Today's soundtrack is Thousand Foot Krutch: Phenomenon, a rock/rap album that I really enjoyed in my teens. I remember them being marketed as a Christian alternative to bands like Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit. I think that POD and Pillar were stronger bands in the era of "positive rap/rock bands," and though Phenomenon does have some nice riffs, the lyrics are often pretty cheesy - even laughably so - throughout ("Throw up your rawkfist!" "Sometimes I feel so aloooone; I've never felt so far from home!" "It's TFK, we rock the par-tay!" "We come rushing through your stereo system into your ear canal like a solar system!" etc).
Once I got a bit of distance from the trees, I realized how pathetic CCM's attempt to make Christianity cool by churning out cheap copycat bands was -- and that's if you can even believe that making Christianity cool was ever their intention. More likely is that it was all just business: someone saw a hole in the music market and made a product to fit.
"Youth pastors tell teens that they shouldn't be listening to secular music, but the teens really like The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. What if we hire a bunch of guys to start a band with a similar name and force them contractually to only sing songs that are vaguely religious?" And thus The OC Supertones were born.
I remember walking through the Christian book store (how many of those are still around?) and seeing stickers on the cds saying "if you like [secular band], you'll love [this band]!" People even put together comparison charts that were hilariously out of touch. According to this one, people who like punk band Blink 182 should listen to Christian heavy metal band Tourniquet. Those who like "techno rock" should listen to the Christian hard rock band Skillet. And Radiohead fans should listen to the praise and worship band Sonicflood instead.
"How sad," you say. "I'm so glad that we've moved past that."
I wish I could agree. But no - the practice still goes on today! According to this 2017 article, Bruno Mars fans should listen to Carman (yes, THAT Carman, the one who was popular in the '90s). Justin Bieber fans should listen to worship leader Lincoln Brewster, and those who like Sia should check out Amy Grant instead.
On the right is a screenshot from the site. Yes, that red x on Bruno Mars and the big green check mark on Carman's smiling face are actually on the original article. Click it and check. I couldn't make this up. It's that bad.
Anyway. Enough about CCM's commercialization of Christianity. On to my homework.
This evening, I'm going to give a try at finish up my rational expressions assignment. Links to previous parts: Lesson, Assignment Part 1.
I learned today that if we are asked to simplify a rational expression and state the non-permissible values, we need to give the non-permissible values before simplifying, since as the simplest form will get the same result as the expanded form, both forms must have the same non-permissible values.
Lightbulb moment while I was working: the factored form of a quadratic equation finally "clicked" while I was working on one of the questions! The x-intercepts are the inverses of the two known values. For example, (x + 4) (x + 6) has the x-intercepts -4, -6. Also, I've had trouble grasping the "difference of squares" in the past; today, I got it. x² - 36 is just (x + 6) (x - 6)!
I did get tripped up a few times while simplifying by not noticing "difference of squares" in the expressions. They make a huge difference when trying to simplify. For example, one question in particular that gave me about 40 minutes of grief was trying to simplify (36 - 9x²) / (x² - 5x + 6). After a ton of trial and error, I finally got it. Here's how I got the solution:
Convert the numerator to factors using difference of squares
36-9x² = (6-3x) (6-3x)
Use decomposition of factors to factor the denominator
x² - 5x + 6 = (x - 2) (x - 3)
Next, I factored the numerator again
(6-3x) (6-3x) = 3 (2 -x) 3 (2 + x)
Since my denominator had the factor (x - 2) and my numerator had the factor (2 - x), I rewrote the numerator to give myself a common factor
3 (2 -x) 3 (2 + x) = 3 (-1) (x - 2) 3 (2 + x)
I canceled out like terms between the numerator and denominator
[3 (-1) (x - 2) 3 (2 + x)] / [(x - 2) (x - 3)] = [3 (-1) 3 (2 + x)] / (x - 3)
I grouped like terms in the numerator
[3 (-1) 3 (2 + x)] / (x - 3) = [-9 (2 + x )] / (x - 3)
It's 11pm. I've finally finished this assignment. That is quite enough math for one day. Steven out.