Text Treatise: Thinking Big, Space Fantasies, and Groping for Infinity

Try to keep up :)

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I've tried to create super-hyper-operators**(see attribution at bottom of article)** to express numbers so large that they're meaningless in this universe, even as expressions of mass, information, energy, power, time, probability, volume etc. 

The  idea is  twofold: 1) to help me fantasize more scientifically accurately aabout imaginary alternate universes and 2) to help me appreciate how big infinity really is.  

You know that 10^10 is 1 with 10 zeroes after it. 10^10,000 would be 1 with 10,000 zeroes after it. 10^100 is known as a Googol. 10^10^100 is 1 with a Googol of zeroes after it, known as a Googolplex. In comparison, 10^10,000 is 10^10^4, so a googolplex would be 10^10^96 times greater. That's assuming that you add the second exponent if you multiply, I'm not sure if you would have to exponentify the numerator to multiply the exponent so as to add the second exponent. Which just shows you even more, how massive the number is.  

But then I tried inventing a new system for showing even larger numbers. 

The next thing I tried to do was create a symbol to represent the next level of hyper operation. I used an up arrow but the keypad doesn't have that. 10x10=10^2. 10x10x10=10^3, and so on, we all know. 10^10=10,000,000,000. 10^10^10= 10^10,000,000,000. A massive number. 1 followed by ten billion zeroes. In contrast, a googol is 1 followed by 100 zeroes. But 1 followed by 10^10 zeroes is still nothing compared to 1 followed by 10^100 zeroes, which is a googolplex. 

Now, 10^10=10>2. 10^10^10 = 10>3. 10^10^10^10 = 10>4.  10>2^2 is a googol (10^100, 10^10^2) and 10>3^2 is a googolplex (10^10^100, 10^10^10^2)

So my next big numeral to invent was 10>100 (or 10>(10^2), not to be confused with 10>10^2. The latter would have 10 "^"s with the 11th position being a ^2; the former would have 100 "^s" -- I'm doing my best to stay consistent with established mathematical symbolism). 

If I wrote 10>10>10 that would not be 10>1 followed by 10 zeroes (10>(10^10) would be that), it would be 10>10 raised to the tenth power successively 10 times, or 10 to the googolplex to the googolplex to the googolplex. MASSIVE, MASSIVE NUMBERS.   And then I pretended that I could comprehend the size of a universe where the average planet was 10>100 km in radius, supposed that I couldn't go any higher, and went to bed mentally exhausted. 

"Christ-Mass" Thoughts from Spurgeon

Emphasis in the original for the first paragraph. Other emphases added to show my points of greatest agreement.

"We have no superstitious regard for times and seasons. Certainly we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas. First, because we do not believe in the mass at all, but abhor it, whether it be sung in Latin or in English; and secondly, because we find no Scriptural warrant whatever for observing any day as the birthday of the Savior; and consequently, its observance is a superstition, because not of divine authority. Superstition has fixed most positively the day of our Savior's birth, although there is no possibility of discovering when it occurred. ... It was not till the middle of the third century that any part of the church celebrated the nativity of our Lord; and it was not till very long after the Western church had set the example, that the Eastern adopted it. ... Probably the fact is that the "holy" days were arranged to fit in with the heathen festivals. We venture to assert, that if there be any day in the year, of which we may be pretty sure that it was not the day on which the Savior was born, it is the twenty-fifth of December.

Nevertheless since, the current of men's thoughts is led this way just now, and I see no evil in the current itself, I shall launch the bark of our discourse upon that stream, and make use of the fact, which I shall neither justify nor condemn, by endeavoring to lead your thoughts in the same direction. Since it is lawful, and even laudable, to meditate upon the incarnation of the Lord upon any day in the year, it cannot be in the power of other men's superstitions to render such a meditation improper for to-day. Regarding not the day, let us, nevertheless, give God thanks for the gift of His dear Son."

"Joy Born at Bethlehem," December 24, 1871

THIS is the season of the year when, whether we wish it or not, we are compelled to think of the birth of Christ. I hold it to be one of the greatest absurdities under heaven to think that there is any religion in keeping Christmas-day. There are no probabilities whatever that our Savior Jesus Christ was born on that day and the observance of it is purely of Popish origin; doubtless those who are Catholics have a right to hallow it, but I do not see how consistent Protestants can account it in the least sacred. However, I wish there were ten or a dozen Christmas-days in the year; for there is work enough in the world, and a little more rest would not hurt laboring people. Christmas-day is really a boon to us, particularly as it enables us to assemble round the family hearth and meet our friends once more. Still, although we do not fall exactly in the track of other people, I see no harm in thinking of the incarnation and birth of the Lord Jesus. 

"The Incarnation and Birth of Christ," December 1855

So what's the final point? That there's no reason I see to participate in a cultural mandate, except to capitalize on the fact that other people are more (superstitiously, as Spurgeon put it) receptive to hearing messages about Christ on this day and in this season than in others throughout the year,

...and do what? Preach the Gospel, of course. There's no greater way to spend any day no matter what time of year it is, this side of eternity. There is no purpose in marking this one day as an auspicious holiday for my family, since to me EVERY day is a celebration of Christ's redeeming work on the Cross, His human birth being an incidental necessity to that end, and EVERY day is a day worthy of spending meditating on His goodness and how to serve Him better. The purpose of Christmas, then, as with Pearl Harbor Day, 9-11, 4th of July, Halloween, Valentine's Day, and any other day of celebration or tragedy, is in its utility in reaching people through the avenue of a subject that their minds will by custom and tradition be conditioned to thinking about, more then than at any other time.

The idea that Christ should be celebrated on only ONE day of the year is an abominable absurdity. In a theological sense, I abhor the whole concept of the "present economic arrangement called Christmas." But that doesn't mean I don't find some redeeming value in the fact of its existence. The great expository preaching I've heard on the radio this week is a testament to Spurgeon's insight in the second and third paragraph quoted.

~ Rak Chazak

Movie Reviews: Guardians of the Galaxy, Catching Fire, 47 Ronin, and More…

Redbox has become a middle road between the convenience of Netflix and the tangibility of what once was Blockbuster. Do you remember Blockbuster? It was a movie library, where you could go and peruse the classics on the shelves as well as pick up the new releases advertised around the wall. This was how I saw Terminator as late as 2008. But the internet era killed Blockbuster. The prices for rentals and the 7-day return was a relic of a pre-internet era. I mean, most of the movies were in VHS format! After this, my family finally joined the 21^st century and got ourselves a DVD player. Now a new contender has popped up, taking advantage of the ease of storage of DVDs and securing a reliable business model with one-day rental, allowing the prices to be low, ensuring customer loyalty. Redbox has become an overnight hit and I see them everywhere. There are at least five that I’m aware of in my town, at gas stations and supermarkets, but there are probably several more, and we’ve definitely taken up the habit of bringing home a movie in the evening some days and returning it the next morning after watching it. The calculus is too appealing to forgo: I can go to the movies and pay $8 for a ticket, $13 for 3D, and double that price if I’m paying for another person because I’m treating them. Compare this to the $1.20 price (increased once, so far, after starting at a flat rate of $1) of any DVD at Redbox. I can watch every single blockbuster of a single year for the price of taking me and one other person to the movies. This leaves plenty of room for snacks, not to mention that I can choose when to watch it, which is a convenience not afforded by small theaters, and it offers the opportunity to watch a broader range of movies than I might otherwise bother to go to theaters for. I would suspect that Redbox has therefore been a boon to independent films, and films that don’t get wide releases or make it to the aforementioned small theaters. In summary: all but one of the following I have watched on a Redbox rental, the sole exception being Guardians of the Galaxy, which we had to stay up til 9:30 for the latest showing, getting out around midnight, all just to avoid giving 3D a chance to ruin it for us. I don’t need 3D gimmicks to tell me that Object X is in front of Object Y. My eyes’ depth perception works just fine with a flat image, and the 3D glasses make the picture less sharp, which is my biggest irritation with it. A useless gimmick is one thing, but for it to reduce the picture quality? Why am I paying more for this, again?!

On to the reviews!

I determined that I could group some of the observations I made from these into different categories. Seeing everything through a lens of Christian theology is making me pick up on intriguing themes, whether intentional or unintentional as far as the director/producers are concerned. Some of the movies have little applicable themes, like Lone Survivor, which since it was made to be an accurate retelling doesn’t try to go outside of its realm, artistically speaking. The Last Days on Mars is another example of one without any sort of Christian parallels, seeing as it was (to my surprise) a good old-fashioned space zombies horror thriller. I’m honest with this and if I don’t pick up on something that I consider poignant, I won’t try to pigeonhole a movie to mean something it doesn’t. Yet, several of the movies were fascinating in this regard. Others were just good because they didn’t have “unnecessary gratuitous boobies” or suchlike.

There will be some spoilers.
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Something to Weep About

From Ken Ham's blog:

The attack on CEF has included all sorts of wild accusations, such as claims that CEF’s message is psychologically harmful to children. Apparently, this charge stems from telling children that they are sinners in need of salvation.

In recent times secularists are increasingly accusing biblical creationists of “child abuse” for teaching creation to children. Now they are going a step further to show their real intolerance is of Christianity in general. The secularists are directly targeting those who teach the gospel message, which includes telling children that they are sinners. I have said for years that the devil has deliberately targeted the book of Genesis, the foundational book of the Bible, because, if he targeted the Cross, the church would quickly respond and defend the gospel of Jesus Christ. But due to the decreasing spiritual state of this nation and increasing intolerance of Christianity, the attacks are becoming more overt against Christianity, and are on the increase.

In a post from earlier in the week, he reviews a new film called Persecuted:

The film ends with the possibility that there could come a time when Christians won’t be able at all to speak their minds. In a film that I recorded in the 1980s, The Genesis Solution, I stated that America was turning its back on the authority of the Bible and hinted that aspects of Christian teaching might be outlawed in the public arena. Recorded in 1986, the film even mentioned that gay rights might be forced on the culture and that the sanctity of marriage would be increasingly ignored as the nation rejected God’s Word. I was mocked by some church leaders at the time for making such suggestions, but I wonder what these leaders might be thinking now almost thirty years later as they see secularists taking over America with their own anti-God religion?

Secular movie reviewers will probably attack the filmmakers of Persecuted for paranoia concerning the government and its dealings with the church. But for Christians who have been following the state of the nation over the decades, this political thriller’s theme of a growing anti-Christian intolerance in America is not that far-fetched.

I think his observations speak for themselves. I can't add much of value to this without rambling.

~ Rak Chazak

Turnip Day

Texted Friday, May 30, 2014

Learned a new phrase today. Or rather, learned that yet another innocuous phrase has now been co-opted by the low-class culture to mean something lewd. “Turn up” in dictionary terms means to show up somewhere, or if it has an object [“turn up the ___”], means to raise volume or other thing that can be amplified. In Ebonics, apparently, “turn up” is a code word for “drink or smoke or do some form of drug to the point of blackout, illness or unconsciousness.” Not that anyone who uses that word in that way would talk like that to define it, mind you… When I asked two girls who called tomorrow “turnup day” what they meant by “turnip day,” they asked “do you go to church?” Apparently they recognized that people who give any sort of heed to a morality of temperance would not be the sort of people to “turn up.” They reeked of beer, or weed, whichever.

I know what I'm talking about:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/turn+up
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Turn+Up

~ Rak Chazak

"60s Girl Grooves" on PBS

I've admitted before that I only have broadcast television at home. This means that I sometimes get to see interesting things that I didn't know about because I don't have a choice in the matter. If you have the freedom to choose to do whatever you want, you may choose to refuse to do some things on the basis of not knowing that you would actually like to do them. So not having total freedom of choice can be a good thing, sometimes.

In this particular case, I tuned in to PBS and saw that they were advertising a series of music videos and tracks of hit songs by girl bands from the 60s. The title to this post gives the name of the program. I myself am a stalwart 80s person when it comes to the style of music I like (not necessarily the lyrics...you'd be surprised how many of them talk about sex, euphemistically, if you haven't stopped to think about it before). Nevertheless, I recognized quite a few of the songs I heard. But what I was most intrigued by was not the music, but the women themselves. And not in the way you might expect of a guy in his 20s.

I was shocked by how they were dressed. Having not lived through the '60s, I've often heard about how the '60s was the decade of the Sexual Revolution, when modesty was thrown out the window. If you've heard of Hippies, this is the heyday of when they roamed the earth. Anyhoo, what I hadn't realized was that if modesty was lost in the 60s, then it must have been had, initially, in order to be lost. So in the early part of the 60s, you should expect to see evidence of modesty rather than immodesty. This is what I saw in the music videos.

Allow me to emphasize this observation: almost all of the videos shown on the broadcast depicted the performers covered from ankle, to wrist, to neck, with no skin showing in between. Only one had shorts that ended above the knee, and even she had a one-piece getup that covered her arms to the elbows. The "most undressed" of all were the ladies who had their arms uncovered:

Look at that! How scandalous.

Above are the Supremes. One might imagine when hearing the name of their hit, "Heatwave," that one should see bikinis and dancing on a beach. Nope. I couldn't find any still shots on line, but they were dressed ankle-to-wrist in whatever-they-call-those-things. I was stunned. 

Beyond the get-ups, their motions as they performed were extremely restrained by comparison to musical mainstream artists today. Again the 'guilty party' were the Supremes, who moved around the most on stage of all the artists that were featured. Guess what they were doing? Swaying their hips. Oh man. Yes, most of the artists stood still and maybe turned side to side or snapped their fingers with the beat. It was SO WEIRD, coming from a world where I've been able to see the dance moves of pop stars on television and on Youtube, which by and large utilize armies of sex-specific (depending on the performer's sex, that is..it's the opposite in the) backup dancers, elaborate sequences of choreographed steps and typically even a striptease or hip-thrusts that would put Elvis-the-pelvis-Presley to shame...or is that, 'to dignity?'

I ate it up. It was fascinating.

The 60s was only 40 or 50 years ago, depending on which end of it you're counting from. When you see what a difference that period makes in a culture's sense of acceptable attire--and stage performance behavior--it can make you wonder, what will the next 40 years look like? Will things become even more licentious? Or are we going to experience a bounce-back? A rebellion against the rebellion to the old culture, which has become the new culture? One hopes. Call me crazy, but I think I enjoy the type of artistic atmosphere that promotes female talent based on their musical skills and not their willingness to behave in shocking ways in order to "please" a crowd. 

I've always thought t-shirts and shorts looked better than string bikinis, anyway.

~ Rak Chazak

This MeTV Stuff is Way Better than Modern Sit-Coms

A few years ago, the regional channel 45-2 began broadcasting vintage movies. The channel is called "This," and its catchphrase is "I love this," or "this is great," etc etc which is fun. Just recently, however, I noticed that channel 11-2, perhaps noticing the popularity of vintage television, decided to jump on the bandwagon, but from a different angle. Rather than show old movies, "Me" (catchphrase "watch me," etc) is airing antique classic television shows. I have to be honest: it's refreshing to watch.

I've hardly watched much of that channel at all, but when I have, it's been a breath of fresh air by comparison to modern sitcoms. It's as if the scenarios keep getting more and more ridiculous in what passes for entertainment today. What little I've seen of these shows:
Two and a Half Men
Two Broke Girls
Friends
Modern Family
Malcolm in the Middle
The Middle
Everybody Loves Raymond
The King of Queens
Rules of Engagement
How I Met Your Mother
Modern Family
Mike and Molly
ETC
gives me the prevailing impression that nothing in the script relates to me at all. I can get the jokes and stuff, but it's just so absurd. And while not all of the above attempt to be as depraved as possible, some do, and it makes you wonder why they go through the effort. It's as if shock value is the new standard by which to produce entertainment television. It seems as though producers determined to take the Jerry Springer show and turn it into a scripted drama.

Allow me to draw on a few episodal themes from the above selection which DO NOT APPEAR in older shows like the ones shown on MeTV, or even the Cosby Show, for cryin' out loud.

* a child younger than 5 cussing because she learned it from her parents
* a 30-something adolescent, upon seeing his personal assistant's Skype window open (the assistant was talking to his sister), tells the girl to take her top off, assuming that she was a privately employed "cam-girl" porn actress who engages in cyber sex for money. Worse: she then goes on a date with him.
* the leading man's wife leaves or threatens to leave him because of his incompetence
* one of the main characters urinates on herself in public
* the mother of one of the characters gives a man a heart attack, of which he dies, while having sex
* one of the characters new housemates has sex with the other's mother within hours of meeting her.
* it goes on and on and on

I'm supposed to laugh at this? The fact that this is being marketed toward my age group (mid-twenties, for example most of the "Friends"-esque sitcoms feature a group of 5-8 guys and girls in a city who get into shenanigans) really bothers me. Consequently, now that I have seen just one episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show and the Mary Tyler Moore Show, I want to see more. Allow me to give a synopsis:

In the Dick Van Dyke episode I watched, Dick and his wife go to a hotel somewhere for their anniversary. His wife goes to the bathroom to freshen up and Dick waits outside. The main plot device around which the episode revolved was that Mrs. Dyke got her toe stuck in the faucet of the bathtub while the door was locked. Wow, no gratuitous sexual references or cursing or scatological humor? Not one in the episode! 

In the Mary Tyler Moore episode I just saw yesterday, Mary's friend Rhonda's mother comes to visit and the latter wants to be friends with her daughter rather than just be her mother, since she doesn't like the relationship she has with her daughter. Too much knocking heads, basically. The episode concludes with Rhonda deciding that she wants her mother to be her mother again. The closest thing to a sexual reference is Mary telling Rhonda's mom that "I don't think people do that anymore," with reference to Parking (if you don't know what that means, ask someone who lived through the 60s and 70s, or better yet, just watch Grease); and later, when Rhonda comes home, she expresses her disdain over her date's behavior and Rhonda's mother goes out the door with a look of purpose to give him a stern talking-to.

By far, I enjoy these antique shows much more than what comes on tv nowadays. The stark differences between the shows of the 50s-70s and the sitcoms of the 90s and 00s goes to show you how rapidly a culture can change, and with it its appetite. Hopefully, if enough people tune in to This and Me, broadcasters will get the hint and increase the offering, so that our cultural entertainment can turn back just as quickly. Maybe I'll be able to watch t.v. again.


~ Rak Chazak

Pants Adjustment

Today I saw something I rarely see.

It was in the 80s today, temperature-wise. Today happened to mark the first day of the year when I actually felt uncomfortable, at times, due to the heat -- or more accurately, the sun bearing down on my head. Many people were wearing shorts; however, due to the unexpectedly abrupt increase in the warmth, a great many, myself included, still had on long pants. I did decide to wear a t-shirt, before I knew how warm it was outside. Lucky guess.

As I was walking on campus, I passed by a number of students who were taking advantage of the balmy conditions and were hanging around on the grass. In one small group, a girl was standing on the outside of it. Presumably thinking she was discrete, with no one nearby behind her to notice, she engaged in some pretty obvious pushing, pulling, tucking etc of her shorts from the back side.

It interested me, not out of any perverted interest, but because such "adjustment" is not something you see girls do often. They're far more discreet than guys, who will often jostle themselves in quite public places because frankly, fixing the discomfort takes precedence over being 'socially correct.'

It caused me to think of this image:

Which I think captures the cultural context -- because girls are so much...shall we say, "better behaved?" than guys, it's given many of us the impression that some bodily functions simply don't occur in that gender. When was the last time you ever caught a girl in the act of farting? (On rare occasion you might see one belch) But us guys even make jokes to the extent of intentionally farting on each other. Not that this is wrong, or anything. It simply reveals a different attitude towards bodily functions. By and large, guys think they're funny. Now, we know females have the same basic physical needs that we males do...at least in theory...and that's why it's a joke. It's also a joke because those who live in our society know exactly what it's referring to. The mystery of how women manage to cultivate an appearance, in the eyes of men, of being superior physical beings not afflicted with yucky stuff like farts and poop, which have the potential to be turn-offs.

For this reason, I viewed the girl I saw tugging on her pants in about the same way that a bird-watcher might react to an uncommon species of bird -- as a rarity that few people ever encounter. It made me chuckle.

~ Rak Chazak