Category: Life hacks

Your age by dinner math

Got this from an e-mail… it’s a cool trick, but it’s basically just a simple math problem.

It takes less than a minute.
Work this out as you read.
Be sure you don’t read the bottom until you’ve worked it out.
This is not one of those waste of time things, it’s fun.

1. First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like to
go out to eat. (More than once but less than 10) or you can just pick any number between 1 and 9
2. Multiply this number by 2 (just to be bold). or to make the problem work 😉
3. Add 5.
4. Multiply it by 50.
5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1757. If you haven’t, add 1756.
6. Now subtract the four digit year that you were born.

You should have a three digit number.
The first digit of this was your original number (How many times you want to go out to restaurants in a week (or the random number you picked.)

The next two numbers are:
YOUR AGE (oh yes, it is!).

THIS IS THE ONLY YEAR (2007) IT WILL EVER WORK, SO SPREAD IT AROUND!

Top 10 portrait tips

Erin Manning is a professional photographer and has recently put together a nice little video that will help all of us amateurs take better portraits. A great watch especially right before the holidays. The video doubles as an add for her new book, but it’s not too annoying and the tips are worth it.

Hat tip to Dumb Little Man

Alternative fueled cars not a new idea

While electric fueled and bio-diesel vehicles sound like a new technology, it’s really nothing new.
From NPR:

The desire to build vehicles that run on alternative power is nothing new. An exhibit on early hybrid, solar, and even atomic vehicles sheds light on the challenges of innovation.

Listen to the full story, including information on the alternative fuel museum.
The story suggests that the next great alternative fuel source to come down the pike may come from a 17 year old in his garage rather than one of Detroit’s big 3.

Why We Remember, Why We Forget

While waiting at CarMax yesterday to get my truck appraised I picked up a copy of National Geographic and read half of an article on memory and why we remember or forget certain things. It was a great read (at least what I got through reading) and I wish I could have finished it. But luckily KERA’s Think talked with the National Geographic author Joshua Foer about the story and I can play catch up online. From the program:

What makes memory possible and why do we forget the things that we forget? We’ll explore the realm of memory this hour with Joshua Foer, whose cover story “Remember This” appears in the November, 2007 issue of National Geographic Magazine.

Listen online

No slackers this Thanksgiving

From Lifehacker:

Chow.com is building a guide to a “Neoslacker Interactive Thanksgiving,” offering links to email your guests a not-too-hard recipe and shopping list for a dish to bring over. The feature also sports some helpful tips on turkeys, wine pairings, and centerpieces, along with funny/useful holiday hacks like “How to eat more” and “How to keep people out of the kitchen.”

Laurie and I also just found The Pioneer Woman Cooks (thanks to Brandi) and she has lots of easy to follow Thanksgiving recipes posted on her sight as well.

New leadership podcast

Just found the Threadsmedia Leadership Podcast from Lifeway.
Very good stuff.

Training Tip 5 talks about teaching people with various learning styles. This is a great listen for anyone who leads anyone anywhere.

“Engage every learning style… Engage as many learning styles as possible.”

Some may learn better by listening and taking notes, others may do better with music, others may do better making art or doing something with their hands. I’m sure my mom could give some great examples of this.

“Culture never informs Scripture but Scripture informs culture.”

“The type of question you ask in your small group could engage learning styles or disengage learning styles.”

What if you walked in to small group and a pile of pipe cleaners were lying in front of you and the leader said, “The one thing I need from God this week is… Answer it with a pipe cleaner.”

What if we thought about our small groups/church like the game Cranium? Engage the whole brain.

“A small group leader who understands the concepts behind Cranium, that’s a great small group leader.”