A couple days ago I saw a post that warned readers they ought not be posting pictures to Instagram anymore,  because they had made an announcement that they would hold rights to those pictures.  I went an read the linked article,  and saw a couple others,  and tweeted them,  and I also thought Facebook is also behind this since they had bought Instagram about 3 months ago.  But then I noticed those three articles were about the end of it on my entire Twitter feed,  which I thought was odd,  since I follow quite a few people who are watching for curtailments to user freedom on the Internet.  Earlier today,  I found an article about how those tech articles were overly sensationa; being unclearl about just what “rights” are being claimed by Instagram/Facebook.

What I understand, now,  at this point,  is that this is yet another legitimate self-protective  declaration/notification that they will use your freely shared picture as an added value to their network,  and will profit from it.  After  all,  you did SHARE it for the return YOU get for SHARING:  to reap the mutual benefits  of the network and your relationship to it.  And this is absolutely nothing  new.  All Social Networks seek a certain level of derived  benefit,  monetary or otherwise,  or all of the above.

Twit .tv ‘s Tech News Today just led with that very story

I was sent this fix by Winhost support ticket staff: http://www.geeksvilla.com/download-f…oes-not-exist/
the specific code given :
define(‘WP_TEMP_DIR’, ABSPATH . ‘wp-content/’);

should be placed in wp-config down in the section commented as such:
/** define(‘WP_TEMP_DIR’,$path’); **/

upload it to your WP install root.
mine began allowing plugin updates from the Dashboard plugins page again. Whew!

Another “Discarded intellectual” group that is sorely needed by the church,  is the “theologian of network technology”.  It is kept from playing a significant  role largely because the church organizations have followed the market tendencies in technology to the exclusion of sound theological discernment about how to let the “Social” actually BE social.  It has much to do with theological study and defining who we are in a way that makes the network such a potentially powerful tool for enabling the church to significantly extend itself into some powerfully creative spiritual habitat.

The “new toy” syndrome has stricken the church.  The  new social apps and services have been populated by church folks and organizations,  but the  organizations seem to be unable see any possibilities beyond a means to drive people to their website.  That’s where the “content” is, after all.  Twitter can’t hold much in a post,  so it’s for linking and “PR” to get people to where they can READ our content.  It’s right back into using new media to contain old media content.  Yes,  websites are old media now, to the extent that they carry forward a magazine, print-based communication (“Print-based” in that it  is  “the content written by us and published to you”.  It’s still the old top -down, one way flow.)

Twitter (and Facebook,  and  other “expressive” posts/updates like Google Plus)  are facing an audience that “follows” or friends us because people want to hear about events or expeiriences we tend to share about,  or inform their followers/friends (tweeps or peeps) about things that we find interesting or important.   Journalists follow a lot of other journalists and news  people, technologists follow people who write and comment on technology, sports, economics,  etc.

The most interesting people or  organizations I follow are the ones who post about what I find interesting.  These things are most often things OTHER than their own writings, or announcements from  their own organizations.  The Twitter accounts I find moost useful are those which DONT use Twitter or other Social Media platforms for PR and self-promotion,  and instead provide a somewhat steady stream of links to useful and interesting things.  Chris Brogan suggests a rule of thumb for Twitter:  Post 9 things about something NOT you for every thing ABOUT YOU.

As one interested in technology, politics, sports, and theology/church,  I have a wide variety of things about which I can post,  aside from posts about something I may be  doing or seeing,  some place where I am that I feel like revealing,  or some post I just made on my blog.  And I get several followers from groups of people interested in technology, politics, sports, and theology/church.

I tend to  follow  theological tweeters who I have discovered via a link attached to an article they have written (to which I have been directed by another tweeter),  or via a tweet that has been retweeted by someone I follow.  I click into the Tweet stream of the  one retweeted to see if they tweet other things I would find interesting.  I often end  up following people this way.  This tends  to grow the list I follow exponentially,  since the newly followed “RT” others they find interesting,  which often interest me as well.  It is a peer-based recommendation engine.

The PR approach detaches itself from the utility of this approach.  I guess  one could say it’s PEER over PR.  It harnesses one  of the many beneficial fruits of the network.  It is SOCIAL,  not commercial or marketing (except in the  sense of “social marketing”:  an exposure to the “market” of individuals in particular twitter streams.  It’s an exchange of recommendations,  much like what RSS subscription feeds used to be for me.  I even subscribe to RSS feeds of Twitter streams,  and use  them on my blog.

Someone like me,  who has been immersed in this online networking before there was a Web with much to find on it,  who became intrerested in networking technology BECAUSE of the church and my desire to extend myself into a wider net of  people (mostly in order to explore that very subject with the then few people who were also exploring),  is an example of  someone whose seminary training has culminated in an immersion in technology issues in the church,  specifically in that of online community.

It was Howard Rheingold’s 1993 Virtual Community that was the first printed  work which delved deeply into this topic.  Almost 10 years later,  Rheingold published Smart  Mobs,  which again delved into the online community as it has once again shifted due to mobile technology.  This year,  after another ten years,  he  has published Net Smart: How to Thrive  Online,  which delves deeper still into the world of how our brains and emotions and social experience of community is being slowly “evolved” into something that impacts  our very experience of both that space and that community which we seek.

I see virtually NOONE in church organizations paying  any significant attention to these things,  and yet  it seems to me that it SHOULD be a crucial piece to be studied by such ministries as Clinical Pastoral Education,  since  this impacts in a significant way the kind of people and the shifting psyches with which pastoral ministry  is involved.  And ultimately,  all pastors  and people who seek to minister to other church members (and in mission/outreach to those outside  the church),  this is a crucial area in which to gain understanding,  given the ubiquity of our technology ,  which seems will only increase as time goes by.

I should expect to see things like “Psychology of the Networked Mind”  (or the “Sociology or Social Psychology” of such) in the social and mind sciences in the future.  And if there are cautionary notes to be explored,  we who are called to be a community that seeks wholeness for ourselves and our communities would seem to want to explore these things along with all the other social and spiritual issues we explore as a theological community.

Matt Ridley (WSJ,  which explains a lot from the  outset) cover story in the most recent WIRED: Apocalypse NOT.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/ff_apocalypsenot

He says “Get a grip”.  HE needs to do that,  since his entire article is spent talking about previous apocalyptic warnings that didn’t come to pass.  But then on the climate change issue,  where everyone that’s worried say that time is running out,  Ridley lists several inane arguments about how “many are saying”  (and he doesn’t quote scientists,  and includes ZERO of the ACTUAL signs that back up the DATA being given to us BY SCIENTISTS  — and THEY do in fact,  HAVE DATA,  which he conveniently ignores in favor of all his “hey,  it’s going to be  fine.  Chill.”   Pure baloney.

To proceed on cumulative courses with the argument that “we’ve always worked it out  somehow”  is dangerous,  deluded thinking.  The very nature of cumulative effects is that they get worse (which they are),  and they are denied by those who have interest in doing the things which are adding up to cause  the damage that is being done.  (Think “Noah’s contemporaries” and their derisive reactions to his warnings).  The argument Ridley makes is nonsensical in logical terms.   He argues “it’s never come to pass BEFORE” against warnings that aren’t addressing what has PREVIOUSLY HAPPENED.  Their warnings detail they way we are eroding the ecosystem,  which DOES have data to back it up,  and DOES HAVE SCIENCE regarding the LIMITATIONS (and data regarding the effects  of those limitations already in evidence).

I frankly don’t even know what this kind  of article has to do with the kinds of stories WIRED covers.  I suppose it was simply one of those pseudoscience articles they figured would be of interest to the more conservative ideological readers.    Flimsy.  Actually,  the subtitle of the article is backwards:

Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Worry About End Times

No,  this kind of thinking is exactly why you should.

So, whenever you hear people talking about Ryan’s deficit reductions, bear in mind that over the first decade all of the alleged deficit reduction comes from revenue and spending numbers that are simply asserted, not the result of any policies actually described in the “plan”.

via What’s In The Ryan Plan? – NYTimes.com.

It’s just as Krugman says here. When Ryan says they “haven’t run the numbers yet”, he blows the lid off of what they are ACTUALLY masqueradng as “numbers”. And what are they? It’s the “assertions” made based on the dogma “it just does”. There’s “revenues” that magically occur from the tax cuts on the rich, without any corresponding numbers to back it up. So they start from the unsupportable trickle down nonsense, and use that “common sense” to flatly assert that “revenues happen”, which they incorporate into their plan.

All the claims of major deficit reduction therefore rest on the magic asterisks.

A “plan” that can only exist in a following that doesn’t care to or doesn’t know how to look at any actual numbers.  Only  listen to variations on the same economic myths which one now HAS to adopt if he is to be considered as Republican.  Sad indeed.