Budget Server Pt. 3

Start with part 1.
Now here comes the fun part – getting a thin client to boot. Here are the simple steps I went through.

1. ssh -X 192.168.0.101 (the future LTSP server)
2. gksudo synaptic
3. search for ltsp
4. choose ltsp-server-standalone, click apply.  (Alternately skip the entire synaptic thing and: sudo apt-get install ltsp-server-standalone)
5. sudo ltsp-build-client (according to the Ubuntu LTSP Quick Install Wiki page). This will build the client environment.
6. sudo /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server restart (starts or restarts NFS)
7. Configure a client machine to boot from the network using PXE in the BIOS.
8. Boot it up and watch it work!

I haven’t used one of the disk-less clients yet. I just used my son’s WindowsXP machine that sits next to my Ubuntu workstation in our home computer room. Now I can dual boot his machine without having to actually install anything on his computer.

Ginger Beer

Having made brine pickles, I’m really getting into the whole fermentation thing. Tonight I finished fermenting another batch of pickles and ginger beer.

I was a bit apprehensive about actually trying the ginger beer, but took a swig and was pleasantly surprised. It’s actually quite good. It is somewhat similar to making sourdough bread. You feed a starter both ginger and sugar for 7 days and then bottle it up with a syrup of some sort and leave it at room temperature for a couple weeks. I used Sucanat (evaporated cane sugar) and maple syrup to make the syrup in boiling water. I bought a bottle capper and a package of caps and used some old sterilized bottles I had saved.

The brew is sweet and tart. Like the pickles, the fermentation is dependant on lactic acid producing bacteria to make the sour taste (plus a little lemon I added). There are yeasts in there too that create the carbonation and also a little alcohol. Judging from the taste and smell, the alcohol content is pretty low – probably less than 1%.

This might be a fun science project for Micah’s science fair next year. The recipe I followed is a variation of the soft-drink recipe found on the Weston A. Price Foundation website.

Budget Server Pt. 2

Start with part 1.

I finally got this machine setup in my basement. Since I don’t actually need physical access to the machine during configuration I just put it in my tool room next to the furnace. I had to hook up a monitor to it to get it ready for remote connections.

The first thing I did was switch to a non-gui console screen by hitting Alt-Ctrl-F1. I logged into the console and used scp (copy over ssh) to copy my default Apt configuration (sudo brian@192.168.0.100:/etc/apt/sources.list .). I then updated (sudo apt-get update) and installed OpenSSH server (sudo apt-get install openssh-server).

From upstairs I ssh’d into the machine (ssh -X 192.168.0.101) and ran services-admin (sudo services-admin). The -X option says to pass X11 through ssh so any GUI tools will display locally instead of on the server. Using services-admin I disabled the GUI desktop by turning off the Gnome Display Manager. The fewer unnecessary things running the better for this low-budget server.

The next step will be to install LTSP and get some disk-less clients to boot.

Continue reading in part 3…

Old Testament Laws (The End)

Start with part 1.

Now let me gather all the conclusions together in one spot (including the one’s I forgot to mention).

1. The covenant at Sinai – which encompassed the 10 commandments – was made specifically with the biological descendants of Jacob and no others.
2. The only universal set of rules given prior to Moses was that which was given to all of mankind after the flood, also called the Noahide covenant. Anything else mentioned in Genesis prior to Moses is at the most precedent and nothing more.
3. The laws in the Sinai covenant (including the 10 commandments), taken as a whole, are not generally useful for all people in all times. They were designed for a specific purpose that has been fulfilled and are thus obsolete.
4. Our law for day-to-day living is no longer a written law. It is the spirit of the living God abiding within us. However, there are useful guidelines in the Bible (e.g. the Noahide covenant) and the New Testament in particular that we should prayerfully study.
5. While tradition is important, it does not consistently contradict the conclusions I have laid out here. In fact, some traditions support these conclusions.

Additionally, I would like to say that we are actually held to a higher standard today than were the Jews before Christ. They had a ceiling. We do not.

Their laws were a visible goal to reach for, after which they had no further to go. We have an infinitely more glorious goal. We are aiming for a living breathing perfect person. We want to become more and more like Jesus every day.

While the Old Testament taught that Jews should give 10%, we are to give everything to Jesus. While the Jews were to worship Jesus on one day of the week, we should be in constant worship. While the Jews were circumcised in the flesh, we are circumcised in the spirit. And while the Jews were to let no unclean food into their mouths, we are to let nothing unclean come out of ours.

While we are to strive toward Christ-likeness, the key is that we cannot do it on our own. If the Jews couldn’t follow the Sinai covenant, we certainly cannot follow the higher standard we have now. The only way for us to be saved is to accept Jesus Christ and receive the Holy Spirit. The spirit will work in us to make us become like Christ. We will not get there in this lifetime, but God will ignore that and make us worthy for the next.

Questions or Comments are welcome.

Old Testament Laws Pt. 15

Start with part 1.

Example: while Christian tradition may say to keep the Sabbath, we have two conflicting traditions to go by. The Christian church has worshiped on Sunday for close to 2000 years. On the other hand, Jews have worshiped on Saturday for the last 3000-4000 years.

Now my belief is that in the case of gentile Christians, the Christian tradition is the right one to follow for reasons we discussed earlier. First and foremost, the Sinai covenant, including the 10 commandments, was never meant for gentiles. Second, the covenant is obsolete.

However, the Jewish tradition is definitely more accurate in regards to the keeping of the Old Testament Sabbath. They have been doing it for a long long time and they are no doubt correct in their choice of day.

Therefore, while the Christian tradition may say the 10 commandments are something we should follow, actual practice conflicts with that. On the other hand, actual practice supports what the Bible teaches in regard to the obsolescence of the 10 commandments.

As I mentioned before, everything in the 10 commandments is reiterated in the New Testament except the Sabbath. Since both tradition and scripture indicate the Sabbath commandment as written in Exodus is obsolete, I think we’ll have to discount tradition that says to follow the 10 commandments, although it is pretty close. We will still refrain from stealing, killing, adultery, etc., Nevertheless, as a contractual obligation, the Sinai covenant holds no power.

Continue reading in part 16…

Old Testament Laws Pt. 14

Start with part 1.

Question 5: Doesn’t 2000 years of Christian tradition say we should keep the 10 commandments?

Protestants usually scoff at tradition. After all, the reformation was all about rebelling from the “powers that be (or were)” and going “back to the Bible,” ala Sola Scriptura – scripture alone.

I happen to believe more in what is called Prima Scriptura, which, according to Wikipedia holds:

that the Bible is the primary source of doctrine, but that understanding can be improved by reference to other sources.

I believe that Paul suggested that in addition to the written word we should hold fast to oral tradition. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 says, “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.”

In addition, I believe there are things that simply cannot be passed on through writing. If everything could be passed on through writing, we would not need the spiritual gift of teaching. Therefore, I believe tradition should be highly regarded and carefully discarded.

The problem arises when oral tradition and written tradition conflicts or when the oral tradition cannot adequately explain why it appears to diverge from the writing.

Continue reading in part 15…

Old Testament Laws Pt. 13

Start with part 1.

9 of the 10 commandments are actually reiterated in the New Testament. Oddly enough, the only one that is not reiterated is the 4th commandment regarding the Sabbath.

What I take away from this is that while the 10 commandments and other laws given at Sinai are obsolete as a covenant package, we do not have a license to go around killing, stealing, lying, worshipping idols, or any other bad things.

We have already seen that circumcision was not expected of Gentiles (see Acts 15). Paul also warns us not to make a big deal one way or the other about days of worship and the foods we eat in Romans 14. He qualifies it by saying, “Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.” In addition he says that in later times people will follow things taught by demons that will require people abstain from certain foods in 1 Timothy 4:1-4. (I often wonder if this applies to the cultish groups like the Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Mormons since they all have various food restrictions).

While the Sabbath specifically is not enjoined, the author of Hebrews recommends that we continue meeting regularly in Hebrews 10:25. And while Paul doesn’t say anything about a tithe, but he does recommend giving cheerfully in 2 Corinthians 9:7.

We are all at different places in our walk with Christ. For some food may be an issue. For another the day of worship. Some people may be more concerned about growing more kind and patient. The spirit works in each person as that person needs and appropriate to where the person is at in his or her walk toward Christ-likeness. Wherever you are, your best guide to steady growth is prayerful study. The spirit will lead.

Continue reading in Part 14…

My Latest Sound and Video Contractor Article

IT Trends: Digital Deployment

This one was the most challenging article I’ve done for them since I have not actually participated in many of the methods I talked about in the article. Some of the stuff came from information Jason and Tony have shared.

I’ve already received an email from Acronis telling me I should have used Acronis as an example instead of Norton Ghost and that Norton is antiquated. Actually, Acronis does look cool since it supports Linux as well.

Let the corrections roll in.

Budget Server

Lest ye think that I’ve ceased to be a computer geek, I’m going to do a little series on putting together a budget server.

Michigan currently has close to the worst economy in the country. When that happens even churches feel the squeeze. Since budgets are a little tight right now and I had planned to set up our very own server this year, I looked into ways to build that server on a very tight budget.

Lucky for me, my employer (not my church) occasionally gives away older machines that we no longer use. I was lucky enough to get one of these. It is a 1.7Ghz P4 with 512M memory (not sure on the disk yet). Our local PC guy installed Ubuntu on it before he gave it to me.

Over the next several months I’ll be seeing what I can eek out of this machine and how much it can handle in an office of about 10 people + some external web applications. I’ll be starting by seeing if I can boot some old disk-less workstations off it. Then I’ll start adding services one at a time till I think the machine is doing all it can with reasonable performance.

Continue reading in part 2…

Book Review: The Maker’s Diet

The first chapter is simply riveting. I couldn’t put it down. It is Jordan’s story of his search for a cure for Crohn’s disease. Jordan nearly died of Crohn’s disease and was fortunate enough to have God lead him in the direction he needed to go for healing. It is a remarkable testimony and a testament to the power of this diet.

I’ve read a lot of diet books. I believe I’ve read portions of or all of The Carbohydrate Addicts Diet, The Atkins Diet, The Zone Diet, The Shangri-La Diet, and Neanderthin, not to mention the Seventh-day Adventist teachings on diet and vegetarianism. (And no, I’m not a vegetarian anymore. You might call me a meatarian ;) There are probably others I have forgotten.
By far my favorite and I believe the best diet information available today is the material provided by the Weston A. Price Foundation. I’ve been interested in this type of diet off and on now for about 5 years. That’s why I became interested when I heard about The Maker’s Diet and how similar it was. Actually, most of the recipes in The Maker’s Diet book are taken directly from Nourishing Traditions, which is the cookbook provided by the Weston A. Price foundation.

The entire philosophy is based upon the thinking that some societies that are (or relatively recently were) still using traditional foods and methods of food preparation are eating closer to what God planned for us. Jordan combines diet information from the Bible to flesh out more details. In fact, some societies using traditional methods live in remarkable health with little or no cases of modern diseases like cancer, heart disease, or obesity.

Overall, I think Jordan Rubin has done a really great thing here by popularizing this information and making more people aware of it. My chief point of contention with him is related to my recent series on the Old Testament laws. He tells us we should follow the rules in Leviticus 11 for eating only certain kinds of meat. I believe his theology is a little off there, but on the whole he is doing a good thing.

My second complaint is his shameless self-promotion. He has built a business around this diet and really wants to sell you his products. There is nothing wrong with that. I’m a fan of capitalism. But I think he goes a little too far. The most annoying occurrence is the repeated appearance of SBO embedded in other words. Say a person has a last name of Josephson. He would appear in the book as JosephSBOn. SBO stands for soil based organisms and is a product he sells. I don’t know if this was an error with the search and replace feature in his word processor, but it’s pretty shameless if it’s not.

In general though, Jordan has actually improved on the information from the Weston A. Price foundation. He has rounded out the program with recommendations for regular prayer, fasting, exercise, music, and just generally a balanced lifestyle.

I have tried to follow these principles in my cooking and eating increasingly over the last 3 or 4 months and have felt significantly better. I definitely recommend giving it a try. But don’t stop there. Check out Nutrition and Physical Degeneration and Nourishing Traditions as well.

Anti-Virus

In a previous post on anti-virus software, I was evaluating various packages. I finally made a decision last week. The decision was made mostly on pricing. We decided to go with F-Prot for Crossroads needs. It’s not quite as slick as some of the other packages I evaluated, but it does the job and you can’t beat the price. We got a 14-user non-profit license for $50. All our Mac’s and Linux boxen don’t need anti-virus, so 14-users is enough.

Old Testament Laws Pt. 12

Start with part 1.

Question 4: If we don’t need to follow the 10 commandments, then what are we supposed to follow? Is there a different covenant for us?

One thing the Old Testament was designed to teach us is that individual human beings cannot follow long lists of rules, regulations, and guidelines. The Old Testament devotes entire books to nothing but rules and regulations but the people who were given these laws were never able to keep them. They were continually getting into trouble and crawling back to God for forgiveness.

In Galatians 3:24-25, Paul explains that the law was there simply as a teacher to show us that we need Christ. Now that Christ has come we no longer need a teacher.

Colossians 1:25-27 reveals God’s mysterious plans. These plans were hidden from the very beginning until Christ came to save us. Now that Christ has come we have the privilege of being reconnected spiritually to God. If you’ve every watched Star Trek the Next Generation you’ll understand me when I say I think this is something like the Borg. Oh, the Borg were evil and nasty and all that, yes. But the connectedness they had was a shadow of the real thing. I believe that when Adam and Eve sinned, they disconnected themselves from the collective. They lost the spirit that formerly lived within them. This is when they began to die. Christ has made reconnection to that collective a possibility once again. We can once again have Christ living within us, and it is Christ living within us that is the hope of glory.

As we saw previously, 2 Corinthians 3:1-11 compares the letter of the old covenant to the spirit of the new covenant. The new covenant is based upon the spirit of God living within us. God’s spirit living within us is what will make us adequate, not the following of a set of laws. As the old covenant fades away, the new covenant of spirit shines on.

While the spirit replaces written laws as our guide for living, there are also useful guidelines made in the New Testament for some of the issues we have talked about. We’ll talk about these next.

Continue reading in part 13…

Old Testament Laws Pt. 11

Start with part 1.

We have seen that individual portions of the Sinai law (e.g. the Sabbath, circumcision, dietary restrictions) were quite clearly shadows of what was coming and thus no longer useful after the fact. But according to the author of Hebrews, speaking to the Jews themselves, the old covenant made by God with Israel at Sinai is now literally obsolete (Hebrews 8:6-13).

Lest we again debate that the 10 commandments were part and parcel of that covenant, Paul confirms in 2 Corinthians 3:1-11 by comparing the new covenant to that which was written “in stone.” The only part of the Sinai covenant that was written in stone was the 10 commandments.

In addition, in this passage Paul compares the spirit to the letter. He describes the fact that the new covenant is based upon spirit, not written words and that we no longer need the old words to guide us, but the spirit of the living God living within us makes us adequate.

It follows that:

Conclusion 3: The laws in the Sinai covenant (including the 10 commandments), taken as a whole, are not generally useful for all people in all times. They were designed for a specific purpose that has been fulfilled and are thus obsolete.

When you finish paying of your mortgage, your mortgage documents and the contract they represent are fulfilled. They become obsolete. Christ fulfilled the Sinai covenant and so made it obsolete. Thus that covenant, taken as a whole and including such things as the Sabbath, tithe, circumcision, dietary restrictions, stoning of rebellious children, restrictions against tattoos, and the rest of the 613 rules, is obsolete.

This does not mean that parts of that law were not good and moral, but that the covenant as an agreement between God and Israel was obsolete.

Continue reading in part 12…

10 Years

July 1 has come and gone and I just realized that that was the 10 year anniversary of my employment by the American Mathematical Society. That boggles my mind.