Life is a scream.
Author Archives: Elizaphanian
TBTM20080425
What if God was one of us?
Fracture
Well constructed script, classy acting. 3.5/5
Waiting for Juliet
(Go here if the title baffles :o)
TBTM20080424
When you came along it was a glorious day
and I want you to save me again
Unsubscribe
About time I renewed my subscription to the group. Started reading an excellent book about torture and evil called ‘The Lucifer Effect’ – it’ll probably get a longer review than usual when I finish it.
(H/T Sally)
TBTM20080423
Hunting dragons.
My Peak Oil posts
A pamphlet summarising how I believe the church should respond to Peak Oil is available as a .pdf file here. That is probably the best place to begin.
My most substantial exploration of the topic is in my ‘Let us be Human’ material; that link will take you to a collection of transcripts and audio recordings of the original lecture series I gave to my church community here exploring the issue (there is also a video of the last lecture which summarises the argument). I very much hope to complete the work of turning this material into a publishable book this autumn when I am on sabbatical.
These are a variety of other posts that I have written exploring the phenomenon of Peak Oil from various angles:
My first post was The Great Dislocation which summarises the issue.
Pledges describes some of what we need to do about it.
Prophecy and Peak Oil is drawing on Walter Brueggemann to start exploring a theological response.
Misplacing the Apocalypse is a theological critique of the ‘doomers’.
SUV Spirituality is a cultural critique of mindless consumerism.
A Fully Wired Future describes why I’m optimistic.
What I’m optimistic about describes my optimism about the church and the economic future.
Review of Economist article on Peak Oil points out how useless The Economist is.
It’s the secondary effects, stupid describes what I am most worried about.
The Holiness of Stuart Staniford describes what I admire about the intellectual exploration of Peak Oil.
Loose Tappets gives an image describing why some people just don’t ‘get it’.
Why I’m worried about Natural Gas looks at the precarious nature of gas supplies to the UK over a 10-15 year time frame.
Oh yes
“the number one problem with Christianity today is that the Christian life is no longer convincing. It doesn’t convince anyone. So his program is the formation of [what he calls] creative minorities, throughout the world, that will offer not words but the witness of a life full of humanity, of peace, of joy, so that people from what is a cruel world will find a home in these communities.”
Sounds like he’s been reading Hauerwas – although he was probably arguing for this long before Stanley was! Found here.
A DEADline for Windows
For quite some time I’ve been pondering switching my system over to Linux. I’ve already switched to Firefox and Open Office (and am not looking back on either score) but the one thing that has been holding me back from a complete break has been the historical tie to a hotmail account for my e-mail, which most of the time (ie when not on holiday) I access via Outlook Express. However, this morning I received this from Microsoft:
“Dear Microsoft Outlook Express customer,
Thank you for using Microsoft® Outlook® Express. Our information indicates that you use Outlook Express to access a Windows Live™ Hotmail® e-mail account via a protocol called DAV (Distributed Authoring and Versioning protocol). DAV, like POP3 or IMAP, is the way that a mail client communicates with a web-based mail server.
As a valued customer, we want to provide advanced notice that as of June 30, 2008, Microsoft is disabling the DAV protocol and you will no longer be able to access your Hotmail Inbox via Outlook Express. As an alternative, we recommend that you download Windows Live Mail…..”
Trouble is, the last time I downloaded something from Microsoft it caused my computer to hang and it took me the best part of a morning to sort it all out. I think this is the trigger for making the final jump.
On top of which, the new version of Linux can be installed to run parallel to Windows for a while, which makes it easier to dip a toe in.
So – a deadline. Hopefully by July I will be Microsoft free!