Professor Kirke's House

The filming location for Professor Kirke's house in the BBC version of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" (IMDb) is Llanvihangel Court.  Some of the rooms, especially the spare room that contains the wardrobe, look like they might be sets, but everything else appears to be filmed there.  For evidence, watch this YouTube copy of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", specifically at these times, noting:

• 3:16 - the front of the house,
• 23:10 - the fountain,
• 48:31 - the garden house (guardhouse) next to a red tree and
• 49:01 - the stained-glass window,

and compare them to these 2017 photographs of Llanvihangel Court and the photo of the stained-glass window here: Elizabeth I from Elizabeth I and the Family of Charles I - work from Stained Glass in Wales (llgc.org.uk)

Unlike some other locations for the series, the house wasn't mentioned in closing credits.  At the time of filming, it was a private house and the owners may have not wanted publicity.  In recent years, the house appears to have hosted tours and events.  It has a web site: https://www.llanvihangelcourt.com/

I found the house by looking for recognizable objects in scenes set inside and outside the house and searching the Internet for them.  It took me a while to notice the stained-glass window, but eventually I did, and that was the key.  It depicts a lady that looks like Queen Elizabeth I.  On closer inspection, I saw that there is a gentleman on either side of the lady and one of them is laying down a cloak.  I recalled there was an incident where Sir Walter Raleigh laid down his cloak for Queen Elizabeth so she would not have to step in a puddle.  Googling "elizabeth", "cloak", "raleigh", and "stained glass" as required terms turned up the "Stained Glass in Wales" web page mentioned above, which identifies the location of the stained-glass window: Llanvihangel Court. 

As for the puddle incident, Wikipedia says it is probably apocryphal.  Another source flatly states that it never happened because the first known written reference to it was written 80 years later by a Thomas Fuller, who sometimes fabricated stories.  Of course, it is a non sequitur to go from "this person sometimes fabricates stories" and "this person was the first person we know of to write about it" to "we know this never happened", so I disagree.  You can read Thomas Fuller' account of the incident here.  Actually, it isn't so much an account as a mention.  Quoting Fuller: "his introduction into court is said to have born an elder date, from the time he spread his plush cloak for Her Majesty to step upon over a wet place".  It seems like Fuller is stating hearsay or repeating tradition.  As it is written, I don't know why he would have made it up himself.  For myself, I would rate the incident to be about as likely to be true as any bit of remembered information about a historical person, or any other unproven statement made in the book it was included in.

"New Symbols for Base-16 and Base-256 Numerals" Bested on Reddit

In 2017, I co-authored a paper that presented a system of hexadecimal digits that could be combined as ligatures to form base-256 digits.  It's online here.  In 2019, someone posted a system of base-256 digits on Reddit that I and the other author agree is better: Made a surprisingly simple base-256 numerical system...

In our paper, we enumerated 9 desirable qualities for a set of hexadecimal digits in order to evaluate different sets.   This other system has/hasn't the qualities as follows:

• MNE: Yes
• STR: No
• LIG: Yes
• AMB: Yes
• DSP: Yes
• BIN: Yes
• 0: No
• 1: No
• TRN: Yes

This system has 6 of the 9 enumerated qualities.  This is 2 fewer qualities than our published system, but I nevertheless think it is a better system because 1) its base-256 "ligatures" are easier to write and 2) I can remember how these digits encode binary numbers much more easily than our published system, and therefore this system would be easier for me to use.  Well done, u/Tuckertcs, whoever you are.

On another topic, in our paper we suggested the name "sedecisedecimal" for base-256 numbers.  I still think it's the best Latin/Greek-based name for them.  Would anyone seriously prefer "duocentehexaquinquagesimal"?

Bill Watterson's Political Cartoons

While attending Kenyon College, Bill Watterson (the author of Calvin and Hobbes) was editorial cartoonist for the school newspaper, The Kenyon Collegian.  Most weeks during his tenure, they printed a cartoon of his, usually a political cartoon.  Since the Kenyon Collegian's archives are available online, you can see them all.  The following is a complete set of links to issues of the Kenyon Collegian that have these cartoons: 

• Volume CIV (1976-1977), issues 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27
• Volume CV (1977-1978), issues 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26
• Volume CVI (1978-1979), issues 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24
• Volume CVII (1979-1980), issues 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27

It's Rational to Believe in Jesus

So says Aron Wall (and me).  He has posted a fair amount of material on his web site that explains how believing what the Bible says about Jesus can be rational.  Several of those postings amount to as good a case for Christianity as I've seen expressed anywhere, so I'm posting links to them for your benefit (and my own; I will re-read them).  They are listed in an order that I think makes sense for them to be read if they were to be read in sequence.

---

There is good evidence that Jesus was resurrected from the dead and that he is the Messiah:

1. Can Religion Be Based on Evidence?
2. Theology: Less Speculative than Quantum Gravity
3. Christianity Is Based on Observations
4. Let Us Calculate
5. Christianity Is True

The Old Testament part of the Bible is not a fabrication:

• Some Comments on Biblical History

Christianity is more likely to be true than other religions:

1. Introduction
2. World Evangelism
3. Ancient Roots
4. Supernatural Claims
5. Historical Accounts
6. Early Sources

---

Note: I don't know Aron Wall personally; I've just read his blog and agree with his approach to Christian apologetics.

How to Transfer User TonePrints from One Windows PC to Another

This post is for anyone who has TonePrints for a TC Electronic effect pedal on one computer and wants to transfer them to another computer.

Version 4.1.06 of the TonePrint application stores user TonePrints in a file named "database.sqlite3" in the user's app data folder, which, in Windows 10, is a hidden folder named "C:\Users\[user name]\AppData\Roaming".  If you want to replace your user TonePrints on one computer with user TonePrints from another computer, just copy this file from the one computer to the other.

If you want to copy TonePrints from one PC to another, but you want to keep your old TonePrints, too, simply copying the file won't work, because it will overwrite TonePrints.  For that purpose, I wrote some scripts for Windows PC that will grab TonePrints from one PC and install them on another PC without deleting the TonePrints that are already there.  You can download them in a zip file here:

• TonePrint_transfer.zip

To use them, download the zip file, extract the contents to an empty folder, then follow the instructions in the file named "README.txt" that is included in the zip file.  They should work with version 4.1.06 of the PC TonePrint application.

I don't know how to transfer user TonePrints from a smartphone to a PC, or vice versa.  The smartphone app might have a database.sqlite3, but I have not been able to locate it on my phone.

UPDATE: the scripts won't work for new versions of the TonePrint application (e.g. 4.4.03).  The database file name apparently changed to "databaseV1.sqlite3" or something.

How to Build & Run Vampire ATP in Cygwin

Vampire is an Automated Theorem Prover.  It was apparently developed on Linux, but it can be run on Windows using Cygwin, which provides the build tools, software packages and operating system services that Vampire depends on.  Here are some instructions for building and running Vampire in 64-bit Windows 10.  A note on building Vampire with Cygwin can be found on Vampire's GitHub page, here.

Install Cygwin:

1. Install Cygwin and its default packages.
2. Install these Cygwin packages:
   
   • cygrunsrv
   • gcc-core
   • gcc-g++
   • make
   • zlib
   • zlib-devel
   • zlib-devel
   • zlib0
3. Move C:\cygwin64\bin to the front of the %PATH% environment variable.

Install Git Command-Line Tools

1. Install the Git command-line tools.  An installer can be downloaded from https://git-scm.com/download/win.

Install the Z3 Theorem Prover

1. Download a Win64 release of Z3 from https://github.com/Z3Prover/z3/releases.
2. Make z3.dll available from PATH, either by putting z3.dll from this release in some folder that is in PATH, or by adding the Z3 "bin" folder to PATH.

Build Vampire

1. Pull Vampire's Git repository from GitHub (https://github.com/vprover/vampire).
2. In Vampire's Makefile, add "-D_GNU_SOURCE" to CXXFLAGS and CCFLAGS.
3. Change all instances of "exit(0);" in the source code to "_Exit(0);".  This is needed to prevent the child processes forked by the main Vampire process from calling the main process' atexit handlers.
4. Create a folder named "include" in the Vampire repository's main folder.
5. Copy the contents of the Z3 "bin" folder to that "include" folder.
6. Compile and link vampire by issuing the command "make vampire_z3_rel" from a command prompt.

Start the Cygwin Windows Service

1. Start Cygwin's bash shell.
2. From the bash command prompt, issue the command "cygserver-config" to configure the Cygwin Windows service.
3. In Windows, right-click "This PC", select "Manage", then select "Services and Applications, then select "Services", then start the "CYGWIN cygserver" service.

 Run Vampire

1. Run Vampire from a command prompt.  For example:
   vampire_z3_rel_master_4055 --mode casc -t 300 "Problems\SET\SET159-6.p"
2. Vampire may not succeed in deleting the semaphores that it creates in the Cygwin server.  To delete them, issue the command "ipcs -s | grep '^s\\s' | cut -d' ' -f3|xargs -n 1 ipcrm -s" from a command prompt.  Alternatively, add a call to system() at the end of Vampire's main function that issues this command.

Historical and Cultural Context for the New Testament

Years ago, I read an article about how some Japanese toilets have special built-in features, including electric seat warmers.  I thought this was weird.  I would not want to sit on a warmed toilet seat and I didn't understand why someon else would.  I couldn't explain it further than thinking to myself that different people feel differently about different things.  Many years later, I talked to friend who had returned to the U.S. after spending some months living in Japan.  He told me that the Japanese did not heat their entire homes.  In cold seasons, they would heat the space they were staying in, or just their beds at night.  After learning that, I was able figure out for myself why a Japanese person would want a seat warmer on their toilet.  In an American, climate-controlled house, a room-temperature toilet seat is about 70 degrees Fahrenheit.  A warmed toilet seat would be unpleasantly warm; to me it would feel like someone had just been sitting on the seat.  Though I fully accept that other people use the same toilet seats as me, I don't like to be reminded of the fact.  Now, what if room temperature is 50 degrees?  Suddenly, the toilet seat warmer made sense to me.

So what does this have to do with the Bible?  It shows that context matters.  If you want to understand why people in other cultures do what they do, it helps a lot to understand their circumstances.  This goes doubly when people aren't just separated from you by distance and borders, but also by long stretches of time.  I like to think the Bible mostly speaks for itself, but really there's a lot in it that might not make sense to a modern reader.  In recent years, I've got into reading about the historical and cultural context of the Bible, expecially the New Testament.  It's been so helpful to me in making sense of difficult parts that I think everyone who seriously wants to understand the Bible should do it.  The following are some books that I recommend to anyone who wants to learn about the historical and cultural context of the New Testament.  None are very long and I don't think any require much background apart from the Bible itself and some general knowledge of the Roman empire.

Poet & Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes: A Literary-Cultural Approach to the Parables in Luke  by Kenneth E. Bailey

You may have heard in a sermon that it's important that the father of the Prodigal Son runs to his son when he returns because in traditional Middle Eastern cultures, it's undignified for a grown man to run.  Ok, maybe not, but in my experience those kinds of facts appear in sermons every once in a while.  If you had, you might wonder where that bit of information from came from.   The answer is the late Kenneth E. Bailey.  Bailey wrote several books that interpret parts of the Bible using his knowledge of Middle Eastern culture and customs as well as his knowledge of ancient Middle Eastern Bible translators and commentators.  Poet & Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes are two of the earliest of these books, combined into one volume.  In them, he explains how Jesus' contemporaries would likely have understood several of Jesus' parables.  Not only that, he analyzes the structure of the parables, showing that their sentences are arranged deliberately in known rhetorical forms.  I love these books and consequently I love Kenneth Bailey.  There is so much insight to be had from them. 

Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus by Joachim Jeremias

A wide-ranging book about... Jerusalem in the time of Jesus.  Lots of information about the size, structure and economy of Jerusalem and other interesting things like trades and Jewish marriage customs.  Perhaps most useful for understanding the New Testament are the sections about Jewish religious groups.  They explain who the Pharisees and the Sadducees were, and who those "scribes" were that Jesus was arguing with in the Gospels.

Josephus: Thrones of Blood

This is an abridgement and paraphrase of two of Josephus' books: The Antiquities of the Jews and The Jewish War.  In these books, Josephus writes for a Roman audience, giving an account of the history of the Jewish nation from the times of the Herods to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.  The modern language of this paraphrase makes it easier to read than the older English translations, and it's not a long book.  It's good for understanding the political climate that Jesus and his disciples lived in.

Slaves, Citizens, Sons: Legal Metaphors in the Epistles by Francis Lyall

In this book, Lyall explains Roman, Greek and Hebrew law pertaining to slavery, citizenship, sonship, inheritance and adoption.  Dry stuff?  No, because it's useful for understanding what Paul means when he writes about being adopted into God's family, being "sons of God", being a "bondservant of Christ", etc.  It's also interesting to see how some things that so many modern people take for granted, like the fact that laws apply to all individuals in a society, just weren't so in the ancient world, especially Rome.  In Roman law, only free men (usually heads of households) were subject to law.  Everyone else -- women, children, slaves and unemancipated sons -- were considered to be property and therefore considered to be "objects" as far as laws were concerned.

The Old Testament Apocrypha

For most of my life, I never read the Apocrypha or thought much about them.  But then I read N. T. Wright's series, "Christian Origins and the Question of God".  In these books, he references them so often that I had to read them to know what he was talking about.  Most were boring to me.  2 Esdras is strange.  I found Ben Sirach's proverbs to be interesting; some are good, but others are worldly and self-interested.  Some are even contrary to what Jesus taught, which reinforces my Protestant belief that it should be canonical.  Even so, these books were read by Jesus' contemporaries and are likely to represent their worldview.  Also, they fill in some of the gap between Old Testament and New Testament history.