Support Your Favorite Apps and Services
Marco Arment, creator of Instapaper, in response to the acquisition of Sparrow by Google and Acrylic Software by Facebook:
If you want to keep the software and services around that you enjoy, do what you can to make their businesses successful enough that it’s more attractive to keep running them than to be hired by a big tech company.
A good reason to support developers by paying for the apps and services you enjoy.
Sparrow Acquired by Google
My favorite email client for Mac and iOS has been acquired by Google. From Dom Leca, CEO of Sparrow:
We’re excited to announce that Sparrow has been acquired by Google!
We care a lot about how people communicate, and we did our best to provide you with the most intuitive and pleasurable mailing experience.
Now we’re joining the Gmail team to accomplish a bigger vision — one that we think we can better achieve with Google.
First, It’s appropriate to say congratulations to the Sparrow team. They’ve created an outstanding product—one I use regularly on my Mac and iPhone. This pay-off is well deserved.
I am concerned, however, about the email I received from Sparrow regarding their acquisition. In it Leca explains:
We will continue to make available our existing products, and we will provide support and critical updates to our users. However, as we’ll be busy with new projects at Google, we do not plan to release new features for the Sparrow apps.
Bummer. It looks like Sparrow will remain as-is indefinitely. As a user, I can’t say that I’m too excited to hear that.
That said, I look forward to seeing the fruit that comes from the Sparrow team’s new home with Google.
Workflow Defined
Merlin Mann on the Mac Power Users podcast:
Workflow is understanding your job, understanding your tools, and then not thinking about it any more.
Ambassadors of the Kingdom
The City of man requires idolatry. All must bow before the symbol of its total claim. Religion is tolerated when it supports the claims of the state, the party, the institutional hierarchy. But those who say, “We must obey God rather than men” are always condemned as traitors or exiled as aliens. Yet the calling of Christ’s kingdom not only separates a man from the world, it also sends him to the world. In this time of the kingdom we are pilgrims, for the mountain of Christ’s rule is the heavenly Zion; but in the task of the kingdom we are ambassadors, for we have been sent by the King to proclaim his terms of peace to his rebellious realm.
Quickly Add OmniFocus Tasks on iPhone with Launch Center Pro
If you’re a user of the OmniFocus iPhone app, then grab Launch Center Pro from the App Store (currently 40% off) and head over to A Better Mess. Michael Schechter has posted some significant time-saving tips for creating tasks in OmniFocus on the iPhone. Watch the video below for a quick intro. Read the entire post, Speeding Up OmniFocus on iOS with Launch Center Pro, for the details.
(HT: Simplicity is Bliss)
Love, War, and the Demise of Guys
Russell Moore, Dean of the School of Theology and Senior Vice-President for Academic Administration at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, recently wrote a great post for Desiring God entitled, Fake Love, Fake War: Why So Many Men Are Addicted to Internet Porn and Video Games. This post came just a day after CNN posted a story, ‘The Demise of Guys’: How video games and porn are ruining a generation, in the Health section of its site.
In his post, Moore explains that porn and video games promise arousal without the consequence of intimacy or danger. This, he argues, is a spiritual issue:
Pornography promises orgasm without intimacy. Video warfare promises adrenaline without danger. The arousal that makes these so attractive is ultimately spiritual to the core.
Satan isn’t a creator but a plagiarist. His power is parasitic, latching on to good impulses and directing them toward his own purpose. God intends a man to feel the wildness of sexuality in the self-giving union with his wife. And a man is meant to, when necessary, fight for his family, his people, for the weak and vulnerable who are being oppressed.
This is an important and insightful post and a recommended read for those who are addicted (or know someone who is addicted) to pornography and/or gaming.
It should be noted that Russell doesn’t make the claim that all video game playing is bad. What he is referring to in this post is the “compulsive form of gaming,” not casual or occasional gaming.
Porn, on the other hand, is sinful regardless of the frequency with which it is consumed because, as Russell points out, “it is, by definition, immoral.”
Photo by wlodi.