AND THE LACK THEREOF*

*we put the "mmm" in communism

about

This is the personal blog of Tim. Here, Tim writes on anything he has enough inspiration to finish a post on. That usually ends up being matters of science, pop culture, technology, religion, and philosophy.

This blog is around nine years old, which is over a third of Tim's current age. Back in 2003, it was called "Of Tim: Tim's life - or lack thereof", and it was as bad as you might expect the blog of a freshman in high school to be. Tim hopes that his writing is a little better, these days.

Tim welcomes any input that you, the dear reader, might have. Comments are very much appreciated, especially if you have a dissenting opinion. If you'd like to learn more about Tim, you might want to see his facebook or google+.

Also: Tim is a very avid consumer of various sorts of music. You may be interested in his playlists!

"Back, in a Color Roughly Akin to Black"
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By the time this post is done, the DNS address should have resolved, and the blog will be back online. Not that any of you will notice. You all deserve many apologies from myself for having ignored all of you and stood on the sideline in a dark-colored pancho daydreaming. Metaphorically speaking. I am, however, back, and in a good mood, with loud music again, and with good speakers. First on the list: landmarks in geekdom.

Suspended Animation: 1, 2, 3, 4 (watch this one, very funny).

Intel sued by AMD: 1, 2.

American (IT) Economy Sucks, the EU sucks: 1, 2, 3.

Anyways, I've been at Daniel's house since the 17th. I was there a total of 11 days, which, when you think about spending time with any one group of people, is a long time. It was overall pretty fun, I spent a lot of time helping out at Daniel's church (which, I maintain, is identical to mine). Ben got me convinced to get Star Wars Galaxies after watching him play and learning the level system. I had been set on Guild Wars, but I then learned the level limit is 20, which kind of defeats the fun I hope for in these games. I didn't do much at Daniel's house in particular beyond watch Babylon 5, 24, and play Gladius with them. I was also not able to blast my techno without my large speakers. What can one do?

I was not a complete bum, though. I helped out at their VBS (Vacation Bible School), which was more interesting than expected. Daniel and I got the four and five-year-olds, and while they aren't exactly aware of their surroundings at that point, they manage to be a handful. It's hard to teach anything complex or meaningful to kids that young, and some of you would have laughed heartily at what they were doing.

Example: "God Loves You"
A non-competitive version of musical chairs, four hoola-hoops are placed on the ground. The kids run around in a circle while the leader sings some tune, and jump into the nearest hoola-hoop when the music stops. Upon jumping into the hoola-hoop, kids say "God loves you!" to eachother. Remove one hoola-hoop, rinse and repeat.

Events such as this and a puppet show, with one puppet commandeered by myself, are to be found at VBS. The unfortunate side-effect of VBS is the teen study, in which a highly aged and experienced engineer (whom I admire for his personal quality and ability) gives us a sort of "look at me as an example" lesson. On top of the style of teaching, it is a low-discussion class, which does not fly smoothly with me. My style of "saying something against the grain, and then backing it up with experience or references" does not work, as I usually get stopped at "saying something against the grain", making me look like some kind of "bad" Christian. Anyways.

Beyond helping out at the church, I also attempted to bike around the lake with some of my Scout troop. This is a 100 mile trip, which, contrary to what I was thinking, is not just a 50 miles trip that goes for 50 more miles. No, this is much harder than that. Factors that did not help: I forgot an essential tube to my camelback, the route was very badly planned, and I forgot sunscreen. I made it 70 miles before Daniel, K2, and I all quit. It gets hard after 65 miles. Oh well.

EDIT: Pictures, stolen from Benjamin.

At the first grocery stop, nice and healthy. 15 miles.



At the lunch stop, fairly healthy. 50 miles.



At a shaded area, not very healthy. 65 miles.



My mom and dad had some interesting stories about their bike trip, which may or may not come later. At the moment, I need to grab a coke, mow some lawns, and relax for the wonderful 10 days I have before running off to see my grandparent's 50th anniversary, instead of getting to see Ben and Gemma's wedding.
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Strangely Akin to a Boy (O.o)
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That's right. It's time for me to summarize and complain about all my classes. I will finish this quickly, so I can return to my game of Rome.


  • German 3H: Oh, we all know how I feel about Mary. My feelings towards her softened a little towards the end of the year, mostly due to the extreme feeling of 'I don't have to do anything to please this woman.'. At least I'm done with her.


  • Math 10H: Ms. House turned out to actually be a pretty good teacher. She started to warm up a little bit more towards the end of the year, but I still can't get past the fact the she looks exactly like a chipmunk. And I'm not even joking. She was nice though. Hopefully my Math teachers next year won't be among the sucky ones.


  • Principles of Engineering: Mr. Peters tried so hard to teach our class something about engineering, and I dare say he failed. I can't really blame him, but he just didn't know the material enough to teach it. He's a nice guy, and would be a great teacher, if he only knew what he was teaching. Fun class, though, making mousetrap cars, the machine-contrapto thingies, and bridges. Which is basically all we did the entire year.


  • Global 2H: Mrs. Rumney left me really, really unsatisfied most of the year. She's a really, really good teacher, but she didn't really challenge us at all. Admittedly, most of the class wouldn't want the challenge, but the class was really, really easy. The lowest grade I ever got on a test/quiz in there, iirc, was a 78. Most of them were 100's. I didn't really learn anything, although i kind of knew a lot of history beforehand anyways.


  • Programming: Mrs. Teukolsky is probably my best teacher, and she taught my favorite subject, so it was kind of automatically my best class. I need not say more.


  • English 10H: Mr. Asklar is probably one of my not-so-favorite English teachers. He was really impersonal, really forgetful, and seemed like he was only here to pay the bills. He missed school more often than I did - think about that for a moment. We didn't really do much writing or anything, just kind of....I dunno. Hard to describe.


  • Physical Chemistry: Ms. (b) Smith is a horrible, horrible teacher. Horrible. She doesn't know it, she just kind of drones on and on about whatnot, but she does not know how to teach. Chemistry could have been a cool subject, but it was mad boring with her. Some stuff was cool - making ice cream with liquid nitrogen, cooking marshmallows with liquid nitrogen, cooking cheez-its with liquid nitrogen, spilling liquid nitrogen on my arms, throwing moles in liquid nitrogen, throwing balloons in liquid nitrogen, throwing bananas in liquid nitrogen, and, of course, pouring liquid nitrogen into cups. That's actually suprisingly difficult - there's so much water vapor everywhere you can't see when you're pouring the liquid nitrogen. Ahem.


  • PE: Uh....



And there you have...

...my year.
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Another Quickie...(O.o)
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[geek]

Happy, Gwen?

New case is wonderful - far quieter and sexier than before. I've set my next goal on what to buy - 150 dollars is the required amount this time. CD-RW, DVD/CD-ROM, Arctic Silver, HSF, PSU. Should have that before the end of the month - this is aesthetically the biggest upgrade - the drives will be black, the computer will run slightly faster and cooler, all that jazz, which will be rather nice.

[/geek]

I had the interview with Sho's dad on Friday, which went rather well - I didn't actually know it was an interview until Sho scolded my Army shirt near the end of school. It went well either way - it's exactly what I'd hoped for. That, plus the 7 bucks an hour makes for a very good job.

[geek]

When I got home I promptly ripped apart my computer as Karel watched in laughing horror as I recklessly constructed the beast. My mistake in the building process was in not putting the seperators (my mind blanked on the actual term...) between the mobo and the case. Thankfully my 'Power Supply' brand PSU was smart enough to stop before frying me and my hardware. I didn't know this at the time, and the squealing noise emitting from the PSU scared me witless. After spending the entire night laboring over the mess, I gave up assuming the power surge that day had shorted the PSU, which fried the motherboard and processor.

The next day I was severely distressed - I'd gone a full 18 hours without a computer, and I was beginning to crack. I retreated to my dad's computer, when available, to sort out which parts to order, which added to 600 dollars. I obviously don't have 600 dollars on me - I was set on loaning it from either Karel or Christopher. Dad was DEAD set against me borrowing from Karel, and spent all of Sunday arguing with him over the phone and bargaining with Christopher to get him to loan me the money. The other choice was to wait 12 days (actually more than that - about 20) for my Dad to get home to order them for me. Truly, a stressful situation.

[/geek]

In between all this, Paul, Ben, and Zach spent the night Saturday, after randomly appearing as I was going out to mow lawns (at the time Kerry and Julia were there too). Thoroughly mocking my biking gloves, they felt absolutely no mercy for my ego. I didn't go to church the following morning even though I was ready by 9:15 - Mom didn't get back from dropping Dad at the airport until almost 10:00, and Paul was still around, so I decided to stay home.

Today, I got myself a grand olde haircut (which I rather like, as per usual). I think I like this one enough to replace my :-O picture. Ye shall see.

I also watched Gladiator two or three times over the weekend. Possibly my favorite movie.
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Just Between You and Me (O.o)
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Let's just keep it at the fact the I didn't need a new motherboard or processor. Definitely (i remembered!) God's blessing that I didn't order 1000 dollars worth of new computer parts (basically the whole computer) before this. Whew.

Three days of total stress...over.
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Quickly...(O.o)
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A few quick things. The case arrived today, but mom and dad weren't home when it came, so we're dropping by to pick it up from the FedEx office after my interview-thingo with Mr. Shapiro. If the interview goes well, I'll be working 4 hours a day for two months, probably doing paperwork, but that is yet to be seen. I'll also be working with Greg at the greenhouses 4 hours a week for the summer, and with the added mowing, I'll have plenty of money to complete this computer before the end of summer.

I selected a PSU today during Programming (she was doing review, and offered to let whoever didn't want to review for the final could go in the lab, which was really nice. I might have enough from mowing all tomorrow, depending on how much is left over from the case. We'll see.

And now, away I go.
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All YOUR FACE are Belong to Us (O.o)
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Close runner-ups for the title of this post: "Armed with Honor" "Gravity is a Harsh Mistress" "Divorce Court" "All YOUR MOM are Belong to Us"

I've begun the process of upgrading all the components in my computer. Starting with this case. The specs will be along these lines, minimum:

  • ~425W PSU - $50 or $60

  • 6600 GT (subject to change) - $180 or $120

  • AMD Athlon 64 3400+ (newcastle, subject to change) - $180 or $240

  • 64-bit, dual channel, hyper-transport, raid 0/1/0+1, etc. mobo (subject to change) - $150 - $225

  • ~768MB PC3700 (subject to change)- $200 or $300

  • black DVD/CD-ROM, and CD/RW, and floppy - $75

  • RAPTOR! - $160


adds to approximately 1095 dollars - about 750 of that is subject to change, because of new technology that may be coming out - it's why I'm buying the case, then PSU, then ROMs first. After that, comes the mobo/proc, then the RAM, the GPU, and finally the new hardrives. We ordered the case tonight, so it should arrive Friday. I'll order the PSU as soon as I have the money (basically whenever I mow again). The mobo/proc have to come together, so it will take basically all summer to get that collected (unless I get hired by Mr. Shapiro, or find another available job). I'm excited, anyways.

I stayed home to do lots of things today - find this case and PSU and ROMs, prepare the lesson I taught at Bible Study (which went okay, I thought - definitely could have been better, but nobody responds to anything I say, making it harder to adjust), do English work, Math, and study for my Chemistry and Math finals. I also watched Best in Show last night, which was quite hilarious. I still have Time Bandits, the Star Wars commentaries (I'm curious to see what George has to say..), and Bandits on the current pile of things to watch. The pile's a lot smaller than it used to be, that's for sure. I don't think I mentioned this before - I watched the Tick (a single season comedy that was canceled by FOX a while back), which was also very, very funny. It was only 9 episodes, since it got cut, and it was really low budget, but it was really funny. In the stupid kind of way, that some may not be able to appreciate. And now...a shower.
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Part 11-13 of X
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Does the Bible condemn astrology?

Yes:

Is.47:13-14
"Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it."

No:

Lk.21:25
"And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars."

The Bible condemns living by the stars - planning your days, seeing the future, and living by what you see in the stars. There are signs in the stars - the star over Nazareth is a good example.


Should we believe everything?

Yes:

1 Cor.13:7
"Believeth all things."

No:

Pr.14:15
"The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going."

1 Th.5:21
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."

Hmm....that first quote looks a little short. Context! Here's the NIV version, because the SAB version would require me to quote the entire chapter to make sense.

1 Cor.13:4-7
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

Now, it doesn't say believe in there, but instead says trusts - this is obviously talking about what love does, not what wisdom or caution does. Ahem.


Does the blood of animal sacrifices take away sin?

Yes:

Lev.17:11
"I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul."

No:

Heb.10:4
"For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins."

In the Old Testament, God asked the Israelites to present sacrifices to atone for their sins. These sacrifices were not actually doing anything; they were symbolic of where their sin was going.
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These Fries Sure are Loaded...(O.o)
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I've had a rather interesting weekend, of sorts. Friday was rather enjoyable - Paul came over, we went downtown, expecting a horde of girls to greet us with unmeasurable joy, and were instead greeted with a capella and greasy pizza. I don't like spelling a capella, it is most unnatural, suggesting something about the genre itself. Ahem.

We came back (he spent the night), watched the Royal Tenenbaums (good movie, not quite as hilarious as I had expected, but good), and Paul still can't beat me in soccer. I was Cameroon. CAMEROON. I spent the rest of the day basically doing nothing - I rather badly wanted to get Jesse, Benjamin, and Daniel over, but Jesse had no transportation, Daniel was at his last day of classes, and Benjamin did come over, but we had nothing to do. I sat up in the attic reminiscing, listening to music, for about an hour, doing absolutely nothing. It was actually quite nice, in some respects. I cleaned up the attic some more, moved some signs, and, randomly enough, two couches appeared up there. Dad said Louie (Young Life director-majig) left them here, though it's not known whether we're keeping them. Either way, they're here for a while, and it really rounds off the attic nicely - no weird empty spaces.

The 7 days between now and the end of school seem very, very long. I'm not actually looking forward to the end all that much, I just want to be in a place of regularity, so I can sit down and plan things out. It doesn't help that I still haven't gotten an answer from Sho's dad - that decides a lot of what I'll be doing over the summer. I really hope I get it, I'm really eager for a new computer, moreso than the repairs on the car. Speaking of which, I'm getting the permit Tuesday.

I've begun to appreciate some of Jonothan's massive 1000+ CD collection in the back room - I've dug out his Built to Spill and Sunny Day Real Estate stuff, but it's hard to find anything in a collection that massive. Admittedly, it doesn't compare to Christopher's 100GB library, but his is sorted into folders, which you can scroll down. Flipping through books of CDs is a little slower.

And to end, a fitting quote to my anti-SAB series.

Hebrews 4:2 (NIV)
"For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith."

I wasn't always a Christian, you know.
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Parts 8-10 of X
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You want answers? (2, 3) You got answers.

8: Is it okay to drink alcohol?

Rom.14:21
"It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak."

Gal.5:21
"Drunkenness ... and such like ... they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."

Eph.5:18
"And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess."

There are dozens there, but I chose these three, because they sum up what the Bible says. As with most things, the Bible warns against excess - some alcohol is okay, but drinking to be drunk is wrong. It's common knowledge that your judgment is impaired while drunk, and that can easily lead you down the "garden parth" (as Mrs. Teukolsky would say).


Jg.9:13
"Wine, which cheereth God and man."

Ps.104:15
"Wine that maketh glad the heart of man."

Pr.31:6-9
"Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more."

Again, it's not that it's wrong, only in excess. Proverbs is a book of true sayings, basically quotes that sound pretty and are true. Proverbs isn't a guide for life, it's just stating fact.

9: Does God want some to go to Hell?

1 Tim.2:3-4
"God our Saviour; who will have all men to be saved."

2 Pet.3:9
"The Lord is ... not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

This, my friends, is the hardest question of Christianity, although poorly phrased. Here's a short explanation. God loves everyone, but he cannot ignore our impurities. We're all equally sinful before his eyes. We all deserve Hell. We don't all get it. Any person that believes in Jesus won't go there. In more basic terms, the question is asking if God decides who believes in Jesus or not. Short answer: kind of. God made us unique, knowing what choices we would make. He knew what choice we would make when it came to Him. Take with that what you will; this question has no comforting answer. The Lord COULD make everyone go to Heaven, but many of us would not do so willingly, it would be forced. God wants willing hearts. He wants all of us to believe in Him, but He is not going to force us all to believe. This is a paradox - He wants us to choose Him, and yet our destiny is chosen for us. I have not found a satisfactory answer yet.

Rom.9:18
"Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth."

This sums it all up; it's all up to Him.

10: How long does God's anger last?

Mic.7:18
"He retaineth not his anger forever, because he delighteth in mercy."

This pretty much sums up the other 2. This goes back to Romans 9:18, which is just above. He has mercy on those of which He will have mercy on. He's never said His anger is not everlasting. Most of these verses are just contextual - in some cases, it is temporary.

Ps.30:5
"For his anger endureth but a moment."

These are the Psalms - they're like a diary of his walk with God. He's cursed the Lord in some Psalms, in others, he is delighting in Him. It is his experience.


Jer.17:4
"Ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which shall burn for ever."

The other three actually aren't relevant - punishment is not anger. You may deserve everlasting punishment, but that doesn't mean His anger is punishment. He deems that some deserve His everlasting anger. That's as best an answer as I can give.

Many to go.
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Part 7 of X
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You want answers? You got answers.


Ex.20:14, Dt.5:18
"Thou shalt not commit adultery."

Heb.13:4
"Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge."

Correct. Adultery is a sin.

Num.31:18
"But all the women children that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."

Wait, what? I do believe SAB has some stupidity issues to solve. This is telling them to save those who have not had sex. That's what "have not known man" means. Duh?

Hos.1:2
"And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms...."

Not only is this not approving of adultery, it's not even close to relevant. God commanded Hosea to marry a prostitute, and be faithful to her until death. Even though she ran off dozens of times with other men, he stayed true, and in the end, she was turned.

Hos.3:1
"Then said the Lord unto me, God yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress."

I'm impressed by the lack of context they give. See above.

Many to go.
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