Monthly Archives: March 2010

Mar 31 2010

The Big 10,000 Visitors Announcement

I'm thrilled.

I mentioned in the side column for a month or so that when I reached 10,000 visitors on the blog there would be a significant update to my blog. Well, here it is.

JosephDarnell.com — this blog — is switching gears

Yet again, I am taking things forward with this blog site. This time  for the good of all, I pray.

I’m working on an all-new start up called Artifex Initiative. This small business’s mission is to be America’s best creative culture think tank. Towards this end, I am in the process of recruiting like-minded people to assist in the first major innovative concept of Artifex. More on what that is will come in the future. (At this time, if you know what the groundbreaking project is because I shared it with you, please keep it on the down-low.)

Artifex will carry on much of the content that I aimed for this blog in the past. This being the case, the significant portion of my writings attention is shifting to the works of Artifex. This being the case, my personal blog is practically empty of my standard content in the foreseeable future. So, I’ve been devising a purpose for this blog from scratch again.

JosephDarnell.com is a blog of culture and tech commentary

From this day forth, in narrowing the focus of my blog, this is what the blog is. I’ll do my best to demonstrate what one of the posts will look like in the near future. For now, I’ve got to prepare for the coming home of my little family. So stay tuned!

Mar 24 2010

Worldview Super Conference Promo

Remember the promo for “This is the End of Publishing” that I have in a post from a few weeks back? Well, I know this is a rip-off, but I was pressed to get something done with no time to do it, so in ten hours my wife and I turned this video around. I would like to say a special thanks for Christie Bates of Creation Ministries International for her voice talent, and to my wife’s support and editing of the script.

The video is edited in Final Cut Pro. The graphics were mostly created in Photoshop CS4. The music is by Digital Juice.

Mar 19 2010

Pivot: A New Way to View Massive Amounts of Data

Culture is a complex subject matter, and one where many writers and theorists cannot concretely know much. This usually lends itself to the idea of “information overload.” Our puny brains simply cannot process trends—both widespread and among the few—so we throw up our arms and give up making sense of this world.

I think of this as laziness, personally. We’re all lazy to an extent. When we cannot wrap our minds around huge amounts of information, I say that we have given up the potential to know things. We can know if we just find a way that works to rightly judge information (granted, through some standard, point of reference). It is work, though, and that is why we lazily give up the process of truly knowing what’s happening around us.

If you don’t know much about it, the TED conference is a good mixed bag of thinkers that come up with sometimes helpful and sometimes liberal wisdom. It’s a consistent event and they usually turn out content that’s just as interesting as the last. I keep up with their events but have never attended. You can find many videos from their conference online at TED.com.

Mar 16 2010

This is the End of Publishing

It’s not often I come across a YouTube video that inspires me. This one is unique in the flow of the lines of text, and if you’ve watched it beyond the halfway point you know this. Turning the words on their head, so to speak, everything that was in the negative is now in the positive. Continue reading →

Mar 12 2010

Objectifying Morality in Fiction Pt 2

With the Bible as our guide to good storytelling, and just what is and isn’t permissible morality in stories, let’s take another look at how to interpret morality issues we face in fiction.

Some well-meaning conservative people wish that fiction would lack immorality—well, immorality that they don’t have a tolerance for. As I pointed out in the first part, the Bible has lots of immorality that no good Christian should take a liking to. Yet, the Bible depicts many graphic details of sin and immorality of all kinds that we should be on guard for. As we think about the meaning underlying fiction we either get on television, the theatre, internet (web shows), or novels, we should discern what the moral compass is of the fiction; whether the author/filmmaker is consistent with his own morality. If he wants to objectify women in an evolutionary way (do whatever you want with your body—who cares?) but doesn’t want to take a consistent view of evolutionary thinking as it relates to politics (Indiana Jones is opposed to Nazism just because ‘it ain’t right’) then he’s picking and choosing his morality out of thin air. There isn’t a basis for it except personal opinion, and that is not concrete or authoritative. Continue reading →

Mar 11 2010

The Relevance of Creation Talks

I am more absent from the blog as of late (and for the coming weeks) as I am video directing an educational DVD series on the side. The topic is Creation with a Christian worldview, and Gary Bates of Creation Ministries International is the speaker. Here’s some previews of the production (these clips are still in the works):

Continue reading →

Mar 6 2010

Interpretation Continued: Objectifying Morality in Fiction

Building on a proper understanding of the genres of fiction, and a thorough appreciation for the whole of stories and there individual scenes, let us look now at the culmination of morality in fictional works to interpret the intent — message/meaning, if you will — of a story.

Morality is one of the stickiest issues for religious people to cypher whether a story is a good one to read or watch. We get lost in the minutiae wondering about the suitable age range for audiences; whether the story is “Christian” enough; whether the villain’s worldview overwhelms that of the hero’s; we total up the number of expletives in the first act; we count the number of square inches on our TVs that are covered in a splash of blood in a bit of violence…. Continue reading →

Mar 4 2010

History Unwrapped Updates

I’m very excited to be the directer of the new YouTube show History Unwrapped brought to web viewers by American Vision. History Unwrapped was a radio feature aired during lengthy breaks between other shows. It was in this format for several years. Now, every episode is being re-invented as part of the YouTube series—more than 140 episodes are already in audio format waiting to be turned into videos. Continue reading →