Silly voice mail habits

You do not need to tell people what time it is when you're leaving a voice mail for someone's mobile phone. Voice mail has a time stamp; we've got it if we want it. And why are you leaving a message anyway? If it's anything more than "call me back" and if we've got your number programmed in our mobile phones (or we've got caller ID boxes on a landline), then we know you called. Maybe you should leave a message if you don't want to be called back. And mention the time if you're like in a different time zone.

Pencil technicians

It seems like back in middle school we were pencil technicians. I was geeky, so my friends and I used mechanical pencils. We could basically field strip them and did so often when we were bored. I knew about different lead sizes (0.5, 0.7, 1.0 mm) and different models from popular brands. When shopping for school supplies I had to match up the right eraser refills, the right lead, etc. At three or four dollars each, a pencil seemed like an investment, so you just didn't “borrow” my pencil. I had loaner pencils on hand.

The Pentel Quicker Clicker was the workhorse. It was durable enough to be useful and complicated enough to keep me entertained during boring classes. It had an eraser seated in a metal clamp and a cap over the eraser, so there were all kinds of pieces to take apart. I think I remember a sort of needle in the bottom of the eraser for cleaning out lead, but I'm not sure.

A school supply tinkerer in probably fifth grade developed an entertaining activity with a normal wooden pencil. He discovered that you can take the end of a notebook spiral, bend it in parts so you had something like a hand-operated drill, and literally drill a hole through the pencil with the blunt broken end of the wire.

Exact temperature of heaven

The temperature of heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, ''Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days.'' Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that... The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4=50, where E is the absolute temperature of the Earth (-300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed ... [However] Revelation 21:8 says ''But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.'' A lake of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C. We have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C.

Applied Optics, Vol. 11, A14, 1972

Less blogging

I haven't blogged much in a blog like this one for two reasons:

1. I can update my status on Facebook and Twitter. This microblogging relieves my blogging needs most of the time.
2. I have been putting photos on Flickr every day. This gives me the opportunity to write something about my day.

I'm going to start copying some old blog material over here, though. Can you distinguish between the old and new?

On the hash, plus two more thoughts

The symbol "#" has too many names, including octothorpe, pound, hash, number, square, and splat. It seems like the English-speaking world hasn't really decided what to call it. That's kind of like the kitten we have in our house that is usually called "kitten" because we've tried so many names but not decided on any.

Are the ways of humans wicked and warped against the way of nature? Or have the idealists among us misunderstood nature?

Here is a new philosophical consideration: Some people believe that it is best to give an honest day's work for an honest day's pay, but others just don't like eating cat food!

Free market train wreck

Our country's financial crisis has been caused by a wreck of the laissez-faire train. Now that taxpayers are bailing out the private sector on a massive scale, I don't ever want to hear anyone ever assert again that businesses are managed better than government. If that were true, businesses would be bailing out the government. Now, I have a few observations.

1. Financial executives with seven-figure salaries and Ivy League degrees have proven themselves to be freaking retards. Who ever thought that it would be a good idea to invest in the subprime home loans? How does it make sense that risky loans packaged together can be safe, AAA-rated investments? Warren Buffett warned that this defied all logic. And if you ever even watched the news, you would know that the pundits have been warning about the impending "burst" of the housing "bubble" for the last decade. Furthermore, home prices have been inflating out of reach of average consumers, so it has been obvious that the trend couldn't continue. So as for the home mortgage piece of the economic puzzle, the writing has been on the wall.
2. This is a turning point in history for the ideology of government's role in economics. The politicians and business leaders who clamored for relaxed regulations and free markets now have egg on their faces. These same people are now asking the federal government to buy out bad investments and partially nationalize private companies. Sensible regulations could have avoided this mess, but lawmakers listen to campaign donors instead of reason. The derailment of the free market train is leading us to a new economy in which government will be much more involved.
3. There has been something fundamentally wrong with the American economy for a long time. Politicians like George W. Bush and John McCain have expressed optimism for so long because they are wealthy and isolated. However, average people have seen their earning power and job stability declining for decades. Globalization and bad policies have allowed the U.S. to sink in world markets rather than lead them. Our leaders need to recognize the fundamental problems rather than be satisfied with their personal wealth.
   

The incentive of regret and avoiding it

I feel like I have a new approach to making decisions. Often, decisions seem straightforward and calculated to be something that works toward good results as well provides immediate satisfaction to some extent. Well, I have recently made decisions to take on short-term commitments in order to avoid feeling the regret of not making those decisions. That is, I have done things that I felt I did not want to do, but I thought they would make me a better person and provide an opportunity that later I would regret passing up, especially because they may have made me into the person I needed to be. This kind of makes sense, but it has struck me as a weird way of making decisions. Specifically, they were things I did in law school that I didn't have to do. Now I'm wondering if I'll take any jobs or other commitments that I'm not excited about for the sake of experience.

Invasive plants

Whenever I look up plants on the Internet, I often find out that things growing in the wild or domestically are deemed invasive. They come from Asia or Africa, and they proliferate much more rapidly than plants that are native to America. Often there are American counterparts to an exotic species that looks very similar. The invasive plants are said to be something to fight off or to never plant in your own yard. For instance, you'll see exhortations to never plant English Ivy, and it's even illegal in Oregon.

Well, this is America. Can't American values be applied to the ecosystem? We value competition and leadership. We like to find ways to work faster and more efficiently. If these vines and shrubs can come over from Asia and find ways to grow faster than their American cousins who look exactly the same, then I say let them. In America we like to adapt to change when change means progress, so the ecosystem can adapt, too.

The evolution of shrinking blogs

The posting of short status messages on services like Twitter is often called "micro-blogging." The messages are limited to 140 characters. In a ridiculous development I have seen a service called Adocu in which you can post only one word, and the website calls it "nano-blogging." If this is the trend, then I propose the next step to be "pico-blogging" in which you can only post a three-character code to communicate your status. After that there will be "femto-blogging" in which you can only post a single character. The logical conclusion will be "atto-blogging" in which you only set a flag, a one or a zero (on or off, yes or no). I don't see how we can miniaturize any further. Micro-blogging is wacky enough already.

Millipedes

We seem to have a millipede infestation. Where do they come from and what do they eat? After midnight our kitchen looks like it's from an Indiana Jones movie, one of those rooms you get trapped in where it's filled with critters that eat you. During the daytime I often hear a crunch under my shoe because they curl up and die in random places.

Potential LOLcat

One day I will finally think of the perfect LOLcat caption for this photo. I will make my stunning LOLcat contribution to society. One day... Maybe you can help me think of something.

Weird Gmail

I just wrote an email about Des Moines through my Gmail account. After I sent the message it showed a link about Iowa land for sale, touting a 450-acre private lake. Yeah, I bet there is a lot of new waterfront property and private lakes going up for sale there now.

Command interface to Google

This is really weird and amusing. It is an imitation Unix interface to Google search services.

http://goosh.org/

Cracker Jack

Cracker Jack prizes have apparently gotten more lame than ever. I just bought a bag that contained a paper pencil decoration with a cartoon picture of insects. That is so much more lame than something like a sticker or a miniature baseball card. Just a piece of paper with two slits for a pencil to slide through. I'm glad I didn't buy the stuff for the prize. I was just eating it until I found a piece of paper in the bag and remembered the whole prize gimmick. I wonder if you can still buy Cracker Jack in boxes.

What I really like are the names of other caramel-covered popcorn snacks: Crunch 'n' Munch, Fiddle Faddle, and Poppycock. It takes creative genius to name a snack. When you eat something with a name like Fiddle Faddle, it feels like you are being funny and mischievous.

Work is fun

Just a minute ago I heard a lawn mower start up and then ... maniacal laughter. That is disconcerting. What kind of glee is someone suddenly feeling as the result of a deadly rotating blade? Frightening.

A couple years ago some workers were hammering in a garage and playing loud, heavy rock music. They kept hooting and hollering like they may have actually been at the rock concert.

Work must be fun. There is new meaning to "whistle while you work" on my street.

Things I saw that looked like something else in my mind

• Gravel: Seen at night and lit by red stop lights from a nearby car, it looked like dog food.
• Deer carcass: On the roadside it looked like a giant opossum. It was much less surprising when someone told me what it was after I exclaimed about its size.
• Billboard: As I was about to fall asleep on a night drive, it looked like a candy bar, and that scared me into alertness.
• Third year of law school: Back in the first year it looked like it would be a lot of fun, but it wasn't.
  

Windy

I used to wonder what it might be like to live on the Falkland Islands. Now I know a little more about the windy part anyway. Isn't Georgia windier than usual this year? I mean, gee whiz! I think the pollen that collected on the outdoor furniture has been blown away. I'm glad there isn't much sand around here because the furniture would be sandblasted, too. If there were sand outside, maybe it would get blown around and clean the driveway because this year it's illegal to pressure wash it. You can't see wind, but you can see the effects of it, and I've been seeing a whole lot of effects all this spring.

Ceremonial weapons

The law school graduation involved a display of weaponry: The sheriff wielding a sword and the law school marshal carrying a mace. I was reminded by a retired law professor who is a second degree black belt in tae kwon do that his feet and hands could be added to the list.

Sink philosophy

Two different philosophies clash in the bathroom. The philosophy of water conservation says, make a faucet that only runs as it is pressed upon, meaning that you can only rinse one hand at a time. The Americans with Disabilities Act philosophy says, make a sink with a normal faucet except with long handles to control the hot and cold water. The result is a counter with two sinks that have very different faucets. Guess who wins? The sink with the faucet that can be left on so you can rub your hands together under running water. In one particular bathroom it seems that no one uses the funny water-saving sink. Disabilities sink wins -- flawless victory.

Last names that are body parts or could be

• Head
• Legg
• Hand
• Foote
• Hipps
• Hart
• Finger
• Palm
  
• Butt
• Pitt

Friends versus allies

It seems it is hard to find good friends. I'm not a very social person, so I don't interact with people very frequently outside of school or work. When I do get to know friends and neighbors, there are inevitably politics that arise among them -- someone doesn't like someone else for some random reason. And it is hard to find someone who doesn't eventually do something I don't like myself.

Could it be easier to simply find allies? If I have an interest in learning or accomplishing something, maybe I could forget about finding friends and just focus on finding people who share my interest. I could ignore someone's negative character traits but just seek interactions with him to advance my goals. It seems that any group with politics -- whether a neighborhood, an office, or a dinner club -- really just functions by getting along rather than trying to be Best Friends Forever.

But shouldn't I draw the line somewhere? Is there a point at which someone is so rude that associating with them could hurt me? When is one "judged by the company you keep"?

Nose blowing

I do not like to blow my nose when it gets mucousy. Why? Glad you asked. Let me explain. If I try to blow my nose I do not get good results. First, my nostrils just get clogged up. I would rather suck in the small amount of mucous that is there, even if snorting sounds gross you out, because if I have snot in my nose then there's more where that came from. Second, it causes sinus pressure in my head to increase, and that hurts.

So I am just going to inhale and snort. Don't suggest that I blow my nose -- I already thought of that. Thanks for your phenomenal insight.