Grace and I went to visit some of ROCK’s students in Riverside on Monday. While lounging in Sarah’s apartment at Cal Baptist, I had a very excruciatingly humbling experience.
I tried to play her roommate’s left-handed acoustic guitar.
I have a newfound understanding and patience towards anyone I teach to play guitar. I couldn’t get the correct fingers on my right hand to move when and where I wanted them to, and even when they were finally placed correctly, I couldn’t get the strings to sound without buzzing! Don’t even ask about chord transitioning. Or barring! Then my left hand had no strumming rhythm, and no control over dynamics. Ugh! It was terrible!
Now I know how many of my students must feel. I apologize to everyone I’ve tried to teach guitar and have been impatient with.
(On a redeeming note, I was able to play the left-handed guitar slightly better in reverse, by still fingering with my left hand and inverting the chord structures in my head. Although some of those inverted fingerings are impossible!)
The Moment Of Truth is a new game show on FOX that has been stirring up some controversy. I’ll say upfront that I would recommend NOT watching it. The premise is that individuals on the hot seat are asked personalized list of extremely personal questions. But there’s a polygraph involved. The more they answer truthfully, the more money they receive. If they ever are caught lying, they’re out and win nothing.
These questions are designed to not only take the skeletons out of the closet, but to dust them and polish their bones, then amass that collected dust with the dirt swept under the rug, then mounting all that into a glass case for all to see. Sample questions (and you can see how the last one is quite personalized):
Have you ever parked in a handicapped spot?
Have you ever lied to get a job?
If the opportunity presented itself, would you consider getting back together with any of your former boyfriends/girlfriends?
Do you fantasize about cheating on your spouse/partner?
Have you ever cheated on your spouse?
Is part the reason you’re delaying having kids because you don’t think you will still be married in 5 years?
But what makes the show unwatchable is not just its terrible production and pacing and editing (with overdrawn, lame gaps for suspense), and not even the wrongness of the concept itself. The part that bugs me the most is that the underlying competition in the game is played, for gain, between these two contestants: honesty and integrity.
You can tell the audience is torn to react. When the host asks the question, the audience is giddily horrified (“Oooohhhhh!”). And when the contestant answers it (“Yes, I’ve cheated on my taxes”), the audience is appalled (“OOOOOOHH!!!”). But here’s the clincher.. when the host reveals that the contestant has told the truth, and therefore wins $10,000 more, the reaction is joy, applause, and congratulations!! Is that not the most wrong, most disturbing part of the show?
Integrity is sold here at the expense of honesty, returned in the form of American currency.
It disturbs me that we would praise and reward honesty when what the honesty reveals is lack of integrity. It doesn’t make sense to pit one against the other. The audience cheers when he gets money for admitting that he doesn’t see himself still married to his wife five years from now. Oh, and yes, the wife is sitting there on stage with him. He shoots her a shrug and small grin as though to say “Sorry, honey. But hey, we just made $25,000!” She shoots him a look in return that says “Divorce.” His friend actually asks on camera, while applauding, “Um.. should we be clapping?”
(Side note though, I do realized they’re not going to put any people above reproach on the show, because that would be very boring TV.)
I’m reminded of two instances in the Bible where integrity and honesty came together. Ananias and Sapphira lied about the amount of money they had received and were giving to the church, they were condemned Peter and struck dead by God (Acts 5). Now, the sin was not that they did not give all their money; that was not a requirement. The sin was that they lied about it, saying they were giving everything. It was a lack if integrity that prompted their dishonesty, and they were killed for lying against the Holy Spirit. I guess this parallels getting kicked off the show with $0 upon lying.
On the other hand, when the prophet Nathan confronted King David regarding his adultery with the married Bathsheba, David was filled with grief, remorse, confession, and repentance over his sin (2 Samuel 12, Psalm 51). No one was cheering for David, “thank you for being honest!” No one was rewarding him. And of anyone, David was the most distraught over his sin, not contented in any gain that he got from it (in fact, that baby died).
Yes, it is important and necessary to have integrity. But when that is compromised, yes, it is necessary to be honest regarding your sin, not necessarily broadcasting it to the whole world, but at the least to recognize it within yourself and to confess it before God. And all we should gain from that honest repentance is a greater faith in knowing God’s grace yet deeper, which covers our sin with righteousness in the blood of Christ. That is the reward of honest integrity and integrous honesty.
The results are in from yesterday’s coinage puzzle! It’s great to know that I have such intelligent (ahem, nerdy) readers. And for so many people to be interested in the solution (ahem, nerd wannabes)! May God bless you with Trekkie husbands.
Steve’s Idea To Optimize Returns (Greedy Approach)
Steve’s comment in the previous post introduced the ingenious idea of utilizing change to maximize returns in quarters. That’s a brilliant way to convert your skimpy, inferior coinage into the vastly superior, beloved, useful quarter. But to draw from this idea, we must consider that quarters are not only desirable because of their utility, but because they are the largest denomination (in this puzzle), so whatever technique gains the most quarters will also be the optimal in terms of fewest coins! But what we must be wary of the idealism of Steve’s approach is that even though you maximize quarters, you still have in your pocket some of the original 7 coins you brought with you. The idea of a greedy algorithm started us off in the right direction, but Shinn brought it home with his lazy algorithm.
Shinn’s Idea To Simplify Transactions (Lazy Approach)
Shinn, who allegedly spent most of his day looking at the problem because he was stranded in Pomona and couldn’t come to ROCK, came to a great realization: that actually my whole theory about making “intelligent” change and Steve’s idea to maximize quarter returns are both entirely moot! Regardless of what amount of change you have in your pocket, if you simply pay with all of it, then the difference you receive back will be in an optimal arrangement of that amount. Basically, you’re letting the cashier collect all of the change in your pocket (even if you have 20 pennies), and return it back optimally (he would give back two dimes). Fantastic! No thinking involved! The cashier becomes your consistent and reliable “black box” change optimizer.
The Solution: Putting It Together
Now that we realize that we can always optimize our pocket change by giving it all to the cashier, we must figure out the real problem: how do we minimize the average number of coins in my pocket throughout the day?
Well, we must realize that no matter how much I have in my pocket, there will always be a 1/100 chance, after a transaction, of me having each amount between $0.00 and $0.99 in coins. Regardless of what I start with, there’s a fee that will leave me $0.03 in change, and a fee that will leave me with $0.64, etc. Using Shinn’s method (thank you cashier), the arrangement of this change is always optimal, so I can range anywhere from 0 coins ($0.00) to 1 coin ($0.01, $0.05, $0.10, $0.25) all the way up to to 9 coins ($0.94, $0.99). The average for all 100 possible values is 2.35 coins.
And since it doesn’t matter how much I start with, then the best way to get the lowest average for the day is… drumroll…to start with 0 coins in my pocket! If I start with 2 coins, the day average is 3.35 coins; if I start with 4 coins, the day average is 4.35 coins, etc., because I’m carrying more coins for the first half of the day. That is, Shinn’s theory states that the average number of coins post-transaction is fixed; the only way to minimize the day’s average is to minimize the coins I’m carrying pre-transaction!
So I’ve been doing it correctly all this time. The answer is: 0 coins.
Loose Change Puzzle, Part II
But this introduces a second problem. Sure, I’ve been unwittingly using the optimal method all these years, so that I have the least change in my pocket at all times… except that all these years I have been only receiving change!
In fact, averaging all the 100 possible intakes, each day I begin with 0 coins and come home with 4.7 coins! Ugh!
Now, we also know that to carry around $0.99 is the best way to get rid of change, because you can cover any amount and get rid of all those coins. I’d begin the day with 10 coins (you need 4 pennies, 1 nickel, 2 dimes, and 3 quarters to cover every amount up to $0.99), but on average would come home with -4.3 coins (got rid of 4.3 coins)!
So, new puzzle: What is the optimal coin combination to carry, where the fewest coins would get rid of the most coins? I guess this problem is weighted, because while 10 coins gets rid of the most, carrying 10 coins every day is undesirable. Hmm… How would you even weight it to calculate which answer is best?
Here’s a question that plagues my life, and if anyone can solve it mathematically, props to you.
Truth is, I don’t like change. Coinage, I mean. As a male, I have no place to keep loose coins, unless they jangle in my pockets all day (and fall out) or pudge out my wallet. So I start out every day without change in my pockets, and I end each day depositing the accumulated coins into my coin jar.
My coin jar now has $101.65 in pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. (Incidentally, I also lost $0.44 due to change falling out of my pocket in 2007.)
So here’s the puzzle:
What is the optimum coin set to begin every day with, such that if I make a single transaction that day, I will on average have the fewest coins with me? For easy math, assume that I make the transaction in the middle of the day (giving equal weight to the before and after transaction periods).
For example, I always start out with 0 coins. But if I make a transaction that costs me $X.01, I’ll have 9 coins for the rest of the day (3 quarters, 2 dimes, 4 pennies). So I average (0+9)/2 = 4.5 coins for that situation. Of course, to find the true average for the day, you’d have to consider all 100 possible transactions ($X.00 through $X.99 in change). You can assume equal probability of each situation, for simpler math.
You can also assume that I’ll pay intelligently to yield the least coins in change. For example, if the cost is $X.23 and I have a quarter and 3 pennies, I’ll pay all $0.28 so as to receive back one coin, a nickel. (Whereas if I paid stupidly the quarter alone, I would get back $0.02 and now have 5 pennies.)
A compounding challenging aspect of this puzzle is that my starting coin set might not have to be optimal. For example, starting with 6 pennies might yield a better set of change than starting with a nickel and 1 penny, because of the pennies’ flexibility to prevent extra coins in return (not sure if this case is true, it’s just an illustration). So there are far more than 100 initial coin sets to consider.
So, what is the optimal coin set to start out with, so that (considering all 100 possible transactions using that starting amount) I will have the least number of coins in my pocket on average throughout the day?
No, I don’t know the answer to this question. It’s way too complex for me to figure out.
[This is a classic jszeto journal entry from my college blog. Originally posted Sunday, February 29th 2004. Unedited.]
i had 2 of my BrunchBurgers (my special dorm dining creation.. think Fatburger) for lunch after church today. TWO. count ‘em.
jszeto’s BrunchBurger:
1 cheeseburger / 1 chicken sandwich
1 plate of just bacon (special request)
1 plate of fried eggs (2 eggs)
1 dollop of honey mustard salad dressing
ketchup
^assemble all of the above into one giant burger!
Optional additions:
1 extra chicken breast
extra lettuce and/or bacon bits (from salad bar)
1 side of fries
Variation:
ditch the soggy buns.. get 2 pieces of pizza (any variety), cut out circular pieces:
and use in place of buns:
mmmMMMMMmmmmmMMMMMMM…
anyways, i’d never had 2 before.. i’m not feeling so great now.. .. its not that i cant eat that much, its just that it’s not the healthiest lunch combo..
So on Monday afternoon, I started having a sharp pain just behind my ribcage, below my heart. My family was pretty concerned not knowing what it was, perhaps fearing the worst knowing my diet (yes I’m skinny, but with my metabolism, I’ve lived with the liberty to eat just about anything… I’ve always said I’m nothing but bones and clogged arteries).
But the good news is that I realized yesterday what it was, and it doesn’t have anything to do with my long-term health. I remembered that on Sunday, while leading worship, I strained my diaphragm while holding out the climactic high note in “The Lord’s Prayer,” you know, “Foreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeever, Amen.” I think I held it out a little longer than I could handle, and I hadn’t conserved my breath enough in the first 6 beats to sustain the last 3, so I really eked it out of me in the passion of the moment (that song is so majestic!). But on the last beat, I felt a sharp pain in my side and so promptly released the note, thinking nothing of it. In fact, I had no further pain until 24 hours later.
Anyways, that’s the story. No cause for major concern; I’m just experiencing some dull pain in my chest cavity (particularly in the mornings) when I move a certain way or when I laugh or sneeze. I’m just going to wait this one out because it’s just muscle pain (doctors can’t really do much for minor diaphragm injuries anyways, outside of surgery). I don’t think it’ll last more than 3 or 4 days.
In 2005, some random schmoe published what became a cult-hit coffee table book. Tucker Shaw took a photograph of every food item he consumed in the year 2004 and published the collection, entitled Everything I Ate.
Well, I have a brilliant idea. What if someone were to take pictures of every toilet, urinal, bathroom stall, port-a-potty, outhouse, or hole in the ground he visited to *ahem* do his business, for all of 2008? You know, as an appropriate follow-up to Everything I Ate?
I mean, I already have a great title for the sequel: Everywhere I Went.
Whenever I’m playing a game where it’s required that I think of something personal (biggest pet peeve, weirdest quirk/habit, most embarrassing moment, etc.), it is guaranteed that my mind will conveniently blank at that moment. It is also guaranteed that, after I resort to something lame and mediocre, at 2 a.m. that night I’ll suddenly jolt up and realize “I SHOULD HAVE SAID THIS!!!”
And the next time I need that tidbit, I’ll have forgotten again.
Well, I just remembered one thing that bugs me: grammatically incorrect usage of abbreviations. Here are some examples:
1. R.S.V.P. This is the abbreviation for the French Répondez s’il vous plaît, which means “Respond if you please.” So when people write “Please R.S.V.P.,” the “please” is redundant: “Please respond if you please.” The “R.S.V.P.” should stand alone. Either that or…
Correct Usage: “Please R.”
2. M.P.R. Ah, the grade school abbreviation that evokes joy in all students’ hearts, because going to the multi-purpose room means assembly time instead of class! (All students, that is, except for the real nerds.) But people would often say “M.P.R. Room,” which, again redundantly, means “multi-purpose room room!” Blecgh!
Correct Usage: “It’s time to go to the M.P.R.”
3. Un-P.C. If “P.C.” means “Politically Correct,” then the opposite must be “un-P.C.,” right? Wrong! How can something be “Unpolitically Correct”? That’s G.I.! (Grammatically Incorrect.)
.. its not that i cant eat that much, its just that it’s not the healthiest lunch combo.. 
