Category Archives: General

Einstein in the basement

[1]: http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/02/how_to_bending_spacetime_in_th.html

I have a real affinity for ‘old fashioned’ science, where simple objects can be made to show things which you can see or touch. It’s a refreshing diversion from buttons and screens.

Well, [here’s something][1] I have to try. Sure, we all have heard that objects with mass have gravity, but it’s always just lingered as an idea in my mind. That experiment uses simple, old concepts to demonstrate the concept right before your eyes.

There’s video available there in case you’re curious but will never perform the experiment. :)

OSHA would not approve

I was wearing cotton and walking on a wool rug. And here in Minnesota, the humidity is quite low in the winter. All of which meant I kept zapping my computer every time I sat down to work on it. If I tried to ground myself against the nearby outlet (which was inconvenient), I had a static discharge over half an inch long.

[][1]Well, I wasn’t going to continue to zap my computer all day, so I made myself [this quick little static discharge cable][1] out of an old cord and a paperclip. Don’t do this yourself. You’ll kill yourself. No… I won’t tell you how. Just don’t.

That said, it worked great. :)

[1]: http://www.kpmartin.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/02/static-discharger.jpg

Me-minus-ten pounds and counting

[1]: http://php.kpmartin.com/helenmartin/?p=15
[2]: http://66.246.178.239:8500/listen.pls

This whole [non-diet diet thing][1] is working. At least I think it’s the diet, and not the month long bout with every virus to pull into town, swagger up to the bar and ask me if he can buy me a drink. Actually, I haven’t been that sick. Just a lingering, low-level kind of discomfort punctuated by the occasional, crushing need for an impromptu nap.

I was surprised by a nice snowfall today. Cheerful, bright and quiet. It made having a frustratingly unproductive day in front of the computer a little nicer. We listened to WNAR-AM [[iTunes link][2]] today. *Suspense!* and *CBS Radio Mystery Theater*. Which I remember listening to in my dad’s black AMC Gremlin when I was a kid. The intro music has stuck in my head perfectly since then. It’s fun to be able to hear it again.

From Atticus Finch to self-examination

[1]: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=166
[2]: http://powerlineblog.com/archives/013028.php
[3]: http://www.maclaurin.org/
[4]: http://www.prspktv.org/

In [this article][1] discussing *To Kill a Mockingbird* via [PowerLine][2], I found this paragraph interesting:

> There is a gauzy and middlebrow sentimentality in the book [To Kill a Mockingbird], and a naïveté about human nature, luxuries we perhaps feel we can no longer afford. We are all too aware of how the righteous hatred of hatred can degenerate into an even more poisonous and manipulable form of hate, precisely because it is insulated from self-examination by its own sense of righteousness.

The comment on self-examination is what struck me. Self-examination in the light of Scripture is something I’m familiar with, but the concept of self-examination solidified in a different way when I heard it discussed from a different perspective at a local conference some time ago.

Continue reading From Atticus Finch to self-examination

Narnia

Kenny and I got to go see Disney’s rendition of C. S. Lewis’ *The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe* in *Chronicles of Narnia*. He didn’t want to at first. He’s read all the books, some more than once. But he knew from the commercials that some of the scarier characters looked, well, scary! I kept good-naturedly needling him to go until finally he asked “Papa, why should I go and have those images in my head?”

Oh… uh… good point. Great. Now I’ve got a kid who it turns out has actually listened to me and values the sovereignty of *his* imagination over that of the director.

Continue reading Narnia

Trading up

OK, so [this guy][1] has apparently been all over the news in various places. Why? He started a blog and had a red paperclip. He’s hoping to trade it for a house. It looks like it’s going to work. He’s already traded up to a truck in something like seven or eight trades. And, of course, there’s the book deal, the radio and TV interviews. Wow.

[1]: http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com

Global warming? If you care, kill all the plants.

> German scientists have discovered a new source of methane, a greenhouse gas that is second only to carbon dioxide in its impact on climate change.
>
> The culprits are plants.

[From here.][1] It makes me think we should maybe just slow down and keep improving our data before we go making any big changes. Besides, even if global warming really hits, it seems we have a good chance of making it another [55 million years][3]. That’s not too bad. :)

[1]: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060111/sc_nm/environment_methane_dc
[3]: http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/01/ancient_answers_to_current_cli.php