Monthly Archives: July 2014

Moral Issues, Musings

The wisdom formula

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I recently read through the story of Solomon in the Bible. Solomon was considered to be a very wise man. I too would like to be a wise man. But what is wisdom?

Wisdom is not intelligence

The dictionary defines intelligence as the ability to learn or understand things or to deal with new or difficult situations. Notice that intelligence is an ability. It is my assertion that intelligence is innate. All people are born with a certain amount of this attribute called intelligence. There is nothing that we can do to gain or increase in intelligence. Our God-given intellect is what we have to work with.

This statement could be considered offensive because intelligence is so highly valued. Some make the mistake of judging the worth of others based on their level of intelligence. So, to state that some people are born more intelligent than others, in the minds of certain individuals, is tantamount to saying that some people are born superior to others. That is not at all my intention, nor do I believe it to be true.

Wisdom is a much more desirable trait than intelligence, and while intelligence is an integral part of the wisdom formula, they are not directly proportional. A more intelligent person is not necessarily wiser, and vice-versa.

Wisdom requires knowledge

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary contains multiple definitions for the word “knowledge”. For the purposes of this article, I will be treating “knowledge” as synonymous with “stored information”.

Unlike intelligence, which is innate, knowledge is gained through experiences. When we are born, we have no knowledge whatsoever. As we experience things in life, our mind stores memories of those experiences. Our memories are the building blocks of our knowledge.

I believe it possible that people may have different capacities for knowledge, but measuring the amount of information stored in a person’s mind is a fruitless effort, and I doubt that any of us uses our mind’s knowledge store to its full potential anyway.

Wisdom relies on understanding

Understanding is the application of intelligence to knowledge. Our minds are incredibly good at discerning patterns in large sets of data. When we apply our intellect to a body of observations about a particular topic, we start to discern patterns, and thus gain a better understanding about that topic. The longer we apply our intellect, the more understanding we gain. The more information we gather, the more understanding we gain.

Understanding is proportional to the magnitude of our intelligence, the length of time we apply that intelligence to a topic, and the amount of information we have gathered on that topic. Hence, with faux mathematics, I propose the following formula:

understanding = intellect x knowledge x time

 Understanding with discernment

No matter how much intellect, knowledge, and time we have, we will never fully understand even a single topic. We live in a complex world where any number of seemingly random factors will affect any topic that we endeavor to understand. Climates fluctuate. Personalities and emotional states change and clash. Devices and machines wear out and break down. Software has bugs. Every day, in myriad ways, the unexpected happens. When it does, our understanding is invalidated to some degree.

Sometimes we are able to navigate this sea of uncertainty with surprising alacrity, seemingly predicting the unpredictable, and modifying our behavior to defy our preconceptions. Perhaps we are able to read the mood in the room. Perhaps we subconsciously notice some minute, but key, detail. We call it luck, intuition, instinct, gut feeling, serendipity.

I call it discernment. I believe that discernment is a God-given gift, and like intelligence, we are each gifted with differing degrees of discernment.

Wisdom is an action

Better, wisdom is borne out in action, or occasionally in deliberate inaction. Wisdom is the application of understanding. It is the decision, through an effort of willpower, to use our understanding to guide our actions in such a way that a desired outcome can be achieved. The action that is taken is seen by others as wisdom when:

  • The action that is taken builds on the actor’s knowledge, gained through past experience.
  • The action that is taken is demonstrably responsible for the resultant outcome.
  • The action that is taken seems logical in retrospect, but was not immediately obvious beforehand.
  • The resultant outcome is unquestionably beneficial to the actor or to others in the actor’s realm of influence.

If no action is taken, then no wisdom is in evidence. Knowing the right thing to do in a situation, but not doing it is the opposite of wisdom. Imparting advice to another is not wisdom, but only a transfer of knowledge. The recipient of the information now has the responsibility to apply their own intelligence and willpower to the information gained, and thus they have the opportunity to act wisely.

Continuing in the tradition of faux mathematics, I propose the following formula for wisdom:

wisdom = ( understanding + discernment ) x willpower

 A wise person

While a single act can be viewed as wisdom, it takes more than one act to be seen as a wise person. A man or woman who portrays the characteristic of wisdom makes wise choices reliably and on a regular basis.

Acquire knowledge. Apply your intellect to gain understanding. Learn of your intuition so that you can discern how to best apply it. Fortify your willpower so that you will be able to act decisively on your understanding. Be wise.

– danBhentschel

Yes, I Know Komputors!

My home network

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Last week was my birthday. From my eldest son, Timmy, I received a new wireless router! Yay! This upgrade will allow me to improve the wireless network in my home by increasing the bandwidth, increasing the range, and also beefing up the security.

So why didn’t I upgrade sooner? To put it simply, my home network has become so complicated as to make it somewhat scary to make any changes to it. Let me elaborate.

Wireless devices

The following devices have access to and use my home wireless network on a regular basis:

  • 2 cell phones: Marlene’s and mine
  • My laptop (both the Ubuntu and the Windows OS; I dual-boot)
  • Marlene’s chromebook
  • Marlene’s old laptop
  • 4 security cameras
  • 2 Android devices for Timmy and Nora
  • The Wii
  • The XBox 360
  • Marlene’s Kindle
  • The downstairs TV

And then there are various devices that access the wireless network less frequently:

  • My old laptop
  • Nora’s (somewhat dead) Kindle Fire
  • The Android device for our TV
  • Jacob’s Nintendo 2DS
  • Nora’s Nintendo 3DS
  • My Dad’s laptop
  • My sister’s laptop and phone
  • Various devices (phones, tablets, and laptops) that the Skidmores have configured to use our network when they visit us

Not including “guest” devices, I count 21 devices that will need to be reconfigured before I can say “goodbye” to the old wireless network. Have I forgotten anything? That’s the tricky thing with wireless networks. You tend to forget about all the devices that are using it until the network goes away and things stop working properly.

Wired devices

The wired devices aren’t typically as much of a problem. I can find them all. Just follow the patch cables from the cable modem to each device, and keep a list of what I encounter.  However, due to the complex workings of my LAN, my wired devices may actually require more reconfiguration than my wireless ones if the basic structure of my wired network were ever to change. More on that later. For now, here is a list of the devices that make up my wired network.

  • The cable modem (a router in its own right)
  • 5 routers, including the new one I just got for my birthday
  • 2 switches
  • My server with 6 virtual machines running on it
  • The server IPMI controller
  • My main PC with 2 virtual machines running on it
  • Our “home” phone system
  • Marlene’s “Purple” video phone
  • The Roku
  • The Blu-Ray player
  • 2 media player PCs, one for each TV
  • The HD-Homerun (a TV recording device)
  • The upstairs TV
  • The laser printer

That’s 26 devices (including virtual machines) that rely on the current configuration of our wired network. So how do they all talk to each other?

Network structure

network3

A picture is worth a thousand words. This diagram shows how my home network is structured. The green box labeled “Modem” is my cable modem, and is the connection between my entire house and the outside world. As I mentioned before, this modem is actually a wireless router, but I have disabled all the capabilities of the box, and it is now just operating strictly as a modem.

I consider the blue box labeled “Router 1” to be the “brain” of my network. It is the DHCP server for the entire house, and also handles routing all traffic between my LAN and the internet. The other blue “Routers” are all configured to be simple 100 Mb/s switches, and perform no actual logic, though Router 2 is also configured to host my old wireless network until I can switch all my wireless devices over to the new wireless router: the orange box labeled “Router 5”.

The blue lines in the diagram represent 100 Mb/s connections, and the red lines represent 1000 Mb/s connections. The two red “Switch” boxes are both 1000 Mb/s switches. I consider the long red line between the basement and ground floor to be the “backbone” of my LAN. Most devices (other than my server and main computer) access the Internet over this line. This is also the only means of access to the server for most devices on the LAN.

Network functions

So I mentioned that my network harbors enough complexity to make me wary about making configuration changes. What services do all these various devices provide? Here is a list of some of the functions:

  • Host all our media:
    • More than 700 home videos
    • More than 3,500 anime episodes
    • More than 3,000 TV show episodes
    • More than 800 movies
    • More than 30,000 photos
    • More than 10,000 music tracks
  • Host our web site (in fact, this blog is hosted from the server in my basement)
  • Provide instant access to all that media on both TVs
  • Host our family photo album
  • Provide access to Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime on both TVs
  • Provide access to all our documents on all PCs in our house
  • Keep a history of all past versions of our documents and files (including all media) so they can be retrieved in the event of an undesired change or deletion
  • Backup all documents and files (including all media) to “the cloud”
  • Filter all internet access from all devices connected through my network to prevent connections to undesirable web sites
  • Host two phone systems, with two separate phone numbers: our main home phone, and Marlene’s video phone
  • Provide access to 4 video surveillance cameras on 2 TVs, and 4 Android devices
  • Record all 4 surveillance cameras 24×7 and provide access to the recorded video on both TVs
  • Synchronize all 4 Android devices with our server so that any pictures taken with any device are instantly and automatically added to our family photo album
  • Record specific broadcast TV shows on a specified schedule and make the recordings available on both TVs
  • Provide me access to the server, main PC, and two media PCs from any computer in the house (or from any computer outside the house via the internet) so that I can perform maintenance when necessary

That’s quite the busy network, with quite an array of custom capabilities. It can be a bit challenging sometimes to keep all that in flight, hence my resistance to making arbitrary changes.

– danBhentschel

 

All Things Dad

The face game

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I over-think things. I’m well aware of this. I have even put quite a bit of thought into the games I play with my babies. Scary, I know, but with more than six babies living in my house across a span of 11 years, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to analyze. My favorite game is one I call “the face game”. The face game goes like this:

  • <point to Beth’s nose>
  • Beth’s nose
  • <point to my nose>
  • Daddy’s nose
  • <point to Beth’s nose>
  • Beth’s nose
  • <point to my nose>
  • Daddy’s nose
  • <point to Beth’s nose>
  • Beth’s nose

And that’s pretty much it. I repeat the procedure for various parts of the face: ears, mouth, eyes (carefully), cheek, chin, neck, etc. I always do hair last, and when we do the hair, I always help them to tousle my hair a bit. For each body part, I do baby first, then me, then baby, then me again, then baby again. After hair I end with:

  • <pat Beth’s chest>
  • Beth
  • <pat my chest>
  • Daddy
  • <pat Beth’s chest>
  • Beth
  • <pat my chest>
  • Daddy
  • <pat Beth’s chest>
  • Beth

What makes this game so special?

  • The face game works for a wide variety of ages. I can start playing the game with a baby immediately after birth, but kids continue to get enjoyment from the game up through age 3 or 4.
  • The face game encourages face-to-face time. We are looking at each other, studying each other’s faces while playing. It’s quite intimate.
  • The face game is very relaxing. I play at a very deliberate, unhurried pace. I use voice inflection, rather than bouncing and tickling, to maintain interest. It is almost hypnotic.
  • The face game is repetitive. It encourages pattern recognition. As baby gets older, she learns to anticipate what’s going to happen next. Inevitably, she starts to take control, and tries to run the game herself, and that’s just fine.
  • The face game encourages basic classification. Toss in a finger or an elbow. Sounds simple, but at a certain age, baby starts to recognize that these are not face body parts, and it’s a funny joke to her.
  • The face game is science. Baby is learning basic anatomy while she plays.
  • The face game teaches identity. Daddy is Daddy, and I am me. We are separate individuals, and yet we have a lot in common too.
  • The face game is calming and reassuring. Once baby is used to the procedure, that familiarity can have a comforting effect in confusing or upsetting situations.
  • The face game easily expands to multiple participants. I currently have a one-year-old, a three-year-old, and a four-year-old in my house. If I start playing with my youngest, the other two will frequently want to join in. Even my kindergartner occasionally wants to be part of the action.

Maybe this particular game is not for you, and that’s just fine, but I encourage you to put some thought into the activities that you do with your baby. What are the games teaching? What behaviors do they promote? What other benefits do they provide? Be deliberate about your parenting.

– danBhentschel