Month: June 2008

The Hardest Logic Puzzle in the World….


It’s been called the hardest logic puzzle in the world – it did take me a a while to solve it, without having any hints, clues, and never hearing of the puzzle before… It was a lot of fun…. See if you can figure it out (without cheating!). 🙂



Three gods A, B, and C are called, in some order, ‘True’,


‘False’, and ‘Random’. True always speaks truly, False always speaks


falsely, but whether Random speaks truly or falsely is a completely random


matter. Your task is to determine the identities of A, B, and C by asking


three yes-no questions; each question must be put to exactly one god. The


gods understand English, but will answer all questions in their own language,


in which the words for ‘yes’ and ‘no’ are ‘da’ and ‘ja’, in some order.


You do not know which word means which.



Can you solve it?



The Wise Old Owl…



The wise old owl lived in an oak


The more he saw, the less he spoke


The less he spoke, the more he heard


Why shant we be like that old bird?



– John Stott (With minor modifications by Darth Jedi)




To my esteemed scategories cohorts….

I want to formally write a complaint that you guys are intentionally stealing points from me when we play scategories.


Take for example; last night. There was a question that asked us to name something that was in the refrigerator that starts with an N. My answer was “nothing”.


You, my esteemed scategories cohorts refused to accept this answer on the case that you felt that nothing was not something.


Try as I might to help you see the error of your ways by asking you to describe nothing without giving it attributes or qualities which are both necessary and sufficient condition for the being of somethingness, you could only describe nothing by describing something – thus proving my point – and yet, not gaining me points.


I therefore post these three forms of Propositional Logic to affirm the truth of my statement that nothing is really something, and demand a recount of my points! 🙂


Disjunctive Syllogism


Either Nothing is Nothing or Nothing is Something
Nothing is not nothing
Therefore Nothing is Something



Hypothetical Syllogism


If I can describe an object called nothing, then the object called nothing has attributes and qualities
If the object called nothing has attributes and qualities then it must exist as something
I can describe the object called nothing therefore it must exist as something


Modus Ponens


If an object called nothing has descriptive qualities then the object must exist
The object called nothing has descriptive qualities
Therefore the object called nothing exists


If an object exists then it can be included in a set called something
The object called nothing exists
Therefore the object called nothing can be included in a set called something


Word of the day

Today’s word of the day are three legal words that are so cool, you’re bound to make people look at you funny when you use them.



The first word is nonfeasance. This word is used to legally describe someone not performing a duty required of them. For example, when my wife doesn’t make me breakfast, she can be charged by me in the court of the home as being guilty of nonfeasance.



The second word is misfeasance. This word is used to legally describe someone not performing a duty to the quality that was expected. For example, when my wife makes breakfast, but it’s burnt to a crisp because she was busy talking on the phone the whole time she was making it, and not really paying attention to what she was doing, she can be charged by me in the court of the home as being guilty of misfeasance.



The third word is malfeasance. This word is used to legally describe someone who participates in purposeful neglect of carrying out ones prescribed duties. For example, if after reading this blog post, my wife just decides to stop feeding me, and I then die of starvation, she could be held, by me, in the court of the home as being guilty of malfeasance.



Of course, if I really starved to death because she wasn’t feeding me, most people would consider me to have gotten what I deserved being such a lazy, helpless person, but, you get the point anyway…



You know, that reminds me, it’s 1:00 o’clock, and I haven’t had lunch yet, when is my wife coming home!


Should requirements of biblical forgiveness extend to an animal?

Ok, it sounds like a simple question: let’s say your animal does something to piss you off.



You make it very obvious to the animal that what it does was wrong (in psych speak you say “I’m a person, and I have feelings, and what you did really hurt me” – or perhaps you just kick it…).



Then, the animal does it again, deliberately, obviously, purposefully, as if to say “I’m an animal and I’m going to do what I like”.



So, if this animal was a person, you’d be obligated to show compassion on it (for at least 490 times [7*70 for all you mathematically oriented people]), before you could wax it.



So, I’m wondering – do we actually have to forgive an animal 490 times too?



I thought about this long and hard (for all of a couple minutes) – and realized that the answer was an obvious “No”.



Therefore: I’m sending my dog to the meat packers!



Hot & Muggy

So after work today I was supposed to go work on the garden, stack some wood that I cut down & up two days ago, mow the lawn, and feed the wood stove, as well as work on homework.


It was so hot, that instead I spent two hours setting up this new blog site, went and unloaded a few rounds out of the Glock 22 & 27 with my little brother, and am now sitting at my sons computer and watching the polywogs.


Nothing very interesting happened today, really, and this is pretty boring. I think I’ll create a new blog category called “Diary”. That’s where I can put the not-so interesting stuff that probably no one would be interested in reading, unless I dropped dead.


Time to go pray with my two boys – I have a feeling that the little girl has already fell asleep…


Yesterday….

Dick’s sporting goods was running a special, so we went and bought another kayak for donovan on sunday.


Yesterday evening we went out in the Kayak’s as a family – I loved it. Nature is beautiful, it’s amazing the God created it just for us. Someday we’ll get to enjoy it the way He intended. But in the mean time:


Here Donovan, who hates to do anything physical, went out and paddled his own kayak around on the lake for almost an hour. Bella just sat was a quiet little mouse as she often is without her brothers to antagonize her – and Braeden, miracle of all Miracles – sat still for almst an hour!!!


We saw a turtle, a fish net, a lure, a loon as big as braeden (in fact, we chased it around the lake – and at one point got within 10 feet of it – they are HUGE – and they are faster than fish @ swimming). We caught an old stinky shoe too.


There really seems to be very little that we do as a family, because I get bored really easy when doing anything the children like to do – but I think we have finally found something that we can all enjoy.


The birds, the peepers, the loons at dusk, the dead crayfish we found on the dock – it was all so amazing, and more than anything, we got to spend time together as a family without arguing, or computers, or books, or ipods or television – just back to nature.


Despite a rocky start where I couldn’t for the life of me get the kayak on my little sleeper car, things turned out all right.


It’s probably the best time I’ve had in a long, long time. Did I mention, there was no fighting! 🙂



Thanks God!