March, 2009

Links for March 20th

Goodbye Google | stopdesign

Douglas Bowman, an amazing designer, was the Visual Design Lead at Google for the last three years. He is leaving, due to the company's culture of "a design philosophy that lives or dies strictly by the sword of data." I post this because it is a powerful statement that could be said by many designers at many companies that are built without intentionally creating a design-friendly culture.

tags:

programming

google

business

culture

design

TCHO: Obsessively good chocolate for a new generation

I have to admit: when it comes to chocolate, I can take it or leave it. But when it comes to the ethics of chocolate, I care greatly about the horrible slave-driven industry that produces most of the world's chocolate, and take every opportunity I can to celebrate ethically made chocolate like this brand's. They also seem to place a lot of value on high quality design, judging from their website.

tags:

economic-activism

activism

fair-trade

stores

chocolate

Links for March 19th

Seth's Blog: Advice on equity

If you ever hope to start a business partnership of any kind, this is wonderful advice to keep around. "So, my best advice is to say, 'Today, right now, your contribution is worth 5% of the company and my creation of the company is worth 5%. The other 90% is based on what each of us does over the next 18 months. Here's a list of what has to get done, and what we agree it's worth…''

tags:

startup

entrepreneurship

business

Links for March 18th

A Review of Michael Spencer’s “The Coming Evangelical Collapse” « Reimagining Church

Great observations from Frank Viola on Michael Spencer's recent article. Worth a good read.

tags:

culture

church

theology

Another Limited Rebellion

"the intersection of design and activism"

tags:

culture

activism

design

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

March 17th, 2009

I hope you've had a wonderful St. Patrick's Day. In the last couple of years, I've gotten to know people with a strong interest in Celtic spirituality, and have learned some wonderful things.

A kingdom response to recession

March 16th, 2009

I'm a somewhat regular listener to NPR's All Things Considered. Today, there was a story about a church near Grand Rapids that is trying to respond to the city's worse-than-the-rest-of-the-country economic situation.

Links for March 16th

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan (March 16, 2009) – How Bush And Cheney Tortured II: Verschaerfte Vernehmung

If there are any left who wonder why many of us think Bush and Cheney should be tried for war crimes, read this.

tags:

andrew-sullivan

politics

torture

Links for March 14th

The Future of Christian Eschatology 5 – Jesus Creed

This one finishes up the series, and ties some threads together. Again, I think these posts are incredibly important, and encourage you to follow them.

tags:

eschatology

jesus

new-testament

bible

Links for March 13th

the Jesus Manifesto » The Impotence of Pacifism?

"Oppressors (everyone from dictators to slave owners to school-yard bullies) have told the oppressed to “turn the other cheek” in order to keep them in their place. This sort of passive pacifism does not properly reflect Jesus’ teaching. Jesus told the oppressed to turn the other cheek as an act of positive assertion of self-worth, but also as an act of love."

tags:

culture

jesus

peace-activism

peace

There's nothing unique about Jim Cramer – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com

"Unlike Cramer — who at least admitted fault last night and said he was "chastized" — most establishment journalists won't acknowledge that there was anything wrong with the behavior of the press corps during the Bush years. The most they'll acknowledge is that it was confined to a couple of bad apples — The Judy Miller Defense. But the Cramer-like journalistic behavior during that period that was so widespread and did so much damage is behavior that our press corps, to this day, believes is proper and justified."

tags:

jon-stewart

journalism

media

politics

The Daily Show Full Episode | Thursday Mar 12 2009 | Comedy Central

Jon Stewart with Jim Cramer on the Daily Show. This is the full episode. It is fairly easy to find excerpts, as well.

tags:

journalism

tv

video

humor

business

economics

jon-stewart

Links for March 12th

peterme.com » Post-Ownership Society – Track That Meme!

Fantastic article on post-ownership from a user experience design perspective. I see this as an area of great potential into which the church can emerge into something new, by reaching back to the book of Acts. I don't know if it will do it, but imagine the reshaping that could happen! "One thing that’s clear is that the importance people associate with owning stuff will decrease. It will be supplanted by access, experiences, and the act of creation."

tags:

adaptive-path

business

culture

church

The Future of Christian Eschatology 4 – Jesus Creed

Continues a fascinating series of posts by Scot McKnight on the future of eschatology. This one looks at what Jesus talked about in Matthew 24. Again, I think these posts are incredibly important, and encourage you to follow them.

tags:

jesus

new-testament

bible

eschatology

Links for March 11th

Evangelism before and after Christendom | open source theology

"The very existence of such communities is an announcement to post-modern, post-Christendom Western society that the creator God has not given up, that he has not simply capitulated to the forces of rationalism, materialism and cultural disorder, that Jesus still has the name which is above every name. That is good news."

tags:

culture

church

evangelism

The Future of Christian Eschatology 3 – Jesus Creed

Continues a fascinating series of posts by Scot McKnight on the future of eschatology. This one looks at what Jesus talked about in Mark 13. Again, I think these posts are incredibly important, and encourage you to follow them.

tags:

jesus

bible

new-testament

eschatology