Chuck Fager entertained us all with his two special interest sessions. He intrigued our Friend audience by pointing out that pyramidal structures and central authority had outlived their purpose. He foresees a much looser and immediate global connection for Friends in the future. So persevere with your computer.

Labels: chuck fager, quaker.britainym, technology

Another ironic story - although not necessarily about human rights, or even Quakers, is the experience of the reverend John Lee, rector of St Paul's church, York, who was preaching recently on theft based on Ephesians 4:28* when what the tabloids would call 'cheeky' thieves lifted two laptops from a back office. There seems to be a lot of interest amongst the criminal fraternity these days in computers with databases, and this ecclesiastical hardware contained important training material. The laptops belonged to youth and children's workers. We understand there were some nice family photos on them too.
*'He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work' - or 'get a job' in current parlance.

Labels: human rights, technology

Our Friend Alan Russell asks us if we are the sort of email users who forget to attach attachments? 'More likely', he asks, 'does Eye from time to time suffer incoming messages that claim to have an attachment attached but in fact have none?'
Alan, bless him, has found a way around this internet annoyance. 'Chronically absent-minded and disorganised as I am, I have devised a routine'. And this is it:
'Make the attaching of attachments an early step in the writing of your emails. Make it a habit. Do whatever you can to build up the habit as part of the preliminaries that you carry out before getting down to writing the message itself.' And if we forget that?
'There's still hope. When you refer to the attachment in your email, make use of the reminder, break off from what you are saying and deal with the attachment straight away.'

Labels: email, technology