The Way It Should Be

This is how it should be. https://t.co/pYjf7UhZGy

— John A. Daly (@JohnDalyBooks) January 31, 2023

The Abortion Debate

Last week the Supreme Court issued its decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case ruling 6-3 that "the Constitution of the United States does not confer any right to abortion, and overruled both Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). (Wikipedia) The result is seen as a victory for those who identify with the "Pro-life Movement" and a defeat for those affirming "Pro-choice."

I have been dishearted over the last few days at the level of angst displayed against the court's decision and in favor of having the freedom to take the innocent lives of the unborn. There have been multiple "Pro-choice" protests around the nation, where protesters have stopped traffic, surrounded the homes of justices, resisted arrest, engaged in disorderly conduct, and interfered with the police. To be fair, "Pro-life" counter-protesters were involved in some of these events and may be guilty of similar behavior. This is disheartening to me as well.

The division that exists in the world between the two sides will not be solved through violence or even "peaceful civil disobedience." The only way to heal the divide, and even this is unlikely to have a significant effect, is to engage in civilized discourse about the matter. It is the heart that needs to change among those on both sides. This takes persuasion exercised in kindness.

I have considered myself "Pro-life" or anti-abortion since Roe was decided in 1973 when I was only 21. After nearly 50 years, my views on the matter have been consistent. I believe a human is conceived in the womb when a human sperm fuses with a human egg and that human beings have "a right to life" unless it is forfeited by significant malfeasance.

But I know this view is not shared by all. I should not expect everyone to agree with my "Pro-life" views until they have been convinced that the unborn child is a human being that possesses the right to life. Getting to that point needs persuasion.

I have decided to write a series of articles for this blog about the abortion debate. I'll examine the science and the Bible to make my points. I'll answer questions raised by those on the other side. I hope these articles may contribute to a better understanding of the issue and convince some of the value of the life of the little ones still in their mothers' wombs.

BigBlueButton: Free Conferencing Server for Distance Learning

I have been testing BigBlueButton for a while now, considering it for use by the Online Academy of Biblical Studies to replace another solution we have been using that is getting too expensive and a bit cumbersome to use. You can get a taste of what BigBlueButton looks like and how it works by going to their demo server and testing it.

The owners state their vision as follows, "We believe that every student with a web browser should have access to a high-quality, on-line education. We intend to make that possible using BigBlueButton." The software they have produced, especially with version 1.1-beta, goes a long way to providing that "high-quality, on-line education." We at OABS are currently working on using BBB when we begin a new semester of training this coming August.

Some of the features available with BBB are the following:

• Student polling - If a teacher has uploaded a presentation, including slides that show a list of options, BBB will view that as a possible poll and present a button to the teacher to start a survey based on the list. If he clicks the button, buttons will appear a the bottom of each student's browser for each of the options in the list. Clicking one of those buttons registers his selection within the poll. The teacher can, at any time, dismiss the poll or publish the poll for the students to see the results.
• Multimedia presentations:
• Uploaded documents for use as slides to be presented to the students.
• Whiteboard controls work within slide presentations but offer a set of controls for annotating slides (or blank pages) on the fly.
• Desktop sharing replaces the instructor's video so students can see what the instructor is doing on his computer. The instructor must have the latest version of Java installed on his computer to share his desktop, but students need no additional software to view the results.
• Webcam support. Both students and instructors can share screen cams simultaneously, though the instructor can disable this to prevent distractions during a presentation or overloading users' bandwidths.
• WebRTC audio for high-quality, low-latency audio among users using HTML5 enabled browsers (Chrome and Firefox). Other browsers, however, will use Flash-based audio controls automatically.
• Record and playback of sessions. When used within Moodle with the BigBlueButtonBN plugin, recorded sessions automatically appear under the session join button after sessions have ended and the recordings have been processed by BBB.
• Text chat interactions between students and instructors through public and private chat channels.

Getting BBB up and running is really relatively easy. The whole process can be done within less than an hour, including the build-out of a Ubuntu 16.04 server. For the server, simply boot to a CD containing the installation media for Ubuntu Server 16.04 and build a minimal system. Don't install extra software during the build except for the default system utilities and OpenSSH if you plan to administer the server remotely. (A recommended option.)

Once the server build is complete, you will need to log on and modify your interfaces file at "/etc/network/interfaces" with appropriate values to make the server available on your network. (This is only necessary for servers with static IP addresses. If the server is a development server on a subnet with DHCP, you may not need to do this.)

The build-out instructions for BBB are available here:

Instructions for Installing BigBlueButton 1.1-beta and its dependencies

The instructions are very complete and easy to follow for the technically savvy. Others might find them a little daunting, but most should be able to work out the details to get the server up and running just by carefully following the steps which are outlined.

These instructions have been updated since the last time I used them, but I was able to build out a BBB server in about 30 minutes. I'll go through the new instructions soon to see what has been added, but I don't think the changes should harm new users. If you have some problems with the build, there is a good troubleshooting section at the end of the page to help identify where things might have gone wrong.

One of the impressive things that I find with BBB is the level of detail and quality of its documentation. It has been a long time since I have seen technical documentation as complete and as valuable as the documentation provided for BBB, whether one looks at commercial or other open-source software. Fred Dixon and his team have done great work with this software.

Furthermore, their free support within their forums is excellent for a free service. The BBB team has a passion for the software and making it work for everyone. They genuinely want to know when things go wrong so it can be fixed. I've seen them interact with technically-savvy users, those who can't find the control key on their computers, and a few somewhat belligerent users. In every case, they have handled users professionally with just the proper interactions to keep discussions from blowing up and constantly help those who need help. Very unusual for free software support.

BBB doesn't include software for scheduling and managing conferences like other conferencing solutions (but see the addendum below), but it integrates well into LMS systems like Moodle. For Moodle, BBB has provided plugins to enable accessing BBB sessions from within Moodle. Once installed, an administrator or instructor can easily add BBB sessions for his classes for his students to join live or review on-demand after the sessions have ended.

In my judgment, BBB is the most accessible conferencing system to set up and use among the various open-source offerings out there now and possibly better than most commercial services, at least for DLS purposes. Educators looking to employ Internet conferencing in their offerings would do well to look into the features and capabilities of BigBlueButton.

Addendum

Fred Dixon reminded me of an add-on product recently been released by the BBB team. He writes, "We recently did provide a lightweight front-end called GreenLight for managing conferences (no scheduling yet)  in GreenLight. See https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/bigbluebutton-dev/qTEZfgp1gIs/BneJoQ5BBAAJ. We intend to build upon this framework in the coming months (and improve it based on feedback from others)."

I failed to mention GreenLight, although I knew of it and have used it. It currently provides the ability to authenticate users using OAuth technology for users with Twitter or a Google account. At this point, if you can log in with either account, you can create a meeting that includes recording capability and then control the recording during the session. Other users can join the meeting, whether they have logged in or not, but they cannot turn the recording on or off.

Eventually, for GreenLight to be viable, the concept of a role will need to be added to maintain greater control over who can log in, who can do what after they have logged in, and what-not. However, GreenLight is a good step toward making BigBlueButton a complete conferencing system.

Multiple Resolutions in Ubuntu Hyper-V VM

Many users have created a Ubuntu virtual machine (VM) using Microsoft's Hyper-V technology to find that the VM supported only one resolution within its drivers. You can see then when you try to modify the display resolution from the VM's System Settings\Displays utility.

Ubuntu 16.04 Display Utility

Trump's Shameful Character

Donald Trump is an embarrassment to the Republican Party, but more importantly, he is an embarrassment to the United States of America. Those supporting him should know who it is they are supporting. If, after reviewing the following tweets and reading the articles they reference, you can still support Trump for President, you have a higher threshold for disgust than this writer can imagine.

CR101 288 Overpass Westbound Personal Record - August 30, 2016

I set a personal record crossing the CR101 288 Overpass this morning starting out on my lunchtime ride. This bridge is usually crossed at a snails pace, but I decided to push myself today to see if I could cross it in anything but the lowest gear. To my surprise, I made it to the top of the bridge with speed and energy to spare and was able to cross with an average speed of 15.4 mph.
That's nothing to crow about compared to other riders, but still, it's a lot better than I've been doing.

I didn't do that well on the way back after 16 more miles of riding. I mustered an average of only 8.1 mph on the eastbound segment.

Sign and Share the Twitter Petition

The petition I announced yesterday, "Petition to Twitter to Verify Cheri Jacobus Account," needs your help to get as many signatures as we can get in order to motivate Twitter Inc. The key to any successful petition, whether one supplicates the government or a corporation is getting the petition out to people who are interested in its purpose, and getting them to sign the petition. That isn't as easy as it might seem.

To be successful petitioners need to recruit others to advertise and sign the petition. Anyone can advertise a petition; a post to your Facebook page, or to your Twitter account will do that. But getting others to sign the petition, and to advertise it to their friends is a bit more difficult. It takes a little more effort. You have to make the case. You have to ask your friends to get involved. You have to follow up.

Cheri Jacobus deserves your support! She is currently battling several imposters on Twitter who are attacking her with vile and disgusting tweets designed to make it appear that she is sending those tweets. Why? Simply because she has exposed part of the ugliness of the Trump campaign, specifically how the campaign demeans and smears those who have the temerity to oppose it.

We need your help. If you have not yet signed the petition, please do. Help us also with advertising. Tell your friends on social networks about the petition by including a link to the petition or to this page. Follow up later with additional appeals in case the first appeal was missed or ignored. Ask if your friends have signed, and appeal to their better nature.

Petition to Twitter to Verify Cheri Jacobus Account

The Twitter universe has become a popular and effective medium for getting news out to the Internet quickly and easily. But like all other good things those things that can be used for good can also be used nefariously.

Because of the ease of creating accounts on Twitter it is fairly easy to impersonate other users and make it appear that the user says things he does not. This can be done with humorous effect, but it can also be harmful.

Trump Logic 101

Trump Logic Animation

What's Wrong with Backing Trump?

Meanwhile, the WSJ's Bret Stephens launches a searing warning to GOP leaders backing Trump https://t.co/E2o9TcSsu2 pic.twitter.com/8HZXmgpdMg

— Nick Timiraos (@NickTimiraos) August 2, 2016

Future Trump Books

#FutureTrumpBooks

1001 Banal Insults
Speaking Lies to Power
The Art of Losing
Surviving in the Gutter pic.twitter.com/3HrK2tIh6x

— (((Gil Yoder))) (@gyode) August 1, 2016

#FutureTrumpBooks

The America I Divide
The Art of the Smear
The Art of the Squeal
Never Give Anything pic.twitter.com/Fdfq9a0njO

— (((Gil Yoder))) (@gyode) August 1, 2016

#FutureTrumpBooks

Touched
Think Small
10 Secrets Kept from the Electorate
How to Get Even pic.twitter.com/S25mBLAqgS

— (((Gil Yoder))) (@gyode) August 1, 2016

Previous Trump Books: Google Search for Trump Books.

Whites Only, No Jews Allowed

A good bit of Trump support on Twitter looks like this.

Why are antisemites and white supremacists flocking to Donald Trump? Could it be something he has said?

Don't Blame Donald: Nothing Is Ever His Fault

With both conventions now history, it is clear that the Democratic convention was far better organized and produced than the Republican convention. Of course, when asked about this, Donald Trump deflected criticism to his supporters rather than accepting blame for himself. (See "Clinton's Convention Was Made for TV" in The New York Times.)

During the Republican convention, Trump was happy to take credit for its successes. Still, once the comparison between it and the Democratic convention was made, he was quick to throw his supporters under the bus.

Trump values loyalty, but only toward him, not in reverse.