The geeks have inherited the earth.
Video: https://youtu.be/QKxNVGMAKWY
In which we review the characteristics of the World of Code we’ve covered so far, add “data” into the mix, and examine – by applying this understanding to a single simple and personal experience of it – how understanding the World of Code and its limitations can help us maintain our humanity.
Video: https://youtu.be/EcT4MqUTdKw
To exist and to interact with the world around it, computer code needs to be “embodied” in (of course) computers, and, despite its virtually infinite extensibility (at least in theory), the nature of code’s embodiment has a limiting and determinative effect that we need to understand if we are going to fully grasp the impact of computer code on the world around us.
Note: The excellent visualizations of how logic gates work and are controlled by computer code are from @CoreDumpped ‘s brilliant video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjneAhCy2N4
What value can we find in video-games? My talk at Doxacon Seattle 2025 mines my experience as a gamer, focussing on Starflight, and as a Minecraft Server Administrator for theological and experiential insights.
Video: https://youtu.be/Msl3uV1yhB4
In which we continue our consideration of computer code with conditional commands, reflecting on the implications of the consequent complexity
Video: https://youtu.be/k27vb6kybEo
In which we begin in earnest our engagement with the World of Code by reflecting on the basic (pun intended) principles of computer programming
In this introductory episode, we begin a second “season” of the Geek Orthodox podcast, “The World of Code”, with two new summaries of the first season: one generated by AI, the other by yours truly.
This guest-lecture at Simon Fraser University on Biblical intertextuality in fantasy and science fiction focuses on three excerpts from the works of J.R.R. Tolkien (Gandalf’s fight with the Balrog in The Lord of the Rings), C.S. Lewis (Chapter 20 of Out of the Silent Planet), and John Wyndham (an excerpt from The Day of the Triffids). For those interested, the relevant excerpts are collected in this PDF.
The lecture, along with the subsequent Q&A, can also be seen on YouTube.
The keynote address I gave at Doxacon Seattle in 2019 on the trope of transformation in fantasy literature and its importance, alongside the importance of our embodiment, for our identity.
In which I read to you an essay I wrote long ago, in a faraway land called St. Vladimir’s Seminary.
Source:
The full text of the original essay can be found here, on ChristianFantasy.com
Related:
My favourite wedding homily, “Mawidge and True Love”, from my other podcast, Translating the Tradition
So, Season 1 of Geek Orthodox, “The Deaths of Arthur”, is finally finished! It was definitely, as I say in my concluding episode, an adventure: my first fully-produced podcast, a greatly expanded version of my Doxacon Seattle talk, and my first long-form expository non-fiction work in years. Here, for handy reference, is a listing of “The Deaths of Arthur” podcast episodes in order:
The primary reason the conclusion took so long to come out was simply that I was ambushed by report card season (my least favourite time as a teacher!), but a secondary reason was that the experience of putting together the podcast as podcast, as an extended reflection on the subjects I touched on (or, in Tennyson’s case, had to skip over) in my Doxacon talk, got me thinking a lot about the podcast as a medium, how I might be able to use the medium more effectively in the future, some of the obvious shortcomings of how I ended up using it over this first “season”, and what extended conclusions I might now draw from these extended reflections. In the end, I decided to keep it simple and to stick fairly closely to my original vision for both the podcast and my conclusion, despite the obvious shortcomings, in the hopes that the work will still be somewhat worth listening to on its own and that, rather than getting too “meta” by including my reflections on podcasting in the podcast, I may be able to simply apply some of the lessons learned in future episodes of the podcast.
My hope for the next “season” of the podcast is that the episodes will be more episodic, more experimental, shorter, and better planned and produced – but we’ll have to wait and see whether any of that actually comes to pass! “The best-laid plans o’ mice an’ men… an’ a’ that!” In the meantime, if anyone who actually listens to the podcast has any feedback they’d like to give me, positive or negative, privately or publicly, I’d love to hear from you via the comment section below. (If you don’t want your feedback to be published, just let me know!)
