To learn about Focal Ratio, this is a good teacher:
https://cloudbreakoptics.com/blogs/news/astrophotography-pixel-by-pixel-part-2
And the image below from the site is a good illustration of F-ratio vs. exposure. Basically, to take good quality image in astrophotography, you want to stay away from long exposure if possible, thus, you want lower F-ratio = focal length (obj. lens or primary mirror) / aperture.
3/7/2023 Fun interaction on Facebook on God and Logic. Basically I posted:
There has been debate on this within Christendom no doubt and thus affected one's view on God's sovereignty, i.e. predestination vs. arminianism, various understanding of trinity, Christ's dual nature (creaturely vs. divine), apologetics methods (i.e. transcendental vs. classical), C.VanTil & G.Bahnsen vs. WLCraig & F.Turek, etc.
It comes down to this:
1. God = logic (it's a property of God, attribute of God, nature of God, logic = logos, etc.) or
2. God > logic (God created/authored logic, logic is not logos, attempted archetype vs. ectype models, etc.)
#1. God cannot be and not be, God cannot lie, etc.
#2. Anthropomorphic language is prohibited to fully grasp God. God simply is (Am). Hence #1. is not applicable.
#1. Then God is arbitrary.
#2. No. Again, creaturely language.
etc.
But as a foundation to understand all these, I would suggest first to grasp this:
God is Truth, He is the source of Truth, He is the ontology of Truth.
-Truth itself (Himself) is not the same as understanding of the Truth
(Not talking about human mental capacity. Qualitative distinction, not in a quantitative manner)
-Understanding of the Truth is not the same as Explanation of the Truth.
-Explanation of the Truth is not the same as hearing of the Truth.
German philosophy on existence vs. Dasein also helped advance this line of study.
In theology there is a great emphasis on making the distinction between God's Knowledge of Himself vs. God's Knowledge of the world to avoid the risk of pantheistic switch. (Van Til - The Defense of the Faith, Chp 3 The Christian Philosophy of Knowledge - 2. God's Knowledge of the World)
After another google alert about running out of free storage space (11 used of 15 GB), I took about 2 hours cleaning up. Downloading emails with large attachments and photo galleries to my Photo drive. Bringing the used space down from 11GB to 7GB.
Thanks to fyyy.tv's response to my gmail request for links to Stephen Tong's remaining videos: 请问哪里可下载 《唐崇荣讲道集9》《唐崇荣讲道集10》《唐崇荣讲道集11》 等等？I was given new link to access. May the downloading project continues!
Also coming across the old AAA astronomy club music by Donna Stearns wife of Jason Kendall, kept a copy in my 2008 photo archive as well in case it's lost online: UP, UP, UP IN THE SKY
Some facial features though ugly and instinctively despised by many, are liked by some, especially by their own children. Some pretty or handsome figures, though we instinctively fall in love with, come to disrespect them over time, if not hate. Why?
The reason, I think, is trust. That is why couples stay together when they get old, they learn to build trust with each other. That is why a child clings to her disfigured mother, with trust that grew instinctively.
I have too many old, broken computers and monitors at NYGC. Not sure what to do with them. Thought I could fix them for learning projects, but don't have the time for them.
Getting rid of them is a pain, if you don't want to get into trouble in NYC. But it seems that Dell offers to collect for free any old electronics of any brand, in any condition, to recycle them. If that is so, then Dell really helps. And one might even say they are the true environmentally caring organization, in spite of any profit they may have gained out of this.
Complete the online shipping label to print out the free label. Drop off or call 800-463-3339 (FedEx) to schedule a Dell's Package Return Program pickup.
South Amboy is Bortle 6. Decent astrophotography would be at most Bortle 4, and that is with photo processing using stacking.
For Bortle 4, the closest is West North West of us, from Ken Lockwood Gorge Wildlife to Voorhees State Park. 50 mins away. The Wildlife area may have too many trees, so the best is to look around plain fields, baseball fields, Voorhees High School Tennis courts to set up the telescope. I've marked Ken Lockwood and the high school tennis courts on google map. Basically anything Westward from this is Bortle 4.
The alternative to West is South, South of Rt. 70, by Brendan T. Byrne State Forest. At least 1 hour drive down there.
Bortle 3 is not possible in the vicinity as the closest Bortle 3 is North pass Port Jervis. I marked the closest one at BSA Camp Aquehonga, by Fox Lake. Any camp grounds, lakes around that vicinity should be Bortle 3. Check the light pollution map to confirm.
2/25/2023 - Trying to catch up on my daily activities and organizing my journals, as usual when I started slacking. I need to note that I drove to a plaza on Main Street West of us in Sayreville, on Friday for lunch. Ordered Chinese takeout Kendy's Sushi & Peking Garden, which doesn't allow dine in, Singapore MeiFun and Hot & Sour soup, my usual for testing a Chinese takeout restaurant. Totaling $17+. I figure the Singaporean noodle costed around $13-14. The noodle's taste was not bad. Basically no comment. I like the soup's starchy texture, however it lacks the black fungus as ingredient. So I would just rate this restaurant so so, and not able to dine in is a minus. That said, this is still probably better than the Oriental House takeout near the South Amboy Train station as their tastes were just not there when I tried similar dishes a couple years ago, as if over-Americanized in taste, in spite of able to dine in.
I must also add that the same plaza also hosts Taste of Jamaica 1, the one that shutdown on Rt 35. near us. And La Rosetta Cafe, * Update 2/27/3023, went there and had the $10 Fish and rice lunch special, totaling $13 including tips. The food is likely fresh, but the taste is blend, perhaps they should do some butter and MSG, see picture below (appears to be similar to Milina Cuisine the Colombian restaurant in the Sayrebrook Towne Center) that offers $10 lunch, which I should try sometime next week or soon.
2/22/2023 - SPG Helpdesk dinner thanks to Al. Fine & Rare on 37th Street was the restaurant. The 8 of us had quite a meal. Only Ken and I did not order wine. Most didn't order dessert, I just didn't because trying to be on diet. Although I had 4 oysters (East Coast) from Greg's dozen, as well as my own appetizer: grilled octopus (vegetable succotash, fennel and frisée) $22 value, and I ordered Scallops with Succotash (creamy polenta, vegetable succotash with house made mango rose marmalade, [star anise with sweet possibly honey taste on it on my scallops]) as Entree, $48 value.
It is a wonder how a quiet bunch could chat quite well at times. Though I, sat between Greg and Al, wasn't the talkative one.
AutoIt Script - I finally used this for work. Greg needed to package two MSI files into a single exe file. So learned this tool AutoItScript that I once glanced at, to create an exe file (have also submitted it to Microsoft to clear virus detection - was called by MS Defender as a trojan) that downloads the zipped package from a server, unzips it, run the two MSIs, delete the temp files/folder.
How to unzip a zipped file: https://www.autoitscript.com/forum/topic/139249-unzip-a-zip/
Woodcut Art: I was fascinated by William Blake's woodcut engraving art works (i.e. the Book of Job). I was curious about how this was done and rather than hearing someone explaining, youtube says it all:
In Astronomy, found an EVScope enthusiast's site that's quite informative. He showed samples of various exposures: http://www.waloszek.de/astro_us_evscope_4_e.php. I was actually looking for how to capture video, such as satellite transits, but perhaps the best solution is to just do video capture on screen. I could have sworn that I saw some kind of satellite transiting the Orion Nebula M42 around 11pm last night (2/15/23). Last night was indeed perfect, not chilly, no wind, accept a bit cloudy (10%). But minus the cloud, I don't know what's making the sky lit up, can't be the waning crescent Moon. Could be the neighbors lights, especially our backyard neighbor across the street that always has some sport light pointing at us at night.
Slab City, in California, claimed to be the only free city in the world.
$25 Airbnb. Everything's very cheap. "spiritual" place. Looks like they just try to make it a free spirit, free anything haven.
I'm adding a new category in addition to Technical, due to complexity of my entries. So Computer Science is strictly anything related to computers while technical is just everything else.
I have always been fascinated by chatbots. My very first experience and motivation was when my dad bought our first IBM computer back in early 90 (if not 80s with the apple computer) and there was this program called Dr. Sbaitso or DOS' talking parrot. I have since imagined how to improve AI from the context of language processing.
Today, it's very popular. Years ago, a philosophy class in Language at City College also rekindled my interest in this. Now, there's ChatGPT, based on new jargon called Transformer in Machine Learning (NLP). There are tutorials on LinkedIn with such transformers.
So I could stick to my own build from scratch AI learning in language and at the same time, perhaps a better idea, to keep up with what's been done already: getting into basic terminologies such as Labeling -> Tokenization -> Vectorization.
I should also start with a popular AI community/API called Hugging Face.
I answered this first time years ago in Stony Brook Sunday school - 当人种增加前，没有今天复杂的亲属观念。
There was no complication in human relations. Therefore, they were all viewed as Children of God, rather than just brothers and sisters in contrast to other relational ties (i.e. cousins, friends, etc.)
To teach this in Children's Sunday school, simply needs to allude the the teaching of Christ in Matthew 12:50 - that the view of siblings as God's children was as plain as today's view on believers as brothers and sisters in Christ.
This article will follow the investigation of whether Jesus raised Himself or not. So it is no question that God raised Jesus. The Father (Rom 8:11, Gal 1:1, Eph 1:20), The Holy Spirit (Rom 8:11) both played in the triune economy of Christ's resurrection. The strongest case for Jesus raising Himself, is found in Joh 2:19-20 & John 10:17-18.
The Holy Spirit as agency is not considered here as that would be require an entire new line of evidence (pg. 118 n4).
This was brought to my attention when I came across David Tong's FB posts regarding this matter. Post 1 (2/7/2023): On his reading of Gaffin's book Resurrection and Redemption pg. 63, Post 2 (2/8/2023): Using the latest OpenAI chatbot: ChatGPT which is getting a lot of hypes lately, even from Christian circle. And David's subsequent posts: 4/9/2023, 4/9/2023, 4/10/2023, 4/10/2023, 4/11/2023, 4/14/2023, 4/14/2023, 3/26/2024, 3/26/2024, 3/30/2024, 3/31/2024, 4/1/2024
(Side note: archive.org is really some free online library, they won't let you download but allow you to "borrow" online for limited time period, not mentioning any download hack, which does seem to exist, at this time, I'm just not as invested to deal with this hack as I used to, depending on time and zeal as a collector)
So David posted these:
Gaffin: “The notion that Jesus is active in his resurrection … is not supported elsewhere in Paul.” (Gaffin, Resurrection and Redemption, 63).
Geerhadus Vos: “Nowhere is it said of Jesus that He contributed towards his own resurrection, far less that He raised Himself.” (Vos, The Pauline Eschatology, 147n6, quoted in Gaffin, Resurrection and Redemption, 64).
If I'm not mistaken, the idea is to suggest that Jesus did not raise himself. As verified in his [David Tong] second post using ChatGPT to confirm the fact that the AI does indeed "think" so.
However, I believe that Both Richard Gaffin Jr. and Vos were referring to Pauline eschatology, not the entire eschatology of the Bible. In other words, David Tong alone, not the others, missed the Johanine eschatology. However, I cannot say if Gaffin or Vos did not have the tendency to make their view to not just be Pauline but representing the entire New Testament as well. Both Gaffin and Vos were obviously focusing on the fact that it was God who raised Christ, God's power, God's authority, God alone, so that we understand that our resurrection likewise rest assuredly in divine hand, but Gaffin also indicated John Murray's stand as if unique "Murray, who wishes to hold open the possibility that there may be a reflection on "Jesus' own agency" in its usage, nevertheless rightly maintains: "To insist, however, that there is reflection upon the agency of Christ in His own resurrection, in such usage as we have now been discussing, is not warranted" ("Who Raised Up Jesus?" p. 116). Pg 64n91. (PS: This pursuit also taught me how to read citations like xxxn.xx = page number footnote #) Neither Vos nor Gaffin made reference to Joh 2:19-20 & John 10:17-18, which is why I assume they were only focusing on Pauline in particular and not the entire NT.
Stephen Tong in his 2022 preaching (復活節崇拜會 基督必要復活), emphasized: 四、 基督的死是主動性的死...因為耶穌的死是主動的，所以耶穌的復活也是主動的。I will add the entire sermon in the comment in case of broken link in the future. Basically, applying the knowledge of Christ's dual natures.
John Murray, a student of Vos, give the best explanation of all this in his WTS journal article: Who Raised Up Jesus? Which was later discussed by Reformed Forum in 2014. Murray basically said Jesus had a hand in raising Himself up, but in the economical triune sense. Which I will explain below in his 4 points.
Two primary Greek words used for resurrection/raised: ἐγείρω and ἀνίστημι (for some reason David Tong interpret it as only "standing up" and thus rejected the application of ἀνίστημι in this discussion).
The key to understand all this is the grammar in Greek: When passive voice is applied to ἐγείρω, one must understand if this is expressed in the passive of the transitive verb "to raise" or intransitive verb "to rise/arise". With transitive then you have God as the subject and Christ as the object.
Here is basically the summary from John Murray and his 4 points in the end:
Active verb implies God raised Jesus (for sure in transitive case) in the passages below:
ἐγείρω - Active verb ἤγειρεν:
- Acts 4:10, Acts 5:30.
ἀνίστημι - Active transitive verb ἀνέστησεν/ἀναστήσας:
- Acts 2:24, Acts 2:32, Acts 13:33, 34; 17:31
- Active intransitive verb ἀναστῆναι/ἀναστῇ/ἀναστήσεται/ἀνέστη:
- Mark 8:31; 9:9, 10, 31; 10:34; Luke 18:33; 24:7, 46; John 20:9; Acts 10:41; 17:3; I Thessalonians 4:14
Which persons of the Trinity are involved?
- Holy Spirit: Romans 8:11
- The Father: Galatians 1:1
- The Father: Ephesians 1:17-20
However, Murray wishes to argue in Romans 6:4, the ἠγέρθη though aorist passive, may be rendered "rose" as well as "was raised".
Thus, there is no doubt that the Father is the agent and Christ is the subject in the resurrection of Christ.
Active verb being appears to be uniformly used transitively (raise), with the exception of the present active imperative ἤγειρε [no example, must be a rare case]. Active voice: Jesus is the object and not the subject of the verb, except in John 2:19-20.
ἐγείρω
Passive verb ἐγείρονται/ἐγήγερται/ἐγείρεται/ἐγερθήσονται get complicated:
transitive = to raise: Matthew 11:5, Luke 7:22, Luke 20:37, 1Cor 15:15,16,29,32,35,42,43,44,52
Verses that appear transitive but could also be less awkward to be intransitive = to rise, to arise: ἠγέρθη/ἐγερθέντι/ἐγερθείς/ἐγήγερται/ἐγείρονται: Rom 4:25, 6:4,9; 7:4; 8:34; 1Cor 15:4,12,13,14,16,17,20.
Intransitive use of the verb but non-resurrection references ἠγέρθη/ἐγήγερται/ἐγέρθητι : Matthew 8:15, 9:25, 14:2; Mark 6:14,16; Luke 9:7, Luke 7:14
Thus, Murray promotes (though insisting such use is not warranted for the resurrection of others who could not have been resurrected by the exercise of their own agency or power prevents such insistence) the use of Passive Intransitive as Jesus' own activity in His resurrection in these ἐγείρομαι/Ἠγέρθη/ἐγερθῆναί/ἐγερθείς/ἐγερθέντι/ἐγηγερμένον: Matthew 27:63,64; 28:6,7; Mark 14:28; 16:6; Luke 24:6,34; John 21:14; 2Cor 5:15; 2Tim 2:8.
ἀνίστημι
As listed above with examples of its Active transitive & intransitive verses. When it is transitive, God is the agent and Christ the subject of the resurrection, Christ is the object of the verb; In instances (with Mark 9:10 as exception) of intransitive use, Jesus is the subject of the clause.
However, ἀναστήσας (active verb) in Acts 3:26 is not treated by Murray as resurrection. And some would argue that ἀναστήσας in Acts 13:32[-33] was referring to incarnation instead, but Acts 13:34 is explicit enough to conclude that verse 32[-33] is referring to the resurrection instead of incarnation. (pg. 117n2)
Also from terms other than ἐγείρω & ἀνίστημι consider Christ's resurrection in Romans 14:9 ἔζησεν/ζάω (active verb) & I Peter 3:18 ζῳοποιηθείς/ζῳοποιέω (passive verb), though not determinative. (pg. 118 n3)
Therefore, though insistence on activity of Jesus as agent of His resurrection is impossible (proven by the fact that such verb is used in the case of the resurrection of others who could not have risen by their own agency or power i.e. Mark 5:42; Luke 16:31; John 11:23,24; Acts 9:40 ἀνάστηθι; Ephesians 5:14 ἀνάστα; I Thessalonians 4:16 ἀναστήσονται), Murray seriously contemplated the possibility of Jesus' own agency in His resurrection.
So there is no conclusive evidence that there is allusion to the activity of Jesus in these cases of the use of either of these two verbs, despite there being possibility of that in the intransitive use of the passive of ἐγείρω and in the intransitive use of ἀνίστημι.
Now, possibility aside, here comes the Johannine proof of the affirmative justification that Jesus was active in His own resurrection. John 2:19-22 [a promise is more of an act rather than potentiality when spoken by Christ] & John 10:17-18 [though one such as David Tong would argue for potentiality instead of actual act here]. Even though other passages were inconclusive. To be continued - pg. 119
Conclusion:
The fun part for this entry was hours of labor finding resources cited in these works. For example, it was almost impossible but I did find Gaffin's footnote reference (page 64 n.90) that with Vos, the reason I wasted hours and couldn't find the quote Gaffin took from Vos: Nowhere is it said of Jesus that He contributed towards his own resurrection, far less that He raised Himself. (Vos, The Pauline Eschatology, 147n6, quoted in Gaffin, Resurrection and Redemption, 64) was because the version I downloaded of Vos' Eschatology had no footnotes in it, and 147n6 just happens to be at page 147, footnote #6 of the complete edition - now why would those making these public downloads remove footnotes or think these footnotes aren't important? Apparently Vos had written almost as much material in his footnotes than his main content of the book, mostly. I was almost convinced that Gaffin was mistaken in his citation. The other was from the same citation, referring to D. H. Van Daalen's article on "The Resurrection of the Body and Justification by Grace". This one is more of a challenge for finding rare resources on the internet. And while using the English part (Studia Evangelica Vol III) of the search did not get any result, I was able to get the entire article from Google Books using German/Dutch keywords: Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur Volume 88 1964. I managed make my own archive of all these except for Gaffin's book as well as Vos' COMPLETE Pauline Eschatology edition (with footnotes), I shall just virtually "borrow" these when necessary, for now. I've archived Van Daalen's article next to John Murray's article in the same folder on my drive.
2/14/2023 ways to make money, sign up for https://www.classaction.org/settlements
All kinds of class-action lawsuits, one maybe actually get paid for, from a few dollars to $100+ according to BeatTheBush video below:
2/10/2023 Went to LFS (Aquatic Obsessions) to get:
2x $70 Hippo Tangs 1"
2x $25 Bluestreak Cleaner Wrasses
3x $14 Chromis
Cash paid $80 for a Lemon Tang (was hopeful that this would eat my green hair algae)
As usual, this store's tanks are the cleanest of all I've seen and the most variety. Asked why he only opens on Thurs/Fri: He's been in this business for too long (30+ years if not mistaken). I also recalled that he seemed pretty upset last year when his father just passed away. Interestingly, he gets wholesale from some airport, if I heard right.
Hopefully, I can these fish won't die on me as I've covered the tank with home made covering using nylon netting framed by HomeDepot window screen framing. I would love to get more Sea Hare as the one currently in the tank seems to be doing its job (eating green hair). I may pay a visit
Chung Ling Chui Nui: 鍾靈生的碎蛋. I would pay $$$ to learn straight from the master if I were there. I need to have a separate outdoor gas range and wok hay method. The blood cockles are going to be hard to come by here in the East Coast if not USA.
On Charismatic History, this pastor (Brooklyn First Baptist Church) gave a good overview, though, I would not agree on ecumenical fellowship with Pentecostals so blindly, perhaps only work together with them in certain evangelical matters.
「神学探讨」灵恩派是不是异端？
