One of the recurring themes that the apostle James returns to several times in his epistle is the sinful nature of the human tongue. In 4:11–12, he specifically deals with brothers who speak evil of one another. This tendency to speak evil of each other has deep roots in mankind’s sinful nature…

I probably don’t have to tell you that this entire article will be filled with spoilers. So RED ALERT. I don’t know if I’ll write a review of every episode this season (or if I’ll even have time). But I had thoughts after watching S3E01 and I wanted to write them down…

Wednesday at the prayer meeting, Pastor Thacker read Psalm 109, which was challenging in an unexpected way. The language used in this Psalm may shock us. But the Psalms should inform our worldview and prayer life. In an era of soft Christianity, the Psalms can do much for our backbone. Here’s David praying against his (and God’s) enemies in Psalm 109…

As you will recall, my friend, Paul Vaughn had been scheduled for a hearing on January 10 following his arrest for his pro-life activities at an abortion clinic. As was perhaps expected, the date for the hearing was pushed. Less expected (by me, anyway) is that the hearing was pushed out by a year. The new date is January 16, 2024! So on the legal front, Paul and his family will wait in some sort of limbo for the next 12 months before it is known what reprisal there may be…

Here at St. Mark, we are celebrating the miracle of new life that God brings to our midst with the safe arrival of Cohen James Bryan, and Thea June Carman…

Over the Christmas/New Year break, my brothers-in-law and I were discussing aspects of cultural decline here in the west. One of my brothers-in-law brought up a book he had recently been reading which discusses the fact that most instances of cultural decline were accompanied by sexual promiscuity, debauchery, and confusion. This has led to me doing some ruminating…

The holidays have come to an end, the decorations are coming down, the diets are… well, maybe not back on track, but many of us feel the urgent need to get back to some, let’s say, simpler foods. Perhaps new resolutions have been made for the year, and it may be that you’re feeling a little down, what with all the fun and excitement in the rear-view mirror…

Larson Hicks and Rich Lusk started a podcast a few months ago and it’s been fantastic. Allow me to recommend it to you…

Merry Christmas from the Drapers’…

Follow the link for an iPhone video of the Williamson County Community Chorus Christmas Concert from this past Sunday evening. I’m told there were over 700 folks in attendance, which is amazing. Head to 27:45 for the start of the concert…

Great stuff from my friend, Tim Gallant…

It all begins with a small, anonymous Twitter account. It has less than 50 followers. One of those followers is Stephen Wolfe, who occasionally “liked” some of the Tweets emanating from this account. A theologian by the name of Alastair Roberts, while working on his own criticisms of Wolfe’s book, became curious about this anonymous account…

Our church year begins today as we usher in the season of Advent. How fitting, now as we turn our attention to that expectant and watchful season, that we do so here in the U.S. on the heels of our season of Thanksgiving. While Thanksgiving is not a church calendar holiday, it is a good and right celebration when we gather with friends and family to give thanks for all our Lord has done for us…

Our Christmas tree is up! Here’s a few pictures for your viewing pleasure

Today is a festive day of thanksgiving here in the U.S. I try not to let it go by without acknowledging just how much I have to give thanks for

Remember when all the noble people of the world stood up to denounce The Covid Misinformation perpetrated on Joe Rogan’s podcast? It seems like ages ago, but in fact it was just this January! And okay, it also wasn’t all the noble people. Mainly just a couple of old musicians…

Advocates of so-called Christian Nationalism now are mostly a part of a protest movement, even if they pretend otherwise. Secularists deny certain historical truths about America’s founding; the CN camp replies with excessive revisionism of its own…

My like of David French has come and gone during the time I was not publishing to this blog. But the fact is, I did like many things David French had to say during the Trump years and said so on my social media platforms. He was, quite frankly, a breath of fresh air much of the time. I, as another who, like David French, has never been able to support or vote for Trump, resonated with the things French was saying at the time. I agreed with French then and still believe Trump is a blight on Christian conservative’s record, even though I believe God used Trump despite his wickedness to do one or two good things. I mark the sour turn with French as starting at the end of the (first?) Trump era…

You might ask why I would describe this paragraph on page 118 as the “end” of a 475-page book? Because the sentence that follows begins, “Having established these conclusions…” Since, as I will explain at length, Wolfe has in no way “established” these conclusions, everything that follows from page 118 to page 475 is essentially superfluous. There may be some material of interest—and some of it will elicit comment—but none of it reaches the heart of the matter…

In macOS 13 Ventura, Apple introduced something called, Stage Manager to macOS. I will be talking almost exclusively about Stage Manager on the Mac even though Apple introduced a very similar (but not identical) feature called Stage Manager on iPadOS. Stage Manager is a great concept. In fact, as executed, it’s almost good. Almost. If it was better executed, it would be great. As it stands now, it’s a very frustrating experience…

I know this is way random, but a friend of mine was picking my brain on Twitter and trying to get my opinion on various Star Trek things. I ended the writing portion of MovieByte so it feels a little weird to write a single random article there again. So I’m writing this here to answer the questions put to me…

I want net neutrality as much as the next tech enthusiast. I want an internet free and clear of restrictions. I don’t want Comcast throttling data that comes from Netflix, for instance. But the fact remains that Comcast owns the pipes that get Netflix to me (in other cases, AT&T owns the pipes, in some cases Time/Warner Cable, etc.). They have the right to do whatever they want with their privately owned network. This is the very foundation of free market capitalism…

The on-going strife between the city of Tuscaloosa and the app-based ride-sharing service Uber may come to a head this week after city officials said they’d begin Wednesday to arrest Uber drivers operating there…

I am very busy with several projects that are all urgent and should not be writing on my personal blog right now. But I need to take five minutes and write about this anyway. A video has been making the rounds by Victoria Osteen. Victoria is wife to the (in)famous Joel Osteen. She had some stuff to say. Here’s the video, and below some key quotes from what she said

The Supreme Court of the United States handed down their decision in the Hobby Lobby case. That decision was in favor of liberty. Hobby Lobby has been fighting for the right to _not_ provide and pay for the type of “healthcare” that can cause an abortion of a tiny little baby in the womb. The Supreme Court has ruled that they do indeed have the right, as one would expect in a free country

After the SWAT team broke down the door, they threw a flashbang grenade inside. It landed in my son’s crib. Flashbang grenades were created for soldiers to use during battle. When they explode, the noise is so loud and the flash is so bright that anyone close by is temporarily blinded and deafened. It’s been three weeks since the flashbang exploded next to my sleeping baby, and he’s still covered in burns…

Nintendo recently pushed out an update to the Wii U that gives it a new ability: it can now display advertisements to you. Yeah, you heard me, it displays ads… on the Wii U Gamepad…

Adrenal Fatigue is a very trendy diagnosis in the alternative health industry right now, and I’m seeing more and more clients who come to me having previously been diagnosed with it. I’ve noticed a troubling pattern that deserves to get some air time, so I’m talking about it here…

The problem is not what is being taught, or in which district it’s being taught. The problem is that the state is the one doing the teaching, and this must not be. It is not a legitimate function of any state to educate, no matter what they teach, how they teach, or how they acquire the funds to do the teaching…

Thirty three years ago today, my mom and dad were married. Ten months and eight days later I was born. I now have seven brothers and sisters…

I admit that, as staunchly pro-life as I am, I have not kept up with the proceedings in Texas as much as I would like. But my Twitter stream is a pretty even split between the pro-choicers name-calling the pro-lifers, and vice versa and it keeps nagging at me to write something about it…

“Get ready for pat-a-cake! Baby’s hands are now fully developed and he spends most of his awake time groping around in the darkness of your uterus. Brain and nerve endings are developed enough now so that your baby can feel the sensation of touch.” Let’s be clear: Davis has been called a hero for trying to block a bill that would make aborting this baby illegal…

One of the hardest questions I have to face is the now ubiquitous, “how are you doing?” or “how are you holding up?” It’s not hard because it’s the wrong question, or that I wish people would quit asking it — well, I mean I have heard it a lot and I’m ready for people to quit asking it, but I understand why it’s being asked. And yet it’s hard because the honest answer is, I don’t know how I’m holding up…

The day after the funeral, I was thinking about planting flowers at the grave for Mothers Day, and as soon as the phrase “mom’s grave” went through my mind, I was glad that I was alone in the house. For a while, I just sat on my bed and cried…

Below are some of the hardest words I will ever write. I’ve written much of those words before writing this part at the top and I have cried — no, I have wept. I have had to stop and walk away for a bit. But I need to write this, I need to preserve it, and I need to tell it…

Here are a few pictures of Kaylee’s baptism…

While Gray argued that the unborn should be protected in law because abortion is the violent killing of innocent human life, Mercer argued that there is nothing ethically troubling about abortion, at one point suggesting that a baby isn’t a “person” until around 18 months of age…

A $368.2 million verdict against Apple has been upheld in the Eastern District of Texas, putting patent holding company VirnetX in a position to collect both royalties and damages from Apple if it continues to use its VPN and FaceTime technologies…

Enjoy more pictures of Kaylee…

Kaylee meets the siblings…

It is with great joy that I introduce to you our fourth little one, our second daughter, Kaylee Marie, child of the covenant…

Let’s play a game, how many of these do you remember? I remember quite a few of them. Several of them were before I was paying attention to Apple or even the internet…

Jacqui Cheng has a nice gallery of pictures showing the evolution of SoundJam MP iTunes. Apple purchased SoundJam in the year 2000, and thus iTunes was born. Looking at those screenshots of SoundJam, I wonder if this was the first, or one of the first interfaces to sport Brushed Metal before it was pervasive. I honestly don’t know where Brushed Metal started for sure, but this is certainly the oldest app I have seen to sport Brushed Metal…

Let me tell you a little bit about something I like and enjoy. One of the things I have been enjoying in my precious few spare moments after my work is done for the day and the kids go to bed is Portal] and Portal 2. A friend of mine had our family over for the evening a few weeks ago and he introduced me to Portal. Of course I had heard of it before. But in my mind somehow it was linked to first-person shooter games and the like. I’m not into those so I never thought to check out Portal…

A couple of things: If the only objective is to win, as seems to be the case with the GOP since they have abandoned all principles, then the strategy they chose was extraordinarily bad. The democrats are better at getting out and promoting a liberal candidate. If the choice is between who is better at being a liberal, the democrats will win every single time…

Putting Obama in office for another term is like backing up the Titanic and hitting the iceberg again. Putting Romney in office is like finding another iceberg and hitting that one instead…

Mitt Romney said Tuesday he has no plans to push for legislation limiting abortion, a softer stance from a candidate who has said he would “get rid of” funding for Planned Parenthood and appoint Supreme Court who would overturn Roe v. Wade…

If this doesn’t boil your blood, then you are not human — you and I cannot be friends. I don’t care what spectrum of politics you occupy this is just flat out, crazy making wrong. I really only have one questions here, why do we allow the TSA to continue to exist…

If all human beings should have the right to marry (or simply be with) the one they love, as proponents of same-sex marriage constantly tell us, then why shouldn’t adult, incestuous couples enjoy that same “right”? Hollywood director Nick Cassavetes is the latest to say, “Why not?”, and I for one am not in the least bit surprised…

The leadership of the Islamic Society of Greater Kansas City have launched an online petition campaign for President Obama to back a bill to limit the free speech of American citizens they deem offensive…

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney scheduled a $50,000-a-plate fundraiser at the home of Phil Frost, the executive of the company that makes the Morning After Pill, on Wednesday night. Plan B One-Step is produced by Teva Pharmaceuticals, Frost’s company…

The Republican-majority House of Representatives on Thursday passed a $1.047 trillion bill funding the federal government through March 2013 that will permit funding for Planned Parenthood and ObamaCare—including the regulation that took effect on Aug. 1 that will require virtually all health plans in the United States to cover, without fees or co-pay, sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that induce abortions…

“I think that the government needs to comply with the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution all the time,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) in a floor speech opposing the bill. “We can be safe while still complying with the Constitution of the United States.”…

In a widely-read essay at Gawker, Hamilton Nolan recently proposed, “Let’s Have a Maximum Income.” His basic argument was that a $5 million yearly income was the most “that any reasonable person could ask for.” Any income beyond that “far outstrips any measure of fairness.” Hence, the government should confiscate earnings over $5 million, essentially imposing a 100% marginal tax rate

Western Prince William Del. Bob Marshall, R-13th, says disabled children are God’s punishment to women who have aborted their first pregnancy…

True, those times alone with Christ in the secret place are invaluable. But I have to confess to you that I am doubtful that our Lord meant those should be our _only_ times of worship! Are we not commanded to worship alongside others in Scripture (Hebrews 10:25)? How then shall you fulfill the dozens of “one another” texts in Paul’s epistles if not in the context of a local church like those to whom Paul originally wrote? Is not the first word of the Lord’s Prayer the plural possessive, “Our”?…

Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan is barnstorming the country, promising to repeal every provision of the Affordable Care Act if the Romney-Ryan ticket is elected. But a letter he wrote to the Obama administration may undermine this message…

While it is true that many Christians have avoided altogether any discussion over Romney’s profession of faith in a false god, yet the objections to Romney, as a Mormon, are overturned or dismissed via a historical answer that has been used before in past candidates; namely that Obama is much worse. No doubt this statement is true, but the political environment of the moment does not set our standard for leadership, God does…

From the horses mouth…

The prospect of Mitt Romney winning the White House in November fills Sandra Fluke with fear and pro-lifers with relief. But according to his sister, Mitt Romney will not affect the nation’s abortion laws and certainly will not ban the killing of the unborn if he is elected president…

The same forces that put Obama in place have now engineered a choice in the 2012 election intended to force voters to side either with a socialist Democrat who wants to impose socialism on the nation or a socialist Republican who has already imposed socialism on his home state of Massachusetts…

Titus Is Sleepy

Later on as things were developing and the RNC was pushing through their power grab via the head RINO, Speaker of the House John Boehner and John Sununu, they didn’t even try to differentiate between the yes and no votes. Personally, I think either Boehner had one too many drinks or needed his ears cleaned or both. Because even on C-Span you could hear there was significant dissent…

In all fields of human endeavor, winning by cheating is losing. In a competition, when someone cheats, he gets disqualified. The disqualification does not make the runner-up the winner. Rather, it reveals that the man who appeared to be the runner-up had in fact been the winner all along. In the race for the GOP nomination for president, therefore, Ron Paul wonæ

Look okay, here’s the thing. Why on earth would he or anyone need to bring up the “legitimate rape” thing in the context of abortion? Pro-life should mean pro-life. It doesn’t matter how conception took place, it doesn’t matter if it’s a teenager sleeping around, or a woman walking a seedy street in Chicago wearing next to nothing just begging for, and getting it. It does not matter whether it’s my daughter or yours. Being pro-life should mean that you are never, ever for abortion…

Some topics in this book will involve discretionary choices. Not this one. Always put exactly one space between sentences. Or more generally: put exactly one space after any punctuation…

Eight years after my rape, I find myself on trial against ignorance again. Rep. Todd Akin’s recent comments that “legitimate rape” rarely results in pregnancy not only flout scientific fact but, for me, cut deeper. Akin has de-legitimized my rape…

President Obama is proud of his bailout of General Motors. That’s good, because, if he wins a second term, he is probably going to have to bail GM out again. The company is once again losing market share, and it seems unable to develop products that are truly competitive in the U.S. market…

An Army officer being promoted to brigadier general openly acknowledged her homosexuality on Friday by having her wife pin her star to her uniform, thus becoming the first openly gay officer of flag rank in the United States military…

Matthew 18 gives instructions regarding church discipline, an act which cannot be executed without church membership. For example, Paul told the Corinthian church to exclude someone who was unrepentant in immorality. Logically, the church could only exclude him if he had first been included, and therefore inclusion in the church must have had a concrete definition…

As I read the book, I found it a fascinating illustration of the reality that what we believe will necessarily impact what we do and how we do it. In this case, it shows that what we believe to be true about children will inevitably shape the way we “train them up.” It concerned me to see that many people follow Michael Pearl’s technique even though they believe very different things from what he believes…

The first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation is finally here in HD. Just in time for the 25th anniversary, the series makes its debut on Blu-ray on Tuesday. TrekMovie has had some time to check out the new set and it is impressive. More details and photos in our review…

Fahrenheit is a far better temperature scale for humans to use for everyday things.

A Christian church has absolutely no business displaying a national flag in the sanctuary, at least not as it is commonly done. The church born at Pentecost was a reversal of Babel, not a doubling down on the fragmentation of Babel…

Now that Stargate is no longer on television and MGM (the studio that owns the rights to the franchise) is under new management — a management that so far has been focusing more on recovering the film side of the historic studio’s business — it seems like more than wishful thinking…

There is no single issue of greater concern to conservatives and Christians as the issue of life. Without it, there are no other rights, and all other political debate becomes moot. So, you would assume there would be a distinct difference in the two candidates on this issue…

In the wake of his son’s endorsement of the presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney, many have wondered whether or not the elder Paul will fall in line and compromise his principles to back Romney. Well Ron Paul has put those concerns to rest. On CNN’s Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer Paul stated that despite Rand Paul’s endorsement of Romney, he would not be following suit for the former governor of Massachusetts…

Totally geeky and I totally love it!

“If you look at our budget and say, ‘OK, we’re doing fine with our numbers and …,’ you’re making money, but you’re not necessarily making as much as if you were to say, ‘OK, instead of making a full season or even six episodes of ‘Eureka,’ we could go and make six new reality shows and order a couple more pilots of potential new shows,’” Paglia recently told Assignment X…

This is pretty awesome…

As you can see in the video below, when the time came for the Q&A session with Ari, I got up and asked a question that he didn’t seem to like very much (my question starts at about 16:53, but you should watch the whole thing). The gist of my question was simple: does he think that in order to fight piracy, it’s AT&T, Verizon, and Google’s responsibility to create a roadblock to that content…

I’m a big fan of The Piano Guys and they have done it again, this is absolutely amazing…

Upon opening Coda 2 for the first time I was pleased to see that, though obviously different, there was something fairly familiar, if slicker looking. The sites that I currently had set up in Coda 1 were all right there, waiting for me and ready to go. One really nice touch though, and one I have personally wanted for years, was the ability to organize sites into groups…

The music industry wants LimeWire to pay up to $75 trillion in damages after losing a copyright infringement claim. That’s right … $75 trillion. Manhattan federal Judge Kimba Wood has labeled this request “absurd.”…

The command that had been run was most likely ‘rm -r -f \*’, which—roughly speaking—commands the system to begin removing every file below the current directory. This is commonly used to clear out a subset of unwanted files. Unfortunately, someone on the system had run the command at the root level of the Toy Story 2 project and the system was recursively tracking down through the file structure and deleting its way out like a worm eating its way out from the core of an apple…

I did not receive a lot of interaction in the comments on my article at Mac Appstorm, but I did receive one that I want to interact with…

Fox is shaping up its 2012-2013 TV season slate, and we now know, we’ll get a Season 2 of “Touch” and saying goodbye to “Alcatraz” and “The Finder,” which have both been canceled…

There needs to be a way to make Version 1 no longer for sale, but still available for customers who already bought it. They should be able to re-download the version they bought at any time. Developers should still be able to release updates to that version…

oel Goldsmith, composer of all three Stargate television series (334 episodes) and two DVD movies, passed away on April 29. He was 54…

Remind me why some theonomists have a problem with Ron Paul? This is most excellent, and certainly very Christian in perspective. Dr. Paul doesn’t hold back…

I’ve already discussed how I’m not a huge fan of the various modifications made to the original Star Wars trilogy, so it’s reasonable to assume I’m not a big fan of the prequel trilogy either. There are many people who dislike the prequel trilogy so much that they don’t even consider watching them. On bad days, I’m one of those people, but on good days I see some value in the prequel trilogy, even though I consider them inferior in virtually every way…

In case anyone wants to ask why I cannot and will not vote for Mitt Romney. This is one of the top reasons on the list (and yeah, there are lots of others)…

We’re way past Christmas and this article is in the context of Christmas, but I just found it and it’s so good it’s worth posting right now…

A 23-year old student from Sheffield Hallam University in the north of England is bound for America. That wouldn’t be unusual—except that Richard O’Dwyer won’t go voluntarily. The UK Home Secretary has today agreed to extradite O’Dwyer over US copyright infringement charges for running a “linking site” called TVShack…

CBS CEO Leslie Moonves said Saturday that he was approached about a year ago by Steve Jobs to provide content for Apple’s long-rumored television service but he declined to participate. Moonves told a conference audience that he met with Jobs, the late Apple CEO, and heard a pitch for what was billed as a subscription content service, but ultimately he said he wasn’t interested in providing CBS shows or films to the venture…

If, like me, you maintain a multi-terabyte hard drive of your ripped media, how do you get everything to look pretty, embed artwork, add the proper metadata for proper display in iTunes, make HD-SD pairs play nicely, and so on? Well, there is a way, and that way is called Subler. Let’s check it out…

Pictures of Titus’ first haircut

When Wikipedia and Google purport to be neutral sources of information, but then exploit their stature to present information that is not only not neutral but affirmatively incomplete and misleading, they are duping their users into accepting as truth what are merely self-serving political declarations…

Random pictures of randomness…

With Mountain Lion, Apple has stepped up the game of brining the two ecosystems of Mac and iOS closer together. The trend started (arguably perhaps) with Apple’s “Back to the Mac” event in which iLife was touted to have taken cues from iOS design, FaceTime was brought to the Mac, the Mac App store was announced, the MacBook Air was introduced, and oh yeah, Lion was announced with many features reminiscent of iOS…

I used Thunderbird off and on as my email client back in my Windows days (dark days indeed), and then again on Mac OS X for a while. I finally switched to Apple’s official Mail client and haven’t interacted with Thunderbird much until I started thinking about writing this review…

When Apple announced the Mac App Store, many felt that they were pushing OS X toward a model similar to the iOS ecosystem, in other words, that Mac applications would someday be restricted only to the Mac App Store. One could certainly make the argument that this would be better in many ways for end users. For instance, if applications only came from the Mac App Store, and had to pass through the scrutiny of the app reviewers, then the end user could be assured a high degree of probability that the downloaded application is not malware. But this model would also not be without problems…

John Gruber finally got around to writing a bit about Walter Isaacon’s ‘Steve Jobs’, and I just got around to reading his article last night. This is, I think, John Gruber at his best. His observations are very astute…

This is great, just be aware that toward the end there’s a little bit of fun poked at the sort of ads you would see on a torrent search site…

This is a great satirical piece that illustrates just how crazy stupid current copyright laws are…

As technology continues to evolve, the battle between pirates and copyright holders is going to escalate, and pirates are always, always going to be one step ahead. To be clear, this is in no way meant to be a “pro-piracy” piece, it is merely attempting to show the inescapable realities of piracy that media companies refuse to acknowledge…

I’ve been wanting to write about this since it first started blowing up a couple of weeks ago, but I haven’t had the time. I don’t technically have the time this morning, but I’m going to write about it anyway because I need to. I need to get my thoughts out there on this. I need to get it off my chest…

My review of Audiobook Builder. It’s a great Mac application and I gave it a 10/10 rating because, quite honestly I can’t think of a single way I would improve upon a great application…

A photo of how a nation can tax itself into prosperity…

Click through for Pictures…

The website desiring this “license to link” is supposed to fill in this form and then fax—faxing is the only option—it in to Lowe’s and wait for permission. Assuming that permission is granted, the new licensee has the right to create his link, with certain caveats…

You know what’s funny. I don’t see piracy anywhere on that list. Surely he must have just missed it… yeah, that’s it…

No doubt piracy is costing the content industries something—or they wouldn’t be throwing so much money at Congress in support of this kind of legislation. If we could wave a magic wand and have less piracy, obviously that would be good. But in the real world, where enforcement has direct costs to the taxpayer, regulation has costs on the industries it burdens, and the reduction in piracy they’re likely to produce is very small, it seems important to point out that the credible evidence for the magnitude of the harm is fairly thin…

I’ve had the opportunity to work from home a lot lately. And Natasha likes to sit in my lap when she gets up from her nap. She doesn’t like to talk… no not at all. Just sit. And watch. And possibly scowl…

If either of the two should be wary of politicizing its decision-making process, it should be PP, no? And yet Komen is getting hammered for a practical organizational decision (for the zillionth time: PP does not provide mammography) while pro-choice auxiliaries are gleefully fomenting the rage…

…and I didn’t even have a chance to talk about the initial decision to end support of Planned Parenthood…

You know, I think Michael Arrington is a scumbag most of the time. But so far, anything he has written that is remotely political, I have agreed with (and yes, this does sometimes keep me up at night… just kidding). Take this piece for instance…

Hey looky, I submitted this picture for fun a couple of days ago. I snapped it in Franklin as I was on my daily lunch walk. I saw that Papyrus logo and I thought, “That would be perfect ‘Does Papyrus Belong Here Tumblr Blog’ material.” So I submitted it…

I have ordered my copy of the 4 episode sampler from Amazon. If you are as much of a geek as I am, you can do the same…

But today, I can’t leave a movie theatre without paying $50. My wife and I both need to get in, and now tickets are over $10. Popcorn prices have been going up for years as has drinks, so now I’m paying even more for the same thing. I get into the theatre, and it’s the same experience I had 20 years ago — which would be fine, but my 1080P TV at home sure does look a lot better, and I don’t have to deal with Smokey McTextingpants in the next row live tweeting the event from his BlackBerry. Plus I’ve got to get a babysitter (and I understand that it’s not your fault that I decided to procreate), deal with that whole nonsense and in the end, it’s just not worth the cash. Too much friction…

I debated writing this… I’m going to get some push back on this for sure (or at least I’m fairly certain. Or perhaps people will read this, shake their heads in disgust and move on). So there’s this picture of a quote from Stephen Colbert (above) going around “The Facebook” and it goes like this…

This is excellent!

The presentation blows any other available releases of Star Trek: The Next Generation out of the water. The existing standard definition versions found on the DVD set, TV syndication, and streaming on Netflix and Amazon have a rather flat dull look to them. The image on this Blu-ray has more contrast and the colors are richer. Things are much sharper too. You can see lots of texture on the walls of the bridge as well as costume fabric and even variations in people’s skin…

Except under extraordinarily rare circumstances — unless you’re Charles Dickens, for instance — you can’t use a comma to separate two independent clauses…

Pictures of Allen and Titus…

After I started using Time Machine in Leopard, I quickly found one major drawback. Every hour, regardless of what you are doing, Time Machine starts a backup. It slows the system down, if you back up to a Time Capsule as I do, it slows the network down, and it’s unnecessary. I really only want one incremental backup per day, but this isn’t possible by default. This is where TimeMachineScheduler comes into play

Sounds familiar to me…

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul’s press secretary Moira Bagley tweeted on Monday that Transportation Security Administration officials were detaining her boss in Nashville, Tenn…

1. Call a meeting of all top executives. 2. Pull my iPhone 4S out and rest it gently on the table in front of me. 3. Wait for dramatic effect…

Love this image from Marco. Love it…

Research In Motion will be getting a new chief operating officer shortly, replacing current co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis…

The US government dropped a nuclear bomb on “cyberlocker” site Megaupload today, seizing its domain names, grabbing $50 million in assets, and getting New Zealand police to arrest four of the site’s key employees, including enigmatic founder Kim Dotcom…

Federal prosecutors in Virginia have shut down notorious file-sharing site Megaupload.com and charged the service’s founders with violating piracy laws. The Associated Press broke the story on Thursday, reporting that the indictment accuses Megaupload.com’s owner with costing copyright holders including record labels and movie studios more than $500 million in lost revenue…

After years of hearing how difficult it was going to be to bring the show into the HD future (and possibly impossible), I was concerned that this Blu-ray wasn’t going to cut it. However, shortly after “Encounter at Farpoint” started playing, all my concerns were put to rest…

Let me get this straight, the guy left his brand new expensive computer in his car, which was broken into, and he blames Apple? Can you say entitlement…

Allen in Mario PJs

I’ll be joining Ralph Bristol on Supertalk 99.7 WTN at 6:35am Central Time to talk about the need to stop foreign-based online piracy…

It’s painful, expensive, time-consuming, stressful and ultimately pointless to work overtime to preserve your dying business model…

If someone tells you that all the apps in the multitasking bar are running, using up memory or sucking power, they are wrong…

I’m writing this over my lunch break, because of some things that have happened on Facebook over the last several weeks. In the last few months, it seems I have acquired quite a few new Facebook friends, many whom I do not know. That’s fine. The more the merrier. But I think there’s some things you should know about me, because sometimes there seems to be some confusion…

Dr. Paul does not beat his Christian faith like a drum in his public/political life. Unfortunately, that is off-putting for the “Christian Right”. However, in a world full of ‘posturing’ in an effort to win over evangelicals, I find Paul’s public demeanor refreshing. And it is not as though he is a ‘closet Christian,’ either. “I have accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior, and I endeavor every day to follow Him in all I do and in every position I advocate,” wrote Paul on his Web site…

The list of technical and historical inaccuracies is long. The book claims that when Jobs first returned to Apple in 1997 he was immediately referred to as “iCEO,” despite the fact that both the iMac and all subsequent “i” branding were still a year away. Isaacson also states very matter-of-factly that Apple didn’t really use the NeXT OS as a radical break from the classic operating system, but instead used parts of it to “evolve” Mac OS 9 into what we use today. Nothing could be further from the truth…

I don’t think that I was under the delusion that someone with the eschatological views that Jeffress holds would endorse Ron Paul, but I’m linking just in case any else did…

Nice, geeky, under the hood look at what’s going on in the background with iOS…

The release of the “Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Next Level” Bluray sampler with four episodes is coming up in a couple weeks. And today TrekMovie has two exclusive images to show off what TNG looks like in HD…

A few recent family pictures…

A couple of folks have asked me about The Linked List indirectly. Questions such as where the quote I pulled on post “x” came from. These are Linked List items. It’s not an original idea of mine…

GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum is under fire in South Carolina for touting his alleged pro-life beliefs but voting to subsidize abortion and Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortions in America, while serving in the U.S. Senate…

My previous article got a fair amount of traffic. By far the biggest source was Facebook. But this article was my second biggest source of traffic. He linked to me at the end of his article and so I’m returning the favor. At first I was hesitant because it took me a bit to find his name , but then I realized it was in the sidebar by way of linking to his Facebook page, and his Google+ page. Also his about page lists the Church he pastors. He is Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick, pastor of an Orthodox Church in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. As such I offer the disclaimer that he holds to theology which I very much disagree with (and some comes out in his article). And this is especially important for me to point out now because that’s really what this issue is about, that theology is important, that words, are important…

So many things, where to start? First, I think that it’s very possible, likely even that this young man, and those involved in the making of this video are quite sincere. But let me be clear, the premise of the message is dead wrong. He does not make the distinction between true religion and false religion, something which the Bible does…

There are basically two different approaches Mac apps use when it comes to updating. The apps available on the Mac App Store are updated through the Store only – which obviously means that you aren’t really notified of new updates unless you open the App Store. Then, there are apps that aren’t yet available on the App Store for various reasons…

Neoconservatism is a variant of the political ideology of conservatism which rejects the utopianism and egalitarianism of modern liberalism but sees a role for the welfare state. Their main emphasis since 1990 has been using American power to foster democracy abroad, especially in the Middle East. They were notably visible in Republican administrations of George H.W. Bush (1989-93) and George W. Bush (2001-2009)…

This looks like an “oops” by an Apple app reviewer to me. As much as I love Mario Kart, I’m going to wait and see how this plays out. I love Mario Kart and would rather support Nintendo, not this rip-off version…

This is funny, and right on. But you know it’s pretty sad when a liberal comedian gets it way more right than most “conservatives”…

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt on Tuesday took issue with the idea that the Android mobile operating system is fragmented, arguing that there is instead a “differentiation” between devices. “Differentiation is positive, fragmentation is negative,” Schmidt said during an appearance here at the Consumer Electronics Show…

Nathaniel Darnell’s response to Michael Farris. Nathaniel has a law degree, and he knows what he’s talking about…

I just came across this particular Facebook post from Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) and Patrick Henry College. It doesn’t surprise me at all given his previous posts regarding his belief that Ron Paul is dangerous and unsuitable for the presidency…

I’m tired of the same old tech news. Aren’t you? You visit a top-recommended tech-related website to find that 50% or more of their content is link bait. Seriously, Gizmodo? Mashable? I expect more from the tech aficianados. For one thing, they are on the bleeding edge of technology and claim to know how gadgets ought to be used. Why aren’t they providing tech expert insights into practical workflows utilizing gadgets?…

Great discussion this week on blog comments. That part starts about one hour in or so…

The gist of this “fix” that’s been floating around the internet is that you open up the stocks app, hold the power button down until the “slide to power off” switch appears, then hold the home button down until the app quits. This is complete and utter stupidity…

AllThingsD reports that Netflix (and Blockbuster) will be required to wait twice as long, or a full 56 days after DVDs hit retail shelves, before offering Warner Brothers content under a new distribution agreement…

I don’t use this app, I don’t even know what it is. But this sort of thing is just irritating. I don’t have a lot of issues with things Apple does, but this would be one of them…

Look, just because bad law has been used and argued successfully in favor of homeschooling does not mean it is not bad law. Mr. Farris is making an argument of expediency rather than principle. Farris seems to hold the 14th amendment up very high; and it has helped him to win many battles in favor of homeschooling. But all the more do liberals use the 14th amendment, including organizations like the ACLU…

The Windows 2000 restart brings back some dusty memories. My first computer came with Windows XP when said OS was brand new, and more than a little buggy. I got that first computer for the express purpose of recording songs that I wrote (I fancied myself a musician and guitarist at the time) and XP just wasn’t stable enough…

A most excellent read, please click through and read it…

Another important reason I support Ron Paul is his position on foreign policy. He is the only candidate willing to bring our troops home, not only from the Middle East, but from around the world…

“Clearly stated, we do not support SOPA and its intent to restrict the Internet,” said Taylor. “The values of freedom, creativity and innovation are at the core of our business, and SOPA is not in accordance with those values.”…

I have been fairly pleased with the setup until Lion. My computer is almost always on my home network overnight, and via TimeMachineScheduler (an app which let’s you change Time Machine’s backup schedule), my computer backs up to my Apple Time Capsule overnight while I’m asleep. It’s a nice system, effortless. I did the initial setup and now I don’t think about it anymore…

The STRIP Act, proposed in the US House of Reps, would require TSA employees to stop dressing like police officers, because they aren’t cops, and when they give orders to travellers, travellers assume that these are the orders of real law enforcement officers, rather than minor bureaucrats…

Comments create entitlement problems, as well as seemingly removing the filter that normally exists between the brain and the mouth (or fingers in this case). You know what that filter is. Every time there’s something you want to say that isn’t nice, and you say to yourself, “you know, I probably shouldn’t say that” and so you don’t…

The best way to find any and all errors is to publish your work.…

It looks like these PR moves to save face, and business, are completely futile. According to TheDomains, 21,054 domains were transferred away from Go Daddy on Friday alone. At $6.99 a pop, that would make for a loss of $147,167, not taking future renewals into account. The day before wasn’t a good one for the company either, with 15,000 people taking their domains elsewhere. That means that even though Go Daddy changed its stance, people have had enough…

However, as I have had a chance to read more, think more and reconsider whether the dubious pleasures of being a cynical, condescending, self-righteous jerk is worth the cost of God’s eternal judgment (it isn’t): eventually I concluded that I needed to re-think these issues from the bottom up…

Yes, this is what we need, Quicken for Mac 2007 — a PowerPC application — shoehorned onto Lion. Are they compiling a custom Rosetta bundle into the application? So what about Quicken 2012?…

If you are publishing text for people to read and you want it to look even halfway professional, you absolutely must use real actual left and right quotation marks: “quotes” not "quotes". Also right-single apostrophe: as in don’t use “don't”…

One of the things that immediately identifies a person who puts effort into their work, is if they write with proper punctuation, like “smart quotes” or “curly quotes” instead of “inch marks”. Most word processors have got smart quotes figured out, and even most blogging platforms support plugins that will automatically replace your inch marks with smart quotes — the lazy way out, but it works…

I’d love to run, edit, and write for a publication bigger than just me and my blog. I don’t have time, so I won’t, at least not any time soon. But if I were to run a publication, I’d have a few rules…

I’m not sure how I missed this, it was posted way back on August 2nd. Let’s just say this concept would address a lot of the complaints I have against the current implementation of Notification Center…

So they’ve got three more years to try to prove their relevance. I’m a little surprised that Google was willing to renew the deal with Chrome in the picture. In any event, my opinion of Firefox as a browser is currently unchanged…