Paragraphing Conveys Meaning
Blog post titles don't get much cleverer and attention-getting than this post's, I know. But tone down your excitement and think with me for a minute. I'm writing a book right now. A secret book. A hard book to write. I'm slaving over every sentence. And I just found myself going back and forth in Microsoft Word over whether and where to break a particular paragraph. Why should I care? Because paragraphing conveys meaning. We customarily think of "words" as not only the most basic unit of...
Sharing Screenshots for Pros
I caved. I bought an annual subscription to Droplr for my graphic design business, Forward Design. If you constantly share files, especially screenshots, you should check it out. Here's why I went for it: 1. I wanted a window to pop up immediately with my screenshot that would allow me to annotate that shot for clients. I wanted a service that would automatically copy a link to my clipboard for me to send a file. 2. I wanted keyboard shortcut ease. 3. I wanted branding. I want someone who...
Language and Precision
Precision is an important consideration in communication. But human language is not capable of exhaustive precision. At some point you have to assume background knowledge or communication will get bogged down. And not all languages are equally capable of precision in short space. A neat linguistic note from Steven Pinker (The Language Instinct): When English speakers decide whether or not to put -ed onto the end of a verb, they must pay attention to tense, the relative time of occurrence of...
Rob Lister’s Hermeneutical Method
In the opening pages of his God Is Impassible and Impassioned: Toward a Theology of Divine Emotion, Rob Lister pretty well sums up what I try to do every time I preach: The relevant biblical data needs to be interpreted with a conscious commitment to formulating doctrine in the context of a “hermeneutical spiral”—the interplay between a passage’s narrow and broad canonical contexts, framed by the major parameters of redemptive history. Wise words.
Is Spotifree Ethical?
If you read my blog, you're probably a Christian. You probably try to think more deeply about your biblical faith and its implications than the average pew-sitter, or you'd be watching TV right now. So here's one for you, and I really want to see some careful, scripturally informed wisdom here: is it ethical to use Spotifree? I like the amazing free-music player Spotify, and Spotifree has made it a more enjoyable experience. It's a little app that basically silences the commercials. No more...