Family

Had some thoughts while walking to work today, and decided I would share some of my feelings about family.

So... Family (said in a McKay sort of way, i.e. unstructured rant is forthcoming).

Basically, my folks are moving to Chicago in a week. This isn't a bad thing at all, but its starting to really hit me. Not that I won't have my parents around, but because I won't really have any family around.

Let me explain -- I have lots of aunts and uncles, more cousins than I can count (actually I could if I wanted)... etc. Problem is that I've only seen them a handful of times in my life. On top of that, most of them have such radically different lifes than me that it is very hard to relate. This distance can be seen in who attended my wedding. Out of most of the family, I think I'm one of the first to get married out of the cousins w/o children already being an issue. Yet, only my immediate family and my grandparents came. Invitations went out to others, but nonetheless, that was it. (and even moreso -- family that will read this blog are most likely either or both of my siblings, and my dad).

This is in stark contrast to Marcy's family. She is #12 of 13 siblings, and both her parents have big families. She has tons and tons of cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. There are so many ppl in her family that its overwhelming... so many its hard to get to know them! (Ironically, the left half of the church was packed with siblings, cousins, and other relatives of Marcy.) So like, I go over to her house, and am lucky to say hi to most of the ppl there, wheras if she comes over to mine, 2 parents, 2 siblings.

Because of how small my family is, we are all very close. So what is frustrating is that my family already feels real small, because I'm so distant from so much of it. And now, w/ my folks and sister moving east, I fear the distance that will naturally occur there. Now my "family" is Marcy and Stephen. I almost want to extend the definition of family for myself to include close friends from school and church.

Anyway, all this to say -- despite differences, frustrations, etc., I'm beginning to realize the importance of cherishing family and building close bonds. Hopefully this loss will motivate me to grow closer to my new family, (i.e. Marcy's family).

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Thoughts on a megabyte

My friends and I are nerds.

Anyway, yesterday at lunch we were discussing the etymology of megabyte. So here is a brief rundown of the prefixes based on wikipedia and the oxford american dictionary:

kilobyte (thousand) -- via french, from greek khilioi "thousand"
megabyte (million) -- greek, great or large
gigabyte (billion) -- greek, giant
terabyte (trillion) -- greek, monster
petabyte (quadrillion) -- from grk penta, five, analogy of tera and tetra
exabyte (quintillion) -- from grk hexa, six
zettabyte (sextillion) -- from italian setta (seven) from zepto, adapted form of septi, from latin septim (seven)
yottabyte (septillion) -- from italian otto (eight), from octo greek or latin, eight

for how much each is worth, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillion#See_also

First, isn't it interesting how these aren't lined up? (sept = 7, septillian however is a yottabyte, not zettabyte)

Second... the following articles have some interesting comparisons with the bigger numbers:
http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Terabyte
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petabyte
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exabyte

Third... (and finally)

Some interesting quotes (From Wikipdia)

"The books in the the U.S. Library of Congress contain approximately 20 terabytes of text"

"the total amount of printed material in the world is estimated to be around five exabytes." (exabyte=~million terabytes)

"It was estimated that by the end of 1999, the sum of human knowledge (including audio, video and text) was 12 exabytes. "

"With a hundred trillion cells, each one storing 6Gb of data in its DNA, the body of typical living
animal stores a grand total of 600YB, making it the world's most redundant storage device."

Now, an exabyte isn't even practical yet because its so large, yet an animal here contians 600 million exabytes of data.
More so, an animal functions very effectively, both creating, destroying, and discarding cells every day. It therefor is managing a near incomprehendable quantity of data very efficiently, accurately, and without fiber optics.

This all just amazes me... thats all.
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Security

I've had a bit of a paradigm shift... or at least had that "kick you in the head" experience realizing a new perspective that I was very naive about.

It is the issue of security. In the past, I've always been real frustrated whenever you here a politician talking about security, because yeah, its important, but historically it has been used as justification to do something that probably ought not be done, (or at least in its manner).

One big example of this is the present conflict between security on one side, and jsutice on the other. Usually those in category #1 are willing to set aside some morality, and some justice, for the sake of their security. Those in #2 cry out at the injustice they have suffered, but often a few from #2 are willing to inflict evil on #1 for retribution. In the past, I have had such a hard time understanding how #1 could opperate without realizing how great a cost they pay for their goal!

Anyway, so recently a friend of mine at my apartment complex was robbed, and for the few weeks after that I had a bit of loss of a sense of security. I feared for myself, but even more for my wife. I didn't freak out, but was nevertheless uneasy.

It hit me that what I expereinced was so minor compared to the fear many people have to live in day by day. Of course that kind of fear and provoke a person to do thigns he wouldn't normally do! And its a very deep fear... the fear of not being in control, the fear of benig at the mercy of somebody with il intentions, and the fear of simply being violated.

9/11 didn't spark this fear in me, probably because I am livinvg in the exact opposite corner of the country from NY. Probably because our culture is so desensitized to evil in the world, but I rarely get disturbed by all the evil that is happening in our world, pooring through the TV every night.

So I have had a change of thinking in several ways:

1) The need for security is real, it may provoke one to hasty and bad decisions, but it is a powerful motivational force.

2) Security is something all people feel is a need. We need to have a "safe place"

3) The sense of security is ultimately an illusion (viz. 9/11)

4) When you have a conflict between one side needing security and the other side needing justice, neither side is "the good guys" or right. At least in my limited knowledge, it seems both ideologies are willing to sacrifice what is right to achieve what they want.

so these still remain:

1) The world is full of evil people wanting to do evil deeds to otehrs

2) Our only real security is being in the will of Christ. Only here can we find peace and true safety. Of course followers of Christ experience evil, but there is a biblical sense of peace of mind, knowing that it will happen, but that ultimately whatever happens your on God's side.

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More Absolutist Garbage

I really don't have much to say... just was reading in some forums about some folks reactions to Serenity, and some discussion on religion specifically Book, and his approach to religion .

As always, somebody has to drop the all to common line "there are multiple interpretations of scripture", and "you don't have the only true interpretation", in other words -- religion changes over time. These are fighting words to most Christians... and yet they seem to be such a common, cliche, statement for our culture to make, usually about religion, specifically, Christianity.

I have three observations to make.

First, Every time somebody says something like this, its easy to assume that this is relitivistic crap, religious pluralism. I'm beginning to think that really, this is not necessarily the case. This can simply mean, it is important to recognize that other people approach this differently, and we need to interact with these different views. I think a few use this language in this sense, and it is very easy to assume they mean the next meaning: that all of those interpretations should not only be treated equally, but that they are equal (i.e. all are fair representatives of truth).

I think it is important to always make sure to actually listen to what somebody is saying, something I know I so often struggle with. Just because what they say sounds like it disagrees, greater humility is needed to make sure "what it sounds like" is what they really mean. While I believe communication happens in a reliable way, there still is the 10% or more that breaks down due to our human inperfections, and often limited viewpoints.

Second, what is interesting is that, I fear this latter of the 2 meanings is a bit deceptive. While for the consistent post-modernist this is an epistemological claim that extends beyond religion, I think for most people that spout this what they really mean is that, the supernatural isn't true in the sense that it represents reality. Instead, it is a meaning for finding significance, explaining the unexplainable, enlightenment, etc. In this sense, any "interpretation" of course is valid -- its not representing something about reality, but something "spiritual" (i.e., abstract, philosophical, mental, emotional).

Why? Because honestly "all interpreations are equally true" never works, and even those who argue it, naturally, are arguing that that proposition is always true. Of course this all depends on what "true" means, but really, I think that everybody /for the most part/ opperates with "true" meaning that which corresponds to reality, i.e. Objectively true. To argue anything else would be a contradiction. "True for me" = I think this is truth.

Finally, what I'm getting at is I have been trying to reconcile why so much of our media is so thoroughly anti-supernatural still (i.e. naturalistic), yet it seems our post-modern culture is very open to religion / spirituality. This seems so contrary, the media is always spouting how God can't exist (viz. Katrina, and the "recent blow to Intelligent design by the ruling of a Judge).. and I am just wondering that, either these two are in opposition, or maybe our culture isn't as open to God, so much as open to "spirituality", whatever that means.

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