Well if you ask me...

Two Cents Each – 6/24/2011

This week I’ve included several links as part of a bibliography to go with two posts I wrote earlier in the week. I’ve not included comments for them below.

Alex Payne — How I Use TextMate

TextMate is my second favorite editor – after vim of course – and I love the bundles.

Disney Princesses, Deconstructed

One of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time.

Lawmaker Says Most Want to Disband Ethics Office

The commentary is the funnies part.

The Complete Guide to Not Giving a F*ck

A little heavy on the language for me but very, very true. Excellent advice – minus the profanity.

What’s Wrong With American Television

The author pinpoints exactly what is wrong with American television. The same thing that is ruining everything else about America – unmitigated capitalism. 

Freakonomics » What Can Movie Stars Tell Us About Marriage And Education?

So it’s not why we think but we still don’t know why?

Weird software bugs

Very funny list indeed!

Why programmers are not paid in proportion to their productivity — The Endeavour

"Programmers are most effective when they avoid writing code."

I could not agree more!

Seth’s Blog: The $20,000 phone call

The receptionists I deal with are all very nice, of course, but I never understood why most I’ve dealt with over the years are exactly as Seth describes. I don’t get it. 

Ranking Baseball’s Best Ballparks – NYTimes.com

"I’m working on an article about the New York Mets — but that subject is perhaps too depressing for a beautiful Memorial Day weekend."

Could not agree more.

A VC: Enough Is Enough

Enough is Enough – Absolutely!

danwebb.net – It’s About The Hashbangs

I haven’t thought much about this but my gut reaction is that these things "break" the web. In general, I don’t like them.</dl>

more

Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?

• My Answer
• http://gamc.pcusa.org/media/uploads/interfaithrelations/pdf/stereotyping.pdf
• Prayer for Peace by Christian, Jewish and Muslim clergy
• Ecumenical considerations for dialogue and relations with people of other religions
• Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) – Resources – Toward an Understanding of Christian-Muslim Relations
• http://worldinterfaithharmonyweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/respectfulpresence.pdf
• Issues in Christian-Muslim Relations: Ecumenical Considerations
• Interfaith Relations And The Churches
• Report on an international consultation on “Christians and Muslims in dialogue and beyond”
• http://www.pcusa.org/media/uploads/interfaithrelations/pdf/islam.pdf
• http://www.pcusa.org/media/uploads/interfaithrelations/pdf/starter.pdf
• Is Allah in Islam the same as the God of Christianity or Judaism? – Quora
• The Qur’an

Book Review: Waiting for “Superman”

Waiting for “SUPERMAN”: How We Can Save America’s Failing Public Schools, the companion book to the film, was an excellent addition to the film. I was pleased to learn more about the filmmakers, the making of the film, the issues raised in the film, and the people I met watching it.

The film’s director and producer, as well as several of the educators and experts featured in the film each wrote a chapter. Each of these chapters begins with an introduction to the writer which helps put the chapter in context. This format threw me at first because I didn’t just want to learn “about the movie” but it turned out to be an excellent way to expand the discussion.

While reading the chapter written by Guggenheim, I found myself wondering why I was reading so much about An Inconvenient Truth, one of his previous films, but that proved to be a good thing too. I have a whole new appreciation for both films after learning more about their structure. Learning from An Inconvenient Truth, where he cut together one long film with several shorter mini-films, Guggenheim actually directed two entirely separate films for Waiting for “Superman.” The working titles for these films were Other People’s Children and The Folly of the Adults. It was only after completing both films independently, and ensuring that they “worked” separately, that Guggenheim cut them together to create Waiting for “Superman”.

I think Guggenheim exaggerates his “discovery” of this method but that doesn’t diminish his excellence in execution. If he is telling the truth, it is quite an accomplishment in my mind.

The book followed a similar pattern. Each part of the book begins with an introduction which introduces us to one of the students featured in the film. The following chapters then take a different direction where the issues are explored in more detail.

I saw the film first, and as you’ll read in my review on Saturday, I thought it had flaws. I was pleased that the book addressed these. The flaws in the film can be summed up in its portrayal of charter schools. The film left me with several impressions:

1. Teachers’ unions are the problem.
2. All we need is better teachers.
3. These particular charter schools have “solved” the problem.

The implications are that all charter schools are always better than and have better teachers than “regular” public schools. The book does a better job of pointing out that this is not the case. I was glad to see this.

If you care about education, you should see the film and read the book. I enjoyed reading the book after viewing the film and it probably makes sense to do the same since they were produced in that order. If you are not familiar with the people featured in the film, you may want to “cheat” and read the small intros at the start of each chapter.

Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God? Yes and No.

Yesterday I wrote that my answer to this question is “yes AND no” – today I’d like to try and explain. I can think of two ways to determine who or what someone worships – what they say and what they do. These lead us to three questions.

Do Christians and Muslims say they worship the same God?

In my opinion this is the least important question, yet even here, there is considerable disagreement. While the Qur’an states in several places that Christians (and Jews) worship the same God Muslims do, there are a few texts that seem to contradict that. Most Protestant Christians, and virtually all evangelicals, would say they worship a different God than Muslims. The official position of the Catholic church is that Catholics and Muslims do indeed worship the same God – the God of the Bible – but I think many Catholics, in the U.S. especially, would disagree with that.

This one is a bit of a toss up then. Same God? Maybe.

Do Christians and Muslims describe God in the same way?

Here too, there is agreement and disagreement. Christians and Muslims both believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God who created the universe and who governs about the affairs of humankind. They disagree, though, on a few very important points, most notably the divinity of Jesus and the triune nature of God.

All things considered, the differences trump the similarities. Same God? No. (note)

Do Christians and Muslims worship in the same manner?

Muslims and Christians disagree about the very nature of how to worship God. The most notable of the differences is in the act of prayer. Muslims pray several times a day following very specific rules and they pray to Allah. Most Christian denominations do not follow strict rules and schedules for prayer (though most believe daily prayer is essential, I think) and they pray in the name of Jesus.

Here we have mostly differences. Same God? No.

So, how did I arrive at my answer?

Since I answered two of the questions above with “no,” you might wonder how I arrived at “yes and no.” Well, I am not sure I can put it into words (another copout, right?) but I will try to explain.

There is only one God

I firmly believe there is one God – omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. I also believe that God created all of the universe (though I don’t call myself a “creationist”). I also firmly believe that God redeems whom he wills. Though I understand the method of redemption, I don’t claim to know exactly how redemption “looks” from the outside for everyone.

Providence

I remember my dad always had a problem with the following scripture.

The LORD is far from the wicked: but he heareth the prayer of the righteous. Proverbs 15:29

He prayed for years before he came to faith and he firmly believed those prayers had been answered. As I grew in my own faith, we discussed this very point many times and eventually agreed that his prayers were “answered” according to God’s providence. I don’t want to get buried in theology over what might seem like “hair splitting” to some but I believe there is a distinction here.

It is God who redeems but we very often don’t know the path one takes to redemption. YES, we know the method of redemption, but we don’t know the specific circumstances that lead to that moment when an individual understands and appreciates that.

If there is only one God and if God governs the affairs of this world, then how can one worship any other God? There are no other. I know this might seem like a word game but it doesn’t feel like that to me. If a Muslim believes in an all powerful, personal God and he prays to that God, is he not praying to the only one true God. Note that I am not making a statement on the effectiveness of that prayer. That is another matter entirely, but certainly he is worshipping “our” God, no?

So, what is the right question?

I mentioned yesterday that we are really asking the wrong question. Perhaps we should be asking one or all of these questions (or similar ones):

• Do Muslims and Christians both share in the plan of redemption? Do Muslims go to heaven? Are Muslims saved or born again?
• Can learning about Islam make one a better Christian? Can learning about Christianity make one a better Muslim?
• Does the God of the Bible (Jehovah) answer the prayers of Muslims?
• How should Muslims and Christians relate to one another?
• Is it ever appropriate for Muslims and Christians to worship together? Is that even possible?

It seems to me that these questions are more important.

One Last Thing

There is one more question that has been nagging at me since I started thinking about all of this again.

“Do all Christians worship the same God?”

Ever think much about that?

I will post all of these links over the next few days but if you’d like to sample some of the reading I’ve done recently on the subject, here is a list of links.</p>

Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?

I didn’t pay much attention to this question until recently. Because I knew the answer

Until very recently, my answer was “no.”

Now, my answer is “yes AND no.” I know some of you will think that’s the easy way out but I think I can explain. If you give me a couple of days.

I remember learning in college that one of the gravest mistakes made by Western Christian missionaries over the years was the imposition of Western culture as part of the message. I remember thinking how sad it was that someone didn’t think to ask an important question – “Do these people actually worship the same God I do, despite the unfamiliar culture?”

I also remember making a decision about certain religions based on my knowledge at the time. Some indigenous peoples might worship the same God even though I don’t recognize Him but I knew about some religions and about those my mind was made up. Allah, for example, was not the God of the Bible. I was sure of that.

On September 11, 2001 I was confronted with this question once again. I was reminded that America has enemies and it seemed as though many Americans believed those enemies included all Muslims. Many claimed that Islam is a dangerous religion with a mission that included violence. Others claimed just the opposite, that Islam was a religion of peace and that the terrorists were not acting like good Muslims should.

What little I did know of Islam was a bit of the story of Muhammad which I read in one of my favorite books. The book ranked persons from history based on their influence and Muhammad was first on the list – mostly because he was a political and religious leader. It was also painfully obvious to me that nearly everything I knew of Islam I learned from Christians.

I’d like to think that my worldview is very tolerant of other opinions and viewpoints, but I was confronted with the question of Islam again and all I knew was this:

1. Apparently devout, but certainly extreme Muslims had attacked civilians in my country in cities not far from my home.
2. Islam is a religion that holds influence over whole nations and that even Muhammad himself was considered a political leader.
3. There appears to be some debate about the role of violence in Islamic thought.

On the other hand, I also knew that:

1. U.S. foreign policy typically supports Israel unconditionally.
2. That support is based on misinterpretation of the Bible (in my view).
3. Billions of Muslims all over the world want nothing to do with American Christianity because U.S. support of Israel.

I don’t pretend to understand all the ramifications of those things but I believed them at the time, as I do now, and I think it’s a shame.

Like most Americans, September 11th changed my perception of the world forever. In my case, however, I didn’t change my behavior. I realized I didn’t understand Islam but I took no action to change that. I could have and I would even say I “wanted to” but I didn’t. I went on believing, blindly, that Allah was not the God of the Bible.

Until just recently when two things made me think. The first was a film I saw on this website.

The second was a book I recently read. I was so moved by the film Of Gods and Men that I had to read the book which inspired the film. The book goes into great detail on the lives and values of the monks and one of the ideas explored is the belief by Dom Christian de Chergé, the prior, that God speaks to men in different ways. He clearly believed that Muslims were children of God.

So now I that I’ve had time to think about it my answer is different, but more importantly, I think it is the wrong question.

More on that tomorrow over here.

Of Gods and Men

A few months ago our son was in Philadelphia with a couple of his buddies and they decided to stop and see Of Gods and Men before returning home. He raved about the movie and insisted we go to see it as a family. It would only be available on Mothers’ Day so we set the idea aside until we made definite plans.

All of us forgot about it until Mother’s Day when Terri brought it up after breakfast. After she convinced us that she really wanted to spend part of “her” day ( actually, she told us this year that we celebrate “Mothers’ Day Weekend” ) in the theater, we went to see it.

Wow! We were glad we saw it!

NOTE: The film is based on real life events, but I’ll warn you anyway – the next four paragraphs are free of spoilers, but after that I give away something you would already know if you know the real life story.

Of Gods and Men is inspired by The Monks of Tibhirine, a heart-wrenching tale of French monks serving a Muslim community in Algeria ( my review ). The book’s author argues the monks were kidnapped by Islamic terrorists “Not because they were Christians, but because they refused to leave their Muslim friends” and the film conveys this message brilliantly. Each of the monks has his own struggle with the decision to leave or to stay and serve.

The film is a little slow but doesn’t feel tedious. The director could have easily resorted to one or two scenes to portray the monk’s minimalist existence, but that would have felt like sheer boredom to most of us. Instead, we learn by watching the monks do their chores, worship, and fellowship in small bits throughout film.

The cinematography is fantastic throughout and the performances are world class. I’m not a student of French film, but I’ve learned now that this was an “all star” cast for a French film. I am not surprised.

If you have any interest in faith, Christianity, Islam, the specific real-life events depicted in this film, or the meaning of life – you should see this film.

The film raises many questions, both spiritual and political, but doesn’t explore them all. The viewer is left to sort out the answers. The biggest question by far is “did they do the right thing by staying?” Like most people I think, I left the theater supporting their decision to stay. As I thought about the options afterward, I thought things like “Wouldn’t the monks have done more good for more people if they had gone?”

Fortunately, I was able to spot the influence of my Western, hyper-productivity, capitalist upbringing and put on the brakes. Is more always better? Is a long life always better than a short one – no matter the quality? I’d like to write more about these questions next week, but I am interested to hear your thoughts on it now if you care to share.

In his review, Roger Ebert claims the monks’ decision to stay was a result of pride. I couldn’t disagree more. What do you think?

BTW, Terri still says this is the best movie she has ever seen – so I guess it turned out to be a nice Mother’s Day Weekend.

The Monks of Tibhirine

I had the opportunity recently to see Of Gods and Men, a French film about a community of Trappist monks in Algeria who had a decision to make – a decision to stay and minister in the face of increasing danger or abandon their Muslim neighbors. I vaguely remember the story from the news but I didn’t think twice about the men until I saw the film.

I’ll post my review of the film on Saturday, but after seeing it I couldn’t wait to learn more about the lives of these men and the circumstances which led up to the events depicted on screen. The other day I took the first step in learning more about them and it was a good one. I picked up the Kindle version of the book The Monks of Tibhirine: Faith, Love, and Terror in Algeria.

The book deals with three themes, the monks and their stories, what it means to be a Christian, and the historical and political events responsible for creating the climate in which the monks served, and it does so very well. I learned a great deal about the civil war in Algeria as well as about Islam (a faith I am not familiar with) and Christianity (a faith I know well). I also came away from the reading with an understanding of each of the monks and their struggles and motivations. I’m glad I didn’t read the book before the film, but reading it caused me to appreciate the devotion and struggle even more.

It was not always an easy read. There is a lot of information to absorb and I’ll admit a few points where I felt like skipping several pages. I am glad I took the time to finish it. I highly recommend it to anyone who has any interest in faith, community, a disciplined life, or the relationship between different faiths.

I can’t recommend it enough.

Is It Really That Difficult to Order Coffee?

It seems that every few weeks someone I know comments on the confusing process of ordering a drink at Starbucks or some other cafe. This never ceases to amuse me.

Is it really that difficult to order a drink? I don’t think it is. Presumably, you wandered in looking for coffee. Well, guess what? They sell coffee. Order one.

Yes, they have other options, but isn’t it just like any other restaurant? Look at the menu, ask a question or two, order something. If you like it, you’ll have learned one thing you can order next time. If not, try again.

If you are really bothered by the elitists behind you who snub their noses at you because you don’t know what you want, then do a little research. Come up with something you’d like to try, walk in, pretend you know what you are doing, and order it. If you like it, … You get the idea.

For those of you that want a little help, you could try this little order helper I started to put together. I’d love some feedback on what I missed.

I Read Comics but I’m not Stupid!

I read comic books. I also have a high IQ.

And while me doesn’t have as large a vocabulary as some, I’d like to think I know me enough words to read smart stuff.

Cal Thomas doesn’t see how that is possible. Commenting on this panel from Action Comics #900,

Thomas said this …

Construed? Would comic book readers have heard of such a word?

BTW,

If you are interested at all in the context of that Superman panel, this is the best piece I’ve read on it.

Great Ideas – 5/2/2011

• Health Care Savings May Start in Employee Diets – link

• Work Smart: Avoid Office Distractions With Time Blocking

  Fast Company – link

• The Music Maze – link

• Just How Many Days Does Bill Murray REALLY Spend Stuck Reliving GROUNDHOG DAY?

  Obsessed With Film – link

• LAVA wins first prize for masdar – world’s first sustainable city in UAE – link
• DarkCopy – Simple, full screen text editing – link
• Budget Climb – link
• AT-AT for America – link
• » How to Monitor Your Home with FaceTime – Chris Pirillo – link
• The Dan Plan – link

see more great ideas

Interesting Sites – 5/1/2011

• habitforge – Getting you to the finish line. – link
• Prezi – The zooming presentation editor – link

• Free online speed reading software

  Spreeder.com – link

• Interactive 3D model of Solar System Planets and Night Sky – link
• Khan Academy – link
• Find the shortest route between two Wikipedia articles. – link
• INCREDIBOX [ Official website ] – link
• Welcome to SmartMaggie.com – Access, Excel, VBA and Web Development – link
• txt2re: headache relief for programmers :: regular expression generator – link
• World’s Biggest PAC-MAN – link

see more interesting sites

A Few Good Films

Just a few thoughts on each. No time for real reviews. First time viewing for all of these films even though two of them are almost as old as I am.

Dog Day Afternoon

My place is with my girls.

Fantastic film with a brilliant performance by Pacino.

 

Fair Game

Ask those questions. Demand that truth.

Much better film than I expected. Penn’s portrayal of Joe Wilson was inspiring.

 

Rescue Dawn

Empty what is full. Fill what is empty. Scratch what itches.

Classic Herzog – an average man against nature, breathtaking images, and some confusing use of the camera.

 

The Italian Job (1969)

They say he’s going to do a job in Italy.

Bank robbers, one of the best chase scenes of all time, and a surprise ending. Loved it!

 

Two Cents Each – 4/29/2011

40 and 44

Obama’s first year in office is strikingly similar to that of Reagan’s. Serioiusly.

What the Vikings-Saints Game Shows Us About Systems and Mindsets

An interesting point about systems. I don’t completely buy the Favre argument about mindsets but I understand what the author is trying to say.

Seth’s Blog: Hourly work vs. linchpin work

“That’s quite an hourly wage. It’s also quite a bargain.” Very well said.

Get inPulse and Hack Your Watch | Home

I want one of these.

ibd_baseball_flowchart.jpg (1000×669)

A flow chart to tell you which MLB team to root for. Very funny stuff indeed!

Upgrading Windows, from 1.0 to 7.0

Very strange experiment indeed – I’m not sure I believe it worked.

Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?

“Quora is interesting; StackOverflow is important.”</p>

I could not agree more. </dd>

Daily Kos: Why we must defend Sarah Palin

Agreed. She may be ignorant but we shouldn’t call her names – or bring her gender into it.

11 Answers To the Biggest Mysteries In Songs and Lyrics – 11Points.com

The commentary is the funniest part. </p>

Now, as for the mystery of whether or not “In the Air Tonight” has THE single best moment to air drum along to in the history of music… I’m going to give that an absolute YES.

</dd>

more

Learn You a Haskell for Great Good

I just finished this book and I recommend it highly.

The publisher describes Learn You a Haskell for Great Good as “the funkiest way to learn Haskell, which is the best functional programming language around” and for now I’ll have to agree. I read the book as part of my Safari subscription but I was pleased to learn that you can still read it online for free. You can also, of course, purchase it if you prefer (Print

Kindle).

I’ve used functional programming before and am a bit of a fan, but I’ve not used Haskell. I recently started reading this blog. Since the author uses Haskell for the examples, I set off on a quest to find a good book – and I found one.

Learn You a Haskell for Great Good is written for programmers but I get the sense that anyone who understands a bit of advanced mathematics would benefit from and enjoy reading it. I’m a programmer so it’s hard for me to tell for sure – but that’s the sense I get.

If you are looking for a good introduction to functional programming or Haskell, this book is probably a good first step.

The Greatest Comic Strip Ever

I am sure it will come as no surprise to anyone that I love to read Dilbert. I laugh out loud at more than half of them and some of them are just classic.

I’ve been saving my favorites for a few months now. Here they are …

My Favorite Cover Songs

Every time I hear a great cover song, I think about putting a list together of my favorites. After months of thinking about it, I’ve finally done it.

Before we get to the list, though, I’ll explain my criteria for selection.

1. I like the original version of the song.
2. I like the cover version at least as much as than the original.
3. The cover version is sufficiently different.
4. Both versions were recorded (not simply performed live).
5. The cover was released at least one year after the original.

In order to account for natural biases for and against certain artists I arbitrarily decided that the same artist will not show up more than once in the list.

I did NOT consider the popularity of the cover compared to the original. There are many examples of covers being more popular than the original but I did not include or exclude songs on that basis.

Now the list …

I narrowed it down to my favorite fifteen. They are listed below in alphabetical order. I’ve also created a playlist at Rhapsody over here.

• Always on My Mind, Pet Shop Boys, 1987
  Original by Brenda Lee, 1972
• American Woman, Lenny Kravitz, 1999
  Original by The Guess Who, 1970
• Big Yellow Taxi, Counting Crows, 2002
  Original by Joni Mitchell, 1970
• The Ghost of Tom Joad, Rage Against the Machine, 1997
  Original by Bruce Springsteen, 1995
• Hard to Handle, The Black Crowes, 1990
  Original by Otis Redding, 1968
• I Fought The Law, The Clash, 1979
  Original by The Crickets, 1959
• I Thank You, ZZ Top, 1980
  Original by Sam & Dave, 1968
• Land of Confusion, Disturbed, 2006
  Original by Genesis, 1986
• Mrs. Robinson, The Lemonheads, 1992
  Original by Simon and Garfunkel, 1968
• Signs, Tesla, 1990
  Original by Five Man Electrical Band, 1970
• Simple Man, Shinedown, 2003
  Original by Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1973
• Take Me to The River, Talking Heads, 1978
  Original by Al Green, 1974
• Turn the Page, Metallica, 1998
  Original by Bob Seger, 1973
• What a Wonderful World, Joey Ramone, 2002
  Original by Louis Armstrong, 1968
• You’re No Good, Van Halen, 1979
  Original by Betty Everett, 1963

Freeze Congressional Pay?

Over the course of the last month, many have Facebook users have proposed pay cuts for Congress. Many believe it’s the right thing to do in our current economic condition. Others think it is only fair when other sectors of the population are being forced into pay cuts.

I’m not going to argue with any of that.

I do, however, have an issue with one point – will this help bring down the national debt?

The answer is simple – Not really, the money involved is statistically insignificant when compared to the national debt.

Let’s look at the best numbers I can find. I didn’t spend too much time researching this but I think I can make up for that by inflating the numbers a bit.

Senate Salaries $20,054,620

The party leaders each earn $193,400 and “rank and file” members each earn $174,000.

Let’s adjust this for taxes, etc. $17,483,800 x 1.15 = $20,054,620

House Salaries $88,345,530

The Speaker of the House earns $223,500, party leaders $193,400, “rank and file” $174,000.

I am making the assumption that the six non-voting member (Puerto Rico, Guam, DC, etc.) are paid members.

Let’s adjust this for taxes, etc. $76,822,200 x 1.15 = $88,345,530

Retired $30,983,000

I did find current information about congressional pensions. It contains one useful bit of information for my purposes today – the maximum annual pension is 80% of the three year high salary. This puts the maximum pension for anyone that retires in 2011 at $178,800. Note that this is more than most congressman ever make. It is ridiculously incorrect because it assumes every retired member served as Speaker of the House for at least three years.

The best information I could find about members currently collecting was from 2007. At that time, 413 retirees were collecting an average of $64,000 per year and 123 were collecting an average of $37,000 per year for a total of $30,983,000.

Let’s overestimate these costs a bit. Let’s raise everyone’s benefits to the maximum AND retire everyone in congress and replace them today (sounds good, right?).

Total Compensation

Now let’s assume that every current congressperson supports a staff whose salaries total five times their own salary.

If we add that to our total and add taxes, we get …

($287,543,900 + ( $93,264,000 x 5 ) ) x 1.15 = $866,943,485

How does this affect the national debt?

You know what? Let’s just round this up to $1,000,000,000 a year. Why not?

That’s $2,737,850.79 per day, which sounds like a lot, right?

Wrong?

The national debt is currently growing at $4.07 billion per day. IF we were really spending $2,737,850.79 per day (which we know is a huge stretch) AND we pulled the stop on ALL PAY – not a freeze on pay, not a pay cut, but a TOTAL ELIMINATION OF ALL PAY for all retired and current congress persons and their staffs!!

$2,737,850.79 / $4,070,000,000 = 0.0006726906117936118

This would decrease the growth of our budget from $4,070,000,000 to 4,067,262,149.21 per day – a reduction of 0.06726906117936118 percent!

To put this in perspective, let’s look at an example. Suppose you are overspending on your home budget by $150,000 per month. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how much trouble this would bring in short order. Now suppose your “plan” to reduce that deficit is to stop buying your morning coffee ($25 per week).

No help, right?

BUT you would be doing MORE to reduce your deficit than the savings our government would gain by TOTALLY ELIMINATING ALL CONGRESSIONAL PAY.

April Fools

I was never a big fan of April Fools pranks. I know that is a result of deep seated resentment from my childhood, but I don’t want to get into that. The Internet changed all that. Now, like most geeks, I look forward to April 1^st every year. This year, Google and ThinkGeek outdid themselves. Here is a list of my favorites so far this year.

• Gmail Motion
• ThinkGeek’s Phony Products
  Angry Birds Pork Rinds, playmobil Apple Store Play Set, Lightsaber Popsicles, The Original Shirt Plate, USB Desktop Nether Portal, and more.
• Starbucks Mobile Pour
• Hulu, YouTube, and Google AdWords Take Us Back in Time
• Google Translate for Animals
• Child Free Flights
• Chromercize
• Comic Sans for Everyone
• Google hiring autocompleters
• Angry Nerds

Search Engine Land and TechCrunch have both compiled two good lists here and here

Open: A [Disturbing and Fascinating] Autobiography

I did not really intend to review this book but I can’t help myself. It is a book everyone could benefit from reading.

When I posted my Best and Worst Books I Read in 2010, I wrote this:

An enlightening and terrifying look into the life of Andre Agassi. I always liked this guy and now I have some idea why

That really sums it up for me. Now I understand that his success is a result of sheer determination and hard work. Determination to accomplish a goal he didn’t set for himself, playing a game he hates. It’s both inspiring and conflicting.

I found myself challenged by his relationship to his father. I struggle, like most fathers I think, with the issue of how hard to push my children. How much is too much? How much is not enough? Children grow to resent parents for both I think and that is one of the thinks that makes parenting so difficult.

Many “celebrity” biographies are self-serving revisionist histories. This is not. There are parts which made me think either he was a very insightful young man or he describes his actions, which he understands better now, as though he understood then. In almost every case, it is fair to do so and makes the book a very powerful experience.

It is certainly one of the best autobiographies I have ever read.

Difficult Ideas Explained in Pictures

I have a habit of browsing the Internet every day for fun and interesting content. While doing so the other day I ran into two pages that very simply explained complex ideas. So I set off on a journey to find more of these.

The first one I found was A Guide to the Open Internet. A very simple explanation (though long) indeed.

The next was an image

which perfectly explains that Schrodinger’s Cat is not simultaneously dead and alive at the same time (a common misconception) but that it depends on the observation. Excellent!

Another excellent take on Schrodinger’s Cat is this T-shirt at ThinkGeek.com – be sure to view both sides.

Finding more of these proved difficult but I did find a few – especially in the area of politics. Here they are …

The First Law of Thermodynamics

Politics and Religion

War

Why some Christians opposed the war in Iraq (and other “military actions”).

“Socialism”

A government program is not necessarily socialism – or perhaps socialism isn’t that bad?

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Socialism vs. Capitalism

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And Finally

These might not be accurate but they were just too funny to pass up. The libertarian ones, especially, are based on a different view than I espouse.

Cool Online Clocks

A while back I saved a few links to cool JavaScript clocks. I just ran into them again today and I thought I’d share.

One of them is Flash but I’ll include that too since it’s very cool.

• Customizable JavaScript Clock

  • My Favorite

    • Simple Clock

      • The Flash Clock