It looks like the world didn’t magically fix itself at midnight last night. Crass, stupid religion still exists, and there is a Cube for sale. You can buy this!
Ooops, sorry, wrong Cube. Although when you see the actual cube, you might prefer my mistake.
via Dan Phelps
The “Inspiration Cube” is a $50 box with pre-recorded phrases from Joel Osteen. You know that since Joel will want to profit off this, that it’s going to be cheaply and cheesily made, and the output is going to be crap, both in tech and content. But look at all the buttons! The only one I like is the bottom-most, the “OFF” button.
If you want to see the innards of the cube, Foone on Twitter did a tear-down:
https://mobile.twitter.com/Foone/status/1322268649550274560
Haha, rereading that thread I forgot the Cube’s microSD card has a virus on it. Fitting.
Great, now Christians don’t even know the names of basic geometric shapes.
I get several thought provoking messages a day from an app called WeCroak that cost a few dollars. The messages are quotes from all sorts of people, past and present, including poets, essayists, gurus, hospice workers, and so forth. No attempt is made to be “life-changing”.
Is this a step toward Douglas Adams’s electric monk?
@2 — If the virus inserts the “Joel Dongsteen” algorithm, I’m in. https://twitter.com/JoelDongsteen?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Thank you HidariMark. I came here to say exactly that. You beat me to it.
It includes a printed manual!? And a Quick Start!!! How old fashioned is that?
That’s a lot of plastic for something that could be delivered as a phone app.
PaulBC # 10 — Bingo! Also, paper. And for a tenth the cost.
I knew it reminded me of something: Joel’s version of the Magic 8-Ball.
Ughh! Hangover!
Am I the only one who thinks Joel Osteen bears a strong resemblance to Tim “Home Improvement” Allen?
But, but, but what if I don’t want to overcome negative thoughts, receive God’s promises or live my very best life? Why doesn’t he make a cube(?) that lets me work with negative thoughts and live a “good enough” life? And what would I do with God’s promises? What if he promises me something I don’t want? I have questions!
@#10 – of course who would pay $50 for an app?
Osteen just wants to fill the vacant niche in cube-fool marketing now that timecube.com has become a mere sports-betting site.
Ugh, I just had a flashback to William Gibson’s Count Zero
Borg cube? Resistance is futile.
https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/hurricane-harvey/joel-osteen-defends-not-opening-megachurch-harvey-victims-n797036
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/530322-joel-osteens-texas-megachurch-received-44-million-covid-19-stimulus-loan
The cube should repeat these stories on an endless loop.
@16 ChimeCube
kevinv (#2) –
An illicit recording device and wifi transmitter is more his style.
Straight outta Osteen, a crazy motherfucker called Inspiration Cube?
Functional cube:
Raspberry Pi Minecraft server case
it looks like it came from a Chinese seller of cheap promotional “swag” and “gift” items you can put your companies name on.
Isn’t it just a cheap music player. I think I have seen something like that at a swap meet along side cheap little speakers with “big sound” and cheap little WiFi stereos speakers . either each came in it’s own cheap little recycled cardboard (paper) box,
not for $50 each either
uncle frogy
This almost makes sense: https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-heavenly-deal-on-a-bluetooth-speaker-11603131807 I can’t read far enough into the article, but is this a functional bluetooth speaker aside from the “inspiration”?
It’s still probably not great quality. You can get cheaper bluetooth speakers, but I guess it at least “does” something.
Better be careful nobody is using it to play the “devil’s music” or amplify phone sex with it though.
I’d love to see Osteen dragged down to Hell buy hooked chaine, but he’s probably too dense to puzzle out the Lament Configuration. Is there a cursed Jack-in-the Box he could try?
(Oh! A Hellraisrr themed Jack-in-the-Box would sell like hot cakes! You turn the crank and a chibi Pinhead pops out! But knowing the geek community, I’m certain someone has already done this.)
So much self-flagellation going on in $RELIGION. Hmm…
I’ll stick with the Borg cube that is hanging on our Star Trek themed Xmas tree.
1) @kevinv:
Lol :)
Not having any teens or access to one, and being a bit foggy today anyway, I didn’t get the “Jocube” joke.
JO = Jerk Off?
Progress will only be made when we develops a vaccine against grifters. That education I guess. Like covid-19, we have the vaccine, we just don’t know how to disperse and administer it effectively.
I’ll take the Lament Configuration, please.
Ah yes, Joel “Don’t come to my megachurch it’s totally flooded, I swear” Osteen.
@16 You beat me to the timecube remark.
Maybe he could have a tie-in with a Rubik’s cube. Every time you turn it on an axis Joel Osteen says don’t worry your little head about group theory. Send him money and Jesus will solve it for you.
It would be a touch more convincing if “god’s promises” were spoken in, you know, god’s voice, not Joel’s. Just a thought Joel.
@34 Paying Morgan Freeman for voice work really cuts into the margin.
@35 Perhaps Sam Elliott would be cheaper?
@hemidactylus #13:
Ugh! More power!
Wilson, should I dropkick this shit into the next street?
If you don’t install the chains and hooks they get away.
hemidactylus @13: Well, now I can’t unsee that.
In related news, I heard that Kirk Cameron held a massive covid party on the beach last night. And there as protesting in Salem, Oregon today over the closure of churches, which protestors tried to compare to closing grocery stores.
I had to order one of Olsteen’s “Inspiration Cube” for a family member who wanted to bestow it as a gift! “What, will these hands ne’er be clean?”
Correction: Osteen
Funny how this coincides with watching [Librarians]:The Self-fulfilling Prophesy, last night.
https://66.media.tumblr.com/4e274dce85213b2163f7f634c8339fd1/tumblr_ox06pf7GL51s8xhtuo3_1280.png
Microraptor@39: “churches, which protestors tried to compare to closing grocery stores”. The churches definitely lose in that comparison: they only stock one kind of flesh and one kind of wine, the Suggested Serving sizes are tiny, and there’s a limit of one to a customer each week. However, when the salt has lost its savor, whatchagonnado?
leerudolph@43 I always wondered how salt was supposed to lose its savor without ceasing to be salt. It’s a very simple molecule NaCl with an indefinite shelf life.
It wasn’t until later that I figured, OK, they really didn’t know the chemistry back then (though a Christian would have to believe Jesus did). It’s metaphor… eh… whatever. But I wonder if there is any basis to talking about “salt” that has “lost” or perhaps never had any flavor. The Romans considered salt a lot more valuable than we do today. Maybe there was a lot of inferior product going around, containing some cheaper mineral dust as filler.
Another gospel image that made no sense to me even as a child was a seed having to “die” before it grows. In context, it’s understandable that people had a limited understanding of biology and chemistry 2000 years ago, which is fine. The problem is when you start making excuses about it.
Talking of useless boxes ,anyone seen those ones where you flick a switch and an hand comes out
and switches it off again .
I think it is marketed as the most useless gift /thing ever .
@45 They sold that at Spencers Gifts in the 70s. Haven’t seen one in a long time. If it shut off Joel Osteen, you could argue it is not entirely useless.
@46 Wow ,didn’t know it was as old as that .I got a Redneck Car Horn from the gift shop at the foot of that big tower in Las Vegas .Also a small foul mouthed parrot .
Actually the one I remembered was the box that snatches a coin, but they’re related. At least dating back to the 60s in its current conception: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useless_machine
If we are talking about cubes, please let’s not forget this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Cube
a rather important example of that ilk, I venture to say…
@48 And at the risk of getting the Doc all hot and bothered ,isn’t there one where a spider comes out of the box ?