An interesting piece came across News.com a couple of weeks ago where YouTube was cutting out North Korea from its service.
That reminded me how everyone of us is totally dependent on our internet services on others. Someone else increasingly interlockingly controls access to the Internet.
Some illustrations
News
International, National, State, Local, Rural …
In 2012 the local hard copy monthly news of the Midge Point — Bloomsbury region of the Whitsundays mainland on Repulse Bay closed its doors due to the expense — it several A4 pages stapled together for 1200 people.
One of our young writers developed for the community an online weekly news in its place with the same lady as editor – this was a gifting to the community from our ministry, Well-Being Australia.
That one change along with the various community group's Facebook pages changed everything for this rural community. But all these IT developments were totally dependent upon Weebly, the Internet server, Email and Facebook.
I can recall times when Weebly was down for infrastructure maintenance – there was no news available for the community. That region has had painfully numerous Telstra breakdowns and communication ceases.
Banking
Banking has become increasingly the normal patterns of:
paying bills
receiving payments
Centrelink
transferring monies
making family gifts
regular income payments
institutional expenses
contingency costs
This has changed the very nature of banking for every one of us. Rarely do we line up at the teller's counter — sometimes very long lines — and do our banking. And the horror of horrors when banking IT systems collapse in a heap — unhelpful apologies are given, woefully long lapses for repairs are seemingly forever.
Our banking today is entirely dependent on someone else and someone else again doing their jobs and IT components are of such a quality they do not 'stop' or are secure enough to 'protect' us all
Business
Online shopping has now come of age and in Australia, Amazon is about to open a warehouse in Australia to challenge the big market place players.
Consider on-line
grocery shopping today
furniture
white goods
television, speakers, DVD's and the rest of it
motor vehicles
equipment
heavy and light machinery
education
universities
science research
and the list goes on
How this will affect in Australia long term shopping malls is anyone's guess — already large numbers of such shopping malls have closed in the US.
Christian ministry
Our ministry with the young writers being published in the online Christian Today is totally dependent on someone else maintaining the site, the server providing top line linking and the like.
Our local church now has 85% of its titles and offerings done through internet banking. Churches today use the big screen for almost everything from notices to Bible readings, to prayer points to the sermons.
We held our young writers annual conference on the Sunshine Coast and the Alexandra Heads Conference Centre had their IT system working and every speaker along with the MC utilised the big screen.
But on one occasion, with the first plenary speaker the lap top needed a converter lead and fortunately the second plenary speaker had that converter lead in his pack.
We are all totally dependent on one another in this new frightening world of IT. By the way. What is “What'sApp? or is 'What's up' or 'What's doping down' …
Dr Mark Tronson is a Baptist minister (retired) who served as the Australian cricket team chaplain for 17 years (2000 ret) and established Life After Cricket in 2001. He was recognised by the Olympic Ministry Medal in 2009 presented by Carl Lewis Olympian of the Century. He mentors young writers and has written 24 books, and enjoys writing. He is married to Delma, with four adult children and grand-children. Dr Tronson writes a daily article for Christian Today Australia (since 2008) and in November 2016 established Christian Today New Zealand.
Mark Tronson's archive of articles can be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/mark-tronson.html
Dr Mark Tronson - a 4 min video
Chairman – Well-Being Australia
Baptist Minister 45 years
- 1984 - Australian cricket team chaplain 17 years (Ret)
- 2001 - Life After Cricket (18 years Ret)
- 2009 - Olympic Ministry Medal – presented by Carl Lewis
- 2019 - The Gutenberg - (ARPA Christian Media premier award)
Gutenberg video - 2min 14sec
Married to Delma for 45 years with 4 children and 6 grand children