prompt_front: Now, answer the following question based on the text below, only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: What are the three phases of the author's preaching process?

Read the following text and answer briefly.

Context 1: // josh vajda // | a blog about theology and everything else
// josh vajda //
Sunday School Notes
Preaching Method
January 17, 2016 Josh Vajda	Leave a comment
I’m not a preacher; I’m a theologian  But now that I’ve graduated seminary I sometimes have the honor of preaching  And as someone who just barely passed the two required preaching courses while he was focused on other things, I’ve had to go back and really develop a theology and strategy of preaching  It should go without saying that it’s a work in progress, but I’m at a place now where I’m comfortable with my system—which means the next step is to share it  Maybe someone out there can benefit from what I’ve learned, but either way there’s always room for improvement and maybe you can help me see where 
Topic/Text Selection
The first and most obvious question is what to preach on  I was trained to be sensitive to what the congregation needs to hear, but not being a pastor I don’t have that kind of insight  I once heard John Piper say when he’s a guest preacher he preaches to himself that way he knows at least one person needed it  I like that better, but this early in my ministry I’ve taken to something a little less holy: what can I preach well?
This has really driven most of my sermons to-date, especially because I usually have only a few weeks’ notice  I preached on Ahab because I had just read about him in my devotions  I preached on the tree and its fruits because I had just studied the passage in the context of LGBT acceptance  Most recently, I preached on 1 Corinthians because that’s what we’ve been studying in Sunday School  The more I know something ahead of time, the better chance I have of knowing what to look for and how to communicate it 
Once I have my topic, I start running the passage through a system in the three phases we used in seminary: exegetical, theological, and homiletical 
Phase 1: Exegetical
The exegetical phase is just getting into the passage itself  First, I want to know the immediate context for the passage  Why is this here? What ideas are continuing, and which are new? How the author frames the passage is probably the most important factor in choosing how I will introduce it in the sermon  If it’s an epistle, I will also play with a structural outline to try and identify rhetorical choices 
Second, I want to try and surface issues in the Greek  I do a very rough translation, and if a word jumps out at me I take note  I’m looking for ambiguous meanings, untranslated concepts, repeated words, related words, etc  I don’t expect to come up with a better translation than the professionals; I just want to have some idea of why they made the choices they did and what might be getting lost in translation  (Note: I don’t talk about Greek and Hebrew words from the pulpit; I only explain the concepts because that’s what I expect people to remember )
Third, I take the list of questions I’ve been building and I start to do research  Who’s the referent in this verse? What does this metaphor mean? Is it used elsewhere? What’s the relationship between these two ideas? Does this command really imply that? My research is mostly based on Scripture alone, although there are times when I have to turn to historical background information to really get a reference  I see the Bible as one whole text even though it has many authors, and I’m very interested at drawing legitimate connections across books  I’ve also found Carson’s Exegetical Fallacies is a great help at avoiding common errors in biblical studies 
Phase 2: Theological
The boundary between exegesis and theology is thin and messy  I was given conflicting advice on this: some professors insisted I “bracket out” my theology, take nothing for granted; others insisted the only way to read it rightly is with Christian presuppositions 
I try to do both if I can 
Not all doctrines are equal  I refuse to bracket out core doctrines like the Trinity or salvation by grace alone through faith alone  But I feel very free to challenge other doctrines  My sense of how far to take which ideas is really very intuitive and not something that lends itself to explanation 
In short, the question raising and answering process is really the beginning of the theological phase for me  I’m looking for key ideas and trying to identify the timeless truths they communicate  Now there’s a danger here: you can use a passage to communicate all kinds of good theology  I think it’s much better when you can identify the theology the author was trying to communicate 
So one could hypothetically use Jesus’ tree/fruit analogy to talk about order in creation or a theology of arboreal imagery—and I might even do that in a teaching context  But preaching is a different task to me  I believe preaching is exhorting with the authoritative words of God  I’m not up there to educate  I’m there to press the points I believe God is pressing  If I teach anything else, it’s on my own authority  Hopefully it’s right  But if I’m going to say “thus saith the Lord,” I’d better be a sure as I can be that this is really His point; because again, not all doctrines are equal  So that’s why in this example I preached that the fruit of your life reveals the tree of your heart  I’m confident that was Jesus’ point, not mine 
Once I’m done with my exegetical studies, once I’ve done my best to figure everything out on my own—that’s when I turn to the commentaries  Just like with doing the translation, it’s not that I think I’m better than the experts; I do it because I know the text better when I wrestle with it myself  What’s more, as I wrestle with it I get a better sense of where others may have trouble, so I know to explain them more carefully or illustrate them more vividly  The only reason I even open the commentaries is for validation: did I miss anything or draw a wrong conclusion 
Phase 3: Homiletical
Throughout the whole process thus far, I’m keeping my eyes open for anything interesting, catchy, or eloquent  In some ways I’m having a conversation with the text and cross-references, and I note the parts of the conversation I like  If a crucial idea jumps out, I want to note it so I can craft a phrase around it  If an idea gets me really excited, I’ll jump out of my seat and pretend I’m preaching on it right then and there  Often those bursts of inspiration have gems worth polishing  Hopefully by the end of the exegetical process and the theological Q&A, I have a list of ideas and phrases to sprinkle in as I actually write the sermon 
One unfair advantage here is I took a course in copy writing, which is basically script for advertising  I especially liked what my professor called “fulcrum phrases,” like M&M’s famous “melts in your mouth / not in your hand ” It’s a skill I’ve tried to hone in my songwriting  If you can find that well-crafted phrase that has symmetry, it connects deeper and sticks better  I try to make sure I find at least one for every sermon  Here are some I’ve used:
It’s not yours to take; it’s God’s to give 
He who walks in humility walks in grace 
The fruit of your life reveals the tree of your heart 
You don’t have to hold on to anything for God to hold on to you 
So that’s my ideal, but I’m looking for anything at all that excites me, because if I’m excited about something there’s a good chance someone else will be, too 
Sermon Structure
At this point, I’m ready to start writing my sermon  I know what the text is about, why it exists, how it relates to the rest of Scripture, which parts are difficult to understand, and which parts are exciting  But before I can build content, I need a skeleton 
At Dallas Seminary I learned that a good introduction has the same essential parts, and I use the acronym INSTeP to remember them: image, need, subject, text, and preview  As someone with some creative writing background, I didn’t like this at first  But truth be told, a good sermon borrows from both storytelling and essay  The story draws you in, but the essay keeps you grounded  And just like a good essay, you need a thesis statement and its essential supports to help prepare people for what’s to come 
In my mind, the most important aspect of the introduction is the boring stuff: what’s the subject, what problem does it solve, where is our passage, and what are the main points  The image serves that  As a student I wanted to pick a great image that really stood out and captured people’s attention  But right now I’m in a place where all I care about is getting people interested in the need  If I have an image that raises the need, great; if not, I’ll try to explain my way to it  If you get through the introduction and people still don’t know what you’re talking about or why they should care, you’re about to fight an uphill battle 
The preaching style taught at Dallas and many other evangelical schools is sometimes called “Big Idea” preaching  The short version is that every sermon should have a well-crafted thesis statement  The way it’s taught, it’s everything; your exegesis is all about finding it, your homiletics are all about driving it home  In some cases the thesis becomes more important than the passage itself, which I think is going too far 
But I do think there should be one main idea tying everything together  It shouldn’t replace the passage, but it should drive the passage  As I go through my study process I’m making a list of possible thesis statements  If I haven’t found it by the end of the study process, I keep working toward it  There’s no point in writing the sermon until I have that unifying thought because I’m interested in every detail, every rabbit trail  I need that thesis to give my writing purpose, to tell me what to cut and what to emphasize 
Once I have the thesis, I try to take the existing structure of the passage and relate it back to that thesis  I know there are many different structures you can play with, but I find I do a better job of preaching the passage when I follow its structural cues  When I try to write a novel structure, I tend to make the passage just a series of illustrations for my own points; I’m sure better preachers are skilled at avoiding this problem 
Once I have the thesis and the structure, I write a draft of the whole sermon, weaving in those phrases I had stored up 
Somehow application seems to be the most contentious part of the sermon  Some preachers try to draw out every possible implication while others see application as purely the Holy Spirit’s job and provide nothing  While there are many possible applications, I try to find one that the text emphasizes more than the others and make that the whole deal  So while I really wanted to say something in my last sermon about how we should love unconditionally just as God does, that wasn’t Paul’s application  It’s true and we should do it, but Paul’s application trumps mine because it’s his passage  So I talked about boasting in the Lord 
Once I have my application, I take it in two directions—and I consider this my own secret sauce  I’m sure I’m not the first person to think of it, but I didn’t hear it anywhere else  My professor always told us “give them something to do!” In fact, he would say to give them something concrete to do that very day to maximize the chances that they will actually apply the sermon  I love it! It takes no time at all to forget a sermon 
But then I discovered there are some who take issue with this entire method of application, among them one of my favorite preachers, Tim Keller  For them, giving people something to do inspires legalism, and that endangers the Gospel  Instead they strive to show how Jesus already fulfilled the command of this passage, and the application is just to believe in Him, to adore Him, to marvel at Him  I love this, too! I absolutely believe that every passage properly understood relates to Christ in some way, and every application can be used to point to His perfect example and finished work 
So I try to do both  And here’s why: both are true  Christ has given us new life and yet we are called to live out a new life  The work is done in one sense, and yet we labor in another  So I always begin with showing how Christ has perfectly applied the passage and inviting people to believe in Him and rest in His finished work  Then because of what Christ has done, I call us to imitate Him by applying it ourselves 
At this point all I have to show for my labor is a rough draft  In order to make it presentable, I have a few more steps I go through, and these typically take me a week all by themselves  My goal is to make the sermon sound as natural and engaging as possible 
First, I read the sermon out loud and mark anything that doesn’t sound like me  Maybe I was copying someone’s tone, or more likely my tone was too formal or too informal for the moment  I also italicize the words I want to emphasize  It’s all about the sound 
Second, I memorize the sermon  (Yes, the whole thing ) This is what they trained us to do in seminary, and I thought it was overkill  Yes, you can get better eye contact, step away from the podium, I get that  But what I’ve discovered is that when I memorize my work it polishes the sermon like nothing else  If I can’t remember what I’m about to say, how can I expect the congregation to remember? Memorizing forces me to find the best words for the job 
It also helps me on a structural level, because if I can’t remember what I was about to say next, it shows that there’s a weak connection between the two points  In a compelling script, the next thing has to follow the last  Once you know why the two are married, you can go back and make it more obvious to the congregation 
As I memorize, I boil down the transcript into a preaching outline, which has just enough structure and content to cue me if my mind goes blank in the pulpit  It will have the necessary structural elements, markers for key phrases, and all condensed so that it fits on just a few pages on the platform  (One danger is if I don’t use it in practice, it’s less helpful on Sunday )
Third—and frankly this is the step I’m most likely to skip—I try to choreograph my movements  I believe good preaching is theater, but not in the sense that you’re dramatizing the text  Your whole body is communicating whether you want it to or not, so your gestures should be purposeful  Use the space to organize thoughts, repeat certain motions when you repeat the same thought, make sure you’re not sending mixed signals  Usually I run out of time before I get here, so I have plenty of room to grow in this area 
As I reflect on my process I realize that it’s uniquely tailored to me  My background as a writer, my love for theology, and my unique skills all lead me to emphasize different things  For someone with a different background and skill set this might be like trying on another man’s armor  How can you leverage who you are to preach better?
Of course, I didn’t do this from scratch; I was given a great model in seminary and have observed some great preachers thanks to modern technology  The key for me is molding this process to fit my unique mix of strengths and weaknesses, and that’s sure to be a never-ending project 
Annual Meeting in Review: ETS 2015
November 22, 2015 Josh Vajda	2 Comments
Last week I made my usual pilgrimage to the place where all the evangelical seminary geeks converge: the Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society  This year was the second time Atlanta has hosted since I began attending, and it was fun reliving early autumn just before the snow arrived back home 
Over the years I developed a strategy: make plans to attend nonstop papers, then throw out those plans when relational opportunities arise  This year the program was a bit light, but thankfully the people made up for what was lacking 
When reflecting on the meeting I was reminded of just how good last year’s meeting had been  This year had none of the same “aha!” moments, but I did enjoy many rich times of reflection after various papers 
As is my usual habit, I attended a number of friend’s papers (e g , Ford on Ignatius, Roeber on historiography, Svigel on the Didache)  But then I also stalked a few of the theologians I’ve come to admire in recent years: Al Mohler, Carl Trueman, and Anthony Bradley  Of course the problem there is that once you begin following someone you have the ever-increasing experience of anticipating what they are going to say on a given subject  This is especially true of Mohler, whose two podcasts have been my intellectual lifeline this year in times when babies and house projects and service commitments have prevented deeper study 
Analytic Theology
What came as an outright disappointment was the afternoon I spent in the Analytic Theology section  For those of you who don’t know, “analytic theology” is a recent movement to apply the tools of analytic philosophy to the questions of theology  I’ve been thrilled about this from the moment I heard of it, but what I saw really didn’t reflect what I think the movement is capable of  The thinking seemed lackluster and the questions unhelpful  Crisp and especially Rae were there asking insightful questions, but I think being overly kind to the presenters  I suppose you can’t be too inhospitable if you want guests to come back next year 
Avoiding the Marriage-and-Family Theme
The theme this year was “Marriage and Family” but it’s clear the real interest was continued discussion of how to deal with LGBT-related doctrines  In the past year I’ve read numerous books, taught two classes, and delivered a regional paper on the subject  That was enough for me  Maybe there were some missed opportunities here, but I’m ok with that 
Reflection on 2015
One of the things I’ve been forced to do each year—and rightly so, I think—is to reevaluate my purpose and progress in the intellectual community  This occupied much of my reflection in private, some with friends, and significant portions of the drive time from Michigan 
Here are a few conclusions I reached:
Even though I can’t justify a doctorate for my career, I am coming to the conviction that I can justify one for ministry  It may even be something I must do 
Even though I have the tools for self-study, I can accomplish much more with a cohort of like-minded individuals  I need to find a group of theologians I can run with or I will fall behind 
Even though I feel as though I’ve hardly studied this past year, (I recall reading only two theology books!), I’m reminded that I’ve still accomplished quite a bit with my LGBT studies, weekly Sunday School prep, church doctrinal formulations, and ministry strategizing  It’s different work, but I haven’t been as lazy as I feared 
Even though I have been working to be useful to our local church congregation and open to correction about my academic bent, the fact remains that right beliefs are a crucial part of our walk with Christ  Theology matters 
I used to journal incessantly, but have cut back quite a bit this year to focus on getting stuff done  All that to say the time was ripe for some reflection 
Lately I’ve referred to my calling as a “ministry of ideas ” As I chart a course for 2016, the question of what that ministry looks like looms large  The plans are still up in the air, but my time in Atlanta this year has been enormously helpful in the process 
See you next year in good old San Antonio, TX!
Sanctify Us with the Truth
July 9, 2015 Josh Vajda	Leave a comment
I’ve been a big fan of the Bible all my life  As a child I was amazed by the miracles God did  As I got older it was His character that captivated me  These days I’m intrigued by His wisdom  I want to know how He thinks, what He’s planning, how to make sense of His creation  The Bible is at the center of my relationship with God, and it always has been 
But the Bible isn’t God, and the Bible isn’t the whole of my relationship with God  So why is it that I always come back here? I believe that God reveals Himself in Creation and in the Church; I believe I have His Holy Spirit  So why does my relationship with Him keep coming back to a book?
One passage that gives us some clues is John 13–17—known as the Upper Room Discourse  It’s Jesus’ last teaching time with His disciples before He goes to the cross  It’s a time of transition 
Up until now, having a personal relationship with God was as easy as ever  You just spend time with Jesus—the Jewish guy  You want to talk to God? Just go find Jesus  You want an answer from God? Ask Jesus a question  You need divine intervention? Call Jesus for help 
In fact, not only is Jesus God in the flesh as the second person of the Trinity, but we see that He also manifests the Father and is indwelt by the Spirit  This goes beyond the perfect unity of the Trinity: all three persons are present in unique ways 
But in the Upper Room, Jesus is about to leave  He won’t be there to answer questions, to heal the sick, to right the wrong  And if He’s gone, so is the manifestation of the Father, and so is the Holy Spirit within Him 
So what does a personal relationship with God look like when God leaves the building?
First and most importantly, God hasn’t really left  Even though God incarnate has ascended into heaven, He did not leave us alone  The Holy Spirit is God’s special presence in this age 
“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him  You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you ” (John 14:16, 17 ESV)
The same Spirit that indwells Jesus will indwell His disciples, and if we skip ahead to Acts, we can see that this Spirit of Truth indwells all believers  He is described as a Helper—which should come as no surprise from the God who just washed His disciples’ feet  And at least one aspect of His ministry is to point back to Christ 
“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me ” (John 15:26 ESV)
But it’s not as though the Spirit is a consolation prize  Even though His ministry is all about Christ, Jesus seems to say the Spirit’s ministry will be better than His!—at least for the next phase of God’s plan 
“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you  But if I go, I will send him to you  And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged  I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come  He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you  All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you ” (John 16:7–15 ESV)
There’s a lot to unpack here, but first I just want you to notice: when we lost the Savior, we gained the Helper, and He’s exactly what we needed next  Even though Jesus fully paid for our sins, we need a Helper to teach us the perfect obedience that Jesus modeled, to realize the change that Jesus purchased for us 
Now we get a fuller picture of what the Spirit of Truth has come to do  To the unbelieving world, He is a source of conviction, confronting sinners with the reality of who Jesus really was and what He did  To believers, He is a source of wisdom and knowledge 
This is a ministry of words and truth  We usually call Him the Holy Spirit, which rightly emphasizes His character and the work that He does in our hearts, but He is also called the Spirit of Truth  He draws us back to the words Jesus spoke, which bear the Father’s authority 
The Sanctifying Word
These days we’ve become cautious about putting our trust in words or staking claim to truth  We’re allowed to have our own truth, and we’re expected to have our own interpretations  But to go beyond this is to invite conflict 
Some of us have also grown weary of knowledge because we’ve seen people devote themselves to a dead orthodoxy that devours truth and then does nothing with it  So we associate the Christian walk with a ministry of love and compassion and holiness—which it is—and try not to get too distracted by the rest 
But it’s clear that Jesus spent a good deal of time ministering in words and teaching truth, and that the Holy Spirit is also committed to a ministry of words and truth 
“Whoever does not love me does not keep my words  And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me  These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you  But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you ” (John 14:24–26 ESV)
When Jesus prays, He even emphasizes this before the Father:
“Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you  For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me ” (John 17:7, 8 ESV)
It’s a precious thing to have the words of God  They came from the Father, through the Son, and by the Spirit  These words have been compiled in Scripture—the Bible—and it’s not God’s leftovers  At the heart of the Trinity’s ministry is a message  When we put our faith in Christ, we confess and believe specific realities 
“I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world ” (John 17:14 ESV)
But this word is not some passive collection of propositions to be absorbed  Just as the Holy Spirit is also the Spirit of Truth, so the true words and message of Scripture are given to make us holy 
“Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth  As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world  And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth ” (John 17:17–19 ESV)
This truth has a purpose  God’s message—the words of the Father—they are to make us holy  They are to wash us and set us apart  We are to be purified by this message, and at the heart of these instructions is love 
“If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love  These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full  This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you ” (John 15:10–12 ESV)
God has not left us alone  We have the Holy Spirit of Truth, and we also have the words of the Father 
I think this must be what Jesus alluded to in John 4, when He told the Samaritan woman at the well about those who would worship in spirit and in truth  Jesus clearly leaves us here with His Spirit and His truth  These are the twin lights guiding us on our pilgrimage  These are the two ways God is present with us today  Even though He is not with us physically, He is with us personally, spiritually, and verbally 
Truth is good for its own sake, and sanctification is, too  But we must not forget that our relationship with God as Spirit and through the Word draws those two things together  We pursue truth in order to be sanctified  We are sanctified by the truth 
When we talk about how we relate to God, our first thought is often the Cross, and that’s not wrong  Without Jesus’ work on the Cross we could have no fellowship with God  But even though it is what made a relationship with God possible, our relationship with Him goes much deeper  God is specially present in the world today by His Holy Spirit, Who indwells each and every believer  And the words of the Father have come by the Son and the Spirit to us in the form of the Bible  It is the Holy Spirit of Truth together with the Holy Words of God that mark God’s presence in our lives  They are what guide us and sanctify us 
This is why we can’t get away from Scripture  This is why our relationship with God depends so much on our relationship with this book  Creation reveals God by what He has done, but it does not offer His words to us  The Church is united and empowered by the Spirit of God, but it cannot speak His words either  The Bible is how the Holy Spirit speaks to us; it is one of the means by which God has chosen to sanctify His people  Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God 
The Story of Death (2/15/15)
February 18, 2015 Josh Vajda	2 Comments
Intro: The Matter of Life and Death
Death as Punishment
Death and God
Chinks in Death’s Armor
For Now We Wait
Closing Thoughts: Ash Wednesday
Introduction: The Matter of Life and Death
A friend once told me that Christianity is a “culture of death ” This was of course a reversal of Pope John Paul II’s 1995 condemnation of the modern culture of death, which sees the weak as useless at best—a burden to be eliminated  He pointed to the crucifixion, the Old Testament sacrificial system, and the way we seem to look forward to death so that we can go to heaven 
In a strange sense my friend was right: Christianity has a lot to say about death, and sacrifice is central to our theology  Of course, in context Christianity is anything but a culture of death, but if we’re not careful we can definitely sound the way my friend described us  We sometimes get confused about the role death plays in God’s plan 
So today we examine what the Bible says about death and reconsider what role it plays in our lives 
It’s interesting: there’s a way in which you could read the Bible as a book about death  That’s obviously not all it talks about, but the “story arc” of death spans the entire book 
Let’s take a stroll, shall we?
The first mention of death is in the second chapter of the Bible: “in the day you eat of [the forbidden fruit] you will surely die” (Genesis 2:17)  This promise was the center of the debate between the woman and the serpent in Genesis 3, and they ate of the fruit  But they didn’t die  God was gracious not to put them to death physically, but there is a kind of spiritual death that took place then  Since the Fall, mankind has been unresponsive to God 
But make no mistake, physical death was coming  We know from Romans that death entered through Adam’s sin—it wasn’t part of the original created order  And as proof, we see in Adam’s genealogy the reign of death: each one dies  We read “and he died” over and over here  Romans 3:23 tells us “the wages of sin is death ” All sinned, so all die  Death had become a part of life 
But Genesis is just getting warmed up! Because next comes the Flood where—you guessed it—everybody dies  Then the Patriarchs die  Then the book ends with the death of Joseph  Who ends a book that way?!? This is not a happy ending 
But then there’s Exodus, where the Egyptians die, Leviticus where animals die, Numbers where unbelieving Israel dies, Joshua where the Canaanites die  Death is everywhere! It’s all over the Pentateuch 
Why would this be? Because death is the punishment for sin  All crimes against God are capital offenses  That doesn’t mean He immediately smites everyone the moment they sin—but technically speaking, He could  That would be just  And if it doesn’t feel just then maybe we don’t understand sin as well as we thought we did 
In Ezekiel, God tells us He gets no pleasure from the death of the wicked  Does this surprise you? He would much rather see the wicked turn from their ways—to repent and live  But those who will not get what they deserve 
Sometimes if we’re not careful this is a way that we distort God’s character, as though God somehow hungers for death and blood  God isn’t pleased by animal sacrifice, but He requires some recompense for sin  God didn’t send the Flood on a whim but because evil on the earth had become unbearable  If we take death out of the context of grace and patience and kindness, we get a very wrong view of God 
But because death is part of life in a fallen world, we sometimes get confused about our relationship with death on the one hand and God’s sovereignty on the other  The author of Ecclesiastes notes that people are just as dead as animals in the end  The wise man for all of his wisdom still ends up just as dead as the fool  The nice thing about being dead is you don’t have to live in fear of death anymore! It’s a bleak way to look at things, but not wrong  What’s the point of life if the only thing we can be sure of is death?
If this is getting depressing, good! Sin is serious business and so is death  Christianity has a lot to say about death because it takes sin seriously 
But there’s a whole lot left to be said 
It turns out contrary to popular belief, death can be undone  Yes, you heard me: the end might not really be the end after all  Elijah and Elisha are both able to raise the dead  Jesus raises the dead  Jesus’ disciples raise the dead  Of course, these were all temporary  But it’s a start!
God promises us that it gets better than this  In Isaiah 25, He promises to swallow up death forever  How is this possible?!? The wages of sin is death  A holy God can’t just get rid of death 
He’d have to get rid of sin somehow 
This is where everything gets turned on its head  This is that part in the movie where you fly through the black hole and end up in a different dimension, or where Alice jumps down the rabbit hole  God swallows up death by letting death swallow Him up  Jesus, being fully God, lives a perfectly sinless life—a life not meriting death—and dies on our behalf, paying for all the sin of the world 
Let that sink in for a moment: God dies  But the death of God becomes the death of sin, and the death of sin becomes the death of death  And death’s final defeat is announced through the resurrection of God back from the dead  The God of life is alive! And He offers eternal life to all 
As Tim Keller likes to put it, Jesus died the death we deserved so that we could live the life He deserved  Because Jesus submitted to death on our behalf, our relationship with death gets really complicated  It’s still the enemy  It’s still the wages of sin  It’s still not good  But every good thing—salvation, resurrection, eternal life, peace with God—these all came from one great death: the Crucifixion 
So now all death is bad, but that one death brought us everything good  We praise the God of life, but we celebrate His death  God took a horrible, terrible, rotten, no-good thing and redeemed it 
I suppose that shouldn’t surprise us either 
We may sometimes look like we’re rejoicing in death itself, but really we rejoice in that one death that God used to bring eternal life  Our problem isn’t that we sing about death too much—we probably don’t sing about it enough! But we have to keep it in the context of the bigger story  We can’t make any sense of the Crucifixion apart from the Fall, the Resurrection, and Return of Christ 
This is the theme we see in the Book of Acts: God raised Jesus from the dead  It’s all about resurrection now! We baptize in the likeness of His death—and resurrection  We take the bread and cup to remember His death—all the while waiting for His return 
In Romans, death takes on a whole new meaning: since our sins were buried with Christ, we are now alive to God and dead to sin  Spiritual death is over now  Death has become just a metaphor for our relationship with sin 
But make no mistake, death didn’t just die spiritually  We might think that because we still see death all around us  Christians still die  But at the very end of the Bible we see that when Christ returns, death will finally be thrown into the lake of fire and be no more  All the dead will come to life—but this time never to die again 
I can’t help but think of John Donne’s Holy Sonnet X: Death Be Not Proud:
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou thinkst thou dost overthrow
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow
And soonest our best men with thee do go
Rest of their bones and soul’s delivery 
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppies or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke  Why swellst thou then?
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die!
Today we sit knowing that we are no longer spiritually dead, and instead we are dead to sin  Christ has risen from the dead, but He has not yet returned  Physical death is still a reality  It’s still cruel  But it’s not the end 
I have another friend, a learned scholar who is emphatic about how much he hates death  He doesn’t want to die  Yet Paul almost seems to disagree  In Philippians he writes, “To live is Christ and to die is gain ” Is death gain? Is there something good about death—our deaths? Is my death-hating friend overreacting?
Insofar as my friend is only talking about death, he’s right  You can’t really hate death enough  And our hope is in the resurrection, when we get our new bodies and live with Christ forever  Paul’s not saying that death isn’t really so bad after all  He’s saying Christ means so much to him that he would even suffer death to be with Him  It’s not that death is lesser; it’s that Jesus is greater 
This is how we make sense of Paul’s taunt in 1 Corinthians 15, which talks at length about the resurrection: “Death is swallowed up in victory  O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” Ultimately he’s talking about the end of death when we are raised, but there’s a sense in which death’s sting is tempered by the sweetness of life with Jesus 
When we lose a loved one, it’s hard  If he or she is a believer, we’re comforted by the fact that even though they died they enjoy the sweetness of Christ’s presence  Don’t let anyone take that away from you  Just don’t forget: that’s not the end of the story  It gets better!
They won’t stay dead 
Who is this God who can even bring good out of death?
Today is Ash Wednesday  Many Christians will receive ash on their foreheads and be reminded, “You are dust, and to dust you will return ” Not a message we particularly like to hear  We often think of ourselves as souls who just happen to be in bodies, that our parts are interchangeable—maybe even expendable  But these words are the words God Himself spoke to Adam after the Fall  You are dust  A sobering thought  Our bodies are a part of us, and our reflection is a daily reminder that we’re not as strong as we think we are 
That’s not the whole truth about us, but it’s a part we can’t afford to forget  Considering our frailty and our mortality shouldn’t lead to despair; it should bring us to our knees before our Savior  We confess how much we need Him, and how grateful we are that we have Him  Recognizing our insufficiency is just one way we deepen our appreciation for all we have in Christ  We humble ourselves not to make Him greater but because He is greater! He has brought us forgiveness and eternal life, sent us His Spirit  If we were left to our own devices, we would have no hope  But because of His love, rich in mercy, we have this gift from God 
Bonus: Christ is Risen by Matt Maher
We Didn’t Stay Perfect (2/1/15)
February 2, 2015 Josh Vajda	Leave a comment
The Unfolding of the Fall
Fractured Relationships
Total Depravity—but not Extreme Depravity
Comparing Theories [new! not discussed in class]
So What Do We Do Until Then?
Bonus Thoughts
We all know the story of the Fall from Genesis 3  Perfect woman with perfect husband in perfect garden meets talking snake  He tempts her to disobey God and eat the forbidden fruit, then she hands some to her husband who does the same  God comes and gives them a spanking and sends them out of the garden 
Ok, so the details might be a little off… maybe even a little forgettable  But the story is familiar and the consequences tragic  We live in those consequences  So what does this story have to tell us about the world today and our lives in it?
You can learn a lot about sin and humanity by really chewing on the details here  Consider:
The serpent (we’re later told it’s also Satan) begins with questioning what God has said 
The question overgeneralizes and invites a conversation 
The woman adds to God’s commandment 
The serpent challenges God and offers a desirable half-truth 
The woman (although perfect) is tempted  That temptation draws her to inspect the fruit 
Looking at the fruit, the woman focused on the positive side of the equation 
She risked her life trusting the serpent over God, because eating the fruit should have meant certain death 
The man ate without any signs of a struggle 
Their eyes were open  Before they knew only the good; now they knew good and evil 
Their first response to sin is to cover up, which indicates fear and probably shame 
Their response to God (their creator whom they knew personally!) was to hide  Apparently they either didn’t know or forgot that God is everywhere and knows everything 
God asks the man a question for effect 
The man blames his wife and even seems to accuse God 
The woman blames the serpent and even seems to deflect by saying she was tricked 
At this point God punishes the serpent, the man, and the woman by cursing all creation  Work will be hard, childbearing will be painful  But there is hope in the promise of One to come who will crush the serpent 
I love how the Good News glimmers even in that first dark moment 
It’s so tempting to read more into the story because there are so many more details we wish we had  The gaps in the story invite our imaginations to jump in, but we need to be careful not to put words in God’s mouth 
One theme we see in the Fall is one broken relationship after another  We noted last week how we were created to need one another and how that’s a good thing  But after the Fall we see husband and wife blaming each other  Worse yet, we see them hiding from God  After creation is cursed there’s really nothing left: man’s relationships with God, with others, with creation, and even with himself are all broken  And so our need for each other grows even greater, but our incapacity to find what we need and be who we need to be for others makes meeting this need impossible 
But let’s be honest here: the biggest problem is this broken relationship with God  He is their Creator and Sustainer  He knows them personally, guides them, and has given them all they need  What’s more, He’s perfectly good  This fall into sin was an act of rebellion against a God who had been nothing but loving and giving  Everything depends on Him 
Is it any wonder He warned them they would die?
Now the astute reader will note they didn’t drop dead  Does this mean the serpent was right? Not hardly! This broken relationship with God is sometimes thought of a “spiritual death,” a state of unresponsiveness to God  I’m generally fine with this idea—after all, they certainly became separated from God! What else could you call a state apart from the God of life? Death makes sense 
But we know that this is where physical death enters the picture  Mankind wasn’t supposed to die  YOU right now reading this: you were never supposed to die  Now we tend to say death is a part of life  It wasn’t supposed to be that way  Death was never a part of life  Death is a reality we have to live with, but it’s not good 
So I think spiritual death metaphorically happened, but physical death literally happened  And the only reason they walked out of that garden alive has to have been God’s grace and mercy 
Another observation we can make is that Adam and Eve weren’t immediately as bad as they could have been  This is sometimes what we think when we talk about “total depravity ” If you want a really bleak picture you have to turn ahead a few pages to the state of the world before the Flood  It took a long time to get there 
No, extreme depravity wasn’t the result of the Fall, but total depravity still is  Total depravity is the doctrine that says sin bent every part of man  Sin pollutes man’s reason, man’s emotions, man’s willpower, man’s desires, man’s imagination, man’s memories, man’s senses, man’s body, and even man’s conscience  Nothing is safe  Nothing is pure 
And this is intimately wrapped up in the image of God  Remember that man was made in God’s image, unique among all creation  But sin now pollutes that image  It’s still present—we still can’t help but “image” our Creator when we act rationally, make wise decisions, love others selflessly, and so on  Instead the image is defaced but not erased  What should normally reflect God’s character instead reflects a mixture of good and evil 
Comparing Theories
Now if we take a step back, we all recognize that we live in a broken world  Very few people would argue that everything is perfect, that sin, suffering, and death somehow don’t exist or aren’t really bad  We (generally) all agree that there’s a problem  But there’s little agreement about why it is the way it is 
People who don’t believe in a literal Adam and Even tanking the human race are generally stuck  For example, if you only believe in the natural world, evil is just a part of nature  Death is a part of life  Suffering is a biochemical response to destructive conditions  And if you’re just one organism out of millions competing for resources, all you can really say is that you don’t like these things  They are distasteful  Maybe you’re hard-wired to show empathy with others because of some evolutionary imperative, but objectively speaking what can you say?
Well, you can say lots I suppose, but you can’t be consistent without ending up a nihilist 
Other religions have the same problem: either evil belongs as some part of the bigger cosmic plan or it’s an illusion  Either way, it’s hard to take evil seriously  Either it belongs in some way, or it doesn’t exist at all  Either way it’s hard to justify our natural reactions to injustice, suffering, and death 
But let’s forget about consistency and get to work: what problems can we name and how do we fix them?
If the problem is society, the cure is social change 
If the problem is pride, the cure is humility 
If the problem is bad decisions, the cure is right decisions 
If the problem is lack of love, the cure is love 
If the problem is a broken relationship, the cure is forgiveness 
If the problem is rebellion, the cure is submission 
If the problem is demons, the cure is their destruction 
If the problem is illusion, the cure is truth 
If the problem is original sin, the cure is death of the old self 
If the problem is doubt, the cure is faith 
If the problem is in every part of us, the cure is a new creation 
If the problem is death, the cure is eternal life 
Of course this just scratches the surface  But what I want you to notice is that for all of these problems, Christianity offers the solution  And for all of these problems, the solution is the same: that one seed of woman that God promised, the One to come that would crush the serpent  His name is Jesus 
Some of these things were addressed in His first coming, when He died on the cross for our sins and rose to life to offer us eternal life  But the work isn’t done yet  He’s coming back to finish the work, to make all things new  Think about that  We’ll explain further another time 
As a wise poet named Tom once wrote, the waiting is the hardest part  If we as Christians are a new creation (we are), have eternal life (we do), are filled with the Holy Spirit (yup), and are no longer slaves to sin (seriously!), then why is the world still messed up? And more to the point, why are WE still messed up?
Frankly, we still suffer the effects of sin in all our faculties  Our wills have been freed from slavery, but they’re still polluted  We won’t be fully free from the effects of sin until Jesus comes back 
So we’re no longer slaves, but we’re still polluted and live in a polluted world  We have the Holy Spirit, but we still choose to disobey  In theory you should be able to live a perfect life after you’re saved, but because we’ve already been marked by sin in our lives and live in an imperfect world, we will never be perfect under our own power 
What do we do then? Give up? Of course not! We beat our bodies into submission  We learn right and wrong from Scripture, and we challenge our motives day to day 
But if we want to go the extra mile, we can’t do it alone 
There will be times you trick yourself into thinking you’re doing what’s right  There will be times you misread Scripture and misunderstand what God expects  And to guard against those times you need to surround yourself with fellow believers  You need people who know you, who know the Word, and who are committed to following Jesus with you  They can provide that outside check to make sure sin isn’t getting the best of you 
Because let’s face it: some days it’s hard to tell the difference between the Holy Spirit’s promptings and our own desires  Nothing can do better to counter that than other Spirit-filled people who bring a different perspective 
We ended up talking a lot about sanctification today, but that’s because it’s how we cope with the effects of the Fall in our lives  I don’t ever want to teach about sin and suffering and death without also pointing to the hope we have in Christ! The sin we as Christians struggle with is our bad choices day to day  If you’re saved, all you can do is persevere in what’s right and help others to do the same  We’ll say more about suffering and death another time 
My challenge to you is this: who do you have in your life who can give you that outside angle to your struggles and decisions? Where can you go to make sure you’re on the right path? If you’re not sure, start looking!
We need each other more than ever 
Isn’t it interesting how hard it is to remember the details of a story we’ve heard dozens of times? Our memories aren’t perfect  It sure helps having other people to lean on…
Historically speaking, the discussion of the effects of the Fall gets really fun with Augustine and Pelagius  In a nutshell, Augustine argued that we are always in need of God’s grace, but Pelagius believed we didn’t suffer from original sin and could become perfect if we try hard enough 
Regarding different relationships with sin, Augustine put it this way: God is not able to sin, Adam was created able not to sin, the Fall left us not able not to sin, and those in Christ are back where created Adam was: able not to sin 
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手柄状态指示灯 熄灭：已连接或者关机 蓝灯常亮：固件升级模式 蓝灯闪烁：连接中 红蓝灯交替慢速闪烁：等待配对 ① ② 摇杆 菜单键 ③ Home 键 开机 : 短按关机 : 长按 6 秒退出应用 : 短按屏幕中心校正 : 长按 1 秒④ ⑤ ⑥ ⑦ 状态指示灯 抓握键 截屏键 扳机键 ⑧ ⑨ 电池盒 打开：拨动拨钮，电池盒弹出 安装：按压直至自动锁紧 追踪光环 使用时请勿遮挡 注：手柄挂绳可按图示将粗绳穿过细绳并锁紧在手柄尾端 07 CN
手柄硬件复位 如果手柄出现按 Home 键和任何按键均无反应或者头盔中虚拟手柄卡死不动的问题可拆装电池重新启动手柄。 近视用户配戴 本设备不具备近视调节功能，头盔可支持佩戴镜框宽度小于 150mm 的大多数标准眼镜。 操作说明 头控模式 未连接手柄的情况下，您可通过转动头部光标及点击头盔音量加减按键进行操作。 切换主控手柄射线 在主控菜单下，短按对应手柄的扳机键可以切换主控手柄的射线。 屏幕中心校正 戴着头盔直视前方，按住手柄 Home 键（或头控模式下头盔上的音量减键）1 秒以上，进行屏幕中心的校正将菜 单拉到当前视野朝向位置。 断开手柄 长按手柄 Home 键直至手柄状态指示灯红灯亮起并伴随振动产生时即可松手，此时手柄关机并断开与头盔的连接。 您无需刻意进行手柄关机操作，在以下状态下手柄会自动关机省电： •头盔进入深度休眠时（摘下头盔后一段时间） •头盔手柄管理界面解绑手柄时 •头盔关机时 添加新手柄 如需添加新手柄（头盔最多可同时连接一对手柄，即左右手柄各一只），或解绑手柄后再次连接 , 可进入“设置” “手 柄”，点击“配对”，同时按住手柄 Home 键和扳机键直至手柄状态指示灯红蓝交替闪烁时即可松开，然后根据 头盔画面提示操作。 ► 休眠 / 唤醒 方式一：摘下头盔一段时间后，系统自动休眠；戴上头盔时，系统自动唤醒。 方式二：短按头盔电源键也可以进行休眠或唤醒操作。 硬件复位 头盔硬件复位 如果头盔出现短按头盔电源键没有反应或头盔的画面卡死等问题，可以长按头盔电源键 10 秒以上重新启动头盔。 08 CN
安装眼镜支架 安装遮光鼻托 如您存在眼镜摩擦光学镜片或者压迫鼻梁的问题，请按照图示安装眼镜支架以增加间隔空间。 您可根据佩戴的舒适度选择是否安装。 如您感觉鼻子处漏光影响体验，请按照图示安装遮光鼻托配件。 由于眼睛空间密闭可能加剧起雾及出汗问题，您可根据喜好选择是否安装。 ❶ 摘下贴脸泡棉 ❷ 将眼镜支架按照图示安装在产品上 ❸ 将贴脸泡棉按照图示安装眼镜支架上 ❶ 摘下贴脸泡棉 ❸ 安装贴脸泡棉❷ 将遮光鼻托按照图示方式安装在贴脸泡棉上 注：按照图示拆卸眼镜支架 09 CN
更换贴脸泡棉 贴脸泡棉多次清洁和长时间使用后会变色和质地变软，您可酌情更换新泡棉。 更换顶绑带 摘下贴脸泡棉 ❸ 安装贴脸泡棉 按照图示捏住顶绑带金属扣，往下压到底然后抽出 ❷ •购买优质热门应用 •畅 聊 社 区， 与 众 多 PICO 玩 家 一起探索 VR 世界 •管理设备更便捷 •参与丰富互动活动 •更多精彩内容等你来发现 ❶ 微 信公 众 号：PICO VR抖音：PICO官 方 旗 舰 店哔 哩 哔 哩：PICO-VR官 方微 博：PICO-VR ❶ ❷ 10 CN
In The Box: VR Headset / 2 Controllers / 4 1 5V AA Alkaline Batteries / Glasses Spacer / Nose Pad / 2 Controller Lan- yards / USB-C Power Adapter / USB-C to C 2 0 Data Cable / Quick Guide / User Guide / Safety and WarrantyGuide Important Health & Safety Notes • This product is designed and intended to be used in an open and safe indoor area, free of anytripping or slipping hazards  To avoid accidents, remain conscious to the potential confines ofyour physical area and respect the boundary of your virtual area whenever you see it  Be sure towear the lanyards when using the Controllers  Make sure that there is enough space around yourhead and body (at least 2 meters by 2 meters) to stretch your arms to avoid damage or injury toyourself, others, and your surroundings  • This product is not recommended for children aged 12 and under  It is recommended to keep headsets,controllers and accessories out of the reach of children  Teenagers aged 13 and over must use it underadult supervision to avoid accidents  • This product is designed to accommodate most prescription glasses  Make sure to wear the VR Headsetin a manner in which the VR Headset lenses do not rub or impair your prescription lenses  • Prolonged use may cause dizziness or eye fatigue  It is recommended to take a break every 30 minutes Try relieving your eyestrain by looking at distant objects  If you feel any discomfort, stop using the prod- uct immediately  If the discomfort persists, seek medical advice • Do not expose the optical lenses to direct sunlight or other strong light sources  Exposure to directsunlight may cause permanent yellow spot damage on the screen  Screen damage caused by sunlightexposure or other strong sources of light is not covered by the warranty  • This product supports interpupillary distance (IPD) adjustment in system settings  When adjusting,please be aware that with the minimum IPD, it may touch the bridge of the nose  You can adjust the IPDaccording to your actual interpupillary distance in "Settings"►"Display"  Please note that using inap- propriate IPD may increase the risk of discomfort  • This product has an “Eye Protection Mode”, certified by TÜV Rheinland (Germany), which can protectyour eyes by reducing blue light in the three color channels using software algorithms  The screen ap- pears yellowish in this mode and you can turn this feature on/off in "Settings"►"Display"►"Color"►“- Eye Protection”  • Protect optical lenses during use and storage to prevent damage, such as scratches or exposure tostrong light or direct sunlight  * Product and packaging are updated regularly, and the functions and contents of the standalone headset may be upgraded in the future Therefore, the content, appearance and functionality listed in this manual and product packaging are subject to change and may notreflect the final product  These instructions are for reference only  * Carefully read this user guide before using the product and share this information with any other users, as it contains important safetyinformation  Keep the user guide as reference for the future  11 EN
6 Degrees of Freedom VR The device can track your translational and rotational movements in all directions (up/down, left/right,forward/backward, pitch, roll, and yaw)  Your movements in the real world will be captured and translatedto what you see in the virtual world when using the appropriate content  Ensure a safe environment before you start your VR experience  1  Clear a safe indoor area of at least 2 meters by 2 meters  Keep the room bright, avoid spaces with main- ly single-colored walls, glass, mirrors, moving pictures or other similar objects  2  Remove the protective film that covers the headset front cameras  Wear the lanyards connected to theControllers  3  Set up your environment by following instructions on the VR Headset screen  Install Batteries ❶Pull the tab to remove the insulating paper  Quick Guide 2 m 2m This product can not guarantee your safety with guardian system, you will need to always pay attention to the surrounding safety  * Note: 1 5V AA alkaline batteries should be used Slide the toggle according to arrow direction toopen the battery case  12 EN
Power on the Controller ❷ First Start: The Controller will start automaticallyafter removing the insulating paper  Others: Short press the Home button for 1second until the status indicator flashes blue Power on the VR Headset ❸ Long press the Power button for 2 seconds untilthe status indicator turns blue Wear Your Headset for a Comfortable Fit and View ❹ Adjust the strap dial to turn the strap so that the back of your head rests on the padding  Fine-tune thelength and position of the strap to give a clear view  * Note: You can use this product with prescription glasses or lenses insert  13 EN
Fine-tune the Top Strap ❺ Fine-tune the head strap to reduce pressure on the forehead  Interpupillary Distance (IPD) Adjustment ❻ In System Setting, go to “Setting” ► “Display” to adjust IPD, tap “+” or “-” button to slightly adjust IPDuntil the picture is clear  14 64mm Please note that inappropriate IPD setting may cause ghosting or eyestrain Accurate IPD setting helps you get a clear imaging and ease eyestrain  EN
Product Details VR Headset Status Indicator Legend Blue: Powered on with battery over 20% Yellow: Charging: Battery is less than 98% Red: Charging: Battery is less than 20% Green: Charging: Battery is more than 98% or charge complete Blue flashing: Shutting down Red flashing: Battery is less than 20% Off: Sleeping or Powered off Power Power on: Long press for 2 seconds Power off: Long press for 5 seconds Hardware reset: Long press for 10 seconds Short press to enter sleep or wake up Status Indicator Face Cushion Volume ① ② ③ ④ ⑤ ⑥ ⑦ ⑧ RGB See Through Camera Do not block during use  Top Strap Removable Strap Dial Tracking Cameras Do not block during use  ⑨ ⑩ ⑪ USB-C Interface Left/Right Speaker Proximity Sensor The system wakes upwhen the VR headset isput on, sleeps when VRheadset is taken off  ⑫ ⑬ Eye Tracking Cameras Pro version only  Do not block during use  Face Tracking Camera Pro version only  Do not block during use  15 EN
Controller Status Indicator Legend Off: Connected or Powered off Blue: Firmware updating in progress Blue flashing: Searching for connection Red and blue flashing alternately: Pairing in progress 16 Joystick Menu ③ ① ② Home Power on: Short pressPower off: Long press for 6 secondsReturn home screen: Short pressScreen recentering: Press for 1 secondStatus Indicator Grip Capture Trigger ④ ⑤ ⑥ ⑦ ⑧ ⑨ Battery Case Open: Slide down the toggle andpop up the battery case  Lock: Push the battery case to lock  Tracking Ring Do not block during use  * Note: Pass the Controller Lanyardthrough the string as shown andlock at the end of the Controller EN
Operating Instructions Headset Control Mode If the Controller is not connected, you can interact with the home screen by moving your head to directthe crosshairs over your intended selection and clicking the Volume Up/Down button on the VR Headset  Switch the pointer of the master Controller In the home screen, short press the Trigger of the corresponding Controller to switch the pointer of themaster Controller  Screen re-centering Wear the VR Headset and look straight ahead, press and hold the Home button of the Controller or VRHeadset ( or the Volume Down button of the VR Headset in head control mode) for more than 1 second tore-center the screen  Disconnect the Controller Press and hold the Home button until the status indicator turns red and the Controller vibrates Controllers will automatically shut down to save power in the following cases:When the VR Headset enters deep sleep (a while after the VR Headset is taken off)When the Controller is unpairedWhen the VR Headset is powered off Add a new Controller If you need to add a new Controller (the VR Headset can only connect one left Controller and one rightController) or reconnect with an unpaired Controller  Go to “Settings” ► “Controller”, click on “Pair” Press and hold the Home button and the Trigger of the Controller at the same time until the red and bluelights of the Controller flashing alternately, and then follow the instructions on the VR Headset screen  Sleep / Wake up Option 1 (Proximity Sensor) Take off VR Headset for automatic sleeping: wear the VR Headset for automat- ic waking up  Option 2 (POWER Button) Press the Power button of the VR Headset for manual sleeping or waking up  Hardware reset VR Headset reset If the visual in the VR Headset freezes, or the VR Headset does not respond after short press the Powerbutton, you can press the Power button of the VR Headset for more than 10 seconds to reboot the VRHeadset  Controller reset If the virtual Controller, the Home button or any buttons of the Controller doesn\'t respond, remove andreinstall the battery case to restart the Controller  The VR Headset Adjustment This device has no myopia adjustment function  The VR Headset allows wearing most standard glasseswith a frame width of less than 150mm  to install Glasses Spacer to increase the space  You can install or not according to your situation  17 EN
Install Glasses Spacer Install Nose Pad If you have glasses collision with headset lens or pressure on the bridge of nose, please follow the pictureto install Glasses Spacer to increase the space  You can install or not according to your situation  If you feel light leaking from your nose, please follow the picture to install Nose Pad to block the light You can consider having it installed at your own discretion  Disassemble the Face Cushion  Install the Glasses Spacer on the Headset  ❸ ❶ ❷ Install the Face Cushion on the Glasses Spacer  Disassemble the Face Cushion  Install the Nose Pad on the Face Cushion  ❶ ❷ Install the Face Cushion on the Headset  ❸ * Note: Disassemble the Glasses Spacer 18 EN
Replace Face Cushion The Face Cushion will have the following phenomena such as color change, surface fluff, soft texture afterlong-term use and repeated cleaning  You can replace a new Face Cushion as needed  Replace Top Strap ❶ ❷ Disassemble the Face Cushion  Pinch the metal buckle of the top strap asshown, press it down and pull it out Install the Face Cushion on  ❸ ❷ ❶ • Purchase high-quality and trending apps • Join PICO Community and explore the VR worldwith other PICO players• Manage your device with ease • Engage in diverse and interactive activities • More exciting features waiting for you 19 EN
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Context 3: The future of mobile CPUs, part 1: Today’s fork in the road | Ars Technica
2013 may be a big year for the evolution of smartphones and tablets 
Mobile computing's rise from niche market to the mainstream is among the most significant technological trends in our lifetimes  And to a large extent, it's been driven by the bounty of Moore’s Law—the rule that transistor density doubles every 24 months  Initially, most mobile devices relied on highly specialized hardware to meet stringent power and size budgets  But with so many transistors available, devices inevitably grew general-purpose capabilities  Most likely, that wasn't even the real motivation  The initial desire was probably to reduce costs by creating a more flexible software ecosystem with better re-use and faster time to market  As such, the first smartphones were very much a novelty, and it took many years before the world realized the potential of such devices  Apple played a major role by creating innovative smartphones that consumers craved and quickly adopted 
To some extent, this is where we still stand today  Smartphones are still (relatively) expensive and primarily interesting to the developed world  But over the next 10 years, this too will change  As Moore’s Law rolls on, the cost of a low-end smartphone will decline  At some point, the incremental cost will be quite minimal and many feature phones of today will be supplanted by smartphones  A $650 unsubsidized phone is well beyond the reach of most of the world compared to a $20 feature phone, but a $30 to $40 smartphone would naturally be very popular 
In this grand progression, 2013 will certainly be a significant milestone for mobile devices, smartphones and beyond  It's likely to be the first year in which tablets out-ship notebooks in the US  And in the coming years, this will lead to a confluence of high-end tablets and ultra-mobile notebooks as the world figures out how these devices co-exist, blend, hybridize, and/or merge 
Against this backdrop, in this two-part series, we'll explore the major trends and evolution for mobile SoCs  More importantly, we'll look to where the major vendors are likely going in the next several years 
Tablet and phone divergence
While phones and tablets are mobile devices that often share a great deal of software, it's becoming increasingly clear the two are very different products  These two markets have started to diverge and will continue doing so over time 
From a technical perspective, smartphones are far more compact and power constrained  Smartphone SoCs are limited to around 1W, both by batteries and by thermal dissipation  The raison d’etre of a smartphone is connectivity, so a cellular modem is an absolute necessity  For the cost sensitive-models that make up the vast majority of the market, the modem is integrated into the SoC itself  High-end designs favor discrete modems with a greater power budget instead  The main smartphone OSes today are iOS and Android, though Windows is beginning to make an appearance (perhaps with Linux or BlackBerry on the horizon)  Just as importantly, phone vendors like HTC must pass government certification and win the approval of carriers  There is very much a walled-garden aspect, where carriers control which devices can be attached to their networks, and in some cases devices can only be sold through a certain carrier  The business model places consumers quite far removed from the actual hardware 
In contrast, tablets are far more akin to the PC both technically and economically  The power budget for tablet SoCs is much greater, up to 4W for a passively cooled device and as high as 7-8W for systems with fans  This alone means there is a much wider range of tablet designs than smartphones  Moreover, the default connectivity for tablets is Wi-Fi rather than a cellular modem  The vast majority of tablets do not have cellular modems, and even fewer customers actually purchase a wireless data plan  As a result, cellular modems are almost always optional discrete components of the platform  The software ecosystem is relatively similar, with Microsoft, Apple, and Google OSes available  Because tablets eschew cellular modems, the time to market is faster, and they are much more commonly sold directly to consumers rather than through carriers  In terms of usage models, tablets are much more PC-like, with reasonable-sized screens that make games and media more attractive 
Looking forward, these distinctions will likely become more pronounced  Many tablets today use high-end smartphone SoCs, but the difference in power targets and expected performance is quite large  As the markets grow in volume, SoCs will inevitably bifurcate to focus on one market or the other  Even today, Apple is doing so, with the A6 for phones and the larger A6X for tablets  Other vendors may need to wait a few years to have the requisite volume, but eventually the two markets will be clearly separate 
Horizontal business model evolution
Another aspect of the mobile device market that is currently in flux and likely to change in the coming years is the business model for the chip and system vendors  Currently, Apple is the only company truly pursuing a vertically integrated model, where all phones and tablets are based on Apple’s own SoC designs and iOS  The tight integration between hardware and software has been a huge boon for Apple, and it has yielded superb products 
Samsung is one of the few others companies that takes a vertically integrated approach to phones and tablets, although in truth its strategy seems to be ambivalent on that point  Unlike Apple, Samsung’s SoCs are readily available to third parties, and some Samsung devices, such as the S7562 Galaxy S Duos, use SoCs from competitors  More recently though, there has been a trend of Samsung devices using Samsung SoCs, at least for the premier products  For the moment, Samsung’s approach is best characterized as a hybrid, particularly as the company lacks a bespoke OS 
The rest of the major SoC vendors (e g , Intel, Qualcomm, Nvidia, TI, Mediatek, etc ) have stayed pretty far away from actual mobile devices  These companies tend to focus on horizontal business models that avoid competing with customers or suppliers 
In the long term, mobile devices are likely to evolve similarly to the PC and favor a horizontal business model  The real advantage is one of flexibility; as costs drop and the market expands, it will be increasingly necessary for vendors like HTC to offer a wide range of phones based on radically different SoCs  While a vertically integrated company like Apple can focus and maintain leadership in a specific (and highly lucrative) niche, it would be very difficult to expand in many growing areas of the market  The differences between an iPhone 6 and a $20 feature phone are tremendous and would be very difficult for a single company to bridge 
However, SoC vendors will attempt to reap the benefits of vertical integration by providing complete reference platforms to OEMs  Conceptually, this is a form of "optional" system integration, where the phone vendor or carrier can get the entire platform from the SoC supplier  This has the principal advantages of reducing time to market while also providing a baseline quality and experience for consumers  Currently, this approach has mostly been tested in emerging markets, but it's likely to become more common over time  There is a crucial distinction between reference platforms and vertical integration  Namely, OEMs can always choose to customize a platform to differentiate, and the SoC vendor avoids dealing with consumers directly  Typically, most of the customization is in terms of software on top of a base operating system 
Quote:Moreover, that will make the transition to a 10nm node even more difficult, as the foundries will have to move from 20nm interconnects to 10nm interconnects and skip a generation The advances in technology lately allowing components on such a small scale to even be envisioned, much less planned for, are truly amazing 
Off topic: show
I present the first generation 'non-technical' rock:
I don't think your horizontal market development theory is supported by facts  Samsung and Apple are more vertically oriented than their competition, for starters  I know this article is narrowly focused on the hardware, but MS and Intel getting into hardware, Amazon getting into hardware, Google buying Moto, this is all vertical integration  How can you support the idea that this trend will be reversed with no real justification? I'm sure mobile chips will continue to specialize, but I don't think this means what you think it means  Automobile companies started making their own engines and with rare exceptions, never went back to being more horizontal  Same with retail and their store brands  Same with cloud companies and their servers  Same with mobile companies and their OSs  The horizontal market of PCs created by long-lasting standards and loose hegemony is the exception, not the norm 
Why wouldn't the foundries be able close the process gap with Intel? Is it a matter of money? Scale?
I'm not so sure about several things:1- Moore's law's relevance  Moore's Law is about ICs  ICs are not as big a part of mobile computers as they are of desktops, even of laptops: screens, batteries, radios are a huge part of tablets' and phones' costs, as opposed to the bare SoC + RAM 2- The tablet vs phone dichotomy  For some reason (probably price insensitivity due to subsidies), Phones have a tendency to be more powerful than Tablets, ie phone SoCs are more than good enough for tablets  Since the OS and peripherals are the same, it makes more sense to design and build just one type of SoC, and just disable the phone-modem part of it (even the other radios are still required: BT, Wifi, GPS   ), same as Intel disable cache and cores for their entry-level CPUs  Once you're fabbing a SoC, it makes more sense to make more of the same than to setup a separate run of a cut-down SoC on an older process, unless volumes are huge  We might still be getting previous-generation, well amortized SoCs in cheaper tablets, though 3- On the contrary, I see a tablet and phone convergence (the ugly phablet)  I'm patiently waiting for the new 6"+ phones to replace my Nook Color and Galaxy Note 1 with a single device 4- The advantage of diversity ? Software is becoming ever more important than hardware  Multiplying SoCs means multiplying product development costs, making support and updates more difficult    Again, unless volumes are huge, OEMs are probaly better off going the way of the car industry and using modular "platforms" housed in different chassis with various screen sizes, keyboards, radios, digitizers   I'm wondering why the "single device" trend does not figure in your analysis  Is it stillborn ? Does it have no impact nor dependency on/with SoCs ?
Samsung has its own bespoke OS: Bada and it is used on an extensive line of devices  I think there are numbers somewhere that it outsold Windows Phone 7 for a time 
gypsumfantastic wrote:Why wouldn't the foundries be able close the process gap with Intel? Is it a matter of money? Scale?First mover advantage 
SoC? System on a Chip I guess?
You're way off on the Moore's Law/cost of smartphones point  The processors used in today's high-end smartphones are already cheap, around $25  And there are less expensive options if you want a lower end product  In fact, the hardware in the whole smartphone is relatively cheap  Analyst's estimate the Z10's materials cost around $160, the iPhone 5 around $140  They're using expensive glass and metals, then there's the battery, memory, etc  which means the processor is a small factor of the cost And then there's the jump from $140 in materials to the unsubsidized costs  The reason these phones cost $650 is because of the high margins these companies are able to get and the high cost of hardware design and/or software development  But the point is that making the processors 4 times better/cheaper isn't going to change the economics of the smartphone  What will change the economics is commoditized designs and software and cheaper materials all around  Then you'll have a $50 smartphone that's decent 
Last edited by ggeezz on Wed Feb 13, 2013 9:17 am
bigterp wrote:SoC? System on a Chip I guess?Yup 
gypsumfantastic wrote:Why wouldn't the foundries be able close the process gap with Intel? Is it a matter of money? Scale?Money and momentum, the x86 market is a huge money maker for Intel so it is able to recoup its huge investments for advanced foundries 
Quote:Currently, the only products using 3D integration are FPGAs from Xilinx,Doesn't Sony use it in the PS Vita? I thought I read somewhere that they had the CPU, main memory (2 dies) and video memory, so 4 dies in total, sitting on top of each other all on the same chip 
renoX wrote:gypsumfantastic wrote:Why wouldn't the foundries be able close the process gap with Intel? Is it a matter of money? Scale?Money and momentum, the x86 market is a huge money maker for Intel so it is able to recoup its huge investments for advanced foundries Exactly and I would clarify that it's all about margins, the difference between what it costs to make a chip and what it sells for  The margins for desktop and server processors is huge because a) the whole product is expensive so $200 to $1000 for the chip is acceptable, and b) Intel has huge advantages in that space and little competition So Intel can afford to do the R&D to stay ahead of the curve and keep their position  When your smartphone chip sells for $25 you can't do the R&D to leapfrog a company that sells Xeons for $1000 and Core i5's for $200 
I am happy to see Kanter here at Ars, I like his writing and he maintains Real World Tech, where Linus Torvalds often shows up to comment on CPU arch and other interesting topics 
ggeezz wrote:renoX wrote:gypsumfantastic wrote:Why wouldn't the foundries be able close the process gap with Intel? Is it a matter of money? Scale?Money and momentum, the x86 market is a huge money maker for Intel so it is able to recoup its huge investments for advanced foundries Exactly and I would clarify that it's all about margins, the difference between what it costs to make a chip and what it sells for  The margins for desktop and server processors is huge because a) the whole product is expensive so $200 to $1000 for the chip is acceptable, and b) Intel has huge advantages in that space and little competition So Intel can afford to do the R&D to stay ahead of the curve and keep their position  When your smartphone chip sells for $25 you can't do the R&D to leapfrog a company that sells Xeons for $1000 and Core i5's for $200 Spot on Intel are able to piggyback other development efforts off the highly lucrative mainstream x86 market which generates the huge sums of money to fund their amazing fab technology The question for the future is how the economics will stack up when overall device costs fall significantly and there is a big downward pressure on SoC prices  In that situation, can Intel still justify bringing their A-game to a market where products are essentially commoditised and you have processors selling for a only a few dollars each?The lesson from their previous involvement in the DRAM market is that they probably won't want to be involved because there isn't enough money to be made to justify manufacturing phone SoCs on a cutting edge, or near cutting edge process  In that scenario, Intel may not totally abandon the market but they might just stick to manufacturing SoCs on nodes that are a step or two behind the state of the art



ground_truth: The three phases are exegetical, theological, and homiletical.

prompt_front: Now, answer the following question based on the text below, only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: What may happen if the VR headset lenses are exposed to sunlight or strong light?

Read the following text and answer briefly.

Context 3: 
solomonrex wrote:I don't think your horizontal market development theory is supported by facts  Samsung and Apple are more vertically oriented than their competition, for starters  I know this article is narrowly focused on the hardware, but MS and Intel getting into hardware, Amazon getting into hardware, Google buying Moto, this is all vertical integration  How can you support the idea that this trend will be reversed with no real justification? I'm sure mobile chips will continue to specialize, but I don't think this means what you think it means  Automobile companies started making their own engines and with rare exceptions, never went back to being more horizontal  Same with retail and their store brands  Same with cloud companies and their servers  Same with mobile companies and their OSs  The horizontal market of PCs created by long-lasting standards and loose hegemony is the exception, not the norm Yea, each year Amazon, MS, Apple and Google look more and more the same 
Intel cannot abandon the phone/tablet market  Desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing and phones/tablets are on the rise  This trend is only going to increase going forward But you're right, they're going to have use their fabs that are a step or two behind the cutting the edge  But they're going to have to up their game in the tablet space to even be able to do that 
gypsumfantastic wrote:Why wouldn't the foundries be able close the process gap with Intel? Is it a matter of money? Scale?Intel's called Chipzilla for a reason up
Lagrange wrote:The question for the future is how the economics will stack up when overall device costs fall significantly and there is a big downward pressure on SoC prices  In that situation, can Intel still justify bringing their A-game to a market where products are essentially commoditised and you have processors selling for a only a few dollars each?The lesson from their previous involvement in the DRAM market is that they probably won't want to be involved because there isn't enough money to be made to justify manufacturing phone SoCs on a cutting edge, or near cutting edge process  In that scenario, Intel may not totally abandon the market but they might just stick to manufacturing SoCs on nodes that are a step or two behind the state of the art I think the processing is a bigger advantage than many realize  If Intel can stay ahead in process design - which this article seems to indicate - they should have a major advantage  All else being equal a 14nm chip should be significantly faster and more efficient than the same chip at 22nm  Add in the fact that yields increase geometrically - you can fit a lot more 14nm chips on a given wafer size vs 22nm (or 32nm for the other manufacturers ) and you have a very appealing proposition  And then add in the fact that Intel actually has a pretty good graphics stack and IP  It's not a sure thing by any means, but I suspect ARM may have just prodded a sleeping giant edit: Also worth noting, Intel, TSMC, and Samsung are the only manufacturers who are building out 450nm wafers  This will increase yields dramatically  Of course Samsung and TSMC will build ARM out, but it definitely puts quite a bit of pressure on all other manufacturers  As the article mentions Intel and Samsung are the only ones who control production top to bottom, and Samsung must share some of the benefits with ARM 
As someone who has worked in the semiconductor industry for longer than contemporary fanboys have existed, I'm getting a bit fed-up seeing many of these articles which rewrite history with analyses distorted by the lens of the contemporary Apple or Samsung fanboy The mobile industry moved to horizontal integration a long time ago  Better indicators than these odd contemporary obsessions with the relatively non-innovative Samsung and Apple where when Motorola spun out its semiconductor division as Freescale, Nokia stopped making it's own custom designs with TI and ST, and Ericsson spun out it's Ericsson Mobile Platforms division and formed ST-Ericsson with ST The true innovation in the mobile market was done a decade or more ago mainly by Moto/Nokia/Ericsson/TI/Qualcomm, and Samsung and Apple had little to do with it  Under the hood most stuff has been on a simple linear evolutionary path by the SoC providers since then  The phone manufacturers have then mainly been simply sticking these off-the-shelf SoCs (and their included low-level software stacks) in a box, a job made all the easier with the SoC manufacturer collaboration providing the bulk of the work for the AOSP 
Last edited by paul5ra on Wed Feb 13, 2013 11:06 am
introiboad wrote:I am happy to see Kanter here at Ars, I like his writing and he maintains Real World Tech, where Linus Torvalds often shows up to comment on CPU arch and other interesting topics Indeed  Most tech writing in this area is atrocious  This piece is one of the few well informed articles I've read in a long time 
ggeezz wrote:Intel cannot abandon the phone/tablet market  Desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing and phones/tablets are on the rise  This trend is only going to increase going forward But you're right, they're going to have use their fabs that are a step or two behind the cutting the edge  But they're going to have to up their game in the tablet space to even be able to do that The word you're looking for is Haswell, as far as I know 
Mabsark
ggeezz wrote:Intel cannot abandon the phone/tablet market  Desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing and phones/tablets are on the rise  This trend is only going to increase going forward But you're right, they're going to have use their fabs that are a step or two behind the cutting the edge  But they're going to have to up their game in the tablet space to even be able to do that Actually, that trend will not simply keep increasing going forward  The reason desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing is due to the fact that most people already have one and therefore don't need to buy another one  The exact same thing will happen with tablets as well  Sales are increasing now because people without tablets are buying them  When most people already own a tablet, they won't be buying a new one every year and therefore sales will stagnate/decrease The PC market is saturated and in a couple of years, the tablet market will be saturated too  Basically, in order to increase sales in a saturated market, you need to increase the population growth or decrease the longevity of the product 
gypsumfantastic wrote:Why wouldn't the foundries be able close the process gap with Intel? Is it a matter of money? Scale?Probably a mix of a lot of things  One big thing was during this recession, Intel was the ONLY fab company that didn't scale back their R&D  That alone gave Intel a large advantage Intel has almost always been ahead  One of the reasons could be that Intel works with much higher margins than many of the commodity companies like Samsung and TSMC Outside of the P4 flop and some of the monopolistic abuses, Intel has typically been selling to high end customers that are willing to pay a premium for "the best" Intel has a large benefit of having a relatively "good name" when it comes to CPUs, so they can effectively charge a brand-name premium I'm sure there are other reasons, and probably better reasons, but these are the main ones that I think of 
Mabsark wrote:Actually, that trend will not simply keep increasing going forward  The reason desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing is due to the fact that most people already have one and therefore don't need to buy another one  The exact same thing will happen with tablets as well  Sales are increasing now because people without tablets are buying them  When most people already own a tablet, they won't be buying a new one every year and therefore sales will stagnate/decrease The PC market is saturated and in a couple of years, the tablet market will be saturated too  Basically, in order to increase sales in a saturated market, you need to increase the population growth or decrease the longevity of the product That's true as long as most people are still buying both a tablet and a laptop when each needs to be replaced  I think the assumption is that, as you say, the tablet market will saturate, with people just replacing existing ones, but the desktop/laptop market could decrease much farther than that, if most people stop replacing them at all  I'm not sure of the likelihood of that, but I think that's where this idea comes from 
ggeezz wrote:Intel cannot abandon the phone/tablet market  Desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing and phones/tablets are on the rise  This trend is only going to increase going forward But you're right, they're going to have use their fabs that are a step or two behind the cutting the edge  But they're going to have to up their game in the tablet space to even be able to do that The upcoming Haswell chip is showing to consume 1/3 the power of IvyBridge at peak, consumes 1/20th the power at idle, all the while maintaining Identical or better performance This chip should actually compete with ARM CPUs on both power/performance and idle I am expecting a large war 
Apple once again is dictating the performance in the mobile industry  Nice to see others being able to keep the pace, as well 
paul5ra wrote:As someone who has worked in the semiconductor industry for longer than contemporary fanboys have existed, I'm getting a bit fed-up seeing many of these articles which rewrite history with analyses distorted by the lens of the contemporary Apple or Samsung fanboy The mobile industry moved to horizontal integration a long time ago  Better indicators than these odd contemporary obsessions with the relatively non-innovative Samsung and Apple where when Motorola spun out its semiconductor division as Freescale, Nokia stopped making it's own custom designs with TI and ST, and Ericsson spun out it's Ericsson Mobile Platforms division and formed ST-Ericsson with ST The true innovation in the mobile market was done a decade or more ago mainly by Moto/Nokia/Ericsson/TI/Qualcomm, and Samsung and Apple had little to do with it  Under the hood most stuff has been on a simple evolutionary path by the SoC providers since then Yeah, and most of the innovation in the automobile industry came about before Henry Ford came into the business  Doesn't change the fact that cars would probably have been an asterisk in the history books under "toys for rich people" if it weren't for him The same applies to to mobile computing for Apple, Samsung, et al 
SheldonRoss wrote:Lagrange wrote:The question for the future is how the economics will stack up when overall device costs fall significantly and there is a big downward pressure on SoC prices  In that situation, can Intel still justify bringing their A-game to a market where products are essentially commoditised and you have processors selling for a only a few dollars each?The lesson from their previous involvement in the DRAM market is that they probably won't want to be involved because there isn't enough money to be made to justify manufacturing phone SoCs on a cutting edge, or near cutting edge process  In that scenario, Intel may not totally abandon the market but they might just stick to manufacturing SoCs on nodes that are a step or two behind the state of the art I think the processing is a bigger advantage than many realize  If Intel can stay ahead in process design - which this article seems to indicate - they should have a major advantage  All else being equal a 14nm chip should be significantly faster and more efficient than the same chip at 22nm  Add in the fact that yields increase geometrically - you can fit a lot more 14nm chips on a given wafer size vs 22nm (or 32nm for the other manufacturers ) and you have a very appealing proposition  And then add in the fact that Intel actually has a pretty good graphics stack and IP  My point was that Intel might have a one or two process advantage over the rest of the industry at the cutting edge but that doesn't mean that they can afford to manufacture on those processes for very low margin parts  If the SoC market becomes increasingly commoditised, there isn't going to be the money to justify making them in a state of the art fab Remember that one of the big selling points of Itanium was that it would make use of process advantages that were effectively paid for by the mainstream x86 market  That didn't quite work out in practice and Itanium processors were often well behind Xeons in process technology 
paul5ra wrote:As someone who has worked in the semiconductor industry for longer than contemporary fanboys have existed, I'm getting a bit fed-up seeing many of these articles which rewrite history with analyses distorted by the lens of the contemporary Apple or Samsung fanboy The mobile industry moved to horizontal integration a long time ago  Better indicators than these odd contemporary obsessions with the relatively non-innovative Samsung and Apple where when Motorola spun out its semiconductor division as Freescale, Nokia stopped making it's own custom designs with TI and ST, and Ericsson spun out it's Ericsson Mobile Platforms division and formed ST-Ericsson with ST The true innovation in the mobile market was done a decade or more ago mainly by Moto/Nokia/Ericsson/TI/Qualcomm, and Samsung and Apple had little to do with it  Under the hood most stuff has been on a simple linear evolutionary path by the SoC providers since then  The phone manufacturers have then mainly been simply sticking these off-the-shelf SoCs (and their included low-level software stacks) in a box, a job made all the easier with the SoC manufacturer collaboration providing the bulk of the work for the AOSP Just goes to show that people who have worked in an industry for a long time don't always understand what that industry is doing You haven't been working in it long enough to seem to know that it was Acorn and Apple that invented the mobile ARM CPU in the first place  All those companies you've mentioned have just been working off Acorn and Apple's pioneering work  Now, Apple is back at it again, very successfully, and all the companies you mentioned that produce chips with ARM IP in them are licensing them from the company Acorn and Apple formed—ARM 
Last edited by melgross on Wed Feb 13, 2013 11:13 am
Mark Havel wrote:ggeezz wrote:Intel cannot abandon the phone/tablet market  Desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing and phones/tablets are on the rise  This trend is only going to increase going forward But you're right, they're going to have use their fabs that are a step or two behind the cutting the edge  But they're going to have to up their game in the tablet space to even be able to do that The word you're looking for is Haswell, as far as I know If tablets move into the $100-200 range, is there going to be room for Haswell?So long as there is a higher-end tablet market, then Haswell will be able to shine, but it's going to be a much more powerful and costly part than the sort of ARM based hardware that often runs tablets  If we see a race to the bottom where price is the dominant motivator behind purchases, then a high performance SoC will struggle to make its mark 
melgross wrote:paul5ra wrote:As someone who has worked in the semiconductor industry for longer than contemporary fanboys have existed, I'm getting a bit fed-up seeing many of these articles which rewrite history with analyses distorted by the lens of the contemporary Apple or Samsung fanboy The mobile industry moved to horizontal integration a long time ago  Better indicators than these odd contemporary obsessions with the relatively non-innovative Samsung and Apple where when Motorola spun out its semiconductor division as Freescale, Nokia stopped making it's own custom designs with TI and ST, and Ericsson spun out it's Ericsson Mobile Platforms division and formed ST-Ericsson with ST The true innovation in the mobile market was done a decade or more ago mainly by Moto/Nokia/Ericsson/TI/Qualcomm, and Samsung and Apple had little to do with it  Under the hood most stuff has been on a simple linear evolutionary path by the SoC providers since then  The phone manufacturers have then mainly been simply sticking these off-the-shelf SoCs (and their included low-level software stacks) in a box, a job made all the easier with the SoC manufacturer collaboration providing the bulk of the work for the AOSP Just goes to show that people who have worked in an industry for a long time don't always understand what that industry is doing You haven't been working in it long enough to seem to know that it was Acorn and Apple that invented the mobile ARM CPU in the first place  All those companies you've mentioned have just been working off Acorn and Apple's pioneering work  Now, Apple is back at it again, very successfully, and all the companies you mentioned that produce chips with ARM IP in them are licensing them from the company Acorn and Apple formed—ARM



ground_truth: Exposure to sunlight or strong light may cause permanent yellow spot damage on the screen.

prompt_front: Now, answer the following question based on the text below, only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: How are smartphones and tablets different from a technical perspective?

Read the following text and answer briefly.

Context 3: Of course I realise ARM IP has indeed been a major driving factor too (though only one if several architectures before ARM became dominant), though I see ARM's influence on the mobile industry as having nothing to do with modern day Apple and only one small piece of the puzzle  My point is that the hard electrical engineering, mathematics, DSP, semiconductor physics/chemistry, RF engineering, analogue design, CAD etc  that make modern telecommunications possible has very little to do with the fashion companies who consumers (and unfortunately much of the tech media) associate with it and give the credit (though in this respect Samsung does deserve a bit more credit for their work on NAND flash and displays)  The industry simply would not exist TODAY without the overwhelming horizontal integration that already dominates 
Quote:In the long term, mobile devices are likely to evolve similarly to the PC and favor a horizontal business model  The real advantage is one of flexibility; as costs drop and the market expands, it will be increasingly necessary for vendors like HTC to offer a wide range of phones based on radically different SoCs  You don't mention in the article that each SoC necessarily requires a bit of parallel dev work unlike the PC  In the PC world there is a standard BIOS and HW architecture that allows for pluggable designs  On a highly integrated SoC this is untrue  HTC suffers because it has to support radically different SoCs, their drivers and boot loaders, etc  Quote:While a vertically integrated company like Apple can focus and maintain leadership in a specific (and highly lucrative) niche, it would be very difficult to expand in many growing areas of the market  The differences between an iPhone 6 and a $20 feature phone are tremendous and would be very difficult for a single company to bridge It's only difficult because Apple chooses to ignore that market, not because they can't  If they can release a $99 Apple TV, they can surely cobble together a $20 feature phone if they chose to eschew 8GB of NAND, BT, WiFi, a specialized dock connector, LTE, and their specialized processors  In other words, build the equivalent of an iPod shuffle with a horrible screen and no OS to speak of 
paul5ra wrote:melgross wrote:paul5ra wrote:As someone who has worked in the semiconductor industry for longer than contemporary fanboys have existed, I'm getting a bit fed-up seeing many of these articles which rewrite history with analyses distorted by the lens of the contemporary Apple or Samsung fanboy The mobile industry moved to horizontal integration a long time ago  Better indicators than these odd contemporary obsessions with the relatively non-innovative Samsung and Apple where when Motorola spun out its semiconductor division as Freescale, Nokia stopped making it's own custom designs with TI and ST, and Ericsson spun out it's Ericsson Mobile Platforms division and formed ST-Ericsson with ST The true innovation in the mobile market was done a decade or more ago mainly by Moto/Nokia/Ericsson/TI/Qualcomm, and Samsung and Apple had little to do with it  Under the hood most stuff has been on a simple linear evolutionary path by the SoC providers since then  The phone manufacturers have then mainly been simply sticking these off-the-shelf SoCs (and their included low-level software stacks) in a box, a job made all the easier with the SoC manufacturer collaboration providing the bulk of the work for the AOSP Just goes to show that people who have worked in an industry for a long time don't always understand what that industry is doing You haven't been working in it long enough to seem to know that it was Acorn and Apple that invented the mobile ARM CPU in the first place  All those companies you've mentioned have just been working off Acorn and Apple's pioneering work  Now, Apple is back at it again, very successfully, and all the companies you mentioned that produce chips with ARM IP in them are licensing them from the company Acorn and Apple formed—ARM Of course I realise ARM IP has indeed been a major driving factor too (though only one if several architectures before ARM became dominant), though I see ARM's influence on the mobile industry as having nothing to do with modern day Apple and only one piece of the puzzle  My point is that the hard electrical engineering, mathematics, DSP, semiconductor physics/chemistry, RF engineering, analogue design,etc  that make modern telecommunications possible has very little to do with the fashion companies who consumers (and unfortunately much of the tech media) associate with it and give the credit (though in this respect Samsung does deserve a bit more credit for their work on NAND flash and displays)  The industry simply would not exist TODAY without the overwhelming horizontal integration that already dominates Yes the efforts of these companies getting cellular communications standardized were immense  And the technology matured  And then they didn't do much with it  It took some youngin's to look at the problem fresh and add the UI that make today's smartphones work  As we have all seen, the moment your technology has matured is the moment you are screwed because someone else now has the opportunity to look at it as a black box and make something new  Each of those manufacturers knew that smartphones would eventually be awesome, but none of them had the UI and software design to make a truly breakout product  Imagine if Motorola would have been smart enough to buy the Android guys instead of Google  Instead, Google bought a bunch of patents on that cellular black box to try to defend it's platform And when you think about it, which consumes more man years of engineering effort per year at this point     iterating that cellular black box or developing the OS, services and apps that power today's smartphones?
Intel had better decide that they are competing in this space "for real", or they are screwed  They've already let the Atom languish for five years, during which ARM has completely caught up in performance Just like Tim Cook said, if you don't cannibalize your own markets someone else will do it for you Whether Intel will embrace that concept in time remains to be seen  Personally, I hope they don't; if Intel transforms into a chipless Fab company (like TSMC) everyone benefits 
I still think Samsung has the advantage long term because they have both the SOC and the memory products  As mentioned in the article, TSV's (Through Silicon Via's) are going to be quite a disruption  Today, people normally stack an LPDDR2 package on top of their SOC package (POP or Package On Package)  Within the LPDDR2 package, you could have a stack of DRAM die typically with wire bonding connecting the die within the package Once you more to TSV's, you can have a LOT more connections between the SOC and its DRAM's  While this is being standardized through JEDEC (http://www jedec org/category/technolog     a/3d-ics-0), Samsung has all the pieces in house to do whatever they want  You could see a 512 bit or higher bus from the SOC to the memory  The trick is that the memory and the SOC need to line up with each other when you stack them  This gives Samsung an inherent advantage This isn't just going to impact mobile either  Take a look at that JEDEC link  It also lists High Bandwidth Memory (HBM)  This is a 1024 bit bus that provides 128GBytes/s to 256GBytes/s of bandwidth to a stack of up to 8 DRAM's  Here is your processor that includes 8-16 cores and 4GBytes of really, really, fast DRAM    No DIMMs required  How many of them do you want in your server rack?If I was Intel or Apple, I would be thinking seriously about making some investments in Micron to guarantee they make some compelling DRAM's to integrate with their SOC's and processors    otherwise Samsung is going to blow them out of the water on bandwidth 
Great_Scott wrote:Intel had better decide that they are competing in this space "for real", or they are screwed  They've already let the Atom languish for five years, during which ARM has completely caught up in performance Just like Tim Cook said, if you don't cannibalize your own markets someone else will do it for you Whether Intel will embrace that concept in time remains to be seen  Personally, I hope they don't; if Intel transforms into a chipless Fab company (like TSMC) everyone benefits It's true that Atom has stood still for too long, but honestly it's pretty amazing how Atom is still competitive with current ARM chips  The Z2760 is even 32nm vs 28nm of the latest Krait and A15 chips But that's all changing with Atom moving to the tick tock schedule this year  It wouldn't even surprise me to see Apple move to Intel chips for IOS And I don't see how Intel moving to a chipless Fab company would help everyone  It certainly wouldn't help Intel 
Mabsark wrote:ggeezz wrote:Intel cannot abandon the phone/tablet market  Desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing and phones/tablets are on the rise  This trend is only going to increase going forward But you're right, they're going to have use their fabs that are a step or two behind the cutting the edge  But they're going to have to up their game in the tablet space to even be able to do that Actually, that trend will not simply keep increasing going forward  The reason desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing is due to the fact that most people already have one and therefore don't need to buy another one  The exact same thing will happen with tablets as well  Sales are increasing now because people without tablets are buying them  When most people already own a tablet, they won't be buying a new one every year and therefore sales will stagnate/decrease The PC market is saturated and in a couple of years, the tablet market will be saturated too  Basically, in order to increase sales in a saturated market, you need to increase the population growth or decrease the longevity of the product Yes and no  I'm not sure the tablet market will saturate in a "couple of years " It may be more like 5 years  But that's a quibble Here's the real issue  Right now Apple wants you to own an iPhone AND iPad AND Macbook AND iWatch AND Apple TV  Microsoft, OTOH, is making the Surface so that you could ditch your laptop and just use a Surface  Not everyone, but some people If 5 years from now, we're in a world where a significant number of people use a Surface-type device instead of a laptop, then the PC market is going to contract significantly  Maybe some of the tablet-like devices will use moderately expensive Intel chips, but some of them are going to use cheaper chips 
GravyGraphics wrote:I still think Samsung has the advantage long term because they have both the SOC and the memory products  As mentioned in the article, TSV's (Through Silicon Via's) are going to be quite a disruption  Today, people normally stack an LPDDR2 package on top of their SOC package (POP or Package On Package)  Within the LPDDR2 package, you could have a stack of DRAM die typically with wire bonding connecting the die within the package Once you more to TSV's, you can have a LOT more connections between the SOC and its DRAM's  While this is being standardized through JEDEC (http://www jedec org/category/technolog     a/3d-ics-0), Samsung has all the pieces in house to do whatever they want  You could see a 512 bit or higher bus from the SOC to the memory  The trick is that the memory and the SOC need to line up with each other when you stack them  This gives Samsung an inherent advantage This isn't just going to impact mobile either  Take a look at that JEDEC link  It also lists High Bandwidth Memory (HBM)  This is a 1024 bit bus that provides 128GBytes/s to 256GBytes/s of bandwidth to a stack of up to 8 DRAM's  Here is your processor that includes 8-16 cores and 4GBytes of really, really, fast DRAM    No DIMMs required  How many of them do you want in your server rack?If I was Intel or Apple, I would be thinking seriously about making some investments in Micron to guarantee they make some compelling DRAM's to integrate with their SOC's and processors    otherwise Samsung is going to blow them out of the water on bandwidth Why not AMD? Last I checked they still made memory   and processors/GPUs 



ground_truth: Smartphones are more compact and power constrained.