Monthly Archives: April 2008

Bansuri – Indian Bamboo Flute Music

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This video features Raga Shivranjani playing the Bansuri (Indian Bamboo Flute), and Sudarshan Sidhaye on the Indian bongo-like drums. You might want to play the video twice; first time watching the video, and second time with your eyes closed and meditating.

The video clip runs about 9:30 minutes and is an excellent example of Bansuri music. The sound from a bansuri comes from resonance in the air column inside it.

“The bansuri is a transverse alto flute of India, Pakistan, and Nepal, made of a single length of bamboo with six or seven open finger holes. An ancient musical instrument associated with cowherds and the pastoral tradition … the North Indian bansuri, typically about 14 inches long, was traditionally used as a soprano instrument primarily for accompaniment in lighter compositions including Indian movie soundtracks.” – Wikipedia

One of my daughters will be traveling to India this summer to do some volunteer work in rural villages. Perhaps she will hear music like this.

Back in 1981, when I first became interest in computers, I was talking to a salesman about an Apple 2 computer (way before the Lisa or the Mac had been invented). The salesman was demonstrating how the Apple II could play music… and I said: “Wow! You could study ethnomusicology with that thing!” He gave me a funny look and said, “Well I guess you could.” Anyway, I never bought that Apple 2 computer, but here is proof that you can study ethnomusicology on your computer.

Bits, Bytes, and Biblical Studies

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Bits, Bytes, and Biblical Studies

Bits, Bytes, and Biblical Studies is a book by John J. Hughes, published by Zondervan/Acadamie Books in 1987. The book was frequently recommended by biblical scholars of the day, and continues getting referenced. (The book is out of print, but Amazon usually has a few use copies.) The book contains over 600 pages of practical / technical advice about Bible text search. The material in the book is bit dated (now in 2008) — mostly because of changes to computer operating systems — and the explosion of the Internet / World Wide Web. Many of the concepts in Bits, Bytes, and Biblical Studies still apply, but quite a few of the software packages mentioned in the book are no longer available, or won’t run on modern computer operating systems… and because the Internet changed everything…

The Convergence of Theology and Technology

I’ve been observing, researching, and writing about the convergence of theology and technology since 1982. That’s over 25 years of researching technology trends, and contemplating what God is doing in the cosmos, and in history. The convergence of theology and technology has continued to accelerate, ever since the Gutenberg printing press made the Bible available for the masses. The first computer Bibles became available around 25 years ago; by that I mean the first time that the complete text of the holy scripture (in computer readable texts) was available for average people using personal computers. Today, millions of people have access to powerful Bible search tools on the Internet… but let’s backup a little … to around the 1400′s.

An old printing press

Earlier manuscripts were copied by hand, and later by wood-block printing. The holy scriptures were translated from Hebrew, Greek and Latin manuscripts – into the common vernacular (English – Wyclif’s Bible ,1382), (German – Luther Bible ,1534) and printed by presses like Gutenberg’s printing press (see Gutenberg Bible – which was actually a Latin version). Gutenberg’s innovation introduced movable type, and a better quality ink.

Gutenberg\'s printing press

Average Joe reads the Bible and starts asking questions It was now possible for the Average Beer Drinking Joe ( ABDJ – European ancestor of the American Average Joe ) to read, study, and understand the Bible for himself. ABDJ could read the Bible and ask questions of the Quasi Universal Established Religious Order (QUERO). The QUERO said the ABDJ was illiterate, stupid, and untrained (and many times this was true) — and that he could not understand the Bible on his own; furthermore the QUERO sternly admonished the ABDJ to always believe and never question the QUERO’s teachings.

The QUERO said “the QUERO scribes, scholars, and priests — and especially the Numero Uno QUERO Leader — are the only ones who can really understand what God said”.

However, the ABDJ kept reading the Bible and talking about it every day in the beer halls and marketplaces, and asking really good questions about God. The ABDJ kept asking the QUERO why, why, why?

Average Joe starts talking to God

Finally the ABDJ got tired of querying the QUERO, and listening to the QUEROs silly answers to good questions. He kept reading the Bible, and started talking to God directly. ( Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. ) All of Europe was in a tizzy, and the WASP was born (but that is another-whole-story). Some people call this period of history, the Reformation. Fast forward several hundred years… philosophers keep asking questions and seeking truth. Millions of Bibles keep rolling off the printing presses, in hundreds of languages, including Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hmar, Russian, Polish, Spanish, etc. Some people eagerly read and study these Bibles, while others ignore them; believing that the ancient texts are irrelevant to modern man.

The Advent of Computerized Scripture Search

In the 1980′s, computerized “Bible text search” software package started becoming available. Back in the day, you could buy one of these Bible software packages with names like CompuBible, GodSpeed, and WordSearch. Fast forward another few decades to 2008 — as of this writing there are 149 online Bibles listed at the DMOZ Open Directory. These Internet Bible search tools are available in English and dozens of other languages. Research tools that scholars could only dream about years ago, are now freely available to the masses.

What will Average Joe do with these new research tools? You remember his great, great, great grandfather, ABDJ, right? DMOZ lists 9 Biblical New Testament Greek study tools. Free downloads of Scripture Study Tools are also available, like Davar. This is just a small sample of what’s available.

Have you tried the World Wide Study Bible, Greek New Testament Gateway, Olive Tree, GreekBible, HTML Bible, Laparola NT Greek, Bible Researcher, Scripture4All.org, BiblicalGreek.org, Biblos, BibleDataBase, Study Light Interlinear Bible, Aramaic NT, BibleStudyTools.com, GramCord, GKNT.org, Bible Study Tools Start Page, e-Sword, etc.

But wait — there’s more… The Google book collection also has many books (new, old, and ancient), so things are just getting interesting. See for instance this book called The Bible In Many Tongues, originally published in 1799.

The Bible In Many Tongues

What happens next? Stay tuned…

Heart Breaking Beauty – the Weight of Glory

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C. S. Lewis was one of the twentieth century’s greatest thinkers. A man with an incredible mind; he was a scholar of medieval literature, who captivated his Oxford and Cambridge students with wonderful lectures, while also creating a fascinating and imaginative series of children’s books, that are currently being made into a series of movies.

Partial book cover from The Narnian, by Alan Jacobs

I recently finished reading Alan Jacobs’ biography of C. S. Lewis, The Narnian (which was a gift from my son – Christmas 2005), and decided to sprinkle a few of my observations into the blogosphere.

Let me start at the end, and we’ll talk about the beginning later …

Thirteen year old Roxana Tynan read three sentences from The Weight of Glory (pdf) at the funeral of her father, Kenneth Tynan, in 1980. C. S. Lewis had written these words in 1941 (in the midst of World War II). These are the words Roxana read over her father’s grave :

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust in them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things – the beauty, the memory of our past – are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited.

Facebook – The Missing Manual

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Book Review

Facebook is a popular, fast growing, social networking website that combines the best of blogs, online forums, photo sharing, applications, and interaction among friends, and networks of people. The one thing it didn’t have until now was a user’s guide – in book form.

Facebook - The Missing Manual - book cover

Facebook: The Missing Manual provides a very clear and entertaining introduction to the many fascinating things that Facebook has to offer. Written by E. A. Vander Veer, and co-published by Pogue Press/O’Reilly, in January 2008. (US$19.99) – ISBN 9780596517694

Why am I doing this book review? I met a publicist from O’Reilly publishing on – you guessed it – Facebook, and she asked for volunteers to review the book. So I got the book, and read it over several days on the commuter bus, and found it to be an easy read.

The book is a quality production, from an experienced author — with a comprehensive outline, and clear writing style; full of interesting tidbits, sidebars, and colorful illustrations. It faithfully follows the missing manual formula, with excellent layout and typography — and the result is a first-rate, quality, how-to-manual about getting started with Facebook. Spotrick, a blogger from down under, says the book exudes quality.

Topics covered: How to get started, creating your profile, help in Joining a network (business, geographic, city, country); finding friends, looking for people, college buddies and old acquaintances, viewing your friends, organizing your friends, responding to friend requests (or not); Sending messages to friends, and poking people (a Facebook phenomena). What it means to “write on someone’s wall”. How to stay in touch with friends through status updates, news-feeds, mini-feeds, RSS-feeds, notifications, subscriptions, etc. — and controlling what kind of information other people can see about you (privacy, security, etc.) There is even a whole chapter (chapter 13) dedicated to the topic of Facebook privacy concerns.

Other chapters: Chapter 6 – Participating in groups, finding groups, joining groups, creating groups, and participating in groups. (Note: personal observation of group behavior on Facebook… a lot of people know how to join groups, but very few know how to participate. ) Chapter 7 – Events and calendars; planning and event, or party; finding events, how to RSVP to an event, creating your own events and inviting people to join the event. (Note: I was looking for a little more help in chapter 7 and did not find what I was looking for. I had done a few event announcements to large groups in Facebook, and found that the Facebook software was very buggy — or network congestion at the Facebook server farm caused the trouble on several occasions — and it took three attempts to mail an invitation to all the people in my group (over 900 people), because the system kept timing out. Some things on Facebook work very well with smaller groups; less than 200 people – but not large groups with thousands of people … and I was hoping “the missing manual” would help me out on this.) Chapter 8 – Going shopping, placing an ad, finding stuff, answering ads. (Note: this was something I had overlooked on Facebook, and looks like a feature I need to explore more.) This was a helpful chapter. Chapter 9 – touches on business topics like recruiting people for a business, gathering prospects, looking for a job. Chapter 10 – talks about using Facebook for collaborating on business projects, setting up meetings, exchanging ideas, and exchanging files. Chapter 12 – All about Facebook applications, and customizing your settings. As stated earlier Chapter 13 covers security and privacy issues, and does a reasonable job of explaining how the interface works, and how to adjust your personal profile settings. This chapter alone might be worth the price of the book, if you are concerned about this issue, and are confused or bewildered by it.

Potential audience: This might not be the best book for the millions of people who were already using Facebook (eg, college students – they already know how to use facebook) but it is probably a helpful book for the millions of people who are still joining Facebook. High-schoolers, or college-agers that need to understand how Facebook security actually works, might benefit from this book. But the biggest audience for this book, might be the millions of people over 30 (and the grandma, granddad crowd) that are now joining Facebook in droves. (Personal note: I am a 49 year old grandpa-type.) Lots of older business people might really benefit from reading this book, if they are a little timid about social networking websites, and need some support.

This book is an introduction, or a beginners guide. It does not cover some topics in depth, and does not attempt to cover topics like how to write Facebook applications. (Perhaps OReilly will publish other books like: How to Write a Facebook Application.) This book is a user’s manual; like a tourist guide for someone traveling through Facebook-land. Enjoy the journey.

What other are saying about the book:

Mantex says…

When you’ve posted all those snaps of yourself getting drunk at the parties – did you know that it’s quite difficult to take them down again just before that vital job interview? If you’re going to use Facebook and take it seriously, you need a guidance manual, and there hasn’t been one – until now…. takes you through the whole process, step by step, from registering and creating your profile to joining networks and finding friends. And every one of those steps is spelled out in a commendably clear manner.

Duffbert says in his random musings – recommending this book…

So let’s say you’re someone who hasn’t dabbled much in the Web 2.0 world, and you’re wondering what all this talk of Facebook is about. Or, you’re a parent and you’ve heard media reports of how dangerous Facebook can be for your kids if they’re not careful. If you want to get a overview of the site without getting totally bogged down in the details once you log on, Facebook: The Missing Manual is a good option to pursue. You’ll find out the reality of what Facebook offers, why people find it appealing, and what sort of security matters you should keep in mind as you (or your kids) establish a presence there.