2009 Inauguration Redux

It turns out that Microsoft's Photosynth is not the only way to come up panoramic HD pictures. If you recall, CNN used Photosynth to put together thousands of photos of the moment Barack Obama took the oath to become President of the United States in to a single high-def image. Turns out that there is another competing software out there that allows you do the same thing. It's called GigaPan. It not only allows you to find and share high-def panoramic pictures in a user committee like Facebook or Filckr, but also allows you to learn how to make your own. To be honest, the GigaPan way seems more intensive than than Microsoft's approach. Here is how GigaPan describes it's process. With Photosynth, the software does most of the work and you can take photos from different sources.


The GigaPan process engages with you in four steps:

1. Explore

Starting right now, you can search, browse and explore all of the panoramas that are available on the GigaPan sharing site. Dive into the panoramas to explore for yourself, or explore other users' snapshots to see what others have found.

2. Discover

As soon as you create your free user account, you can not only explore, but you can also annotate and share your discoveries by creating new snapshots and describing what you have found. This is a way to take part in the GigaPan community even if you have not done panoramic photography yet.

3. Create

We are pleased to announce that large-scale production of the GigaPanTM robotic camera mount is underway. The GigaPanTM robotic camera mount is capable of capturing multi-gigapixel, explorable panoramas with many compact digital cameras. The GigaPanTM robotic camera mount is manufactured and sold by GigaPan Systems.

You don't need specialized GigaPan hardware to take your own panoramas. If you have lots of patience, a high-quality digital camera, and a good tripod (or very steady hand!) you can take hundreds or thousands of overlapping, zoomed-in pictures for a gigapixel-scale panorama, then use off-the-shelf stitching software to combine the images into one very high-resolution panorama for upload.

4. Share

Once you create your free account, you can download our free upload tool to enable you to take any panoramic, high-resolution image and add it to the GigaPan sharing site for community exploration, annotation, and discovery.

Here is an example from their site - a shot of the Inauguration by David Bergman.

More Genius Viral Marketing: Watchmen

Here is a great video put together as a Public Service Announcement set in the same world where the movie Watchmen takes place.

Word-of-Faith Infiltration

As our economy worsens, I have noticed more people gravitating to Word-of-faith teachings. The thought that God wants everyone to be rich is heretical and unsupportable from scripture. Some even take it to the level of teaching that if you aren't rich then you are not pleasing God so he is not blessing you. This bother me so much. There is no way to get that out of scripture! We cannot allow this teaching to continue unchallenged. Hank Hanegraaff wrote Christianity in Crisis documenting the problems with these teachings. Don't believe that this is a problem. Look at an e-mail I received announcing a new book by Richard Briley (picture in the upper left).

Does God Want YOU
To Be a Success?

Special OFFER! Go Here Now.

When God wants something done, He always gives it to ONE PERSON to do — a Moses, a Peter, a Paul, a David, a Gideon, a Mary. Had you noticed?

In Pray and Be Rich, Dr. Richard Gaylord Briley reveals a startling Biblical truth that has great implications for your life:

One person, committed to a goal, is all God needs to change the world.

He’s done it many times. And if history turns many more pages, He’ll surely do it again. At the very least, you and God together can change your world.

The new audio program — Pray and Be Rich — is about one person — YOU — and the success plans that God has for all who believe, pray and act on the message of the Bible.

To start, to get the most from this sensational audio program and find daring faith to act upon your God-given potential for success, you must already believe that:

* The Bible is more than humanity’s oldest book of living wisdom — though it is at least that.
* Life has meaning and purpose.
* Your life has a special purpose, even if that purpose and a plan to achieve it are not yet clear to you.

Get Pray and Be Rich's "Steps to Success" Go Here Now.

Scared yet? Pray...Pray...that people don't fall for this. Yes, God wants us to prosper but it is on God's terms not ours!

Marvel Motion Comics

Marvel.com has announce a new direction Marvel - a hybrid of comic books and animation. They call it "Motion Comics". What it is an online product that takes the flat artwork of comics and add animation and voice and music. It reminds me of the first cartoons based on Marvel Comics characters, only better animated. I like the idea. I want to see more. Here is trailer for the technology

Review: Hulk Vs

Well I got the Hulk Vs DVD and I've got to admit that it was great! I loved it. They were great stand-alone stories. To be honest, I liked the Wolverine story better because I think Wolverine was captured perfectly as well as the Hulk. Wolverine took a huge beating but he gave as good as he got. I thought Thor was too wussy. He got his can kicked and handed back to him a lot more than I expected.

I found a link on the blog below that lists some of the Hulk's best battles against other Marvel characters.
Secret Wars on Infinite Earths: The Comic Book Fight Club

I believe that I would say that the Hulk won both battles on the DVD and he fought more than just Thor and Wolverine. He fought all of Weapon X and the army of Asgard and beat all of them.

An Apple Tablet

I just found the following on G4TV's Blog

Is Apple working on a tablet computer? The fine folks at Gizmodo seem to think so. The site has examined an Apple patent and has come to the conclusion that the company has a tablet computer in the works.

"The patent describes several forms for these displays -- most of them already in use in current Apple laptops --, describing displays attached to portable computers. However, one of the claims describes the display as a 'housing for a computer device', which would include the computer electronics within the display housing, sandwiched between front and back shells."

I was a proud Newton user in the '90s. I loved the device's handwriting recognition, especially when watching my friends struggle with Graffiti on their Palm IIIs. I'd love for Apple to reenter the market with an elegant, portable-computing device that features the company's lauded user interface.

I want one.

Kent Brandenburg vs James White

I'm amazed about the criticism James White has received concerning his debate against Bart Ehrman. I have to wonder did they hear the same debate I did?! On his blog, White points out the following example:

Alan Kurschner reviewed a KJV Only article yesterday, and the author [Kent Brandenburg] (who wrote his first post without having listened to the entire debate, completed his review. The level of bias flies past the level of sheer bigotry, as seen in this amazing paragraph:


In fairness to Ehrman, even though I hate the work that he does, he has a higher standard for text that comes from God than White does. White acts like any of us should expect errors. I think it is White's Calvinism---God wanted errors in the text because of the greater good there would be (something like that). The reason Ehrman, it seems, is willing to trust Tacitus more than the Bible, is because Tacitus doesn't claim inspiration or preservation. The Bible does.


Well there you go! Remember that a few months ago I played clips from a KJV Only radio program and demonstrated that the KJV Onlyists hold Ehrman's position, right along with the Muslims: "We need a variantless text, no matter what the realities of history are." And here you see it again. Of course, one can only imagine what an encounter between one of these folks and Ehrman would look like, but that's another issue.

Because King James Only advocates refuse to see that the King James Version is not divinely inspire, but the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic texts were they cannot really stand against Ehrman's criticisms. I mean look at Erhman's argument: "You don't have a single original copy on which to authoritatively base your beliefs." The KJV onlies think that the KJV Bible is superior to the older manuscripts but can't prove that it is. The men who translated the KJV admitted themselves that their translation was not perfect. So what can they say yo someone like Bart Ehrman? Nothing. They have no logical apologetic, yet they refuse to let go of their presuppositions instead of just studying and researching the facts. There is a logical explanation and a defense for every criticism Ehrman levies against the Bible. James White, with the help of the Lord, did a powerful job defending the faith.

Here is the Preface of the King James Bible from 1611.

New Super Computer

The fastest computer in the world today was built last year. It's can run a 1 trillion calculations in a second (petaflop). Thank God that it's one of ours!

I just read on G4 TV's Blog:

By 2012, the government and IBM will have built Sequoia, a computer that's 20 times more powerful than that.

Um, that will be twenty trillion calculations in a second! 20 Petaflops!!!! That's insane. They are going to be using it mathematically model nuclear explosions and predict weather patterns! Again, thank God that is one of ours!

The specs on this things are as follows:

Sequoia

* 3,400 square feet
* 1.6 million processing cores
* 1.6 petabytes of memory
* 96 racks
* 98,304 computing nodes
* Uses 6 megawatts of power a year: Enough energy for 500 American homes!

I want one.

History of the Internet

I found a great video explaining how we got to the Internet we see today. It traces it's development over the past 50 years! If you wanna know how we got the current level of information technology, this is the video to watch! Really, Really well done and matches what I have already learned.

Apologetics 315: Bart Ehrman vs. James White Debate MP3 Audio

I wanted to make it a point to comment on the debate James White did recently against Bart Ehrman. I have bought the debate and listened to the debate myself and i gained a great deal from it. I would suggest that anyone who wants to interact with the question of whether or not the Bible we hold in our hands is an accurate copy of the texts that were inspired by God. The debate question was: "Did the Bible Misquote Jesus" taken from the title of Ehrman's book Misquoting Jesus. I think that Ehrman was condescending and unprepared. I agree with James White's analysis that Erhman did not adequately prepare for the Debate but I don't think he adequately met any of the White's challenges. Ehrman's main point is that there are so many variations in copies of the New Testament that there is no way to get back to what the original authors really wrote. He then concludes that God had not preserved the New Testament. People, like atheists and Muslims, further take that and conclude that the New Testament is full of errors and not inspired by God. During the debate, Ehrman, tried to distance himself from the conclusion drawn from his work saying that the was not responsible and that his conclusion that the texts are not inspired was based on his own opinion and not by his research. Thankfully, White called him on that.

In my opinion, James White did a great job explaining that Ehrman's conclusions are wrong. We do know what the original texts say although we don't have the original copies.

Apologetics 315: Bart Ehrman vs. James White Debate MP3 Audio

Apologetics 315: History of the English Bible - Daniel Wallace MP3 Audio

The blogger at Apologetics 315 has done it again! These are important for anyone who want to know how we got today's English translations of Holy Scripture.

Apologetics 315: History of the English Bible - Daniel Wallace MP3 Audio

Nancy Pelosi Very Mistaken

While I realize that the following video was posted on YouTube by a conservative (using a picture of Ronald Regan for your profile is a dead give away), I've got to admit that Pelosi really stepped in it. Watch:



There are not 500 million people living in the United States. She is obviously Mistaken.

Ten New Amphibians Discovered

There are ten new species of amphibians discovered in the mountains of Columbia - including three kinds of poisonous frogs and three transparent-skinned glass frogs. That is amazing. It's dangerous to assume we have found every single living species on the earth. We keep finding new ones. The variety of life on our world is mind boggling. I'd like to know how would transparent skin helps a frog survive out there. I'd like to know how would people who believe in evolution would explain their transparent skin. Science is unable to answer these questions because we just found the animals. I'm amazed. I believe that God created those frogs and salamanders, gave them their abilities and habits, and placed them where they live. He did the same for every living thing on earth. I'm sure that there is a good reason for transparent skin for those frogs other than feeling us with awe and wonder, but it does that too!

Embedded video from CNN Video

A new Planet!

An exciting discovery has been made: a non-gaseous planet orbiting a sun-like star about 457 light-years away. The COROT space telescope was used to observe the planet. Very little is known about the planet, they have named: COROT-Exo-7b

1. Orbits its star about once every 20 hours
2. Temperatures ranging from 1,832 to 2,732 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 to 1,500 degrees Celsius)
3. Could be covered in lava or water vapor.
4. Estimated to be 5.7 to 11 Earth masses (means 5.7 to 11 times the mass of earth) in other words they are debating its size and density.

I found a site with some more information on COROT-Exo-7b.

Here is the source article.

Raining Shoes?!

I just heard that Wen Jiabao, the Chinese Premier, was heckled February 2, while delivering a speech about the world economy at Cambridge University in England. A protester threw his shoe! Fortunately, he missed the Premier by several feet. The man was apparently upset about Chinese policy towards Tibet. The man shouted:

“How can the university prostitute itself with this dictator? How can you listen to these lies?”

Before throwing his shoe and his forcibly being removed. I think that Wen Jiabao handled the situation with much more class than George W. Bush did. He said:

“This despicable behaviour cannot stand in the way of friendship between China and the UK.”

I got to admit I'm floored by the way people are choosing to protest these days.



Source

The Black Snob's "Cute Black Girls Are Everywhere, You Idiots" campaign

On Danielle Belton's blog, The Black Snob, she has alerted everyone to the reality that advertising companies are scrambling trying to find several black girls to model in the wake of the Obama family's popularity. Like her, I'm surprised that they think that there is a "shorage". I've got lots of relatives too. I meran there are black folks all over the planet.It's like they've never been to a playground. In case she is serious about sending them potential candidate's model, here is my suggestion: my two year-old daughter, Makayla, in a candid video. I'll send the picture on the right in an e-mail. I might even send a newer one later on.

Apologetics 315: Gnosticism: Past & Present MP3 Audio

I'm sure that anyone who reads my blog has noticed that I like the Apologetics 315 blog. It is regularly updated with apologetic information...including debates and scholarly lectures. Here is a get one on Gnosticism.

Apologetics 315: Gnosticism: Past & Present MP3 Audio

Another Look at Genetic "Evidence" for Human Evolution

I found a great video in which a scientist is lecturing on the merits of the conclusion that humans and chimpanzees are 99.5% the same. He draws different conclusions based on the available data, and considering that number in percentage of simularity in human and chimp DNA is not being confirmed in other more current studies I think that it's not tenable to base the "reality" of macro evolution in general or human evolution in particular on this evidence. Listen to what Dr. Dr Richard Buggs said:




Philip Cunningham, who posted the video, wrote are really good summary point. I will paste it below:

From 1964 to 2004, it was believed that humans are almost identical to apes at the genetic level. Ten years ago, we thought that the information coded in our DNA is 98.5% the same as that coded in chimpanzee DNA. This led some scientists to claim that humans are simply another species of chimpanzee. They argued that humans did not have a special place in the world, and that chimpanzees should have the same 'rights' as humans.

Other scientists took a different view. They said that it is obvious that we are very different from chimpanzees in our appearance and way of life: if we are almost the same as chimpanzees in our DNA sequence, this simply means that DNA sequence is the wrong place to look in trying to understand what makes humans different. By this view, the 98.5% figure does not undermine the special place of humans. Instead it undermines the importance of genetics in thinking about what it means to be a human.

Fortunately (for both the status of human beings and the status of genetics) we now know that the 98.5% figure is very misleading. In 2005 scientists published a draft reading of the complete DNA sequence (genome) of a chimpanzee. When this is compared with the genome of a human, we find major differences.

To compare the two genomes, the first thing we must do is to line up the parts of each genome that are similar. When we do this alignment, we discover that only 2400 million of the human genome's 3164.7 million 'letters' align with the chimpanzee genome - that is, 76% of the human genome. Some scientists have argued that the 24% of the human genome that does not line up with the chimpanzee genome is useless 'junk DNA'. However, it now seems that this DNA could contain over 600 protein-coding genes, and also code for functional RNA molecules.

Looking closely at the chimpanzee-like 76% of the human genome, we find that to make an exact alignment, we often have to introduce artificial gaps in either the human or the chimp genome. These gaps give another 3% difference. So now we have a 73% similarity between the two genomes.

In the neatly aligned sequences we now find another form of difference, where a single 'letter' is different between the human and chimp genomes. These provide another 1.23% difference between the two genomes. Thus, the percentage difference is now at around 72%.

We also find places where two pieces of human genome align with only one piece of chimp genome, or two pieces of chimp genome align with one piece of human genome. This 'copy number variation' causes another 2.7% difference between the two species. Therefore the total similarity of the genomes could be below 70%.

This figure does not take include differences in the organization of the two genomes. At present we cannot fully assess the difference in structure of the two genomes, because the human genome was used as a template (or 'scaffold') when the chimpanzee draft genome was assembled.

Our new knowledge of the human and chimpanzee genomes contradicts the idea that humans are 98% chimpanzee, and undermines the implications that have been drawn from this figure. It suggests that there is a huge amount exciting research still to be done in human genetics.

The author is a research geneticist at the University of Florida.

======================================================

Human and chimp genomes differ by more than one percent

http://www.creationwiki.org/(Talk.Origins)_Human_and_chimp_genomes_differ_by_more_than_one_percent

excerpt:

If you measure the number of proteins for which the entire protein is identical in the two species, humans and chimpanzees are (only) 29 percent identical.

=======================================================================

Chimp genome sequence very different from man

by David A. DeWitt, Ph.D.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0905chimp.asp

excerpt:

However, assuming they did for the sake of analyzing the argument, then 40 million separate mutation events would have had to take place and become fixed in the population in only ~300,000 generations' a problem referred to as 'Haldane's dilemma.' This problem is exacerbated because the authors acknowledge that most evolutionary change is due to neutral or random genetic drift. That refers to change in which natural selection is not operating. Without a selective advantage, it is difficult to explain how this huge number of mutations could become fixed in the population. Instead, many of these may actually be intrinsic sequence differences from the beginning of creation.

========================================================

To dramatically underscore the fantasy land Darwinists live in, even evolutionists agree that the vast majority of mutations are not beneficial (They say that most mutations are neutral, which is of no use to a Natural selection scenario, whereas Sanford, Spetner, Behe and others hold that all mutations studies at least have a "slightly negative effect)!!! (Genetic Entropy; Sanford 2005). Thus how in the world can you get from ape to man if you have no scientific demonstrated mechanism in which to do so? It is incredible that crushing facts as these are simply brushed aside as if they do not matter by evolutionists. To put it mildly this is not rigorous science, but rampant psuedo-science supported by your tax dollars!

Genesis 1:27 And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

I agree with Phillip. Putting this together with my post on the Dover Trial, I've got to ask how can evolution account for insertions, deletions, or in the case or Dr Miller's testimony during the Dover fiasco - chromosomes joining into one? Mutations are one thing. But stable mutations that bring on beneficial traits to an organism, that can be passed on to succeeding generations is quite another. Even if you grant that its possible, then you have to prove that is what happened and that it explains the differences between chimps and people. The other thing I found in Phillip's posts of great interest is that the 99.5% simularity of Chimps and Human DNA was first published in 1964, but none of the other teams' findings on the same subject have seen wide publication, nor what their data bodes for the theory of Evolution. Sounds like fear to me.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I agree with the title of that book: I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist.

Even An Atheist Agrees

I found a very interesting video on YouTube the other day. In it, the author asserts that Intelligent Design is just Creationism and it's a logical argument. I agree. It makes no sense to argue that aliens created us because you have to go backwards to infinity asking who created each successive species. I agree that because the Universe is finite and not eternal this means that there must be a being with the same attributes the Bible ascribes to God: omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, personal, and transcendent. Of course the author is an atheist so he concludes that there is no God because there in testable way to prove it. Here is the video:



I've got to ask, what is worse: an untestable hypothesis or a hypothesis that has been proven wrong? Supporters of evolution admit that their theory does not cover everything or answers all questions. Humanity has been keeping records for a long time...why haven't noticed any gradual change, that left unchecked, would result in one species evolving into another. I realize that the counter argument is that it take millions of years of gradual change. Grant it. But wouldn't you expect to see something on a genetic level where mutations would lead to another species? Since we don't I would infer that macro evolution does not correctly predict or explain anything and that there must be some other rational explanations for the data we observe.

As for how do we know God created everything, the Bible tells us.

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.
By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. Hebrews 11:1,2

Considering that there is so much that macro evolution cannot explain and it must be inferred that species like humans and apes, whales and land animals, amphibians and fish, and birds and reptiles have common ancestors, what is the difference between faith in God and faith in macro evolution. I keep hearing that tired old drum, we have evidence, but they refuse to consider other interpretations and evidence that kills the theory of evolution. The Bible on the other hand is uncontravertible and can't be proven wrong. Which do you want to put your faith on?

Heroes: The Recruit

Well, all 5 parts for The Recruit have been released and with Volume 4 just five days away, Here is the last webisode series in a single playlist. I really enjoyed the series. I hope we see more of Private Mills in volume 4.