March 2005 Archives

It has been a crazy long time for me not to rant. But Mr. Rant is back and on a repeat of a previous one, no less. September of last year, I posted a not on my old blog---which has apparently stopped functioning...oh well. I'll dump its content into Andrew.Sterling.Hanenkamp.com Blog 3.0. Anyway, I mentioned a few work Pet Peeves. Well, the last few months have given way to a few new ones and I also wanted ot make a three other comments.

One: My job is completely bipolar. It is either way cool or way crap.

Two: My job is way cool because my boss is cool. Dr. Virg Wallentine is da bomb. The toys are nifty-awesome. My employees are easy to manage and are quite capable. I have flexibility in how the systems are managed, so long as I do my job well. My job is cool.

Three: My job is crap because flexibility disappears when things go wrong. Things go wrong about 50% of the time and when that 50% starts (and even ends) is completely unpredictable. I can be having a great day and someone pops in and says, "Is there something wrong with mail?" The great day becomes completely eclipsed by the ensuing hellish one. Which brings me to the second part of this, I just about only hear from folks when stuff breaks. That's the nature of the work; if you fix broken stuff for a living, nobody talks to you when it ain't broke.

Anyway, if you ever pop into my office and get the LookOfDeath(tm), it's probably because you just interrupted Two and I am trying to steel myself for a potential Three. Okay, on to my pet peeves...

But first, the disclaimer: I love my job despite its inherent frustrations. I really like helping folks out and this job is all about helping people. I also want to say that if you've made yourself a nuisance through any of these peeves, this is nothing personal—just don't do it again! Finally, these are mostly directed at students. Faculty and staff are allowed a bit more leeway in a lot of things because we just don't expect as much from you...er...umm...moving along. ;)

Here go...weeee...

1. Asking questions that are answered already. Search our site for docs before asking questions. I don't know how many times someone has sent me the message saying, "How do I connect to the Oracle server?" To quote Ren, "You eediot!" Check the FAQ on the support site. The User Guide and FAQ are quite helpful. Read them.
2. Replying to a resolved ticket to say, "Thanks." ARG! Thanks for more work. Now I have to resolve the ticket again. We work a thankless job, we'd rather keep it that way.
3. Subject lines that say nothing useful like, "HELP!" Help with....what? Or, perhaps worse, "Can't access mail." Subject lines should be helpful so we can get a quick idea on who should take care of it and it's urgency. I suggest never using the word "help" in your subject. Rather, say something meaningful. "Cannot download email via IMAP" "Mail error: Cannot contact imap.cis.ksu.edu" "Progress bar for sending email never goes away in Thunderbird" Each of these would probably be handled by a different student. Descriptions like this help my students know, "Ah, that's my problem." Otherwise, tickets tend to wait for me to assign them and that can take hours longer.
4. Subject lines that use lots of exclamation points, "I need access to X!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" These messages tend to turn the systems staff into boiling cauldrons of rage. Angry geeks are frightening to other geeks, but probably a little comical to the rest of the world. Please, don't fuel the worlds fire to laugh at us more.
5. Over explanation. If you need something, tell us what the class or project is named and the faculty member involved. We don't need anything else, or we can ask for it. Giving us a 10 page dissertation on the exact nature of your needs usually just makes it harder for us to find what's being asked for.
6. Whining. I've gotten a fair share of nasty letters (probably 5 to 10 in the last year or so). Such hate-mail is whiney. We have policies, we have them for a reason. If you don't like them, you can either try and talk to us and figure out why we have the policies and use that information to make a suggestion, or you can deal. Screaming doesn't help the problem. Assuming that we're unreasonable power mongers is insulting rather than constructive (not that I would dispute that fact ;).
7. Asking for help without detail. My staff and I aren't prophets, psychic, or otherwise magical. Sending email stating, "Hi, I cannot connect to SSH" is meaningless. You've just guaranteed the maximum possible delay to getting any substantive help. What computer were you using? Where are you? Are you at home? Are you in Nichols? Are you in a campus lab? Are you on a corporate network? What program are you using to connect? Which host did you try to connect to? Did you get an error message? At what part of the process did it fail? Giving a complete explanation will give you the fastest response because we'll spend less time asking you these questions and can instead start fixing the problem.
8. Begging for help "ASAP" or giving us a ticket at noon saying, I need this by 2:30 pm today for an assignment. Sorry, dude. You should have planned ahead. We prioritize everything according to the same system, and your statement of urgency is not likely to be an important factor. The systems staff has a complicated list of tasks to do (usually between 100 and 150 at any given moment). These tasks are carefully prioritized by the significance and nature of the problem and based the role of the person who sent it. Unless your request is completely trivial, our turn over is probably going to be longer than 2 hours. My students are part time, and I have a class to teach. These factors interfere. Unless your task is critical or an emergency, we may not even get to in the same day. Large tasks, such as those that require changing policies or installing applications can take weeks. Unless you can convince the department to give me a much larger staff and we can somehow shunt aside the fact that this is a state University and we just take time because of flat beauracracy, you'll just have to be patient.
9. Sending us your username and password. Okay, this made it into my list this year because a student did this recently. I believe the joke immediately was something to the effect, "You start enrolling him in classes, I'm going to go take a look at his financial records." Don't ever send anyone your username and password. Your password is your personal secret. Giving that information away is simply not smart.
10. Stepping behind my desk without being asked. This is a personal pet peeve of mine. I like to have a certain amount of personal space and keeping you a few feet away at least makes me feel a bit more secure about typing various secret passwords into the machine while you are in the room. Please don't step behind my desk. My employees will make fun of me for this one I'm sure, but pride be damned, this annoys me.
11. Leaning over my shoulder or stepping within a couple feet of me to talk. This creeps me out. Again with the personal space. Step back, please. I'd really rather not know how recently you bathed.
12. Asking one of my staff for something and then asking me, or vice versa. This is the old trick every 4 year old tries: "Mom, can I do X?" "No." Go to the next room. "Dad, mom says that I can do X if you say it's okay." This is annoying. I have pretty good hearing when my door is open and my music is turned down. If one of my students says, do X to get your problem solved. Do that. Don't come to me and ask the same question again.

So that concludes this year's edition of "Pet Peeves." Thank you and good night.

I got some sweet new Bible software yesterday and I've been looking forward to using it. The first passage I've applied its skills to was Psalm 46:10: "Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." On Resurrection Sunday, (aka Easter Sunday for you pagans) we had Psalm 46 on the big screen during one of the worship songs. This particular verse caught my eye for a couple reasons.

I carry an New American Standard Bible (for those who may not know, the Bible has been translated into english a few different times and this is just one of recent ones). In this Bible, the text is italicized to note that a word was inserted to make the translation understandable english, but that insertion is not directly taken from any actual word in the original language. Here, the NASB italicizes the word striving. I thought that was an interesting word to insert, so I wanted to know why.

The word translated "cease" is the Hebrew word raphah, which means "slack" or "to let go." Other Bibles translate this word as "Be still" or "Desist" or "Be quiet". In other places in the NASB, this word is translated "let alone", "lazy", "fail", "abandon", "put off", "lost courage", and "relax." The word picture I got thinking about this was of someone stressed out on trying to fix eveything going wrong with his day. Finally, giving up, he collapses into a chair. (Something to which I can relate to.)

The other reason this has caught my attention is because of another book I've been reading, "Whatever Happened to the Reformation?" One of the early essays talks about the modern/postmodern insistence on relativism. That is, these philosophies believe that because everyone always perceives reality through the filter of their own particular bias, that no one can really know anything about reality for certain. Yet, we see here from a Biblical stand point the rest of the verse, "know that I am God." The Hebrew word for "know" here is yada and is defined such to leave little doubt that this is real knowledge: "to know", "to perceive and see", "find out and discern", "be acquainted with". This word can range in meaning from the casual to the intimate. This is the same word is even used to describe intercourse, for example, in Genesis 4:1 when Adam "had relations" with Eve.

I won't bother with a lengthy explanation of why I think that the postmodern idea of unknowable reality is rubbish, except to say a couple things. From this passage and many others, it is clear the Bible holds no such notion. Second, claiming that reality is unknowable is a claim to know something about reality. That's enough of a contradiction for me to conclude that something of reality must be knowable. How much can be known? "That's an exercise left to the reader."

Seeking the context of this verse is also interesting in reflection to what I've already discussed. The NASB titles this Psalm, "God the refuge of His people." The Psalm is broken into three stanzas. The first is about God's power in times of trouble, "A very present help in trouble" and "we will not fear...though the mountains quake". The second stanza is about God's protection and the contentment He provides, "God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns." The final stanza, where we find verse 10, is about God's unstoppable power, "Come, behold the works of the Lord, Who has wrought desolations in the earth."

In the midst of this is verse 10, "Cease striving, and know that I am God." God is our protection. He doesn't need our help. A common failing among Christians is that we try to help God do His will. Perhaps, we would do better to follow this verse and rather know God instead of trying to impress Him.

My thoughts on the subject of a new Bible study move onward. I have made quite a bit of progress since my previous blog on Open Source Church. I've talked to my pastor about it and I'm not satisfied with where my ideas landed while preparing to speak to him. At that point, I'd considered making this a recurring course on Biblical interpretation. By now I realize that is far too narrow and only the starting point.

Instead, I'm thinking of a series of-in depth Bible studies, the first of which will focus on Biblical interpretation. The overall goal is the search for the God of the Bible.

The Reformers came to their conclusions because of a renewed influence of Biblical study. Luther didn't leave the Universal (Catholic) Church because he had some new revelation or some new idea on who God is and what He's doing through the history of humanity. Rather, he because increasingly disillusioned with the hypocrisy of the Church and was profoundly disturbed by it. Thus, he began to question the Church's authority and decided to seek the wisdom of the Church founders. There, he found the words Paul wrote to the fledgeling Roman church: "But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness." (Romans 4:5)

I too have been increasingly disillusioned with this present Evangelical Church. The reformers created this church and this church has found it's own waywardness in recent years. As a point of illustration, I was in a local bookstore this past week and I took notice again of something which seems supremely unsettling to me. The "Christian Book" section lies side-by-side with the "Self-Help" section. This is a common categorization, but it is disturbing in this: Christianity does not help a person, it destroys a person. Evangelicals today seem to think of Christianity as some sort of mystical pill to make us feel better. Sorry, that simply doesn't jive with Scripture.

Christ said: "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me." (Matthew 16:24) There is no way this is self-help! To follow Christ one must deny self. To follow Christ one must die.

I had a friend in high school who couldn't understand Christians because they were self-deprecating, why would this be good? I'm afraid my answer to her then wasn't very good. The proper answer is that we humans have nothing in ourselves that is worth keeping. We must first die and by reborn in Christ's likeness—this is what being "born-again" means. In this we lose our own sin of self-worth and take on the virtue of self-sacrifice. This is good because it always us to forget the horror of what we are in order to gain the glory of what God meant us to be. Yet, this is not self-help because self is dead.

Unfortunately, the problems facing evangelical Christians are not really clear cut. We have a situation where evangelicals are trying to aim for the target, but instead of aiming for the heart their trying to clip the hip or the shoulder. Many times, the evangelicals are doing good things, perhaps even things that Christ or Paul commanded, but we're forgetting that which is most important.

As an example I tend to harp on, this comes out in the desire to preach a lesson that is "relevant" to the non-Christians in our midst. Relevance isn't a bad thing, but often our search for relevance leads us to soften the message in such a way that it loses it's edge. The goal shouldn't be to entice the unbeliever, but rather to get their attention. We don't have the luxury of getting along with unbelievers. We know we're on message when people want to silence us. Jesus put it, "'A slave is not greater than his master' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you." (John 15:20) The evangelical church isn't persecuted enough.

The solution, in my view, is that we need to have such an understanding of who God is, His character, His purpose, and His workings that we aren't willing to compromise on message. Figuratively, we need to be a sharp and painful tool in order to do God's work. Christ has been pictured as having a double-edged sword for a tongue and so should we.

This is where Open Scripture hopes to go. I want to put together a study designed to learn who God is and by that learn how we can be most effective. My own church is currently attacking this issue from the opposite angle. This ministry is intended to help each individual learn how God made them to serve Him. My tact is rather to find out enought about God's nature that I know what it is about Him and His purpose that drives me on to serve.

I've started planning to start a Bible study in the next few months and I find that my opinions on Open Source are leading me down certain paths on choosing how to develop this study. The study I wish to lead has been jokingly called by my wife and I, POD People. Named after the movie of one of my favorite MST3K episodes—Pursuit of Doctrine. The subtitle we jokingly came up with was "We are STUPOD," i.e., We are Speaking Truth Under Pain Of Death. Yes, Terri and I are that weird.

Anyway, as another friend has eloquently put it, it's a "Bible Study to help the mid-range Christian understand the Bible." The way see it, our church has excellent resources for the unbelieve and for the new believer. It has excellent resources for helping someone looking for a church decide whether ours is right for them. Our church also has excellent resources for those who want to train for full-time ministry. Our church has helped to start a house seminary. Yet, for those who haven't been called to full-time ministry, but want to grow in a deeper relationship with Christ, there aren't many options.

The closest ministry to fitting this niche is our small group ministry. LIFE Groups are nifty, but the focus of these groups is connecting with other believers. Discipleship and Biblical understanding aren't the focus. The focus is on relationships, accountability, and study of the word. Study comes on many levels and the study of the Bible, at least in our group, isn't as serious as Terri and I are yearning for.

This has been a struggle for us for at least a couple years (probably longer). Recently, we feel this lack has become critical and have decided to do something about it.

So, as is often the case, I'm going to create a study that will meet our needs and open it to others on the assumption that someone else will likely feel the same yearning we do. We want to know God as he has revealed himself in Scripture. To do this, we need to first know how to study Scripture and then to apply that knowledge to a specific Scripture.

Considering this over the last week, I believe I want to use a book by Bernard Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation, which is a textbook focusing on the standard of the Protestant Reformation. Basically, the Bible should be read by trying to understand the spirit in which the author original meant what was said. Seems obvious enough, but since Christ's resurrection, innumerable hermeneutical (i.e., interpretive) prinicples have been developed, which tend to push asided= the original spirit with other methodologies.

Then, I think I would like to study the book of 2 Timothy, which has a lot to say about how important Scripture is to the Christian life.

Okay, so back to my original statement, "I find that my opinions on Open Source are leading me down certain paths on choosing how to develop this study." In my view, the Protestant Christian movement is the ultimate Open Source example. In The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Eric Raymond discusses the advantages and disadvantages of two software development paradigms.

The "Cathedral" has a top down view, where requirements, design, and implementation decisions are controlled in a top-down approach. Each project's goals are ultimately set by the CEO of the company and pushed downward through management to project leadership and then down to the individual developers. In this way, the CEO acts as the infallable human representative of the corporation's ideals. Everyone else exists to make sure that the CEO's ideals are given form in reality.

The "Bazaar" has a chaotic view of many of the aspects. A small group may have control over parts of the goals of a project. However, everyone else in the world who might have an interest in the project gets to put in their two cents through a form of "massive peer review." By trading away some of the control, the project progresses through a large peer-to-peer development network.

This is somewhat similar to the way in which I see the Reformation. In essence, the Catholic church had managed to bottole up the Source (the Bible), through the use of an esoteric language, Latin, and by the fact that the Biblical text was extremely difficult and expensive to duplicate. With the invention of the printing press and with the Northern Renassiance in Europe a new interest in the study of the Bible arose. Not only this, but an interest in the study of the Bible in original languages.

Luther and Calvin and the other reformers soon discovered that the Catholic presentation of the Source was flawed. That they'd started using their power to hide the Source as a method for generating cash. Luther's strongest objection was to the sale of indulgences which generated large amounts of cash for the Catholic Church in exchange for a supposed reprieve from time in purgatory, a place which doesn't even exist as far as the Source is concerned.

So, the reformers stole the Source and "ported" it to new languages and used the printing press to assue it's speedy and widespread distribution. As of the last I heard, the Bible remains, to this day, the single most widely reproduced text in the world. In this way, it gave every person the ability to review the Source and determine it's meaning for themselves. This affords every Christian the ability to review Scripture and to hold fellow Christians in check.

Of course, the analogy falls apart after this. Altering the Source (except to translate into new languages) is heresy according to most Protestant sects. However, I think the main idea of massive peer review is of high value. Therefore, my own Bible study seeks to infer this capability onto the mature Christian. Those who want to learn to read Scripture and use that ability to interpet the Bible will be able to look at their own life and better realize their faults. They will be able to watch for errors subtle and decisive spoken within their circles of friends. They will be able to review the teaching from their pulpits and decide whether any given statement is true or not according to their own knowledge.

This will be the goal: A mature Christian, whether trained in Bible school or Seminary or not, should be able to read and understand the Bible in a vacuum if they must. That's what I feel that Terri and I need and that's the niche I am hoping my Bible study will fill.