Isqua Istari

There are a lot of stories about “paralell universes” where things are the same, but different. The premise is there are an infinite number of universes (falsely justified by quantum mechanics, but that’s another beef) and therefore anything that you could imagine must exist somewhere. I think this is an unreasonable idea (not that there’s any problem with silly fiction) and not to be taken seriously. I still enjoy this kind of fiction, but it seems the “infinite universes” excuse used to justify “this could really happen” falls apart under scrutiny. I would prefer no excuse at all to a faulty one. (more…)

I’ve heard in several places that sufficently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Although this may be true, traditional “magic” and fairytale “magic” seem to differ significantly from technological “magic”.

First though, the similarities. Magic and technology extend the power of the weilder (mage or engineer) to influence the world. Being tools, they are often (both in fable and history) used and misused by both the good and bad. Often too, certain magic or technology carries a sinister weight, derived from its origin. Perhaps the evil witch draws power from un-holy forces, or the evil corporation draws it’s widgets from sweatshops. Nevertheless, both magic and technology are portrayed primarily as wonderous, mysterious, potent, and more than a little dangerous. Both seem to complicate life.

However, despite their similarities (and cursory interchangability) magic is a poor substitute for technology, and vice-versa. (more…)

Has “The Cat in the Hat” ever struck you as a metaphor for demonic posession? Consider these points:

The authority (Mother in this case) is out from the house when a creature (the Cat) comes in uninvited.
The fish (apparently in charge while the mother is out) is against the creature’s presence, but the children seem powerless to do anything about it.
The Cat assures the children that there will be great fun. However, all he seems capable of doing is showing off and calling for attention. The creature is self absorbed, deceptive, and destructive. He promises “games” and “fun” but it seems only he gets to play.
The creature brings in two more creatures, recognizable only as things. They are more destructive than the Cat.

Up to this point the story sounds to me like straight up demonic posession, especially in view of Luke 11:17-26. The story takes a turn, however. (more…)

I had an unnerving experiance the other day. I’ve felt it before, the best way I can describe it is the “unseen bulk syndrome”.

My job is in a large industrial building, a warehouse really. It has seen previous owners, and when my company moved in lots of the infrastructure was left in place. There are large pipes and huge ducts snaking across the roof, probably more than twenty years old. I guess it costs too much to pull it out and throw it away.
The layout is almost like a castle. The exterior walls are lined on the inside with rooms, surrounding a central large open space. The rooms on the walls are offices, workshops, labs, and storage rooms. Above the ground level roooms are a second level of rooms, mostly used for storage. Imagine a wall two stories high, seen from inside the main area. On the ground level there are some doors and windows, and then about fifteen feet up there are a set of double doors (three sets actually, around the warehouse), flush with the wall, reachable only by rolling ladder. If you want to get into the second story, you have to climb a ladder and then open the door with one hand before you can step in, since there is no landing. I’m mildly acrophobic, so this is always a little harrowing. There are no windows in the second story either, so it’s really dark unless you can find the light switch.

Monday I was tracing some ducts for a machine I’m working on. They went into the roof, so I went back into the warehouse and climbed a nearby ladder to the second story. Above me (and a little to the right) is a monstrous duct, probably four feet tall and ten feet across. It goes straight into the wall, but I don’t really think about what this implies. I get to the top of the ladder. The door opens easily.

I step into the darkness. (more…)

I’m pretty close to my brother, who majored in economics in school. We talk about all sorts of things, and naturally his bent toward the economic prerspective has induced some secondary incandescence in my own thinking.

So here’s a thought. I think that (as an example) if I own a burgur joint I should be allowed to charge someone more for a burger if I don’t like them, or for any other reason. I propose that this action not only should be legal, but can also be a moral decision, ultimately God-glorifying.

Modern buyers seem to think that they should always pay the same monetary price as anyone else. Americans are miffed in mexico that they pay more if they can’t speak spanish. I-phone owners are enraged that the price comes down and they have already paid a higher price. The price of gas goes up, and there is hue and cry about price gouging. Such equality is even enforced (in some cases) under “Non-descrimination” laws. Everyone complains about rising prices, and the feeling behind the words is “there should be a law…”

Reality is that discrimination in moderation is not only beneficial but necessary. Price must reflect cost. This is the fundamental axiom of economics (which I just made up). The presence of varying costs makes it reasonable to charge different prices across a variety of circumstances. It may be more hassle to sell to one person than another (maybe mexicans don’t speak english very well), and the price should be allowed to reflect this. Temporal variation (prices changing over time) seems to be a well-accepted trait of price, but it differs very little from other varieties.

There are social costs too (which I also just made up). If you want to go around your house playing a tuba at midnight it costs your neighbors something, even if you are really good. These costs don’t come out of their pocketbook, but they exist nonetheless. Perhaps “induced discomfort” sums it up. Things like innovation and abnormal behaviour incur social costs. Of course, when you evoke cost from society, then society should be able to “charge” you some extra price. Undue inquiry, derision, and castigation are common examples of social price.

Now, there seems to be the feeling that a cost of one kind should not incur a price of another kind (Yeah, I’m pretty much making up this whole thing aren’t I?). For example, the social cost of doing business with a really annoying person should never increase the monetary price of that person’s goods and services. But I ask you, why should this be the case? Is it kinder to let the pushy customer continue pushing everyone around, rather than punish him and hope that he decides being pushy isn’t worth the extra five bucks for his frenchfries? Is it really being thoughtful of everyone to keep a friend’s thefts a secret? Woudln’t it be better to shame them in hopes that the social cost isn’t worth the extra five bucks they saved on frenchfries? (as a side note, stealing frenchfries sounds painful)

And, since “Love does no harm to a neighbor” and thus is the fulfillment of the law, then as long as discriminatory increase (or decrease for that matter) in price is meant, not to harm, but to instruct, then it is within the bounds of moral action. I realize this opens the doors for widespread economic expression of bigotry, but who really believes that this doesn’t happen already? An economic expression of oppinion would perhaps ameliorate the social price incurred.

So, there you have it. A few (mostly made up) thoughts. Perhaps if someone actually knows something about economics they could correct me. Of course, correcting somone else’s work has a whole set of costs associated with it. I wonder what the price will be?

More python! I finally sat down and hacked out some code for something I’ve been thinking about for a while. It’s a parametric wall generator! The pictures speak for themselves, except to say that each wall takes about two seconds to generate instead of hours it would take by hand. I’m going to try to do a more ‘rough hewn’ look eventually, but this should work for now. Next step? Windows, achways, doors…

EDIT: Got the windows and doors working, though at this point positioning is manual. The hard part was getting the edges to line up without getting nasty looking stones. Also added “flaw” features, you can see some of the corners are knocked off the blocks in the latest picture. I did a lot of behind-the-scenes code optimization and restructured things to make the functions more useful. Look out for a castle soon?

EDIT: 9-16-07 After more than a week I finally have a presentable piece of code. 695 lines was a bit more than I bargained for initially, but hey great learning experiance. There are a few more pictures up at the earlier link as well. I don’t know when a castle will show up though, I’ve been putting a lot of other things off working on this. I think I’ll take a break on the coding for a while, come back with a fresh perspective. Really great to have it in working condition though, there are a lot of graphical projects which this will (I suspect) aid immensely.

Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”
Gaston is the villain, and yet the most innocuous form of villain. He lacks tenderness and selflesness, few women would be attracted to that. He isn’t even charasmatic, and could have easily been opposed by a real man. He is obvious, loud, and barely scheming.
The Beast, however, is the worst kind of hero. He is childish, selfish, angry, and rude. He has a “good heart” which seems to translate to “teen angst.” Worse than this, Bell is portrayed to transform him through her concern. She fixed him! What’s wrong with this? Mostly it is a subversive lie. Women want to believe that they can change a man, fix him up. This rendition of Beauty and the Beast caters directly to that absurd fantasy. In the original, Beast was changed through his suffering, and the service of others, well before he met Bell.
Add to this Bell’s rejection of “this provincial life”, a norm which I would (in the general) uphold as closer to the ideal than any modern rubric. Don’t forget the villanization of men going to war to protect their families. Oh, and Beast fails to kill Gaston! It can’t have been pity, he didn’t care about Gaston. Was it because he knew Bell was watching? What kind of pansy is the Beast anyhow? If you own a copy of this movie, I suggest a fire or a sledgehammer will solve your problem.

I was going to list more, but you know what? Just about half (if not more) of anything Disney produces stinks. Lousy morals, reprehensible main characters, shot through with modernity. They’re worse than “bad” movies, the ones your Mom wouldn’t let you see, since they tell subtle lies in the form of well known stories. At least you expect James Bond to be immoral, but no one seems to suspect Prince Charming (rebellious, flighty headed, dandiacal fool!).

You know what is a great movie though? I tried to think of one, “300″ springs to mind, along with “Atlantis”, but neither are quite right. Let me know in the comments section if you can think of one.

EDIT:
Just to clarify, there are a great number of movies I enjoy watching. I’d even go so far to say I enjoy most movies I’ve seen. I have fun watching Beauty and the Beast, The Emperors New Groove, Lord of the Rings, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and countless others. However, it is just these movies which are the most dangerous, for they present lies in the form of beauty, and with the gait of truth.

EDIT:
In response to Deborah’s comment: Belief is not required for participation. One could, theoretically, believe promiscuity is immoral and still write/produce/direct a James Bond movie. However, I suspect this is is very uncommon. I have yet to hear an actor, producer, writer, or director say (more or less) “I really don’t believe in what this movie is saying”. This may be the attidude of minor actors or artists who just need the work, but then again they don’t have a say in what the movie conveys.

If you can find an example to the contrary let me know. The feeling I get from everything I’ve heard is that those who shape movies end up saying “I think this is a really important message for todays children” (or “society” or “teenagers” or whatever). Think about it, would you spend a few years of your life sending a statement which made you cringe? If you had a choice, wouldn’t you say something you believe in?

Okay, I’m allowed to plug my own stuff on my blog right? Check out the finished gauntlets! Details and notes are on the captions of the pictures. First off I have to say that there was a bit of prayer which went into these gauntlets. I must thank God, the Father of Jesus the Christ for the skill He leant me. I also have to thank the Armour Archive for the pattern and many of the techniques. They are slightly modified, but in essence the same as seen there. These gauntlets were recently featured in a production of Macbeth.

For the past five months I’ve been going to drama practice every Monday afternoon, preparing for the part of Macbeth in Macbeth. It’s a shortened version for children’s production. Somehow, that doesn’t seem to make his speeches any shorter. It also somehow doesn’t remove “come to my woman’s breasts and take my milk for gall” or even “I would while it was smiling in my face…” etc. I guess children just want to have fewer scenes, but with all the vivid Shakespearian dialog.

Of course with lots of young home-schooled children in the cast there were some trials which had to be overcome. I think Luke and I were the oldest by a few years. My leading lady was a mere 14 (making her “come you spirits” speech all the more creepifying). There was one actress who consistently delayed (and, in the two dress rehearsals, forgoed (can you say forgoed? Is it, forgoned? Perhaps Forgayed?)) her entrance while I was the only one on stage. This forced me to improvise, in one case reciting snippets of Hamlet’s “Tis now the very witching time of night…” speech, and generally making a fool of myself. Granted, she was only entering so I could throw a few saucy lines at her and then sucker punch her to death with my steel clad fists. Is some grace to be granted here? I submit that it is.

I had forgotten how much I enjoyed doing drama. There’s the satisfaction of memorizing beautiful poetry and then using it at odd moments around the house. “Avaunt, and quit my sight!” is quite useful, as well as “I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent.” There’s the romance (which I otherwise restrict rigidly) and the rage (likewise so). Actually, it’s just a great excuse to run the gamut of all kinds of emotions. I try to be stoic most of the time, drama allows me a venue to do the opposite.
I had also forgotten how much I disliked doing drama. Most of this revolves around me not liking drama people. argh!. On the whole though, it was a good experience, and I’d like to do it again some time.

Anyhow, the production is finally finished and I’m able to finish some tasks I’ve been putting off.
Like eating that ice cream (still mostly frozen, still two buckets to go).
Also like posting pictures of the finished gauntlets!

I’m a fan of Calvin and Hobbes. Yes, I respect (though often disagree) with their individual philosophical and theological views, but in this case I refer to their joint effort moderated by Bill Watterson. The comic strip was one of the driving forces (and primary materials) in my desire to learn to read, and has remained a favorite of mine up to the present. I recently bought “The Complete Calvin and Hobbes” and finished reading it just yesterday evening.

My similarity to Calvin (in personality and tastes anyhow) always surprises me. We are both selfish, intelligent (but lazy), thoughtless (but shrewd), crude, and dedicated to total self-indulgence. His enviromental tirades are probably the furthest point of departure, but even those rest on a shared appreciation of beauty. Really, the only major point of diversion is that of Jesus Christ. He is the reason I’m not (for lack of a better comparison) a six-year-old terror.
Those of you who know me may well point out that I can still be plenty selfish, but thank God he saw fit to continue forging me into something better than I was. Jesus’ life in me is solely responsible for anything I do or think which is pleasant or good. That said, I think it’s good to remember what an odious person I am from time to time, as it makes me appreciate what Christ has done all the more. Reading Calvin and Hobbes, and laughing at the rediculous hubris displayed therin, helps to do that.

On the other hand we are different in several ways, and I think there is something to be learned from Calvin. We could all learn from his boldness (even recklessness), his sense of injustice, his frakness of speech, his piquant acuity, and his sense of adventure. So often I find myself (don’t we all?) shying away from speaking what I think, acting on conviction, or taking risks. Calvin knows nothing of constraint, which is his greatest strength and his direst fault.
In a similar way to Jesus actually! Jesus is always going around unconstrained. He disobeys common sense, upsets the peace, condemns the pastors, praises the prostitutes, walks through riots (and even solid doors), even death could not hold him for long. I want to go about un hindered like Jesus, and unconstrained.

So if you see me making a pest of myself, just think of Calvin, and laugh. You could hit me with a slushball or a waterbaloon while you’re at it! But think about the people you laugh at, dispise, or look up to. Are you so different from them? Think about Jesus, dwell on Him.

An interesting question was raised in the comments of this post about the identity of good and evil. My response:

I find the metaphor of light and darkness very helpful here. “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5) Dichotomy and congealment both imply a form of equality between good and evil, which I reject. There is only really Good and otherwise, light or darkness. Evil, absurdity, they are only temporal, and will be done away with. There is no dichotomy, Good overpowers evil as easily as light overpowers darkness. There is no congealment. Light and darkness can not coexist. Good and evil are completely mutually exclusive.

This is not to say that Good may not display characteristics which WE THINK are Evil. God (the very definition of Good) has (at various times according to the Bible) condoned genocide, lying, gender inequality, pillaging, military conquest, sexual slavery, carousing, violence, and human sacrifice. I’m not saying that we’ll always like the Good. I’m just saying that, fundamentally, Good and Evil can’t mix. When you mix light with darkness, all you get is light. God abides no rivals.

“Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.” (1 Thess 5:5)
“And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” (John 3:19)
“And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.” (Rev 22:5)