#answered this on mobile so hope the formatting/links work oops

[queerprayers]

hi there - I am also 19 years old and a christian. at present i am currently struggling with a certain aspect of my faith a bit. to make a long story short, im struggling with a few particular sins in my life, and i've been feeling particularly convicted about 2 Cor. 5:17 - "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation." i know that i have come to know Christ, and i know that i've grown in my faith in the five years since my coming to that point; but i can't help but feel like, at the same time, i am not a new creation, or that I'm not where I need to be.

i do know that his grace is there for us when we repent, and turn to him.. but i am afraid of presuming upon it. this was also kinda spurned on by reading the story of simon magus; he came to believe, but he still was deeply sinful and wasn't where he needed to be.

i suppose I'm having a hard time entrusting myself to God's grace and placing that faith in him.. I do wish to be intentional and not take it for granted. do you have any ideas or tips for something like this?

Hello! I relate so much! Here're some thoughts!

We are young. We don't have to be everything now. God willing, we have years and years ahead of us. There's a line from an Olivia Gatwood poem that I find myself coming back to: "I have so much beautiful time." (full poem—NSFW) (book) And we do! That's the first thing I want to highlight. I don't think any nineteen-year-old feels like they're where they're supposed to be— and if they do, they're probably wrong.

What really hit this home for me recently was Richard Rohr's book Falling Upward. While I wouldn't necessarily recommend it (my review), it was while reading this book that I fully realized how much more time and space I have to grow in my life. I explained in the review how, because I've struggled so much with suicidal ideation in the past, I often treated my spiritual growth as an ending, instead of a beginning, like a young person should. I have no idea if that's something you relate to, but I've noticed people often have this perspective, even if they've never gone through what I did. So, again: we have time.

I noticed that you mentioned how much you've grown, which is so great. If you're aware of how much you've grown in the past five years, think about how much you can grow in the next five years! And the five years after that! We don't stop growing once we become a legal adult, don't worry.

I've noticed many people (especially evangelical/"born-again"-type Christians) talk about conversion/following Jesus as a lightbulb moment—but it's not (or at least, isn't most of the time/in my experience). Sometimes you don't feel any different. So if you're looking for some magical moment where you'll realize you're a new creation and Christ is in you or whatever, I can't promise you'll find it. What faith/following Jesus is is a choice you make every day. Some days you might feel the Spirit or have a beautiful moment, and some days it'll feel repetitive and tiresome, and some days it'll just be.

This is definitely informed by my Lutheran background, but I would point out that all believers are saved and deeply sinful and not where we need to be. Same goes for all saints, all church fathers, all religious leaders. Simon Magus, the Pope, Mother Teresa, anyone. I would say that being saved and full of sin is an inherently human trait. I'm not saying give up or stop growing, just reminding us that no matter how much we grow and believe, we will still be human.

You bring up something interesting: the tension between accepting and living out God's promise/grace vs. taking it for granted. Even recognizing that and thinking about it is a wonderful sign that you care! If you didn't care, you wouldn't be thinking about this. While avoiding taking it for granted, at the same time I do think that God's grace is something we should presume on and depend on. It's there no matter what to fall back on, and knowing that and embracing that isn't ungrateful. I think there's a balance between these perspectives.

And yes yes yes on the being intentional about it bit! Faith routines/rituals can help us be more intentional— even a tiny thing like lighting a candle can ground us in the moment. Maybe you could keep a journal and write down ways you're following Jesus/growing every day/week/month. (Don't make this super complicated! "What's one way I'm going to be faithful this week?") Simply noticing what I'm doing/learning has been key for me—resisting the urge to mindlessly go through the motions. You could pick a different saint or Bible figure to learn about/think about each month, or pick a theme/goal (charity/mutual aid, reading the Bible every day, something like that) and focus on that for a bit. Don't fall into monotony or, as you put it, take it for granted.

We are a new creation in Christ every day! Let us go forward with all our beautiful time and grow in ways we couldn't even imagine five years ago! God be with you and bring you peace.

<3 Johanna

[notbigondoors]

How do you generally write your replies to asks or threads or rp stuff? On the Tumblr app or on your computer? I'm thinking about making myself two or three rp tumblr blogs (I'd like one for Stephen King's Carrie, another one for Marvel's Morbius and maybe a third one for Wonder Woman) but I don't have a computer atm and I wonder how comfortable it would be to rp using the phone app only/how good it would look. This is an amazing Vision blog btw!

{out of equations} I actually do a healthy balance of both. At night when I’m relaxing at home and watching TV or whatever, I vastly prefer the computer. I type faster when on the computer and it’s just physically easier. But then when I’m out and about, sitting in a restaurant or a doctor’s office or somewhere where I’m just waiting for a while not doing much, I’ll whip out my phone and work on replies there. As far as the actual writing, aside from it being easier for me to type on a computer vs. a phone, it’s really not better or worse to do either. But as far as the Tumblr site is concerned, there are honestly good and bad aspects to both ways of using it.

The app is really a pain as far as formatting. Now, sure, you can do things like adding colored text a lot easier on the phone and without requiring actual coding, but you can’t use a blog theme or really complex text formatting because it just simplifies everything. There are a lot of bugs on the Tumblr app that make using the phone completely obnoxious to me. For example, if you place a title on your text post on the computer, it will remain at the top no matter how many times the thread is reblogged or the reblogs are deleted from it. But if you so it on the phone, for whatever reason it will downgrade the title to a heading that will then disappear when you inevitably trim the reblogs off the thread. I have no idea if there even is a way to make titles that actually function as titles on the phone, but maybe there is?

Another annoying thing about using the phone (and this is more recent, so maybe it’s an actual bug that’ll be fixed as opposed to just a stupid update) is that when I tell the phone to delete all reblogs from a thread, it will appear to have done that, but the it will leave the first reblog that was there at the top. So this results in the reblog having like... a post you don’t want randomly still up there and then your reblog? Which... makes things really confusing if you’re trying to keep track of the thread’s story? I don’t know how to fix that one either.

Also... when switching from Tumblr app/mobile to the Tumblr site on a computer, I still sometimes am unable to edit or even open my posts because it will say “Oops! This appears to have been edited in the mobile version. Please use the app.” Or something like that. Such a pain.

The other thing is... they appear to have taken away the ability to save an ask answer for later on the Tumblr mobile app? I used to be able to start answering and then just save my response in my drafts if I have to close the app and I’m not done yet. Now there’s no option to do that. I really hate that, it came in handy. You can do it on the computer while holding down Ctrl +Alt while actively in an ask text window and replying to it. If you hold down those keys, the options to either “Safe as Draft” or “Queue” will appear at the bottom right as buttons. So yeah, a definite advantage over mobile.

Also, in the case of “read more” links, those breaks in the post where writers can cut off their super long mega posts with a link to the full version so that people don’t have to scroll through a wall of text on their dash? Yeah, those don’t work on mobile, heh. Well okay, no, they work.... but you don’t have the option of using them on mobile. So if someone has set one up on the computer, it will function in mobile, but people who are mobile only don’t have the option of using “read more” links.

The biggest problem with mobile is that people with complex themes for their blogs or even ones like mine that are Tumblr simple, haha, can have info pages set up as links you can click to go to more information, and those don’t even show up on mobile. Even if people send you the urls, when you click on them they will only go to their main blog and not to the pages. So that means you won’t be able to view any muse or mun info or any rules pages set up that way. That doesn’t mean you can’t ask someone to kindly post or send you the information, but that makes it kinda hard for blogs with passwords or muns that won’t even talk to you until you’ve read their stuff.

However... not everything on the Tumblr app is worse than on the computer. On the computer... there are various forms of gif files that function as gifs on other sites and in graphic editing programs, but will not open on Tumblr. For example, I’ve noticed that gifs saved as text map or .txt files and gifs with urls ending in .gifv instead of .gif will not open on Tumblr. Whether you cut and paste the url or you open it from a file on your computer, they just won’t work. The gif will blip away and an “error loading gif” error message will appear. I’ve gotten around this somewhat but simply editing the file extension back to .gif, but that only works sometimes, and I have not found a way to open gifs saved in text map formats. So this makes it really annoying when trying to add reaction gifs. On the app, though...... I seem to be able to post just about any gif I want. So that is a definite plus.

Also, if you want colored text on the computer, you have to code for it, and honestly, I’ve forgotten how to do any of that, haha. Even if you set it up on your phone and then open the post on a computer, the computer version will wipe out all formatting and coloring that you did. Super annoying.

There are also a lot of bugs on the website that are not present in mobile, such as links not going where they should (how many times have I clicked on my blog’s activity feed only to be sent to my dash, ugh), and random spaces being added in the middle of my text posts that I didn’t place there? o_O

So... I guess I would say that functionally speaking I prefer the computer version, but there is a lot to be said for the portability of the phone and being able to work on stuff whenever you have five minutes. I should also mention that I have the Android version of the Tumblr app, so... I don’t know if maybe the iPhone version is different or better or worse. But I do know people who are 100% on the computer version, 100% on some kind of mobile version, or people like me who switch back and forth, and we all seem to be finding our ways just fine, so I think whatever version you choose, you’ll acclimate to that and adjust your style and habits accordingly.

I hope this was helpful! (^-^)/ (Also thank you so much, I’m glad you like this blog! Vision is such a sweetie, isn’t he? XD)

[cavscout81-blog1]

You're Pregnant! Just Kidding. Here's the News You Missed This Week.

Sometimes, I wonder if the internet can be boiled down to a single sentiment: "Oops."

That was certainly the underlying theme of some major news items this week, like the one our headline alludes to -- more on that below.

After all, the digital landscape is a setting that can be described at once as a playground and a hellscape, where mistakes never really disappear (even if you quickly delete them, thanks to screen shots), contentious competition never ends, and consumers are often left wondering, "What the hell is going on? I just want a machine to read my schedule to me in the morning."

This week -- as with many others -- was a busy one in the worlds of tech and marketing. Here's what you missed.

It's a Boy! Nope, It's Just a Glitch From Amazon

If our headline freaked you out, you're not alone: a yet-to-be-determined number of Amazon customers experienced a similar sentiment this week when they mistakenly received emails regarding phantom baby registries.

Last Tuesday, several Amazon customers reported receiving an email from the online merchant reading, "Someone great recently purchased a gift from your baby registry!" And while the internet typically can't be used for a pregnancy test -- unless you count Target's 2012 public relations disaster after predicting a teen's pregnancy by tracking her shopping habits -- it still caused brief moments of panic among those who got the email.

There were some fears that the emails were a result of phishing attempts, but in the end, Amazon confirmed to TechCrunch that the emails were the result of a technical glitch, going on to send apology emails to the customers that received them. It's not clear what exactly happened or what the the glitch entailed, but let this be a lesson to marketers: triple check your email workflows.

Among the panic, Twitter had quite a bit of fun with the error:

More Trouble for Targeted Ads

Following last week's ProPublica revelation that Facebook was allowing advertisers to use anti-Semitic targeting criteria for promoted content, it was quickly discovered that Google and Twitter had similarly flawed advertising technology.

BuzzFeed was the first to discover that the Google allowed advertisers to use anti-Semitic and racially-charged search terms to target certain audiences, and soon after, the Daily Beast reported that Twitter allowed similar targeting criteria, which resulted in an audience of roughly 26.3 million users.

All three companies have since responded that they either have or are working to remove this criteria, with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg publishing a very lengthy, formal apology on Wednesday:

And More From Facebook

Yesterday, Facebook released an official statement on its plans to hand over important documents regarding the ads it sold to Russian organizations to Congress, as well as a second one with answers to several "hard questions" on what happened to cause something like that to happen in the first place.

The gravity of that move is one that cannot be emphasized enough. As Mike Isaac writes for the New York Times:

" ... the move to work with the congressional committees underscored how far the social network has strayed from being a mere technology company and how it has increasingly had to deal with the unintended consequences of the tools it provides to reach the more than two billion people who use the site regularly."

Shortly after those posts went live, Mark Zuckerberg delivered a live address on his own Page to address the efforts it would make moving forward to "protect the integrity of the democratic process."

Some believe that this address, along with Sandberg's statement form the previous day, is the first of many efforts by Facebook to proactively dodge federal regulation by staying one step ahead of congressional actions or attempts to curb what such channels and platforms can actually do. It's even, perhaps, a defensive move, as the legality of the aforementioned ad sale remains in question.

Meanwhile, Twitter is also due to appear at a Senate Intelligence Committee briefing nxt week to further examine its own possible role in influencing the most recent U.S. presidential election.

The Uber-Alphabet Lawsuit Got Even Messier

Last week, we filled you in on the ongoing lawsuit between Uber and Alphabet, Inc company Waymo over proprietary self-driving technology. Since then, there have been a few key developments.

First, over the weekend, Alphabet requested that the trial be postponed after receiving crucial information that the court ordered Uber to turn over. Seeing that information, it seemed, made Waymo realize just how much was at stake with Uber being in possession of these materials, and needed more time to review all of the evidence supporting its case. Megan Rose Dickey of TechCrunch tweeted a key portion of its statement on the issue:

Waymo wants to postpone the trial w/ Uber. Here's Waymo's statement.

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Uber, of course, objected to that request, charging that Alphabet is trying the delay the trial -- December 5 is the proposed postponed date -- not because of surmounting evidence, but because of a lack of it. The full opposition can be found here:

That same judge also gave Uber permission to publicly disclose some of what Waymo is hoping to gain from the lawsuit: $2.6 billion for one stolen (allegedly) trade secret. But there are still eight other secrets that Waymo says to have been stolen by Uber, and no monetary figure has yet been assigned to them.

At this point, the trial is still set to begin on October 10, and recently-appointed Uber has a decision to make: whether or not he wants to settle out of court, or continue to defend the company's name in what promises to be a complex, drawn-out trial.

It's just one of many problems for Uber these days. With the release of iOS 11 this week, Uber was forced to allow users to block the app from tracking their locations.

Additionally, the BBC broke news this morning that Transport for London would not renew the ride-sharing app's private hire license, calling it "not fit and proper" to carry on operations there. Uber has 21 days to dispute that decision and can continue providing services in London until then.

Attack of the Flying Eggplants

I'll admit it -- my new favorite feature of iOS 11, the latest operating system available on the iPhone, is probably the ability to fill your iMessage recipient's screen with the next, image, or emoji of your choice. But just for the sake of due diligence, I tested it by sending this gem to one of my colleagues:

But my low bar for amusement aside, the new operating system comes with some features that are actually, you know, productive. Here are our five favorites:

Screen Recording. So, just how did I capture the magical moment above? iOS 11 has a screen record tool that saves the video in your camera roll.

Do Not Disturb While Driving. This "do not disturb" feature uses your car's bluetooth connection to turn on automatically while you're driving.

Screenshot Tools. The new iOS has a brilliantly simple new screenshot feature, which lets users draw on, crop, or highlight with ease.

GIFs in Camera Roll. The camera roll now allows users to save and view GIFs, plus the newest editing tools even enable you to turn your live photos into GIFs.

Notes App Upgrade. The notes app now features useful tools like a document scanner, and the ability to insert all kinds of formatting into your note.

And, finally -- we can't forget ARKit -- Apple's mobile augmented reality technology -- which has been a big portion of the talk of the iPhone town in the days following iOS 11's release. I tweeted about my experience with using it on Wayfair's home shopping app:

So, I don’t think this is gonna fit. #ARKit

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What's Google Up To?

A lot happened for the search giant this week, beyond its parent company's lawsuit and a significant team acquisition. First, there were some leaks around the rumored October 4th release of the Pixel 2 and Pixel XL, but they were mostly limited to the device's available colors, as per Droid Life.

That same outlet also leaked the rumored Google Home Mini, a much smaller version of the Google Home, which many are calling the company's response to the Echo Dot. And on Tuesday, a “media streaming device” -- the same language used to describe the original Google home -- with features remarkably similar to the first Google Home was submitted to the FCC. These developments all align with the timeline leading up to the October 4th press event.

In non-Pixel or Home news, Google announced four new features this week:

The Google app on iOS will now have a suggested content feature, in which users are provided with visual links to more information on what they're reading about.Source: Google

Contact information like phone numbers, addresses, and email addresses will now -- finally -- be automatically converted into hyperlinks on Gmail. Official announcement here.Source: Google

Natural language processing has been added to Cloud Search -- a search tool within G Suite -- to help users more quickly find information based on the words that Google deemed to be the most frequently used among G Suite customers: "what," "who," "how" or "when." For example, if you remember which one of your colleagues sent you a shared document, but can't remember what it was called, now you can search for it with a query like, "Docs shared by Karla."Source: Google

Read receipts are coming to Gmail -- kind of. On Wednesday, Google announced the launch of Email Log Search, which allows G Suite users to track the status of sent emails, such as where it is (e.g., the trash), or if it's been opened.Source: Google

Actually, No, Equifax Still Isn't Handling This Data Breach Well

Remember all of those marketing takeaways from the Equifax hack that we outlined last week? Well, it turns out that Equifax hasn't exactly heeded that advice -- or that of too many others, it seems. In fact, it was revealed earlier this week that the company's customer service agents on Twitter were directing customers to a fake website that, visually, was nearly identical to the site Equifax set up for users to enroll in free credit marketing.

The clone site was created by by software engineer Nick Sweeting, whose intentions weren't malicious, but rather, were to show how poorly Equifax was monitoring and managing the situation.

Not only did they tweet the wrong link, they tweeted it 3 times. #Equihax

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Sweeting was quite transparent about that in creating the site, which has since been taken down, along with any tweets directing customers to it -- it was titled, "Cybersecurity Incident & Important Consumer Information Which is Totally Fake, Why Did Equifax Use A Domain That’s So Easily Impersonated By Phishing Sites?”

The "fake" site did not collect any personal information, but Sweeting pointed out how easily it would be for other hackers to create an equally identical site that did using the Linux command "wget" -- and he blamed that on Equifax's choice to establish an entirely new domain, rather than create an equifax.com subdomain.

"wget" essentially permits anyone -- yes, anyone at all -- "to just suck their whole site down with wget and throw it on a ... server,” Sweeting explained in an email to the New York Times. His version, he said, had "the same type of SSL certificate as the real version, so from a trust perspective, there’s no way for users to authenticate the real one vs. my server.”

Creating a subdomain should have been the obvious move for Equifax, Carnegie Mellon IS Professor Rahul Telang told the outlet, "so that if somebody tries to fake it, it becomes immediately obvious.”

This development comes amid news that Equifax actually suffered more than one hack this year. In addition to the headline-making breach in July, the company experienced an earlier one in March, creating even more confusion around the decision to wait until September to alert customers, as well as the massive August stock sale by its executives.

Odds and Ends

I Don't Want to Grow up, Because That Means I Have to File for Chapter 11

For anyone who grew up begging their parents to take them to the toy store, this week came with some sad news: Toy store chain Toys ‘R’ Us filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week. Many were quick to blame its demise on Amazon, which has been named the culprit for the financial woes of many other brick-and-mortar retailers, but in reality, the cause may have reached far beyond that. As Recode reports, the move is largely the result of a "cocktail" of limited product selection, a lack of competitive pricing, and piling debt after several 2005 buyouts.

For the sake of our own childhood memories, we hope Toys 'R' Us is able to turn things around.

The DHS Got Served ... By an Association of VCs

Allow us to introduce you to the International Entrepreneur Rule: a federal measure that, had it passed in July 2017 as planned, would have made it easier for foreign entrepreneurs to obtain visas for the purpose of founding startups in the U.S.

However, the same month it was slated to be effective, the current presidential administration delayed it until March 2018, with many believing that it will only go on to be completely dismantled. But this week, Axios reports, the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) has brought forth a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, on the grounds that the decision to delay the enforcement of the rule violates the Administrative Procedure Act -- which says that the department must first "solicit public comment."

The formal complaint can be downloaded here.

No Empty Nest Here

Nest, which was acquired by Google back in 2013, held its first major press event this week, where it unveiled a number of new products. Among them were the Nest Cam IQ -- this writer's personal favorite unveiling from the launch -- an outdoor security camera that can detect movement and differentiate whether it's coming from a person or an object. If it's a person, the system alerts you, as well as letting you know if it senses a barking dog or a talking person. Even better: it's equipped with facial recognition, so that if someone familiar comes into the camera's range, like your regular dog walker, the system will recognize that it's likely not an intruder.

Also announced was the Nest Hello video doorbell, which uses similar camera technology to the above to alert users if a person is within range, even if they don't ring. Finally, an overall comprehensive security system was unveiled called Nest Secure, which exists of three key components: Nest Guard, where the system is armed and disarmed with the second component, Nest Tag, which is similar to a key fob and can be used to turn off the alarm system. The first piece is Nest Detect, which can sense general motion and the opening or closing of windows or doors.

Check out the video summary here:

That's all for this week! Next week, we're off to INBOUND 2017: one of the world's largest and most remarkable marketing and sales industry events. We'll be back with our regular news coverage the first week in October.

Until then -- happy autumn.

Originally published September 22 2017, updated September 23 2017