faith that is the Carey students' motive.
In drawing this caricature I have maligned many students in both groups - I don't intend that, what I was trying to do was not capture the wild and wonderful richness of any class in a neat descriptive phrase (you can't thank God) but to summarise why over the years I've valued the joint Carey/University teaching, and why I'll miss the School of Theology when I Carey leave it at the end of the year (as Carey's participation ends).
[If this sounds grumpy, or offends you, please excuse me - I've been off today with stomach cramps and headache and mild fever, maybe I'm not quite myself!]
Labels: evangelical, teaching
¶ 8:09 PM
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PS: I am still waiting for all the visitors to come flocking looking for Contrarians ;-)
Labels: bible, open.access.scholarship, video
¶ 6:35 PM
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But in the end I'm so conventional, and here's my list of five of the blogs that make me think (for some of the others see the sidebar lists!):
- Imaginary Grace - I just love the title, that alone still has me thinking! But also see for example Angela's recent Writing in Biblical Studies.
- Lingamish - again the name does it, but also the African context of the Bible reading helps, see Window on the World: Africa in Amos.
- if:book always stimulating about the future of intellectual life and "books" - a team blog with no bad apples.
- Better Bibles Blog - a group blog that is focused, and often thought-provoking about Bible translation (another team blog - hey, maybe there's a message about thinking in teams here...)
- Graham Doel - see my post below, or notice the title of this one Does “Thinking Team” include thinking about Church Planters?
Labels: contrarian, thinking
¶ 7:19 AM
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David Ker (Lingamish) commentst that Blogger captcha codes are a major barrier for people in the third world. He asks:
You might comment for me that I wrote:
"Considering all the restaurant reviews on this blog I can hardly imagine that is an accurate title! ;-) Bless you, Tim for the nomination. I've received it before so you might have to search for one of the few people left in the blogosphere that haven't been nominated..."
By Tim, at
May 15, 2007 6:34 AM
Not restaurants, "merely" cafes, though we are finding that this is a good way to catch up on some of the "meals out" we have missed out on over recent years. Besides Blog names do not have to describe their owners, it may be that like dogs, the owners grow more like their pets, have you ever seen a tall thin person with a bulldog, or a scruff with a poodle?
By Tim, at
May 15, 2007 6:37 AM
Thanks for the shout out, Tim. I admit that I haven't taken a bible study course since my freshman year in college. Please don't quiz me on anything I allegedly covered in class.
By The Contrarian, at
May 23, 2007 2:44 AM
I think it is safe to say these's never yet been a quiz on THIS blog! Not even the one about What Kind of American do you Speak Like?
I try to make people think (and quizzes try to stop people thinking)! I also appreciate Oscar Wilde's: "In examinations the foolish ask questions the wise cannot answer!" too much...
By Tim, at
May 23, 2007 6:38 AM
Sophie is brilliant, an easy to use editor for complex interactive multimedia. As such it is already superb (though as a pre-release alpha somewhat flaky still), and the plans and dreams of the IFBook people make its future sound even better. If such a tool had existed a few years ago the Amos commentary would have been created using it, and would have emerged very differently from its actual HTML incarnation. Sophie permits rich and varied interactions with multimedia, and will permit comments - creating a community around the media "text". This mix of media with community is evidently the (or at least one) future, and it works! (Or is beginning to work - very well.)
To get a good idea of the possibilities download Mozart's Dissonant Quartet the video with text-over shows some of the possibilities in a timeline based presentation. If you do try it do read the instructions on the page linked above, they will save you (or would have saved me) quite a bit of trying to work out how Sophie works as a reader.However, to someone used to the free-flowing, largely system independent, world of HTML - and even more so of its more structured and meaningful descendants inhabiting the world of XML - I am frustrated by a system that defines a "page size" (usually a fraction of my screen to accommodate older smaller screens - but pity the user whose screen is too small!) and pages that MUST be turned.
Still, the only demo book I have tried so far Mozart's Dissonant Quartet with its beautiful soundtracks. Here too the ways in which Sophie is "not HTML" can be frustrating, as I said above, till I RTFMed I found the demo far from intuitive to navigate - more of a text adventure with a superb soundtrack than a multimedia experience. Sophie also has a very Macish feel to her, right clicking achieves precisely nothing, though the
interface has Mac's good looks, there are times when Windows comforting convenience is useful! Perhaps when Sophie has her dedicated Reader this will become less of a puzzle. I suspect though it will help if (when IF Book release the "real thing" into the wild) Sophie comes with a firm set of recommended conventions.
Conclusion so far: just one hour in...
Will the limitations of restrictive screen display sizes (so beloved of the graphical designers) be overcome and will the user interface become more intuitive? If so Sophie will make a brilliant environment to produce multimedia instructional materials that can become truly the hub of an interactive communal learning experience... Or is this "future" too restrictive in its polices?
Already - if I was teaching my Bible in an Electronic context course (or in a school) - I can see how students could easily and quickly produce interactive multimedia so easily... I imaging that even some of my IT challenged colleagues could learn to use and love Sophie. And a design that achieves that shows deep wisdom!
Labels: book, hypertext, multimedia, open.access.scholarship
¶ 8:31 AM
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Now, why didn't I choose the post-exilic prophets for a major focus!How can I be sure?
Malachi and a mirror
Imagine you are your favourite action hero. Not sure what is round the corner she edges towards the corner of the corridor she clutches the butt of her pistol, ready herself and pounces round the corner ready to blast the living daylights out of anything that exists. Not being sure of something changes the way we act. During a time of major change in the way people lived their lives Malachi looks on and can see them asking how can I be sure?
This five week series will give us the opportunity to hold Malachi up like a mirror. As we ask our Questions Malachi reflects them back through 2500 years of history:
- Can I be sure if God exists he loves me? Aren’t all vicars are pedophiles?
- Why do the good die young and evil people last forever?
- Jesus was a good bloke, do I have to believe he was God’s messenger or son?
- Does any good come out of giving your life to God?
- I enjoyed watching “War of the Worlds” but I don’t believe it. Why should I believe in Christian Apocalypse?
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This week's café has its own website, and a strong "theme". Though where we were seated , in the window to catch the sun (it is busy, so we were lucky people left the table as we came in). It's a busy and well organised place in Mt Eden "village". Service was quick and efficient. However, our ratings are lower than for most of the others we have tried, and the prices were on the higher side.Coffee: OK My long black had a good flavour and came straight with no choice of water to add or refrain from adding. Some was dribbled down the side of the cup, probably from the speed with which the barrista was operating, he was churning out the coffees like a factory or a circus act ;-) Barbara's moccachino was reported "OK, but not as good as several of the others". Its presentation was careless, with the milk simply slopped in and the less than aesthetic effect covered with powdered chocolate used as a disguise. More care less speed... is my recommended motto!
Food: Dull By chance we both chose the Kumara and Riccotta Fritters with Avocado Salsa. These were solid and worthy, like 70s "vegetarian" options. The dish lacked any spark or excitement. The riccotta was so blended with the kumara it was indistinguishable as a flavour and the blandness of the avocado did not provide a contrast with the solidity of the kumara. The side salad baby spinach leaves and a few snow pea sprouts as decoration was unimaginative and needed a stronger dressing (there was none on the table to add).
Labels: auckland_cafes, food, review
¶ 9:48 AM
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Labels: teaching
¶ 6:14 AM
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John at Ancient Hebrew Poetry mused on questions of Canon, Inspiration, and Authority in probably the most thought-provoking biblical post this month. His superb Electronic Dictionaries of Biblical Hebrew series was mainly last month... but I'm still hoping to respond to that... one day!
Of course there was the Class Attendance debate, since in the Tyndale Carey Graduate School I'm living at the intersection of two systems:
- one that says if students don't attend that's their loss - and potentially failure
- the other says less than 80% on the register (yes people they take a register!) and you cannot pass the course
Oh, yes, and they found the tomb of some guy called Herod, who appears in the other third of the Bible.
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Hey Tim... thanks for the link. I agree with you, and I have tended to be very hands off with attendance, I still wonder if some policy (like your 80% attendance) would help encourage students to attend. Note that I don't think I have an attendance problem in my classes. I am generally happy with attendance, though every once and a while there are quite a few missing (usually related to other assignments, etc.)
I trust you also submitted the nominated posts to the BSC email address? :-)
I have as yet hardly begun to process the article, indeed this week is so busy with work and Brabara's thesis (to be submitted next week, already) that it will be a while before I can read rather than skim it. One brief extract (one free of heavy philosophical quotes - for Nyíri is a commonsensical everyday philosopher) will give an idea of why I am excited:
Words on the printed page appear clearly and distinctly. The handwritten manuscript however which the author prepares is, as a rule, rather convoluted. If one adds to this that authors tend to experience feelings of intimacy and elation at the sight of their handwriting, the conclusion is difficult to avoid that the writer thinks in a medium less clear than the one in which his readers will think.Then, remember that I am currently experimenting with a new medium for thinking, the podcast 5 minute Bible, for which I prepare oral text, with only (at most) notes written on PC or the back of an envelope, and edit the text orally in Audacity... This medium for thinking combines elements of the oral world (the thoughts are after all spoken), the written world (notes whether electronic or on scraps of paper) and the edited world of the Word Processor (since Audacity is a sort of Spoken Word Processor).
What fun!
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19993 - wow! we are getting on quickly in cyberspace!
By Bob MacDonald, at
May 10, 2007 8:28 AM
Ooops, thanks, those 1990s dates just seem to have so many 9s. I won't correct it, leave it authentic ;-)
BTW I'd have spotted your comment faster in the Old Days when Blogger's notify feature actually worked!
By Tim, at
May 14, 2007 7:31 AM
Labels: audio, copyright, internet
¶ 12:28 PM
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Today's cafe, in Kingsland because we have "finished" Sandringham Rd ;-) has the punny name "Perk Up" it's small and busy. The style and menu are fairly typical, with two nice touches:
- free coffee with your breakfast (not supposed to operate on Saturday, do you think someone is spotting us as influential reviewers ;-)
- interesting items on a "specials" list - I've been getting bored by the same-old, same-old menus, eggs benny is great, big breakfasts are fine, but whatever "creative" names you call them they are much the same everywhere!
Coffee: Pretty Good By Karajoz, B's moccachino was only OK or Quite Good, my long black (with jug, though metal) was strong with deep flavour but just a touch bitter.
Perk Up
438 New North Road,
Kingsland,
Auckland
09 815 0434
Labels: auckland_cafes, food, review
¶ 2:27 PM
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when this happens (often!) I don't just feel "uneasy" I feel pressured and over-worked! But look at the cause. It is not the emails that need a quick simple answer - unless I am very busy they get it. It is not the emails that require deep thought - if they are interesting and stimulating they get it. It is the 50 or so emails every day that I have to move across to storage - unread, or delete. They come from colleagues, often from "authorities". They fall into several recognisable and preventable classes. Such as:
- repeats (why do three different people all feel they need to tell me about the same conference?)
- rubbish from my viewpoint - though important to the sender (it was a conference on a topic that they find inspiring but makes me yawn!)
- overkill (people who think I need to read about everything or I'll feel left out)
- "entertainment" (how many cute cat videos do you really think I want to watch - your humour in my inbox just makes me angry!)
- ... etc...
And that's the sad part, it is mainly colleagues who produce this tidal wave of quasi-Spam. After all if they weren't colleagues, friends or bosses I'd have labeled mail from their addresses Junk and got it redirected to the Spam box long ago.
Even more sadly the culprits will never read this, they are not technically literate enough to subscribe to an RSS feed, that's why they have neither cottoned on that I delete half their mails, nor that less is more when it comes to communication.
<insert image of Munch's "Scream" here>
Labels: email
¶ 12:52 PM
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Yes. My Entourage mail rule set has now become so unwieldy that it is creaking under the weight of daily email. Even having everything pretty much automatically filed as it arrives doesn't always help.
Will expunge your various email addresses from my brain at the next opportunity. :-)
By Stephen G, at
May 4, 2007 10:06 PM
Today's PhD Comic also picks up the email theme.
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=857
I'd email you the link, but it'd just push you over the edge. :-)
By Stephen G, at
May 4, 2007 10:46 PM
No, your emails are usually either a delight or some light relief. I don't think rules would help unless they were quite specific and clever. Email from x.y@cleverplace.ac.nz > not_read_folder only if subject includes FWD or "conference" and so on...
By Tim, at
May 5, 2007 2:34 PM
Actually it might help just to send any email with FWD in the subject to junk ;-)
By Tim, at
May 5, 2007 2:35 PM
So, please take note everyone ... (I'm editing it later this year, and if you blog about biblical studies you'll no doubt take a turn too, so we all have a vested interest in a good supply of nominations ;-)
Labels: biblical.studies.online
¶ 9:13 AM
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Labels: audio, education, podcast
¶ 12:21 PM
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[I've called it "anti-smacking" technically it is much more complex and woolly than that, but that seems to be its main intent and effect. ]
This bill is controversial, I think, largely because what it says and what it hopes to achieve are different. As I understand it (many of?) the promoters of the bill want a culture where children are not physically abused, and normally not smacked. However, what they are legislating is a situation where the police will have yet another unenforcable law - any small smack on a troublesome two year old's leg will break the law.
Now, I'm glad that by the time we had children Stalky's age had past, thrashing a recalcitrant teen seems to me barbaric. I'd have loved to bring up our children without ever smacking them, I'll confess that sometimes the smack was not the cool sharp announcement that an activity like letting go of the parental hand to dash across a street was wrong, but served also to vent parental frustration... but should parents like Barbara and I be criminals? I don't think so!
[Richard, Thomas, Nathan and Sarah sometimes read this blog, if you do and disagree do say so in the comments!]
So, given this law seems to be attempting the to put a hedge around the law (as the Pharisees did), by legislating "tighter" than the behaviour which should be stopped, would I vote for it? In principle such legislation is bad. In practice this legislation will simply add to the laws ordinary people break. So instead, let's have a well funded campaign to change our behaviour! ¶ 10:29 AM
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smacking is not for venting frustration.
That is classified as hitting.
I agree with your other comments though.
By Andy Moore, at
May 2, 2007 12:23 PM
Smacking that has as a significant component of its motivation (or prompting) in a parent's frustration is WRONG.
But parents are human, and children are too, and so both are sinful by nature. So, even in loving, well balanced, yadda yadda yadda families - it happens. When it does occasionally, and also when the smack is mild or gentle, I don't think it is a crime - though it is a sin.
I don't like laws that expect ordinary folk to break them, and expect the police to "look the other way", that sort of hypocrisy is bad for society.
By Tim, at
May 2, 2007 3:39 PM
Labels: humour
¶ 5:17 PM
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