Old Names for New Technology

Recently, a friend was trying to drag me into the 21st Century, or as he called it, the “Digital Epoch.” One of the sentences he quoted was: “The webLyzard visual analytics dashboard is an advanced information exploration and retrieval interface.” Oh, I see. Not! I recognized the word “dashboard.” But, nothing else makes any sense.

For whatever reason, computer gurus grasped the word “dashboard” and stuck it on something called a “retrieval interface.” Why didn’t they just make up a new word like “UsFaC?” Instead, they complicate the lives of weathered Americans who now have to deal with one more meaning of a word like dashboard.

As I studied more about the vocabulary that theses astute geniuses industrialized, it appears that they just randomly grabbed well-known words and reused them. Consider these cutting-edge technological terms:

Chip (not Lays, poker, blue, or wood) – A piece of silicone with an electronic circuit embedded in it

Leaf (not from a tree) – A file within a directory on your hard drive

Parse (not relating to grammar) – Reading computer program code

White paper (not an authoritative sensitive report) – Explains a new product or technology

Zip (not USPS street code) – A compressed file

Backbone (not that thing that connects your head to your waist) – Main network lines

Debugger (not Raid or Ortho) – Fixes problems in the lines of code

Del.icio.us (not something that pleases the taste buds) – A community bookmarking website

The reuse of terms, reminds me of old movies that just keep coming back with new actors. Movies like “The Three Musketeers,” “A Christmas Carol,” and “Robin Hood,” have already been remade six different times. Twinkies, the Muppets, Captain America, the VW Beetle, Coke Classic, Old Spice, and Polaroid have all been brought back from the dead. Why?

Could it be that the Bible is correct when it says, “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9 KJV) Or as it is stated in the New Living Translation, “History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new.”

I love the story about the scientist who tells God that He is no longer needed. The scientist says that man can do anything God can do. So, God asked him, “Can you make a living man out of dirt?” The scientist says “Yes, I will show you right now.” The scientist gets his shovel and starts to build a pile of dirt to make his man. But God stopped him and said, “Hold on Mr. Scientist. That’s my dirt you are using. You will have to first make your own dirt out of nothing.”

Only God can create something out of nothing. Man just recycles, reuses, remakes, and renames what God has already made. The Bible declares that God is eternal. He has always been and will always be. Psalm 90:2 NLT, “Before the mountains were born, before you gave birth to the earth and the world, from beginning to end, you are God.” How was the world made? Psalm 33:6 NLT states, “The LORD merely spoke, and the heavens were created. He breathed the word, and all the stars were born.”

Now note this powerful verse in John 1:1-4 NLT, “In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through Him, and nothing was created except through Him. The Word gave life to everything that was created, and His life brought light to everyone.”

Jesus is the Word of God (1 John 5:7). He was there when the worlds were created. No man will ever create anything out of nothing, because God alone creates through His Son, the Word, Christ Jesus. Hymnwriter John W. Peterson wrote, “It took a miracle to put the stars in place; It took a miracle to hang the world in space. But when He saved my soul, Cleansed and made me whole, It took a miracle of love and grace!”