Home

Another New Computer

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:49:00 -0400

I am upgrading to Windows 7 64-bit on my PC. You will remember my radical workstation, but I chose not to connect it to the Internet for safety and speed reasons. This one, however, is for my everyday use. I am still transferring my files onto it and will download AVG antivirus today, but it's ready to go besides that.

I won't continue to bore the majority of you with the names of the parts. Though I did put a video of myself putting together the computer. A very close friend of mine said that it was actually funny. It's not.

Have a nice day!

In Christ,

Adam

P.S. You like short posts, yes?

Which Camera?

Thu, 20 May 2010 11:33:00 -0400

For video purposes, no tool is truly necessary except for the camera. Sadly, this is my most outdated piece of equipment. It shoots nasty interlaced footage; it has only one CCD; it uses MiniDV tapes; the body is mostly hollow; it has one 1/8" microphone input; the zoom function is audible to the microphone; worst of all, it records to DV which is 4:3 non-square pixel (this adds semi-complex math to editing.) I am referring to my discontinued Panasonic AG-DVC7.

It is high time to upgrade if I wish to be any professional of consequence. I have taken several weeks to do careful research and study (largely of technical terms I did not fully understand), and I have taken into careful consideration what I can afford to spend and what is most practical in a rapidly changing camera market. I have landed upon an astonishingly small option basis.

The JVC GY-HM100U $2,995 (2,629)

The Panasonic AG-HMC40 $2,318 ($1,950)

The Panasonic AG-HMC80 $2,895 (?)

The Panasonic AG-HMC150 $4,035 ($2,929)

The Sony HXR-NX5U $4,950 ($3,899)

I charted out these cameras and assigned them numbers. The higher the number, the worse it ranks. Thus, the camera with the lowest score wins. I do not take into account any of the features these cameras share in the rankings, since they would all tie on things like audio inputs and frame size, and the other qualities such as LCD size, weight, form factor (id est shoulder mount or handheld), power consumption, and lens dimensions are not particularly requirements of me.

The JVC GY-HM100U is relatively inexpensive, but it has one of the smallest lenses and the worst sensor which will result in the poorest image quality. All other qualities that matter to me are neither best nor worst.

The Panasonic AG-HMC40 is the least espensive, but it has the smallest lens of all, though a slightly better sensor than the HM100U. It also offers the least flexibility with framerates, though the options are more than good enough.

The Panasonic AG-HMC80 is equally as affordable to me as the previous cameras, and it ties with the HXR-NX5U and HM100U in framerate flexibility. However, it ties with the HMC40 in its small sensor and lens and also will not be available until September.

The Panasonic AG-HMC150 is starting to be expensive, but it has the largest lens (more than 2.8" across) which is tied with the HXR-NX5U. The framerate capabilities are tied with the HMC40, but it is still enough for my purposes. Its sensors are as large as the HXR-NX5U, but they are CCDs. The simplest and biggest differences between CCDs and CMOSs are that CMOSs work better in low light, but they introduce wobble from the rolling shutter.

The Sony HXR-NX5U it the best camera of the bunch aside from its high price. It has the largest lens, the largest sensor, the widest variety of framerates and recordable media, and the option to record with the best chroma subsampling—4:2:2.

I am going to wait until the last possible second before I buy one. There are always changes in technology with price drops being the most notable one.

I have placed a poll here, and I would be interested to see your camera pick now that you are as educated as I am (in an infinitesimally smaller amount of time) as to the pros and cons to each. Just imagine that you had about $3,000 to make your decision with the option of waiting for more money.

In Christ,

Adam

Anti-Suffragists

Thu, 13 May 2010 16:01:00 -0400

I have been interested in voting rights for several years now. Just after that, I heard an argument against the right of women to vote in our Constitutional Republic of this country. I had a knee-jerk reaction to the idea, though I didn't know why. Little, sheltered, homeschooled, Adam Terrell had been indoctrinated by the media of the day.

Though I now agree with the man who was iterating this (sadly foreign to me) concept, I wondered at the time if there were any women who ever wanted no "right" (which is not, but actually a duty) to vote. After a quick search through the New York Times's archive, I found an article from the year 1900 and a book called "Are Women People?". There were two ladies presenting cases to the Congress for and against women's suffrage in the 1900 article.

I thought, "Why on earth would a woman option out of voting?" Then I read this by a woman named Alice Duer Miller. These twelve points are from "Are Women People?":

1. Because no woman will leave her domestic duties to vote.

(By this she meant back at the time. Indeed, it took a much longer time than estimated before a "desirable" percentage of women started to vote. Women did not by any means jump at the "opportunity.")

2. Because no woman who may vote will attend to her domestic duties.

(This definitely came true. "77.1 percent of women age 35 to 44 worked in 1998 versus 39.1 percent in 1950." [http://humanresources.about.com/od/worklifebalance/a/business_women.htm])

3. Because it will make dissension between husband and wife.

(The number of such cases are staggering. This certainly has not brought more peace to the world.)

4. Because every woman will vote as her husband tells her to.

(This is still a main reason of anti-suffragists. Either number 3 is the case, which is bad for everyone, or number 4 is the case, which nullifies any imagined necessity for the government to allow this anyway.)

5. Because bad women will corrupt politics.

(Nancy Pelosi et al.)

6. Because bad politics will corrupt women.

(Feminist movement.)

7. Because women have no power of organization.

(Meaning they are not designed to be leaders as men are.)

8. Because women will form a solid party and outvote men.

(The largest voting base of Barack H. Obama's was 60% of single women. So this statement is 100% true, and how is this fair and just unless women are the primary ones solving any potential problems which bad decisions in voting can create. To name one the vast majority of people know and dislike: prohibition. How would you have liked it if women had been the tipping vote to ban it, and you, being in the legal forces, now must go and dispose of all booze?*)

9. Because men and women are so different that they must stick to different duties.

(The idea that men and women have the same roles in life is anti-Biblical and one of the results of the first evil in Genesis 3:16.)

10. Because men and women are so much alike that men, with one vote each, can represent their own views and ours too.

(Again, this relates to points 3 and 4. If a husband and wife vote the same anyway, suffrage is unnecessary. The husband represents the family. It created a nation of individuals and was a stepping stone to harm the nuclear family.)

11. Because women cannot use force.

(This relates to point 8.)

12. Because the militants did use force.

(And you must have the ability to use force if you are going to have any form of government. This all ties back to fairness.)

What's more, without going into philosophical reasons, several states already allowed women's suffrage without having Uncle Sam step in across the board. There are estimates (http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F0CEFD61239E733A25757C1A9649C946197D6CF) that predict suffrage would be rejected if women had a national, popular vote on the issue. Anti-suffragists used to be the vast majority. How else would this country never think to raise this issue for over a hundred years after it was begun? I believe there is a correlation between Genesis 3:16, the amount of good Christianity in this nation, the escalation of crime, and women's suffrage.

*As an extension to point 8, the direct reason for 60% of single women voting for Obama, his largest single voting group, is that women have become too involved in government. So instead of looking to their fathers as their heads of family, they vote for the candidate that will shape government to take the father's rightful place in the family.

In the book "From the Front Porch to the Back Seat" by Beth L. Bailey, there is a direct connection between the tragedy of children with only the name of one parent on the birth certificate and the rejection of the Biblical leadership of a father in the family. I believe that women's suffrage was an aid to this end, and so did the anti-suffragists of the day. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/health/13mothers.html)

I welcome polite comments, and I am aware that if God's Word is not your standard of absolute truth, then I am a fool to you and am most likely filled with bigotry and hatred according to 1 Corinthians 1:23. I would point you to the Gospel before I would try to convince you of my point here.

However, if you are a Christian and disagree with me—as I am sure many will—my objective here is to state my Biblical reasons for my holding this view. I hope I have provoked you not to a quickened heartbeat, but to thought, study, and holiness, which is a call to be separate from this world where God demands it of you.

"And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God"(Romans 12:2).

In Christ,

Adam

P.S. If I have come across as overbearing, please let me know either publicly or privately. I am in no way saying that women should now stop voting since the programs are already in place and are long-established. I am only trying to give a summary of the views of the past to support my view on the cause and principles of the issue.

Next Generation Video Productions

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 16:07:00 -0400

The business site has finally been launched. There are several posts on the blog over there at http://www.ngvideoproductions.com. Take a look over there to know what I have been working on for the past few months. There is some information about some past videos I have done on behalf of the company, and there is a blurb (there will be lots of tiny, frequent ones) about the 100 DVD copies arriving.

You may be interested to know that I am the editor for Tyler's Facebook fanpage for the business. We have 34 "Likes" in just a couple of hours. I ain't sure exactly how it all works, yet I believe that is good. Just search "Next Generation Video Productions" and click the blue icon with NGVP on it if you care to support my work. I would greatly appreciate it.

Now that I have successfully, finally launched that site, I will go about shooting the final scene for "Survivor Guy." We need a non-family member or three for it, so I will plan it out a tad better than usual.

Lastly, there are some of you who would genuinely be interested in the product we are selling over at NGVP. I suggest you take a look here to see what it is. It took me over a year to craft.

In Christ,

Adam