Ye Olde Cell Phone Repair Shoppe

A couple of weeks ago, my wife was attending to some plants on the kitchen counter when she accidentally spilled some water on her Razr cell phone. After that incident, the phone stopped working and wouldn’t recharge the battery. We took it to the Cingular store where we had bought it the year before and had them check it. After running a series of checks, the technician told us that some moisture had gotten into the phone, resulting in the “frying” of the insides. In other words, the phone was dead.

After we returned home, I was about to put the phone away for future disposal when an “inner voice” quietly but insistently said, “Whit, remove the battery and SIM card from the phone and use a hairdryer to heat the phone until it is hot to the touch.” I followed those instructions as given and after the phone cooled, I replaced the SIM card and battery and hooked the phone up to the charger. The next morning when I checked the phone, it was fully charged. This is the third day of use on that charge, and two-thirds of the charge still remains. The phone is fully functional and works just like new.

Now I am thinking of opening up a cell phone repair shop for people whose cell phones cannot be repaired using conventional methods. I have been adding to my inventory of tools for that shop. So far, in addition to the aforementioned hairdryer, I have added a scalp massager, a blowtorch, an electric toothbrush, and a hammer.

Seeing Faces

Sometimes, when we have nothing better to do, my wife and I will lie on our backs and scrutinize the bedroom’s popcorn ceiling. There is a surprising amount of entertainment there. My wife, as an artist, often sees faces in the unlikeliest places, including popcorn ceilings. So she got me in the habit of finding faces there, too. When you stop to think of it, a popcorn ceiling is a perfect place to look for faces. The highs and lows of a popcorn ceiling act a little bit like a huge monitor screen filled with large pixels. The little bits of raised “popcorn” create “pixels” all across the ceiling.

Seeing faces or seeing things distinct and meaningful where one would not expect to see them is not new. The problem is, seeing is not simply taking in visual information the way we take in, say, food. The scenes we see are in fact created by our minds. Though it is fashionable to talk about the mind as a computer, a better description is that it is a pattern former/recognizer. Our brains do this so reliably and so systematically, that it makes perfect sense to talk about the patterns created by our minds as if they are really "out there in the world".

We can see faces in the moon, in Rorschach inkblots, in clouds, and so on. There is a word for seeing these faces - pareidolia. Wiktionary defines the word as meaning “the tendency to interpret a vague stimulus as something known to the viewer; such as interpreting marks on Mars as canals or seeing shapes in clouds. The etymology of the word traces it to “ Greek; para-—something wrong + eidolon—ghostly image, or phantom.”

My wife and I will try to get each other to see the same face as the other one does in the ceiling. We have found the faces of angels, of the devil, of monsters, and of comical-looking creatures. One of us can get a pointer and point to a reference spot on the ceiling and ask the other to find the other features in the face. Sometimes we produce the same face, and sometimes it is different. I have thought of having my wife sketch the myriad faces we find in the ceiling.

Speaking of seeing something meaningful where one would not expect to do so , about ten years ago a woman in Florida received what she considered a religious message in a grilled cheese sandwich she had made herself. As she was grilling the sandwich, she saw the Virgin Mary staring back at her from the brown skillet marks on the bread’s surface. After holding onto the stale bread for a decade, she sold it on eBay for $28,000.

Other reported manifestations:

1. The face of Jesus on a burnt tortilla.
2. The Nun Bun, which is a cinnamon bun bearing a likeness of Mother Teresa.
3. A pretzel in the shape of Mary cradling the infant Jesus, which fetched $10,600.
4. A water-stained piece of plaster cut from a shower wall bearing what some took to be the face of Jesus brought in nearly $2,000.
5. An iridescent image of a veiled Virgin Mary, which skeptics have said is merely a stain created by corrosion.

$28,000? From now on, I am going to check my grilled cheese sandwich before I eat it. But with my luck, all I probably will see is the face of Popeye staring back at me. Oh, well, that should be worth at least a couple of bucks.

Weed Sandwich

I was reading a bit of trivia recently stating that Henry Ford ate a weed sandwich every day. I had never heard of a weed sandwich and tried to envision what one might look and taste like. When I first Googled for a weed sandwich, I had some difficulty locating information. Finally, I found a site about a man who owns an organic vegetable and herb garden in which he grows oregano, zucchini, cauliflower, and garlic plants. He also grows “tangy sorrel leaves, spicy nasturtium flowers, and citrusy lemon balms.” He says that the foliage tastes raw, natural, and wholesome. Then he claims that every morning, he eats a weed sandwich from his garden. I used to have nasturtiums in my garden, but I never thought of eating them.

I am just curious - has anyone out there on Blogstream ever eaten a weed sandwich? Would you recommend it? If I were to eat a weed sandwich and it upset my stomach, would a glass of Roundup offer quick relief?

Einstein on the Subject of Religion

Albert Einstein, born in Germany in a non-practicing Jewish family, did not receive any instruction in the Jewish faith nor did his family practice any of the traditional Jewish rites. The discussion of religion, in fact, was discouraged. But in public school, Einstein received a Catholic education while, at the same time, he was getting a Hebrew religious education from a distant relative. At the age of eleven, he became very religious and tried to keep the Jewish precepts he had learned.

When he entered high school, Einstein’s passion for religion was transferred to a love for science; but he never lost his interest in God as Creator and still considered himself a religious man. He spent the rest of his life in a obsessive determination to understand the Force behind his existence. In 1930, writing an article for the New York Times Magazine titled “About Religion,” he identified three stages in the development of religion:

Stage 1. A religion of fear. This is the primitive stage of religion in which early humans, out of fear of hunger, attacks by wild animals, sickness, and death, create illusory gods to meet their various needs. They believe that they can gain favors from these gods by appeasing them with various kinds of sacrifices. This stage of religion has an anthropomorphic conception of God.

Stage 2. A social or moral religion. This stage presents a God of Providence - a God who protects, disposes, rewards, and punishes. This God is a tribal God who can offer comfort in sorrow and unsatisfied longing and who, upon the death of loved ones, can preserve the souls of the dead. In this stage, Einstein saw an evolution from the religion of fear in the Old Testament to a religion of morals in the New Testament, but with a blending of both fear and moral religions. This stage of religion also has an anthropomorphic conception of God - a God with both human features and qualities.

Stage 3. A religion with a cosmic religious feeling. This stage of religion is based neither on fear nor social or moral religion. This is not a God who rewards and punishes, for the actions of individuals are dictated by internal or external necessity, so that there is neither reward nor punishment in the next life. In this view of life, there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it. The basis for human conduct lies in education, social ties without a religious base, and a feeling of sympathy or empathy for fellow human beings.

In regard to Stage 3 of the evolution of religion, Einstein was quoted as saying "The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image, so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with the highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another."

Here are some quotes of Einstein regarding religion:

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”
“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.”
“God is subtle but he is not malicious.”

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.”
“True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness.”

"The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books - a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects."

“That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God. “

Here are some of Einstein’s other beliefs about religion:

1. "I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science."

2. "The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events--provided, of course, that he takes the hypothesis of causality really seriously. He has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man’s actions are determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God’s eye he cannot be responsible, any more than an inanimate object is responsible for the motions it undergoes."

3. On the Power of Prayer: "Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the actions of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e., by a wish addressed to a supernatural Being."

Well, there you have a synoptic view of Einstein’s beliefs in regard to religion. What do you think of them?

Since the purpose of this post is not to disrespect any religious belief or lack thereof, but to promote discussion among bloggers all across the spectrum of beliefs about religion, I request that in order to ensure productive civil discourse, that all bloggers respect the following guidelines:

1. Recognize a person’s right to advocate ideas that are
different from your own
2. Show respect for others
3. Discuss ideas, not people
4. Use helpful, not hurtful language

So as not to interrupt the flow of comments, I will not be making personal comments in this post. In advance, let me say that I deeply appreciate any constructive contributions you might make to this discussion.

Cool, Clear Water

Would you pay between $40 and $90 for a 750-milliliter bottle of water? That’s about $4 for each gulp. In Italy, the same bottle of water brings $200. Cheapskates can buy the half-sized bottle for $25 at the store. That is more than the price of most fine wines. Even the name of this natural spring water, Bling , bottled in Tennessee, doesn’t have the cachet that one might expect in such an expensive item. Launched only last year, Bling, with its 7.3 pH balance, is showing up by demand in the dressing rooms of celebrities.

What is there about this “pop culture in a bottle” that entices celebrities such as Jamie Foxx, Paris Hilton, Ben Stiller, rapper Lil Jon, Nicky Hilton, and a host of other celebs to “bling,” as it’s called? Paris Hilton, according to one report, was seen at a party giving it to her Chihuahua. Perhaps we should start with the bottle it comes in - a bottle that has all the appearance of an expensive wine. Would you like it in cobalt blue glass or the one with the canary yellow crystals?

Those who drink Bling have become “water connoisseurs,” describing the odorless fluid as "light, but not too light, and crisp to the taste." Let’s just say that Bling is the Rolls-Royce of bottled water.

Oh, that reminds me: the next time I go to the desert, I need to stop at the supermarket and pick up a couple of gallons of the store-brand bottled spring water.

While we are on the subject of water, I shall include this information with a different perspective:

World Water and Sanitation Crisis Urgently Needs a Global Action Plan
United Nations Development Program (New York)

November 8, 2006

Cape Town

A Global Action Plan under G8 leadership is urgently needed to resolve a growing water and sanitation crisis that causes nearly two million child deaths every year, says the 2006 Human Development Report, released here today.

Across much of the developing world, unclean water is an immeasurably greater threat to human security than violent conflict, according to the Report, entitled Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis.

Each year, the authors report, 1.8 million children die from diarrhea that could be prevented with access to clean water and a toilet; 443 million school days are lost to water-related illnesses; and almost 50 percent of all people in developing countries are suffering at any given time from a health problem caused by a lack of water and sanitation. To add to these human costs, the crisis in water and sanitation holds back economic growth, with sub-Saharan Africa losing five percent of GDP annually - far more than the region receives in aid.

Yet unlike wars and natural disasters, this global crisis does not galvanize concerted international action, says the 2006 Human Development Report (HDR). "Like hunger, it is a silent emergency experienced by the poor and tolerated by those with the resources, the technology and the political power to end it," says the Report. With less than a decade left to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, this needs to change, stress the authors.