Blog Archives - ROBERT E DUNN

pillows vobismetipsis

1/30/2022

My priest reminded me today that He who saved me was frequently exhausted when He walked the Earth and had no place to lay down His head. When the woman who was hemorrhaging touched His garment and He couldn’t see her in the crowd, Christ knew what happened because virtue flowed out of Him into her at that moment and left Him exhausted. There is no goodness without some sacrifice.

I got mixed up today on which Mass was being said and found I was one week ahead of myself, but in the process, I found another beautiful sounding Latin word, vobismetipsis, with accent on the penultimate syllable. It means, “for yourselves.” The word is found in Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians, 3, 12-17. In that passage, Paul gives a blueprint for right living, and the passage says, “… et donantes vobismetipsis si quis adversus aliquem habet querelam: ….”, translated as, “… and forgiving one another, if you have a complaint against another, ….”

We get the word “quarrel” from querelam.

nigeria

1/28/2022

ready player one

1/21/2022

I watched Ready Player One, (2018) a fantasy set in a virtual reality world.

The movie has beautiful graphics and constant killing and coming back to life. The only way I knew I was looking at avatars, not real people, was the eyes. The enemy company resembles Scientology but show me one world leader today who is not a megalomaniac.

My little Alexander wants to spend our time collaborating on his new screenplay, which we act out with all his toy rifles and nerf bullets. He shot me in the face yesterday, but I have hit my target more often. I am a better shot. Alexander is Sho in the Ready Player One movie, and that tells you something.

The new screenplay is about zombies dying and coming back to life, and his mind is filled with images of volcanoes, magma, and deep water chambers. Sometimes, I am able to come up with a word that he needs for what is in his head, and I amaze both of us.

Watching the movie helped me understand the importance of objective and obstacle in a screenplay.

cryptarithm

1/20/2022

Alexander (8) likes cryptography and spies. Cryptography is a means of communication that allows only the sender and recipient of a message to view its contents. The term is derived from the Greek word kryptos, which means hidden. If a message is intercepted by a third party who has everything needed to decrypt the message, the code is broken.

Named after Julius Caesar, who used a code for his military messages, the Caesar cypher was simple, yet it took years to break. All you do is substitute each letter in the alphabet by shifting it right or left by a specific number of letters.

A cryptarithm is a mathematical cypher that Alexander learned today. You turn any addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division problem into a cryptarithm by replacing letters with numbers.

Here is a cryptarithm for SEND MORE MONEY. Imagine yourself to be a spy and you need more money.

Rules: the only digits allowed are 0 – 9 with one carry forward. A carry forward is what happens when you add numbers with digits in the ones, tens, hundreds place, etcetera, that result in the number 10 or larger.

Set up this way:
SEND
+ MORE
MONEY

Now turn the letters into numbers, column by column (an X on the arrow means wrong move):

Any questions?

vapors

1/18/2022

vaganova

1/18/2022

I’m tired of us. Let’s return to 2021 and look abroad to my favorite comprehensive school, which is in St. Petersburg! Ballet is Russia’s national honor. I prefer watching exams over performances while waiting for a 2022 update.

cocaine on the pacific

1/16/2022

strauss

1/15/2022

fibonacci 3

1/15/2022

Who is he? Leonardo of Pisa, mathematician, circa 1170-1240-50. In 1202 he developed a sequence that began as a solution to a problem involving mating rabbits: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, etcetera. The Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers in which each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers. When we make squares with those widths, we get a spiral:

courtesy of mathisfun.com

latin prefixes

1/12/2022

Ab- = apart, Ante- = before, Anti- = against, Auto- = self, Bi- = two, Bene- = good, favorable, Circum- = around, Di- = two, double, Dis- = not, apart, Geo- = earth, Hetero- = mixed, Homo- = same, In- = in, not, Inter- = between, Macro- = large, Micro- = small, Mono- = one, single, Non- = not, Ped- = foot, Poly- = many, Post- = after, Pre- = before, Sub- = under, Tele- = distance, Trans- = across

division - advanced

1/10/2022

division - beginning

1/10/2022

number string

1/8/2022

The counting numbers are written out as one long string: 123456789101112 … What is the 100th digit in the string? Show how you solved it! Show your work.

William Graham, B. Sc., Computer Science, University of Calgary, answered today on Quora.

First, he solved with Python script, and then he said, “It’s easily verified by splitting the string into lines of 10 digits each, and looking at the tenth digit of the tenth line.”

1234567891
0111213141
5161718192
0212223242
5262728293
0313233343
5363738394
0414243444
5464748495
0515253545
5

The answer is 5.

cain

1/8/2022

Q: If human babies cannot survive on their own, how did the first human baby survive on its own?

Answered and updated on Aug 4, 2020, by Krister Sundelin, Quora contributor, self-proclaimed atheist, as follows:

“Either they appeared as grown-ups by magic, or they were nursed by their one-mutation-away-from-Homo-sapiens parents.”

Krister went on to compare evolution to the color spectrum, which was very imaginative.

I added my little comment.

In the history category is my reliance on Wikipedia’s valiant attempt to explain the theory of evolution, which is titled, “Last Common Ancestor.”

Artist: Pietro Novelli, Italian (1603 - 1647), Title: Cain Killing Abel, Credit line: Presented to the RI by Sir Alexander Crichton 1833, transferred 1859, Gallery: Scottish National Gallery (On Display)

pelicans

1/6/2022

Aquinas on communion; artwork courtesy of Truthhimself.com/blogspot.com

Sim beatus - sounds like symbiotic, which, according to Collins Dictionary, comes to us via New Latin from Greek: a living together; see symbiont; and sim comes from the Latin similis, meaning similar or like, as in simile. The two words are translated as be happy.
The Latin verb simulare means “to pretend.”
There is no pretending here.

newton

1/6/2022

If the Earth rotates with 1600 km/h and planes fly at 600-700 km/h, how do they manage to fly eastwards?

Robert Frost, Quora contributor, Instructor and Flight Controller at NASA, answered the question on Feb 2, 2020, first by quoting Sir Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion: “An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.”

My conclusion: force would be the jet engine.

Frost’s picture:

catherine

1/5/2022

Dominicans sing seven verses in the church where St. Catherine (1347-1380) is entombed in her stone coffin under the altar. The church is Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. Below is the first verse.

mathemart

1/5/2022

Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) is a 1954 oil-on-canvas painting by Salvador Dalí. A nontraditional, surrealist portrayal of the Crucifixion, it depicts Christ on a polyhedron net of a tesseract (hypercube). It is one of his best-known paintings from the later period of his career. Wikipedia.com

bernanos

1/4/2022

Georges Bernanos (Feb 20, 1888 – July 5, 1948) is the author of Diary of a Country Priest, turned into a 1951 movie of the same name. I have posted the link to this film, my favorite. Following is Wikipedia’s description of Bernanos. I made this entry because Bernanos and I see things the same way. “… Roman Catholic with monarchist leanings, he was critical of elitist thought and was opposed to what he identified as defeatism. He believed this had led to France’s defeat and eventual occupation by Germany in 1940 during World War II. His two major novels, ‘Sous le soleil de Satan’ (1926) and the ‘Journal d’un curé de campagne’ (1936), both revolve around a parish priest who combats evil and despair in the world.” The 1926 novel, Under the Sun of Satan, was made into a movie in 1987. Do not open the link to Diary, because it contains the spoiler.

santa rosa ca

1/4/2022

On Sunday, January 2, 2022, at 2:13 a.m., Santa Rosa Police Department officers were dispatched to the 1200-block of Wyoming Drive regarding an interrupted catalytic converter theft. The victim was inside his residence, when he heard the sound of a saw cutting metal near the front of his house. The victim looked outside and saw two subjects standing near his work truck. The victim yelled at the suspects, and they got into a vehicle and fled. The victim described the suspect vehicle as a white Acura sedan. Responding patrol officers spotted a vehicle, several blocks from the incident, that matched the description provided by the victim. Officers made a traffic stop on the vehicle, in the 2700-block of Fourth Street.

A search of the vehicle revealed a Sawzall (commonly used to cut catalytic converters), new and used saw blades, extra vehicle jacks, suspected methamphetamine, and other burglary tools. The driver was identified as David Ponce, a 30-year-old, Santa Rosa resident. The passenger was identified as Claudia Granadero-Rivas, a 28-year-old, Santa Rosa resident.

Based on the call for service, witness statements, and evidence located, Granadero-Rivas was arrested and booked into the Sonoma County Jail on the below charges. Granadero-Rivas’ bail was set at $110,000.

182(a)(1) PC – (Felony) Conspiracy to Commit a Crime
594(b)(1) PC – (Felony) Vandalism
664 / 487 PC – (Felony) Attempted Grand Theft
466 PC – (Misdemeanor) Possession of Burglary Tools
1203.2 – Violation of Probation/Pre-Trial Release Terms out of Marin County (two counts)
Misdemeanor Warrants – 2 Warrants out of Marin County

Based on the call for service, witness statements, and evidence located, Ponce was arrested and booked into the Sonoma County Jail on the below charges:

182(a)(1) PC – (Felony) Conspiracy to Commit a Crime
594(b)(1) PC – (Felony) Vandalism
664 / 487 PC – (Felony) Attempted Grand Theft
466 PC – (Misdemeanor) Possession of Burglary Tools

Granadadero-Rivas has been arrested in Sonoma County at least four times in the past year for thefts involving catalytic converters:

9/27/2021   SRPD 21-10840        496(a) PC / 182(a)(1) PC / 466 PC Arrest
6/6/2021        SRPD 21-6097          182(a)(1) PC / 466 PC / 12022.1(a) PC Arrest
5/24/2021      SCSO 210524010 487 PC / 1203.2 PC Arrest
2/22/2021      PPD 21-771 487 PC / 496 PC / 1203.2 PC Arrest

Catalytic converter theft has been a significant issue facing our community and the SRPD Property Crimes Team has dedicated time and resources into addressing this problem. In 2021, there were 345 cases of reported catalytic converter thefts, a 159% increase from 2020 (133 cases). If you catch someone stealing a catalytic converter, CALL SRPD (707-528-5222 or 9-1-1) immediately. Provide suspect and vehicle descriptions. If you have been a victim of catalytic converter theft, report the incident online at SRCity.org/ReportACrime and include any photographs of home surveillance footage.

Media inquiries may be directed to Sergeant Christopher Mahurin at (707) 975-0129 or cmahurin@srcity.org. SRPD Case number 22-23.

birth giver

1/4/2022

rime

1/4/2022

Sounds like rhyme. Rime is frost. A synonym is hoarfrost, but that word is considered a literary word! source - wordgenius.com

dick tracy

1/3/2022

Patron : Hi, table for two, please.
Hostess : Sure, and your name.
Patron : Tracy.
Hostess : Great, and do you and your guest have your vaccination cards?
Patron : We do. Can you tell us who our server will be?
Hostess : Um, looks like Tom will be your server tonight.
Patron : Great. Can you show us Tom’s vaccination card?
Hostess : Um...
Patron : And can you provide me with proof that Tom does not have any communicable diseases such as VD?
Hostess : Um...
Patron : Also, we would prefer not to be served by someone who is on or uses recreational drugs, such as marijuana, cocaine, meth, fentanyl, etc., so if you could provide us with Tom’s most recent tox screen, that would be great.
Hostess : Um... Let me get the manager for you.
Patron : That would be great, thanks.

Tracy and her date were eventually seated after the manager fired Tom.

Tracy’s brother is Dick Tracy of great fame. The dame in the snapshot is Tracy’s sister-in-law.

She is separated from Dick and is seen here at a different table with another man. She is a sly one. She is a tricky dick, and she doesn’t care who serves her.

However, she did not see Tracy in the restaurant, did she? And you know what else? The waitress, a witty dame, was actually Dick’s distant cousin, Betty Blackmail. Betty’s mother, Blabs Blackmail, took the picture.

Betty and Blabs are my associates. I have turned to other ways of making a buck because crime fiction doesn’t pay. I am trickier than Dick or his wife.

If you’ve got any compromising shots, contact me, and we can meet at a restaurant, just not that one, because Dick Tracy is working undercover there. Burglaries are on the rise in San Francisco. Dick is investigating a large napkin ring.

The rumor is that Dick has a teeny-weeny problem. He was assigned “male” at birth. He is a good cop. He’s got a big gun.

snow trick

1/3/2022

trick - numbers

1/3/2022

The prime minister of Spain is an outspoken atheist and socialist. The prime minister of Canada might as well be one, too. The US president and the governor of California make three and four. They are the apathostics. All you do is add up.

“… when the struggle seems to be drifting definitely towards a world social democracy, there may still be very great delays and disappointments before it becomes an efficient and beneficent world system. Countless people … will hate the new world order, be rendered unhappy by the frustration of their passions and ambitions through its advent and will die protesting against it. When we attempt to evaluate its promise, we have to bear in mind the distress of a generation or so of malcontents, many of them quite gallant and graceful-looking people.” Quote from The New World Order, by H.G. Wells, 1940, courtesy of Wikipedia.com.

Wikipedia calls the New World Order a conspiracy theory, but Wells might have seen the coming future. He was a science fiction writer. Would he think I was a gallant and graceful-looking person? Yes, I think so because I can add up. You can be one, too, with this math trick.

ta-da!