4/17/2025 Getting ready to bring SSD HDD and Windows 10/11 USB flash drives to Penang to meet TomTom's laptop for repair (Acer Aspire A515-51 n17c4). He was told the HDD was damaged. But this laptop carries both M.2 slot (from Amazon we bought: Crucial P3 1TB PCIe Gen3 3D NAND NVMe M.2 SSD, up to 3500MB/s) and 2.5 SATA slot (from Amazon we bought: S101 SATA SSD 1TB, Internal State Drive SATA III 6Gb/s 2.5" SSD Sata, UP to 550MB/s). I am building two flash drives for installing Windows 10 / 11 on his laptop. This should be 64-bit. Testing the Flash Drives for fakeness using FakeFlashTest v.1.1.5.
4/16/2025 Painting of the day: The Taking of Christ, Painting by Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 1571-1610), Painted in 1602, Oil on canvas, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
Fr. Patrick drawing from Matthew 26:14-25, I cut out the parts I don't quite agree:
This theme is powerfully captured in Caravaggio’s almost cinematic painting of The Taking of Christ. The scene is dramatic and intimate. Seven figures are caught in a frozen moment of betrayal. From left to right, we see Saint John, Jesus, Judas Iscariot, three soldiers, and a man holding a lantern, believed to be a self-portrait of Caravaggio himself. Judas has just kissed Jesus, the prearranged signal for the arrest...To the left, John flees in terror, his red cloak billowing as a soldier reaches to grab him; a striking contrast to the chilling calm of Judas and the cold efficiency of the arresting soldiers. Yet the most striking element is not any single figure, but the shining, metal-clad arm of the soldier at the centre of the painting. Its brightness draws the eye, almost unnaturally so. It is believed Caravaggio intended this armoured reflection to act as a mirror, not just of light, but of conscience... a mirror for us all. It is as if the artist is asking us: Can you see yourself here? Are you a bystander? The betrayer? The one who flees?
4/15/2025 SVG Tutorial with animation.
Textbook on data visualization: all types of graphs, charts, etc.
4/13/2025 Painting of the day: Entry of Christ into Jerusalem, Painting by Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), Painted in 1617, Oil on canvas, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis
In Fr. Patrick's own words (I don't see any relation to the verses he linked to this painting, so I skipped them):
Strangely enough, there are not that many paintings depicting Palm Sunday. Most artists fast forward to the Passion, but few have painted Christ's entry into Jerusalem. Our high Baroque painting by Sir Anthony van Dyck, from 1617, depicts Jesus sitting on the ass foal he rides/ The animal is almost entirely enveloped by his robes of rich blue and crimson. He is surrounded by his disciples on foot, and jubilantly welcomed by a crowd of locals who lay branches in his path. The restlessness and muscularity of the figures are very Baroque. Van Dyck was only 18 when he painted this canvas. By this time he was already Peter Paul Rubens' principal assistant.