Women in the military, and re-addressing heroes.

I've been seeing lots of posts and likes and kudos and news acclamation for two women who just successfully graduated rangers school.

Perhaps I am in the wrong to feel so, but the news saddens me a bit. In my - perhaps sexist -  mind women were still somehow above that.

That sounds like am either dissing women, or dissing our military - I don't mean to. I have the utmost respect and admiration for those who choose to serve in the role of protector, defender. Some of my favorite people and stories include Captain Moroni.

and the 2000 Sons of the people of Ammon.

War and conflict are an unfortunate part of human existence. But while it is one thing to  have to defend life, liberty, family and freedom, it is quite another to seek for blood. For some reason - right or wrong - in my mind, the graduation of these two women and consequent talk of the changing role of women in the front lines of military - viewed by the media as a step forward for women... to me feels more like a loss. Men have, it seems, already in large part embraced a baser nature, a nihilistic bloodthirstiness, but... now women succumb to it as well?

This lead me to think about a comment I had seen and replied to quite some time ago, on a video about Esther, and some other women who were being compared to her - her quality of courage specifically...

The individual's comment expressed disdain for the video, implying a sexist quality, as  the "courageous women" were shown putting on pretty clothes, make-up and jewelry. If the video had been about a man or men, they would have been shown strapping on swords and armor. Getting ready for battle, the poster noted.

I responded by saying "I think the idea was to have each one mirroring Esther, and in her case, that was her preparation. It wasn't about going to battle, it was about putting her best foot forward,in spite of hopeless circumstances. Preparing by dressing in their best, is symbolic of expecting success. (Honestly, I think these women display greater courage in facing unseen, untouchable dangers, versus than taking up arms against a mortal foe)."

As I thought about that, it occurred to me that we generally have a very narrow perception of courage, of heroism. And it does revolve and mortal, physical combat. We honor those who "Sacrifice their lives to the cause", but we forget the quiet heroes who give their lives TO the cause: the Mother Theresa's, the Gandhi's, The Jonas Corona's and Ethan King's. 

So maybe we spend too much time worshiping the wrong qualities... Or maybe I'm just an old fashioned, sexist pig.

Dis/proving God: Math, Science and a Checkerboard

Imagine you live on a checkerboard, and that this "world of yours is completely sealed in by four walls and a low ceiling.

Two other people share this checkerboard with you.

One claims there is a helium atom somewhere in your checkerboard world.

The other claims there is not.

Who is right? How do we determine it?

Let's assume you have a helium detector, which can detect a single atom of helium within one checkerboard square.

You could wander around checking a few squares at random. A traditional checkerboard consists of 8x8, or 64 squares, so in each square, you have a 1 in 64 (1.6%) chance of finding the helium atom - if it in fact exists. If there are two helium atoms, your odds are even better. Twice as good in fact.

Now if the helium atom is stationary, by the time you have checked 32 squares you have a 50% chance of finding the atom. But until you have checked EVERY square, you can't be certain that there is no helium. In other words, it is actually slightly easier to prove it does exist than to prove that it doesn't. To prove it exists, you need only search until you have found one instance. To prove that none exist, you must search every square.

But just testing each square is not sufficient either. Unless the helium atom is stationary. Let's say we set up the following pattern to check every square, by traversing side to side as we move forward across the board. It would be very easy for a moving helium atom to slip past on the left side of the board while we are over on the right side.

There are a few ways I can overcome this:

1) With enough people and sensors, You can place one sensor in each row, side by side, and they can move down the rows in unison, effectively creating a net to ensure the helium doesn't slip past.

2) You  could use a net that stretches from one end to the other, and drag it across the board until I have left a single row, then I can traverse that row with my sensor.

3) You could design a sensor which will test an entire row at one time, then move across the rows from one end to the other.

4) You could design a sensor or sensor web which tests every square at once.

Now, what if instead of a 2 dimension checkerboard we are talking about a three dimension cube? Now instead of 8x8=64 squares to test, you have 8x8x8=512. Probability of finding the atom in one cube is 0.2%.

To apply the strategy in 1 you would need enough people and sensors for each row and column, you have gone from needing 8 of each to 64 of each.

To apply strategy 2, you would first need to drop a net from the ceiling to reduce the search area to an 8x8x1 space, then drag the end-to-end net across to get to the single 8x1x1 column necessary.

Strategy 3 would require the same 64 sensors as strategy 1

And strategy 4 would require 512 sensors.

What of the cube is significantly bigger? 1000 x 1000 x 1000? That would be 1 billion cubes!
What if it is much, much bigger? Say 91 billion light years across(the distance across the observable universe)? There aren't enough people, enough sensors capable of creating the necessary web, nor sensors capable of spanning that mind-mindbogglingly huge distance.

And if you have never actually seen a helium atom - know nothing of it's physical makeup - how can you be certain your helium detector actually detects helium?

The same logic applies to god(/s) detection. We have an enormous space, and insufficient resources to scan said space, for a being (or beings) of unknown composition.  In fact, one could argue it is even worse, as we would also need to consider the space outside of observable space. Or the possibility that said being(/s) exist in an as yet undefined, unobserved dimension (yes, I know it sounds pretty sci-fi, but then so did spaceships and robots and glow in the dark sheep once upon a time).

Therefore, anyone who declares that there is a deity or deities, is doing so based on personal belief, and not by scientific analysis.

Anyone who declares that there is no god is doing so based on personal belief and not by scientific analysis.

We simply do not have the means to prove or disprove the existence of deity through pure scientific, mathematical process.

What is left then is speculation based on observation and interpretation of available evidence.

More on that later.

Different Flavors of Marriage

The cool and crummy thing about language (American English in particular) is that it can be fluid.

Language is really just sounds that we put together in unique ways and assign meaning. And written language is just a way to represent those sounds... without making any sound...

"Camera."

I say that word, and you have an image in your mind.

"Ball."

That one might have a couple possibilities. Without some context, you may be visualizing a spherical object, or you might be seeing people dancing.

"Fat", "Phat."

Same sound, different spellings, different meanings.

Meanings can change over time as well. "He was a killer", "That's killer".

"Marriage"

I think part of the problem with this word is that it means several different things. There are several flavors and contexts. I thought I'd take a stab at listing them. The idea is to break it up into the various separable components.

Social-Contractual - In this context, marriage is a contract between two or more people to "bind their fortunes". They agree to combine their resources toward a set of common goals. Often, but not always this includes the creation and rearing of offspring for a number of purposes, including contributing to society, maintaining a family namesake and/or legacy...

Social-Emotional - (That may not be the right title, suggestions?) In This context marriage is a... celebration of a union, of one or more... things? I am trying to leave that as open as possible to account for all cases, Such as a Man who married his dog, or a nine year old who was married to a snake (symbolically. She will still get to marry someone else when she grows up).

Civil-Legal Blanket -(Again, not sure I love the title) This represents a contract recognized by society as a sort of master contract, which saves the paperwork required to establish joint property ownership, inheritance, access to "Family" benefits etc...

Civil-Incentive - This represents a union which gains access to benefits created by the governmental unit: This would be things like child tax credits. This facet exists primarily because governments want to encourage population growth and/or child rearing activities. So they reward people for participation in the Social-Contractual facet of marriage.

Civil-Regulatory - This represents a level of governmental oversight of marriage. An example: In the early days of the United States, marriage was often a case of two people moving in together and declaring themselves married (There are still laws in some states, which establish a time frame after which cohabitation is automatically recognized as marriage after a certain duration). Then at some point, some states decided to regulate the process. Most of what I have read indicates this was sometime after the Civil war, with differing reasons given, the most common being to prevent interracial coupling, and cousin coupling.

Commercial - This facet refers to the industry built around the term "Marriage"; The dresses and tuxedoes and parties and cakes etc... It is most closely tied with the Social-Emotional aspect.But really no different than any other commercialized holiday. It is a group of industries encouraging or creating a need for their products.

Religious - This represents a contract between deity and two or more individuals. It is defined by the specific religious practice selected by the individuals. Typically in involves an agreement to set aside personal individualism in favor of familial collectivism. The join their purposes and wills together, along with that of their respective deity in accordance with laws and guidelines established by that deity.


Did I miss any?

While there are points where each of these touch one another or overlap slightly, they are in fact separable.

Do you suppose, if each had a unique name, much of current political strife could/would have ben avoided?

Regrets 5: I regret not learning how to weld

I cannot tell you the number of times I have wanted to fix some metal object, or build a go-cart, or jet engine or some other metal contraption! Sadly, I lack the skills. I never learned to weld.

And it just tears me apart thinking about the hundreds of dollars I could have saved over the years if only I had learned how to weld.

Well, if only I had learned to weld, and had a few thousand dollars of welding equipment.

Hundreds of dollars could have been saved...

Place Your Bets

I really want to get my kids better trained in picking up - keeping their rooms clean, keeping their stuff picked up and put away. I know I get frustrated when I have to look for things that I know should be in a specific spot, so I'd really like to get them trained up right, with the right habits.




I just snapped this photo of the floor in my office. It has been like that for a couple months now.

So that whole teaching my kids to keep things picked up... What do you think my odds are?

Gardening adventurers 2014

I did a fairly poor job at the gardening last year, and the one grand experiment for the year was so poorly documented as t barely qualify as an anecdote, but here it is anyway. I decided to do some experimentation with tomato growing, to see what would give the best yield.

I tried three different methods... well, six, really.

1. Free growing bush, no pruning
2. Free growing bush, some pruning
3. Tomato cage, no pruning
4. Tomato cage, moderate pruning
5. Single Stake, moderate pruning
6. Single Stake aggressive pruning

Unfortunately with all the health issues, I sort of fell down on care-taking, and documentation. So I may need to try and run the experiment again, probably not this year, as well...

I managed to lose the photos I took as well, save this one.

At any rate my largely unscientific conclusion is that Stake and moderate pruning (5) produces the best yield. The first 5 options are actually in order from worst to best. and 6 was somewhere near 3 in performance, gotta leave enough leaves on to gather the energy to make the tomatoes...

One other thing I am thinking of trying - take a tomato start, lay it on its side, and bury all the the branches sticking upright (that would probably by 3 or 4 branches). In theory, each of those can be stakes and treated as an individual Tomato plant (3 for the price of 1! ). We'll have to see how the weather (and my health) goes .

Incidentally, if you are thinking of growing a few Jalapenos, one plant is really probably sufficient. Below is one harvest from two plants. First time I have grown them, had no idea....

Health Update: An Unexpected Turn of Events.

A few months ago I started experiencing rather severe joint and muscle pain. It was beginning to look as if I might be graduating from just Crohn's to something more debilitating. My Dr. ruled out Rheumatoid, then gave me some meloxicam to see if that would help.

A week or so later, the joint and muscle pain was gone, but then I started experiencing abdominal pain, and spasms. They were constant, ranging from mild to severe. At first it was bad on the weekends, and would then start fading away of the weeks.The first two weeks, during the weekend I would decide to go seem my Dr. but then by Monday morning it was starting to fade, so I would decide to wait and see. Then by Friday when Dr. wasn't available it would hit again with a vengeance. On the third such weekend, it was so bad I made the trip to the emergency room. And so began a prolonged adventure.

That was about two months ago, and we have been running tests ever since. You hit a point after awhile when you are actually disappointed when they tell you "Everything looks good."

A couple weeks ago I added a new symptom: Chest pain, radiating into my left arm. Sunday I put up with it. I knew it sounded like "Heart attack", but I doubted that was it. Monday morning, I called urgent care from work to ask for their recommendation. They told me don't bother coming to them for chest pain, as they would just send me straight to the ER. I really didn't want to do two ER runs in one month, but a couple of my co-workers overheard the call, and politely suggested to me that dying from a heart attack just because you didn't think it was a heart attack was probably fairly stupid.

So, back to the ER, and some more tests. The good news, my heart if very healthy, all that running and cycling appears to have paid off. The bad news, still no answers. The chest pain actually disappeared a few days after the ER visit (some weird virus maybe?). The abdomen pain and spasm continued relentlessly. I was really hoping for some answer, almost any answer, though I feared the answer was worsening Crohn's, leading to a need to switch to one of the more aggressive treatments; the kind that wipe out your immune system - mine is already fairly useless.

Then comes the twist.  During all this, I decided to try a different GI doctor. He asked some questions, and decided to work his way through my insides: Endoscopy, small bowel discovery... the full tour. The tour ended a few days ago, His initial conclusion (still waiting for biopsy results): "Everything looks good".

New first, that means he couldn't find anything to account for my problem. It also means he could find no sign of Crohn's.

Now until the Biopsies come back, it is still to early to draw any conclusions. It could mean I am not presently displaying visible symptoms. It could mean I am in remission. It could mean the original diagnoses was a mis-diagnosis. Back to square zero on my pain and spasms. But fingers crossed....