A Blog for Brooke and Andy
Posts tagged culture
“Print” Lives?
Aug 10th
I’ve had magazine subscriptions of various types for years now, beginning with Boy’s Life (the Boy Scout magazine…) and various computer game mags, and then eventually to Popular Science and Consumer Reports. However, in recent years, there have been a number of news stories discussing “The Death of Print Media,” including magazines and newspapers, primarily. This is mostly due to the Internet and its ability to get you the same information much, much faster than a weekly or monthly periodical can, and cheaper as well.
Recently, however, certain magazines have begun to toy with digital versions of their material. These are magazines that have either dropped in subscribers to a substantial degree, or have already folded for a variety of reasons. For example, while TIME Magazine is apparently weathering the storm, Newsweek just got hammered by a drop in subscribers to the point where they were looking for a buyer. Gourmet Magazine shipped its final issue at the end of 2009. On the gaming side, Electronic Gaming Monthly was shuttered at the beginning of 2009.
Some magazines have gotten around this problem by increasing the quality of their material. Edge Magazine, a gaming periodical in Europe, has proven to be successful by starting to use thicker, glossy paper, raising the perceived value of their product over their competitors. The magazine just looks good sitting on your table, with its larger paper and glossy images. It’s the kind of thing you want to keep on your coffee table, as opposed to other magazines that are constantly including more and more ads and thinner, newspaper-like print. They also limit the number of individual magazines they produce, only making enough to send to subscribers (all over the world…) and keep a limited number on news stands. This helps keep their costs down, rather than making more magazines than the public will buy.
Alternatively, some of the aforementioned publications are going digital…and in a big way. The advent of the iPad has allowed Newsweek and Sports Illustrated (amongst others) to get weekly content to readers on-the-go very cheaply, effectively replicating web-based content in a magazine-oriented format. You can turn the pages as you would with a book, but now making a touch-based gesture on your iPad screen. The images are very colorful, print easy-to-read, and perhaps most important of all, they can now include hyperlinks and video content that you can’t with a regular magazine. Recently, it was also announced that Gourmet Magazine was relaunching as Gourmet Live, also releasing on iPad (announcement video below).
Similarly, Electronic Gaming Monthly was bought out by the guy that started the magazine in the first place back in the 90s and relaunched in both print and digital formats. For a demo, click this link and it will take you to a freely available copy of the magazine (pictured above) so you can see what it looks and feels like (and you should “Experience in Full Screen”). While you may not be interested in video games in the least, at least you’ll get an idea of what is possible through digital distribution of magazines. EGM also has an iPad version, but this particular example is representative of what you can experience in any web browser.
So, is “print dead?” Probably not, but it’s definitely evolving. Everything I’ve heard suggests that print journalism majors are finding it difficult to get jobs once they graduate from college, as many newspapers and magazines are scaling back, if not shutting their doors. The primary hurdle appears to be advertising, as very, very few companies have been able to make it with their large-scale operations solely on the advertising revenues of web-based content. The New York Times tried unsuccessfully to require subscriptions on portions of their website years ago (and they’re trying again in 2011), but our culture tends to shun pay-for content on the internet, at least with regards to news. There are just so many blogs available, or other free sites, that get you the same information for no money at all.
Personally, I’m on board with a model like Edge or EGM is using, one where they produce magazines in limited quantity for the people that want it, but otherwise provide digital versions for those that don’t care either way. Honestly, I still read everything on blogs and only go to the “primary source” sites when linked there. I like the way EGM has set up their content, but I think I’d rather have an iPad or some other similar device for that purpose, rather than use my heavier and more unwieldy laptop (imagine sitting in bed and reading…would you rather hold your laptop or your iPad?).
I think a lot of people value the content they get from magazines and newspapers, as the journalists that write them get access to news and information they otherwise can’t. Bloggers generally don’t have correspondents in Afghanistan, so they rely on organizations like NPR and the Associated Press to gather the news, and bloggers just put their own spin on it and spread it as well. We still need primary news sources to survive this transition from “old media” to “new media!”
A Need for Expulsion
Jul 15th
Mike has been Facebooking and blogging about the subjects surrounding the material in the Ben Stein documentary, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.” Primarily, Mike got to thinking about it after reading an article by evolutionary theorist, Richard Dawkins, where he says that Stein distorted things Dawkins said in the documentary. Admittedly, Mike hasn’t actually seen the movie (as of this writing), and neither had I when I first read his post, but thanks to the wonders of Netflix Instant Queue, I took the time to watch it.
In his blog post, Mike argues that one of, if not the, primary issue in the debate is a lack of civility, where both sides (Creation vs Evolution) take things so personally that they cannot have a reasonable argument about the matter. I’ll leave that discussion to Mike, however, as my problem with the whole thing is a general ignorance of the definition of “science.”
science –noun
1. a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences.
2. systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.
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Now, the key in that definition is “…gained through observation and experimentation.” I know I’ve talked about this before (stupid Lee Strobel…), but the definition of science is quite important to understanding what the problem is with the debate.
By the definition put forth above, Intelligent Design (and, relatedly, Creationism) is not science. I can say this with conviction because I know that in order for it to be science, it must be testable. If you cannot test a theory, then you cannot consider it science and it must stay firmly in the realm of philosophy.
philosophy –noun
1. the rational investigation of the truths and principles ofbeing, knowledge, or conduct.
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5. a system of principles for guidance in practical affairs.
Philosophy is very good about providing analysis of an argument. One could even describe them as “thought experiments,” where one ruminates on a particular moral or existential issue and comes to a conclusion. However, those conclusions are hardly “evidence,” as they cannot be reproduced by other individuals performing the exact same experiment with the same parameters. If one person has a “thought experiment,” their experiences in their own lives will inform their conclusions, leading to differences between individuals. Science, on the other hand, holds specific variables consistent so that any individual can come to the same conclusion, irrefutably. If I drop a ball in Iowa and you drop the same ball in Missouri, or China, they will both hit the ground in the same amount of time (assuming the ball is held the same way and the height it is dropped from held constant, but only the location of the experiment has changed).
This is, inherently, the issue: Evolution (in the form of Natural Selection) can be, and has been, tested in many, many different ways and it has held up to the toughest of scrutiny; Intelligent Design cannot be tested and, therefore, is not science. Have all facets of evolution (in the form of Natural Selection) turned out to stand up to that scrutiny? No, and the Theory of Evolution has been modified when that new evidence has appeared. I can’t think of a time when Creationism/Intelligent Design has been modified when new evidence has been presented.
Creationists have been trying to get Creationism in public schools for decades, believing that Evolution is not only incorrect, but is somehow anti-Creation. I’m not going to get into that part of the debate, although I have some pretty clear opinions on it. I don’t even necessarily have a problem with teaching religion in public schools, as long as they’re all treated equally (i.e. you can teach Christian tenets as long as you also teach the ideas of Islam, Judaism, etc.). But I do have serious problems with passing off Intelligent Design as science, and serious issues with the people that purport that Intelligent Design should be taught in public schools in science classrooms.
Whether my comments are “civil” or not, I don’t know (they probably aren’t…), but I do know that the proponents of teaching Intelligent Design in science classes are wrong and are doing a disservice to students everywhere. Science is difficult enough to understand as it is, let alone adding things into the classroom that don’t belong there and simply confuse everyone involved.
“Objection…Relevance?”
Jul 12th
We went to church yesterday and, I must say, the sermon wasn’t very impressive. But more generally speaking, I haven’t really been impressed by a sermon in quite awhile.
I got to thinking about this while the sermon was going on, and while I was trying to follow what she was saying. Specifically, the pastor was talking about Creation, referring to the scripture readings from the beginning of Genesis (“In the beginning…”-type stuff). Now, she got to talking about dirt, how the ground can give you things and how you can “play” with/in dirt, etc. I was hoping she would then move into how this is important for farmers in the area, or people at home with their gardens. How the earth provides food that we need, and how satisfying it can be to use the earth at our disposal to be productive.
But she didn’t go there. Instead, she moved past that and made it to how, essentially, we need to read the Bible (i.e. “The Word”) and glean everything from it. She also repeatedly referred to “visions” she had (hopefully she meant “dream,” ’cause otherwise, I think she needs to adjust her meds accordingly) that provided analogs of Heaven, with people praising God in His Creation.
Basically, she re-tread the same steps countless pastors of mine have tread in the past. And these are things I’ve been exposed to practically every Sunday for 28 years.
Now, I realize that there is a time and a place for such talk. ”Seeker churches,” for example, where you have a proportion of individuals that have not been attending church for as long as me and they are hearing these things for the first time in their lives. And I also realize that, at any church, there will be folks that walk through the door and need to hear some of these things as an introduction to the Christian faith. Likewise, children in church need to hear it at some point, too (but there’s this thing called “Sunday School” where a lot of that can be addressed, and frequently is).
But seriously, it feels like Brooke and I have been attending churches on various levels for the last 5-10 years (and separately before that), hearing sermons in a variety of contexts, and the vast majority of them tread the same ground as has been done before. And the most serious problem for me is that “the same ground” is losing relevance quickly. The things being discussed in most of these sermons are the things I heard discussed when I was in elementary school. Are they still important? Sure. But so is poverty. So is on-going war. So is strife in third-world countries. So is crime. So are natural disasters. These are all things that are relevant in today’s world, that apply to everyone, and that need to be addressed in the church setting.
I’m not talking “poverty” in the sense of “poor people” like discussed in the Bible. I’m talking about specifics. About people in Asia and Africa that live on less than I make in 2 min, let alone all the people in the United States that don’t make a livable wage and can’t afford to feed their families. I’m not talking “war” in the sense of battles waged in the Bible, but the specifics of Afghanistan and Iraq, amongst other places in the world. I’m not talking “disasters” in the sense of a Great Flood, but in the specifics of Hurricane Katrina, tornadoes, flooding and a Gulf oil spill. And, moreover, I’m not talking about pastors devoting a sentence, or a mere mention to these issues, but rather about devoting the entirety of their sermon on such things.
To me, it represents a form of intellectual laziness. A given pastor can sit at their desk, read a book or two, and effectively repeat most of those tenets on a Sunday morning in their sermon. Books written that are designed to “transcend time” and talk generally about issues that affect a great many people in the world, but still don’t talk about today.
I think it takes quite a bit more thought and analysis to “find God” in the situations of the present, in the aforementioned poverty, wars, and crimes. It requires a lot more bravery on their part to discuss complicated issues that we are exposed to on a daily basis, including abortion and homosexuality. For some reason, these issues are popular to talk about outside of church, but once you are within the doors, they are ignored to avoid offending congregation members.
That is, I argue, what people today need to be hearing. Not what God did 2000+ years ago, but what He’s doing today.
Moderation
Jul 2nd
I was listening to OnPoint from NPR on the way home today, and their subject was about childhood obesity in the US. The discussion vacillated from point to point, including taxes on soda, the rise of “Super Size” fast food meals, and the subsidies toward corn farmers that allows for all the high-fructose corn syrup in snack foods of children.
I was struck, however, by two callers to the program. One of them complained about how they find it difficult, as a parent, to prevent their kids from getting high sugar snacks, as schools and day-care programs still offer them (along with fruit, veggies, etc.). Another parent pointed out that they only allow their children to have soda “on special occasions, like parties.”
For the record, I used to drink quite a bit of soda, especially in late-high school and college. Only after getting married (i.e. having someone to make healthy dinners for me…) did I lose the 30 lb I gained over that 7 year period, primarily by not eating Hot Pockets every day for lunch and upwards of 64 oz of soda per day anymore. I would estimate that my Linsenbardt/Plochberger genes probably kicked in around the same time, allowing my metabolism to bring me a bit closer to my family’s general body size.
Growing up, however, I can’t say I was over-weight. I drank soda. Mom sent fruit snacks along in my lunch (even though those “fruit snacks” contained maybe 0.001% actual fruit…). I ate chips. I ate candy bars. I ate ice cream. And, to this day, I still do.
I think one thing those callers, and many overly-liberal parents, are missing is the “moderation” piece of the puzzle. Denying your children soda, or making your kids eat exclusively organic food, will not solve the obesity problem amongst young people. Preventing your children from watching more than 1 hour of television a day, or keeping them from video games, will not prevent your kids from being over-weight. These approaches can help, but they are, by no means, a silver bullet.
My intention with Meg, and any future kids, is to try and instill a sense of moderation from the beginning. Yes, she can drink soda. Yes, she can have candy bars. But will I let her down a 32 oz soda on the way to Wal-Mart and another one for the trip home? No. Will I send a “snack size” candy bar in her lunch, and then let her have a “king size” one for a “snack” when she gets home from school? No. Will she eat all the vegetables on her plate like her Dad does (even if she and he don’t like them)? Yes, she will. Will those vegetables be organic? Sometimes, but it’s more important that she eats them at all, along with the rest of her “balanced diet.” It isn’t a black-or-white issue of only eating some things and not eating any of another. It’s the same reason Prohibition didn’t work out so well.
Maybe my opinion(s) will change over the coming years, but I guess that’s where I stand for now. Lest she turn out like Cartman.
Edit: The USDA came out with some new info on the potential benefits of a soda tax recently. Some of the info is summarized in the following chart, and quote:
A tax-induced 20-percent price increase on caloric sweetened beverages could cause an average reduction of 37 calories per day, or 3.8 pounds of body weight over a year, for adults and an average of 43 calories per day, or 4.5 pounds over a year, for children. Given these reductions in calorie consumption, results show an estimated decline in adult overweight prevalence (66.9 to 62.4 percent) and obesity prevalence (33.4 to 30.4 percent), as well as the child at-risk-for-overweight prevalence (32.3 to 27.0 percent) and the overweight prevalence (16.6 to 13.7 percent).
The Atlantic has another article discussing some of the proposed benefits, as mentioned in the new USDA report.
Of Facebook and Privacy
Jun 5th
Toward the end of May, Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, announced that the company was revamping their privacy controls yet again. It has become something of a yearly (or more) change at Facebook, as they’re constantly changing things “behind the scenes” that affect the end user’s applications, posts, photos, etc. Part of the problem that Facebook has had, overall, is that they tend to make changes that affect users globally, in the sense that no matter what their privacy settings were, they are then changed without informing them as to what is going on.
The picture above shows the simplified Privacy Controls. Bear in mind that all these controls have existed in Facebook forever, but as Zuckerberg describes it, they became so “granular” that it became confusing for the end user. It used to be that you could set all of these things with a series of “check boxes,” but now all you have to do is select that only “Friends” can view your information, or “Friends of Friends” (allowing a little less restriction, in case a “Friend” refers to something you posted and then a “Friend” of theirs comments on it), or you can make your information available to Facebook at large. All this can be done with a single click. Or, you can pick a Custom profile that allows for the granular control you’ve always had.
I listen to podcasts practically all the time, and this particular story has been covered over the last few weeks on NPR’s Science Friday, as well as NPR’s On Point. The Science Friday piece is shorter than the On Point one, if you care to listen, but the discussions and the callers all provide very interesting debate on the subject. The discussion ranges widely, with mostly adults that didn’t grow up with the internet worrying about young people that are using the service without regard to their future. They point out that the business model Facebook uses to get money in the first place (i.e. advertisements) relies on freely distributed information from each person, as essentially, your information (e.g. likes/dislikes) is what is being sold to advertisers, thereby funding your use of Facebook.
In having conversations on this matter with Brooke and Kristen, they rightly point out that things being posted on Facebook aren’t entirely under our control. Hypothetically, a person could be out at a bar and have a picture taken of them, and then have that picture posted on Facebook and “tagged” with their name on it. Of course, as they both pointed out, if the individual wasn’t participating in anything they would be ashamed of, they’d have nothing to worry about. Keep in mind that, if anyone posts a picture and “tags” you with it, and you remove that “tag” yourself, it can never be re-added, thereby limiting the ability for anyone to search for that incriminating picture with your identification attached to it.
In my case, I’ve used Facebook for years, but I have always kept some amount of control on what I post on it. I do my best to keep my Facebook profile as uninteresting as possible, yet still keep other people abreast of what I’m up to. The service, for me, is helpful in keeping me in touch with other people that I may have otherwise lost touch with over the past decade. For that, I am very grateful in having Facebook available. At the same time, my generation grew up with the advent of the internet, where it took minutes to download a single photo. Generations now are entering a different world where social networking is almost considered a requirement before you even enter middle school (Facebook’s Terms of Use suggest that you be 13 before using the service. Obviously, it’s up to parents to police that). Kids now are taking cell phones to elementary school, which was unheard of back in the 90s. The newer generations are dealing with privacy in ways that my generation never had to.
Ultimately, I come down on the subject in the following ways. Facebook is a service that is free to use, yet certainly isn’t required. No one is forced to use the service. Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, no one is forced to post things onto the service for all to see. It is up to the individual to decide whether a). they want to be a member of Facebook in the first place, and b). whether they want to post anything or not.
So, with all this under consideration, I come to a related (but thus far unaddressed) question: Is it possible that Facebook, and the internet in general, acts as a distributed “Big Brother” such that everyone (that cares…) ends up acting better than they otherwise would in public situations for fear that anything they do could be recorded and posted somewhere?
I guess we’ll find out in the next few years. Somehow, I kinda doubt it.
