Interweb Wednesday - WFF and Amazon Student

To the none of you that follow this blog, I'm sorry I didn't post an IW last week. Guess what? I'll do two today.

First up, the launch of Wallet-friendly Foods. It's a website I created to help bring together recipes and ideas about healthy, cheap eating.  Still in development, but it's there and you can start frequenting it and commenting about how great it might be one day.

Secondly, I discovered Amazon Student the other day. It's amazing. If you know about Amazon Prime, it's the same idea.  Amazon Prime allows you to pay a membership fee and then get free two-day shipping on all eligible orders for the time of your membership.  Amazon Student, however is FREE for the first six months if you have a .edu address.  If you get textbooks and prefer to get them quickly, or purchase from Amazon often, this is the way to go.  I haven't decided if I'm ready to pay the $40 a year after the first six months to keep it, but you can't beat that free two day shipping for half a year.

Interweb Wednesday: Map of Online Communities

I've decided I'm going to start a series called "Interweb Wednesday" where I bring you fun or interesting things from around the web.

This week I want to show you something. Maybe you always know where you're going on the internet, but maybe you don't.  And if not, then I think this map by xkcd will help. The image is safe for all ages, but I make no guarantee about their website.

Click for larger version

I particularly like the associated references to other aspects of the said demographics. For example the ferry from Gaia(an MMO) to 4chan(a forum) and the fact that FarmVille and Happy Farm are bordered by the Dopamine Sea. But I think my favorite place is in the western portion of the country Facebook, where we find the "Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions". Of course, being created last summer there are already areas that have changed.  For example there's no Google+.  What's interesting is that they created another map three years prior and had to update it massively for this one. The internet is a continually shifting landscape and I believe it is probably growing to encompass a larger portion of the megacontinent of spoken word.

Enjoy,

-j

Trying to beat the heat.

If you don't live in Texas you may have missed the horrible terrible sweltering lovely weather we've been having. I can't remember the last day that it didn't get over 100°F. Yeesh.

So with the utility bill soaring like Icarus, we decided something had to be done. We have a large front window that is great for natural lighting.  It also gets pretty full afternoon sun so it was really heating up the living room.  We bought thermal curtains for that window and we also replaced the thermostat.  Here's the original thermostat.

I think the technology behind these was invented in 1950. It wasn't very accurate and the a/c always seemed to be running without end, which coincidentally sounded like money being siphoned out of my wallet. So I bought a digital programmable thermostat and replaced it.

The thermometer is housed in the front piece. It's a spiraled piece of metal that will expand and contract with the temperature. As it increases the metal expands and swings to the right. Assuming it's calibrated, expansion and contraction of metal is a fairly constant calculation.

Here's the temperature set mechanism. The left lever sets whether it's auto or constant and the right lever sets whether you're heating, cooling or off.  The bottom lever lines up with the thermometer on the front (so you can see what you're setting it to) and changes the tilt of the mercury bulb at the top. As the temperature increases, the mercury expands and moves across the bulb, completing the open circuit. It's actually pretty clever. But again this is all assuming it's calibrated correctly. And as I found out removing it, the bottom screw anchoring the unit to the wall was not actually holding anything. This meant that the whole thing could swing which invalidates the pitch of the mercury bulb. This explains why sometimes I would smack it and the a/c would come on or go off. Lovely.














But never fear, I pulled that dinosaur off the wall and installed the new one. It's pretty. Ignore the now-exposed unpainted portion of my wall back there.

And look, it lights up! ooooh. aaaaah.

Here's hoping that, like Icarus, the energy bill will also plummet back to Earth.


********update************

I just realized that the mechanism of the old thermostat would have to work in reverse for heating the house.  The heat would stay on unless it was warm enough to cause the mercury to expand and complete the circuit, at which point it would cut off.

"College Move-In" or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Horde"

It's August. August has many meaning here:
1. It's hot. Really, really hot.
2. Your utility bill is really high (if you're unsure why, see 1).
3. Get in your last minute get-aways because
4. School is starting.

That's right, next week the kids go back to school. That's not so bad. It's the natural order of things.  But one of the things we deal with here and maybe you don't where you live is this: College Move-in.  They come in droves, like locusts.  The first few have already started trickling in.  They come from all over and they all drive at different speeds.  Our town doubles or triples its population (depending on whether or not you count the parents and siblings).  The roads grind to a halt and a half mile trip will be a half hour trip.  Road crews are literally patching all road projects and reinforcing the bordering intersections in the next two weeks in preparation.  If you forget and accidentally go to the get groceries or normal everyday items at any store that weekend, you will pay for it for several hours.

I've begun to make a checklist of things we need to have done before move in weekend so that we can go into bunker mode until it blows over and the parents all go home.  As I look over my list I wander, How is this different from how I would prepare for a zombie apocalypse? I mean it, look through this list.

If it were zombies I would add "__Get some ammunition and guns." before "__Go home and lock the door." That's really the only difference.  Here's my self portrait at ideal preparedness based on things I have at my house:

Hmmm....maybe that reveals a little too much about me.


Of course all the selfish whining aside, I do love the college kids coming back. There are lots of small things about living near the University that irritate me, but this town wouldn't be the same without them. I miss seeing the goofiness. I miss going to football games and stuff with them. Where else can a restaurant stay in business that only sells chicken fingers? Where can you have six frozen yogurt places within a quarter of a square mile?


View Fro-Yo in a larger map

And that doesn't include three others, outside that area but probably within ten minutes drive from any of those. Not to mention coffee shops. You can't throw a rock without hitting a coffee shop in this town. It's awesome.  I give this place another year before I can pretty much have wi-fi anywhere. All because of college kids.

But most importantly I miss seeing them at church. I miss seeing their enthusiasm with knowing God more and serving in ministries.  I miss seeing how they appreciate a home-cooked meal.  If you have college kids in your town, love on them. I love what our church and several others do on move in weekend.  We help move them into the dorms.  We haul enormous TVs and pink plushy bean bag chairs up four flights of stairs because we want them to know that Jesus loves them, so we love them.

Push through move-in and love them.  I was one once, and trust me, they need it.  Sometimes they need a meal, sometimes a couch or bed to crash on. Sometimes they need a knock upside the head because you love em too much to let them do something dumb. However it plays out, love them.

Hannah Coulter and the Great Out of Doors

If I'm not careful this whole blog is going to become about books.



If you missed my tweets, I recently got a free download of "Hannah Coulter" in audio format and it was a great book. I decided to listen all the way through before I started "The Subtle Knife" and I'm glad I did. Most of the fiction I read is "speculative" fiction.  Science fiction, fantasy, weird stuff, etc.  I think I forgot that there can be a real narrative to an ordinary person's life.  As though you have to have some kind of grand adventure to make your life worth reading about.  To be honest the last nonfiction I read was "End of the Spear" by Steve Saint.  Not your average life.  His dad was one of the missionaries speared by Waodoni warriors back in the 50s.  Then he and his mom and aunt moved in with the Waodoni and eventually became family. As an adult he moved away had a family of his own and then moved them back and helped the Waodoni be able to provide for themselves in a changing world. That's a horribly brief summary of a book you really should read, but you get my point.

Hannah Coulter on the other hand was this really great reminder that in every life there are crises and triumphs.  Moments where we feel the blessing and wonder of God.  Marriage, babies, looking out over a beautiful landscape.  Moments where we feel our life is crumbling around us.  The death of a friend, divorce, war.  In short it was a really good book, even though nobody took a ring to a volcano, battled evil wizards or talked to a lion.

And more than that it gave me a renewed desire for the outdoors and getting away from being so plugged in all the time.  I know there's a certain level of hypocrisy in that statement, given the present media, but it often saddens me to see how we've enslaved ourselves to our "conveniences".  My dad never forced me to go hunting or fishing with him.  I went some, but he never wanted it to be something I didn't enjoy because I'd been forced to go, so he always waited for me to ask and most of the time I just didn't think to.  Sometimes I wish he'd kicked my butt outside a few more times or told me I was going either way.  Because I love going now, but the busy-ness of life and living in a different town makes it hard to find the time.  So Dad, if you're reading this, I'm really excited about opening weekend coming up. Even if we don't hit a thing, I'm pumped about getting away from the phones and computers and noise with you and being out in God's creation.  Maybe we'll see something majestic.  And maybe something tasty.

IT'S ALIVE! and Morally Ambiguous Fiction

I'm resurrecting this blog.  So I pretty much expect nobody to read it.  But I figured I might try to post somewhat regularly.  Even if it's about nothing. So if you plan on reading this regularly, I apologize in advance for the likely garbage posts.

Moving on...

I just finished Phillip Pullman's The Golden Compass.  I remember a few years ago when the movie came out there was a big stink about how Pullman was an avowed atheist and was "the anti-Lewis" and good Christians shouldn't go see it and all.  I went and saw it anyway.  Oops.  I didn't really see what all the fuss was about.  I could definitely see some anti-religious establishment themes in it, but not much beyond that.  I thought the movie was mediocre.  It looked like something that fell pretty short of it's potential, based on how neat the ideas and characters were.

So the other day I started listening to the audiobook.  As I listened it became pretty obvious that the movie differed greatly.  The basic theme stayed the same but vast sections of character development, world explanation and back story had just been tossed aside.  Also the chronology in the movie was kind of jumbled from the book, and the book made much more sense.  That being said, I can't exactly say I liked the book.  I didn't hate it, but it didn't leave me with warm fuzzies.  I may go ahead and finish the series, but I don't expect it to be something I cherish when I finish.  Lord of the Rings, Narnia and Harry Potter I cherish.  Ender's Game I cherish. The "His Dark Materials" series (as it's called) not so much.

***WARNING: SPOILERS***

Here's the main reason I wasn't that fond of it: it's morally ambiguous.  The book get's pretty obviously anti-Church if nothing else towards the end.  But I can deal with that.  Similar to DaVinci Code or those types of books, where those in the church use their power to gain control over people, instead of shepherding a flock.  I can deal with that if at the end, the hero is good.  But in this book Lyra (the main character) is more or less a pathological liar.  Everytime she gets into a tight spot, she lies her way out and the book pretty much glorifies it.  I get that the bad guys are bad.  But the good guy(girl) wasn't really that good.

In Narnia, Harry Potter, and LotR the good guys and bad guys are pretty obvious, barring a few sneaks.  There are clear lines between what is right and what is wrong.  In Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, a large point of the book is how the adults use the children to do terrible things. They are technically the good guys, but they are conflicted characters because they are forced to do terrible things. But the terrible things they do keep them awake at night, because they hate it and are presented as good men.
You could argue that the desire for the good to triumph over evil is an archaic stereotype, but I think it's more than that.  I think a fantasy/sci-fi story, particularly one in which the protagonist is a child, needs a positive moral because otherwise it's just a bizarre version of our world.  We are awash in a sea of moral ambiguity today. If I wanted a story that glorified moral ambiguity I'd just read the newspaper. Homosexual partners can't have the rights of married people (agreed) but heterosexual non-marrieds can if they live together for a while (what?). A man can be guilty of double homocide if he attacks a pregnant mother (no matter how far along), but if she gives permission to a doctor, then it's okay. When I pick up a book I want something that moves beyond the drudgery and confusion of this world.  Make the villain bad. Make them vile, repulsive and evil, but give me a hero. And your hero can be flawed, that's fine.  Frodo wanted to keep the ring, Edmund followed the White Witch for a while, Harry was a selfish brat half the time. But in the end, give me something that inspires.

For another good read check out Andrew Peterson's posts on Harry Potter and Writing Fantasy