Terminology: Break-even point - when profits cover capital (usually a 6 month process, inadvisable to pursue business if break-even point not reached in 2 years).
6 Business Structures:
(Personal income tax)
1. Sole Proprietorship2. General Partnership
(Corporations are their own entity/person, in terms of taxation, etc.)
3. "C" Corporation
4. "S" Corporation (partnership)
5. LLC (starts to allow foreign members)
6. LLP (partnership)
1. That Christianity is a preference, a choice.
You don't say eating is a preference, do you?
2. Anyone who calls himself/herself a Christian, is a Christian.
You don't believe I am a sandwich, do you?
3. Christians are homophobic, racists, discriminating bigots.
Successful abolition of virtually all various bigoted practices are initiated and inspired by Christians, though there are fringes of wannabes from time to time, but merely wannabes nonetheless.
4. God only loves and forgives. He does not hate, punish, etc. or else He is not God.
If that is so, I supposed a coin that has both a head and a tail is not a coin.
5. Sin is doing something that is hurtful to others.
Saying that is already hurtful to some.
6. Christianity is against science, open thinking.
Those who advocate this already, certainly, admire a lot of Christian scientists, so I'll give them a short break here.
7. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc. are not mutually exclusive.
Is this statement mutually exclusive?
8. Christians think themselves sinless.
This is often used by those who wish to find a way out of their own faults. But one's hypocrisy is not an excuse for another to follow.
9. Christians are nice.
This is a bit insulting. It is better to be good and kind, since the original meaning of nice is foolishness.
10. Christians share the Gospel/convert others for their own gain, power, wealth, etc.
Despite many unfortunate convincing experiences, the truth that debunks this, if any, however hindered, must certainly be more precious than anything else.
It was done on 6/26/2015. Not surprisingly.
Not all Chief Justices are on the same page. At least not for Antonin Scalia.
The majority of Europe unquestionably advocates this "evolutionary" social structure. Even the Christendom here is rather silent about it, if not support it. The few who realize this as an act of rebellion against God, either choose to respond vehemently or quietly hope things would turn out for the better by itself (though not yet blaming it on God).
I prefer to take an initiative role on this as a Christian, but not as zealous as many conservative Americans here. Many of these Christians do not differentiate patriotism and devotion to God, that is their flaw, that would only cause them to eventually hate those who aren't Americans, who look "gentiles". Nonetheless, I cannot stay silent and give excuses like "God's business is not my business". Some stayed silent because of fear while others do so because they are proud of themselves - that they can be a sort of neutral party, which in this case, seeking peace either by changing opinions (pride of being creative) all the time or by believing all roads lead to heaven, which in this post modern view, they cannot truly befriend anyone, a sudden conflict with anyone creates enmity for virtually an eternity. They cannot accept a world of absolute truth, because it constantly goes against their belief. Those (which is actually everyone, aware or not) who live in the world of absolute truth are in constant rivalry against them, hence, they cannot befriend these truly.
My chief concern however, is Asia. After visiting Malaysia, Indonesia, I worry that the East would finally embrace the wickedness of the West, since Asia is catching on with a lot of Western culture, perhaps even exceeds it. This worry is well founded and good. Well founded because any nation that removes the true God from the picture will unwittingly suffer what they sought to enjoy in their own version of truth. There are already many Malaysian Christians who follow the Post Modern thinking. Good, because I believe it is instilled by the Holy Spirit to keep me awake and from mutating my theology to fit the fads of the world.
My Lord has warned that should time tarry, even the most devoted will fall (Matthew 24:22). I pray that by His grace and election, I stand firm both within and without. I pray for His quick coming, lest I do not follow many today who proudly believe that they can by themselves stand strong for the Lord for as long as it takes.
And cheaper too!
2015-05-28
On plane to Frankfurt.
Watched Kuchibiru ni uta o (くちびるに歌を)
It appears that the Japanese students are more mature than the Western.
I now remember that being on the plane is rather dry, in terms of
breathing. Also, my mouth keeps foaming and I tried not to swallow as to prevent building gas in my stomatch.
Currently on the way to Frankfurt:
Altitude 11274m, 630m/h,
1837km from Frankfurt,
air temp: -53celsius.
---
Now flying over Turkmenbaschy
596mph
alt: 10366m
-56F
================
2015-06-16
Komodo Island Trip
06/14: Woke up at around 4:30AM, on the 15th of June, left Solo with Willy at around 5AM in Tom's car.
7:55AM Garuda Indonesia flight to Bali. Time took: 58 mins.
In Bali, Kuta city, we stayed at the Royal Eighteen Resort and Spa, Room 219.
Swam at roof top modern designed swimming pool. Willy got sun burn. I had a little.
Had lunch at cheap restaurant nearby, had dinner next door. Avoided near beach or main road pricey restaurants.
Walked around Kuta beach & Kuta city at night. We went to buy Sun Lotion at Circle across the street from where we stayed.
Back in room, saw the beginning of X-Men's Day of Future Past. Attempting to sleep at around midnight-1AM.
Willy couldn't sleep, perhaps due to the hotel tea he drank. I made myself coffee. I slept, supposedly snored. Willy recorded it.
I heard him snored as well. My snores appeared consistent. However, his snore was rather inconsistent, strange at times and perhaps louder.
I didn't mind, merely curious.
In the morning, we had to skip the 7am free breakfast and took a Bluebird (trusted taxi in Jakarta/Bali) to catched an actually 1 hour delayed 8:15AM Wings Air flight to Labuan Bajo in West Flores (East Tenggara). Saw lots of volcanic figures below from the plane.
Pak Victor was our tour guide.
The boat we used was made of wood, equiped with usual daily need such as shower, sink, lunch table, stacked beds, charging stations, roof area and even air conditioning in our room of 4 beds of which I am typing from right now.
We passed through lots of beautiful islands. Our first stop was a Rinca Island bay where we got off the boat to join a park ranger for a medium tour around the beach area. Saw a few Komodo dragons, a buffalo, monkeys and Scrab bird (chicken-like, I may have erred in spelling). I am not much fan of the dragons, though they are only found in this area of the world. Our next stop was Pink Beach at around 5:30pm where we swam for less than 20 minutes in order to catch the flying foxes (Kolang) in the evening at 6pm. It was a test swim. We shall be going back to the Pink Beach tomorrow. Though Pulau Payar has more abundant fishes, this Pink Beach certainly has the most living corals that I have ever seen! Incredible.
We had great lunch and dinner on the boat. We stayed on the boat overnight where we watched the flying foxes in a Komodo Island bay. At around 10:30PM, I had to take the Nikon camera and shot incredible Milky Way photos. Other than the slightly light poluted night at Tawang Mangu, this is my very first shooting of the Milky Way. So dark environment is rare to find, I could actually see the vague Milky Way with my naked eye. With the camera at 4 secs exposure, the photos looked amazing. The only downside was that I had to shoot this from the boat which though very steady, could not produce serious firm shots for exposure more than 4 secs.
I enjoyed the starry sky from the roof. Contemplated the awe of God as well as the fear of the Lord from the late evening to the dark lonely sky.
============
2015-06-17
Woke up at around 6:30AM. Went to the roof to take a premature sunrise. Some tour boats were leaving the bay, supposedly to Komodo Island.
After breakfast, we headed for Komodo Island. Took medium track. Saw some birds: Emperor Pigeons, an eagle, white parrots, wild chickens, an oreole, blue tailed bird, heard the golden whistler, noisy "something" bird, golden-web spider, etc. A Komodo dragon walked in our path as we followed it back to the beach. Willy was extremely let down at a blurry video shot he took of the dragon walking on a bridge towards him. I couldn't care less, they were just lizards to me, I've seen a lot of monitor lizards in the back of Chung Ling High School.
Then, we headed for Pink Beach. This time, though the tie is higher, but there's a strong current towards a dangerous rocky zone by the beach. We were adviced to swim away from the direction of the current. I got frustrated trying to shoot some videos via my older Samsung Galaxy Note I. Though the water-proof pouch we bought in Penang did help prevent water from entering, the phone's screen however could not sense my touch. This is likely due to the electic sensors unable to read my touch due to either the sea water outside of the screen or the touch of the pouch on the phone's creen in random places. Later at the second beach, I decided to risk my newer Samsung Note III and thought I was smart enough to control the phone's camera via bluetooth control from my Pebble watch. Strangely to me then, every time I entered water, the Pebble connection to the phone was lost. It appeared that bluetooth or perhaps any radio do not propagate properly in sea water medium. I realized I could just activate the camera above water and then quickly take some underwater shots before the bluetooth connection expired. Soon, my phone stopped working, due to some water I've inevitably allowed in whenever I took the phones out to check them.
At times, I got so frustrated that I decided to just enjoy the wonderful LIVE! corals and fishes instead of meddling with my camera. I should have bought the sports camera in U.S.
Willy had chest cramps at Pink Beach a day before. Today, he wore an orange life jacket, and we finally swam to the beach. I took some pink sand for sample. The pinkishness of the sand is caused by dead red coral remains mixing with white sands. I hope this can go through custom going back to U.S. While I was either examining the coral or collecting sand sample, I noticed Willy had left the beach but as I tried to find him, I was shocked that he has somehow drifted towards the direction of the current heading for the rocky area. I tried to call, wave at him and eventually decided to swim to him in the freaky current, I was rather scared. Then, a staff from our boat took a canoe to rescue him. The staff asked me to stop swimming to him so knowing Willy would be in better hands, I decided not to risk myself further and swam against the current toward the bigger boat. When we were on board, Willy complained that his jacket had opened, goggles broke loose and had consumed much sea water. We're just glad that he's safe. I felt a little guilty as Nadia had asked me to take care of him. I did consider someone who's used to swimming pool may not be experienced enough to face the challenges of the sea. Even I had to struggle against the current. Nonetheless, after having lunch, we headed for a more relaxing, current free, "Karava" beach which was 1.5 hours away. It has a French resort on it. I saw tons of large star fishes and many live corals and fishes as well.
The differnces between these snorkling trips from that of Pulau Payar was that it has less fishes, but the live corals were more plentiful and closer to the beach, meaning located at more shallow area. I wish I could also take underwater photos in Pulau Payar as well, but we forgot to bring the waterproof pouch and I had even forgotten that we've bought that pouch at one time.
As we were leaving our last beach, Willy felt cold breeze in the water and had leg cramps. Ever since the Pink Beach incident, I took care to keep a closer distance from him at all times, even though this beach has no strong current as the other one. We slowing swam to the beach, used to the pier to cross other parked boats toward ours.
The trip ended with an hour ride from Kanavor Island to Labuan Bajo.
We were then driven to Luwansa Hotel, showered, ate the included each 100K Rupiah set dinner. I had Asparagas soup, Grilled Mackerel, boiled potatoes, fruit cocktail and coffee. Willy had tomato soup, well-done beef steak, fries, banana split and tea.
At midnight, I am out here typing this diary and looking for stars to shoot. We're supposed to meet Pak Victor in the morning at 8AM, after the included hotel breakfast.
This especially small type of hard drive is not easy to find before. It is not the typical laptop 2.5" hard drive.
Hint: lift the black holder on the drive up.
It's been a while since I've had this problem. When I kept my Fujitsu lifebook in my backpack, it sometimes wakes up from suspend/hibernate mode. This happens in Ubuntu & Windows.
So it must be the mechanism of the notebook lid.
To disable it in Ubuntu, it's easy:
After chmod 666 /proc/acpi/wakeup
The command is: sudo echo "LID " > /proc/acpi/wakeup
It works. Now supposedly it should work automatically on boot by placing the command in /etc/rc.local
One of the famous quote from Gandhi "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
There is a flaw...
Challenge: But do you not like Christ enough to make Him your Christ?
Any response in defence fails epistemologically. (e.g. "No, I am not white", "No, I'm not born Christians", "No, I don't actually like Christ that much", etc.)
I could refer it to the right wing in general, but to be theologically correct,
Proposition: With the exception of their own parents, many children of the religious right love to grill the religious right.
With this proposition, I take it that their parents must at the least level of their hearts be disappointed at their children, in spite of the various masks the parents are putting up. Not because their children are not as extreme as they are, but that their children are irreligious all together.
Thus, the slightest change or opportunity for their children to inherit some portion of a devotion to God, even by mere appearance, should cause a burst of joy in the parents.
This is not surprising, that certain emergent churches such as that of Tim Keller's, that maintain conservative orthodoxy, are much appreciated by these parents when they learned of their children's involvement in such. Nevertheless, the shallowness of theology even among such parents, does not serve them any better in any further analysis of such churches more than what the media are saying.
Beyond the superficial admiration of these deep American root parents at celebrities such as Tim Keller, it imperative that they should truly admire those who are able to influence their children truly in a doctrinal praise and worship to God, regardless of race or fame, which often get in the way of such admiration.
On the other hand, we can command sympathy from the scornful towards these parents because of their children.
An interesting article from a woman who grew up raised by gay parents. I came across it via The Wretched Radio podcast. This is an open letter to the Justices of U.S.A. during the pertaining heated debate.
Katy Faust advocates traditional marriage. She's not the only one.
Chief argument: The rights of children. Should we deprive children the right to be adopted by parents of opposing genders?
