Monthly Archives: January 2010

Today was one of those days. (The good kind)

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I was supposed to be asleep an hour and a half ago, according to my strict self-imposed schedule, but I had to tell you this story of what happened today:

This afternoon I was sitting in the study lounge at school, working on some rather difficult homework, when something clicked in my head and I looked up with a sudden realization:

“Dude! I’m in school for engineering!”

This has happened only once before, since I’ve been here at UNL: I was just be minding my own business and I suddenly realize where I am and what I’m doing. Sounds strange? Let me fill you in:

When I was ten years old, I distinctly remember my first real birthday party. It was fun, and I made my friend cry, but it’s not that important to what I’m telling you. What is important, for the purposes of this story, is that I also distinctly remember studying physics. Yes, I studied physics and the physical sciences as early as ten. I wouldn’t say I really understood them, since my notes from that time consist of mostly “put magic chemical A and magic chemical B into this thing, and AWESOME stuff comes out!”

(I’m not generalizing about that–I really wrote that. And I was serious.)

I have always been like this, but somewhere along the road of life I lost sight of this dream I had. I had always wanted to build stuff, magical stuff probably, but I got into cooking instead and spent nine or so years there. I’m not complaining, and I’m definitely not dissing cooking–I would still love to open a restaurant someday.

What I’m saying is that today, for the first time since I’ve been at school, I realized with a sense of clarity that I am doing exactly what I’ve always wanted to do and learning exactly what I’ve always wanted to learn.

I’m probably going to cry out of joy: Dudes and Dude-ettes, I am totally in school for engineering!

I was just so stoked that I had to tell somebody, and I thought I would share my excitement with all of you.

Holding fire in your hands

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This morning’s reading included Proverbs chapter 6, which has a few verses which I have been thinking about. The writer talks about the “seductress” in verses 24-35, where he says that the law is a light which keeps you from her. The two verse sections of interest to me were in 27-28, which says

Can a man take fire to his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one walk on hot coals, and his feet not be seared? (Proverbs 6:27-28)

These seem obvious enough to me. Hint: The answer to both of them is no.

Now, some may argue that you can walk on hot coals and not be burned, and they will point to fire walkers and the like. But fire walking existed nearly as far back as history records, so I doubt that such things were unknown to the author. In fact, a quick search shows that the Lord promises to protect us, even so we could walk through fire unharmed.

When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you. (Isaiah 43:2)

My first instinct is to say that, walking through fire without being harmed is likely only something that can be done with “supernatural” powers, aka, spiritual forces.

But what verse I was really interested in was verse 30-31, which seems a little out of place, and has been used (usually ignoring verse 31) to argue the idea of communism:

People do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy himself when he is starving. Yet when he is found, he must restore sevenfold; he may have to give up all the substance of his house. (Proverbs 6:30-31)

When I read this passage this morning, it seemed a little out of place. The author talks about the adulteress woman and the harlot, and then interrupts to say something about a thief. What’s up with that?

After some initial thinking, I wondered if the author was saying that people may understand if you have a moment of weakness and commit adultery with another woman. I mean, maybe she’s totally beautiful or something.

However, that didn’t really seem to go with the rest of the verses, especially verse 33 which says it will be a reproach to him. So now that I have had a morning to think about it, I think the author is basically saying this:

If a guy is really poor, people won’t be too upset about it if he steals to get some food. I mean, the guy is starving! But even though they forgive the guy, he still has to pay restitution, as much as the law says he has to pay, and not a penny less. And if it’s the case that people still enforce the law on some poor dude who didn’t seem to have any other choice, how much more for someone who is just carried away with passion? Dudes, seriously, you’d have to be an idiot to do that. (Tobias Davis Paraphrase)

On spiritual blindness

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This is a review of last Sunday’s sermon and a personal study of the thing.

On Sunday my pastor talked about the idea of spiritual blindness, reading about the concept in Acts 28:17-27, where Paul tells of how he got to Rome. Though Paul had done nothing against the Jewish customs, the leaders had accused him. When he was examined by the civil authorities, they found nothing against him, yet the Jews wanted to put him to death.

The Jewish leaders were presented with the evidence, yet refused to be convinced.

In verses 26-27, the prophet Isaiah says that the people will hear and see, but they will not understand or perceive because “their eyes they have closed”. The people had blinded themselves to the truth, but they could not see it.

The idea of spiritual blindness is found in many places in scripture, I will list a few here (italics added for emphasis):

This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart (Ephesians 4:17-18)

For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel… (Romans 11:25)

Why does this spiritual blindness exist? In part, it is because the human mind is against God, as it says:

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be. (Romans 8:7)

This should concern us, that we could be blinded to the sin in our lives, or that we could be blinded to the truth of God’s Words. However, we know that it is God who can fix this state of blindness:

For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of god in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6)

We should not be surprised when people read the Bible and do not understand; much like the Jews who had heard Paul’s sincere argument, which was according to their own prophets and scripture, but yet remained “spiritually blind” and wanted to kill him.

Yet even so we have been given a great promise, that if we turn to the Lord for wisdom, He will give it to us:

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. (James 1:5)

And, speaking of a mind blinded to the truth, the Bible says:

Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. (2 Corinthians 3:16)

Patenting Newton’s Laws

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During my first week of the current semester I had the privilege of spare time, and this time I spent doing some final research on some scientific stuff that I won’t bore you with here. During the process I came across some boxes in the Engineering Library at UNL, these boxes were the size of a paper sheet and about 3″ tall. On the front of each of the boxes was the label “Plant Patents”.

“Plant Patents?”, I wondered to myself, “Maybe manufacturing plants?”

But there were about 100 of these boxes, and that would be a strange way to save manufacturing blueprints, so I popped one open. Inside each box I found about 300 little ‘pagelets’. Two pages stapled together, on one was a color picture of a flower or vine or some other plant, and on the other page was the patent text.

Chrysanthemum Gloria Speakum Latinum, said one, and it’s description was just as interesting: “Stamen is more red than the standard breed” and also “Leaves have a more waxy feel than Crysanthemum Gloria Nospeakum Latinum“.

I looked at about a dozen of these “patents” and they were all the same: Somebody got a patent on some plant that they bred with another plant. Not through generations of successive breeding even, just one breeding attempt. It’s like the flower guys went patent happy “Hahahaha! Let’s patent everything!”

Also this week I had a class about mechanisms. Little gears, swing arms, and all that stuff. Things like the Archimedes screw and gear teeth are thousands of years old but still in wide use today, and I get to study them. In fact, there are at least a few mechanisms that are so widely known, and go so far back in history that they are almost considered physical laws. They will never cease to exist until the earth ceases to exist.

But in looking at some mechanisms, I noticed that some of them were patented. And I’m not talking about the mechanism in the Ferrari engine, I’m talking about a bar swinging on a pivot. Something kids make with their Tinker Toys. Patented.

Maybe you aren’t as amazed at this as I am, so let me try an analogy:

When you have two objects sitting on your table, they are both attracted to the ground. In fact, they are actually attracted to each other, but in such a small way that you can’t tell unless you have a really expensive detector. In physics we call this magical attraction the “gravitational force”. It’s the force that holds you to the earth and keeps satellites up in the sky just the right way.

Well, the reason you can’t detect the two bowling balls being attracted together is because you have to have a big object to really notice. A very smart man, Isaac Newton, figured out an equation a long time ago that showed how much that force depends on the size of something. I’ll write it here: F=G*M*m/d2

All that really matters about that equation is that it’s been used in just about everything you have ever seen built. Skyscrapers, houses, bridges, cars, you name it, everybody uses that equation to understand the universe.

So here is a question: What would have happened if Isaac Newton had patented his equations? Right now I could come up with an equation which explained how everything in the universe worked, and with it people could maybe make teleportation and flying cars and all the other things nerds dream about, but if I patented it, no one could use it without my permission.

Even if someone did years of research and came up with the same equations as me, they couldn’t use them because I already patented them.

That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard in years.

I’m an engineer, and I will likely put years of research into figuring something out, but I am totally against patent law.