getting prizes for going to church

One Sunday a mother could not attend due to illness and asked her very young daughter what the lesson had been about that day. The daughter answered that it was about "getting prizes for going to church".

The mother thought that was strange and questioned her further. The little girl finally said, "Well, the preacher said, 'Don't be scared and you'll get your blanket.'"

Needless to say, the Mom was perplexed. Later the minister stopped by to visit and the Mom asked him what that morning's lesson had been about. He said, "My topic was 'Be not afraid, the comforter is coming.'"

The King James Version does indeed refer to the Holy Spirit as a Comforter: "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." (Jn 14:26)

The Greek word that's used here the describe the Holy Spirit is "paraklete" and, as the NET Bible explains, "Finding an appropriate English translation for [paraklete] is a very difficult task. No single English word has exactly the same range of meaning as the Greek word." That's why you'll find such a broad range of words used in this verse in different translations.

The KJV and ASV use the word "Comforter", but that word brings to mind the image of a mourner at a funeral. The NKJV and NASV use the word "Helper", but that word inappropriately suggests someone in a subordinate role. The NIV and RSV use the word "Counselor", but that word brings to mind marriage counselors and camp counselors. The Message uses the word "Friend", but that word suggests more of a chummy relationship than the text suggests. NET Bible chooses to use the word "Advocate", but acknowledges that it inaccurately brings to mind a courtroom scene.

Whatever the exact word is that should be used, the idea is clear: Jesus promised his apostles that they would not be alone when he ascended back to the Father, but that they would receive the Holy Spirit who would serve the purpose of teaching them what to say and giving them the ability to perform miracles as evidence that their words were from God.

Thanks be to God for revealing His will to us through those men! It is because of that that Paul was able to make statements like this:

"For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe." (1Thess 2:13)

Rejoice, for the Comforter has come!

- Alan Smith

America

O beautiful for spacious skies

tweeter tweets

As a trucker stops for a red light, a blonde catches up. She jumps out of her car, runs up to his truck, and knocks on the door. The trucker lowers the window, and she says "Hi, my name is Heather and you are losing some of your load." The trucker ignores her and proceeds down the street.

When the truck stops for another red light, the girl catches up again. She jumps out of her car, runs up and knocks on the door. Again, the trucker lowers the window. As if they've never spoken, the blonde says brightly, "Hi my name is Heather, and you are losing some of your load!"

Shaking his head, the trucker ignores her again and continues down the street.

At the third red light, the same thing happens again. All out of breath, the blonde gets out of her car, runs up, knocks on the truck door. The trucker rolls down the window. Again she says "Hi, my name is Heather, and you are losing some of your load!"

When the light turns green the trucker revs up and races to the next light.

When he stops this time, he hurriedly gets out of the truck, and runs back to the blonde. He knocks on her window and after she lowers it, he says...

"Hi, my name is Kevin, it's winter in PA and I'm driving the SALT TRUCK!"

major fault line in the earth must have opened up

In last month I have seen (or tried to see) 4 movies that are nominated for Golden Globes or Oscars. Some won GGs! No way I can be hip. The hole in the ozone layer must be affecting my geek layer!

Volver by Almodovar w/Penelope Cruz
The Queen w/Helen Mirren
Elizabeth I w/Helen Mirren
Little Miss Sunshine

Prior to that was The Devil wears Prada w/Meryl Streep.

2040 prediction from the tweeter

There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra today than on Alzheimer's research. This means that by 2040, there should be a large elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely no recollection of what to do with them.

The mathematics of organizational dysfunction

1/22/2007

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ManagementSpeak: Sounds great. Can you e-mail me the details?

Translation: I must remember to add you to my spam filter's blacklist.

KJR Club member Nicky Avery e-mailed me the translation.

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Adios, Cingular.

So far as I can tell, AT&T just repurchased itself from itself for a lot of money. I'm sure that can't really be the case, though.

I just can't handle the math.

Math can be useful. It can help us understand when circumstances we don't like are built into the fabric of the space-time continuum. That's particularly handy for companies that have a blame-oriented culture and are wondering whose fault it is.

For example:

Combinatorials: I've mentioned the formula n(n-1)/2 before. You can use it to calculate the number of pairs of objects in any collection. It explains why an entrepreneurial startup venture can operate as a "band of brothers." Until, that is, it succeeds.

Imagine the startup consists of five old friends who know and trust each other. n(n-1)/2 means it contains 10 pairs of people. With only ten pairs, everyone can maintain trust; everyone knows what everyone else is good at, and the company operates smoothly.

So the company succeeds. Pretty soon it has 100 employees -- 4,950 pairs. There's simply no way every pair will exhibit mutual trust. Some pairs are total strangers; others consist of people who just plain don't like each other; who see each other as rivals; or otherwise can't work together effectively.

Surface area to volume ratio: Blow up a balloon -- for simplicity, imagine it's spherical. When it's an inch in radius, its rubber surface covers 12.566 square inches (4*pi*radius^2) and encloses a volume of 4.189 cubic inches (4/3*pi*radius^3). Surface Area/Volume = 3.

Blow up the balloon to a five inch radius. It now has a surface area of 314.159 square inches, and encloses 523.598 cubic inches. Surface Area/Volume = 0.6.

Small balloons have a lot of surface area for each unit of volume. Big ones have very little. It's why we're made out of many itty bitty cells instead of being big globs of protoplasm. The quantities of oxygen and nutrients cells need (and wastes they must dispose of) depends on how much stuff they contain -- their volume. Their surface area limits how fast they can exchange it all with the outside world.

If this still doesn't make sense, compare the five-inch balloon to 125 one-inch balloons. Both enclose about 524 cubic inches. The five-inch balloon contains it in 314 square inches of rubber. The 125 one-inch balloons need about 1,570 square inches -- five times the surface area.

It is because small objects have a much higher surface-area-to-volume ratio that iron dust is highly flammable while iron bars are not (nor do a prison make, not that it's relevant).

It also explains why it is that in small entrepreneurships, every employee has a clear view of real paying customers and what they need, while in large enterprises almost nobody does. The surface area has become far too small relative to the company's volume.

AND logic: Back when I was studying electric fish I learned to wire together simple electronic circuits. Many included AND gates. Feed nothing but 1s to an AND gate and it outputs a 1. Make any input a 0 and it outputs a 0.

AND logic extends to any number of operands. (A AND B AND C AND D) is only true if A, B, C and D are all true. If any are false, the entire proposition is false.

The executive suite is one big AND gate. In order to proceed on an idea suggested by an employee, the employee's manager, the employee's manager's manager, and the CEO, CFO, COO, and CAO all have to say yes. If any say no, the entire corporation has said no.

Big companies become risk-averse, not because their individual executives are excessively timid, but because of AND logic.

Sympathetic vibrations: Pluck a string on a guitar. It vibrates. Place the guitar near another identically tuned guitar and the same string on the other guitar will vibrate, too.

It's called a sympathetic vibration.

In business, sympathetic vibrations are why bad ideas can take on lives of their own. It works like this:

A superficially attractive idea (move our factories to China, perhaps) creates good vibes. An executive with vision but no attention to detail picks up on it and repeats it, making it louder -- and therefore better-able to induce sympathetic vibrations in yet more executives. Soon, everyone repeats the idea, and it sounds just like an informed consensus.

But really, it's just one boneheaded idea that, through the physics of sympathetic vibration, ends up filling the company.

Don't agree? How else do you explain it?

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Have a subject you'd like me to cover in KJR or Advice Line? Drop me a line and let me know. What - you think I have all the good ideas myself?

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Bob Lewis is president of IT Catalysts, Inc. ( www.itcatalysts.com ) an independent consultancy specializing in IT effectiveness and strategic alignment. Contact him at rdlewis@issurvivor.com.

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crazy is as crazy does

Cosmic Ray Deflection Society

in Wikipedia