Old Tech

This past weekend, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints held its semi-annual general conference. I had a scheduling conflict with the Saturday morning session, but I still wanted to listen live. The engagement was such that I would be sitting and waiting for most of the time, and so I could listen with very few interuptions. Unfortunately, I was going to be in a place without internet access.

The Church’s General Conference is broadcast over the internet, via C-Band sattelite, and by some local television stations (unfortunately none in my area). It is also shown in chapels around the world, and to Dish Network and Direct TV subscribers. Unfortunately, none of these options would meet my needs.

I of course considered streaming the conference to my Nokia phone, but it only supports RealPlayer, and the AT&T data connection speed around here is too slow and somewhat unreliable. Then it occured to me that if I can’t use my phone as an internet streaming audio device, perhaps I should just use it as a phone.

My final solution was to connect the line-in of my sound card to my Dish Network receiver, and write a brief Python script which caused Skype to call me and play the audio from the conference at the appropriate time. It also called me back if I got disconnected.

The solution was simple, and best of all, it worked flawlessly. The only unfortunate part was that it took me so long to think of it. I’m so used to thinking in terms of internet only solutions that I often forget about the older and sometimes more practicle options like the telephone.

Delivering content via phone is (on a per-user basis) probably never going to be cheaper than doing so via the net, but on the other hand, it is not as expensive as it used to be, nor is it as expensive as most people probably believe. This ironically is due in large part to the internet and Voice over IP, as well as increased competition and free and highly customizable PBX software like Asterisk.

So why am I telling you this? It’s not to sell you on the idea of using the telephone as a content delivery platform, though if it works for your application, go for it. Rather I just wanted to remind us all that as we rush head-long into the future, that we be sure to take full advantage of new technologies when appropriate, but that we also don’t forget the old boring tech that can often complement or even work better than the new. Just because we have AJAX and Flash doesn’t mean that plain HTML and CSS isn’t the better choice for many projects. Even though we can add autocompletion to forms and create flyout menus that look really sweet, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we should.

posted by cannona on Wednesday, Apr 08, 2009 · 4 comments

The Intersection of Inspiration and Innovation

(Re-posted by request.) One of the neat things about working for the Church is that every once in a while, you get to hear how the systems you help develop are used by the Church’s general authorities.

In March 2007, the New Era magazine published an entire issue dedicated to helping young men and women prepare spiritually and practically to serve a mission for the Church. One of the articles describes how a prospective missionary can fill out the required paperwork, using a web application developed and deployed in the past few years.

A sidebar in the same article describes how Elder Henry B. Eyring records new missionary assignments as given to him by the Spirit:

All my life, from the time I have been a young boy and as far back as I can remember, I have had experiences feeling of the Holy Ghost. … But I’ve never felt what I have felt as I have … participated in the assigning of missionaries. …

We go into a room, and … it will be a two-or three-hour session and sometimes longer. Because of technology, it is possible for us to have your picture and the information about you displayed. And then quickly, on that same screen, all the missions of the Church with all of their needs are displayed. Within minutes, and sometimes less than a minute, the impression comes so powerfully that it would be, if it were a single instance, something that you would never forget. Can you imagine sitting there for hours at a time, having that happen time after time without interruption? I testify to you that it is real. …

In a world so large, the Creator … somehow not only knows you but loves you enough to ensure that your call is where He needs you to go to teach the children of our Heavenly Father.

Working on cool technology is one thing. Working on cool technology that’s used to further the work of the Lord is something else.

And knowing that the software you work on is being used by an apostle under inspired circumstances like this is priceless.

posted by ted on Monday, Jul 30, 2007

Want to see a modern miracle?

How many languages does your site broadcast in? The LDS Church will broadcast its semiannual General Conference in over 60 languages in this weekend. The list runs from Albanian, American Sign Language, and Amharic to Urdu, Vietnamese, and Yapese.

Along the way from A to Z, you’ll recognize lots of familiar languages plus such interesting tongues as Chuukese, Guarani (my wife served in Paraguay where this is spoken—she’ll be gratified to see it included), Kosraean, Pohnpeian, Papiamento, Twi, and Telugu.

Why bother posting about this? Because it’s a technological and theological miracle to get that many languages broadcast simultaneously. The entire Audiovisual Department throws its full effort into overdrive for these two weekends each year. Translation is arranged with native speakers and returned missionaries all over the world. The IT organization minds it satellites and streaming media servers. There is a deployment moratorium that takes an act of… well, that takes some serious effort to get passed if you need to release new websites or applications during the week before conference, so focused are everyone’s efforts on providing a good experience for conference watchers and listeners.

And it all works.

I remember when it didn’t work so well, trying to watch conference on my PC in Washington state 7-8 years ago. It didn’t work so well back then. Maybe my computer is faster. Maybe the Internet itself is zippier. But I also believe the Church has really started delivering on the promise of taking the Gospel to every kindred tongue and people, with technology helping pave the way for that effort.

But despite all the coolness, I hope you just enjoy listening to the words of inspired leaders this weekend, in your own language, without having to think once of the technical miracles that make it all possible.

That is the real miracle, when the technology disappears, and just lets you focus on the Spirit and Inspiration.

posted by ted on Friday, Mar 30, 2007