JJesusfreak01's Blog

Really really fast....

2007-01-28T21:28:00.000-05:00

Okay, well as long as Bush trusts her...

2005-10-04T17:59:00.000-04:00

So, everyone remembers the John Roberts nomination, since he was just confirmed this past week. I remember back when the politicians were complaining about his lack of qualifications. They said he didnt have enough judicial experience, and they didnt know enough about his politics. Well, I had to disagree with them. Roberts was the MOST qualified person to EVER be nominated for the Supreme Court. His former positions had put him in the Supreme Court as a lawyer, and he argued hundreds of cases in front of them. Being a Constitutional lawyer, he probably knows the Constitution better than most of the Supreme Court judges. Of course, anyone who has read my earlier articles can see what I think about Supreme Court judges. I hope I have made my point that he was qualified. Well, obviously, this is not what I am writing about here. I am writing about the anti-Roberts, and she goes by the name of Harriet Miers.

Now, when I say "anti-Roberts", I am not trying to imply she is evil or bad, but rather that she fulfills the complaints that politicians staged against Roberts. Unlike Roberts, we really dont know anything about her. She is a lawyer, plain and simple. Though she has done some nice things, such as headed a state bar association, as well as a couple other things, she has never been a judge. Though Roberts was only a judge for a short amount of time, his decisions gave alot of insight into his opinions on a couple issues, but his major qualification was his job as a Supreme Court lawyer. Miers has done no such thing.

Essentially, Bush is asking us to put her in the most important court in our nation, to decide the future of our country, only with his assurance that "she is a good person". Now, this is something we cant do. We dont know if she is a good judge, and we dont know how well she knows constitutional law. Politicians who support her have one thing to say. They say we need to wait for the senate judiciary panel hearings to learn more about her. Unfortunately, I believe that these hearings dont really tell you anything. Because the candidates are allowed to deny to answer any question, they dont have to give their opinions on anything. I dont actually believe it is necessary for them to give their opinions though, because ones opinion is not something that should serve a big role when deciding constitutionality. The problem is that Miers has no experience with constitutional doctrine, and so her rulings from the bench will be more likely based on her opinions. As my earlier article says, I want them to rule in my favor when they eventually do rule using their opinions, setting our court up with candidates like this only furthers the problems with the Supreme Court that we already have.

Any comments?

I dont think so...

2005-06-27T16:37:00.000-04:00

So, the "International Society for Stem Cell Research" has conferences every so often to talk with their members, and clear up some misconceptions people have about their practices. (see this article)

One of these misconceptions that we hold is that using embryonic stem cells is like "dismembering babies". They say that because these are groups of only about 100 cells, they dont have limbs. Now, I wouldnt mind people cutting off my fingertips for lifesaving research (If you did not know, fingertips can regenerate). The stem cells in my fingers will turn back into fingertips, but what will the embryonic cells turn into? The answer is that they will become arms, legs, a head, and a complete body. The truth is that though they say they are not dismembering babies, they are wrong. A couple cells off on the left, and let the baby develop, and maybe you did dismember them. Of course, since they kill the babies, we dont even get to see.

Legalized murder, only in the US.

Too bad!

2005-06-27T10:27:00.000-04:00

Its really too bad that the first amendment does not read, "The US Supreme Court shall make no law...". This would possibley have stopped the ruling the court released today regarding having the Ten Commandments on display in a courthouse.

For those who have no knowledge of the first amendment besides the ACLU propaganda, here is a word for word copy:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

For those who do not understand this antiquated document, I will translate it. Congress may not make laws regarding religion. They may not make a law supporting either side. This has absolutely nothing that would seem to prohibit a government official from supporting a religion, or even having religious symbols in a government building. Essentially, this has absolutely nothing to do with what the Supreme Court has ruled on. If anything, it violates the second clause, by removing a persons ability to freely excercise their religion.

The third through fifth parts are completely unrelated, only dealing with freedom of expression, the right to peaceably assemble, and the right to complain to the government, essentially.

The point I am getting at here is that the supreme court is basing their ruling on their own opinions, and completely ignoring the actual law. This is exactly the same thing that the ACLU does, so it really just shows how much power they have over our court system.

The only thing that does not completely upset me about this is that it was a 5-4 decision, meaning there are at least 4 judges who care about following the letter and spirit of the law. At least all of the judges have to retire sometime.

Just a note.

2005-06-23T07:30:00.000-04:00

For the record, this blog is no longer kept up, as I primarily blog on another site now. For those wondering, the pictures you may find here, or on my photo blog are only there so I can link to them from other sites.

2005-03-25T11:31:00.000-05:00

The Tungsten TW2

TH Audio VS. Nomad Jukebox 3, and some little known facts about the TH audio system.

2005-03-12T21:39:00.000-05:00

A collection of well known facts, and some not quite so well known, for those with questions...

Audio on the TH, VZ, and UX Sony PDAs.

This is going to be a short review of the audio capabilities of the Sony TH-55 pda (It applies to the UX and VZ as well, though not regarding the interface of these other devices).

Firstly, I will say that I am comparing it to my Creative Nomad Jukebox 3. This audio player is top of the line, and doesnt sacrifice quality and capabilities for a smaller size as most of the newer players do. Ill give a quick feature list:
· 20 gb HD (its been out a little while)
· optical and analog line in
· Along with the line in, it has the ability to encode line in to MP3 on the fly
· IR port
· Headphone out w/ remote capabilities
· 2 line out ports for stereo connections
· firewire and USB 1 port
· 2 lithium ion battery bays (only one battery is required for operation)
· WMA, MP3, and WAV support
· Also has the ability to dock with a base station for a stereo system connection.
· Dont forget, 98db rating
In practical terms, its the Humvee (H1, not one of those wanna be H2 cars) of portable audio players. Its the reference player for my test.

My reference song is Missing Person, by Michael W. Smith. It is encoded in MP3 at 44khz, and 128kbps.

My reference headphones are Sony MDR-Q55, around the ear type.

I have already established that the J3 is a great player. It has numerous modes of play w/ its EAX technology, which includes time shifting, an equalizer, and environment modes, even a mode for airplanes. However, I will not be using any of these modes for the test.
After listening to each song on the different devices I have concluded that for listening to MP3s in the unaltered sound state, the TH-55 is as good as or better than my Nomad J3. This doesnt take into account the many EAX modes the Nomad supports, with which it can make just about any song sound good. The TH Audioplayer does have a Bass boost feature, which is a nice addition. This review is on the total audio experience, and the TH is lacking in this regard. Although the sound quality is great, Sony neglected to add an adequate interface to make the TH a good audio contender. The interface is the same as what is found in older Clies, "Audioplayer". The main problem I have with Audioplayer is album support. To use AP, you must have all of your audio files in a folder titled MSAudio, in the programs file. They can be no deeper than directly in that file. The avid programmer who we know as Cliepet has created a workaround for this called "Albumswap". This program swaps album files (prefixed with "Album_") in the programs folder with the MSAudio folder, allowing you to have multiple separate albums. I myself run a modified version of Albumswap that reads files prefixed with "ZALBM_", so that they appear at the end of the file list, and not the beginning. If anyone wants a player with an equalizer and other audio capabilities, there are alternatives, such as the popular Pocket Tunes, or the fairly new Busker player. The unfortunate side effect of all third party players is that they lack the ability to access the DSP (Digital Signal Processor) that is present on the TH, UX, and VZ pdas. None of the companies have tried to reverse engineer the DSP. (This would be required as Sony never released the required programming info) The unfortunate side effect is a detrimental hit on two aspects of the system. Because the DSP is separate from the main processor, and is optimized for media, there is a significant processor hit when using another player, and the battery life is greatly diminished, while using the built in player is said to be able to play continuously for over a day in hold mode.
Note: Albumswap is available at www.aibohack.com.

[Offtopic]If Cliepet is listening, what I think alot of us would like is a simple audio player that has album (and maybe playlist) support built in. The absolute coolest thing would be if it could be skinned, but I wouldnt consider that a necessity. Maybe in the future, a media player could be developed that would allow photo, audio, and video w/in one program, in landscape and portrait. (Im quite greedy regarding Clie functionality)[/Offtopic]

Part 2 (Video on Clie)

Coming Soon.... (To entice, i'm comparing to a P-2000, you all know what that is)

To blog or not to blog, is it a question?

2005-02-26T08:47:00.000-05:00

I have been wondering lately what to do with this blog. I created it for the express purpose of blogging on a certain discrepency with my school over a bit of their reading material. I however, am very much interested in PDAs, and though there are many other PDA blogs out right now, I am still having mixed thoughts about what I should write about. Of course, people who are interested in this subject may enjoy reading the opinions of different bloggers from time to time. I really havent decided what my next PDA blog post would be about. I could rant about my TH-55, or I could cover something thats currently in the news now, possibly my opinion on the Cobalt OS for Palm devices. I could even do a story on where I think the PDA market is going, though little (or none), would be original thought, as I have read so much about the subject. It is most likely that I will do a rant on my own PDA, just to start off, and then maybe ill progress into more interesting topics. I guess well just have to see. Occasionally, ill probably quote the IMAO blog, as its gotta be one of the funniest out there, and everybody likes funny, right? Well, ive served the purpose of this post, a simple rant on my future as a blogger.

The Nintendo patent Scandal

2005-01-16T13:55:00.000-05:00

Well, a big mean company has done it again. Nintendo has been granted a patent for something they did not invent, are not selling, and should not have.

As you may have heard, Nintendo was recently granted a patent for console emulation on handheld devices. The full patent info can be found here. In fact, companies were developing commercial software to do this over a year ahead of time, which makes the patent invalid. This, however, does not stop Nintendo from using their illegal patent to pressure companies that make such software.

The following is an email from GambitStudios, one of the companies which makes emulation software for the Palm OS platform.

Brad,

We have actually been working with an IP attorney and responding to the letters of Nintendo’s lawyers for the past year or so. Unfortunately, it is a slow and expensive process.

As far as fighting the patent itself goes, this can become VERY expensive. Our attorney has helped other companies fight patents, and it can take hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yes, we were selling Liberty before they filed for the patent. Unfortunately, a company actually has a one-year grace period on a patent, which means Liberty must have been publicly available for more than one year before the date of Nintendo’s filing. We did release an early beta of Liberty to selected people over a year earlier than Nintendo’s filing, which should help our case. We will see.

When Crimson Fire first received their warning from Nintendo, we contacted Kyle Poole and offered to work together to fight it. He felt that they shouldn’t have to worry though, since they were in Canada. Other emulators have moved their sites overseas to make it harder for Nintendo to shut them down. It’s cheaper than fighting.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org) is looking to fight this patent. But they need funds to do so.

Thank you for your support!
Regards,
Mike Ethetton
www.gambitstudios.com

2004-12-27T10:23:00.000-05:00

Well, to post something new, ....
Im on Christmas break now, and I just bought myself a new Memorystick for my Clie, whoopie! I didnt really ask for anything for Christmas. so I mainly got alot of cash. I am still deciding what to buy with the rest of my cash, ... woe is me. On another note, it snowed the Sunday morning after Christmas, that was cool. On a sour note, I spent the rest of the day watching the coverage of the sunamis over around Sri Lanka. I cant really think of anything else to say, so until my next post, Au Revoir, Adios, Shalom, and goodbye.

Southern Slavery

2004-12-11T04:40:00.000-05:00

The following is my response to the "Southern Slavery, As It Was" argument and commotion which has recently come to the public spotlight.

I am a student at Cary Christian School, and I can clarify this issue, as far as the blogs are concerned. The original article that sparked this controversy is in the Raleigh News and Observer, and has rapidly spread to other news sources, and obviously the blogs. The issue regards a pamphlet, titled "Southern Slavery, as it was". This pamphlet, as the articles say, tries to give a southern view, and a biblical defense of slavery. The 9th grade class at our school had to read this article when studying the civil war. In addition to this they are also required to read a book titled "Uncle Tom's Cabin", as well as many of Lincoln's speeches. Uncle Tom's Cabin and Lincoln's speeches are both very much against slavery, and provide a stark contrast to the ideas of “Southern Slavery”.

Cary Christian School, as our principal, Larry Stephenson, has been quoted, always strives to bring both sides of an issue to everything that they teach. In Rhetoric, we study the ideas of Aristotle, and the contradictory ideas of Plato. In our bible classes, we study the ideas of Wycliffe, Martin Luther, Huss, and others, while only affirming those doctrines that we believe are primary, leaving the rest for the students to discuss with their pastors and parents. The school encourages reading of many different sources, no matter the beliefs of the writers, but with the lower grades, always tries to be careful to remind them the origins and beliefs of the writers. The book was pulled because of what they called, "Clerical issues with citations and footnotes". The truth is, it had some parts that seem to be plagiarized from a similar book titled, "Time on the Cross". This book provides an economic examination of slavery, and seems to be a more scholarly work, though it also does make some assumptions. Our school was unaware of the issues with the pamphlet at the time of the first newspaper article. The school, as I will reiterate, always tries to bring both sides of an issue to the students, and I believe they will continue to do so in this context, even without this book. There may be a new version of Southern Slavery released in the future, which fixes the clerical issues, and there is always the chance that the school may use this. They may even decide to replace it with “Time on the Cross”, but I have no doubt that they will have something to replace this text.

Some people say that this is dangerous. The critics of the school say that we should not teach young children things that may sway their beliefs. My brother is in the ninth grade, and he hates slavery now just as much as he did before reading these books. There is no doubt in my mind that our school and students are against slavery.

Cary Christian School holds a very high standard of learning, and our ninth grade students are very intelligent. The philosophy of teaching at our school dictates that they are taught how to learn very early, and are always challenged with contradictory writings and ideas. We hold many debates in school, and the upper grades are even debating this very issue. I do not want to slam public schools, but many of them are not allowed the privilege of holding this type of debates. We value our right to debate very dearly.

In conclusion, I would like to say that regardless of what the articles may say, our school is against slavery. The primary goal of our teachers is always to prepare us for the rest of our lives. Teachers can give us controversial topics, and debated books, but because we are taught how to analyze everything we read critically, we are not indoctrinated, we are not influenced, but we are only further taught how to think for ourselves. This is not a skill that appears through age, it must be taught. This skill will not appear after learning facts, for how are we thinking for ourselves when all we do is repeat information. This skill is only learned through debates, and critical analysis, and no matter what the critics say, this is the best way to prepare a child for the real world.