Archive for 2016

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A Useless Ad

Feb

16

2016

I noticed an unusual ad on a website:

image of an online advertisement directing you to a 404 not found page

Why would you want to direct people to a page that doesn’t exist?

My guess is that some very popular site published a bad link. A bunch of people then tried to follow that link and got a 404 error. But the advertising algorithm saw a bunch of traffic for that page and, since it is probably programmed to push the more popular pages, thought it was popular enough that other people would want to see it.

I did not click on the link, but I bet enough people were curious enough to do so. And that only perpetuated the problem, because it continued the page’s popularity.

Here is how the ad appeared in mobile format:

image of an online advertisement directing you to a 404 not found page

Anyway, it provided me with a few minutes of entertainment.

Your strength will be spent uselessly, for your land will not yield its produce and the trees of the land will not yield their fruit.

Leviticus 26:20

Posted in Marketing, Mishaps | No Comments »

Wins by Quarterback

Feb

11

2016

With much ado made about a certain quarterback’s attainment of 200 career wins in the Super Bowl earlier this week, I thought I’d throw together a chart of career wins.

Quarterback career Wins by Year

chart of quarterback wins by year of career

This is based on the list of top 25 quarterbacks, ranked by most career wins.

I don’t know what one is supposed to learn from this, but here are some things I noticed.

  • Both Brady and Manning would have been even farther ahead of everyone else if they didn’t each have one year out due to injury.
  • Marino had the best start, but the second quarter of his career made up for that.
  • Don’t know that anyone will catch Favre for longevity.
  • Elway has the best finish, as far as slope of his chart line goes.
  • As far as the slowest start goes, I’m not sure if that award goes to Steve Young or Len Dawson.

(more…)

Posted in Sports | No Comments »

DRLs at Critical Mass

Feb

9

2016

I noticed that we have reached critical mass with DRLs in the USA.

In case you’re wondering, DRLs are Daytime Running Lights, better known as the headlights that stay on during the day. While they are required in many parts of the world, they are not required in the US. But since most automobile manufacturers try to have globally similar vehicles, most of the new cars sold in the US have DRLs.

For “critical mass”, I mean that there are enough DRLs in use in the US that have effectively become the standard, regardless of legislation.

Whereas former studies have compared the safety of DRLs versus the safety of lights off, they follow the same pattern and have the same flaw. They just compare crash statistics of the different vehicles. What needs to be shown is how dangerous it is to have a mixture of DRLs and non-DRLs.

I was noticing this while driving shortly before sunset. Although there was enough light to see a vehicle without headlights, most of the vehicles had their headlights on. There was a line of vehicles, and the DRLs do make those vehicles more noticeable. But they do that at the expense of the non-DRL vehicles. Before, you would see a line of vehicles. Now, you don’t see a line of vehicles – you see a line of headlights. So you don’t notice the vehicle without headlights – it looks like a break in traffic. That’s the dangerous part.

Cars in a Line – no headlights

image of cars driving in a line

Cars in a Line – at dusk no headlights

image of cars driving in a line at dusk

Cars in a Line – at dusk with headlights except one

image of cars driving in a line at dusk with headlights on

Before, I thoughts DRLs were annoying or useless or frivolous or such. But now they are here, and I recommend turning on your lights manually if you don’t have DRLs. Because although it might be fun to be invisible sometimes, in traffic is not one of those times.

God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also.

Genesis 1:16

Posted in Driving | No Comments »

Daniel Plans

Feb

4

2016

The Daniel Plan is a fairly successful diet to help people become healthier.

Physically.

But one’s physical body is only one aspect of oneself. What about mental health or emotional health or spiritual health?

Could we get Daniel Plans for those?

The Biblical Daniel plan, as opposed to the American Daniel Plan, was to eat only vegetables and drink only water, forgoing meat and wine (which would include today’s soft drinks, I assume).

To look at it another way, the Daniel meal plan is about eating what you need and what is good for you, not what you want and what pleases your taste buds.

If you take that concept and apply it to other areas, what would it look like?

Mental health – avoiding television? Limiting your playlist?

Emotional health – limiting your internet? being more selective in the books you choose?

Spiritual health – studying the Bible more? reading fewer blogs?

The only problem with the non-physical Daniel plan is that there is no good way to track progress. Physically, you can measure things: weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. But the health aspects that are not physical are more subjective.

Go ahead and try a 10-day detox, not just of foods that are bad for you, but also of media that are bad for you. Chances are good that whatever pleases God will also be healthier for you – body, soul, mind, and spirit.

But Daniel said to the overseer whom the commander of the officials had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, “Please test your servants for ten days, and let us be given some vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance be observed in your presence and the appearance of the youths who are eating the king’s choice food; and deal with your servants according to what you see.”

Daniel 1:11-13

Posted in Food, Ideas | No Comments »

Overheard: High Fives

Feb

2

2016

This is not the standard Family Conversations post, but it is worthy of sharing. It is a brief interaction I overheard between someone and his young child.

Parent: Did you go potty?
Child: Yep!
Parent: Alright! High five!
High fives ensue
Parent: Wait, did you wash your hands?

I forget the child’s answer, because I was chuckling at the less-than-ideal order of his actions. Only go for the high fives after you verify the child has clean hands.

Why do Your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.

Matthew 15:2

Posted in Conversations | No Comments »

All Over That

Jan

28

2016

Here is a rare photo of Reggie White covering Jerry Rice. He’s all over him, as the sportscasters would say.

image of Reggie White covering Jerry Rice - the football version of White on Rice

The photo is rare because I made it up – pieced it together from other photos. I just wanted to make that pun.

And his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow.

Matthew 28:3

Posted in Humor, Sports | No Comments »

Tongue Twister Winner

Jan

26

2016

We had an impromptu tongue twister competition the other day. The winner was our youngest child – the 4-year-old.

Beta proposed a tongue twister, which Gamma promptly tried and failed. Then I thought I would propose one which I always mangle: “Word World”. For those of you without young kids, Word World is a TV show that teaches kids letter and word sounds. For some reason, I can never say the name of the show correctly. It usually comes out as “world world”. So I figured it would make a good tongue twister for other people too.

However, the first person to tackle the “word world” tongue-twister was Delta. Being only four, he hasn’t quite mastered his Rs and Ls, so it came out as “wuud wuud, wuud wuud, wuud wuud”. He said it correctly, for how he pronounces things. But the rest of us forfeited, knowing we couldn’t compete with that.

Then Moses said to the Lord, “Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”

Exodus 4:10

Posted in Life | No Comments »

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