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: