Transhumanism

Posted on September 1, 2025 by timlyg

This is brought to my attention by first Allie Beth Stuckey's podcast on the topic. I believe someone called Peter Thiel popularize this latest Transhumanism trend and hence the Christian discussions. Then by Holy Post Media, which to me is usually more intelligent than the "Reformed" folks particularly the "Reformed" Baptists (But I must admit, I didn't listen comprehensively on Allie's version, because when she said something too low IQ for me, my mind turns off for a few seconds and then I get distracted while playing her show. If I have to compare, though not Reformed, I would say Kaitlyn Schiess does seem smarter than Stuckey, because Schiess is open to studying various schools of thoughts while Stuckey is partially held back by the narrow mind of fundamentalism):

I like the 9 minute discussion above. The idea of skipping consummation/glorification of Man is an obvious elementary problem. But they also investigated the possibility of replacing human brain with artificial organ and that is the crux of the issue. One would need to transfer his "consciousness" to another body. I do not believe that it's possible for humans to create another human.

The Ship of Theseus (a philosophical thought experiment) was mentioned: If the ship's parts are replaced completely over time, is it still the same ship or a new ship entirely? Of course, human vs. ship is a qualitative difference; while any other objects (I would venture to include animals) vs. ship has no qualitative difference on this regard. Human has soul/spirit, the breath of God, which is unique in creation.

This brings to mind the movie that first got me think hard about pertaining idea. The Prestige (2006) by Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale. Hugh Jackman is an ambitious magician who stumbled upon Tesla's secret of creating duplicates (including humans) and used the technology to perform his Real Transported Man magic trick (fooling his audience that he transported himself from one container to another, while it's a duplication machine and he has to kill his duplicate self so that there wouldn't be more than one version of himself running around), every time he performs this, he has to kill his own duplicate, and this desperation gave him an upper hand against his rival, who's secret trick of similar show was his identical twin brother who shares the same identity.

Enough movie talk, the point of this is to question that: When we duplicate ourselves (or even transport ourselves like in Star Trek, another duplication technology idea), are those duplicates/transported result still us? The Sci-Fi idea on this, such as The Fly (1958, 1986, etc.) gone from mere transportation technology (no conversion, just simply manipulation of space and time) to conversion from material to digital/electrical/something and back to material again (Star Trek).

If it's mere transportation, that I think is more achievable than the second one (conversion). But I'm sure the remote possibility of it will invite all kinds of questions I'm not interested to deal with now.

But if it is conversion, then what needs to be ask is if:

  • Human soul/spirit is a thing "convertible" or associable with convertible material?
  • Is reverse-conversion really authentic? (Because duplication is a problem for authenticity)
  • Is the targeted material still the same thing as the original?

David Tong once posted on Facebook that allegedly "Scientists discover the Heart has a mini-brain of over 40,000 neurons, David quoting: "The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know." (Blaise Pascal):

If that is so, how are we to artificially replace a brain that would include a mini-brain of the heart? This mystery is still being investigated by scientists. Our current technology of brain is a memory chip, not networks of neurons. A mere virtual imitation of such network.

I welcome the pursuit of science for transhumanism. I think we may stumble upon some interesting discoveries not pertaining to the goal of such pursuit. But I don't believe it is achievable because of the 3 questions raised above. What you will create is simply something artificial that can imitate humanity (like the dawn of AI we have today), not truly human, much less "transcends" human.

I think the best we will have is just going to be a very good duplicate imitation, not an authentic transference.


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The Idols of Christians Today

Posted on September 1, 2025 by timlyg

Tim Keller did a good bit in his book Counterfeit Gods. I didn't really read it, but the gist is, many Christians fail in identifying the idols of their lives. They are clear, that money is an obvious idol. But many would not see that volunteering can be an idol, loving kids, loving their spouses, love, charity, etc. can all be idolized. All but God are idolizeable.

I will put forth these 3 as the things most Christians today tend to idolize and deny their failure in identifying such:

  1. The Bible
  2. The church/Sunday Worship
  3. The pastor/preacher
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Journal of the Week

Posted on September 1, 2025 by timlyg

9/5/2025 Friday A real life Teacher-Student taboo relationship in public? Only possible on a reality courtroom:
Karen Mills-Francis, an arbitrator or adjudicator rather than a sitting judge (on this reality show), handling case of Serena Young and Howell Brodis. I don't know how real this case is (I'm saving this video just in case it is taken offline) but it's a fun experiment on TA-Student relationship. The conflict of interest is obviously using sex/relationship to manipulate grade, hence the taboo. I don't see any other ways to manipulate one's grade by this means. Of course, on some odd occasion, the relationship is genuine and the disaster would just be bad timing (happened still in the class, meaning they were dating while she was still taking his class). This cause though is not clear how serious they were with each other. Brodis seems more genuine by inviting her to meet his parents and she backed out as if she wasn't looking for anything serious. As far as grading goes, it's also interesting because we are dealing with the question of quality vs. relative subjectivity in the liberal arts. The only part of the video this is slightly hinted, other than by the narrator dissing liberal arts folks over math and science from the obvious sense, is when the Francis asked to see the paper that got D, which I think she was right that the grader was wrong to not leave even a word of comment on the D in the paper. Brodis tried to defend his profession so the judge was ready to rule not wanting to get deeper into how to grade British Literature. Obviously the judge made a good judgement call by calling Young out as a gold (or grade)-digger. Of course, nobody is saying Brodis was 100% clean because at the very least, not judging the sexual advantage part, he showed lack of wisdom when it comes to TA-Student relationship.

9/4/2025 Thursday

My first Aquaspin Test (AQUASPIN Photometer Automatic Saltwater Tester - API) at Aquaridise on Route 18. Rather than buying the $2000 equipment with $400/50 pack test discs ($8/disc/test) for these parameters below, I have them tested ($8.50 before tax) a months old seawater (I didn't tell them so they assume it's water from aquarium) from Sandy Hook West marsh snails area:
pH: 7.9 (ideal is 8.0 - 8.4)
Ammonia: 0.0
Nitrite: 0.0
Nitrate: 0.0
Phosphate: 0.0
Calcium: 291 (ideal is 380-450 ppm)
Magnesium: 750 (ideal is 1320-1380 ppm)
Alkalinity (KH): 94 (ideal is 142 - 215 ppm)

Additionally, though not sufficient sample left, I was able to estimate the salinity of this sea water to be around 1.022-1.023.

According to Aquaspin manual, here are the ranges of units of their Saltwater disk:

Test FactorRangeDisplayAbbreviation
Alkalinity/KH0-300 ppmALK/KHKH
Ammonia0.0-4.0 ppmAMMONH₃
Calcium200-800 ppmCaCa
pH6.5-10.0pHpH
Phosphate0.0-2.0 ppmPHOSPO₄
Magnesium500-2200 ppmMgMg
Nitrate0-60 ppmNITRATENO₃
Nitrite0.0-2.0 ppmNITRITENO₂

The readings above may tell me why the snails (other creatures) I brought from these shores always die so quickly in my tank. Especially after I get them to do a test with water from my own tank and compare. I should post the result here. Also, if I happen to be test waters by the shores again, I should bring my salinity meter.

1/5/2026 Update on Aquaspin test on my actual marine aquarium:
pH: 7.9 (ideal is 8.0 - 8.4)
Ammonia: 0.0
Nitrite: 0.0
Nitrate: 17 (ideal is 1-10 ppm)
Phosphate: 1.1 (ideal is 0.02-0.1 ppm)
Calcium: 531 (ideal is 380-450 ppm)
Magnesium: 1476 (ideal is 1320-1380 ppm)
Alkalinity (KH): 122 (ideal is 142 - 215 ppm)

Bible Study on 1 Peter 4:7+ at GCC was interesting. Since this is a Bible study, instead of commenting here in this format I will just add to my own Bible Study entry on the same Book. I am done criticizing every single problems the pastor or the others mentioned, as that goal is already achieved, I have known most of them and their culture of understanding better. It is more profitable for me to just merge my criticism of them into a regular Bible Study notes of mine. Though same weight of criticism can still be found, but the focus is not on them. I titled this hospitality in my file as it seems to be the one with most issues, which is off topic by the pastor (focusing on universal instead of distinguishing hospitality for Christians vs. non-Christians, which Gene actually pointed out @32:11 though only as a question unfortunately).

It's interesting that Frank mentioned the parable of the talents here @19:37 as the pastor seems to improve on this, that "there's risk involve, but go do it" kind of notion. However, he's still stuck in "the servant was afraid", and using that as the foundation of that verse. So he is not able to deal with what if it's not fear, or that this fear has evolved into a false sense of justification.

Vocabularies, 成语 from Chinese history 巨鹿之战：
破釜沉舟 - A decision that cut off all means of retreat. Point of no return.
作壁上观 - Watching from the fence
以一当十 - One as Ten

巨鹿之战: 秦朝，赵国 好闲宋义 被 项羽杀之以为项梁死于秦国报复。其他国作壁上观，只好破釜沉舟 前攻巨鹿秦军 以一当十 胜战后，项羽活埋秦国章邯 200，000 军 以防后患。以后项羽将败于刘邦手下自杀：

I think after about 7 years, I've heard cicada sings again for the first time from the backyard.

Just did a demo with folks (Natalie) from Wordly.ai. This interested me when someone from church mentioned about bringing a fiend who only understands Spanish to church. Wordly is the only two AI app that is capable of live nonstop continuous translation. But $1,500/yr is steep cost. That's close to $30 per session (1 hour) per week. And I don't need to translate to 10 people which is the minimum users requirement to have the service. The other app being Microsoft Translator which is free, but I don't have enough experience to compare Wordly vs. Microsoft as far as accuracy goes.

9/1/2025 Monday

Welcome to the United States - A Guide for New Immigrants, is the brochure that even in the Trump era, given to apparently all Green Card recipients upon the receipt of their GC. For both new and renewal. I've scanned mine digitally stored in my Backup Drive. I think after hearing Ring Wing folks like Charlie Kirk, you will get more proponents from the left wing than right wing on this kind of things. This guide is also online. Offering also a path to citizenship. The rights and responsibilities listed are of my interest to note:

Rights:

  • Work in the US
  • Own property in the US
  • Attend public school
  • Apply driver's license
  • Apply to join certain branches of the U.S. armed forces
  • Receive Social Security and Medicare benefits, if eligible.

Responsibilities:

  • File taxes with IRS (report worldwide income and report foreign bank and financial accounts)
  • Register with the Selective Service (for age 18-26, male)
  • Inform USCIS of new address no later than 10 days after move. With USPS for mail forward.
  • Maintain permanent residence status: If outside domestic trip is more than a year, must apply for re-entry permit using Form I-131 before leaving, with the intent to NOT reside abroad temporarily. Any trip outside the U.S. may affect your eligibility for citizenship.

This year has not much harvest from the backyard since I did not tend to it due to flight home to Malaysia in the Spring (April-May). Just 3 big pears from my first Asian pear plant and a few figs. Some grapes are still green and small:

Reminiscent Saint Saens' Symphony No. 3 Organ Symphony. I've been looking for the piano version of the movie Babe adaptation of the music, these are the best I could find:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQgXsAR3SRM

An obvious example of a Christian Nationalist: Charlie Kirk has problem with Zohran Mamdani eating rice with his hand: not hygiene, not Western (which is the best value in everything in the world, according to Kirk), so the TYT took a jab at this:

8/31/2025 Sunday

Sometime around this week, I had a dream that Tom from church hugged Nadia the way I saw some big jockey look guy hugged Vanessa back in OBU days, the playful footballer type of hug, lifting someone up with a tight hug. And Nadia told him off and he seemed embarrassed by it. I am recalling this days later so my memory is a bit vague. I should have written this down sooner. For some reason, I still was more in a cultural shock moment seeing this and not thinking defensively. Do I stop awing and start to show more empathy? "Hey, stop", "are you okay?"

Posted in Dreams, Geography | Leave a comment

The Gospel is Not Discipleship

Posted on September 1, 2025 by timlyg

It's a great title by Michael Horton:

This is a response to John Mark Comer, who apparently (not to my knowledge) has become the new hype (from C.S. Lewis to Chesterton to Schaefer to Stott to Packer to Piper to Keller) of the Ameristian kingdom (particularly the Gen-Z), many students are reading his works.

Comer: I often get asked why don't you preach the Gospel (Calvinistic view of the atonement?)
Horton: There's no Calvinistic view of the atonement, there's a classical Christian doctrine of the atonement.

I think Horton missed Comer's point here. Sure, it's a play of word and Comer failed in that. But I believe what Comer was trying to say with Calvinistic view of atonement is predestination, election, that you are elected -> become "frozen" chosen. This is a common problem in some of today's churches (i.e. the last two Grace churches that I've been to: OPC Westfield, PCA Bridgewater). Unfortunately, the likes of Horton are not sensitive enough to call these out.

Horton's play at this is to distinguish the Gospel from Following Jesus. Which is fine. But this is where many fail, we can't just listen to the words people use, we also need to listen to the motives behind those words, the true meaning they intended. We are not fully free of guilt by just calling out others' wrong use of their words, the burden is also on us to attempt to understand what one truly means with the wrong choice of words they chose. Such is what our Lord the good Teacher has shown us whenever He answered questions that are beyond expectations!

Since I don't know this Comer guy, not interested to find out now, but I'll take the reputations of the likes of Horton, to caution a sort of Post-Mordernist/Barthian flag. However, Comer could just be another Francis Chan kind, because I think he seems to be addressing some real problem in the Reformed churches: i.e. Being frozen. Being complacent. Being satisfied with only coming to church and get verbal self-confident faith of their justified state from the pulpit. If that is so, Comer is gaining traction.

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Learning Vietnamese

Posted on August 29, 2025 by timlyg

This is a funny start:

Posted in Vocabularies | Leave a comment

Journal of the Week

Posted on August 25, 2025 by timlyg

8/30/2025 Saturday Today at noon, I attended the Passport to Taiwan cultural festival in Bridgewater Commons. Parking lot 9 right outside Lord & Taylor (which is already shutdown). It's an extension of the NYC version which has been around since 1999. A first in New Jersey. The attraction was a success. Lots of Chinese, not sure if they were Taiwanese. Two rolls of food stalls surrounding the middle cultural stands from Buddhist (慈济) to Mandarin learning schools, for kids and adults (I've saved their brochures in my Photo drive as PDF, including a guide for touring Taiwan). I ordered 2 bubble tea and a pineapple drinks for C & U and myself, around $25. I also ordered miso ramen for $10. The food are really mediocre. There's BBQ squid for $25 which I did not get, line was too long anyway. However, I do hope they continue for a 2nd anniversary here next year. We then chatted in the mall's food court. I talked about our church, pastor, Phil, predestination (I used by Shakespeare-Romeo analogy in the Creator-Creation distinction), etc. Then I had to leave them around 4:35pm to pick up Nadia from our train station.

Supposed to be a 10 volume series: 認識台灣歷史. So they are missing volume 10 above. Good thing I didn't buy.

Dave (David) Smith roasting the hypocrisy of Right Wing for supporting the killing of babies in GAZA and yet being pro-life. An important point he brought up the problem that if HAMAS uses human shield, then it's okay to kill those "shields", something that the Ring Wing apparently justifies vehemently, along with Israel's ideology. So I am with Dave Smith on this, that you can't just kill everybody and call it collateral damage and his opponents cannot respond properly and went off topic.

8/27/2025 Wednesday Forvo.com: A language service to loop up pronunciations in various languages by native speakers.

8/25/2025 Monday Build a game using Go in 3 days using LLM vs without LLM in 3 months.

8/24/2025 Sunday Sometime this week, learned about Francisco Tarrega's (The Father of Modern Classical Guitar) guitar composition, particularly Recuerdos de la Alhambra, for guitar, Tárrega, Francisco. Wish I could learn this, a popular piece:

And my new found favorite: Sueño, mazurka for guitar:

Sermon at GCC was on Acts 11 "A Light on A Lampstand." I have issue with particularly one segment of the pastor's message with regards to being criticized in Acts 11:2: "...Peter could have used his apostolic authority. He could have said, "Of course, I went and ate with the Gentiles. Am I not an apostle?" And of course, they may have gotten angry..." So, when David Tong posted on Facebook debunking Peter being head of all bishops:

John Calvin (Institutes 4.6.7 "Acts. 11:3 When he is accused of having gone in to the Gentiles, though the accusation is unfounded, he replies to it, and clears himself") menggunakan fakta ini untuk membuktikan bahwa Rasul Paulus memiliki kehormatan, tapi tidak memiliki kuasa, atas Rasul lainnya. Konsep bahwa uskup Roma memiliki kuasa atas uskup lainnya tidak ada buktinya di dalam Alkitab dan hidup gereja awal.

I answered it this way:

Saya percaya bahwa banyak pendeta kini masih bingung mengenai perbedaan antara iman apostolik dan otoritas apostolik:

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When is Leaving a Church Appropriate?

Posted on August 21, 2025 by timlyg

I find this topic more and more interest after encountering Catholic/Orthodox theology, because they have no sense of discerning visible and invisible church, nor would they want to.

So in the Invisible sense of the Church, no true Christians would leave the Church, because that would mean abandoning Christianity.

However in short, in the visible church, because it's a visible one, it's one in this world, it's one that is prone to falsehood, leaving such churches is sometimes not only allowed be required by God.

The calling by God to do so, would really be up to the subjective conscience instead of a universal principle. However, if God's name is invoked in such manner, the criteria for such decision is only one: That it hinders the work of God, the Kingdom of God. It cannot be because one doesn't feel welcomed, or there's not enough youth programs, or there's not enough free food to go around, etc.

Such has been the case I've made for when we decided to leave a church. By leaving, I don't mean when someone immigrated to another state. I do however mean either a disassociation or seeking for a church where God's Kingdom is truly seen and clearer than the previous ones.

So when one moves from a Baptist church to a Reformed one, or even vice versa (For many Reformed churches are not really reformed anyway), it is possibly appropriate. We left CCCNY because Rev. Laura Lin cares more of men's than of God's. We left MERF of NYC because Pastor Paul Murphy's church is more tribal ("If you're not going to be a member I have no obligation to fellowship with you") than heavenly. We left Westfield OPC because Pastor Tim Ferguson's church is also more tribal (My church/family is God's Church/Family) than heavenly (God's Church/Family is my church/family).

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AI in the Music Industry: Suno

Posted on August 20, 2025 by timlyg

Thanks to Mr. You(尤靜波)'s demonstration:

the SUNO is getting incredibly "talented" in music. I've longed for this technology, since I learn slow in music theory. This AI obviously makes full use of chord progressions in various styles and genres, by mere listening to a user's audio singing file. I've already invested in TurboScribe. Suno maybe a second one. I've used SUNO to produce music for fun before, i.e. Happy Birthday Gee by typing in a poem (also generated by AI) for SUNO to compose the song based on the genre I choose. But apparently, SUNO can now detect pitches and sort out accompanying chords from mere audio files.

I feel like I'm going to be learning music theory (music arrangement) by reverse engineering from AI products.

While some criticized AI music for being no emotion, Mr. You rightly discerned that AI is imitation. It does not really create/compose music (composition 創作音樂，作曲), it only helps to arrange music 編制音樂，編曲 orchestration:

I have so many ideas, i.e. singing hymns and see how SUNO turns it into rock & roll, etc.

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Hillsdale College Imprimis: Is J.D. Vance Right about Europe? Christopher Caldwell

Posted on August 19, 2025 by timlyg

A while ago, I received this June 2025 Volume 54, Number 6: Imprimis newsletter (physical) from Hillsdale College (the best and hardest college to get into, according to Charlie Kirk), I was a big news in on Feb 14 when JD Vance criticized Europe of their wokeness to their face, at the Munich Security Conference on 2/14, where Vance, representing president Donald Trump, spoke to European leaders.

Though I have already had the general idea of the post-modernism, being woke, left wing activism in Europe, I figured this article by Caldwell would help me understand the Euro-American relationship today better. So this is a summary of it.

It's clear that Christopher Caldwell was being very impartial on this as he does not offer strong defense for the left. This is because he tries to avoid speaking of this Left vs. Right fight as a conflict of values/cultures but of interest (i.e. Trump's understanding of networking) instead. I'm not in full agreement of such assessment because values and cultures certainly are involved, but I can see the significant effect on political debates/directions when it is not seen my way but theirs. Therefore, my summary will obviously reflect that:

This is important because, first, Europe and the U.S.A. share Western value traditionally, from that they are allies. Second, the great Atlantic ocean between the two great Western continents divides them geopolitically, just as the Eastern and Western Christendom was in the middle ages. So if there's any hope for unity, one of them has to say something and the straw fell on Vance, who may actually appreciate it because of his character.

The catalyst appears to be whether more immigration is good or bad. Or rather, if immigration is in the people's interest or not, since it's not a value thing for Caldwell. [The Ring Wing generally does not favor immigration in the nationalistic guise of "get out of my house if you don't like how I run things.", it sounds just but not necessarily, because this is about values, not about raising kids, outside cultures can bring better values sometimes to rebuke and correct the local ones]

Populists: Anti-establishment (i.e. government control), for the people, can be either left [communism] or right wings. In this context, Caldwell seems to be only interested in using this term from a Right Wing perspective: Trump (against DEI, ESG-Environmental-Social-Governance, wokeness), Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD, lead by Alice Weidel) party (against the Nazi traumatized), France's presidential elect Marine Le Pen, Romania's presidential elect Calin Georgescu, Hungary's PiS (a Catholic, populist, anti-immigration party in Poland called Law and Justice), Italy, Slovakia. Slovakia is currently left-wing populist but Caldwell doesn't speak more of it than admitting it as populist.

Elitists: The rich, the ones in power, technocrats, the ones claiming to stand on a better economy, making no distinctions between legislatures (create laws) and courtrooms (interpret laws), regulatory bodies (create regulations that implement the laws).

The Elites [the group of elitists, to clarify the definition distinction], are known to suppress the rise of the populists from taking over the federal leadership of their countries. This done by abuse of power in the guise of justice: Marine Le Pen was barred from the 2027 for embezzlement conviction (for an irregularity in the procedures for paying office assistants that her party established 7 years before she became its leader), Calin Georgescu was arrested for unproven alliance with Russian spreading disinformation on TikTok, banning him from May 2025 vote, Italy's Silvio Berlusconi (right-wing populist) was replaced by Germany's Angela Merkel and France's Nicholas Sarkozy with a technocratic one. The EU withheld $60 billion from Poland until PiS was defeated in the 2023 elections by a pro-EU party, claiming justice on grounds of immigration policies.

Vance was worrying that the post-cold war era global economy has become less national, more partisan instead. The European Union, EU, based in Brussels, has been steering the politics of 27 nations since 1992, via the Maastricht Treaty. Usurping sovereignty of various great nations. The Western value is now about human rights, not Christianity.

However, EU did align with the capitalism of American since the 80s. European right wings distrust this as a form of Americanization. Trump criticized the EU for spending more in everything else (i.e. economy) but military which the EU convinced America to chip in. The EU concept is beneficial (social benefits) but national sovereignty is destroyed, diminished from great militaries of Belgium and Austria 40 years ago. From a dominating forces into whimpering dysfunctional shadows of the proud nations they once were. A good reason why UK left the EU with Brexit. Clearly, nationalism and military might go hand in hand in this context, but I don't think it has to always be so, as a Christian, something a Christian Nationalist would never understand: Not by power nor by might Zechariah 4:6. Of course, by His Spirit doesn't mean do nothing ourselves as if doing so would only mean pride and godless self-reliance, like many Western Reformed Christian (i.e. pastor Chris of my church) thought these days.

The EU ideology aligns with America's Democratic Party since 1992. This is a partisan thing and not a national one. Ireland, France and Germany are woke champions. Wokeness is not culture but a power network. It cares not about conviction but about the power of governments with punishments and threats.

My conclusion: My disagreement is from what I inserted above (my views are either apparent or bracketed [] above), but overall, I cannot say I'm fully for or against either partisans, if partisans is what I must use in this context. The complexity of the real issue is more overwhelming than what this article can describe. I can agree that immigration is the central issue and the only solution is a Christian one, not a nationalistic one in guise of Christianity, and certainly not a non-Christian one.

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Journal of the Week

Posted on August 18, 2025 by timlyg

8/23/2025 Saturday The GCC Men's Fellowship was led by Frank and I was impressed because Frank of all people, his topic of the day was on Fanny Crosby. He had us singing "To God be the Glory" and "Blessed Assurance". We also sang "I have a Christ in My Heart" because he thought that Wendell Loveless' song was by Crosby. We have scarce recordings of Fanny's talk, as her time was the transition into recording technology.

8/22/2025 Friday

Best tutorial for Arena Chess program engine management: Stockfish is currently the surprising the strongest chess engine, and it's open source!

Tracking my Costco FICO 867 as of 7/22/2025
WellsFargo FICO 848 as of 08/09/2025
Bank of America (BoA-new) FICO 838 as of 8/20/2025

Future FICO updates will be on my google spreadsheet.

8/21/2025 Thursday

Judge Frank Caprio's passing (August 20th, 2025, at 88, on Rhode Island) is spread beyond the U.S. (BBC news) because of him being known as the "Nicest judge in the world". His rulings (i.e. on traffic violation tickets) can easily be found online, generally waving the fines, "forgiving" everyone dramatically. This apparently came from his father, whom he honored enough to invite to his first bench, where he was very strict to a mother with 3 kids, fining her $300. His father later told him that he should have talked to her, understood her problem, that he can't just treat people like that. This drilled deep into him and changed his character ever since.

It's good to have a very forgiving judge, who doesn't want that. However, a judge's job in our modern world is really to rule according to the interpretation of the law. You can forgive, but someone's got to pay. I don't know about how Caprio finalize his pardoning "judgments", but if you were to forgive the $300 fine, you may want to consider paying that $300 out of your own pocket, and this should be done in public, especially in front of the person you forgive. This concept is only understood perfectly in a Christian worldview. Other religions could imitate it, the post-modern (naturalistic liberalism) world view (which would be the closest to influence Caprio) seeks to pervert it.

8/20/2025 Wednesday

USAID is looked down upon even in Africa, per Magatte Wade. She calls it poison. "When welfare becomes chronic, it becomes a problem", "the USA people get to walk around feeling superior for giving aid...not mixing with the locals who receive the aid."

Using "Can't Help Falling in Love" as background music, it's a beautiful video shoot (by Noah Reilly I think, per the Youtube Comment) of Feli's wedding. I only cared about the first 1 min, from aesthetic perspective:

8/19/2025 Tuesday

Epic's founder, Judy Faulkner, had a humble business beginning (from basement).

The First Person Shooting Game, Counter-Strike, by Minh Le, was built in the dorm.

Robot athletes competition in China is fun to watch.

8/18/2025 Monday

This is not necessarily a racist view. But the truth. I may be able to work with someone (Charlie Dates) like this, who do distinguish cultural differences between Black (I would assume African culture) and White (European, liberal West) cultures and look for a triumphant church:

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