Oct. 16th, 2005

substitute: (computer)
The most recent version of LAME (a new one after a very long time) is a huge improvement at least for me. I was previously using 3.90.3 which the mavens at hydrogenaudio said was the best version. They started recommending this new beta and wow! I'm getting 8.5x instead of 2.8x ripping speeds with "--preset fast standard". Sounds great, too. Highly recommended. Source is at this sourceforge link, and binaries for those who do not compile are at Rarewares.
substitute: (binky)
From the New York Times via cruel.com, soccer rules for hardcore jihadist Muslims:

IN the name of God the merciful and benevolent:

1. Play soccer without four lines because this is a fabrication of the heretics' international rules that stipulate using them and delineating them before playing.

2. International terminology that heretics and polytheists use, like "foul," "penalty," "corner," "goal," "out" and others, should be abandoned and not said. Whoever says them should be punished, reprimanded and ejected from the game. He should be publicly told, "You have imitated the heretics and polytheists and this is forbidden."

3. Do not call "foul" and stop the game if someone falls and sprains a hand or foot or the ball touches his hand, and do not give a yellow or red card to whoever was responsible for the injury or tackle. Instead, it should be adjudicated according to Sharia rulings concerning broken bones and injuries. The injured player should exercise his Sharia rights according to the Koran and you must bear witness with him that so-and-so hurt him on purpose.

4. Do not follow the heretics, the Jews, the Christians and especially evil America regarding the number of players. Do not play with 11 people. Instead, add to this number or decrease it.

5. Play in your regular clothes or your pajamas or something like that, but not colored shorts and numbered T-shirts, because shorts and T-shirts are not Muslim clothing. Rather they are heretical and Western clothing, so beware of imitating their fashion.

6. If you have fulfilled these conditions and intend to play soccer, play to strengthen the body in order to better struggle in the way of God on high and to prepare the body for when it is called to jihad. Soccer is not for passing time or the thrill of so-called victory.

7. Do not set the time of play at 45 minutes, which is the official time of the Jews, Christians and all the heretical and atheist countries. This is the time used by teams that have strayed from the righteous path. You are obliged to distinguish yourself from the heretics and the corrupted and must not resemble them in anything.

6. Do not play in two halves. Rather play in one half or three halves in order to completely differentiate yourselves from the heretics, the polytheists, the corrupted and the disobedient.

9. If neither of you beats the other, or "wins" as it is called, and neither puts the leather between the posts, do not add extra time or penalties until someone wins. No, instead leave the field, because winning with overtime and penalty kicks is the pinnacle of imitating heretics and international rules.

10. If you play soccer, do not appoint someone to follow you called a "referee," since there is no need for him after doing away with international rules like "foul," "penalty," "corner" and others. His presence would be in imitation of the heretics, Jews and Christians and would follow international rules.

11. Young crowds should not gather to watch when you play because if you are there for the sake of sports and strengthening your bodies as you claimed, why would people watch you? You should make them join your physical fitness and jihad preparation, or you should say: "Go proselytize and seek out morally reprehensible acts in the markets and the press and leave us to our physical fitness."

12. If you finish playing soccer, do not talk about your game and say, "We were better than the opponent," or "So-and-so plays well" and so on. Instead be concerned with your bodies and their strength and muscles, and say, "We played only to drill in running, attacking and retreating, and to prepare for jihad in the name of God on high."

13. You should spit in the face of whoever puts the ball between the posts or uprights and then runs in order to get his friends to follow him and hug him like players in America or France do, and you should punish and reprimand him, for what is the relationship between celebrating, hugging and kissing and the sports that you are practicing?

14. You should use two posts instead of three pieces of wood or steel that you erect in order to put the ball between them, meaning that you should remove the crossbar in order not to imitate the heretics and in order to be entirely distinct from the soccer system's despotic international rules.

15. Do not do what is called "substitution," that is, taking the place of someone who has fallen, because this is a practice of the heretics in America and elsewhere.

These are some conditions and precepts so that morally aware youth do not inadvertently imitate heretics and polytheists when playing soccer ... Hell awaits those who die playing soccer according to rules established by heretical countries, at the head of which is America.
substitute: (Default)
Unicorns L.A. (Quicktime, 27 M) (via Exploding Aardvark).

Raise your hand, everyone who thinks the Digital Gibson Les Paul is an abomination. Extra points for "I started to play some Police and Rush songs and they sounded incredible."
substitute: (modigliani)
There's a film adaptation of C.S. Lewis' classic children's fantasy The Chronicles of Narnia on the way, and already people are fighting about it.

The books are explicitly Christian allegory. The Narnia universe is parallel to ours and has a creation narrative, a Savior, stories of temptation and redemption, unbelievers, resurrection, an apocalypse, and an opposing faith that's an obvious parallel to Islam.

It's also a kids' fantasy book with talking animals, magic, an evil ice witch queen, ordinary children who become powerful adults in a different universe, dragons, and magical sea voyages to the end of the earth. So this isn't The Passion of the Christ, here. I read the entire series many times as a kid and remained a loyal secular humanist agnostic intellectual liberal.

Naturally, atheists are annoyed by the arrival of this film and evangelicals are delighted. I'm sure the churchy folks will press the opportunities they get as hard as possible, and lots of us will be invited to see the movie and have a "discussion" afterwards. I think you have to be pretty hardcore antireligious to object to that.

The more serious problem is Lewis' pseudomuslims. They seem culturally to be Turkish or Persian, and their God is a terrifying war-daemon. It's as though he conflated the Ottoman Empire, the Persian Empire, and Thuggee into one generic Eastern Challenge to Christianity. For his time it was an awfully enlightened picture of the Mysterious East; the worshippers of Tash aren't bad people, their cultural differences are shown as interesting rather than abhorrent, and there isn't any over-the-top Fu Manchu racism. But it's not very helpful in 2005 to imply that nonchristian turban-wearing people from the Mediterranean area are demon-worshipping empire-building militarists. I have no idea if this part of the story is addressed in this first movie; it won't be if it's just a filmed version of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe so that will be a future problem for the filmmakers to work out.

For my own part I hope they didn't castrate Lewis' story and make it less of a Christian allegory. The temptation to make it easier to swallow for a large audience must be great, but it would be doing the works and the author a terrible disservice to "improve" this into a sword & sorcery romp without a point. As a lifelong Lewis fan and ex-Christian I'd rather be bothered by a simplistic Bible analogy than patronized with meaningless Masters of the Universe quality entertainment.

If you read Lewis' autobiography, you can see him as a child completely absorbed in the Norse myths, reliving the doomed and noble fight of the Gods against evil. He didn't grow up to practice Viking religion, but he wrote some damn fine myth-based kids' books. Leave the myth in there, whether you believe in it or not. Please!
substitute: (fangcat)
catseyes

From It's All Wrong
substitute: (binky)
One:

I was at the coffee house talking to a young (22 year old) guy I know, and one of his friends came up to greet him. The guy had a large bandage on one hand obviously covering a bad cut. On questioning, he revealed that he'd been in the back of a limousine on the freeway, and that after sudden braking he'd slashed his hand open on a broken champagne glass.

Two:

At the Kragen Auto Parts, a beautiful and willowy young woman with luminous blue eyes and long blonde hair is buying some small automotive part or other. In line ahead of her is a strong-and-simple young bro guy with backwards ball cap, tattoos, and Black Flys sunglasses. He asks her what she's fixing, and after some back and forth he realizes that she has a completely incorrect item and takes her back to the aisle and they point at things and talk for a bit. They return with different items. He obviously wants a phone number. They go outside together and there's an awkward five minute conversation in which she puts him off in the most pleasant possible way and he persists in the most gentlemanly possible way, and then she leaves in a gigantic black SUV. He returns to working on his ten year old BMW sedan, which is also black.
substitute: (gene)
God Blog '05
GodBlogCon God Blog Convention

Quotes:

Aaron Flores is co-founder of Armor of Light Productions -a ministry geared towards embracing culture and emerging generations. He is creator of the blog turn videoblog, theVoiz.com where he intimately shares his personal life, faith, culture, art, and other areas of interest using video, new media, and the internet. For Aaron, theVoiz.com is an experiment with new media, social networking, and cultural engagement. Aaron takes his nickname, The First Christian Vlogger lightly since theVoiz.com is simply he's way of sharing life with others.

[...]

Since I began blogging in 2003, I have experienced this on so many levels. As a Christian blogger who also writes about politics, I’m accused of being offensive, harsh, and unloving. What many unbelievers don’t realize is that Jesus was offensive and harsh, and his actions would seem unloving to some. For example, he said that unless you repent, you will perish. That is, you will be destroyed. Does that sound loving?

[...]

Stacy L. Harp is the President and Founder of Mind &; Media an online publicity company that utilizes the blogosphere's potential to market Christian books, music and products. Stacy also writes daily at the recently launched Persecution Blog . She also maintains a more personal blog called Writing Right where she discusses the issues of the day while adding humor and inspiration.


Also: GODBLOGCONBLOG?

Profile

substitute: (Default)
substitute

May 2009

S M T W T F S
      1 2
3 456 78 9
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31      

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags