The Land of Midian and Mount Horeb

This time, we look at the journey of Moses. From being a prince in Egypt, he was forced to flee to the land of Midian. And later on, he meets the Lord on Mount Horeb (also known as Mount Sinai). You can read about this in Exodus chapters 1 to 3.

Below is a location of the land of Midian according to www.keyway.ca.

Based on this, we can see where these locations are on modern day Google maps.

The Bible is truth. If you are searching for true answers to life's toughest questions, ask Jesus into your life. He can give you the peace that surpasses understanding. If you haven't committed your life to Jesus Christ, I would like to invite you to do so by reading this post.

Her 2013 Movie

Warning: possible spoilers

Movies and TV shows have tried to explore the possibility of humans having a romantic relationship with artificial intelligence or A.I. Robin Williams in Bicentennial Man and Brent Spiner as Lt. Commander Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation come to mind.

In the movie Her, Joaquin Phoenix plays the part of a human having a romantic relationship with an A.I. played by Scarlett Johansson. But the A.I. in this film is in a much more primitive form, since it doesn't really have a human-like body which people can interact with, but is only introduced as an Operating System, or OS.

We are familiar with Operating Systems like Windows, Linux, and Android. The OS in the film is able to control both the desktop and the mobile phone of the user. She names herself Samantha. If you were her owner, she could read, sort-through, and proof read your emails. She could observe you via the camera phone, and interact via the phone's wireless earpiece. She learns the more she interacts with the user and even uses profanity in her conversations to appear more human-like. She is sensitive to language tones, and even monitors breathing patterns and probably heart-rates to match the mood of the person she is interacting with.

Some of the problems in a human-O.S. relationship were tackled in the film. One was the issue of the O.S. not having a body. The film explores many ways of having intimacy with an A.I., some more believable than others. It also tackles the idea that A.I.s will eventually outgrow humans, and move on since we can't match their processing power, and tend to be slow thinkers compared to them. Why then would a intellectually higher being, who is awake 24-7, settle for a relationship with an inferior one who has to sleep during a third of the day just to recharge. (The movie assumes the power problem for mobile devices has been solved and perfected. I never once saw Joaquin Phoenix charge his phone.) There was also a scene where the death of an O.S. was explored, and it wasn't your typical blue screen of death.

I liked the way the movie showed that in the future, technology would integrate more cleanly with the environment. We don't see cables or even keyboards and mice. Everything was either voice activated (commands, dictation instead of typing), or gesture-based (for interaction in video game consoles). But voice becomes the primary way of interacting with the computers of the future, something I wish was more real than fantasy, hopefully, in a couple more years. Then, I wouldn't have to type so much, but just quickly speak out ideas that the computer would jot down. Offices would be louder though, since everybody is talking with their computer, and ideas could be quickly stolen, since you'ld have to voice these out. Perhaps in the future, a device which allows thought, instead of speech, would emerge to address this issue.

Is A.I. sentience truly possible? Movies like this are fun in the way they explore this concept. And people have tried to explore the idea of creating a database in the cloud, answering all questions that have been asked, and storing various kinds of answers to these questions. An A.I. could randomly choose from all known responses at this point in time. In the future, it can be smarter in it's response choice if it can observe the human's state or mood. (Thus the need for monitoring speech pattern, tone, breathing rate, heart rate, etc). It is a nerd's dream to come up with the perfect mate. But we need not build one although we can try our very best. The Law of Biogenesis reminds us that only life begets life. And therefore, the truly meaningful relationships we can develop would only be with our friends and loved ones, and the Creator of this universe.

Goshen, Egypt

If you are familiar with the story of Joseph the dreamer in Genesis, you will remember that Joseph's father and brothers settled in the land of Goshen.

From Genesis 46:28-34

²⁸ Now Jacob sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph to get directions to Goshen. When they arrived in the region of Goshen, ²⁹ Joseph had his chariot made ready and went to Goshen to meet his father Israel. As soon as Joseph appeared before him, he threw his arms around his father and wept for a long time.

³⁰ Israel said to Joseph, “Now I am ready to die, since I have seen for myself that you are still alive.”
³¹ Then Joseph said to his brothers and to his father’s household, “I will go up and speak to Pharaoh and will say to him, ‘My brothers and my father’s household, who were living in the land of Canaan, have come to me. ³² The men are shepherds; they tend livestock, and they have brought along their flocks and herds and everything they own.’ ³³ When Pharaoh calls you in and asks, ‘What is your occupation?’ ³⁴ you should answer, ‘Your servants have tended livestock from our boyhood on, just as our fathers did.’ Then you will be allowed to settle in the region of Goshen, for all shepherds are detestable to the Egyptians.”

Here's a map from www.keyway.ca indicating where Goshen was in ancient times.

Based on the map above, below is my estimate of where Goshen would be in maps.google .com.

I thank the Lord for He provides for our needs long before trouble comes, just as He used Joseph to save his family during a time of severe famine. God can use even the worst of situations and circumstances to rescue His people.

If you haven't committed your life to Jesus Christ, I would like to invite you to do so by reading this post.

Shechem, Israel

I was reading about the story of Joseph in Genesis chapter 37. In verse 12 and 13, it reads

¹² One day Joseph’s brothers went to Shechem to care for their father’s sheep. ¹³ Jacob said to Joseph, “Go to Shechem. Your brothers are there with my sheep.”
Joseph answered, “I will go.”

Where in modern day maps would Shechem be?

from www.bible-history.com

With the help of maps.google.com, we can estimate the location of Shechem in a modern day map.

I thank the Lord for the people responsible for our historical records and for the people who develop new technologies. These are exciting times to study the Bible because the tools are easily available. I hope that at some point in my life, I will actually be able to visit Israel and walk where the Lord walked.

If you to receive Jesus into your life, please take some time to read about His gift of salvation.

Black Screen With 9c at the Bottom Left Corner

Here's a scenario you might encounter if you leave a USB drive plugged in to your computer and then restart. If booting via the USB drive is enabled in your BIOS for some reason, your computer might end up with a black screen with only a few letters at the bottom left corner of the screen. Mine was 9c and this may or may not be the same letters you see.

I tried removing the USB drive and restarting, but I ended up with the same screen. The computer won't even show the BIOS screen or the Windows startup screen. It goes directly to the 9c screen.

One way to reset the BIOS back to its default settings is to reseat (take out and then place back in) the CMOS battery on the motherboard. It's that silver circle which looks like an oversized watch battery. So if you're comfortable opening up your computer and you have access to the motherboard, you can try this solution.

I was able to reboot and see the BIOS screen after doing this. So I changed my BIOS settings so that booting via a USB drive is no longer viable. I will only enable this if I really need it, perhaps for troubleshooting purposes.

The USB drive was clean according to AVG anti-virus software, so I'm not sure if the USB drive was carrying a BIOS virus.

If you ever experience this, I hope reseating the CMOS battery will also work for you.

How Meralco's 2014 Increase Might Affect Your Bill

Made some calculations based on a friend's electrical consumption last year. Here's the result.

Based on my estimates, a 4 peso increase per kilowatt consumed would increase your monthly bill by 33%. A 10 peso increase per kilowatt would increase it by 83%. Bad news for the consumer but excellent news for the producer and provider.

Lone Survivor

from www.huffingtonpost.com

Warning: possible spoilers

We always root for the underdog. As viewers, we hope that they somehow survive. But even if they do not, as long as they kill more than the enemy, their sacrifice is not considered futile.

Just like the movie 300, where soldiers find themselves in a situation where they have to face an overwhelming enemy force, four U.S. soldiers find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place. Surrounding them are 200 Taliban rebels out to kill them. And towards their only area of retreat, a cliff with jagged rocks awaiting their fall.

The situation could have been avoided if they sacrificed their principles. War rules of engagement prevent soldiers from killing unarmed men. But the same unarmed men were the ones that informed the enemy forces of their presence. They were merely scouts, sent to confirm the existence of a high level target in a certain town. They were supposed to wait for the main attack force that would arrive if they were able to verify that the terrorist they were hunting down was in that town. Instead, the would be hunters became the hunted.

Not many war movies appear during the year, but Lone survivor is currently my favorite. I hope it wins awards at the Oscars. The scenes are beautifully thought out. There was one particular scene where the soldier was just shot dead, after he had finished calling for reinforcements, and as sits on that cliff, you see the combination of nature's majestic beauty and the tragic sacrifice of life. All in the hopes of saving his comrades.

The cast works well, with a lot of big named actors supporting Mark Whalberg. But if I were the judge, I would give my nod to Ben Foster for his believable portrayal of what a practical soldier would have done in such a situation, and what a loyal soldier would have done despite the odds.

The movie is a good reminder that the work that servicemen do is not in vain. And no matter how small or insignificant or even pointless the task is, we can be heroes just for one day.