Day: September 5, 2008

new software


OK. So i’m here in Johor Bahru with 24/7 wireless access, so i’m getting lazy and also lots of software.

The most incredible find is Truespace 7.6, a fully-featured 3D authoring software. The company has been around a long time, but their products got surpassed by others, and theirs has been relegated to the middle of the pack. Top-end software like Autodesk 3ds max, Cinema 4D, Houdini, and Maya cost 3,000 – 7,000usd. Truespace comes in around 600 dollars, with a slew of products in the 300 and less range. Anyway, this company was bot out by Microsoft this year, and they decided to give away this software – sweet! It has been used professionally in making movies also in the past, so i’m quite confident it can handle what i’m planning (hoping?) to do with a Great Controversy movie.
http://caligari.com/

Another one i snagged yesterday was Blender. This is open-source software, so it has always been free. It is mostly used for drawing in 3D or 2D, and has been used in developing a few movies like Spider Man2, and also for artwork on the History Channel among others.

For an interesting animated movie (the story isn’t too great, but) made all in Blender:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE7VzlLtp-4
To get yours:
http://www.blender.org/

I got Cinebench the other day. It is a benchmark program to test out your computer’s graphic abilities:
http://www.maxon.net/pages/download/
cinebench_e.html

By way of comparison, mine got a measly 1,421 points 🙁

Nero gave me big problems in June after a virus infiltration, so i deleted it. To enable cd and dvd writing again, i downloaded what is probably the most popular free burner software – CDBurner XP:
http://cdburnerxp.se/

Then today was the most recent software download – ie8 browser. I’m still not used to tabs, but we’ll see. It has always amused me how many people like to diss everything Microsoft does, but i respect them a lot – and no, i don’t own any stock in them 🙂
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/default.aspx

For a quick round-up of all the other software i’ve downloaded since i bot this Acer Aspire 3054nwxmi in May 2007, is cia world factbook, windows live mail, vlc media player, arachnophilia (to convert rtf files to html), skype, irfanview, html-kit, filzip, FileMenuTools (to clean up right-click context menu), avg anti-virus, e-sword (Bible), Lingoes (translation), Open Office, and Audacity (an audio editor) not to mention a few games – hehe.

who for president?


Not to get too involved with politics, but we, as subject to the rulers, have the responsibility to see that the candidate who will uphold Christian principles the best will be the leader of the people.

For me there is one issue that overrides all others in the current 2008 presidential election. It is the same issue that has been the deciding factor in all the other times i have voted (except for the first time in 1980 when i was feeling my oats!) That is the issue of abortion.

Abortion is murder, pure and simple. God says he forms us in the womb:

Isa 44:2 Thus saith the LORD that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee; Fear not, O Jacob, my servant; and thou, Jesurun, whom I have chosen.

He sanctified Jeremiah before he came out of the womb:

Jer 1:5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

And of course the greatest miracle of all time – Jesus coming as a human:

Luk 1:35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

Now what if Mary was living in America in 2008? She might do like over 30 million other mothers have done, and murder their unborn child. Yes, i know, the 30 million fathers are very much at guilt too usually.

This sin is much, much worse than the sin of slavery that ripped apart the United States and plunged us into a war that God told his messenger – Ellen White:

pt: Second Advent Review and Sabbath Herald volume#1

God is punishing this nation for the high crime of slavery. He has the destiny of the nation in his hands. He will punish the South for the sin of slavery, and the North for so long suffering its overreaching and overbearing influences.

At least the slaves had a chance to see the sky. These poor babies don’t even get that opportunity.

Here is a link to an article showing how Obama declined to answer a question put to him about abortion:
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/
235/story_23581_2.html

When you asked Obama about when life begins, he punted, saying “It’s above my pay grade.” Should someone running for the highest office in the land have a clear answer to that, or is that kind of ambivalence acceptable?

No. I think he needed to be more specific on that. I happen to disagree with Barack on that. Like I said, he’s a friend. But to me, I would not want to die and get before God one day and go, “Oh, sorry, I didn’t take the time to figure out” because if I was wrong, then it had severe implications for my leadership if I had the ability to do something about it. He should either say, “No, scientifically, I do not believe it’s a human being until X” or whatever it is or say, “Yes, I believe it is a human being at X point,” whether it’s conception or anything else. But to just say “I don’t know” on the most divisive issue in America is not a clear enough answer for me.

If an evangelical really believes that the Bible is literal—in other word in Psalm 139 God says “I formed you in your mother’s womb and before you were born I planned every day of your life,” if they believe that’s literally true, then they can’t just walk away from that. They can add other issues, but they can’t walk away from the belief that at conception God planned that child and to abort it would be to short circuit the purpose.

This site says that Obama has promised to make allowing abortion a top-priority for his administration:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jun/
08061010.html

The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act,” Obama said in his July speech to abortion advocates worried about the increase of pro-life legislation at the state level.

The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) is legislation Obama has co-sponsored along with 18 other senators that would annihilate every single state law limiting or regulating abortion, including the federal ban on partial birth abortion.

The 2007 version of FOCA proposed: “It is the policy of the United States that every woman has the fundamental right to choose to bear a child, to terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability, or to terminate a pregnancy after fetal viability when necessary to protect the life or health of the woman.”

Obama made his remarks in a question-and-answer session after delivering a speech crystallizing for abortion advocates his deep-seated abortion philosophy and his belief that federal legislation will break pro-life resistance and end the national debate on abortion. (see transcript: http://lauraetch.googlepages.com/barackobamabefore
plannedparenthoodaction
)….
Besides making abortion on demand a “fundamental right” throughout the United States, FOCA would effectively nullify informed consent laws, waiting periods, health safety regulations for abortion clinics, etc.

How about McCain?
From his website he says:
http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/issues/
95b18512-d5b6-456e-90a2-12028d71df58.htm

John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench.

Constitutional balance would be restored by the reversal of Roe v. Wade, returning the abortion question to the individual states. The difficult issue of abortion should not be decided by judicial fiat.

However, the reversal of Roe v. Wade represents only one step in the long path toward ending abortion. ….”At its core, abortion is a human tragedy. To effect meaningful change, we must engage the debate at a human level.”