Toggl

Toggl is the first new “app” I’ve added to my daily workflow in a long time, and I want to give it a little plug.

My workplace requires me to log my time so that they know how much money they’re spending on various projects. I found a great way to do that with Toggl. I leave it open in Safari (unfortunately it does seem to cause Firefox to crash every couple days) on my external monitor. It looks like this:

Each line is a task I’ve spent time on, and each one of these tasks is connected to a project. Once I’ve put in a task and a project, it’s super easy to click “Continue” next to a previous iteration or to simply start typing it in and let it pop up as a suggestion. I can even add a little note specifying just what I was doing in the “Bible Integration” category. And I can easily change entries or add entries manually if I need to.

As those entries stack up, I get a nice pie chart showing me how I’ve spent my time this week. Here’s last week:

I also get to see how much time I’ve been spending on any given task—while I’m working on it. That’s huge, because let’s face it: the Internet can easily waste more time than it saves. It’s too easy to look up and see “Ancillary Tasks — 41:37.” Ouch. I have the awesome privilege of writing a brand new textbook. Why would I spend four minutes and thirteen seconds (and counting) on a blog post?!

I apologize to you both; you’re worth my time.

Kindle Books Available Through Public Libraries!

You can now borrow Kindle books from your local library.

The Greenville Library says the service is “coming soon.”

HT: Dustin Battles

Different Strokes for Different Circumstances

Lev Grossman in the NY Times:

The codex isn’t just another format, it’s the one for which the novel is optimized. The contemporary novel’s dense, layered language took root and grew in the codex, and it demands the kind of navigation that only the codex provides. Imagine trying to negotiate the nested, echoing labyrinth of David Mitchell’s “Cloud Atlas” if it were transcribed onto a scroll. It couldn’t be done.

I think our way out of the sometimes bitter paper vs. e-books debate is to recognize that some kinds of reading are great on a Kindle, some are best in a codex. Some are fine for the computer screen; others fare better on an iPad.

The harder something is to read, the less likely my Kindle is to be a good place to read it (price still sometimes decides in favor of the Kindle, however: that’s reality). The shorter something is, the more likely I can take it on a computer screen. In between—newspaper articles, longer blog posts—I can go either way, but I prefer the Kindle for things I don’t need to “act on” right away. Through Instapaper I can easily transfer articles from laptop to Kindle.

I think we’ll get used to these reading options.

Cleveland Park Bible Church’s New Website (Pastor Ken Casillas)

Check out the new website I made for Dr. Ken Casillas and the friendly folks at Cleveland Park Bible Church.

And watch the video I created with the help of a Nikon D3100, a Zoom H2, Adobe LightRoom, and Final Cut Pro X:

How to Pronounce “Logos” in “Logos Bible Software”

How do you pronounce "Logos" in "Logos Bible Software"? Are the O’s long or short? Should it be LAH-GAHS or LOW-GOESS? Or maybe both? LAH-GOES? LOH-GAHS?

I have the answer.

It’s "LAH-GAHS." Both O’s are short. There. Debate over. Make this post a Wikipedia footnote, somebody.

You want reasons? Okay.

1. Usage determines pronunciation. Most evangelical Christian pastors, Bible teachers, and students (the people who buy Logos products) know at least a few Greek words—words which, effectively, have become English words (among Christians, anyway). Ἀγάπη (agape) is one. Λόγος (logos) is another. It appears most famously in John 1, where Jesus is said to be the divine logos, the Word who was “with God” and who “was God.” Christians know that logos means “word,” and this is clearly what “Logos Bible Software” is getting at: putting you in contact with the words of Scripture. All Christians in my admittedly less-than-universal experience pronounce this word with two short O’s: LAH-GAHS.*
2. The reason Christians do this is that their pastors did. The reason pastors do it is that their Greek teachers did. The reasons Greek teachers have for doing it are multiple, and one of them I admit I’m a little unclear on: as best I can tell after searching and reading for several years, no one knows for certain how Koine Greek words were pronounced in the time of the New Testament. So English-speaking Greek teachers have adopted the wholly salutary practice of distinguishing between omicron (Ο) and omega (Ω) by making the first short and the second long. This distinction aids learning, because students would no doubt substitute English pronunciation rules otherwise and would confuse the two letters. It’s possible that we shouldn’t be so arbitrary but should make an earnest attempt to speak Greek as Paul and Peter did. Might some exegetical or textual-critical tangle be solved by appealing to pronunciation? Perhaps, but I have almost never seen it done.
3. And this gets us back to the first reason: it doesn’t matter how the Greek word was pronounced in the first century. What matters is what people say now. Admittedly, in the language of the non-Christian world—around which Christian theological terminology hovers on the fringe—Logos is pronounced LOH-gahs. But very few people outside the church know or care about Logos Bible Software; I say we should use the pronunciation current in the only usage community relevant to the discussion, American conservative evangelical Christianity.
4. There are a few possible homonyms which, on balance, it might be best to avoid since we can: Logos is clearly not the plural of logo, as in a little image that a company uses on their signs, so LOW-GOEZ is out. It’s also clearly not the former capital of Nigeria. No LAH-GOES.
5. Dale Pritchett said it’s LAH-GAHS. (No matter that Bob Pritchett said the opposite. Honor your father.)

All that said… There’s no rule against having more than one pronunciation for a given word. I just find it a little odd that the company itself is divided… Even the two founders are. Perhaps, if Logos did an internal study, they would find that people more loyal to Dale Pritchett follow his pronunciation while others follow Bob’s. Perhaps we’re looking at a future company split, sort of like a church split, but one that rips in half the libraries of pastors everywhere! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!! This problem must be solved!

*If I’m wrong about what most Christians say, then this whole post pretty much goes out the window. Perhaps I am guilty of hearing only East-Coast Christians, sort of like assuming that everyone says “pop,” unaware of the regional variations in names for soda. I think this would make a great undergraduate linguistics statistics paper. (And “Linguistics Statistics” would make a great name for an undergraduate class…)

Three Effects of New Technologies, From Someone Who Was Both More and Less Truly Oracular Than McLuhan

Neil Postman was more oracular than Marshall McLuhan because his predictions, in my limited experience, came true more spectacularly. Postman was less oracular than McLuhan because his predictions made sense to normal people.

One of Postman’s predictions/descriptions applies so perfectly to the Internet that it sounds like it was written yesterday. But it’s now 20 years old and, obviously, hit print before the Internet became a daily reality for most Americans. This is what he wrote, in a chapter which encourages readers to think hard about the downsides of technology, not just the upsides (I added the numbers):

1. New technologies alter the structure of our interests: the things we think about.
2. They alter the character of our symbols: the things we think with.
3. And they alter the nature of our community: the arena in which thoughts develop.

   —Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (New York: Knopf, 1992), 20.

This is all abundantly true of the Internet: we think a lot about the Internet and computers, things we certainly didn’t do 30 years ago, much less 50 or 100. The Internet has brought the computer into almost every home—and even into more and more pockets. Computer analogies have subsequently become our default lens through which to view our own brains (as Nicholas Carr has shown). And our thoughts now develop regularly on and through the Internet. You’re reading a blog, after all.