Web/tech

If you aren't reading about it, maybe you should. But then again, maybe not. Ad blocking, that is. Apple's new iOS 9 allows ad blocking which, everyone's saying, will be profoundly disruptive for internet as we know it. I've read some on the subject and get it that Apple, Google, and FB are in a war to the death. Believing in competition, I don't mind. The only hope for education is public school systems having to face competition, but that's the whole point of the Democratic Party—to keep teachers from facing competition for our tax dollars. Everything else about Democrats is window dressing. Take a look at any crowd shots at their national convention and you'll see every last person there is your high school guidance counselor or social studies teacher.

Last night three pastors from three churches and one elder were discussing our policy going forward in the post-Obergefell world and we found ourselves wishing some one state—just one, puhleese!—would refuse to allow homosexual marriage so our people could do destination weddings there. It would sort of be like the old days when people flew to Las Vegas to get married and divorced because Nevada's marriage and divorce laws were so bad. But opposite: this state would host destination wedding because its marriage laws are so good simply by denying SCOTUS's usurpation of "we the people's" Constitution.

True story: back in the first church I served, the Nominating Committee nominated a woman for the eldership...

Gotta watch this video forwarded by endlessly curious Lucas Weeks. My favorite line: "But perhaps you are unfazed because you are a special creative snowflake?"

Got an e-mail from a man today saying he really like our church's site redesign, particularly the sermon archives. Site redesign? So I went over and checked it out. You should too. Here's a screen shot of the top of the home page:

Many of the ladies at Clearnote Church like to shop at Michaels, and the crafts retailer has just announced a security breach at a number of their stores nationwide. It looks like the Bloomington store is on the list for having been breached, as are a number of Indianapolis and Toledo stores.

If you have shopped at Michaels during the specified timeframe, watch your credit card charges over the next few weeks and be sure to report anything you don’t recognize. I recommend reading this post by Brian Krebs explaining the incident. Then, I would also recommend reading his article, Are Credit Monitoring Services Worth It? It turns out that credit card monitoring services are mostly worthless. Credit card fraud and identify theft are no fun, however, and there are some pretty basic things you can do to protect yourself against them.

Under my recent post regarding the Google Apps user agreement for non-profits, a discussion was started about how Christians should respond to terms of service like the one mentioned in the post. Here's my attempt to restate the position of one commenter:

The best way to keep the interpretation of these regulations (and terms of service, clauses, etc) from becoming established in a way that does violence to our understanding of the words used in them is to agree to said regulations and then battle it out in court if the need arises. We all see how Google and others are trying to set precedents that we disagree with, and so we shouldn't simply accept their interpretations, but should instead fight them. So, in this case, Christians should agree to Google's terms of service and then be ready to fight it out if the matter ends up in court.

I hope that I have accurately stated the position of the commenter. Here's my response:

Let's start with the word "discriminate". This commenter stated that "discrimination involves a denial of someone's civil rights." I don't think that's right, and I don't think that's how Google understands the word, either. The word "discriminate" now carries a great deal of negative baggage...

Historically, Clearnote Church in Bloomington, Indiana has used Google Apps for email and calendars. It's basically Gmail and Google Calendar for businesses using their own domain name.

Google also gives 501(c)3 non-profit organizations access to Google Apps for free. You just have to submit some documentation regarding your 501(c)3 status. For quite a number of years, we have been using the free edition of Google Apps here at the church.

We continue to use Google Apps to this day. Recently, I needed to reapply for non-profit status with Google Apps. I was in the process of filing the necessary "paperwork" online when I ran into a snag...

Good piece on cybercrime forwarded by son-in-law Lucas Weeks. Be on guard.

Priceonomics reports that nobody reads the fine print. We've mentioned it before, and some people have claimed that actually they do. How many do? Well, apparently in one case less than 1 in 3000. That one person won $1000, by the way. 

A study from Carnegie Mellon calculated that the average Internet user would need to spend 76 days a year to read and understand the privacy policies and license agreements of the websites and software they use. That is nearly 4 months of 8 hour workdays.

All I'm going to say is...

GigaOM reports from SXSW 2013:

"...if you want to snare some money from at least one venture capitalist you might want to keep human vices — like lust, gluttony and greed — in mind.

"At a SXSW Interactive panel Friday ...Mayfield Fund managing director Tim Chang said:

The way I evaluate a lot of companies now is I look at the design framework. I look at the design framework of the seven deadly sins. If an app or service does not tap into one or more of the seven deadly sins, either directly or indirectly, it will not be addicting…I always look along those dimensions.. and see what do those trigger."

Maybe he's on to something? The PCA's RUF has gotten some big capitalist to venture a bunch of his millions for one church startup in each of the Big Ten Conference cities. The startup capital is around $750K per church and these startups market themselves to students and academics. I think Tim Chang would approve; in the Big Ten, you don't need to settle for only one or two of the seven deadlies...