To smart for your own good

"whereas men in the earlier times said unscientific things with the vagueness of gossip and legend, they now say unscientific things with the plainness and the certainty of science.” – G.K. Chesterton

Have you ever listened to nerds argue?  Being a bit geeky myself, not only have I heard these arguments, I've been involved in them.  Spending hours discussing whether gravity affects everything, or whether things like ideas are exempt from the laws of nature, or talking about if I can know whether the floor will still be there next time I take a step, or discussing why the magnetic forces in that last Indiana Jones movie only acted on certain things.  Sometimes, we are just a little to smart for our own good.



I am not trying to tell anyone to stop being inquisitive, nor am I trying to say there is not merit in delving into philosophical realms.  What I am saying here is that some things are simple and that simple things need to be kept simple.  Sometimes we have the tendency of the super smart kid in the class who writes up 4 pages of equations to solve a problem, (and perhaps even ends up with the right answer at the end) when there was a very simple 2 line solution.  Just because there are complicated ways of looking at things and finding answers, does not mean we always need to use them. 2+2 can equal 4 without a 5 page proof. 


The scientist or academic may know words that send the rest of use scrambling for our dictionaries, or equations and mathematical theories that could give my computer a headache, but does that mean they know why the stars are there?  Perhaps they could give you complicated argumentation and theories and proofs, or even write a book on this, but isn't the answer really quite simple?  Ask a 3 year old girl.  She'll tell you why they are there.  'They look pretty.' 

You may be able to explain all kinds of things in terms of those equations you learned in school, and you may be able to spend hours arguing about the epistemological certainty of the latest philosophical theory, but do you really have more clarity about the world than you did when you where 3?   Learning may give you knowledge, but does knowledge give you truth and does truth give you wisdom?  Obviously, those steps can (and should) work that way, but do they? are you pursuing knowledge for the sake of knowing, or for the sake of truth? And are you pursuing truth for the sake of wisdom, or for the sake of superiority? 

Reality is, well, real. Its also all encompassing.  Facts, on the other hand, are just facts.  They are meaningless apart from some structure of reality. "The grass is green." is a statement of fact, but it does not have any meaning in and of itself.  Green grass only means something if I have eyes that can see it, and construct of reality in which the terms green and grass mean something.  Of course once you have that conception of reality, the statement becomes so much more than a statement of fact.  It conveys emotions. It speaks of springtime, and worms and lying on your back looking at the clouds, and freshly mowed lawns, and so much more. 

Education isn't about learning facts.  It's about understanding reality.  It's not about defining reality based on the facts, but rather about defining the facts based on the reality in which we live. If we start with green grass we have nothing, but if we start with reality, we suddenly have green grass!

When teaching our kids we shouldn't be focused on cramming their heads with facts, but rather on helping them understand reality.  We need to bring back the senses of touch and taste into education.  We need to keep God in education.  We need to see and understand the world and glory in the magic of it all.  If you can describe the motion of an atom with an equation you have achieved a certain kind of beauty, but don't forget that other kind of beauty.  The kind that comes from not knowing the details, but marveling in the wonder, joy and miracle of it all.  Your equation may be beautiful because of the way it so perfectly mathematically describes what you see, but don't forget about what it is that you are describing.  Why does that atom follow those mathematical forms?   Because its efficient?  Because it's beautiful? Because it just happens to be that way?  Because it was made that way? Sometimes the facts just can't capture the full picture!

Programs I use

I just got a new computer at work and so I thought I would lean into the geek side of thing and share several programs that I find are essential enhancements for my windows experience. Interestingly these are all freeware, so you can easily try them out yourself!

MultiMonitor TaskBar
I love having 2 monitors, but the one thing I can't stand is having all my programs from my second monitor crowded onto the Task Bar on my first.  This handy little tool extends the task bar onto the second monitor and also gives keyboard options for moving applications from one screen to the other.

Everything
If you have ever tried searching for a particular file on your computer using Windows Explorer you will understand why I use this app.  Everything indexes all files on your computer in real time and gives instantaneous (i.e. orders of magnitude faster than Windows Explorer) results.  It supports wildcard searching and oh, did I mention that it's faster than Windows Explorer? I use this program frequently and have found it to be very helpful

Notepad++
There has got to be an option for text file editing that falls somewhere between the uselessness that is notepad and the other uselessness that is Word.  That something is Notepad++.  Maybe its just because I live in a primarily Windows world, but I love this text editor.  It has customizable language support for dozens of programing and scripting languages. Its actually manages to correctly display files that have either dos or unix lines endings. It has wonderful text highlighting capabilities.  It has an extremely powerful search capability (supporting full regular expression syntax should you really want to go hardcore) and it allows for tabs and split screen and so much more.  I have used quite a few different text editors and this is my all around favorite.

Process Explorer
Once again, here is an app that makes up for windows deficiencies.  Puny little Task Manager? Hah!  This progam will blow that out of the water.  Full reporting of what is going on with each of your processes and what handles and dll etc. are being called. Details on processes like time it has been running etc.  Details on each core on your machine. Information about memory usage. Yes, this program has it all.  My favorite tool offered by this program is the Find Handle or Dll option which allows you to see what handles are running in a given folder.  Very handy if you are trying to delete said folder and are told that it is being used by some process!

windiff
Although the split screen option in Notepad++ comes in handy, there are times when you need just a little bit more power when trying to compare two text files.  That's where this utility comes in. Offering both file and directory comparisons, this is another program I have come to rely on.

Texter
This is my personal favorite of all the programs on here.  This is a cross program text substitution app.  What does that mean?  A lot less typing for you.  If you have a string that you commonly type (say your good buddy`s email address, or the path to that favorite command line utility, or maybe just `Peace Out Yo`at the end of your email) you enter it in here once and set up a short string to activate it, and viola! you have saved yourself hundreds of keystrokes in no time.

Mongoose
This program is basically and drag and drop web server.  You put the executable in the folder you want to share and start it up, and just like that all files in the folder are accessible on the web. This is a wonderful app for doing a quick test of you site, or file sharing something quickly, or doing a demo, or any number things.

Vancouver - city of insanity

Two news stories came out of Vancouver in a very short time.  I'm sure you heard that the Vancouver Canuks lost to Boston in game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals and that riots ensued, but you might have missed the other news story: Vancouver home prices average $800,000.  Ok, why mention these both in one place?  Isn't the answer obvious?  No wonder there were riots in Vancouver. Anyone living in that kind of housing market is obviously insane and so why wouldn't they riot? I think Vancouver has become a haven for nutcases.  Clearly the Sedins need to get out of that kind of environment and should come play for Toronto.

Books I've Read: Letters to Philip

Letters To Philip
By Charlie W. Shedd

This little book of practical advice is well worth the read.  The book is a series of letters that a father wrote to his son who was approaching marriage and give him advice about how to handle things after the knot is tied. Much of it should be obvious advice, but I fear that for many it might not be, and even for those that know this, its never a bad idea to be reminded of some of the simple basic truths that make for a good marriage.  Some of the stuff in this book is perhaps a little bit a product of the culture of a few generations ago, but much of it is timeless advice that every man should be reminded of in his dealings with his wife.  Overall it was an excellent book!

Random Quote:
The rule has got to be that troubles are for sharing, and you deny your wife a lot if you don't believe it. For one thing, you have cut her out of that sense of partnership, which is among the deeper reasons for marriage. "Together' is one of the most beautiful words in our vocabulary and it take on special beauty when it indicates that two people are closing the gaps between them by drawing shoulder to shoulder against all comers. (Page 80)

Happy Playoffs

Ice hockey combines the best features of figure skating and World War II. – Alfred Hitchcock

Enjoy the playoffs :)