Random Thought #118

We've all heard of illiteracy but after my recent rant about the lack of numerical efficiency and competence in today's generation and after an episode of UH's College of Engineering's series called "Engines of our Ingenuity" about Innumeracy, I had to post their blog spot on it. Here is the link for your reference http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2825.htm

Random Thought #117

Can you remember the last time you made a change to some account of yours and the billing department got it completely right and you didn't have to call them and explain everything to them and 10 other people as well? Yeah, neither can I. Honestly, is it really that hard to bill someone for some basic services? Who are the people these places hire to fill their billing departments? Where do they get them from? And for once, could a bill be simple and straightforward. These things are so convoluted nowadays, its impossible for a person of average IQ to even decipher them. The worst are banks when dealing with loans. If you ever try to be responsible and make extra payments towards principle, prepare for 6 months of explaining Accounting 101 to these guys they call "personal bankers". It really is a joke. I don't mean to be so negative but I think they should start giving us credits for correcting their mistakes since we're basically doing their jobs for them. Coupons are just as bad. If you use more than 3 coupons in a transaction, especially at grocery stores, you need a PhD in Applied Mathematics to figure out what is going on. See what computers have done to us? They've made us a bunch of idiots. I bet if cash registers didn't tell us how much change to give, over half of the tellers nowadays would take at least 1-2 minutes to calculate and count our change. Thank goodness for plastic huh? Next thing you know, the registers will start telling them, grab 2 quarters, a dime, a nickel, and 3 pennies so they don't have to count. Let's just hope our rising generation of programmers did well in their math classes.

Random Thought #116

I've often wondered how the apparently two "conflicting commandments" given to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden was possible? How could God give Adam and Eve a commandment He knew they couldn't obey? It just didn't make sense. I recently read a book called "The Fortunate Fall" that I think helps me understand how this is possible. The key I think lies in the 2nd Article of Faith. Remember back to the days of Primary, "We believe that man will be punished for their own sins and not for Adam's transgression". What Adam and Eve did was transgess a law. They did not commit a sin. To help make the distinction, Elder Oaks made this comparison. If you murder someone, that is a sin because it is inherently and morally wrong, but if you drive without a license, it is only a crime because someone made a law that made it a crime. Driving without a license is not inherently wrong. This then begs the question, why would God make a law that He knew had to be broken? I think the answer lies in experience. He had to teach Adam and Eve right from wrong, what it was like to experience sorrow. That's why we are here in the first place, to gain experience, learn, and progress. Think about a little child, they do what you ask and do it gladly. Eventually they will test their boundaries, but sometimes we have to setup scenarios for them to see what they will do. After all, God watched all of his creations until they obeyed. He did the same thing with his children. Its this perspective and understanding the importance of the Fall and subsequent importance of the Atonement of Christ in lieu of the Plan of Salvation that helps us understand the vital role and choices that our first parents made.

Random Thought #115

Someone made a comment today at church about how the Sacrament was a covenant and an ordinance that was really a renewal of the baptism ordinance. That got me thinking about other "saving" ordinances in the church and their repeatability. The sacrament is meant to help us remember our covenants and renew them. Once we perform "saving" ordinances for ourselves, we perform them for others not only for their benefit but also for us to remember our covenants. So that got me thinking, after we perform baptism for someone else in the temple, and they receive it on the other side, do they take the sacrament each week or are ordinances only performed on earth? If you have any insights into this..please feel free to comment. I'm curious.

Random Thought #114

What does Bill Gates have to do with corn? I know...weird question right? I recall reading lately about The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation sponsoring an event that will bring many of the brightest folks around to develop a new generation of toilet. Its supposed to generate energy, recycle feces, and not require any running water. Cool huh? Don't believe me...GOOGLE IT! Anyways, as I was reading about this endeavor, I read where they were ordering large amounts of fake poo. That started me thinking about poo (I know, I'm weird) and why it is that whenever you eat corn, it goes from mastication to extrication basically the same way. Why is it that we can't digest corn? Well, I just had to find out. Turns out, all we see is the outer shell, which like most all plant matter is made of cellulose. Humans aren't very good at digesting cellulose for whatever reason (evolution, design, who knows?) At first, I was kind of excited thinking if the human digestive system couldn't break down corn, whatever it was made of would be great for studying for indestructible material but nonetheless it was fun learning why corn shows up in fecal matter. I wonder why other plant matter (vegetables) don't show up more clearly as well. Perhaps the topic of a future post

Random Thought #113

I am a big believer in collaboration vs competition. I try and teach it to my kids. Competition brings about winners, but it also brings out losers. There is a hierarchy instead of an even playing field. Some are better than others, all are not equal. It promotes fame, power, money, greed, selfishness, and pride. Everything in this world is about competition. Its about never being satisfied and always having to be better, faster, bigger, stronger. We are never content. It coincides with the theory of scarcity. Scarcity is relative and only apparent due to selfishness and greed of a few. The concept of everyone wearing white in the temple is to promote the idea that everyone is equal. The concept behind the United Order and the Law of Consecration is one of collaboration. Unfortunately, the reason there isn't more collaboration is because it requires that all parties are working towards a similar goal and quite often, due to the factors I mentioned above, not everyone is working towards the same goal. We all have self-interest and it often trumps the common good. We succumb to temptation. None of us is perfect but if we at least strive to collaborate and not compete, the world could at least in our view become a little better.

Random Thought #112

This guy goes a million miles a minute but he's exciting to watch and he gets your kind of excited too and he's doing great things. He's teaching kids, using green alternatives, and changing the kids and the neighborhood around him. Such an inspiration. http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_ritz_a_teacher_growing_green_in_the_south_bronx.html

Random Thought #111

I just saw a video from a Standford Computer Science professor who has collaborated with a colleague to develop a site dedicated to providing actual university courses online for free from some of the top universities in the country. There was also another initiative similar to this done at MIT. This is an excellent opportunity for those who are working and can't go to night school and want to increase their skills. You don't get credit for it but you do get a certificate and in some instances, it can help you in your current position. I've also added links to these sites on the side for your reference. They are called EdX and CoursEra. Check out the video below. http://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_koller_what_we_re_learning_from_online_education.html

Random Thought #110

I really enjoyed the concept behind this lady's talk. Its about disagreeing to produce progress. I don't enjoy disagreement for the sake of disagreement but I think disagreement can open our eyes and minds to the point where we can greatly enhance our understanding and progress to higher learning. The key to disagreement is that is must be permitted and it must be embraced and encouraged with the right intent. Too many of us live in our bubble of comfort and if an idea doesn't go along with our preconceived ideas, we immediately dismiss it as incorrect. Just like my hepatitis example. If I were to believe that Hepatitis was some disease that didn't affect the liver and I refused to allow anyone to disagree with me or to even consider their ideas, I would be completely wrong and yet feel completely right and alienate a lot of people an lose a chance and learning something new. The problem with our preconceived ideas is that they are shaped by our experience. We are a product of our environment whether we like it or not. I'm reading a book by Stephen R. Covey right now called "The Divine Center" and the entire 1st chapter of his book talks about this principle. He uses a picture to illustrate his point. He has one person looks at a picture that looks like a beautiful young lady looking off to the side. Then he shows a different person a picture similar to the first but is more obvious that it looks like an old lady with a big nose. Then he shows both people a slightly modified version of the picture that has elements of both of the previous pictures and asks each to convince the other of what they see. What do you think happens? The person who originally saw the young lady naturally sees the young lady and the same for the other. So they have a disagreement and unless one opens their comfort bubble and tries to see things from the other person's perspective, they are losing out on an opportunity to learn and see things from a different perspective, which can be quite gratifying. I also think we suffer from this in the Church. We are so indoctrinated into believing and regurgitating Sunday School answers and basic doctrines, we are often dis-interested in other people's beliefs and immediately condemn them for being "wrong". However, we are conditioned by our circumstances. Consider what we experience every week in church and what we hear in the news and via media outlets about events in the Middle East. Guess how many members of the church known anything about Islam? Or what do you think they picture about the Middle East? The sad part is that the history of the Book of Mormon and the Bible comes from the Middle East. Do you know how much better we could understand the scriptures if we actually learned about that part of the world? Do you know how many similarities that are between the gospel of Islam/Judaism/Christianity? We cannot afford to sit in our comfort bubbles and tune the rest of the world out. We simply can't. Here is the link to the talk http://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_heffernan_dare_to_disagree.html

Random Thought #109

This is a short and kind of interesting talk about screening for Parkinson's disease. I'm not so interested in the test as I am on how they conduct the test. They measure the vocal cords distance from the edge and turn that into a frequency. I'm a believer in the fact that each body part operates at a certain frequency and that illness and eventually death occur when our bodies are unable to maintain that optimal frequency. There are only a subset of frequencies that we can perceive with our senses. It wouldn't at all surprise me if those in the Spirit World operated at a much higher frequency so we are unable to perceive them without being temporarily translated (raise our operating frequency). If you consider frequency in light, the highest known frequency that we can measure currently are gamma rays, which if we were exposed to, would totally obliterate us. I'm not necessarily saying that the Lord is emitting gamma rays, but who knows, everyone describes Him as being so bright it is beyond description and if we were not protected or transformed somehow, we would be consumed, similar to how we might be if we're not righteous and ready during the Second Coming. We'll likely burn as stubble. Here's a link to the talk if you're interested. http://www.ted.com/talks/max_little_a_test_for_parkinson_s_with_a_phone_call.html

Random Thought #108

As I was listening to the radio the other day, I heard about how the CDC was advocating that the Baby Boomer generation get tested for Hepatitis C. I never really thought about Hepatitis before outside of getting Hepatitis A/B vaccines as a normal course of actions. I just thought it was some sort of upper-respiratory disease or blood ailment or something, but then they started talking about how effects don't show up until much later and major complications occur when someone gets liver cancer or cirrhosis of the liver. I'm thinking....what in the world is Hepatitis that it targets the liver? Then I remember looking up cysts and was wondering what a hepatic cyst was. It also referred to the liver and then a light bulb went on. Hepa refers to the liver so naturally Hepatitis is a disease that affects the liver and A/B/C are variations of the disease. This may not come as much of a surprise to you guys, especially the ones in medicine, but its funny how we just go along in our lives assuming one thing and then are completely surprised when it turns out to be something completely different. I love it when that happens though because it challenges our ideas and perceptions and that is when we have our "AHA!" moments and light bulbs go off and we actually learn. I love "AHA!" moments. They are so much fun

Random Thought #107

With all of the political news and ads going around this time of year and with all of the disagreements and party politics games in congress, I started to think how the Republicans and Democrats actually got their names and ideaologies, especially considering that the USA is a Democratic Republic. Its rather interesting but many of the Founding Fathers didn't believe in political parties and the Constitution doesn't really address them at all but it started out with the Federalists who believed in National Banks and Strong Central Government vs. the Opposition or Anti-Federalists who believed in supporting the rights of the states as a better representation of a republic. Now you may be thinking that the Opposition were the Republicans of today and those that wanted a strong central government were the Democrats. That's actually the exact opposite. In fact, the Federalists led by Alexander Hamilton and John Quincy Adams hurled the term "Democrat" at the then Opposition which later became known as Democratic Republicans (I know...oxymoron right?) led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison because that was a derogatory word following the Reign of Terror following the French Revolution in 1789. Back in the day, everyone was considered a republican so after that term had been flung out there, there were the National Republicans (Adams Republicans) and the Democratic Republicans (Jefferson/Jackson Republicans). You can read the entire history here but I think its quite ironic that the Republicans and Democrats of today support the exact opposite of what their original founders supported and in fact that we have a party system at all considering that was not the intent of the Founding Fathers. Amazing what money/power/influence can do to people.