32. Within this harmonious constellation of gifts, each of the fundamental states of life is entrusted with the task of expressing, in its own way, one or other aspect of the one mystery of Christ. While the lay life has a particular mission of ensuring that the Gospel message is proclaimed in the temporal sphere, in the sphere of ecclesial communion an indispensable ministry is carried out by those in Holy Orders, and in a special way by Bishops. The latter have the task of guiding the People of God by the teaching of the word, the administration of the sacraments and the exercise of sacred power in the service of ecclesial communion, which is an organic communion, hierarchically structured.As a way of showing forth the Church's holiness, it is to be recognized that the consecrated life, which mirrors Christ's own way of life, has an objective superiority. Precisely for this reason, it is an especially rich manifestation of Gospel values and a more complete expression of the Church's purpose, which is the sanctification of humanity. The consecrated life proclaims and in a certain way anticipates the future age, when the fullness of the Kingdom of heaven, already present in its first fruits and in mystery,will be achieved, and when the children of the resurrection will take neither wife nor husband, but will be like the angels of God (cf. Mt 22:30).The Church has always taught the pre-eminence of perfect chastity for the sake of the Kingdom,and rightly considers it the "door" of the whole consecrated life.She also shows great esteem for the vocation to marriage, which makes spouses "witnesses to and cooperators in the fruitfulness of Holy Mother Church, who signify and share in the love with which Christ has loved his Bride and because of which he delivered himself up on her behalf".In this perspective, common to all consecrated life, there are many different but complementary paths. Men and women Religious completely devoted to contemplation are in a special way an image of Christ praying on the mountain.Consecrated persons engaged in the active life manifest Christ "in his proclamation of the Kingdom of God to the multitudes, in his healing of the sick and the suffering, in his work of converting sinners to a better life, in his solicitude for youth and his goodness to all".Consecrated persons in Secular Institutes contribute in a special way to the coming of the Kingdom of God; they unite in a distinctive synthesis the value of consecration and that of being in the world. As they live their consecration in the world and from the world,"they strive to imbue everything with an evangelical spirit for the strengthening and growth of the Body of Christ".For this purpose they share in the Church's evangelizing mission through their personal witness of Christian living, their commitment to ordering temporal affairs according to God's plan, and their cooperation in service of the ecclesial community, in accordance with the secular way of life which is proper to them.
Having received from Christ a message of liberation, the Church has the mission to proclaim this message prophetically, promoting ways of thinking and acting which correspond to the mind of the Lord. In this context the consecrated woman, on the basis of her experience of the Church and as a woman in the Church, can help eliminate certain one-sided perspectives which do not fully recognize her dignity and her specific contribution to the Church's life and pastoral and missionary activity. Consecrated women therefore rightly aspire to have their identity, ability, mission and responsibility more clearly recognized, both in the awareness of the Church and in everyday life.Likewise, the future of the new evangelization, as of all other forms of missionary activity, is unthinkable without a renewed contribution from women, especially consecrated women.
Basic Perspective Small Step On The Other Side Zippy
Yet, as already established, forced perspective makes even these small steps appear as significant strides for Mr. White. It's there in lead single "Steady as She Goes", even though it's subtle; the improvements mostly come with hearing one of his compositions freed from the laboriously low-tech "realism" of the White Stripes' recent material. It's there even more in the album's title song, where tribal drums and an ominous bowed drone buttress White's valiant attempt at a passable Geddy Lee. Even the rote blues emulation of "Blues Vein" comes off more "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" than From the Cradle, saved from reenactment status by some backward-loop weirdness and film-noir production.
A few years later FAST (the Federation Against Software Theft) would describe Glasgow as "the European capital of software piracy", with their chief executive Bob Hay saying "There have been a number of enforcement problems in Scotland in general, and Glasgow in particular." By that time there were 10 or more stalls openly selling hundreds of pirate ST and Amiga disks at the Barras every weekend, mostly around Gibson Street next to the famous Barrowland Ballroom. And there were a number of other similar, but smaller indoor markets around Glasgow too, most with pirate software for sale. I guess being the piracy capital was at least a step up from being known as the European murder capital!
More than once I was offered a free modem by one of the bigger ST BBS's but with various restrictions attached about not uploading to certain competing boards, basically politics I had no interest in dealing with. So I declined the offers and continued to post stuff out to my usual contacts until I bought my first modem, a 14400 courier, the following year. A few times some of my postal contacts even asked if I'd delay sending a particular new game to other guys they knew also had a modem, to guarantee them the first upload. By that time I thought it was all getting a bit silly... or maybe the opposite, too serious. I remember someone telling me I should have a manager to handle all this side stuff and then we both laughed, but they had a point. :)
These days the games consoles have a "secure boot" system where the processor boots from code hidden inside the hardware of the CPU or SoC (System on Chip) itself. That code can then safely load, decrypt and run the main boot code from an external ROM or disc without any unencrypted code being exposed at any time. So things have changed from the ST days when anyone could access at least the initial boot code but it was often very heavily protected in software, to today when no one can access the code (at least without very sophisticated and expensive hardware) but it has little or no software protection because it's basically unnecessary. Obviously the hardware protection method is superior, but from a "hacking for fun" perspective the 16 bit days of the ST and Amiga are hard to beat.
Another thing would be the constant leaps forward in hardware and software. It seemed like there was much more competition in hardware and software back then and always some new thing on the horizon to look forward to. Today it seems like only small steps forward in comparison and it's all become very corporate, uniform and boring. I also miss the simple days when we knew what every bit of software running on our computers actually did and had actively chosen to run it!
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