Life Signs and Lelouch vi Britannia

Have you ever just seen signs point to something that you know can't be true? Things that seem to be from God and yet that can't seem to be the case. So much in my life and the lives of others seems to reflect this. What happens when two people seem to get contradicting signs from God? Is one from God and the other not? Do we simply see signs for things we desperately want? What about the times its things we don't want?

Life is full of such marvelous complexity. I apologize for the deepness, I'm riding an emotional high right now due to several things. The only one I will say of is an Anime called Code Geass. It's possibly the best one I have ever seen, and its ending is second to none. Be warned tho, this Anime is painfully sad. Even if you've never watched Anime before you should watch it.

Personal Review

Every now and then its good to evaluate ones self and consider good qualities, and bad qualities. Well at least I think so, I try to do this a few times a year. The question is what are good qualities about me, and what are not so good qualities about me? Then of the not so good ones, what ones are worth working on, and what ones are best left alone until a later point in time? Basically the flaws that are worth working on are the ones that hurt other people obviously, and the ones that bother me the most. Oh and whatever convictions the holy spirit throws my way, those are important too :). I won't get into my good qualities, but some of my bad qualities are random anger bursts (these most people never see but still are not good), impatience towards certain topics/certain people, and the fact I never communicate myself clearly.

So often people think I'm trying to argue with them when I'm simply trying to understand. It happens often enough that people think I like to argue, when the reality is whenever I have an actual argument I spend a couple of days kinda despairing over it. Honestly most of the time, if I'm wrong I just like to know why and people never seem to understand that about me. This comes from the fact I communicate and think differently than most people or so I think anyway.

Comments?

Logical Fallacies

So, I'm a computer engineer and therefore logic is pretty much the backbone of my career path. I'm fascinated by all sorts of logic puzzles, and the nature of logic in general. Logical Fallacies are also of interest. Wikipedia defines Fallacies as: "A fallacy is a component of an argument which, being demonstrably flawed in its logic or form, renders the argument invalid in whole. " There are many kinds of logical fallacies. For instance because someone is true for one element in a set, does not imply it is true for everything in a set. There are many such fallacies, many of which appear in arguments so subtly we never see them. Below is one of many math proofs which proves 2 = 1. Obviously this is not true, so where does the proof go wrong?

Assume a = b and neither a nor b are zero.

1. ab = ab Therefore
2. a^2 = ab Subtract b^2 from both side
3. a^2 - b^2 = ab - b^2 Factor out both sides
4. (a-b)(a+b)=b(a-b) Now divide (a-b) out of both sides
   
5. a+b = b Since a = b
   
6. b+b = b
   
7. 2b = b
8. 2 = 1

Can see you where the proof went wrong?

Also, I'm still looking for a job! o.O

Life is discouraging

Well, I had a rather terrible day on Thursday. I did not get the job I was hoping for, I had a horrible homework assignment, lost five hours of work on senior design on top of numerous other smaller but very irritating situations and a couple other bigger issues. However I spent the evening with friends, first at my Senior Design partner Jake's apartment, then at my own and Nicky came by to cheer me up. While it seems like I do not have that many true friends I have a few close real friends. My dad also gave me a nice pep talk cause my dad is awesome. It's good to remember you have people who love you after epically bad days.

Still life has been very discouraging to me lately, while there is some good I just seem to see so much bad. So many things I want, some selfish some not and yet I never seem to get anything I really want. It's been years since I ever had anything significantly good that I wanted come to me now. Don't get me wrong there have been plenty of small blessings scattered throughout that time but those big things we want and pursue that make life worth living, I never seem to get them. For instance this job I wanted, the fact I didn't get it seems to imply I can't get any job at all in my field. Also many friends and family of mine are not saved and it really makes me sad. I still seem to lack that whole evangelism talent as well so I'm not actually helping that cause much if at all, I'm probably hurting it.

Naturally life has periods of down time like this, but God lifts all his children up and one day I will be lifted up. Until then just gotta have faith, none the less it's good to vent a little.

Index = 0

This blog is basically an experiment. This might end up being something special that I enjoy, invest a lot of time in and watch something unique grow. It might never be updated again and thus a complete waste of time.

I started this blog because I read a very convicting blog entry of my friend Molly's, whose blog I had basically only glanced at before. I'll leave out the specifics, but we're always sinning and I've been sinning in many ways for a long time that should change. I'm not acting the way I should be, not thinking the way I should be and not praying the way I should be. That should change and by writing my thoughts out I hope to organize them better. I hope to discuss a wide variety of issues, some personal, some spiritual some related to very awesome bits of technology.

I chose the name Exclusive Or for two reasons. It's a basic building block of digital circuits as well as a fundamental logic expression in many areas that involve logical thinking such as math. Do you know the old joke, where if someone asks you are you a girl or a boy and you reply yes. This makes sense because you are either a girl or you are a boy. Exclusive or of this situation would mean, are you a boy and not a girl, or a girl and not a boy? Essentially it means mutually exclusive. This brings me to the second reason for this blog, which is that often things are or appear to be mutually exclusive in life.

After all to follow God I must not be of this world, yet how do I separate myself from it? I'm stuck here physically until either Jesus returns or I die. It seems I inevitably fall into worldly ways. My life seems to be full of these things. Thus it seems like an appropriate name for a blog.