DISQUS

Um, yeah. Download is an option, but I've love to see the justification in front of a judge if you do it without paying for the movie. "But, downloading is better for the environment so it's not really immoral." Gimme a break. It's still copyright infringement, no matter how environmentally friendly it may or may not be.

Now, I can definitely see building up a library on my PC and using that instead of discs. I can see using NetFlix or Blockbuster, or RedBox - especially if the rental places are on the way to/from work or similar. I can also see owning certain movies. I still think this particular idea is just another effort by a dying system trying to squeeze what it can from the consumers. I also seem to remember the last time this was tried, the discs didn't work properly and died unevenly or too soon - I'm assuming that's gotten better.

FWIR - DivX was a "phone-home" system. You needed a player connected to a phone line to verify your right to play the movie. The actual compression technology for video is pretty useful, though - allowing a regular DVD to compress down easily to CD size with no appreciable quality loss to most people. There was a competitor to DivX that did this before and it just didn't work too well.

In other news - any word of how well this tech is selling? That would be interesting.

I can't think of a single reason to buy one of these disks. DivX tried something similar and it bombed. This concept was introduced a while ago and vanished for a while. I just don't see why I'd pay $5 for a movie to self-destruct, possibly even before I get a chance to watch it all the way through. It would be even worse if part of the disk got dark faster than another part and it was right in the middle of the movie or at the end. Hopefully this goes the way of the dodo quickly and people realize that consumers want _less_ DRM and other copy-protect measures, not _more_. It's past time for companies to move into the 21st century and this is not a move in that direction.

Just have to chime in on the gas-station bit. Apparently just a little south of where I am, a gourmet chef opened up a restaurant in a gas station. Supposedly at lunch time, you can't park anywhere near the place. I need to get the name/location again, but it's in the DFW Metroplex somewhere near Watauga.

Don't really have anything else to contribute, but thought that this ties in a little.

You're hitting us pretty hard lately, Tony. Another great thought shared. Now to actually apply it....

Good point on the "For us" vs. "For people who need to hear the message" ministries. I don't think I even want to look at our list right now. I have a pretty strong guess which way the scales would tilt. :(

I can say that we ditched our VBS this year in an attempt to try something different to reach unchurched kids. I don't know how well it's working, but it's something that I'm glad we're trying. Bring on more of that and I think we'll be moving in the right direction.

Didn't see a spot for Traditional/Slowly getting some "Contemporary" into the mix. We're really not any of the above. Definitely not Country. Little to no Rock. Ditto for Pop. I guess hymns are becoming Alternative, but that's kind of a stretch. We are getting a little of the P&W; from the late '90s or earlier this century, but have piano, drums, guitar(s), and a choir. I don't necessarily see a problem with any of the choices you presented, but wanted to let you know that we don't quite fit those.

Definitely don't want to get in the worship wars here. I hope that I'm past that. Just about everything I can think of has its place and can bring glory to God. Likewise, they can also distract people from worshiping depending on how the music is presented. I remember a local church planter who posted a pretty good story on worship as entertainment, leading people to think of a "Contemporary" music style but it turned out to be a "Traditional" choir/hymns/etc service. Definitely got some responses.

Kudos to the team that came up with this. It was great!

As for the Parents Are Clueless site - cool idea, some of the comments are really sad, some are uplifting. Looks like you have a great conversation starter there.

-Pete

I never could get into podcasts. The ones that might be interesting require that I can actually pay attention to them and that requires some free time to listen. I tried listening while working and was either distracted from work or kept "rewinding" to try to catch a snippet that caught my attention as I was working.

I can read or skim through a blog post quickly to see if there's something important. I can sort of set a podcast to play at a faster speed, but just can't get that information out of a podcast other than by listening to the entire thing.

I tend to avoid video posts as well - same reason that I can't easily get to a point where something is of interest to me and they're worse than podcasts because I typically have to watch as well as listen in order to benefit.

I don't have problems with quality as I'll listen to low bitrate tracks for other types of audio (radio dramas come to mind). I don't know how popular podcasting was to start with so I really can't say if it's dead or not. For me, it never really was.