Some Blog Site

I saw this on a bottle of something we had around the house:

There were a couple of things about this that amused me.

1. More bonus? Not more product?

What if the previous amount of bonus had been zero? Then you could legitimately claim just about anything, like 100% more bonus, and it would be true.

2. Why the plus sign? Are they trying to encourage positive feelings about their product?

Someone should try sneaking a minus sign in a claim just for fun. “-25% more bonus!” Of course, if the original bonus amount was zero, then it really doesn’t matter if the percentage is positive or negative.

And that is why punctuation is important. If it had said “+25% more! Bonus!” or “+25% more, bonus” or something to separate bonus so that it is not the object of the word more, then there would be an ambiguity here.

But then I wouldn’t have a fun topic for my blog post, so maybe it’s fine the way it is.

This was a post that I wrote a long time ago with the hopes that it would become a guest post on Stuff Christians Like. I believe that will never happen now, so I’m publishing it here. Enjoy!

Sooner or later, during the journey that you take as a Christian, you are going to be cornered. You will be asked to do something.

If that particular task is not your cup of tea, you will want to refuse. But if you’re like I am, you can’t just say “No thanks.” – you must provide some additional, compelling explanation of why not.

Maybe you are being asked to be on a committee.
Maybe it is expected that you will be teaching the children’s Sunday School class.
Maybe you were voluntold to drive the church van for the teens’ canoe trip.

Whatever the situation, you need an excuse.

And if you need an excuse, you have come to the right place, for I have gathered excuses from the Bible. You can use this handy-dandy list the next time a church activity threatens to reduce your free time. Don’t these people know that you can’t play Draw Something if you are busy setting up chairs?

Since these excuses are from the Bible, your fellow Christians cannot argue with you. Drop one of these, and all they can do is watch is amazement as you walk away, commitment-free.

1. I just bought a field, and I must go see it.
Most church-goers will recognize this as an excuse.
However, anyone who has paid attention to the sermons about this passage will also recognize this as a sham excuse that really means “I don’t really care about you now would you please leave me alone”.
This is a rookie excuse – try to avoid it.

2. There’s a lion in the streets, so I mustn’t leave my house.
This one might backfire because the other person will probably think you were just trying to be funny while referencing Proverbs.
Not the best move either – pick something plausible.

3. I’m not yet 30. Or, I’m over age 50.
Did you know there are approved ages for serving in the church? Seriously – it’s in Numbers chapter 4. Only those between the ages of 30-50 were to work in the church.

4. I’ve been married for less than a year.
God told the Israelites that newlyweds are not to be bothered for a year. Don’t ask them to do anything other than be happily married.
Let’s see if we can work this into the church by-laws.
I would expand this by-law to include the clause that newlyweds are also not to be asked about their timeline for offspring.

5. It’s not my role in the body of Christ.
That is a job for a hand, or at least an arm. I’m the ankle in the church body, so I really wouldn’t be of any use for what you need. But I’ll support you in your efforts.

If you need time to pick the best excuse, no worries there either. Just throw in an “I need to pray about it” and you’ll get at least one extra day.

So, what’s your excuse?

There are many short, wise sayings that have become popular over the years. But whether they are related to sewing or farming, not as many people relate to them as they used to. So they should be updated.

Here is my attempt at updating some of these proverbs to be a bit more modern, whilst still retaining at least some of their meaning.

• A text in time saves nine.
• A text of prevention is worth a phone call of cure.
• A watched web page never loads.
• An app a day keeps the doctor away.
• Let whoever is without sin post the first tweet.
• Don’t count your likes before they’re clicked.

Any other sayings that need updating?

Ever wonder how your bathroom fan contributes to the heating and cooling efficiency of your house? You really should consider it.

If the bathroom were air-tight, that would create quite a vacuum. But bathrooms are not that air-tight. So for the air that leaves the bathroom, the same amount of air is going to enter the bathroom, to replace the old air.

Where does that new air come from?

In most houses, it comes from all over – various leaks throughout the house: doors, windows, pipes and vents through walls.

So air goes out of the bathroom, the bathroom gets new air from the rest of the house, and the rest of the house gets new air from outside – through cracks and leaks in doors, windows, the foundation, etc.

Like this:

In places like the Midwest, you don’t want outside air inside the house. Air conditioning has made the inside air cool and dry, in contrast to the outside air which is hot and humid. So having the bathroom fan draw outside air into the whole house is a bad plan.

Once you’re done in the bathroom, the air conditioner has to condition the replacement air. And that air is spread throughout the house.

If you have a make-up air unit in the bathroom, though, the replacement air comes from the outside straight into the bathroom. So now the volume of replacement air is confined to one room. So most of the house stays comfortable, and the air conditioner has less work to do.

Like this:

One of the projects I would do in a house where I planned on living for a while is to add an HRV to each full bath and to the kitchen. An HRV is a Heat Recovery Ventilator – it brings in replacement air and conditions it slightly. They are needed where there are exhaust fans – bathrooms and kitchens if the kitchen has a vented range fan.

Some people may argue that you should have just one HRV and make it large enough for the air needs of the whole house. But I’d rather have multiple smaller HRVs on principle.

Now for some numbers, in case those previous paragraphs were not interesting enough:

We’ll take an average of 80 CFM for a bathroom fan. Our bathroom is about 6x10x8, so 480 cubic feet. That would mean a roomful of air gets removed every 6 minutes.

I will assume an average shower is 10 minutes, and to make the math easier I’m going to assume the fan is on for a minute before and a minute after the shower, for a total of 12 minutes of bathroom fan run time.

So for the 960 CF of air that leave the bathroom, 960 CF of air are going to enter the bathroom, to replace the old air.

If the air comes from wherever, it is going to be 960 CF of air throughout the house. But if draws new air through the bathroom only, it is going to be only 480 CF. The first 480 CF will be outside air replacing conditioned air, but once the bathroom has exchanged all its air, any more air that comes through is going to be outside air replacing outside air, so no more conditioned air gets lost.

Here are some thoughts I jotted down that aren’t quite sufficient for their own individual blog posts. If you’re the type of person who likes Twitter, pretend each of these are tweets.

• There used to be 5 main Top-Level Domains: .com, .org, .net, .edu, and .gov. Now there are hundred, including .photography, .surgery, and .vacations. It seems to me that having so many and such specific TLDs defeats the point of a TLD. The specific part should be the domain name and the suffix should be general. To paraphrase Syndrome: if everything’s a TLD then nothing is a TLD.
• If I hear someone say “Sometimes you gotta fight fire with fire”, I check to make sure they’re not employed by or a volunteer with any of the local fire departments. If my house is burning, I want the fire trucks to show up with water, not more fire.
• It warmed my heart the other day when my son informed me that we were out of dental floss. That must mean he is using it without being told.
• Kids these days don’t know what an answering machine is. They think it’s something like Siri.
• People can goof off, but people can’t goof on. Would goofing on mean they were well-behaved?

For his next labor, Hercules had to clear his inbox. His nemesis for this task was the Thuerkian Hydra.

The Hydra was a serpent-like beast with many email addresses. Each address could carry an attachment venomous enough to make the recipient wish he could unsee it.

The Hydra lived in a cave near the swamps of Thuerk. The cave was also where the springs of Anonymous originated. From time to time the Hydra would leave the swampland and raid nearby villages, greatly complicating life for the peasants who lived there.

Hercules, travelling with Iolas, arrived near the cave. Arranging cloth over his eyes to protect himself from Hydra’s venom, he send a number of hostile and insulting messages to the Hydra, mainly disagreeing with the Hydra’s views on a variety of subjects.

This caused the Hydra to emerge from the cave, enraged. Unwanted email after unwanted email viciously attacked Hercules. He wielded his mouse deftly, clicking on Unsubscribe before the images had a chance to load. But for each email he unsubscribed, two more email addresses started sending him messages.

This was a losing battle for Hercules. He could not escape, he was getting tired, and the beast was growing.

Desperate, Hercules called to Iolas for help. Grabbing a keyboard, Iolas told Hercules to click Reply instead of Unsubscribe. To each message that Hercules Replied, Iolas added a 550 Invalid Recipient header. This prevented new addresses from growing.

Finally, the Hydra was down to its one immortal address. Hercules was able to, with his great strength, unplug that server and bury it under a great boulder from which it could never escape.

The End.

Here is a diagram of the general idea of a parking lot – lines for cars to park in, arranged nicely in rows and such.

As you see, in this town, only red cars are available.

But some of the cars are nicer, fancier cars. And the owners know that if they park close to other cars, their cars might get scratched or dented. So they park far away from others.

I don’t mind if people do that. As long as they don’t take spots close to the store, they can straddle multiple spots.

But, that is renegade behavior. They must stay within the lines.

How about we update the lines to accommodate people who care about their vehicles?

There, now they can stay within the lines and protect their cars.

And, if you’re the sort who is annoyed when the fancy cars are parked across two spots, this arrangement should reduce your blood pressure too.

It’s a win-win situation!

Except for the maximum capacity of the parking lot. But if the lot is completely full, you don’t want to go to the store at that time anyway. Come back later when it is less full.