Archive for August, 2017

« Older Entries

Family Conversations, Part 28

Aug

31

2017

Gamma : If you love something, let it go. Unless it’s chocolate.
Me : Where did you get that?
Gamma : From the cereal box.

Gamma, after reading a Peanuts collection : It was a dark and stormy night… and there were butterflies!

Delta : Last night, when I said I brushed my teeth, I was joking.

Gamma : How do you spell ‘cigar’?
Me : C-I-G-A-R
Gamma : Well, what does S-U-G-A-R spell then?
Me : Sugar
Gamma : Why doesn’t S-U-G-A-R sound like ‘cigar’?
Me : Good question

So is the man who deceives his neighbor, And says, “Was I not joking?”

Proverbs 26:19

Posted in Conversations | No Comments »

Cheeseburger Pizza

Aug

29

2017

Our family likes Pizza Ranch. Lots of everything, and different things. The last time I went was the first time I had seen their cheeseburger pizza.

image of cheeseburger pizza with fries

What makes their cheeseburger pizza better than other people’s cheeseburger pizzas is that theirs has the french fries on it. So it’s really a burger-and-fries pizza. One-stop shopping.

For the ear tests words As the palate tastes food.

Job 34:3

Posted in Food | No Comments »

Setting the Furnace Back

Aug

24

2017

Even though it’s still August, it is starting to feel like fall. So people’s thoughts are turning to furnaces and heating the house.

I overheard someone denouncing the practice of setting the thermostat to a lower setting during the times when the house is unoccupied for a while. His argument was that sure, the furnace won’t run while the house cools down, but then it works extra to heat the house back up and all that savings is lost.

That is true if the time is short enough such that the house won’t stay at the lower temperature very long. The savings come with time at the lower temperature.

The reason for this is that the rate of heat transfer increases with a higher temperature difference. In other words, the warmer the inside of the house is, the more heat it will lose to the colder outside. Thus, the more heat the furnace will have to add to the inside.

So if you keep your house a little cooler, then not as much heat will escape, so you’ll see slight savings in furnace fuel costs. Think about what would happen if you set your thermostat to match the outside temperature: the furnace wouldn’t run at all. And your fuel costs would be zero. It’s just a linear ramp up from there: the higher the difference between your thermostat and the outside, the more the furnace will run. The times when the house is changing temperature is a wash – they cancel out.

Now the slaves and the officers were standing there, having made a charcoal fire, for it was cold and they were warming themselves; and Peter was also with them, standing and warming himself.

John 18:18

Posted in Technical | No Comments »

The 5 Hows: Pit

Aug

22

2017

This is a guide for how to play the game Pit. It’s a fun, highly-participatory card game.

image of Pit game

1. How do I win?
By getting your hand of cards to be all the same suit.

2. How do I get cards?
You start with a hand of cards. You trade cards with other players to try to get yours all to match.

3. How is that hard?
Because you don’t get to see the cards before you get them, so you don’t know what they are. You just keep trading cards until you get the type you want. Also, there are no turns.

4. No turns? How does that work?
Everyone plays all at the same time. Imagine the floor of a stock exchange before computers. Buyers and sellers try to match sizes – 1 card, 2 cards, 3 cards. The only thing you get to say is how many cards you want. And you get to yell “Pit!” if you win.

5. How does the game end?
As soon as you get all of your cards to match (i.e. your hand contains all of one type of commodity. The commodity itself doesn’t matter so much, since we count only wins, not points).

There, now go play Pit.

He has dug a pit and hollowed it out, And has fallen into the hole which he made.

Psalm 7:15

Posted in Fun | No Comments »

Printing Maps

Aug

17

2017

Printing with Google Maps used to be easy. That was many moons ago. I’m thinking it was the original Google Maps website. There used to be a Print button on Google’s webpage. It would bring up a print preview-type box, and you could scroll and zoom the map in that to make sure your map printed just how you wanted.

Fast forward a few years from there, and Google “updated” their maps service so that it didn’t print anymore. If you wanted to print, you had to use your browser’s Print Webpage function. No longer could you make the map preview match what you wanted. No longer was it convenient to print different sections of a route. But, someone thought it was progress, so that’s what we got.

Fast forward a few more years, and Google “updated” their maps service to include more bloat features. That’s where we are now.

My problem now is that Google Maps won’t even print. I press ctrl-P to invoke the browser’s print feature, and it sends it to the printer, but the printer doesn’t like it.

Why does every improvement make my life harder?

Do not fear, though, for I have found the solution.

Option 1: MapQuest. Yes, that site is still functional. And it plays nicely with the printer.

Option 2: Switch Google Maps to Lite Mode. Click the lightning bolt in the lower right corner of the website. Once I switched to Lite Mode, I magically had no problems printing.

Your mileage may vary, but if you’re having problems with some aspect of Google Maps, try Lite Mode. Now if I could just get them to add a button so I could switch to Original Mode, it’d be perfect.

Thus says the Lord, “Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, Where the good way is, and walk in it; And you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ “

Jeremiah 6:16

Posted in Technical | No Comments »

Fridge Alarm

Aug

15

2017

In our travels, we usually get hotel rooms with a mini refrigerator. A recent hotel room had a problem though. Here’s a photo of the arrangement:

image of mini refrigerator setup in hotel room

See the problem?

Here’s a shot of the thing on the wall, in case you need a little help:

image of mini refrigerator setup in hotel room

If you still need help, here’s a picture of the fridge with the door open:

image of mini refrigerator setup in hotel room

We were loading the fridge with stuff just after we arrived to the room. We heard beeping and figured it was the fridge letting us know the door was open too long. We have that feature on our full-size fridge at home, but weren’t expecting it on a mini-fridge.

So my wife shut the door for a second, then opened it again and the beeping resumed. She quickly realized it wasn’t the fridge. Rather, it was the carbon monoxide alarm. It is arranged such that the test button (that sounds the alarm) is pressed whenever the fridge door is opened wide.

Bad setup.

Of course, we left it that way for the next guests to discover.

Blow the horn in Gibeah, The trumpet in Ramah. Sound an alarm at Beth-aven: “Behind you, Benjamin!”

Hosea 5:8

Posted in Mishaps | No Comments »

Not Genetically Unmodified

Aug

10

2017

There are more and more food products being promoted as non-GMO. I don’t have a problem with the products themselves, or the idea of the products.

What bothers me is the negative in the term “non-GMO”. If you want to promote something, you can’t label it as non-whatever. You need a positive spin on it, or its own acronym or something.

Here are some suggestions:

  • GUO – Genetically Unmodified Organism
  • GOO – Genetically Original Organism
  • GIO – Genetically Intact Organism
  • GNO – Genetically Natural Organism

GUO would be a problem because the “un” in the middle term is a negative, which is what I’m trying to prevent with a new name.
GNO would be a problem because its pronunciation is too close to GMO.

I also don’t like the O being for Organism. This is all in regards to food, right? The word organism is not appetizing. So we could change the O to an F and get GIF – Genetically Intact Food.

He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, And vegetation for the labor of man, So that he may bring forth food from the earth,

Psalm 104:14

Posted in Food | No Comments »

« Older Entries