Is "Missional" Being Misused?

The term "missional" is getting thrown around so much these days I'm not sure it really means anything any more. It runs a serious risk of just being another faddish buzzword tossed around by Christians who either use it to try to draw people into their mega-sized church buildings for a show involving jingly-jangly singing to Jesus (in terms and to tunes that make him sound like someone's boyfriend) or to protect themselves from actually doing anything by just "participating in the conversation."

Sigh.

Below are screenshots (click on them to see larger) from a couple of seminary websites wherein the term "missional" is used. In one I think the usage is accurate, and in the other I suspect it isn't. Can you guess which is which, and what do you think about this?

(from the Alliance Theological Seminary website)

(from the Princeton Theological Seminary website)

In Brazil, Experience Alone Won't Cut It

In many fields you expect a professional to have a degree. Who would want to go to a doctor who never attended medical school? In other areas experience alone is still acceptable, at least in the United States. I've found that to be the case in computer science. Although a degree and/or certificates are preferred, work experience and solid recommendations from past employment can be enough to get a job in system administration or programming. Such is not the case in Brazil, and therein lies a concern I have with getting a tech training program up and running there.

Without a degree in Brazil, a young person had better have a recognized certificate in the area in which she wants to work (if that's an option) or else a less desirable field will be necessary. High school graduates are a dime a dozen, and most can expect little better than retail or factory work. That's fine if that's one someone wants to do, but if a job in technology or virtually anything else is what a Brazilian is looking for, more education is needed.

Although there are free (as in, students don't pay tuition) federal universities, prospective students have to pass on one of two somewhat different national tests and achieve a high enough ranking to get one of the limited "seats." Failing in this, the only other option is to pay for a private university course, something which is out of the realm of possibility for those in the lower economic classes.

Projects like One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) have distributed laptops in schools in Brazil (click here to see a post with an OLPC video about one school in Porto Alegre) and I think this is good, to a point. Although Internet cafes are plentiful in most cities in Brazil now, many children there may not have regular access to a computer or else have one that is Windows based (usually a pirated copy) that isn't very conducive to learning computer science. The OLPC laptop might spark and interest that will last a lifetime and blossom into a career, but not without training and certification.

Thinking this over, it becomes clear to me that any development project in which I may involve myself in Brazil needs not only promote learning how to program computers and/or administer systems, but also be oriented to either provide recognized certification directly or prepare students for testing and approval. Also, if I were to be involved in this myself, it wouldn't be enough for me to be a very experienced tech (something I am not, yet). In order to have the respect and perhaps even permission (from a governmental perspective) to engage in this type of work, I'll need some certifications and perhaps a degree myself.

The field of technology, and specifically that portion working with open source solutions, is a meritocracy. If you are good, prove it. Paperwork isn't essential to this, and is meaningless if a person has a degree combined with incompetence or just plain disinterest. From an academic standpoint in Brazil, though, the meritocracy is only valid if degrees and certificates are factored into the equation.

I'd be glad if anyone working in the tech field in Brazil would like to discuss this, particularly if you think I am dead wrong about the need for educational formalities. From what I saw and experienced in Brazil and have heard from Brazilians, I'm pretty sure I'm right on this one.

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See Also:
Somplace Wired (Igneous Quill)

Book Review: A Canticle for Leibowitz

A couple of weeks back a friend saw my review of "Her Majesty's Wizard" and suggested I might also like "A Canticle for Leibowitz." I read the Amazon.com reviews and thought it sounded interesting, so I picked up a copy. You know, it was pretty good.

First published in 1959, in the midst of the Cold War and all the anxiety about nuclear attacks ("duck and cover," as though a school desk could shield you from the initial blast or subsequent radioactive fallout) this book has a pessimistic tone that drifts into outright humor in places.

The story, set in the centuries after a global nuclear war, follows an order of monks devoted to preserving and maintaining the written remnants of the former civilization. Although for long ages they do not understand anything in the texts and schematics they copy (and even illuminate), they faithfully preserve the deposit of work left to them. They protect the writings (they call it "Memorabilia") from angry mobs, marauding tribes and national conflicts until the day dawns that humanity can once again benefit from scientific learning.

There is a strong Roman Catholic tone to the entire work, for obvious reasons. The monks are true believers in their faith and carry out their labors with religious devotion. At the same time, they are no simpletons. Perhaps because of their constant contact with the learning of times past, or more likely because it represents the majority view of all historic Christianity, when the new age of enlightenment comes they do not oppose it.

In fact, when a secular scholar visits the abbey he is shocked to find that the monks actually accept the results of scientific research. At one point one of the monks asks the scholar if he had considered St. Augustine's pondering on the origins of humanity. Specifically, what about the possibility that all life evolved from simpler forms? The secular scholar practically scoffed at the notion.

Along these lines I felt a certain commonality with the monks dealing with a "secular" scholar. I suppose that all the conservative evangelicals in the United States have colored the perspective of agnostics, atheists and others, as more than once I have been accused of holding backwards or at least uninformed opinions of science. There is an arrogance that borders on ignorance among many that makes them believe quite deeply that it is impossible for a believing, faithful Christian to accept the methods and conclusions (remember that all scientific "conclusions" are subject to further testing) of science.

As I mentioned above, the Catholic element is quite strong in this book. There is an enigmatic hermit/wanderer who writes in Hebrew and seems to have biblical ties and there is plenty of Latin thrown around. You don't really have to be too familiar with either the Bible or Catholicism (particularly in its pre-Vatican II form) to enjoy this book, but it certainly helps to grasp some of the references.

If I were assigning stars from one to five, I'd give this one four and a half. There was a quality to it not unlike Asimov's "Foundation," though I'd say "Canticle" has a far more meditative tone. It's a reflection on what went wrong with humanity and whether anything can ever change.

Bash Scripts: The Duct Tape of System Administration

Not long ago I was wondering whether I should spend more time on Python, a programming language I love (but don't know why), or on Ruby, the primary programming language where I work (which makes more practical sense). Since I was (and still am) in customer service with a foot in QA it didn't really matter that much. A few weeks ago the CTO asked me to write a script to update the dev server any time there was something new in Subversion, and rather than going with Python or Ruby I defaulted over to Bash. Why?

Frankly, although any number of programming languages can be used to write simple scripts, Bash seems to excel in this area. Although I have trouble imagining extensive software being written in Bash (and yes, I know there are some full programs out there based in it) it is incredibly useful for simple scripts.

Just a few weeks ago I heard Jorden Mauro talk about Git, and in his talk he mentioned several times how he could tweak Git with just a script here or there. Although I can't remember if he mentioned which language he used for this, the point is that scripts are handy little things to be able to create.

I am no software engineer and suspect I never will be. If I can make a career out of working with Unix and Linux in system administration I'll be quite happy. There's no way, though, that I could be worth my salt in that field without knowing my way around scripting.

So let me ask:

1) What language(s) do you use to write scripts?

2) Have you ever used a script to solve a problem in a particularly ingenious or clever way? What was it (the problem and solution)?

Android Live CD: Not Quite There Yet

Yesterday I learned that a live CD version of Android was available for download. I've been curious about this OS and have tried out several Linux live CDs of other distros, so I thought I'd give this one a look. I went to the Google project page for the Android Live CD and downloaded a copy of the iso for v.0.2 from a mirror (a link can be found in the readme). I then burned the image to a CD and rebooted my notebook (a Dell Inspiron 1545). I got as far as the Live Android startup screen and everything stopped. I let it set for nearly 10 minutes, but nothing.

After rebooting a couple of times I decided it just wasn't going to work. So I waited until today to try again.

This time, rather than download the complete iso from a mirror, I downloaded the file in two parts from the project page and merged them with the following:

cat liveandroidv0.2.iso.001 liveandroidv0.2.iso.002 > liveandroidv0.2.iso

Again I tried rebooting with the live CD, and once again it froze on the start screen. In all honesty, the *buntu distros (Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu) have probably spoiled me. It is incredibly easy to create a live *buntu CD boot from it and either install or just try it out. Except for the time two monitors were involved I haven't had a problem yet. So, patience with Android.

Since I couldn't get Live Android to run the way a live CD normally does, I decided to fire it up in VirtualBox OSE. Sure enough, there it was.

Having gone through all this I went back to the read me page for the Live Android project and found this: "In liveandroid v0.2, only a few of video card and net card driver added, so if you encounter freeze problem, please feedback to us, we are glad to fix it."

Scrolling further down on the read me page you'll see that this problem of freezing up is fairly common.

The idea of a live CD for Android is certainly a good one, and if you are interested in the OS go ahead and download it. Be aware that you may need to run it in VirtualBox or something similar. Poking around on the OS it should become obvious fairly quickly that this isn't ready to serve as your only or primary OS. It's just something to play with, at least for now.

How to Salvage Files After the Blue Screen of Death

From 1994 through late 2008, almost all of my computer experience was with Windows. I used Windows 3.1 all the way through college in the 90s and Windows XP while teaching in Brazil and then later back in the States. During all those years I never got the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death" ("BSoD") on any of my computers. I have seen it, of course, but always on other people's computers. If you are reading this because you got the BSoD on your computer and are afraid you've lost your files, you are in the right place. I can't help you get Windows set back up, but let's take care of salvaging your data before you move on.

First, download and burn an .iso image of a Linux distribution (click here to get an idea of how to do this). Alternatively, go to a local bookstore or newsstand and find a magazine on Linux that has a free CD included. Please buy the magazine rather than steal the CD. I strongly recommend either Ubuntu or Linux Mint.

Second, put the live CD in your computer's CD tray and reboot. The computer should boot up from the CD rather than the hard disk, so you'll eventually see a Linux environment before you. Don't panic. This is a live CD, meaning that you are only working off of the CD at this point, and none of your valuable data has been overwritten by the Linux distro. Unless, of course, you told it to "install." Even then you would have to go through quite a few screens before losing anything. If for some reason you were brought back to the BSoD, meaning that you weren't able to boot from the CD, click here for instructions on how to correct this issue.

Third, look for a "Computer" icon. You can see an example in the screenshot below (click image to see larger) from a running Linux Mint CD. Click into this icon.


Fourth, in the screenshot below you can see a "152.6 GB Media" icon. In my case that is the hard disk memory. Even though Linux Mint is not installed on my computer, I am able to access everything in the memory.


Fifth, plug in your USB flash drive (aka "thumb drive") and start dragging and dropping the folders and files you want to save.

Sixth, once you have copied everything you want to save over to your flash drive, remove it and either find out how to reinstall Windows (hopefully you have the install CDs that came with the system when you bought it) or really give Linux a try. If you want to try Linux out fully installed on your computer, click on the "Install" icon on the desktop and follow the steps. Give it a chance. If you decide you don't like it, you can always go back to Windows (again, assuming you have the CDs). In any case, it has to be better than the BSoD!

Church of Christ Gifts Facebook App

Early last year (now it feels more like "early last century") I blogged about "Ecumenism and 'Learning Another Language'" (see posts here and here). I've noticed that different religious groups -- movements, denominations and the like -- all create their own distinct internal culture, complete with language, symbols and artifacts. Lately I came across a "Church of Christ" Facebook app that some friends were using and gave it a try. It's called "Church Gifts (Church of Christ Edition)" (you can click that link to sign in to Facebook and see the app's page).

The app was funny and pretty much spot-on. I just hope that Church of Christ folks don't get the idea they're the only group with these kinds of little quirks. As I've said, every group, religious or otherwise, has it's own way of speaking and acting.

Below you can see a screenshot of the first page (out of five) of available "gifts" to send to Facebook friends. The second screenshot shows the message friends receiving a gift will see. Click on either image to see larger.

Unable to Boot from Linux Live CD

You burned the .iso image to a CD properly and maybe can even get it to run on a computer, but there's one computer where it won't work. You put the CD in, you reboot and it goes straight into whatever operating system is already installed. No problem. You probably just have to change the boot sequence in BIOS.

When you boot up your computer, before you see "Windows" or "Ubuntu" (or whatever your OS may be) there appears a black screen with characters, then a screen that may have the logo of the company that made your desktop or laptop hardware. Watch the lower part of the screen, particularly towards the right side. There should be mention of "Setup," "Options" or "BIOS Settings." Something like that anyway. It will tell you which key to hit, and this varies from computer to computer. It may be F10, F12 or some other. These keys can be found at the very top of your keyboard. Hit the key before the boot-up goes any further.

In the next screen you should see options for settings, and you are looking for something like "Boot Priority" or "Boot Sequence." Once you find it you will probably see that CD is listed after HDD. This means that when your computer is booting up it checks the hard drive first for further instructions, and thus it boots your installed OS from there. Change the priority so that CD is checked before HDD, then exit out (there should be an option for this). Reboot with the live CD in the tray and everything should be fine.

If the solution above doesn't work for you, let me know in the comments.

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For help on how to burn a live CD:
BurningIsoHowto (Ubuntu Community Documentation)

An Obvious Drawback to Google's Chrome OS

Yesterday the online tech world was abuzz about Google's "Chrome OS" project. Google is creating another OS, based on the Linux kernel, to compete with other Linux distros and with Microsoft Windows. They are aiming for rapid boot-up speed and intend to make it as lightweight as possible. Google says that there will be overlap with aspects of their Android OS, but that Chrome is really a separate project. So, here's the catch: most applications will be web-based.

I have a nice, new Dell laptop. It is incredibly useful for me at work and when I want to attend a tech gathering (not a great experience without a laptop most of the time). The OS is Ubuntu 9.04, and I intend to upgrade it every time a new release is available (which is every six months with Ubuntu). I have a wide array of applications available to me, both those that came with the standard installation and those I've obtained through the package manager. I'm glad I have applications installed locally to the computer, considering that I get nearly no signal at home. We use wired broadband.

Now, think about it. An older desktop with a high-speed Internet connection can be a great machine utilizing mostly online apps. Not having to install them keeps room available, although depending on how old your computer is the processing speed for web apps might not be great. With a netbook you pretty much accept that you won't always have an Internet connection and understand that during these times it will be little better than a brick. Get close to a Starbucks where your netbook can pick up an open signal, though, and suddenly its useful again.

If you install an OS on your laptop or desktop that depends pretty much entirely on web-based apps, what do you do when your connection fails? Yes, I know you do most of your computer activity online, but what if you don't have access to Google docs?

From what I've heard, Ubuntu is heading towards greater integration with "the cloud" and serious work is underway to dramatically improve boot-up speeds. Fortunately, Ubuntu developers so far don't appear to be putting all their eggs in one basket, in a manner of speaking. Where Google is aiming for a nearly 100% online OS, Ubuntu appears to be headed towards a mixed future where local vs cloud is left up to the user. I hope this will be the case.

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See Also:
Introducing the Google Chrome OS (The Official Google Blog)
Apresentação do Google Chrome OS (O blog do Google Brasil)
No thanks Google, we've got Ubuntu (ZDNet Australia)
Google's Chrome OS vs. Ubuntu (UNR) vs. Window 7 (I' Been to Ubuntu)
Google Chrome OS: sistema operacional do Google para netbooks (agora o anúncio é oficial) (BR-Linux.org)
Google goes after Windows with launch of Chrome OS (ZDNet)

NYLUG Meeting: David S. Miller on Multiqueue Networking Developments in the Linux Kernel

The following came in from the NYLUG Announcements list. Looks like another interesting meeting. Check it out if you are in the NYC area and interested in Linux.

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Wednesday, July 15, 2009
6:30pm-8:00 PM
IBM
590 Madison Ave, 12th Floor
corner of 57th Street

** RSVP Closes at 4:30pm the day of the meeting (sharp!) ***
Please RSVP for EVERY meeting at this time.
Register at http://rsvp.nylug.org/
Check in with photo ID at the lobby for badge.

David S. Miller
- on -
Multiqueue Networking Developments in the Linux Kernel

As horizontal scaling of even the most basic desktop systems continues onward, taking advantage of this ever growing CPU power in the networking requires real change.

By way of a combination of hardware and software facilities, we can distribute the packet processing work across the available CPU resources in the system. Once the ability to steer traffic to CPUs exists in the kernel, the next issue to tackle is making sure such steering decisions are done intelligently.

This talk will cover the work that has been done in the Linux kernel networking over the past two years to support multiqueue networking hardware, and the work that is planned for the future. TX and RX multiqueue facilities in the kernel will be discussed, as well as future changes that will make for application based traffic steering.

More Information:
* Dave Miller's Blog
http://vger.kernel.org/~davem/cgi-bin/blog.cgi/index.html

* LWN: Multiqueue Networking
http://lwn.net/Articles/289137

About David S. Miller:
David has been working on Linux and open source software for more than 10 years. He is the maintainer of the Linux kernel networking, as well as the SPARC port(s) of the Linux kernel. He also works on GNU binutils, GCC, the X server, and other projects. He is a member of the GCC Steering Committee.

David currently works for Red Hat Inc.

Meeting Location:
Please note that this meeting will be held at IBM, 590 Madison Ave, 12th floor, corner of 57th Street, and not at Google. This is the building with the IBM logo on the front of the building.

Map:
http://nylug.org/mapofibm

Books!!!
Our friends at Prentice-Hall kindly provide us with review copies of various new titles. One of these could be yours, all you have to do is agree to review the book within a reasonable period of
time.

Swag (Give Away):
During/after the meeting... unusually terrific Fedora swag will be given away.

Stammtisch:
After the meeting ... You may wish to join up with other NYLUGgers over at TGI Fridays located at 677 Lexington Avenue and 56th Street, second floor. Northeast corner.

Python Workshops:
We are rounding up a group that wants to learn about Python. This would be a great time to attend our workshop, whether you are just starting with Python or use it professionally.

The workshops meet every other Tuesday, at the NY Public Library, Hudson Park Branch. 66 Leroy St. NY NY from 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM Next meeting is July 21.
See the calendar at: http://nylug.org/pythoncalendar

Please see our home page at http://www.nylug.org for the HTMLized version of this announcement, our archives, and a lot of other good stuff.

Book Review: Latter-Day Cipher

Over the years I've attempted to read "Christian fiction" and have found that the only titles of this genre (is it really its own genre?) that I enjoyed were those written by C.S. Lewis. All the rest have been drivel. They are G-rated, novelized tracts with plots weaker than any Benji movie. With Latayne Scott's "Latter-Day Cipher" I've found an exception.

Set in Utah, the heart of Mormonism's "Zion," a reporter from Tennessee who intended to be on vacation finds herself at the heart of an investigation into murders involving the strange mutilation of victims' corpses. The narrative pulls the reader into the bizarre world of secret/sacred Mormon temple practices as well as aspects of Mormonism's history that modern members of this church would rather forget. Everything Latayne says about the history, faith and practices of Mormonism is entirely true, based not only on her decade of membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but also on years of subsequent research and writing on the topic.

Although there is an evangelical undercurrent in the story, it isn't overpowering or distracting. The odd choice of a young, widowed mother with a voracious appetite (apparently because she's breast feeding a baby) to be the evangelical voice actually works. The one time I couldn't make sense of this character's involvement was when she and her child were flown across the country with the reporter and an LDS spokesman to the site of a possible attack against the LDS Church. I'm still not sure why the young mother needed to be there, but maybe that will be explained in a second book.

Latayne deals deftly with Mormon doctrine and also manages to represent fairly accurately core principles of what might be considered "orthodox" Christianity. One possible exception is where a Mormon-turning-Ex-Mormon comes up with a conception of God that resembles modalism. Then again, even modalism is a step up from tritheistic polytheism. The tone of the book is definitely not "anti-Mormon," though believing Mormons will most certainly find offense in having their cherished temple work revealed along with a century and a half of dirty laundry.

Mrs. Scott accomplished something rather unusual with this novel. She managed to explained the intricate and confusing beliefs and culture of Mormonism in terms that uninformed outsiders can comprehend while not slowing down the story one bit. She has succeeded in writing a suspenseful story that has a Da Vinci Code quality to it. In contrast to the Da Vinci Code, this book actually uses the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction approach and avoids presenting made-up or cobbled-together conspiracy theories. Also, unlike a lot of "Christian fiction" out there, the opposition (the LDS Church, in this case) is not portrayed as evil or in conscious league with the devil.

If you get a chance, pick up a copy of "Latter-Day Cipher" and give it a read. If you like suspense and mystery, you'll enjoy it.

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Note: This review is a week late because the book, requested on June 11, arrived on June 27, just three days before everyone was to blog for Latayne Scott's "blog tour." Though of course I couldn't have read this book in that short period of time, I do appreciate the opportunity the publisher and author have provided, and apologize anyway for the delay.

Python Workshop: General Discussion (7/7/09)

While I was able to attend the last Python Workshop and plan to be at the next one, consider it fair warning when I say that this is likely to be unstructured. Apparently the group doesn't always have a topic or designated speaker/instructor. Last time it was just a bunch of guys hacking around on their laptops and have a completely unfocused discussion. Again, I'm fine with this, but maybe you aren't and have other things to do on a Tuesday night.

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PYTHON WORKSHOP
Date: Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Time: 6:00pm
Duration: 2 hours
Location: NY Public Library Hudson Park Branch, 66 Leroy St., NY NY 10014

Topics:
General discussion about Python, and working through example code. Bring something to discuss! There's a blackboard, chalk, and Internet access. Notebook computers are helpful but not required. All levels of Python experience from totally new to experienced welcome!

Description:
We will continue meeting on a bi-weekly basis at the Hudson Library at 66 Leroy St New York, NY 10014.

It is helpful, but not necessary to have a notebook computer.
The WiFi at the library works now.

Map & Directions:
http://nylug.org/pythoncalendar

We meet in the basement. Enter the library and head to the back. If the door is closed when you arrive you can ask the manager of the library for the keys to the room if you're comfortable opening up the basement, or you can wait for some of the others to arrive.

Mailing List:
We have a mailing list! Join it here:
http://nylug.org/mailman/listinfo/nylug-workshop

or send mail to: nylug-workshop-request@nylug.org
with a Subject: subscribe

There is also an RSS feed for the workshop mailing list at:
http://nylug.org/mlist/nylug-python.rss

IRC Channel:
On Freenode, in #nylug-python . Stop by #nylug also.

The Next Meeting After This Meeting:
The following Python Workshop will be held on: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 6:00 PM

Homer Buys Illegal Fireworks

The best part of this clip wasn't included. When Homer got home and Marge unpacked the odd array of items from the bag, she said, "Oh Homey, I don't know what you have planned for this weekend, but you can count me out!

Classic.

Happy Independence Day, United States!

Enabling Accent Marks on a U.S. Keyboard in Ubuntu

Most of the time I write in English. As anyone who reads my blog regularly can tell you, though, sometimes I write in Portuguese. My wife and kids are Brazilian-Americans and I did some mission work in Brazil for a few years. In any case, writing in Portuguese on a North American keyboard can be a pain in the neck, especially when I need the accent marks. In Windows it was a major hassle for me to get accent marks enabled, but in Ubuntu it is fairly simple. Here's how (click images to see larger).


First, go to System > Preferences > Keyboard. Click over to the Layouts tab and you will see the layouts you have set up. Highlight whichever one you use (there may be only one, and if the dot is in the radio box you probably don't need to highlight) and click the Layout Options button.


From inside the Layout Options, drop open Compose key position and choose the key you want to use to activate accent marks when typing. I use Right Ctrl because I can reach it with my little finger and it doesn't interfere with other keyboard operations.


As you can see from the final screen shot, in my text editor (yes, it's white on black background, I find that easier to look at when writing scripts) I was able to write a sentence with accent marks. At this point accent marks will work everywhere on the operating system, from e-mail clients to word processors to the browser and everything in between.

How do you use it? Just press and release the compose key you designated (again, in my case it was Right Ctlr) and then the accent you want. Note that for some (like the "^" above the 6 key) you will need to then hold down the Shift key while hitting the key for the accent you want. For the acute accent mark, of course, you wouldn't need this.