Archive for March, 2009

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The New Texas Math

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

This is a question on my son’s math homework today:

The density of iron is 7.874 grams per cubic centimeter. Estimate the space that would be occupied by 50 grams of iron.

a) 16 cm3 b) 35 cm3 c) 350 cm3 d) 400 cm3

I realize that it has been a long time since I did any algebra, but this seemed like a very simple problem to me. Taking it step-by-step…

1) You start with this equation: 7.874g/1cm3 = 50g/Xcm3

2) Isolate the variable by multiplying both sides of the equation by Xcm3…

Xcm3(7.874g/1cm3) = Xcm3(50g/Xcm3)
X7.874g = 50g

3) …and then dividing both sides by 7.874.

X7.874g/7.874g = 50g/7.874g
X = ~6.35

His teacher says the correct answer is c) 350 cm3. Am I missing something very simple here, or is the teacher wrong and the correct answer not listed?

Triton? Mark? Will one of you guys (or someone else) double check my junior high algebra for me?

Posted in Homeschooling | 8 Comments »

New Computer

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

I just built a new computer for myself. It’s my first new computer in more than ten years. I’ve been buying my old employer’s hand-me-downs for so long that it feels like Christmas! LOL It has an AMD Phenom 64 Quad-core w/ 4GB RAM and a 320GB SATA HDD (7200rpm 16mb cache). I pirated a CD-RW and floppy from an older computer.

Final cost: $311.

No fancy graphics or sound cards, but I’m not much of a gamer. It should have a DVD drive, but I don’t need it right away. I should have bought a better case, too. This one is ugly, has terrible airflow, and is loud! It works, though, and it was cheap. I’m happy.

Posted in Computers | Comments Off

Tzav 5769 – Chew the Fat

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Ye shall eat no manner of fat, of ox, or of sheep, or of goat. Leviticus 7:23

Occasionally, skeptics like to pick this verse to show how ridiculous the Torah is. How can anyone eat meat without eating fat? Are you supposed to trim every bit of fat from every cut of meat? You only have to look a couple more verses down to see that that is not what God meant.

For whosoever eateth the fat of the beast, of which men offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD… Leviticus 7:25

The particular fat that is offered by fire is the fat and glands around the kidneys and other internal organs, not the fat that is commonly found around muscles.

The command against eating blood has a similar problem, but can’t be resolved by reading a little further. It can, however, be resolved by thinking a little further. The Torah was not written for morons. It’s not complicated, but it was written for people who are at least capable of thinking their way out of a paper bag. If you follow the Torah’s instructions for killing and bleeding an animal, then whatever blood is left in the tissues is fine. Like the yeast that lives in the air at Passover, there will always be some blood in meat, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Stay away from  boudin noir, but don’t worry about a rare steak.

Posted in Keeping Torah, Parsha 25 - Tzav, Theology, Torah | 1 Comment »

Going Global

Monday, March 30th, 2009

Since I announced the upcoming release of A Commentary on Marriage in the Bible, my readership has gone global. Here are the last 100 readers:

Site Visitors as of March 30, 2009.

Posted in Books, Personal | Comments Off

At the Printers!

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

The book is now at the printers!

Posted in Books, History, Marriage, Theology, Torah | Comments Off

You Can’t Take Your Passwords with You

Monday, March 16th, 2009

…so why not pass them on?

Andy Carvell writes, “A small industry has grown to support the needs of those wishing to make arrangements for [online] friends to be contacted in the event of their death.” One site lets you create multiple emails to be sent in case you don’t log into the site every so many days. But what happens if you’re hospitalized or otherwise unable to get to the Internet for an extended period? Another site lets you designate a “trusted contact” who is authorized to trigger the mass email. That makes a little more sense. Personally, my plan is to make sure that my passwords are accessible to someone I trust. It’s not foolproof, but I think it’s good enough. And it doesn’t cost me anything.

Posted in Computers | Comments Off

Vayakhel 5769 – Marriage and the UFC

Monday, March 16th, 2009

Exodus 35:5

…whosoever is of a willing heart… God invited every individual man, woman, and child to donate the materials of the Tabernacle: the metals, fabrics, oil, spices, and gems, all of the things that, together, symbolize a complete and balanced child of God. They also symbolize the roles of husband, wife, and children in a family. God wanted free-will offerings, because he does not force us to become the people he wants us to be.

A man cannot be forced to love his wife; he must choose to love her. She can manipulate him and cajole him, but the result is not real love. It is form without substance. Likewise, a woman cannot be forced to submit to her husband’s rule. A man can certainly try to force his wife to submit, but he will fail. He can beat her, threaten her, or manipulate her, but he will never have true submission from the heart. Either she will resist to the point at which he is no longer willing to keep her as his wife or else she will become someone else, someone much less than the woman he married.

Posted in Leadership, Marriage, Men's Rights, Parsha 22 - Vayakhel, Theology, Torah | Comments Off

Ki Tisa 5769 – Judgement Begins

Monday, March 16th, 2009

Exodus 30:20

When they go into the tabernacle of the congregation… Bronze represents judgment, and the priests were to wash in the bronze basin before ministering before God on behalf of the people. This is the same principle in effect when Peter wrote that “judgment must begin at the house of God.” The more authority one has, the more responsibility. A husband and father must undergo judgment and purification before he is fully competent to judge and purify his family.

Posted in Leadership, Marriage, Men's Rights, Parsha 21 - Ki Tisa, Theology, Torah | Comments Off

Going Solo

Monday, March 16th, 2009

I’m in my third month of self-employment now, and I have a few early observations.

  1. I’m not charging enough for my services. My main competitors charge $15/hr more than I do. That seemed exorbitant when I first started, but I have discovered that the amount of unbillable time I spend researching client issues, advertising for new clients, recording work orders and invoices, driving to client sites, and other miscellany takes up the majority of my time. If I’m to make a living at this, I will have to increase my fees soon. I might charge three times per hour more than the average wage earner in this town, but I get paid for less than a third of my work time. So far. (Bryce Whitty has a good article at Technibble on billing for time.)
  2. It’s expensive keeping up with the latest technologies. I can’t afford to buy Office or the latest hardware and operating system, so all of my experience with those things comes from working on my clients’ machines. That sucks. In the corporate world, I could always get new toys and the time to play with them. My experience is getting broader but shallower.
  3. I am continually surprised by what people will pay for. Why would anyone pay me to create a website or disinfect their computer when they could do it almost as easily themselves? It comes down to resources, usually time or cerebral. It’s the same reason I might pay someone else to roof my house. They have the tools and experience to do it faster, and I really don’t care to know everything about all the different kinds of roofing available and the details of their installation.

Posted in Computers, Personal | Comments Off

Gun Control in Action

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

Police slay teen gunman who killed 15 in Germany

In 2002, 19-year-old Robert Steinhaeuser shot and killed 12 teachers, a secretary, two students and a police officer before turning his gun on himself in the Gutenberg high school in Erfurt, in eastern Germany.

Steinhaeuser, who had been expelled for forging a doctor’s note, was a gun club member licensed to own weapons. The attack led Germany to raise the age for owning recreational firearms from 18 to 21.

Germany has some of the strictest firearms regulations in the world. In 2002, a nineteen-year-old man killed fifteen people with a legally owned firearm, so Germany raised the legal age to twenty-one.

How did that work out for you, Germany?

[In March, 2009,] a 17-year-old gunman dressed in black opened fire at his former high school in southwestern Germany on Wednesday then fled in a hijacked car, killing at least 15 people before police shot him to death, state officials said.

The gunman entered the school in Winnenden and opened fire, shooting at random, police said. He killed nine students, three teachers and a passer-by outside the building, officials said.

Apparently, this kid’s father legally owned a collection of firearms and one is missing. The article doesn’t say if that is the weapon used in these killings. It’s a good thing Germany doesn’t allow people to own “assault rifles” and raised the age limit to legally possess any firearms from 18 to 21! This 17-year-old might have been able to get a hold of something really dangerous like the illegal firearms that Harris and Klebold used to kill 13 people back in 1998. We’d better make more guns illegal to prevent this sort of thing in the future!

Posted in Politics | Comments Off

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