jeff can't spell

Listening: Signal to Noise Ratio

2011-01-30T14:26:00.003-06:00

A lot of what I think and type is meant for me, so please don't take this as me professing from experience or education...

Let me explain a principle: Think of your cell phone. When you use it to make a call, the tower you are connected to is transmitting a signal. That signal is competing with background noise that can be coming from all over which winds up sounding like static. In order for your phone to work properly, the phone needs to hear the signal from the tower more clearly than the background noise. This is (quite obviously) the signal to noise ratio and you want more signal than noise.

If you are having reception problems, there are three ways to improve this ratio.

Increase the amplitude of the signal.
Reduce the amount of noise.
Move closer to the source of the signal.

Besides the obvious application to mobile phones, I'm trying to figure out how to apply this principle to improve my ability to listen to God and listen to others. For each improvement consider:

With people, you can ask them to speak up. With God, I think he might already be talking loud enough already but see number 2 and 3.
With people, and with God there are a lot of things in our lives that may be distracting us from being able to hear. These could range from literally noisy things to addictions or maybe even financial prosperity (yikes). I think if we stop and listen hard, we know the source of the noise that is making us unable to hear.
With people and with God, if you can't hear them move closer. Maybe the closer I really mean here has less to do with proximity and more to do with familiarity, which exceeds the bounds of my illustration, but I think makes sense. You will be able to tune into what people or God is saying if you get to know them better or spend more time with them and what they care about.

One other thing to know about the signal to noise ratio. In some cases, the thing that prevents you from hearing the signal is your own transmition. In the case of human communication this holds true. If you're talking, you can't easily listen because you become your own noise.

Unintended consequences of social security

2011-01-18T21:58:00.003-06:00

I think social security is digging it's own grave.

That being said, my comments here are not by any means authoritative or condemning. I've just been thinking about this and thought I'd write it out to see what others might think.

It is my understanding that social security was created as a result of great financial stress; as a way for those who could no longer provide for themselves, to be sustained.

It is also my understanding that when it was first implemented that there were close to 10 employed workers per 1 citizen "on" social security and that now that ratio is approaching 1:1.

Maybe this seems obvious to everyone else, but in case it's not. I suspect that the reason this ratio is has been degrading is because over time people came to depend less on their children in retirement and as a result had less children.

In many cultures (and probably in pre-social security America) people's retirement plan involved having enough children that one or more would take care of them when they "retired". I propose that this tendency declined as a result of the attitude "I'll always have my social security". And how this system came to fail was there never came into being an understanding that all social security did was turn the younger generation's responsibility of taking care of the older an insurance like duty rather than a family matter. The key point being, in both systems you need ample children for it to work.

Now we have become accustom to having fewer children but still expecting to be taken care of.

It's sort of like borrowing, people live without the work of raising as many children but still need the longterm results.

Family Photo Favorites updated

2009-08-06T22:18:00.002-06:00

Wow, it's been since February since I've updated our online photos. I guess I've been slacking.

I hope you are all doing well. We got through our May/June birthdays, relaxed in Montana in July and have enjoyed the lack of mosquitoes here at home.

Anyway, take a look out our new photos when you get a chance:

http://thehouseshome.smugmug.com/gallery/9177184_asxkh#P-1-15

Twenty Foot Grandpa

2008-04-05T08:15:00.002-06:00

While I was waking up this morning, I was thinking about all the things that would have to be different if people never stopped growing. If people start out about 2 feet when they are born, we could say that people would grow 5 feet every 20 years, I would be close to 10 feet tall. My dad would be over 17 feet tall.

Just think of all the social, environmental and transportation impacts. There would have to be different kids of cars for different people's ages. There would have to be different kids of stairways for 20 foot tall 80 year old people than for 4 foot 10 year olds. And our society may have less of an infatuation of youth if teens were only one third the height of an adult.

Get a digital to analog tv conver coupon

2008-01-04T00:31:00.001-06:00

https://www.dtv2009.gov/

Yum

2008-01-03T22:10:00.001-06:00

I'm trying out Flock by doing a blog of a dragged web page. Let's see how it goes

National Geographic News Photo Gallery: Top Ten Photos of 2007 From National Geographic News

Blogged with Flock

i

2007-08-11T03:17:00.000-06:00

india is still not in focus, but i keep asking myself this question:

what is important to you?

frog food

2007-06-23T17:51:00.000-06:00

i put up lattice today

i'm excited about going to montana and india

pray for kristie and her baby

someone should invent a compass for space

my uinversal serial bus son

2007-05-26T12:30:00.000-06:00

Recently my 1 year old son Andy decided to suck on the end of a USB cable I leave plugged into my computer to connect to my digital camera.

I heard my hard drive start grinding and then this error message popped up:

USB Device Not Recognized - One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned and windows does not recognize it...

Does anybody have drivers for this type of peripheral?

the shape of my blog

2007-05-07T16:12:00.000-06:00

battle plan

2007-04-24T13:04:00.000-06:00

the plan is to systematically poop in every toilet in the building where you work

if we are going to win this battle, you should join the cause

we don't want this plan to get into the wrong hands

be careful who you trust

Angie's comment about blogs

2007-04-14T19:47:00.000-06:00

Angie: "you're reading somebodies blog"
Jeff: "yeah"
Angie: "and you've been writing a blog. You're becoming a blogger!"
Jeff: "no I'm not..."
Angie: "you know why women don't write blogs? Because they're doing everything else so their husbands can blog!"

let's run and spit

2007-04-10T20:24:00.000-06:00

i got some more shots today - i'll get some more in august and february

alpha went well for the bunch more of people angie took

we don't have to bid the wiring so that means work is better

josette told her cousin "let's run and spit"

they did

i'm excited about going to india

for the love of, pete, if you read this i need to bike more

raccoons got cheese all over the deck last night

i like drinking out of metal

don't underestimate the value of an easy to click mouse

you were probably expecting to read something funny or clever by now

expect again!

the power of flip

2007-03-28T22:01:00.000-06:00

josette finally isn't the boss any more

we have a banshee living with us

it's andy and I am losing my hearing i think

i'm not going to blog about the weather

stuff i think about makes me happy

i've been in all but 6 or 7 states

usually i know what i need to do, but not always

we have to sweep the floor a lot in our house

THE POWER OF FLIP

You're never there

2007-03-28T21:55:00.000-06:00

I've decided that if they never made any new music and any new movies again I'd be ok with that.

I feel like I hardly have enough time to watch and listen to all the things I already like that I would definitely not have enough time time to waste watching or listening to new stuff that I might wind up only kind of liking.

fudge and onions

2007-03-10T21:34:00.000-06:00

andy has walking pneumonia even though he can't really even crawl

he has a nebulizer too and is doing better

i can hear angie's mom while angie is on the phone with her

we already changed our clocks ahead, but we haven't change the smoke alarm batteries

please try not to smoke

i heard the song st. elmo's fire on the oldies station -- Cool 108 a month ago

i remember hearing st. elmo's fire when it came out

i decided that a bad combination of foods would be fudge and onions

andy can clap

one point eight

2007-03-09T23:21:00.000-06:00

I just drove 1000 miles in the last two days for work.

I'm watching a raccoon walk around on my deck looking for food.

Angie is bringing Andy to the hospital. He's sick and urgent care told her to.

Our hot-tub had high Ph.

Computers are cool

Computers are stupid

Does anybody know how many mega pixel human eyes are?

Good night.