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I was reading a Frazz collection and one of the story lines had to do with the famous quote from Thomas Alva Edison :

Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. It bothered me because it is wrong.

By wrong I don’t mean misquoted. By wrong I mean Edison was mistaken when he said it.

Here is my recommendation for improving the quote :

Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

Really, think about it – genius can be apparent without effort. And I think Edison was thinking about success when he said it. He probably saw success and genius as one and the same, because he was successful.

I’m not convinced he was a genius though. I’d apply that label to Nikola Tesla. He was a genius, but he was not successful. At least not as successful in the business world as Edison was.

Another vote against Edison’s being a genius is that he spoke about genius-ness. To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, if you have to tell people you’re a genius, then you’re not.

My son asked me when summer begins and my answer, which is a good lawyerly answer, was “It depends.”

My definition of summer is June, July, and August. So to me, summer begins June 1. But that wouldn’t work very well in the southern hemisphere.

So I told him that, but I added some other definitions.

To some people, summer runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day. But that wouldn’t work very well outside the US.

To other people, summer runs from solstice to equinox – June 21 to September 21. My problem with that is that June 21st is the peak of sun so it should be the middle of summer, not the beginning. Go ahead and lookup “when is midsummer?” and you’ll see.

The other definition I could think of relates to farming. In that case, summer would be the time between planting and harvesting.

What do you consider to be the start of summer?

I discovered the inspiration for the shape of the Girl Scout logo.

I was wondering about why Jesus died at age 33. So I looked it up on the internet.

The answers were not helpful.

They ran the range from “Because the Roman soldiers crucified Him” to “Because it was time for Him to fulfill His mission” to “to shed His blood to atone for our sins”.

All of those are answers and they are correct, but they are not correct answers. They don’t answer the question. Or rather, they answer the question wrongly.

Or maybe the question should be rephrased: Why was it at age 33 that Jesus died? or: What is special about the number 33 in the Bible?

That’s what I wanted to know. And I’m guessing those other people who asked the question earlier also wanted to know that aspect.

So I decided to come up with my own answer.

But before we get to that, let’s spend some time on the significant numbers in the Bible.

First, the number 3. It is the number of the Trinity. Things occur in threes throughout the Bible: Satan tempted Jesus 3 times, Peter denied Jesus 3 times, etc.

Second, the number 7. It is number of completeness. There are 7 days in a week, Daniel had a vision of 7 weeks, the Israelites marched around Jericho 7 times, etc.

Third, the number 10. It is the number of power. There are 10 kings in revelation, 10 plagues for the Egyptians, etc.

Fourth, the number 12. It is the number of God’s people. There are 12 tribes of Israel, 12 disciples, 12 gates of Jerusalem, etc.

Fifth, the number 40. It is the number of a journey. Noah’s boat experienced rain for 40 days, the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, Jesus was in the desert for 40 days before the temptation, etc.

Sixth, the number 1,000. It is the number of, umm, a lot. Jesus will reign on earth for 1,000 years, etc.

There are other numbers in the Bible, but none I could think of that are used repeatedly like those I listed here. Astute readers will note my list has only six items, therefore it is incomplete.

Slight topical detour here to discuss the number 5. David picked out 5 stones from the brook and threw one of them at Goliath. Why 5 stones? That doesn’t fit with anything. He could have picked out 3 or 7. Even 6 would make more sense. But 5?

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. How does the number 33 fit in here?

You can make the number 33 by various methods. Maybe 3 times 12, minus 3. Or 3 times 10, plus 3. But I think it’s more likely to be 40 minus 7.

And I think that because of the meanings of the numbers.

If you consider Jesus’ life here on earth as a journey, that should be 40. But He has unfinished business here on earth, right? Since He is going to return, that means His journey is not complete. So we subtract 7, the number of completeness.

Why 33 years? Because 40 – 7. Because His journey on earth is not complete.

I had to remove a dead skunk from our barn. The skunk was relatively intact, so much so that we weren’t sure it was dead at first.

And that got me to thinking – what could we do with a whole skunk?

Like practical joke-type things.

First thing that came to mind: put it in a friend’s mailbox. Or maybe that would be soon-to-be-former friend’s mailbox. Unless your friend has a very good sense of humor. Put it in the mailbox with the tail on a spring so when he opens the mailbox, the tail sticks out. And of course there would need to be a camera nearby, capturing that moment on video.

Another thing that came to mind: put it in a friend’s car. Similar concept, but this time loosely tie the skunk to the inside of the car door, so that when he opens the door the skunk falls out. I’m picturing it happening like the skunk is walking out of the car, toward the person.

Another car possibility: put it in the back window of the car. The goal here is that the friend does not notice the skunk until he is in the car and glances in the rearview mirror the first time. Hopefully before he has put the car in gear, because I could see something bad happening if the car was already moving at that point.

Any other good places to surprise someone with a skunk?

Note: check local and federal laws before placing anything in a mailbox

We are gradually approaching the self-driving car. Progress is being made incrementally, by introducing certain features that will pave the way for more autonomy and less driver input.

Some of these features are:
– collision mitigation : if the vehicle detects a crash is likely, it will take action (tighten seat belts, close windows, etc.) The newer versions will even apply brakes. The future version would need to steer also.
– virtual bumper : while backing up, the vehicle will warn the driver of close objects. Newer versions will apply the brakes, preventing damage.
– Lane keep / blind spot assist : if the vehicle detects an object (usually another vehicle) in the blind spot, it will warn the driver. Fancier versions will counteract the steering wheel so that the driver can’t move into the occupied lane.
– Adaptive Cruise Control : the vehicle maintains a set distance between itself and the vehicle in front of it. Fancier versions prevent driver acceleration into the forward vehicle by overriding the gas pedal input.

As these feature mature and become more integrated with each other, and as vehicle-to-vehicle communications become established so that vehicles can react based on what the other vehicles are trying to do, the role of the driver will be reduced and maybe eventually eliminted.

There is the one major concern with all this – if cars are preventing collisions by themselves, overriding the driver, how will we have demolition derbies?

I sense the future of the demolition derby is shaky at best.

I mean, really, how are you going to be entertained by a field of driverless cars?

I like my drinking water cold. Very cold.

If you were to ask me what temperature I want my water, I would say “32 degrees”. With the understanding that we’re talking in Fahrenheit.

Some people might laugh and say that I would be drinking an ice cube, since it would be frozen then.

But it would not be frozen. It would be freezing. I would drink the water at the beginning of the phase change, so it would be 32 degrees but still liquid. It’s the freezing point, not the frozen point.

I’ve been thinking of ways to lower the temperature even further so that my drink could be even more refreshing. I’ve come up with two so far.

1. Add something, so it’s not pure water. Like when you make ice cream and you add rock salt to the ice. But adding salt to the water would defeat the purpose of making the water refreshing, so skip this one.

2. Add pressure. 32 degrees is the freezing point of water at normal pressure (1 atmosphere). If we added some pressure to the water bottle, the freezing point of the water should be reduced. Unfortunately, the pressure would have to be about 2000 atmospheres to make much of a difference, so I don’t think that would be feasible. Plus we would have to pressurize the entire kitchen, so that I could open the bottle to drink the water without it freezing instantly upon depressurization.

3. Keep the water moving. It is common knowledge that moving water freezes at a lower temperature than standing water. Or sitting water. Or water that is lying down. Maybe if I get a refrigerated drinking fountain and kept the button constantly pressed, I could turn the temperature down a few degrees below the normal freezing point. The only drawback to this is that when I capture the water in my mouth, it will have stopped moving. And that may cause it to freeze up and make it hard to actually drink.

Maybe I’ll just have to be satisfied with the standard 32 degrees.