Some Blog Site

The winner of the straw poll, with 66.666666666666666666% of the votes is:

Bendy

People praised both its versatility and its usefulness, particularly in helping small children be able to sip a drink without tipping it and spilling its contents.

I’ve heard of people taking straw polls before, and with the election year starting soon – or having already started, depending on your location – there will be more talk of straw polls.

So I thought I’d hold my own straw poll.

Which is your favorite type of straw:

A. Normal
B. Bendy
C. Curly
D. Scoop

Cast your vote in the comments section.

We were in line to buy tickets to enter a tourist attraction. The line was accumulating, even though the place had two cashier windows open.

I inclined my ear toward the windows and heard people at each station discussing memberships. Meanwhile we, and everyone behind us, were interested in simply buying tickets for the day.

I thought it was an inefficient process to have all available windows processing memberships. My plan would be to have one window dedicated to normal tickets – the quick transaction – and one window that would take membership applications as well as sell tickets.

That would have made my experience better. But would it be better overall?

Let’s assume it takes an average of 2 minutes to buy a set of tickets. And let’s assume an average of 10 minutes to buy an annual membership.

In order to replicate my situation, let’s assume the two memberships are at the beginning of the line. So for the first 10 minutes, the line does not move as both windows are busy with memberships. Then there are 20 minutes left to sell tickets. At 2 minutes each, times 2 windows, that equals 20 sets of tickets.

So in 30 minutes, 2 windows process 20 sets of tickets and 2 memberships. How does that compare with my proposed setup?

The first window is only tickets. In 30 minutes, it processes 15 sets of tickets.

The second window is memberships and tickets. This window takes 20 minutes for memberships and then has 10 minutes for tickets, so 5 sets of tickets.

The total is still 20 sets of tickets and 2 memberships.

That doesn’t show any difference. But the difference does show up in the average wait time.

Average wait time in the first case is 0 for the memberships and then 10 + ((0 + 2 + 4 + 6 + 8 + 10 + 12 + 14 + 16 + 18) / 10) = 10 + 90/10 = 19 minutes per set of tickets

Average wait time in the second case is (0 + 10) / 2 = 5 minutes for memberships and then (0 + 2 + 4 + … + 26 + 28) / 15 = 210/15 = 14 minutes for the first window and (20 + 22 + 24 + 26 + 28) / 5 = 120/5 = 24 minutes for the second window.

The average is not 14 + 24 / 2 (which equals 19 minutes), since more people had the lower wait time. The average is 210 + 120 / 20 = 16.5 minutes.

So dedicating a window to the slower process results in a lower wait time for 90% of the clients.

Not only is it faster, but it also feels faster to everyone, since the main line is always moving. With the original configuration, it felt very slow because the whole line did not move at all for 10 minutes.

I saw this on a bottle of something we had around the house:

There were a couple of things about this that amused me.

1. More bonus? Not more product?

What if the previous amount of bonus had been zero? Then you could legitimately claim just about anything, like 100% more bonus, and it would be true.

2. Why the plus sign? Are they trying to encourage positive feelings about their product?

Someone should try sneaking a minus sign in a claim just for fun. “-25% more bonus!” Of course, if the original bonus amount was zero, then it really doesn’t matter if the percentage is positive or negative.

And that is why punctuation is important. If it had said “+25% more! Bonus!” or “+25% more, bonus” or something to separate bonus so that it is not the object of the word more, then there would be an ambiguity here.

But then I wouldn’t have a fun topic for my blog post, so maybe it’s fine the way it is.

This was a post that I wrote a long time ago with the hopes that it would become a guest post on Stuff Christians Like. I believe that will never happen now, so I’m publishing it here. Enjoy!

Sooner or later, during the journey that you take as a Christian, you are going to be cornered. You will be asked to do something.

If that particular task is not your cup of tea, you will want to refuse. But if you’re like I am, you can’t just say “No thanks.” – you must provide some additional, compelling explanation of why not.

Maybe you are being asked to be on a committee.
Maybe it is expected that you will be teaching the children’s Sunday School class.
Maybe you were voluntold to drive the church van for the teens’ canoe trip.

Whatever the situation, you need an excuse.

And if you need an excuse, you have come to the right place, for I have gathered excuses from the Bible. You can use this handy-dandy list the next time a church activity threatens to reduce your free time. Don’t these people know that you can’t play Draw Something if you are busy setting up chairs?

Since these excuses are from the Bible, your fellow Christians cannot argue with you. Drop one of these, and all they can do is watch is amazement as you walk away, commitment-free.

1. I just bought a field, and I must go see it.
Most church-goers will recognize this as an excuse.
However, anyone who has paid attention to the sermons about this passage will also recognize this as a sham excuse that really means “I don’t really care about you now would you please leave me alone”.
This is a rookie excuse – try to avoid it.

2. There’s a lion in the streets, so I mustn’t leave my house.
This one might backfire because the other person will probably think you were just trying to be funny while referencing Proverbs.
Not the best move either – pick something plausible.

3. I’m not yet 30. Or, I’m over age 50.
Did you know there are approved ages for serving in the church? Seriously – it’s in Numbers chapter 4. Only those between the ages of 30-50 were to work in the church.

4. I’ve been married for less than a year.
God told the Israelites that newlyweds are not to be bothered for a year. Don’t ask them to do anything other than be happily married.
Let’s see if we can work this into the church by-laws.
I would expand this by-law to include the clause that newlyweds are also not to be asked about their timeline for offspring.

5. It’s not my role in the body of Christ.
That is a job for a hand, or at least an arm. I’m the ankle in the church body, so I really wouldn’t be of any use for what you need. But I’ll support you in your efforts.

If you need time to pick the best excuse, no worries there either. Just throw in an “I need to pray about it” and you’ll get at least one extra day.

So, what’s your excuse?

There are many short, wise sayings that have become popular over the years. But whether they are related to sewing or farming, not as many people relate to them as they used to. So they should be updated.

Here is my attempt at updating some of these proverbs to be a bit more modern, whilst still retaining at least some of their meaning.

• A text in time saves nine.
• A text of prevention is worth a phone call of cure.
• A watched web page never loads.
• An app a day keeps the doctor away.
• Let whoever is without sin post the first tweet.
• Don’t count your likes before they’re clicked.

Any other sayings that need updating?

Ever wonder how your bathroom fan contributes to the heating and cooling efficiency of your house? You really should consider it.

If the bathroom were air-tight, that would create quite a vacuum. But bathrooms are not that air-tight. So for the air that leaves the bathroom, the same amount of air is going to enter the bathroom, to replace the old air.

Where does that new air come from?

In most houses, it comes from all over – various leaks throughout the house: doors, windows, pipes and vents through walls.

So air goes out of the bathroom, the bathroom gets new air from the rest of the house, and the rest of the house gets new air from outside – through cracks and leaks in doors, windows, the foundation, etc.

Like this:

In places like the Midwest, you don’t want outside air inside the house. Air conditioning has made the inside air cool and dry, in contrast to the outside air which is hot and humid. So having the bathroom fan draw outside air into the whole house is a bad plan.

Once you’re done in the bathroom, the air conditioner has to condition the replacement air. And that air is spread throughout the house.

If you have a make-up air unit in the bathroom, though, the replacement air comes from the outside straight into the bathroom. So now the volume of replacement air is confined to one room. So most of the house stays comfortable, and the air conditioner has less work to do.

Like this:

One of the projects I would do in a house where I planned on living for a while is to add an HRV to each full bath and to the kitchen. An HRV is a Heat Recovery Ventilator – it brings in replacement air and conditions it slightly. They are needed where there are exhaust fans – bathrooms and kitchens if the kitchen has a vented range fan.

Some people may argue that you should have just one HRV and make it large enough for the air needs of the whole house. But I’d rather have multiple smaller HRVs on principle.

Now for some numbers, in case those previous paragraphs were not interesting enough:

We’ll take an average of 80 CFM for a bathroom fan. Our bathroom is about 6x10x8, so 480 cubic feet. That would mean a roomful of air gets removed every 6 minutes.

I will assume an average shower is 10 minutes, and to make the math easier I’m going to assume the fan is on for a minute before and a minute after the shower, for a total of 12 minutes of bathroom fan run time.

So for the 960 CF of air that leave the bathroom, 960 CF of air are going to enter the bathroom, to replace the old air.

If the air comes from wherever, it is going to be 960 CF of air throughout the house. But if draws new air through the bathroom only, it is going to be only 480 CF. The first 480 CF will be outside air replacing conditioned air, but once the bathroom has exchanged all its air, any more air that comes through is going to be outside air replacing outside air, so no more conditioned air gets lost.