Daily prayer path using memorized scripture

I have a pretty terrible memory when it comes to words and numbers. I remember things through concepts and first principles, not through raw memory retention. It was like that learning chemistry: I got the concept of the Periodic Table and so did OK in physical and inorganic chemistry, but organic chemistry was a mess of remembering a bunch of seemingly random reactions that had no rhyme or reason and so I flunked it! It's the same with sermons. Don't give me a 10-point, 5-point or even a 3-point lesson, because I won't remember the points tomorrow. Give me one clear concept and it will stick with me. I still recall Robert Lewis encouraging us to "be life-giving spirits" i.e. putting life into the world rather than sucking life out of it. THAT stuck with me. I can't for the life of me recall his definition of manhood because it has several points! (1. Reject passivity, 2. Lead courageously... 3. ...hmmm, expect God's higher reward?... I think I'm missing one - see!)

So, with this backdrop, a couple of years ago I started to memorize scripture and it took me a whole year to memorize Psalm 139! Yup, just one Psalm (but it is a pretty long one!). As part of memorizing it, at one point I put the whole Psalm into a Prezi, line by line. Then I moved to memorizing the Beatitudes and for this I used a cool mind-mapping app called iThoughtsHD. Finally I'm currently trying to memorize the start of Philippians 2, using the same tool.

Pulling this scripture into prayer is awesome once it's stuck in your noggin and so now each morning I can start my quiet time with the following 3 steps (still working on step 3 'cause it's not sticking yet!):

1. The Beatitudes - frame my thoughts on God's economy and what's truly important in His Kingdom
2. Psalm 139 - open my heart totally and transparently to God. Total surrender.
3. Philippians 2:1-11 - the nuts and bolts of living out the Christian life, in Christian community and all to the glory of Jesus

Below are the Prezi and mind-maps walking through the steps...

1. The Beatitudes

2. Psalm 139

3. Philippians 2

 

I hope that others find these scriptures and tools useful too!

 

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WEFTEC 2013 Debrief (aka the post-WEFTEC blues!)

Opening Sessions

WEFTEC 2013 came and went several weeks ago, busting all sorts of records over previous years, so I'm a little tardy in giving my impression of this year's event, but here goes anyway...

Innovation Showcase

The Good

So, what were some of the highlights for me? Here in no particular order are the things that impressed me this year:

1. The Venue: the layout of the bookstore and global meeting center right outside the entrance; the exhibition floor right underneath the rooms for the technical sessions; posters right outside the session rooms and electronic versions showing on flat-screen TVs... even a screen for tweets! The conference center was very-nicely laid out.
2. People: I love being able to catch up with colleagues I've not seen for some time. Though I'm a technologist at heart, as I get older (cue cheezy violin music) I appreciate reconnecting with colleagues I've not seen for a while and getting to know new colleagues. You can transfer knowledge and ideas via web-based seminars, conference calls and the like, but nothing beats meeting people face to face.
3. Innovation Showcase: One of the few sessions I did get to attend was held at the Innovation Showcase where Yaniv Scherson presented on his CANDO process and several others presented some great and innovative ideas. There was also a session here to discuss the development of a Nutrient Roadmap, which should be pretty interesting.
4. Workshops: I have to say I really enjoy the interactive nature of workshops versus the somewhat formal and stuffy format of technical session presentations. This year I somehow managed to help out with 3 different workshops over 2 days - sustainability, modeling and energy. I don't recommend that to anyone, but I do recommend anyone to attend workshops in the future. You learn a heck of a lot more than just watching a paper presentation.
5. Opening sessions: I used to skip the opening sessions because I presumed they were too high level or not relevant for the kinds of things I focus on, but a couple of years back a good friend and colleague, Sudhir Murthy, encouraged me to attend an opening session and I have to say I was pretty impressed. This year's opening session and the following session by water leaders from around the world were pretty inspirational and very well done (photo at the top was the Water Leaders session).
6. The Inaugural Bookshop Quiz! And not just because my colleagues from B&V and our client from St Cloud were the winners (see photo below). This was a bit of an experiment for WEF and by my reckoning it was an outstanding success and hope we do it again next year.

Bookshop Quiz 2014 Winners

The Not-so-good (PC term for Bad, I guess?!)

Overall WEFTEC in Chicago surpassed itself this year (are you listening New Orleans?!). So I only have a couple of nit-picky negatives that you can skip right over if you're a glass half-full kind of person (I think I'm a glass at 50% capacity person myself - figure that one out!). Here they are:

1. Location: OK the venue is awesome, but it's too bloody far from the awesome hotels, restaurants and other delights of downtown Chicago. I hear rumours that the City has plans to build up the area around the conference center which would be great. Maybe they can add a light rail link or tram too? We stayed at the Sheraton on the north side of downtown and it was pretty cool to take the shuttle bus down some secret road under the city and down to the convention center, but I'm guessing others didn't have quite the same fun with their long queues and rush-hour bus rides back into the city.
2. Too much to see: Maybe it's just because I'm a "Yes Man" and involved in too many things, but this year, with all the committee activities and what-not (including doing a mid-term exam - don't ask) I barely saw a handful of presentations. At some point I need to go through the proceedings and see what I missed.
3. The submission process: This is probably a contentious one and may come across stronger than I intend, but I have issues with both the workshop submission process and the abstract submission process. The workshop submission process starts too soon (less than a month after WEFTEC), has too many steps and is contrained by an inflexible rubric that has only one format in mind. The paper abstract submission format and process used to be OK i.e. develop a 3 page Word document and a few figures. Now it's a nasty process of developing some text of indeterminate length with figures kept separate in pure graphical form, then you use some weird coding to get your figures and tables (haven't figured out a tidy way to handle tables) into the text, hopefully in the right spot. A little knowledge of html coding is helpful. Maybe this is a little unfair as it's not quite as bad as I make out as long as you know the process ahead of time. And I've never been asked to review any papers for WEFTEC so I'm hoping that maybe the new system makes the review process easier somehow.

OK, so WEFTEC 2013 is over and I'd say it was probably the best one yet. The bar is pretty high for New Orleans and WEFTEC 2014!

 

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From the Garden to the City

Book Cover

It's funny how things converge sometimes. A couple of months ago I was intrigued by a handful of reviews in the Christian Research Journal on books that address the issue of how modern technology relates to matters of faith. The book I chose was "From the Garden to the City" by John Dyer. I don't recall why I chose this particular book but I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with the title. I'm only up to Chapter 3 in the book but it's very good. Dyer discusses how our fascination with technology and advances in technology are a kind of story where we use our imagination to think through how technology might help us do something better. He gives the basic example of a shovel. We can dig the dirt with our hands, but then using a shovel helps us do it better, quicker and more effectively. I'd never thought of technology in those terms but it makes sense. He also talks about how technology changes us. I'm early in the book yet so I'm not totally sure where he's going with this, but sitting here tapping away on my Bluetooth keyboard connected to my iPad which will wirelessly beam this blog onto the Wordl Wide Web... yeah, I can appreciate that technology has changed me!

Last weekend, I went to an interesting conference in Kansas City called CG2013, where the "CG" is for "Common Good," which, I'm told, is a concept of social justice that Pope Leo XIII addressed in his Rerum Novadum. The general idea is that Christians should be engaged in activities which promote the common good of all. Very interesting. One of the main speakers at the conference was Andy Crouch and he did a talk entitled "From the Garden to the City" (uncanny, huh?) where he talked about the fact that many Christians miss the first 2 and last 2 chapters of the Bible. They start from the description of our rebellion against God in Genesis 3 and end with Revelation 20 which describes judgement day. However, backing up to Genesis 1 & 2, there is a picture of creation in which God says "it is good" over and over and then He creates humans which he says are "very good." Then there is a description of a garden and in that garden humanity is told to work it - note all this is before the rebellion against God which means that work in itself can be a good thing. The Judeo-Christian account of creation is much more positive than the accounts in other faiths where the universe comes about through some kind of conflict or strife. Flipping to the end of the Bible and Revelation 21 & 22 we see a City. Yup, the new heaven and new earth is focussed on a massive City. Not rolling green hills. Not a bunch of people sitting on a cloud playing harps. A massive City. I'd heard this before from a book by Mark Driscoll but now at the CG2013 conference this idea has legs for me and is becoming less of an esoteric musing and something I need to think about more seriously. I guess I've also been influenced by some ideas I've seen on developing sustainable cities. I've seen presentations on ideas for Perth, WA and more recently for the Singapore International Water Week (water is a very big deal for that City). I'm still early on the learning curve but am intrigued to know more.

So, where does leave me in pondering "From the Garden to the City" and how do these two experiences shape my thinking? I guess the main thing is figuring out how to embrace technology and cities in a positive way - seeking God's redemption in both - rather than being a naysayer that sees evil in everything new. New stuff can be good. It can be very good. I see this in technology and I guess I need to start seeing this in cities too. At the same time we should not be niaive to think that all new things are good. I see plenty that's bad in many cities and there are uses of technology that are very bad (nukes for instance). Plenty to ponder!

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Comparison of Business Class Travel

OK, before we start, I'm grateful to be traveling business class and not economy. These notes are meant to convey my own personal experience traveling with different airlines and give feedback on the best of the best. Overall my experience of business class travel is very positive. Maybe some other time I'll contrast business and economy class which is a whole different story (guessing JAL will be top of the list in both categories actually, but I'm ahead of myself as usual).

OK, here is my own person run down from best to good (can't say worst as the others are all good).

1. JAL - OK, so I'm on one of their planes typing this blog now so that may be influencing me, but I'm bowled over by their awesome customer service. The air stewardess (non PC but I forget the PC name so slap me), was very apologetic for not having the particular veggie/fish meal I wanted and made efforts to combine the meals to make sure I had something to eat. In addition, their video entertainment system has a better user interface, better screen and overall better experience than any other carrier I've flown. Japanese customer service plus Japanese Tech = ++++ experience! Well done JAL, I'm sold. As an aside, I also travelled with JAL in economy last year and their customer service was awesome - akin to what I'd expect in business class (without the leg room though!)
2. Qantas - it has been a while since I traveled to Oz on a Qantas flight but their customer service for business class is awesome (yes sir). The seats are very comfy and conducive to sleep, relaxation or just to watch a nice movie. Now don't ask me about economy class as it's odd to see that a country that regards itself as "classless" treats the folks in the cheap seats a little less than average, but I must say their cheap seats do still have a good entertainment system.
3. Dragon Air - this is an Asian airline based in Hong Kong and affiliated with Cathay Pacific. As such they may be classified as more of a "budget" airline but I have to say my own experience was far from budget! Their entertainment system has an awesome widescreen and their customer service was pretty good. The flight attendant (ah, now I remember the PC name!) was a little put off by me asking if I could have a non-meat meal when I hadn't pre-ordered a vegetarian meal but she wasn't rude at all and we figured something out (maybe I've become one of those difficult "high maintenance" people that I hate. Heck, I hope not - switching to vegetarian food is trickier than I thought).
4. American Airlines - pretty decent service and good staff but their entertainment system is starting to look old with a little screen. I had to wear my glasses to watch the movies. Sorry, that's picky but for Dragon Air and JAL the screen was bigger/closer to me so I didn't need to worry about that. Also, on the flight from Dallas to Narita, the video quality was sub-par. OK to watch but when you pay extortionate fees for business class you expect better.
5. British Airways - it has been a while, but my memory of the BA flight in business class is that the customer service was OK but that their seats were a little funky and I found it difficult to sleep. Sorry BA if my memory is failing me, but my mental list has you just below AA. Still good, and I'm not complaining, but some way to go to catch up with your Asian and Aussie colleagues.

OK, that's my totally biased opinion on business class travel. If I have a choice, the Asian airlines definitely have an edge. I've heard very good things about Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific but I've not had the pleasure of flying with them. Maybe next time?

 

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Movies on a plane

Spending hours traveling on a plane is not really my idea of fun. The one plus to the long distance flights with modern entertainment systems is the chance to catch up on all the movies I've missed. Surprisingly on my flights to/from Asia this month the blockbuster fantasy and sci-fi movies that I usually enjoy were a bit disappointing whereas a couple of movies that are outside my clichéd mainstay of movies were actually very good. OK, I also enjoyed the one animated movie I watched too, just don't tell anyone (if only Noah were still 6 and I could claim I was just watching them with him)!

Here Is my rundown of the movies I watched, my marks out of 10 and brief comments:

1. Safety not guaranteed - 10+/10. OK, if you read the description of the movie it sounds like a sci-fi, but it is most definitely not science fiction. It's about quirky people in the NW of the US interacting with each other. It's funny, quirky and a bit of a love story thrown in. Not my usual thing but I do love original movies done well and this is just that. This should win awards but I'm guessing it won't because it's too good. I recognize a couple of the actors but ask me to name them. I highly recommend to everyone.
2. Safe house - 9/10. If I have to pick a favorite actor it would probably be Denzel Washington. He is awesome in this very original spy movie. The supporting cast are very good too. In some ways this is a formulaic spy movie but with a couple of twists and strong and convincing acting. Definitely worth a watch especially if you like the Bourne series (which I do).
3. Brave - 8/10. OK it's an animated movie for kids but, hey, it's done well, the story is good and the characters funny throughout. There's enough "mush" to tug the heart strings but not too much that it degenerates into a soppy pile. Worth watching. Oh, the animation is impressive too if that's your thing.
4. Prometheus - 5/10. Very disappointed. Alien 1 was good and suspenseful. Alien 2 was even better. Alien 3 was crap. Alien 4 was OK. As a prequel, Prometheus promised a lot but delivered little. Now I think about it, 5/10 is generous. I put it in the same camp as Alien 3. Sorry. The acting was very good. The special effects excellent. But the story was awful and unbelievable. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for fantasy and sci-fi but somehow the story has to me credible. At college I recall someone saying that in fiction we have to "suspend our disbelief" but if the writer is bad then they can lose us and end up with a bad book or film. The whole scene with the lead character cutting an alien out of her own body was complete and utter... to be polite I'll just say "crap." Sorry, they totally lost me at that point. My disbelief was off the scale and the plot was lost. The other elements of the film were OK if a bit tenuous. Not one I'd want to watch again.... maybe 3/10 is closer to the mark. I'll watch Alien vs Predator instead.
5. Snow White and the Huntsman - 4/10. My wife loved this movie though I guess it's because of a certain lead character wielding an axe instead of a hammer. The acting and effects were good but, again, the story was a bit lacking. Ah well.

 

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Three Societal Objections to Evolution

In a previous blog, I listed 3 objections to the theory of evolution in its rawest form. In this current blog I turn my focus to some of the consequences of considering humanity as just a bunch of intelligent naked apes. I present 3 social or societal (sorry I'm not a sociologist, just a general observer of life) consequences of holding to this flawed theory of origins...

1. Ultimately we answer to no-one, so anything goes. The Bible talks about the Fear of the Lord being linked to knowledge and wisdom. This isn't just a poetic phrase or a means to control the masses; it's a basic and logical truth. If you know that some day you must answer for your actions and choices in life then that influences your decisions in society and how you interact with others. Without that, who's to say you shouldn't do something? Not sure that's a wise choice for society as a whole.
2. There is no right or wrong, just whatever works. This seems to be where the western world sits right now. There is a legacy of morality from previous generations (arguably from Christian ethics but that's another discussion!) but let's just keep what helps us to get along and throw aside the other stuff... as long as no-one gets hurt... or it's between consenting adults. Freedom for individuals to do whatever the heck they want seems to be the only moral guidance. I'm all for freedom to choose, but self-centredness and self-indulgence as a moral compass for a society doesn't bode well for civilization. Selfishness in all aspects of society can't be good for anyone in the long run.
3. The strong should prevail and the weak be discarded. One word. Eugenics. That's the consequence of holding to evolution as an explanation for humanity. The idea fell out of favor as a social movement after World War II (the Nazi's were big fans), but expect to see genetic engineering and bio-enhancements becoming the norm as well as the potential mis-use of DNA testing to enhance human capabilities. These latter ideas are not bad in themselves but in the context of seeing ourselves as evolved apes and wanting to give evolution a boost, then anything goes.

 

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Can't vote... Thankfully

I'm a foreigner (a legal alien to borrow from Sting), so I don't get to vote for your president or anyone else. I still pay taxes though, and still get to enjoy the freedoms and opportunities of this great nation. Now, for some, not being able to vote in the country in which they've lived for 10 years or so, would be a negative thing, but I have to say I'm glad I don't have to vote. American politics suck the life out of me when I think about them. The unruly mess of house, senate and judiciary at State and Federal level, the grotesque spectacle of lobbyists legally bribing politicians and the pork-barelling of bills to sneak through your own special interests without anyone noticing, all make me shake my head.

But none of these are the things that really make me glad that I don't get to vote. It's the negative ads. This campaign seems to be about what will you vote against, rather than what you will vote for. Vote against Obamacare, or vote against capitalist greed. Sad. But maybe that's what democracy is all about. For the most part the politicians try to do what's best for their country (though I suspect most do what's best for themselves or their lobbyists), so as long as they don't do anything crazy - have at it. But if they do something that does seem crazy to the masses, then they get to vote them out! Hopefully the next guy or gal will do a better job.

Still, I recall from my college education that negative ads aren't as effective as positive ads. Or maybe that was only in the UK and here in the US you're a more blood-thirsty lot! "Without vision the people perish" so it would seem that a vision means you need to be for something in politics and not just bashing the opposition, otherwise there is no way to govern or inspire people? But what do I know about politics? I'll close with this interesting note on Coke versus Pepsi. Surely the same applies to the politicians. For sure their negativity has turned me off...

Unlike politicians, companies hardly ever run negative ads. Pepsi ads don't tear down Coke; they build the brand image of Pepsi. Why? Because a tit-for-tat war of words would turn off consumers of both brands. And sales growth, not just market share, is what puts money in shareholders' pockets.

As the market leader, Coke would never give the underdog Pepsi the benefit of a mention in its ads. For its part, Pepsi would worry that negative ads against Coke would say more to consumers about the character of Pepsi than Coke. And when Pepsi did famously "challenge" Coke twenty years ago, it was with blindfolded consumers choosing between two unlabeled samples, as close as you could get to a scientific test. http://blogs.hbr.org/quelch/2008/05/how_negative_advertising_works.html

 

 

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