Saturday Wrapup

A group calling itself the Russian Union of Engineers has published a photograph, picked up by many news organizations (just picked one, Google it yourself to find more), claiming to show that MH17 was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter plane.

 The interesting thing is the very quick ad hoc crowd sourced debunking of the photograph using tools from Google maps, online photos/data, to their own domain knowledge backed up with the previous information. It would be interesting to understand who the "Russian Union of Engineers" are and why they in particular were chosen to release this information.

 "It's a laughably bad fake
... but speaks volumes about the lack of math or science training amongst reporters to propagate this stuff."

 "For a decent debunking go to the Bellingcat blog [bellingcat.com].

 Also saw some graphic somewhere that clearly showed that the perspective was wrong by an order of magnitude, either the plane was 1 km wide or the satellite was orbiting at 20 km or so.

This fake is so bad, that I think the only target audience is the Russian public, most of whom believe everything that Putin's propaganda machine feeds them.

I have a Russian colleague, whom I normally regard reasonably high, that believes some really strange facts about this incident.

She probably gets all her info from Russian websites."

***

 We discovered a 100 year old 19th century computer that does Fourier analysis with just gears spring and levers. It was locked in a glass case at the University of Illinois Department of Mathematics. 

We rebuilt a small part of the machine and then for two years thoroughly photographed and filmed every part part of the machine and its operation.

 The results of this labor of love are in the video series (short documentary), which is 22 minutes long and contains stunning footage of the machine in action — including detailed descriptions of how it operates. 

The photos are collected in a free book (pdf) .

 The computer was designed by Albert Michelson, who was famous for the Michelson-Morley experiment; he was also the first American to win a Nobel Prize in physics.

***
 
Japan has now put 100 passengers on a Maglev train doing over 500kph. 

That's well over twice as fast as the fastest U.S. train can manage, and that only manages 240kph on small sections of its route.

 The Japanese Shinkansen is now running over 7 times times as fast as the average U.S. express passenger train. 

500kph is moving towards the average speed of an airliner. Add the convenience of no boarding issues, and city-centre to city-centre travel, and the case for trains as mass-transport begins to look stronger.

***

 Most people wait until they're done with college before taking the difficult exam, but Ayan Qureshi has been playing with computers since he was three so he figured he could handle it. This 5 year old is the youngest person to ever pass Microsoft's professional Exam.


 

Saturdays Gleanings

Christian woman spills the beans about what her church believes and sets up a controversy.

A new book based on interpretations of ancient texts features an explosive claim: Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene, and the couple had two children.

 Kirk Cameron is introducing a new way of thinking about Christmas and its many traditions this year with the film "Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas," in theaters on Friday.

"Millennials are a very visual group," explained Barna Vice President of Publishing Roxanne Stone. "If they go into your church and they don't know where to go or it's ambiguous or they don't understand what something is for,  they will move on."

Way back in the early 70's there was a trend among quite a few churches to do exorcisms. Some even made the claim that they were casting demons out of Christians. Here is a group of people today who are doing an Exorcism at a Starbucks.

"I couldn't believe my eyes," he recalls. "I had found a dense forest in the middle of a barren wasteland."

  Unconventional music video, which transforms pets, food, and objects into extraordinary musical instruments. 
You can do it too!
Explanation of what it is exactly.

The Names Of Our God: A Refiner And Purifier

As a young boy in the 50's my mother knew what it would take to purify my mouth from the bad words that I had picked up from some of the neighborhoods older boys.

I was very strong headed and had a rebellious streak, as I tested out my new words; not really knowing what they meant, only that some how they got reactions when used.

After being told to stop using these words, I realized they had something, a power that other words didn't, which only inspired me to test them out more.

When I tried them on my mother, she promptly took me into the bathroom and put the Ivory soap bar in my mouth.

It tasted awful and left a horrible aftertaste that took awhile to go away.

My mothers action conveyed to me very clearly that my new words were not acceptable to her.

A couple of times with the soap got the idea across to me that certain words were never to be used at all.

Just the mere threat from mom, "Do you want me to wash your mouth out with soap? Then stop using that word!", always did the trick.

  When my own son was at that age of testing out the new words he learned at school he got something totally unexpected by him or I.

First let me say this, while I had a father, he was an absentee father because he was in the military and hardly ever home, maybe a few weeks out of the year.

My folks divorced when I was seven so I actually didn't have a father in my life.

So when I delivered my son in our bedroom, the first words out of my mouth as I held my newborn son up to the Lord, while he took his first breaths of air, were, "Father I don't know how to raise a son, Your going to have to help me."

God did in so many ways.

So back to my son testing out his new words.

It was during a summer heat wave, my son and I were only in shorts in the kitchen.

As I was reaching into the refrigerator for the pitcher of ice cold water as my son tested a particularly bad word on his mother.

Without even premeditating or even having time to think about it, my hand grabbed the pitcher of ice water and I poured the entire contents over my sons head, while finding myself saying to him, "Don't you ever use that word in this house again.

Between the shock of the cold water and his dad's reaction, I never heard him say any bad words again.

It shocked me too.

It was as if my hand was on automatic pilot with the pitcher as the words just flowed out of me; the Lord was in it in my opinion.

1 Peter 1:7 King James Version (KJV)

⁷ That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:

God allows us to have trials that are as fire to us, burning off that which is not like Him. 

There is much in all of us, within our nature that needs to be purified.

All, indeed, have sinned and come short of the glory of God ( Romans 3:23 ).

Jesus is our Refiner and Purifier ( Malachi 3:3 ).

" He will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap" (Malachi 3:2).

Metal is heated by the refiner until the dross of impurity's floats to the surface and is drawn off. The process is repeated until the metal is purified.

Over time, as we walk with God he refines and purifies us through trials until we become more and more like Him.

The trials bring to the surface those things like dross that do not belong in our lives.

Through this name of God we know that all of us will be made to be what He wants us to be.

Anyone recall this?

What Is This Vehemence?

 And so, the Kingdom of heaven suffereth Vehemence, and the vehement take it by force." Matthew 11:12.

 There seems to be some confusion as to what the vehemence of Spirit is all about, even in those who are so vehement in their own spirit.

At times it seems to be a cry of frustration coming out of our heart because of promises yet unfulfilled, promises that said, "this is the time" and yet we do not yet see their fulfillment before our eyes.

What Is Vehemence?

  One of the greatest evidences of vehemence that has come is that little by little an unwavering determination comes into the people.

 Aggressiveness, assertiveness, emphasis, fierceness, forcefulness, intenseness, intensity, vigorousness!

This determination can be vehement without a sound.

It can be vehement without a blow.

It can be vehement without the deep upheavals and volcanic expressions that come from our emotional nature.

It seems to distill itself into an unswerving, silent tide.

Like a tidal wave it rises up to sweep over the land.

It is the unifying of our spirits before God, until spirit, soul and body rises up to walk in His perfect will.

And everything within spirit, soul, and body determines that we will walk before Him; we will claim His promises; we will possess everything that He has set before us.

This Vehemence Illustrated

  Remember how Joshua expressed this vehemence.

Joshua does not express himself with anything that seems to be an emotional upheaval.

He is not blood thirsty.

Yet, when the issue is there, he can bring Achan to task and kill him because he stands in the way of the conquest of the land.

Joshua 7.

He is vehement because he is unswerving in the objectives that God set before him, and the promises to Abraham and the law of the Lord that was given to Moses before him fills his heart and he "meditates upon them day and night."

Joshua 1:8-9.

He becomes vehement because of the unifying of everything within him.

He is in no way scattered.

There is nothing within him that seems to drift off by distraction.

His Vehemence is expressed by the fact that he refused to be distracted by any of the momentary things.

When it seems like there is defeat he does not look at the enemy or look at himeself.

But he humbles himself and he cries to the Lord.When everything seems to go wrong, there is only one thing that his heart responds to; we have a had a Word from the Lord.

If even nature itself wars against him, he commands that the sun stand still until the purposes of God are accomplished for that day and that hour.

Joshua 10;12-13.

He refuses to see a single span of time of his life wasted in something that is a frustrated misapplication or misappropriation, or distraction or discouragement from what God had said was to be done that day.

What his hands are to do by the will of God, that he is set to do.

This is Vehemence.

CONTENDING WITH GOD?

  What is Vehemence?

Vehemence is the thing that seems to strive on because there is a Word from God even when the actions and the response of God to us directly seem to be adverse and contrary to the word that He has given.

How many a time a man would know that the blessing that he sought was of God and the cry of his heart was that he could not survive without it.

And yet God seemed to be his opponent!

When God seems to be the enemy, this is vehemence, that a man wrestles with God until the true purposes and intent of God come forth in the earth.

The vehemence of a believer is an expression, "God, I will not accept what seems to be Your action. I will not accept what seems to be Your negligence or unconcern for me. I will believe what You have said over me. what You have said in Your Word is the only valid thing. And I will vehemently contend with Thee until these things happen."


  In the King James version the translation of Isaiah 49:25 ( which seems to be inadequate ) reads "I will contend with those who contend with Me, and I will save thy sons."

Jacob did find that this was closer to the vehemence principle than we might realize.

Jacob wrestled with the Lord Himself, the angel of Jehovah, Jesus.

And he obtained that which he sought after.

In everything he said, "I will not let Thee go except You bless me."

Genesis 32:26.

Oh, how God gives a Word, makes known His Will!

He said from the foundation of the world Esau have I hated, Jacob have I loved.

Malachi 1:2-3. Romans 9:13.

And yet he wrestles until He has broken the thigh of Jacob.

Genesis 32:25.

He wrestles with Him; he contends with Him and He seems to be his enemy.

Yet in His heart, expressed from the foundation of the world was that He loved him.

The vehemence in the heart of Jacob was the thing that He loved.

Vehemently, he was ready to fight God until God did to him what he knew God wanted to do to him.

That God provide for him what God had said He had provided, even though he had to walk through a barren wilderness where the provision of God was not coming forth.

Blessed is the man that reaches up and says, "This supply from the hand of God that I claim, that would seem to wrestled from Him only by vehemence, was in His heart to give me all the time."

Intercession when vehement, only claims from God what God has promised, and what His heart decrees shall be ours.

God has destined His fullness to rest upon those who vehemently claim it.

THE VEHEMENCE WITHIN

  Here is  another point on this vehemence.

The vehement are those who recognize that all the forces of Satan have come against them.

and they know that the forces that fight them come from without, from principalities and powers, from Nephilim spirits.

But they also reackon that their enemy is also found within them.

And so, the Kingdom of heaven suffereth Vehemence, and the vehement take it by force." Matthew 11:12.

For that vehement man not only opposes principalities and powers, but vehemently he also fights the foes within.

He fights the things within his own nature that stand diametrically opposed to all that God has said.

He fights himself until he stands before God as the prepared channel ready for God to use.

God may use the weak to confound the mighty, but you'll find that weak man who confounds the mighty has stood and said, "I come in the name of the Lord," and has refused to accept his weakness and refused to accept his limitation.

He has refused to accept his inadequacy.

He has said, "God has spoken to me and I vehemently resist everything that I am that stands in the way of doing His perfect will and possessing His promises completely."