Tuesday, April 7, 2009

A thought on 1 Cor 15:14-19

This passage has always made me think of the danger in misquoting things. Compare the straight quotation:
14And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
And the cleverly quoted version:
14...Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him ... the dead are not raised. 16... Christ has not been raised either. 17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; ... 19If ... we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Sigh, after a long delay

It has been far too long, again, since I last posted. Oh well. Here's a conversation I had tonight with the missus:

M: Oh by the way, I'm sorry for whacking you in the head so hard earlier?

A: What?? When?


It really was unintentional.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

A good vid about science

Check this out.

Science doesn’t have the answers to everything we would like to know about reality. What it does have is the most reliable answers and the most reliable ways of looking for answers. When one adopts scientific principles and procedures, one is saying, “I want to understand things as they really are, not simply how I might want them to be.” Science rewards our genuine curiosity, enabling true learning and discovery. It allows (indeed thrives on) openness to new ideas, while fostering a self-critical approach that prevents that open-mindedness from sliding into gullibility. It gives us access to real-world evidence, rather than encouraging us to accept the unreliable testimony of people whose motive may be to exploit us.

Science allows us, with more certainty than any other approach, to distinguish between true and false claims. Because of this, science leads us along the surest and most intellectually honest path to genuine knowledge about the universe in which we live.

Failure Mode: Calculator

I need a new calculator. This is my poor calculator's pitiful attempt to display a screen full of 8's.

Not surprisingly it was hard to get a good snap of the LCD in a dark room with a hand held point and shoot cam so that pic has been desaturated and unsharp masked. As you can see quite a few of the segments are out. Poor thing.

On the bright side (no pun intended), the physics of how LCD's work is a pretty demonstration of the polarization of light. I thought this was interesting (page 6):
Manufacturers of existing large LCDs often reject about 40 percent of the panels that come off the assembly line. The level of rejection directly affects LCD price since the sales of the good LCDs must cover the cost of manufacturing both the good and bad ones. Only advances in manufacturing can lead to affordable displays in bigger sizes.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Don't you hate

those blogs where all they post about are the stupid surveys and quizzes they take? I sure do. So without further ado, my latest quiz result:

Between 50 and 100 monkeys

I'm most like Between 50 and 100 monkeys.

Take More Surveys

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Screwed

http://kevan.org/froytest.cgi

The Froy Marriage Test

Froy Marriage Rating = -1304

"Generally speaking, no woman with an FR of under 250 can be recommended, especially to our less experienced friends. FR-minus women are out from the start."

Approximate Risk of Marriage = 100%


Yeah. I'm screwed.

Which NetHack Monster Are You?

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If I were a NetHack monster, I would be a floating eye. I see and sense absolutely everything that happens around me. I just don't do very much about it.
Which NetHack Monster Are You?