journal entries
I put thing explainer aside for a while, as I was really busy this week and I want to continue reading it more carefully. I also started another book: The Jesus Creed, written by Scot McKnight. I joined a bible study group thing and this is the book that we are going to study. I didn't know what the word creed meant, except for a vague idea that I got from the game assassins creed, so that's already or word that I learnt. The book is written around Mark 12:29-32, where upon being asked by a scribe what is the greatest commandment Jesus answers with a slightly modifyed version of a Jewish prayer, saying that the greatest commandment is loving God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and adding love your neightbours as yourself. I've read through chapters 1-3. The book is good so far, has some interesting ideas, some history and is well written, and I look forward to reading and discussing it in the bible study group.
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This week I didn't read as much as I would have liked, but I did like what I read. Thing Explainer only used the 1000 most common words in English, so sometimes it is actually a little hard to read, since he doesn't use words like rockets or lava or fuel or nucleus, and he has to come up with other ways to explain things. The book itself is a large yet thin-ish book. The thing I like the most by far is the diagrams and drawings, which are very good (the guy works as a web comic artist) and detailed and all drawn sort of like blueprints, with text on the sides pointing at different parts.
So far I've read how many things work, like a helicopter, international space station, a cell, a washing mashing and a drying machine, a dish washing machine, an old boat, submarines, a lock and probably more. The book doesn't go into very deep details, but it does teach you how the thing works in general and what parts do what and go where. Some of the things I've like so far are the explanations for helicopter which go well with a video series I had watched that explains a lot about helicopters, but this explained more of the physical parts and how they work, while the video was more focused on how they fly. The lock was very interesting, because even though I already had an idea of how they worked (Faceboon GIF) This explained in more details. Some o the things that I look forward to be explained are laptops, city burning machines, phone and other stuff. Finished book and new book, Thing ExplainerI have finally finished Fermat's Last Theorem, and it was good, really good. It was not a text book and it didn't simply explain all the mathematics the proof of the theorem (which is that there is no solution for the equation x^n+y^n=Z^n where n>2). In fact, the book explains almost nothing of the mathematics behind the proof, which was published in may 1995 and was written by Wiles over seven years and is 150 pages long and is really really complicated. Rather, the book goes over the history of the theorem and people trying to solve it and he gives a really good history of many mathematicians and mathematics. It was a really interesting and well written book that was not hard to understand.
After I finished I was visiting a book store with my father and I saw a book which I saw recommended in a short animated physics video explaining how to go to space featuring a guy that draws a web comic, and in the end they mention a book he wrote called Thing Explainer. It is a book which basically explains how a bunch of things work, such as a rocket, a phone, helicopters, washing machines, cells, trees, locks using really well drawn diagrams and text. But the thing is, all the text is only written using the 1000 most commonly used words, just like the video which I saw. Because of this things like rockets are described as "space boats" and smart phones are "hand computers" and so forth, so I won't be learning any new vocabulary from this book, even though it is awesome and I really really look forward to finishing it. Finished!!It has been a long time since I post in here. After exams I didn't post that week and also not during the holidays. During the holidays I did finish reading The Silmarillion, and I really really really liked it. The last reading log entry that I wrote was about the coming of Men. After that the focus goes back to the elves since it is a tale primarily about then with the notable exceptions of some men, such as Beren, son of Hurin, which was able to steal one of the Silmarils from Melkor. There were a lot of Wars after the coming of Men, the main on being the 4th of the Great Battles of Beleriand, also known as the Battle of the Sudden Flame or Dagor Bragollach, in which the Father of Dragons, the first of the fire-drakes, Glaurung, appears. After this battle there is also another battle, the 5th Great Battle, which is refered to as Nírnaeth Arnoediad, Battle of Unnumbered Tears, in which Hurin, of the race of Man, is captured and bound to seat upon a mountain and watch all of the events unfold. After this battle one of the last cities standing is Gondolin, the hidden kingdom. Gondolin eventually falls as well by mean of betrayal. Tuor, of the race of men but married to an elf, helps the elves escape, and his son, Earendil, sails to Valinor and sets foot on the imortal lands and asks for help from the Valar. They help and eventually Morgoroth is cast into the Void, but Sauron escapes. After this some Men live in an island that is closer to Valinor, while some stay back in Middle Earth. They eventually grow greedy and are corrupted by Sauron, and they try to make war against the Valar. Iluvatar himself then intervenes and destroyes those men, sparring a few that where still loyal. The world was greatly changed but Suaron still survived, even though his body was destroyed. The book then gives a short summary of the War of the Rings of Power. Many tales are not told fully, such as the tales of the Children of Hurin, which are told in another book, Children of Hurin, which I was planning to read but someone else has borrowed it from the library. Unfinished tales also has more story about this world but again, the Library only has part 2. So while those books are unavailable, I will start reading a book called:
Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh, about mathematics. chapter 12 - Of MenThis is a week late entry. I hadn't read very much if at all last week so I couldn't do my reading log, but now I've read more and actually have something to write about. This blog post will actually be broken into two: this one from last week and the one that was supposed to go up yesterday.
Men have awaken at the first rising of the sun. The main difference from Men and Elves is that men are mortal. This is described as a gift on the book, as men's life Know that we got to know more about the sun and moon, Tolkien goes back in time a bit and focuses more on the other part of the Noldor, who were left behind when Fëanor took the boats and burned them. They so wanted to go to the other side that they passed the narrow straights of ice on the north. It was a painful and long journey, but they did it and when they arrived the sun and moon had gone up, so they met no orcs when they arrived. Chapter 11 - Of The Sun and MoonI didn't read too much this week so this post will be brief. I am now up to chapter 11, and there has been some quite exciting stuff. The book stopped focusing so much on the Elves for a little while, and started focusing on other things. The dwarves awoke after the Elves (they were sleeping under the mountains until the First Children awoke), and they had already been building forts and mines and roads. They came then upon the Elves of Beleriand. Orcs have also started to appear more often and stronger, and there were battles between orcs and elves. There has also been the tale of the Sun and the Moon. After the trees were killed, Yavanna sang and cried over them for a long time, and one of them grew a silver flower and the other grew a golden fruit. These became the sun and the moon, going though the skies led by two different Maia. At first both stood in the sky at the same time, but the moon was attracted to the sun and got burned a little. So the Valar decided that the sun should go down while the moon is up and the moon should do likewise. The moon still was attracted to the sun, in a way that sometimes it could cover the sun (causing eclipse). The elves also wanted starlight and so the sun couldn't stay up all the time. The sun was als a unpleasant surprise to Melkor which hated it, and the Maia who controlled it:
Chapter 9 - Of the Flight of the NoldorI am now almost finished with chapter 9, Of the Flight of the Noldor, and a lot of things have happened since last week. Now the Elves which where led by three lords have arrived at the other side of the sea, at least one group, by a isle that Ulmo, the Vala of the Sea, moved and docked, and there they dwelt in the place called Valinor, where Yavanna made two trees which shone with a golden and a silver light, taking turns shining every 7 hours. Melkor was imprisoned by this point. Then the book goes into quite some detail about the family tree of Finwe, the King of the Elves. The other Lords were not there as one got lost in the woods and met a Maia, and the other waited and dwelt by the shores. They joined the other elves later by the art of Shipmaking. The Noldor, which are the Elves of Valinor, learned much of crafts, specially of gems, and how to make them brighter then they were naturally. The son of the King was Feanor, which is described as having a fire within him. His mother died after giving birth to him, the first death of the book, at least regarding an Elf. Feanor then creates something very special, the Silmarils, three gems which contained the light of the trees and shone bright, feeding on light and giving back light greater the which they received, and they were alive, and the key to the whole world was in them. Melkor by now was released, and he was pretending to have changed, by asking forgiveness and working with the elves, by fixing his mistakes. This was not true of course, and Manwe only released him because he himself could not perceive the evil in Melkor's heart. Melkor wanted the Silmarils, and started spreading rumurs and creating discordance among the elves, and Feanor he hated the most. He started teaching them the art of Swords making, and He caused the Elves, specially Feanor, to distrust the other Valar. He then escaped to the South, and Feanor, his father the King Finwe, and his brothers of a second mother were sent to imprisonment because they rebelled against the Valar. Melkor joined with one of his old servants, Ungoliant, a giant terrible spider. With her help they come back to Valinor during a time of feast, where Feanor was present, but not his father or brothers. Melkor went with Ungoliant, which created a web of Unlight, darkness, and he destroyed the trees, and stole the Silmarils and other gems, and slayed Finwe the King. After a lot of things that happen from there the Elves decide to leave Valinor and go back to Middle-Earth. To cross the sea they need the ships from their brethren, but they refuse, so a great fight takes place, and so they steal the ships and suffer a great storm. Feanor swears an oath to destroy Melkor, which he calls Morgoth, the Dark Enemy of the World. The book is really really good, and I have been listening to a podcast which goes over the chapters, made by Tolkien experts and a guy which isn't a Tolkien expert, which is also fun. I also now understand the lyrics to the first few songs of the album Nightfall in Middle Earth by Blind Guardian, which is reaaaaaaaaaaaally good, and now it makes sense as well. Some of the words that I did not know were:
Bethought Bequeathed Thralls Throng Mound Chapter 4 - Of Thingol and MelianI have now finished reading chapter 4. I didn't read the second part which was a "preface to the second edition from a letter by J.R.R.Tolkien", (The first was a foreword). Then a section called Ainulindale, then Valaquenta, then the books started, Quenta Silmarillion, whith chapter 1, Of the Beginning of Days, and so on. I am right now on around page 55, out of 366, but the font is very very small. The book is really really good, and, SPOILER ALERT, The first Children of Illuvatar have already appeared, the Elves, and are on there way to Valinor, where the Valar dwell, led by three main Elders, which where the Ambassadors that talked to the Valar in the beginning. I think that they might be the Elders which later receive the rings from Sauron, but I don't know. The book has also explained the creation of the Dwarfs, by one of the Valar by Aule under the mountains. It also explained the fate of the lights of Middle-Earth and more things. I haven't seen a word that I don't know yet, and if I did I just kept on reading and it didn't affect my reading of the book, and I do expect to find words which I do not understand later on. I am really liking this book so far, and I do expect to really really like it until the end of the book, even though it will be a hard book to read I think. Men have not come to Arda yet.
TThe Martian - finished - The Silmarillion - StartedThis week was a very productive week reading wise. I managed to finish Things to make and do in the Fourth Dimension last week, which was really exciting, (even though it has made me very frustrated at the fact I cant solve the equation x^3+x=5, which I have spent many hours, much paper and much research trying to solve algebraically but still cant), and I really enjoyed the book. Last time I mentioned I watched the Marian and bought the book, and I finished reading the book this week on Wednesday! So Far...I really enjoyed the Marian. The movie was awesome and the book was great too. The book is basically about how a guy gets stuck on Mars and has to try to survive. It is written in many perspectives, both as a narrative on earth and as a diary/log from Mark himself on Mars. I really really liked the book, but it did have some downsides which I realized only after hearing two dudes complain about it in their podcast (they liked it as well, at least one of them). The book sometimes can get a bit dull as he explains the math and reasons behind the solutions he comes up with and his situation. I understand why it is there, to make the book more believably and realistic since it is written as a log that might be possibly found later my future missions, but it can be a bit tedious to read trough. The book had swear words, which is a bit rare in books I read, but those did not make the reading difficult, rather they convey how real the situation was and proved to be a great tool in the book. Now that I finished it I can finally get to the book I have wanted and tried to read for a looooooooong time: The Silmarillion. Conclusion...The Silmarillion is a very large book that contains the story of the Middle-Earth (lotr universe), and how it was created, the wars that have happened, how everything got to where it is in the Hobbit and in the Lord if the Rings. The book itself is phisically small since the fonts are tiny
#4 - FinishedI have finally finished this book! It was really really good and I recommend it to anybody that likes maths. I have not read everything from the chapter "The Answers in the Back of the Book", which is basically further mathematical proofs and more complicated long formula in formations. So Far...Since I have finished reading this book I now will move on to another book: The Martian. I watched the movie on the cinema on Saturday with a friend of mine and I really really liked it, and immediately after we went to Kinokunya, a book store, in Takashimaya and I bought the book, which I have started reading already. I am also looking forward to reading this to listen to the end if an episode of a podcast where they will discuss the book. Conclusion...I really like the book and I am really looking forward to reading the Martian. I have read a little bit of the read already, and I realized it contains some swear words, but I don't really mind that, it is just that it is rare among the books that I read.
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March 2016
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