Time Relativity and Old Age and nonsense

I have this fascination with mathematical formulas and I thought about or rather wished that I could have the facility to understand or at least catch glimpse of what all these symbols and how they operate. But no, they are and will continue to be hieroglyphics to me.

In my grade school days, I thought I was good with math, or at least not that bad at it, that was until I graduated from grade 6 and had my first encounter with algebra, then geometry to trigonometry and from then on, I gave up trying to figure out what all these symbols were about. Happy enough to have the arithmetic skill to count change.

But the fact that I was bad at it did not stop my fascination at the concept behind these seemingly powerful numbers and symbols, which are really nothing but shorthand for something that will take too long to explain using the English alphabets.

 As one of my former math professor said, "the shorter the formula the more difficult or complicated the concept behind it is", which didn't really mean anything to my numerically challenged brain, at all. NOTHING!

I guess the most famous formula is Einstein's E=mc2. Which I don't know what it is all about and all my introductory understanding of are from science fiction movies and stories.  From which I gathered that underneath the letters are stuffs that changed physics how we view reality from space, black holes, Uranus, etc. and of course time.

Time for us mere mortals (who are not given the magical powers to understand the mathematics of physics) is the passing of moments, the rotation of the earth, the passing season, ageing, white hairs, rheumatoid arthritis,  etc. It is fixed and only moves forward, according to common sense and classical Newtonian physics.

When Einstein came along and shocked the physics world with his theories, time became another dimension, space is not space anymore, it is now space-time. Time can be slowed down with velocity. Also his theories opened up the possibility, at least theoretically speaking, of time travel. Here I will stop because everything else from here is dark matter, as in dark. I have no idea about.

Philosophically, there is the idea by Immanuel Kant which says that time has no objective reality: "it is subjective and ideal, and originates from the mind's nature in accord with the stable scheme, as it were, for coordinating everything sensed externally." Simply put, time is not real, it is just how our brains are programmed to understand reality. 

But for all its mystery time is very real, at least the passing of it. I can feel it in my bones, in my mind, and in my heart (the organ, I mean). In my youth I was unmindful of its passing. its like a blur. time seemed so slow back then. I want to skip my teens, the restrictions, and the awkwardness that came with it and jumped right into adulthood, job and freedom.

That was until I reached the age of 30. The days had shifted to the high gear, everything seemed to be twice as fast as before, days flew by so fast.

I am now into my late forties, two years short of my fifth decade, and things are starting to get blurry with speed. Its been that long? How long has it been since I freaked out my elderly neighbors by riling up their dogs and have the snarling beasts go and chasing after me and my friends? 

Now, I am the elderly neighbor who is freaked out when my dogs are teased by children.

I cannot slow down time but I can do things slowly.

Walk slowly.

Eat slowly.

Sit down and stand up slowly, aside from the fact that my joints hurt now.

There's an old Indian proverb that says, "sitting down is better than standing, lying down is better than sitting, sleeping is better than lying down, being dead is better..."

I guess as I grow older I am becoming less and less attached, more detached to things I can not control.

Or maybe, I am just a highly functioning depressed individual who has lost interest in everything except guitar, gardening, art, music...maybe not that depressed, just lazy.

But whatever the case maybe, I have always taken comfort to the fact I am still alive and trying my best to be in the moment as much as possible wherever I am, whatever my situation is and whatever mood I am in.

Water Bottles and trash

The classroom is a factory of trash. I am amazed at the amount of plastic wrappers, scratch papers etc, that my class produce. I have 45 pupils which goes to class bringing only their bags yet when it was time to go home the trash they have accumulated could fill two 20-gallon trash bins. 

I am sure this problem is not limited to my classroom, in fact this is a planet wide problem and the ecological disasters brought about by plastic is too widespread and well known that it needs no explaining.

The school participated in the eco-brick project. I don't know who sponsored this activity, the municipal government or the department, but it was an outstanding idea started by environmentalist, upcycling, a fancy word for recycling. 

 I was not that enthusiastic about it because, yeah, call me the skeptic.

Anyway, I asked my pupils to bring plastic bottles. Many brought 5-10 liters gallon which was too big for the project intended for the eco-bricks in the school. So, I was stuck with lots of them. I brought home some for my urban gardening project which I hope I get to accomplish this sembreak.

I used one of them and I found out that one 5 liter water bottle could contain an entire week's trash. But I had to make some modifications. I attached a funnel, made from the cut out upper part of the bottle, and inserted it into the mouth of the bottle. This made it easier for the pupil's to insert plastic wrappers.

The funnel was so useful that even dust and other trash too small be picked up only by the dust pan could be put inside the bottle.

I cut a 1/2 pvc pipe as a trash compactor.

This is one weeks trash compacted into a five liter bottle.

Wjhat is the use of these 5-gallon eco-bricks?

Throw them at misbehaving pupils.

I plan to make plant stand for my bonsai and I'm going to use them as filler.

I agree with Tito Sotto! Changing names etc.

Photo not mine: CTTO

I agree with Sen. Tito Sotto. Our national anthem is up for an update. It's a million years old and the lyrics especially the last line speaks of a romantic era where dying in a revolution against the colonial oppressors is the ultimate sacrifice patriots could do for their country. Would you die for your country? Me?  Hell, no! It's not fun.

Filipino politicians have the propensity to change things especially ones they can legislate easily. They love changing the names of streets, avenues, buildings, towns, provinces after names of their long departed relatives or political allies. I guess it's all about name recall, or vicarious immortality where they want their heritage, in this case surnames, perpetuated.

Take the case of the Municipality of Montalban, Rizal. My mother had an uncle who lived there and we visited the place maybe three times and the town was beautiful then, the mountains, the river where we bathe, and the myth of Bernardo Carpio were the main attraction of the place. 

Artwork not mine: CTTO

I was told that all earthquakes emanates from Montalban and that there were two giant boulders colliding with Bernardo Carpio trapped in the middle trying to prevent the rocks from crushing himself. He was cursed to do this Sisyphean task because he fell in love with the wrong lady. 

The mythical giant is still alive, according to folklore,  and the earthquakes occur every time Carpio shakes his shoulder. I guess his shoulder shakes created the west valley fault. nah, just kidding. Its the other way around. The area where Bernardo Carpio was supposed to be trapped is in the west valley fault which explains the legend of the origin of the earthquakes.

Montalban does not exist anymore, instead in its place the Municipality of Rodriguez emerged. What happens when the name of a town is changed?

A lot. The myths, the historical references, traditions,  the romance it evokes, so many things that are intertwined with the name. I guess it's like meeting a person you know as Charice introducing herself/himself as Zyrus. The person changed too.

I had the chance to visit Montalban a few years ago and I was a bit disappointed to see the hundreds of vacant/abandoned row houses project in place of the once forested feet of the mountains. 

The sad thing is, the Rodriguez Family is a virtually forgotten and they are hardly remembered in most of Rizal Province except in the isolated municipality of Rodriguez. I hope the provincial board has seen their errors and return the municipality's name to Montalban.

Politicians should be the last thing to consider when naming public places, buildings, parks etc. History, aboriginal names, folk tradition, municipal identity, fruits, animal, insects, rock formations, etc. aa lot of names that evokes natural beauty, myths and palates, to choose from. 

Politicians names should be there at the bottom of the list of names along with the obscene and the sexually explicit. In fact sewers and water treatment plants, drug rehab centers, nuclear plants, mine shafts, etc. should be named after them.,

Where was I?

 The Lyrics, nah, I was joking. The lyrics needs no changing, its the senator and the people in the government who betray the government that needs changing, in fact, all of us needs changing.

Meanderings on Religious Exclusivity

Put plainly, religious exclusivity is the belief that my religion is the only true religion and the others are bullshits. (Bullshit is a PC word compared to what preachers say about people who do not belong to their religions and the traditional nomenclatures they use ranges from infidels, condemned, pagan, unsaved, children of Satan, demons, witches, etc. :Bullshit" is way, way kinder than these terms and to think that some religions even behead people who do not subscribe to their beliefs. Definitely, bullshit is much better) . 

Another dogma of religious exclusivity is the conviction that only those who belong to my religion would go to paradise. Well, to tell the truth, not even all those who are in my religion would go to paradise because there's a selection process that the believers must go through like indoctrination, infant circumcision, prayers, pilgrimage, holy wars, etc. Even those who have participated and met these requisites do not automatically become saved, there is the other part, the inner conversion, the miraculous transformation of the believer, the spiritual thingy.

Now, if one sits down and give enough time and coffee  to think about it, it is obvious that religious exclusivity is one of the the roots of all evil. I would not even dare say it is religion because there are religions that would not even hurt an insect! 

Open your history books and you'll read that most of the man-made miseries in the world is caused by the idea of religious exclusivity. Even today, watching the current event in the Middles East I am inclined to think that this area of the world is in the dark age because the region is divided into religious factions each killing one another primarily because of the differences in the interpretation of their holy book and secondly because the schisms are being taken advantaged of by the Western primarily Christian part of the world to advance their interests. 

These fanatics that came from the same religious gene cannot coexist with one another because of the effing idea that heaven is reserved to the few. Pity the innocent and the decent people who simply want to live in peace but no, they must be converted.

The idea of exclusivity goes back to the primordial soup and the microbes. Microbes based their survival in one scientific principle of physics and that is "no two objects can occupy the same space at the same time". 

So, what the microbes do is multiply fast and produce enzyme or whatever you call these stuff they produce to displace another group of microbes. they congregate and those who are not within their congregation are displaced and then exterminated.

Exclusivity is a survival mechanism. It is built in to every living things' DNA from the microbes to Bill Gates. Animals form packs, herds, schools etc, to protect themselves from their predators and also these animal group protects themselves from their own kind in their struggle for food and territory. People are not that different, though we have evolved and transcended the animals' feral struggle for survival, yet exclusivity is still humanity's primary motivation for the struggle against each other though unlike the animals, people tend to cling to exclusivity more out of greed and not of need.

Socially, for us exclusivity is primarily genetics. We form group from families, to clans, to tribes, to nation from which sprung up belief system. Religion is nothing but an extension of the clan, the social family. 

One current proof of exclusivity  is what Trump is doing now.

It is understandable now why this idea is easily translatable into the beliefs or faiths. Religious exclusivity especially among the Abrahamic religion is primarily a survival mechanism which in the process of historical evolution has become the mechanism for oppression and control especially among its fundamentalist and fanatical adherents.

What is the mark of the beast? Is it 666, or 777, or SSS? What numeric symbols will Satan use, Hindu-Arabic? Jewish? Greek? Chinese?

One thing that makes my head paused and then grind is when I hear a preacher talk about numbers. There’s the fear that the social security number, credit card number, the HUMID card, etc. are omens of the end of days and that these numbers are evil because it portends the arrival of the beast. In the preacher's belief, these numbers are the precursor to the mark of the beast, the dreaded 666.

The dreaded mark

Try as hard as I can to switch off my critical thinking head (or Satan’s voice) I cannot help but think.

Christianity has its own numerology, the belief that numbers have mystical relationship with the divine. 

There are a lot of numbers mentioned in the Bible and some of them are:

3 for resurrection, trinity

4 for the four corners of the earth

6 for imperfection

7 for the seven days of creation/perfection.

12 for the twelve tribes

40 for the forty days after Jesus rose from the dead

And so on.

These numbers have been studied, decoded and interpreted by laymen and scholars of all  ages and theological persuasions. Because these numbers have been granted mystical and spiritual meanings, not by the Scripture itself but by the interpreters and the mystics, it sprouted mysticism and superstitions. But I would leave it at that. If you’re interested about what these numbers mean and the mysteries behind them, try Wikipedia for a start. I will not dwell on the numerology, instead I will ask some basic linguistic questions especially about the mark of the beast, the dreaded 666.

First is it the number, the literal figure or the concept behind the number that really matters.

Numbers are symbols which in themselves are meaningless. Think of it as a currency or money that we use to exchange ideas instead of merchandise. Whatever the origins of these symbols are doesn’t really matter in the discussion, but the fact is that they exist and they are part of our language and for each symbols, through social agreement or laws, etc. are assigned values. So, like currencies, its value is limited to those who are participants in these agreement of value assignments and naturally, like currencies, these numerical symbols have no meaning to the people who does not recognize or assign value to these figures, they are not participant to the language game (Wittgenstein).

1. In what language was the Bible written?

The Old Testament is written in Hebrew. So, what are the numerical symbols in Hebrew?

Let us see the chart below:

Supposed Satan and his cohorts arrived and started stamping people with the figures resembling that of 777, which is really 666 in Hebrew, the language the OT was written, which on the other hand corresponds to the number of perfection in our modern numeric system as written in the English Bibles. How should the common non-Hebrew literate Christians respond? I mean, I hope they would not line up to be marked because they have been told that 7 is God’s number!

Of course, since the Bible is pretty old, these numeric symbols maybe different from the chart, it could be similar to number 4, who cares, but the idea is there. Is it about the actual number or is it the concept, the idea behind it?

Lets try the Greek, the language of the New Testament.

According to the Greek chart, the equivalent of the Hindu-Arabic 6 is similar to our “s”. So, when the beast and his cohorts arrives and started stamping people with SSS or what looks like it, what should be the response since it is really 666 but the Beast ,because he’s Satan and he's smart and found a way to get around the number rules, used the Greek numeric symbol to dupe Christians into being stamped because they have been brainwashed to fear the Hindu-Arabic  number 666.

The argument could go on using the same line of reasoning, should the Chinese watch out for 666 or Chinese characters corresponding to the number 666, the Japanese, Koreans, Thais, and other people that do not use the English alphabet and the Hindu-Arabi numeral system.

Of course, it could be argued that since the Hindu-Arabic is what is commonly used in the world especially in transactions, it is only logical that 666 would be used. But then this proves that it is not the literal symbol, number, that really counts, because the original number is written in Hebrew or Greek or Aramaic which is translated into the Hindu-Arabic characters, then it is all about the idea behind the number. I mean, I could go on…but do the math.

Of course there's a real, factual, historical explanation for the number 666. Well, you dont have to go to the library and take out a tome about it, just google it.

Now, am I the only who have asked these questions. I supposed not...But personally, whether it is 666, 777, 888, 999...doesn't matter personally to me. Evil is not as mysterious as some would have it, evil  does not have the need for mystery. It is out there in the glaring light of daylight and the dark of night, identifiable by the naked eye and by the blind, slavery, war, poverty, apathy, religious fanaticism, bigotry, etc.

Firecracker names and what they say...

The year 2016 is about to end and I'm thinking about something to blog about. It's been a long time since I have blogged about something (or nothing) and I don't how to start the ball rolling again.

Anyway, I have noticed that yearly the amount of firecrackers are decreasing. I remember about two decades ago when my friends and I would start the new year revelry early by firing off firecrackers as early as September but compared to now, it's only a few hours before new year's eve when the intermittent explosion could be heard. Of course, I'm talking about our neighborhood and the case may be the opposite with others. 

But on the other hand, the size and the power of today's firecrackers has evolved to the weapon's grade level, which according to some police officers, is comparable to improvised explosive devices (IED) used by terrorists. Legally,  firecrackers should not exceed the 0.2 grams gunpowder limit allowed by RA 7183 and firecrackers that exceed this limit is illegal and should be confiscated by the Police but judging from the size and power of the new generation of firecrackers, it's obvious that they contain more than the 1.3 tablespoon limit. 

Anyway, the branding of these super-firecrackers is something to think about. It's sick, funny kind of sick, really, because most of these brands are named after the hottest issues of the day from supertayhpoons, sports, to local and international politics. When Bin Laden was the most wanted man by the US, a firecracker was named after him, then there's Manny Pacquiao to pay tribute to the pambansang kamao; Yolanda after the supertyphoon, Napoles and now Goodbye Delima. There was even a "Crying Bading" which smacks of homophobia.


What do these brand say? (to justify the title of the post). Nothing. I guess the manufacturers of these firecrackers think that the best way to end the year is to blast these issues into smithereens, with the exception of Manny Pacquiao, of course. Or they think they are just being funny.

When I was teenager, I used to love firecrackers and the noise of new years eve. Heck, we used to fire my father's 5 inch GI pipe "kalburo" (smelled like rotten eggs) powered canon which used to knock out our neighbor's fluorescent lamp because of the vibrations it created. It also used to knock off the roosting chickens in our talisay trees. My friends and I loved that cannon and we used to fantasize that we were firing a 150 mm howitzer by putting cans and coconut on its nuzzles as projectiles, unfortunately it got rusted and I had it sold to the junk shop.

But now I'm older, I guess my eardrums got sensitive because of age hehehehe. God, how I wish that we celebrate the changing of the year in total silence, in reflection.