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| I will include more on this one in a later entry because it has really opened my eyes to some things in regards to how I have been dealing with my own relationship with God and others. Most importantly it has been challenging to realize the ways that we often write off those things we are commanded to do because it is convenient to do so.
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| What a fascinating little book. It's really not a huge unreadable philosophical treatise, although it is still very well thought out, I read through this in about a week and couldn't put it down. It really is a great testimony to following the facts wherever they lead you. The appendices are very interesting as well including one by N.T. Wright. Hopefully this isn't the end of Antony Flews journey but only the beginning.
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| This will be just a short little post. I just thought it deserved mentioning. Since probably around Christmas, which is when I got my Zune, I've been trying to find new and interesting audio to listen to. I discovered a lot of great sites and free information besides just music that I could get. Of course I've loved a lot of podcasts but I've also gotten some audio books and that is really what I wanted to mention.
I've always been a little hesitant with audio books. It always felt a little like cheating to me. I have on occasion been known to get them for long trips or to cram a number of readings in in a short amount of time but I always preferred the real thing. My reasons for this have been reasonable as well I think.
My reasoning behind not wanting to listen to audio books are many but there are a couple in particular that stick out to me. One is I just think it's easy when listening to an audio book to not give it the same attention that you might give to the same material if you were reading it. This can be true as I have often found myself rewinding to some part that I missed. The other reason that I have been somewhat hesitant with them is that if you get someone reading who is too over the top with their portrayal of the story it can really take you out of it.
Now while both of those things are true in some instances I have found some good things about audio books too. In any given day for example you may have periods of time whether it be long drives to work or periods at work where not much is going on where that time is simply wasted with nothing to do. In these instances what better way to take advantage of that time then taking in a new book. Also, as far as the attention spent on it. While I have found that to be true it's also true when you're reading. I find sometimes my eyes are going through the motions of reading and I realize that I have glazed over something and have to back track. In fact sometimes when I'm listening and reading (something I did a bit in college with some books of the Bible like Romans) I will pick up some things when listening to it spoken that I never noticed when I was reading it. So there are some advantages to listening to a book as well. A great instance of this is Fahrenheit 451 which I just got done listening to at work this week and which was read by Ray Bradbury there was a lot in his tone and the way that he read the book that I don't think I would have gotten from simply reading it.
Now none of this is to say that I have given up on reading by any means. In fact I still would much prefer to get my books the old fashioned way but this does open up a nice avenue for keeping up on books I'm already reading or simply keep me moving and introducing me to new ones it would have taken me months to get to. In fact it's become a great part of my walk to work every day.
All of that was written to get to this now. While there are many avenues that you can get audio books from my new favorite is http://www.librivox.org . Librivox is a site that keeps archives of open domain books. If you don't know what an open domain book is allow me to explain. Copyrights can only be renewed so many times (at least in most countries) when an item that has been copyrighted reaches the end of its number of renewals it enters the public domain which basically means that it is now public property to be used by anyone. This means that it is free to copy or distribute it. Now this means that the books that sites like this have are pretty old since they have reached the end of their ability to be copyrighted so you need to really search sometimes for the book you're looking for but a lot of the old classics are there. Librivox usually has a number of different ways for you to get their books from a straight audio download (in a number of different audio formats) to podcasts to e-text documents which are normally somehow linked to ( http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page ) project guttenberg which does basically the same thing but with text documents.
Both sites depend on volunteers to provide this information which is the coolest thing. So, people who have some old classic that has really meant a lot to them can share it with the whole world from their little corner of it. Some people will read an entire book and some people will simply read a chapter or to and then someone else will come along and pick up where they left off. I have been listening to The Pilgrims Progress from librivox and the girl who reads for it does a great job. There's everything on there for Plato's Republic to The Count of Monte Cristo and it's all dependent on people taking time to share these things. The fact that so many people take that time is somewhat inspiring and goes to show that reading is not dead.
The other great thing about sites like this is the viral nature of them. With every download that someone makes of a book, whether it's in audio or text format, that books is preserved in a brand new place which just helps to ensure that it will live on somewhere no matter what happens.
So anyway I guess this wasn't such a short post after all but if you're looking for something to do to fill your down time or if you have an old classic that you would like to share you should go to librivox and check it out. It's a great service.
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| I have this friend (no this isn't just a way for me to deflect something about myself) who I am often picking on for having these unreasoning hatreds of things\people. Or at least that's how they appear to me. This past weekend I came to the realization that I too have at least one of these. Allow me to explain.
I decided on Saturday afternoon that I hadn't had the mustang out all year and since it was such a beautiful day out I would take it for a ride. Since I had no particular place to go I ended up just driving rather aimlessly (which in a car like that with gas the way it is is a huge waste of money by the way) but I eventually ended up downtown and decided to park the car and walk around a bit. I parked in the garage so I had to cut through the mall to get to church street and as I am about to hop on the escalator to head up to the street level I see the aforementioned annoyance.
Now I realize that young children can be difficult to keep under control at times and that a busy shopping center can be a nightmare for all you parents out there (especially if you've got some wound up little boy who hasn't had his ritalin yet) but nothing quite sets my blood to boiling quite like those ridiculous harnesses that some folks choose to use to keep their kids under control. I mean really what does putting your kid on a leash really say. Well let me take a crack at it here.
It could say any of the following things:
1. I give up.
2. I just don't have time between chatting on my cell and sipping on a latte to really pay attention to my kid so why not just tie a rope 'round em.
3. Hey it worked with Fido why not with Johnny here.
4. I'm doing Mongo here a favor. Now he can run back and forth and dig.
5. The kid acts like an animal anyway so why not treat them like one.
I know I'm going to hear from someone who will tell me I don't understand what they're going through and watching a kid in a crowded place like that is hard but are you honestly going to tell me there's nothing else to do besides treating your son or daughter like that. I mean the last one kind of sums it up doesn't it? If you're going to treat your kid like the family pooch why not just save yourself some trouble and just lock them in a cage with some food until you get home.
The bottom line is this. Every parent that I have ever met who does this has the worlds most unruly kid. Now you could say that that's why they need to use those things but I would beg to differ. Don't we all in one way or another live up to or down to the expectations placed upon us? If you treat your child like an animal I'm not surprised that they should act like one. Maybe you could give a little old fashioned discipline a try.
Why is it I feel like this is the one thing I've written here that will get any response?
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| http://hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html
This is an item made by Hauppauge. Hauppauge makes a lot of PVR related products like tv tuner cards and media extenders. This actually came out at the beginning of this month after much anticipation and is my new favorite item. perhaps some time when I've got a little extra cash I'll pick one up. What it does is allow people building their own PVRs to record HDTV over the component outs on their set top box (STB).
Due to two main reason until now people have not been able to put together their own PVR and record their subscription HD content. You could only record HD content that came in over the air (your local channels) and the equivalent content that some cable companies chose to leave unencrypted called Clear QAM. The FCC had originally required that providers of this content allow there to be firewire ports on STB so that consumers wouldn't be required to purchase the cable providers DVR but these are hit or miss at best. Most of the time you will not be provided one of these boxes unless you specifically ask for it and even then finding software that actually can utilize it is kind of difficult.
The encryption of these channels is only possible through a digital connection. Over the analog connection (component cables) there is really no realistic way of encrypting it. This has been something that people have spoken about for quite a while but the problem with it is that encoding HD content (a very large amount of data) on the fly has been far too processor intensive. Well Hauppauge displayed this little bad boy at a recent tech show and it's been quite the subject of discussion ever since and now it's available. Enjoy.
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