Sterling’s Truths for Life

Adore God; Cherish and protect family; Serve the brothers and sisters of Christ, regardless of creed; Ready to give charity and aid to everyone, regardless of race or worldview; Above all, pursue Truth, Honor, Grace, and Humility in Love. Be Joyful.
  1. Sterling's Truths for Life #1: My wife is always right.
  2. Sterling's Truths for Life #2: The harder a problem is to track down, the simpler the cause is likely to be.
  3. Sterling's Truths for Life #3: Having too much pizza is better than running out.
  4. Sterling's Truths for Life #4: Whiteboards are awesome.
  5. Sterling's Truths for Life #5: You must read the code.
  6. Sterling's Truths for Life #6: Donuts.
  7. Sterling's Truths for Life #7: When in doubt, nap.
  8. Sterling's Truths for Life #8: If you are comfortable with who God is and what He is doing, you’re doing it wrong.
  9. Sterling's Truths for Life #9: Children are always a blessing. I will say it again: Children. Are. Always. A. Blessing.
  10. Sterling's Truths for Life #10: I am the most humble and truthful person.
  11. Sterling's Truths for Life #11: Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times.
  12. Sterling's Truths for Life #12: Parents are only responsible for their parenting, not for their children’s obedience.
  13. Sterling's Truths for Life #13: Children are only responsible for their obedience, not for their parent’s parenting.
  14. Sterling's Truths for Life #14: There are two classic blunders: (1) Never get involved in a land war in Asia. (2) Never get into an argument with a Sicilian when death is on the line.
  15. Sterling's Truths for Life #15: Giving a government official a big pile of money is almost always a bad idea. Just kidding. It is always a bad idea.
  16. Sterling's Truths for Life #16: Some things cannot be said.
  17. Sterling's Truths for Life #17: The belief in basic human goodness has led to many of the greatest evils in history.
  18. Sterling's Truths for Life #18: Words mean things.
  19. Sterling's Truths for Life #19: He who is easily amused shall never cease to be entertained.
  20. Sterling's Truths for Life #20: Without omniscience, faith is inescapable.
  21. Sterling's Truths for Life #21: Kansas is the best place on earth.
  22. Sterling's Truths for Life #22: Kansas has disassociative personality disorder.
  23. Sterling's Truths for Life #23: The Bible is written for those who believe it.
  24. Sterling's Truths for Life #24: Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.
  25. Sterling's Truths for Life #25: The only way to talk to trolls is to hand them rope and watch what they do with it.
  26. Sterling's Truths for Life #26: Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
  27. Sterling's Truths for Life #27: If you are upset by how unfair life is, just imagine how upset you’d be if it were fair.
  28. Sterling's Truths for Life #28: Some people really want the Bible to say anything other than what it actually says.
  29. Sterling's Truths for Life #29: Never dig straight down.
  30. Sterling's Truths for Life #30: Never do live demos.
  31. Sterling's Truths for Life #31: What do you call a huge publicly-owned monopoly run by greedy, power-hungry shareholders, which can change the rules of the marketplace at will and force consumers to buy at the point of a gun? Democratic government.
  32. Sterling's Truths for Life #32: Patience is a matter of months and years, not hours or days.
  33. Sterling's Truths for Life #33: Love is properly defined as committing to do the best for someone.
  34. Sterling's Truths for Life #34: The literal meaning of “literal” is literally the most abused word in English.
  35. Sterling's Truths for Life #35: It is not an insult to be called “sheep” as long as your shepherd is worthy.
  36. Sterling's Truths for Life #36: Science is merely the practice of reverse engineering the parts of the universe we observe and care about.
  37. Sterling's Truths for Life #37: Sometimes the best way to help someone is to refuse to help.
  38. Sterling's Truths for Life #38: It is unwise to mix myth with truth.
  39. Sterling's Truths for Life #39: Buying a lottery ticket is always a mistake.
  40. Sterling's Truths for Life #40: The system of government matters far less than the character of the people being governed.
  41. Sterling's Truths for Life #41: Marriage is between a man and a woman.
  42. Sterling's Truths for Life #42: Don’t panic.
  43. Sterling's Truths for Life #43: It is better to take risks and live than to be safe and die.
  44. Sterling's Truths for Life #44: You will either be born twice or you will die twice.
  45. Sterling's Truths for Life #45: Short naps are better.
  46. Sterling's Truths for Life #46: Security by obscurity is security in name only.
  47. Sterling's Truths for Life #47: Most people want to appear holy, but only a very few want to be holy.
  48. Sterling's Truths for Life #48: Men and women are different.
  49. Sterling's Truths for Life #49: Like a glass window, a law broken is broken forever.
  50. Sterling's Truths for Life #50: America is a nation full of people who do not like being told what to do and how to live, but insist on telling other people what to do and how to live.
  51. Sterling's Truths for Life #51: Evil will always win because good is dumb.
  52. Sterling's Truths for Life #52: There are no secrets or codes in the Bible.
  53. Sterling's Truths for Life #53: Liberty is not liberty unless you are free to do things that are unpopular, stupid, and offensive to others.
  54. Sterling's Truths for Life #54: “Don’t judge me” implies “I can judge you.”
  55. Sterling's Truths for Life #55: The difference between a good administrator and a bad one is about 5 seconds.
  56. Sterling's Truths for Life #56: Unions, factions, and parties exist to bully power out of the hands of individuals.
  57. Sterling's Truths for Life #58: Even the worst tyrants must do some temporal good.
  58. Sterling's Truths for Life #59: Job teaches us that God does whatever he wants, but also that seemingly good friends may be worse than useless in a crisis.
  59. Sterling's Truths for Life #60: If it isn’t broken, it doesn’t have enough features yet.
  60. Sterling's Truths for Life #61: In software, common tasks should be easy. Everything else should be harder.
  61. Sterling's Truths for Life #62: People like statistics that confirm their bias and ignore everything else.
  62. Sterling's Truths for Life #63: No matter how cold it gets, you can always have fun.
  63. Sterling's Truths for Life #64: Science does not happen until after assumptions are made regarding the nature of knowledge and being.
  64. Sterling's Truths for Life #65: All non-trivial software programs contain at least one bug.
  65. Sterling's Truths for Life #66: Law defines what failure is.
  66. Sterling's Truths for Life #67: Sometimes the best way to cope with a frustrating situation is to write a horrible letter explaining your problem to the responsible person in detail... and then destroy it.
  67. Sterling's Truths for Life #68: There is a difference between liberty and license.
  68. Sterling's Truths for Life #69: Early to bed and early to rise makes a man stupid and blind in the eyes.
  69. Sterling's Truths for Life #70: Whenever Kansas makes headlines, you can expect Kansas expatriates who “love Kansas” to be the first and loudest critics of Kansas.
  70. Sterling's Truths for Life #71: Never comfort someone by offering advice or saying “I understand.”
  71. Sterling's Truths for Life #72: Always keep two calendars: one online and one manual.
  72. Sterling's Truths for Life #73: Committees fail when focused on implementation and succeed when focused on direction and assigning responsibility.
  73. Sterling's Truths for Life #74: No cats.
  74. Sterling's Truths for Life #75: If your code is unreadable, what makes you think your comments will be more helpful?
  75. Sterling's Truths for Life #76: Only a false gospel can be completely explained in a few minutes.
  76. Sterling's Truths for Life #77: Just because an action is wrong does not mean there should be a law against.
  77. Sterling's Truths for Life #78: Disciplined children start with disciplined adults.
  78. Sterling's Truths for Life #79: People do strange things to show they care.
  79. Sterling's Truths for Life #80: Everyone gets their day in court.
  80. Sterling's Truths for Life #81: Don’t make me participate in your stupid crap if you don’t like the way I do it.
  81. Sterling's Truths for Life #82: Babies do not sleep like a baby.
  82. Sterling's Truths for Life #83: The wealthiest individuals and largest companies are the ones most able to shrug off regulations and taxes.
  83. Sterling's Truths for Life #84: Public schools are not a sacrament.
  84. Sterling's Truths for Life #85: The weakest link in any security system is always people.
  85. Sterling's Truths for Life #86: Publishing negative things about others is poor taste. Publishing negative things about your employer is stupid.
  86. Sterling's Truths for Life #87: “Invalid” is the word most abused by engineers when something is incorrect.
  87. Sterling's Truths for Life #88: Computer simulations and reality are never equal and rarely even very similar.
  88. Sterling's Truths for Life #89: The more petty a user interface or user experience improvement is to an application, the more the users will appreciate it.
  89. Sterling's Truths for Life #90: If you go online to complain about being too poor, you are not nearly so poor as you think you are.
  90. Sterling's Truths for Life #91: Speed limits are a money-making scam.
  91. Sterling's Truths for Life #92: Be careful what you say. Sometimes people will listen.
  92. Sterling's Truths for Life #93: God does not make mistakes nor is He trying to confuse you.
  93. Sterling's Truths for Life #94: The proper amount of consent before engaging in sexual congress with another person is, “I do.”
  94. Sterling's Truths for Life #95: Parents are obsessed with the poop of their kids.
  95. Sterling's Truths for Life #96: If you find yourself in awe, you are engaged in worship.
  96. Sterling's Truths for Life #97: Friendship is not something others give to you, but something you give to others.
  97. Sterling's Truths for Life #98: Pretending a doll is watching your kids and checking up on them is a good plot for a horror movie, not good real-life parenting.
  98. Sterling's Truths for Life #99: “God is leading me to...” is a phrase that is almost always followed by bad theology.
  99. Sterling's Truths for Life #100: When someone asks an impertinent question, you should respond with an impertinent answer or nothing.
  100. Sterling's Truths for Life #101: Never read comments on the Internet.
  101. Sterling's Truths for Life #102: If we each spent more time feeling sympathy for one another rather than giving advice, we’d be better, happier people.
  102. Sterling's Truths for Life #103: Repartee is that which you think of hours after you need it.
  103. Sterling's Truths for Life #104: If someone says they are joking, how do you know they are being serious? If someone says they are serious, how do you know they aren’t joking?
  104. Sterling's Truths for Life #105: No organization is a monolith.
  105. Sterling's Truths for Life #107: Invention and discovery are not inevitable consequences of human existence.
  106. Sterling's Truths for Life #108: The first implementation is always wrong.
  107. Sterling's Truths for Life #109: We are all going to die.
  108. Sterling's Truths for Life #110: Multiverse Theory is not science.
  109. Sterling's Truths for Life #111: There are fewer people who correctly know how to use “fewer” and “less” all the time.
  110. Sterling's Truths for Life #112: Forgiveness does not guarantee the restoration of trust.
  111. Sterling's Truths for Life #113: Do not carry your cross alone, even Jesus had help.
  112. Sterling's Truths for Life #114: If an engineer tells you something is the worst ever, what he really means is that it is pretty good, but needs some work.
  113. Sterling's Truths for Life #115: In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice they are not.
  114. Sterling's Truths for Life #116: Knee-jerk reactions to current events might score political points, but make for terrible policies.
  115. Sterling's Truths for Life #117: All technology is magic.
  116. Sterling's Truths for Life #119: If you must choose between being nice and being honest, err on the side of honesty.
  117. Sterling's Truths for Life #120: Admiration is a virtue, pride is a vice.
  118. Sterling's Truths for Life #121: Witnessing is good. Proselytizing is bad. Very few people discern between these.
  119. Sterling's Truths for Life #122: There is no unconscious bias, only hypocrisy.
  120. Sterling's Truths for Life #123: If you want to prevent crime, change your culture, not your laws.
  121. Sterling's Truths for Life #124: Never write code in a module containing “util” in the name.
  122. Sterling's Truths for Life #125: True peace comes from focusing on eternity.
  123. Sterling's Truths for Life #126: Code written by me more than 6 weeks ago might as well have been written by someone else.
  124. Sterling's Truths for Life #127: There's no magic formula to parenting.
  125. Sterling's Truths for Life #128: Theology is everything.
  126. Sterling's Truths for Life #129: The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.
  127. Sterling's Truths for Life #130: Some words lose their meaning if you use them.
  128. Sterling's Truths for Life #131: Allow your boss take credit for your ideas, but when you're the boss, give your subordinates credit for your own ideas.
  129. Sterling's Truths for Life #132: Never be surprised when someone has a serious problem, does not know what to do, asks for advice, and then ignores you because you did not confirm whatever preconceived tomfoolery they hoped to hear.
  130. Sterling's Truths for Life #133: Celebrate people while they live. Mourn them when they pass away.
  131. Sterling's Truths for Life #134: If you want to be good at something, you must enjoy being bad at it first.
  132. Sterling's Truths for Life #135: That which a person will not permit to be mocked is sacred to that person.
  133. Sterling's Truths for Life #136: All engineering problems are people problems.
  134. Sterling's Truths for Life #137: People can be trash at something, but cannot be trash themselves.
  135. Sterling's Truths for Life #138: Men usually solve their problems by trial and error, but mostly error.

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Copyright © 2016 Sterling Hanenkamp.