The Random Thoughts Review

We all have lists. We often say to ourselves, “I’d like to do that sometime”. I suspect that many of us have a list of things that we’d like to do.. eventually. To this end, I decided to formalize things a little bit and make up a list of Things To Do Before I Die.

Things To Do Before I Die

I make no promises about this list. I revise the right to modify and tweak the list now or at any point in the future. How about you? Do you have things that are on your list that aren’t on mine? (I’m sure you do) Go ahead and comment if so. I might steal the idea and add it to my list. I’m sure I’ve forgotten a lot of things.

A while back, I served on a Coroner’s Jury Duty. In this particular type of jury duty, it is left to the discretion of a jury as to the “manner” of a person’s death. Was it of natural causes, was it murder, suicide? etc. We weren’t tasked with determining who did the crime, or anything like that. We just determined the manner of the death.

Basically, for any death where it isn’t overwhelmingly obvious that the death was due to natural causes, a coroner’s jury is utilized in our county. Anyway, I did a complete writeup on the experience and it is available at:

http://www.omnux.com/kvandivo/jury/

I wanted to put an entry in the blog for it, because i’m going to link back to here so that people can leave comments on the jury duty if they wish to do so. If you aren’t familiar with coroner’s jury duty, I’d suggest taking a look at the above. It’s a lot different than regular jury duty.

~ is where the <3 is.

That’s all I’ve got to say on the matter.

There are two main views that permeate humankind as we know it. Either there is a God or there isn’t. I’m going to lump a bunch of the various religions into the group that believes that there is a God and call them Believers. Further, I’ll lump those that don’t believe in a higher power as being Nonbelievers. I’m not meaning either description to be disparaging. They just seem rather accurate in this context.

Now, let’s look at the way that life works.

Believers go through their time on earth being ridiculed and being generally made fun of for believing in anachronistic ideas that are totally without basis according to modern science. Nonbelievers go through their time on earth wondering just what Koolaid the Believers are drinking. After a random amount of time (generally something between 0 and 116 years in modern society) the person, Believer or Nonbeliever, dies, and their time on earth has reached completion. (Yes, I’m ignoring reincarnation. I’ll save that for another essay)

Now, let’s look at the topic at hand. First, let’s say that there is no God. In a worst case scenario here, the Believer ends their existence, having used their time on earth fighting for a cause that ultimately ends up being null and void. The Nonbeliever ends their existence still wondering what was up with the insane Believers. Either way, it’s over. Finished. Done.

Ho hum. Not very interesting.

Next, let’s say that there is a God and look at the worst case scenario here. The Believer ends their time on earth, having endured the ridicule. They then go on to spend all of Eternity in Heaven (feel free to substitute whatever word a particular religious sect uses to describe this situation. I think that pretty well all of them have some concept of eternal life). They get to rest easy knowing that their (max) 116 years of strife and tribulation on earth was worth it. The Nonbeliever ends their time on earth and immediately realizes that God was, in fact, real. They then proceed to an eternity of considerably less bliss than the Believers. Whether called Hell, Eternal Damnation, or something else, the Nonbeliever will have a long, long time to think about the (max) 116 years that they had to make their choice.

So, as we draw near the end of essay, there are still two ways to look at things.

If you are a Believer, your worst case case scenario has you ending your time on earth having fought for a cause that is null and void. If you are a Nonbeliever, your worst case scenario has you spending eternity in a place where you definitely won’t need a jacket to keep yourself warm.

So, my question to you becomes: What factors have I missed in this essay? What am I not considering that makes the above text invalid or incorrect? Help me out. I’m sure that there are people out there that will see flaws in the description above. What are they?

I just want to mention a couple of things that I’ve come up with.

The first is the quote:

Reality isn’t important. The perception of reality is the only thing that matters.

I’ve been using this phrase for a couple of years now. It’s really a great sentiment, if I do say so myself. It covers practically all of life as we know it. Think about any human event that involves a misunderstanding. Generally speaking, reality isn’t important. How a person perceives reality is all that matters to that person. Every once and a while, said individual can actually be convinced otherwise, but generally not.

This quote really hits home when you apply it to “the press”. It often applies to them as well. In theory (as far as I’m concerned), the press should be mindless automatons that do nothing more than convey reality, and all of reality, to the masses. As we all know, though, it doesn’t work that way. They get to perceive whatever portion of reality they wish, however they wish, and then convey that perception to the masses. The masses then take that perception as actually being reality. Tsk tsk tsk.

For my second item of the day.. It’s an abbreviation that I’ve come up with. I actually came up with this particular definition when I was teaching programming back at the University of Missouri – Rolla. It wasn’t a term that I used around the students. Rather, I used it to describe certain student conditions. The term, or abbreviation:

fluc, or FLUC. I pronounce it “fluke”. I can’t control how others might pronounce it.

A “fluke” is generally defined as an accidental positive event that has occurred. But, that’s not what I’m talking about here. fluc stands for a Fundamental Lack of Understanding of the Concepts. Back in my teaching days, I used it when a student had a question about a programming assignment that clearly showed that they didn’t really understand what was actually going on. Programming is (painfully) logical. Everything really makes sense, as long as you have a firm understanding of the underlying concepts. But, many students didn’t have this understanding. Hence, the fluc’s. I still use the term. It continues to apply to various things in life. Good stuff.

Feel free to use either or both of the above concepts. Just remember.. You heard it here first.

And, the third quote that I want to put out there..

We all grow old together. Some of us just have a head start.

This one doesn’t need much explanation. I usually invoke it when people are talking about their age. Whether they are commenting on how young they are, how old they are, how young I am, or how old I am.. It still just works. It’s a nice little phrase. I’m glad I thought it up.

CNN.com – Iran leader: Move Israel to Europe – Dec 8, 2005

So, Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has now said that the state of Israel needs to be moved to somewhere in Europe. He says that if the Europeans want to say that Hitler killed millions of Jews that they should provide some land to “the Zionists”.

This isn’t the first time that Ahmadinejad has made inflammatory statements…. Back in October he said Israel needed to be wiped off the map” and that Israel is a disgraceful blot. Iranian liberals said at the time that it harmed the country’s international standing. (Granted, this is similar to Democrats calling Bush a moron.) There are, without a doubt, many in Iran that wouldn’t agree with the Iranian liberals.

Ahmadinejad was elected this past summer and took office on August 3rd. So, he’s not been president very long, but he’s definitely making his position known. And, since he’s the president, it is therefore the position of Iran as a country (since that’s the way that presidencies work).

So, one has wonder how many times that he can threaten other countries before people decide that he might actually act upon his convictions. Stay tuned. May we live in interesting times.

iWon News

So, Ohio State University folks seem to have discovered that people who are hostile heal at 60% of the rate that others heal at.

The article seems to focus on married people, but the data is surely extensible enough to apply to anyone. So, can’t we all just get along?

Have someone in your life that is hurt in some way? Think about how you treat them? You could be slowing down the healing process for them.

Today I want to pay homage to something that we often don’t think much about. A person goes about their daily business and they use this particular thing without any thought as to just how cool it is…. Assuming, of course, that the person actually has one of them to use.

This morning the radio was happy enough to tell me that it was a whole five degrees F outside. Here we are, on December 5, and it’s already getting down well into the single digits. That’s not just a little bit cold. That’s real cold. I can imagine Adrian Cronauer in Good Morning, Siberia doing an entire monologue on just how cold it is. But, I digress… Over the weekend we added another half inch of snow on top of the half inch or so that we have had lying around since early last week. So, we’ve got snow cover. And we’ve got insanely cold temperatures. (In another month I might feel differently about how insanely cold that five above actually is, but for now it is insanely cold)

Now, to the beloved item that I’m devoting time to discussing. On mornings like this, it truly is worth its weight in gold, and that’s saying a lot. What am I talking about that can bring such wonderful joy to a Monday morning? The garage, of course. Specifically, the attached garage.

It’s such a joy getting ready for work in the morning when I know that I’m not going to have to get out into the five degree weather just to force my poor little truck into starting. It’s literally sublime to think about how nice it is going to be stepping into the attached garage, opening the truck door, lightly turning the key, and having my truck instantly roar to life. Ahh.. The sheer pleasure. The pure joy of knowing that I’m not going to have to get outside in this weather and scrape the windows, just so I can see to drive! This is, of course, to say nothing of the kindness that I show to my truck by keeping it near the house at a reasonable temperature. My little truck almost purrs out to me in the morning, “Kirby. Thanks for the heat!”. When in the closed garage, the poor little starter doesn’t have to turn over, and over, and over just to get things going.

Yes, my dear readers, a garage certainly is a wonderful thing. If you haven’t yet joined the ranks of homeowners, mark my words. Get a house with a garage. It’s a decision you won’t soon regret.