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Against the grain

Seeing similarities:

Reading Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism By Vanessa Machado de Oliveira

and…

Playing Sky: Children of the Light.

I’ll have more to say on the book content going forward. Tonight, it’s the game. A game in which you collect light, just to give it away at the end, and then to do it all over again. Oh yeah, and you can also spend your light to send hearts to other players. Definitely not your popular FPS.

It’s a social game that promotes compassion and cooperation. It’s not like other video games. It’s gorgeous and it’s great! It goes against the grain.

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Back on a desktop

I’ve now got a desktop PC, actually a Supermicro server box, as my own personal computer. This time around, it’s running Linux Mint. I’m setting this blog to my browser home page, in an effort to start writing more. And gaming, plenty of gaming…

Hang in there!

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Better hold music

After spending about a half-hour on hold for an Anthem agent yesterday, I came to the conclusion that I could record better hold music than what I was listening to. They had a somewhat dramatic piano sonata, interrupted periodically by the typical recording of a woman’s voice, “Your call will be answered by the next available agent; please continue holding.” This was irritating to say the least.

The accompaniment should instead be something like Brian Eno’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports, and the vocal message should be part of the ambience, sung or spoken to go with it, rather than interrupt it. This would be more calming for callers who may be likely to be frustrated to begin with. Continuous mellow, integrated hold music would also be far better than silence, in which you have to check your phone to make sure you’re still connected, or silence interrupted every so often by someone’s voice. Express Scripts had a woman’s voice saying, “Please hold…”, every 5 seconds.

We can do better.

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Horror

XKCD comic #2076, "Horror Movies 2"
XKCD “Horror Movies 2”

I tend to agree with the person without a hat. I’d much rather watch something uplifting.

I think many of us are hypocrites, calling ISIS barbarians for their videos of beheadings, and then watching slasher flicks. It’s all spectacle. Beheadings of royalty in the French Revolution were public entertainment, as were lynchings in the United States. I think it desensitizes us.

I recall Col. Kurtz in Apocolypse Now: “The horror … the horror,” and learning how PTSD can truly mess you up. I wonder what kind of effects our indulgences into horror have on our society, a culture that worships violence?

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Welcome!

For me, it’s “Welcome back!” FacilitatingParadox.com was my blog home while I was in seminary from 2003 to 2009. Fortunately, the Internet Archive Wayback Machine has dozens of historic captures of my old site. (When I let the domain registration lapse someone else grabbed it and demanded a lot more money to get it back…)

Now, it’s mine again!

Returning to blogging

So, I’m not alone in getting back to blogging. I may still resurrect my EdTech at OWU blog, and there’s definitely one in the works at DUUF.org. But this, and my new Twitter handle, @ParadoxMidwife, are where you’ll find my solid day’s thoughts.

I look forward to the conversations!