A Midnight Run - More than what it seems

About 1/2 an hour ago, my wife left to go for a 5k which will begin at midnight and, for her, end about 27 minutes later. There're no redcoats coming, no security or other issue at hand. Why might I ask, would someone want to run at midnight. The answer, I believe, comes from another midnight. New Year's Eve coming into the 2009 year. We decided that this year we would write down our goals on a piece of paper so big we couldn't miss them. Then we would hang them up in our bedroom so that we could see them staring at us every day. Almost staring us down, daring us to complete what would seem like altogether impossible goals.



Yet, as the proverb from someone no-one seems to know says, the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.

We made many goals, like fix the gate to our back yard. Financial goals like get out of debt. There were also physical goals, Brit's being run several (she has a number but I can't remember it off the top of my head) 5ks this year. As I sit here writing this I think that there is something more. There is something beyond the race, yes beyond the gate or debt. The real reason we have goals and something to shoot for is because we are trying to become better people.

My wife is right now getting set at the starting line of the race; ready to run into the night until she has one more check box on our goal chart to cross off. But is it just a check box, or is she herself becoming a better person, a better mother, a better and more useful daughter of God? I believe that she is accomplishing what I thought at the beginning of this year impossible, she is becoming a better Brittany.

Tired of Textbook cost

Over the span of my college career (now aproaching the decade mark - and no I haven't been in college for the entire time) I have bought many a textbook and sold many a textbook. I've bought books for as much as $200 and for as little as $3. As a computer scientist by trade, I think about the digitization of the entire world book library (proposed and almost implemented by google) and it doesn't sound like such a bad idea. I've learned how to go around the bookstore and actually getting a semi-reasonable price for my textbooks. For example, this semester I estimate I'll pay $35-$40 for my textbook that costs $126 at the bookstore. But, that's neither here nor there. A few semesters ago, actually come to think of it it was a few years ago...2004 to be exact, my physics professor decided to write his own book and publish it in a web browser. The book that would have cost about $60-$70 (based on the number of color pictures etc) actually cost $5. His reasoning? He thought that we would perform better as students if we weren't so worried about money. Having never taken physics in my life, I got an A- in the class...there could be something to that.

In preparation for this post, I read a couple of articles that gave some interesting statistics. You can read more about them here or here. The bottom line is that textbook costs have increased by a disproportionate amount and it is even deterring many people from entering college altogether, thus making our entire society suffer.

What, say you, is the solution? I propose this: the cost of a computer is going down at about the same rate the the cost of a textbook is going up. Let's make .pdf files of all the textbooks and charge students per download. Charge $15-$20 per download and that would cover the cost for the author(s). (The royalties going to the author are next to nothing anyway $3-$15 per book). At this price, the students would not need to find pirated copies of textbooks, which happens, and the profits to the actual author would increase because there are less costs of publication and students will go directly to the author instead of trying to buy it from someone in India who has an international version that costs less.

The student would then buy a computer (most do anyway) that can serve them in so many other ways than just a one time class.

A misspelled word

English is a funny language. In Armenian, there are no spelling bees, because if you can pronounce the word, you can spell it. Same with Arabic, Spanish and a myriad of other languages. This leads me to my thought for today, what does misspelling a word in English mean? Does it really mean that you don't have enough education to spell correctly or does it mean that English is an impossibly hard language so we should cut people some slack on spelling?

When I was in elementary school, I wanted to spell correctly and get 100% on every spelling test. In order to do that, I figured I needed to practice and so when I was speaking, I would spell in my mind every word I spoke out loud . Even today sometimes I subconsciously start spelling things I say. I would also pronounce the words in my mind the way that they were spelled (ex. beautiful I would say in my mind, "bee- aaa- ooo-tee-ful").

My question I've been asking myself is should a misspelled word preclude someone from having a certain job? I would understand if that person were applying for an editor position, but otherwise does spelling have any bearing on how well a person does a job that has nothing to do with spelling?

A man of science and religion

Ok, so I decided to go and make my own blog. I am ceding the Matt and Brit Gardner Family blog to Brit with an occasional entry from me focused on family stuff. I don't think my family blog is the place to post political debate topics, sports entries and the like, so I decided to branch out and make my own.

When Google comes out with its wave technology, I will try to implement that and create real discussion, but for now I will settle with the blog form as given.

So, to kick it off, I would like to propose a thought. When I was taking a physics class in astronomy at BYU-Idaho, my professor proposed that the chasm between evolution and religion is much like the chasm that existed many years previous between astronomy and religion, where the Catholic church persecuted and imprisoned those who thought that (based on evidence) the Earth indeed revolved around the Sun. Given time and understanding, we understand now that religion and science were not at odds with eachother, but that the interpretation of religion was at odds with science.

So, what do you think about evolution? What are some ways you have come to reconcile the two?

I found this interesting article in the new era a few years ago at lds.org.