Yes we can

I'm not usually into politics.  I vote in every election and research the issues.  I strongly believe that's my responsibility and duty as part of living in a democratic society.  But I usually don't get too fired up one way or the other based on the outcomes.  This election was a little different - especially near the end.  I'm hopeful that President-Elect Barack Obama can get this country back on track and do it in a way that restores the United States as a beacon of hope for so many people in the world who don't enjoy the same freedoms and opportunities we do.

I thought President-Elect Obama gave a masterful victory speech last night in Chicago.  If you haven't seen it, it is contained here:

I believe that America can do many great things in the coming years and decades and stand ready to do my part to make that happen.

What’s So Great about Christianity?

I listened to a really great audio recording the other day by Dinesh D'Souza. It was linked off of this page on the ExploreFaith.org site. In this talk delivered at Fixed Point Foundation’s Latimer House in Birmingham, Alabama, What’s So Great about Christianity author D’Souza zeros in on what he feels to be the new atheism's strongest arguments against Christianity.

Countering each is D’Souza’s way of clearing aside some of the obstacles that prevent our “having an experience of Christianity, an experience of God.” He offers a “bullet-proof vest” for Christians to answer the charges leveled by those who view religion as evil, imagined and unnecessary by making claims such as:

• God is inconsequential;
• Virtuous living can be practiced by atheists just as readily as by people of faith;
• Science and religion are at odds;
• Religion has caused or been complicit in the great crimes of history.

He then focuses on the motives of the new atheists, what compels the vigor and vehemence of their attacks. For D’Souza the more we know about faith, science and history, the easier it is for us to see the holes in arguments espoused by religion’s detractors.

The talk is about 45 minutes and I found it to be really interesting and valuable. D'Souza lays out his arguments in a very clear and reasonable way. If you're a Christian, it's well worth the time to listen to this talk.

Christ’s Ideals for Living

A person at church sent this around via email.

This is from the 1954 Sunday School manual "Christ’s Ideals for Living". The author was O. C. Tanner. He taught philosophy at the University of Utah, and his autobiography, One Man’s Search for Freedom, tells that President David McKay asked him to write a manual for Sunday School use. Tanner replied he was too liberal-minded to pass the reading committee of General Authorities. President McKay said, “We’ll change the committee” and placed liberal apostle Adam Bennion in charge. The manual passed just fine and was used throughout the 50s and 60s as the Sunday School text, known as Christ’s Ideals for Living.

Quote from SS manual:
Young people sometimes doubt the truth of the Gospel or some part of it, and feeling the worthy desire to be sincere, they cease to be active in the Church. The answer to them is to be sincere always. One must never violate one’s integrity, whatever it may cost. But must one believe all or nothing? Must one cut off Church participation-the great source of righteousness in one’s life and in the community, because there is some doctrine doubted or disbelieved? Rather, is it not wisdom to begin, not with doubts and faults, but with the simple truths and virtues one can believe, then move on from there to others? Surely no one would claim to know all the Gospel. Great truths are always just around the corner for those who seek. Jesus told us to knock, seek, and ask, not just once, but continuously. One step at a time applies to progress in the Gospel as it does to education or any worthwhile achievement. One is not a hypocrite if he has honest questions and is active in the Church at the same time. The leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would offer this suggestion:

Start where you are. What do you believe? Start with that and take it as far as you can down life’s highway. Another truth will meet you at nearly every bend in the road. God has never intended that an honest mind should be humiliated or made unwelcome in the Church by any other member because of honest inquiry. Above all, keep the virtues of integrity, sincerity, and genuineness. Nothing else can be right in a man’s life if he is not sincere.

Gospel-sharing messages

Each month, as part of my responsibility as a ward missionary (at church), I've been sending out short emails to people in the ward (congregation) with suggestions on how to share information about the LDS Church with others. In case others are interested, I've created an archive and will update it each month. As part of writing each message, I have prayed that Heavenly Father would help me to know what would be most useful to people and how best to convey that message. I have felt his support and guidance with these messages so if you find them helpful, it is thanks to Him, not me. As an aside, the same thing goes for the Sunday School class I taught today on obedience. I wasn't prepared for the lesson but, thanks to an answered prayer, the class went well. I am very grateful for the support.

Steve Jobs at NeXT

This is a really good video of Steve Jobs doing a "chalk talk" while he was at NeXT. The clarity and simplicity of the message is great. I'm continuing to try to improve with presentations and other communications to convey complicated information in a way that people can readily understand it. This is a good example.

Our Tax System Explained: Bar Stool Economics

A co-worker of mine forwarded this "essay" to me by David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D., Professor of Economics at the University of Georgia.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

• The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
• The fifth would pay $1.
• The sixth would pay $3.
• The seventh would pay $7.
• The eighth would pay $12.
• The ninth would pay $18.
• The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. 'Since you are all such good customers,' he said, 'I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.' Drinks for the ten now cost just $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so:

• The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
• The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
• The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
• The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
• The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
• The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. 'I only got a dollar out of the $20,'declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,' but he got $10!' 'Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I got' 'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!' 'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!' The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill! And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy,and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

I'm not sure that I totally agree with the conclusions but it's an interesting perspective and certainly one way of discussing this topic that made some intuitive sense to me.

Serving Others

My son AJ was asked to give a talk today in Primary (the group of 4 to 12 year olds at church). I ended up serving as his speechwriter but he did a great job today saying it for the other kids. He's what he had to say:

I was asked to talk about how I can serve Heavenly Father by serving others. Serving others means that we help them feel better when they are hurt. We can help them solve a problem or we can do something nice for them. Sometimes when people pray for help, their prayers are answered by something we do for them. In 1 Nephi 16:29, it says that “by small means the Lord can bring about great things”. And, in Mosiah 2:17, it says “when [you] are in the service of your fellow beings [you] are only in the service of your God”. It feels good to do nice things for other people and it makes our Heavenly Father happy too.

A little while ago, JH’s family was moving. I carried some of their boxes down the stairs to their moving truck. It was fun to spend time with mey dad and my brother and they said “thank you” for helping them move. Sometimes my Aunt BE needs to go to an appointment so my mom and I take care of my cousin SE. He’s still a baby. Sometimes SE cries but we are able to make him feel better. I share my toys with him. It feels nice to take care of other people.

Yesterday, me and my dad went to the Oakland temple. While we were there, one of the sister missionaries gave me this cool keychain. It can change colors. When you put it in the sun, it turns blue. She said that people can change too. Some people don’t know that Heavenly Father and Jesus love them. If you do something nice for them, maybe they’ll change and want to learn more about Jesus. Or maybe they’ll do something nice for someone else. That would be really cool.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

There are plenty of people who need each of our help. It is my sincere hope and prayer that we'll serve them.

AIG humor

Speaking to the Institute of International Finance, AIG Vice Chairman Jacob Frenkel said: "The left side of the balance sheet has nothing right and the right side of the balance sheet has nothing left. But they are equal to each other. So accounting-wise we are fine." At least there's a silver-lining in all this. =)

Noah's Ark Replica

I wrote about Noah's Ark more than two years ago (see prior post).  Just the other day, though, my mother-in-law pointed me to a story about a massive replica of Noah's Ark that was created in the Netherlands by devout Christian Johan Huibers.  Life-size models of giraffes, elephants, lions, crocodiles, zebras, bison and other animals greet visitors inside the ark.  Huibers' fully functional ark is two-thirds the length of a football field and as high as a three-storey house.  But the original ark featured in the Bible was described as five times larger than Johan's Ark.  Huibers said his venture came after he dreamt of the Netherlands being flooded.  "In February 1992, I had a dream that Holland will become flooded. The next day, I found a book about Noah's Ark in the local bookshop, and since then, my dream has been to build the ark," he said.  Huibers said he hoped the project would renew interest in Christianity in the Netherlands, where churchgoing has fallen dramatically in the past 50 years.  "I would really like to inspire people to search for God and to begin to read the Bible," he said.

I hope that my family gets to see this Ark at some point in our lives.  I think it would be a neat experience.

Why men cheat

I read an interesting article today about why men cheat on their wives.  It contradicts a lot of the conventional wisdom on the topic (i.e., that cheating is all about sex with a prettier woman).  Marriage counselor M. Gary Neuman just published a book on this subject called "The Truth About Cheating".  In the book, Gary says that ninety-two percent of men said it wasn't primarily about the sex.  "The majority said it was an emotional disconnection, specifically a sense of feeling underappreciated. A lack of thoughtful gestures," Gary says. "Men are very emotional beings. They just don't look like that. Or they don't seem like that. Or they don't tell you that."  Gary also found that 88 percent of the men surveyed said the other women were no better looking or in no better shape than their own wives.   Here's one additional excerpt from the article:

Josh says he cheated on his wife, Jennifer, because he felt underappreciated at home and started feeling insecure. "That insecurity was really the catalyst," he says. "I didn't feel comfortable going to the one person in the world I should be going to, which is my wife." With daily worries like bills, children and chores, Gary says it's easy for couples to drift away from appreciating one another like they should. Gary says the other woman often makes the man feel better about himself. "[She] makes them feel different. Makes them feel appreciated, admired," he says. "Men look strong, look powerful and capable. But on the inside, they're insecure like everybody else. They're searching and looking for somebody to build them up to make them feel valued." ... Don't be afraid to praise your partner or tell him that you appreciate what he does, Gary says. "We get married because we want one person in the world to really think we're wonderful for doing all the things that we do. We all want the same thing," he says. "And the more we give it, the more we get it in return."

Anyway, very interesting stuff.

Sarah Palin interview

I'm really not into politics. I feel it's my responsibility to vote. The only way a democracy works is if people exercise their right to vote and take seriously. So I research the issues and the candidates prior to casting my ballet. I'll also occasionally wait coverage of the campaigns or read about it in various newspapers or periodicals. In this election, I've been mostly on the fence - not terribly excited about either set of candidates. Actually, after the RNC, I was slightly leanly towards the McCain camp - mostly because of Sarah Palin's speech. But over the last couple of days, I think I've swung into the Obama camp - which, more accurately, is away from the McCain/Palin camp. I've been concerned about McCain's negative ads but Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric really got me scared about that ticket. For those of you who haven't seen it, here it is:



There was actually a good parady of this interview on SNL. I saw the SNL skit first and assumed they had massively exaggerated things but then discovered it was actually pretty accurate (which is scary). Anyway, this interview really gives me pause about having Palin as Vice President.

Periodic Table of Videos

I just read an article in the September 15, 2008 issue of Chemical & Engineering News about a project at the University of Nottingham called the "Periodic Table of Videos" (official site, YouTube channel). The series of 130 videos was put together to introduce different elements and describe their properties and uses. Here is an introductory video:



One Nobel Laureate at Cornell described the video collection this way: "Poliakoff and his able codemonstrators make the periodic table come alive with the best understated British humor - they are real nerdy-sexy." Who doesn't love "nerdy-sexy". =)

Murmuring

During church yesterday, an investigator (someone looking into the LDS Church) asked me about one of the hymns from the program. Specifically, he was worried that there was an accuracy in the lyrics. The hymn in question was called "Behold the Great Redeemer Die" and it's about the crucifixion of Christ. It is Hymn 191 in the hymn book. One of the lines in the hymn says: "Although in agony he hung, no murmuring words escaped his tongue." As you may recall, in Matthew 27:46, it says: "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" There was some concern that this scripture rendered the hymn inaccurate (i.e., saying "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" equates to "murmuring").

Afterwards, I talked to a couple of people about this concern. All of them pointed out to me that "murmuring" has a very specific meaning in a Biblical context - grumbling or whining under your breath. Murmuring is even considered a sin (see non-LDS source #1 and #2). Simply speaking or making sound does not qualify as "murmuring". You'd have to argue that Jesus was specifically whining in this situation and doing it in a way that he didn't want others to hear to make it "murmuring". I think it's hard to make that argument. In a different non-LDS source regarding Matthew 27:46, it says that may think Jesus was making a very deliberate reference to Psalm 22 when he spoke - a scripture that he hoped people would recall and investigate later (for their benefit). So, again, I think it's very challenging to categorize Jesus' statement on the cross as "murmuring".

Most of you probably don't care about this but, since I spent some time looking into the topic, I figured I'd post it here for future reference. At any rate, you can sleep well at night knowing that Hymn #191 in the LDS hymn book is accurate as written and there is no need for changes or reprinting. =)

The Number Devil

I just got done reading The Number Devil by Hans Magnus Enzensberger. A co-worker's son recently read it and encouraged his dad to do the same. We were on a trip together and the dad (my co-worker) mentioned the book to me. It was a fun read and does a good job of making math interesting and exciting. I would definitely recommend it. When JD and AJ are a little older, I'll encourage them to read the book. Both of them seem to enjoy math (at least so far) and this book could only help fuel that interest.

Smart vs Wise

A quick quote I found in this blog post:

The difference between a smart person and a wise person is that a wise person knows how not to get into situations that a smart person knows how to get out of.

So very true. Hopefully I can be more wise than smart moving forward.

0.999...

I just found an interesting article on Wikipedia talking about how the notations "0.999…" and "1" represent the same real number.  At first glance, I didn't see how that could be correct (which is a common misconception) but the proofs are actually quite simple (at least some of them are).  In general, I wish I had more time for random stuff like this.  There are so many things I'd like to learn more about.

Good women

I've subscribing to a Church email list called "Family Gems" where they periodically send out interesting quotes from various Church leaders pertaining to the family. I thought this one was particularly good and one I hope my sons will take to heart over time (see the Family Gem for August 29, 2008 on this page):

"You young men need to know that you can hardly achieve your highest potential without the influence of good women, particularly your mother and, in a few years, a good wife. Learn now to show respect and gratitude. Remember that your mother is your mother. She should not need to issue orders. Her wish, her hope, her hint should provide direction that you would honor."

Education Week

A friend of mine who is investigating the Church gave me a program from the BYU Campus Education Week that is done every year. This year's session was August 18 to August 22 and they had over 1,000 different classes across a range of continuing education topics - not just religion. Sounds like a worthwhile event. Once the kids are older and can participate as well, we'll go on a regular basis. In the meantime, it's hard to justify a week away from the family to go to things like this on my own - even though I'd personally find it super-interesting. Posting the link here in case others might be interested for next year.

Weekly schedule

I've been thinking a lot about how to balance everything I have going on in my life. There are only so many hours in a week and it's hard to make everything fit. Also, unless we consciously manage things, certain aspects of our life (like work, church, etc) have a way of taking over and crowding out other things we may want and need to get done in other aspects of our life. Therefore, this past week, I did a personal exercise where I said "if I really could control my schedule, how would I ideally manage my time in a given week?" That caused me to put together a list of competing demands on my time along with a list of things I'd like to be doing more of. It also caused me to quantify the amount of time that was required and/or appropriate for each of those activities and also think about what additional constraints I needed to take into account (i.e., train schedules, kids' bedtimes and nighttime routines, what activities were appropriate on the Sabbath, etc).

I ended up optimizing for the following:

• 8 hours per night of sleep. I typically short-change this (as do others) but I think it's a mistake and I think my body needs about 7-8 hours of sleep to function optimally.
• 50 hours per week of work. I went back and forth a bit on this one. You could certainly argue for a 40 hour work week but that's just not the reality of the career choice that I've made at the moment. At the same time, my job could easily suck up 60 or 70 hours per week if I let it so there needs to be a balance. 50 hours seemed like a reasonable compromise for now but it's something to revisit over time - especially given the length of my commute at the moment (which isn't factored into the 50 hour figure).
• Being home for dinner each night with the kids. This may not always be possible given business trips, business dinners, special events, etc but I think the going-in-assumption should be that I'm home each night for dinner and bedtime.
• Spending time with my kids. In addition to being home for dinner each night, I'd like to spend some quality time with them on the weekend.
• Spending time with my wife. I'd like a dedicated block with just her each week and ideally some shorter dedicated blocks during the rest of the week.
• Honoring God and Church commitments / guidelines. This includes keeping the Sabbath day holy, attending my weekly ward missionary meeting, having daily scripture study, and doing a weekly family home evening.
• Exercising three times a week. Ideally I'd exercise more often than that but it's all a balance. I'm not exercising at all at the moment (which isn't right) but I can't exercise everyday either and still make everything else fit.
• Relaxation and personal projects. Somewhere in there, I need at least a little down time. I also need time for personal projects like family history, blogging, reading, etc. Being social occasionally wouldn't be bad either.

Against those constraints, I put together a generic weekly schedule (see PDF). I would be interested in people's opinions regarding how to optimize the time better and/or a different set of priorities/constraints. You'll notice that I played some tricks here like assuming that I can spend an hour of my commute time on the train getting work done. But I also tried to stay practical and realistic about how long things take and that you can't transition from one thing to another instantaneously. For example, you can't go from playing basketball to going to sleep right away after you get home.

Anyway, I'll be interested in what people have to say (if anything) and in how closely I'm able to adhere to this schedule. It's certainly a work in progress.

Confused as ever

A co-worker just pointed me to this interesting quote. It was originally posted on the wall of a mathematics reading room but I think it has pretty broad applicability.

“We have not succeeded in answering all our problems. The answers we have found only serve to raise a whole set of new questions. In some ways we feel we are as confused as ever, but we believe we are confused on a higher level and about more important things.” Sitert-Øksendal (1985).

I could certainly make this statement about work. There are still a number of key questions we need to answer to push our business forward. I could also make this statement about religion. As you answer some questions, it only raises others on a higher level and of more importance. Anyway, a good quote and something to think about.