And here they are. My noonchi tells me that there is still more that I could write, but it also tells me that people have been suffering because of my mental drought here in this little corner of cyberpsace.
Mind you, I will possibly flesh these thoughts out later.
And without further ado...
Over the break, I've had some productive and relaxing times. OK, it's plain and generic, but 1) I can't write, and 2) I've read and have been convicted that plain and simple speech is a virtue.
I've found out, for instance, that many people that I've known for years from high school and elsewhere, have come to know Christ as their Lord and Savior, or at least seeking, actively participating in church and fellowship. and I just have to priase Him and His good work for that.
Video game theology
And another good thing about Christmas break was on a less eternal level: I've had the chance to delve into video games again. Much of my gaming energy this break has been expended on two eagerly awaited titles.
Both of them, Metal Gear Solid and Zelda 64 are truly technological tour de forces.
Now, I just really clicked with MGS -- the synergy of the plot, and the graphics, with that dark, foreboding film-noir feeling -- kinda like the Batman films or something.
However, I felt Zelda 64 was somewhat overrated. OK, feel free to flame me and neg me on your page, Danny, but I felt I got a better gaming experience out of MGS. It just integrated the plotline really well into the game, and I just felt more of a sense of atmosphere in the gameplay mechanics itself -- using the night vision goggles was especially unfo, for instance. Or maybe I just clicked with all the high-tech gadgets and weaponry, I don't know. Perhaps I was just expecting something more revolutionary, that would recreate the feeling of my first Zelda experience, back in my elementary school days. Now, I certainly felt that sense of renewal when I first played Mario 64 -- I guess that Zelda 64 just didn't offer something insanely novel enough over either the predecessors in the Zelda series, or on the other hand, games like M64, or BAnjo Kazooie, or whatever. Sorry.
Video gaming is truly an art, something which cannot be boiled down into a few components. Zelda 64 had better graphics, a more expansive world, but when it all came togehter, the synergy wasn't there in force as much as it was in MGS -- you know what I mean?
One thing though is that it points to the maturing of video games as a true art form, not just a computer program you interact with. FF8's soundtrack will feature Faye Wong, HK pop star -- Squaresoft paid $1 million for that song alone. I remember when the first computer game costing over $1 million was made -- I believe it was some King's Quest or other, and it made industry news.
Certainly, Z64 has got the gameplay in place. Maybe the earth tones are just a bit drab. Or maybe the music is sort of lackluster -- at least parts of it. Or maybe the screenplay was a bit too scattered and unfocused for my taste. It was a good plot -- just lacked that literary umph.
Anyways, my point is that numbers and quantitative stats like you see in the gaming mags only mean part of the picture. It's how you combine the disparate elements of a game, and it's not a simple linear combination or anything like that. There is just no way that evaluating a game or indeed, any art form, can be reduced into numbers like that.
It's kind of like salvation -- there's no set formula to get you into heaven, no amount of works performed will make you one of the elect. Yeah, maybe we should adopt this example for Sunday Bible study!!
BTW, I found this N64 emulator which can run Super Mario 64 or Zelda 64, and plays at pratically full frame rate at 800x600 resolution on a PII-400 or better with a Voodoo 2. It's pretty suburban.
Worlds apart
From my Deep Thoughts of April 29, 1998:
-Seriously, though. I've been thinking about this, and I think international missions is not what God is calling me to do, for the time being. First of all, I need to gain knowledge of His Word and of Him.
From my Deep Thoughts of October 5, 1998:
Talking with people like Keith, Danny Chai, Tim Dalyrmple, Grace Hsiao, and others who went to China this summer has really been a blessing. Really. China is just a spiritual vacuum, I have heard from much more than one source. And even though I too saw that CCC video multiple times last year, I had always thought that the part of the Body that I belonged to wasn't the part that was sent on missions. But my bold claim is that missions is not a particular talent, and that rather, missions is an end to which we are called, and as it us up to us to discover our particular talents, it is up to us to discover our particular mission field -- the calling of missions is not necessarily coupled to any specific spiritual gifts.But of course, my summer plans is all in His hands. And even as missions begin to come more and more into my heart, I realize even more brutally that I am truly imperfect. and this summer, I have come to realize my own weaknesses in my walk with Him -- in my own impatience, my judgmentalness, in my complancency in living in my comfort zone. Besides that, I can't swing, like Yang2 Hua2 Li4, Yongil Lee and Lee Gan Loon. So that avenue of ministry -- very liu2 xing2 in Beijing -- is denied for me for the time being. May I be transformed in a way that is pleasing to Him, by God, and by Richard Powers as well. =)
Recently, someone asked me: what is our calling in life?
The Westminister Shorter Catechism, of course, exposits this question and its answer quite clearly:
"The chief end of man is to glorify God AND enjoy him forever."
But don't we glorify God infinitely more when we go up to heaven than remaining her on Earth -- that the splendours of heaven will outshine any ephermal thing in this world, right?
Who would lose out if all of the elect were be beamed up to heaven right here and now, a la Enoch? God would be again in communion with His people. We would be in heaven. So who or what on Earth needs us? The only purpose we have is for the people here, to serve them, to reach out to them.
[Much like me going to the Viennese Ball -- I've realized the only stream of return on investment that I'll be getting for VB are people -- the only purpose for me is for the just hanging out with friends and my date. I'm certainly not going to get any satisfaction from the dancing part -- I'm learning so I hopefully won't get any pain from it! =P]
"Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.And surely I am with you always to the veryend of the age."
So my bold question is, what's to prevent us from killing ourselves?
Is it glorifying Him here on Earth? Surely nothing here can compare with the portait of heaven filled with His absolute, unspeakable glory painted in Revelation 4, for instance.
So Justin's bold claim is our only purpose that gives us justification for our existence here is to be the salt and the light to others -- to witness to them, to fulfill the Great Commission. That was bold. That those people need us, and because of this need, our existence here is blessed in God's eyes.
Seriously, I want to go to China, probably doing OEX. Danny, I guess, kind of opened it up to me, but all these things have been coming together in my heart, with the above dialogue I had one of the more profound revelations I've received. And after that talk with Justin, Pastor Harold sent out one of his email "devotionals" and guess what, it was on, you guessed it, missions.
Even though I want to go, and it in a way is just crying out to me, the doubts still linger though. In particular, I'm just a spoiled brat when it comes down to it, a gadget guy with his techno-toys. The chapter on simplicity in Foster's Celebration of Discipline really rocked me. I was talking to Paul Lee about this, and he made a bold claim that "without my Ethernet connection, I (Paul) can't feel like a missionary." I must say, it's definitely going to be quite a shock initially...
How will He use me? I've always felt comfortable along the path I had been traveling. But the string of recent events has just really -- as Jars of Clay says, take(n) my world apart.
And I've become convicted that if God wills it, then there will indeed be miracles, miracles that defy man's reasoning and understanding.
For instance, Phil Sung and Helena Chang. (2/26/1999 -- uhhh,
scratch that... =P )
Like, totally stochastic, dude
So anyways, I'm taking this class, Math 241: Mathematical Finance. It's all part of my senior-year attempt on making myself into more of a Renaissance Man. Hanging out with CH and Keith have done a lot to spark my interest in the field, and this class kind of is forming a bridge between my techie background and the financial interests of my brethren.
Anyways, I never realized that finance is so intimately wed with the theory of other sciences like chemistry and physics. Well, it turns out that there is a pretty intimiate relationship between statistical mechanics (molecular motion) and the prices of stocks and other securities in the markets!
(I expect the only person who will understand this fully is Eric Yang.) Brownian motion of a molecule follows a certain random process, which can be modeled mathematically as a stochastic differential equation. Basically, think of a differential equation whose solutions are functions which map from the real numbers (say, representing time) to probability distribution functions, rather than other real numbers.
So in any case, one can model the inherent randomness in the price of a stock or other security using the same underlying model as Brownian motion! And there are a lot of interesting CS/numerical analysis techniques for evaluating these things.
I thought that was pretty dope, seeing how there's so much shared between such seemingly disparate fields. To me, that's one of the main draws of academia and the process of finding knowledge -- discovering not only what lies within one's own domain, but how they're all inter-related. To be able to see the edges in a relationship graph, beyond what's just contained in the nodes themselves. It's just so neat -- kind of like Asian American Christians. =)
Justin Chang == the next Rich Mullins.