Well folks, it's official!  The beginning of the end has begun.  The Brits have launched ther lastest military defense and communications satellite, the final link to their "Skynet" communications system.  Yes.  They actually called it Skynet.

"Skynet 5 is the latest iteration of a global communications system deployed by the British Armed Forces. The final satellite in the system was launched this week, and will allow high-bandwidth telecommunications between British forces located anywhere in the world. In addition to voice communications, it will allow data transfer and the remote control of robot airplanes, one of which is called "The Reaper." One of the manufacturers was quoted by BBC News as saying: "So, computers can talk directly to computers."

The real trouble?  It's privately owned.  That's right.  They don't even own or control it.  They only lease bandwidth from a private company.  The good news is.  The name of the company is NOT Cyberdyne Systems.  But hey, what looks like dog, wags its tale like a dog... must be a dog.  "So, computers can talk directly to computers."  Are you scared yet?  I am!

Seriously, what the hell? Is it British humor to name something like this Skynet? Might as well get to work on the self-awareness chip and the "really angry at humans" algorithm. ;-)  Pack your bags and run for the hills!  The killer robots from the future are sure to start arriving shortly.  Sarah Connor has failed.

Click here to listen to the new British National Anthem Music!

Teenagers!  Hurry up and move out, get a job, support yourself, and save the planet while your still smarter than us adults and know everything!

A Teenager is...

A person who can't remember to walk the dog but never forgets a phone number.

A youngster who receives his/her allowance on Monday, spends it on Tuesday, and borrows from his/her best friend on Wednesday.

Someone who can hear a song by Madonna played three blocks away but not his mother calling from the next room.

A student who will spend 12 minutes studying for her history exam and 12 hours for her driver's license.

A youngster who is well informed about anything he doesn't have to study.

An enthusiast who has the energy to ride a bike for miles, but is usually too tired to dry the dishes.

A connoisseur of two kinds of fine music: Loud and Very Loud.

A young woman who loves the cat/dog who has done nothing for her and just tolerates the parents who have done everything for her.

A person who is always late for dinner but always on time for a rock concert.

A romantic who never falls in love more than once a week.

A boy who can sleep until noon on any Saturday when he suspects the lawn needs mowing.

An original thinker who is positive that her mother was never a teenager.

A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, very much in favor of the redistribution of wealth.

She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the addition of more government welfare programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father.

He responded by asking her how she was doing in school.

Taken back, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, "How is your friend Aubrey doing?"

She replied, "Aubrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties, and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over."

Her wise father asked his daughter, "Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct a 1 .0 off your 4.0 GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA."

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, “That wouldn't be fair!” I have worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Aubrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!"

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, "Welcome to the Republican Party."

Recently, I started ripping my DVDs using handbrake into iTunes so I could watch them without going to the media library upstairs to find a movie.  Everything is now in my Apple TV.  This has led to me watching some older television shows such as Planet of the Apes: The TV Series.

Planet of the Apes was an interesting series.  It was by no means great, but its certainly not bad.  At least not by my standards.. (wink). As I was watching one of these shows, it occurred to me that there is practically nothing in this TV series that could not be duplicated by amateur filmmakers for very little cost.  In fact, I would venture to say that with the power of Final Cut, AfterEffects and High-Def Pro Camcorders that amateur made Planet of the Apes would be better than what was broadcast on TV in 1974!

So that begs the question.  Why are there so few amateur films on YouTube, Vimeo, etc.  Yes, I know there are some out there.  I know there are some really good ones out there too.  One of my favorites is Chad Vader.  But really, why aren't the video sites simply overflowing with amateur films?  They should be!  Instead they are overflowing with videos of someone's kid or cat.  Stuff that no one cares about and adds little value to anyone or anything.  Where are all the aspiring college kids?  Where all the college film school kids?  If I am just blind and missing the obvious, please point it out to me.

I'd like you to meet Lilly.  Lilly is what you call a pest.

pest

Some of you know I used to have a friend named Kevin Cochran.  Kevin and I met and worked together at AST Computer in Fort Worth for about 3 years.  Along the way on our friendship Kevin and I tinkered in running a web-hosting and ISP business.  There's a long story behind that and hindsight is always 20/20 but for many reasons, the business was not a success and we closed it, in turn I started another ISP (DataLink Networks) that was successful for a while until the market fell out from underneath it and every other web-host on the planet.

Anyway, Kevin Cochran and I continued to be friends for quite a while after the business venture and even attended the same church for a while.  Liberty Church of Kennedale with Pastor Marvin Raines.  On a side note, I hear they have expanded and moved to Mansfield.  I might have to go visit there sometime to see what they are doing now.  Somewhere along the way, Kevin became obsessed with biblical law and began to point out every tiny flaw in my life and walk with Christ.  This eventually led to our demise as friends, and quite honestly a major part of the reason I quite attending church for many years to follow.  In fact, that was around 1998 and I didn't start attending church again until around 2004 when my wife and I started attending Keystone Church in Keller, TX.  I attempted to discuss with him grace and try to figure out why he believed the way he did.  It turned into a "Faith without works is dead." conversation over and over again.  What he really believed however, was that "There is no grace without works and strict obedience to the law."  It turns out Kevin had been involved (without my knowledge) in a Church called Sound Doctrine out of Enumclaw, Washington.  Kevin eventually sold his home and moved his entire family there, in order to attend this Church, severing his ties with his friends in Texas.  It is my understanding from talking to others who knew him, that he and his family sold all of their possessions and gave them to the Church, as Jesus called on him to do in John 8:31.  I don't know this to be fact but I suspect it is the case.

Fast forward a couple of years.  I try to reach Kevin.  I send emails to a known good email account of his.  No replies.  I even managed to dig up his address from a vehicle registration on PublicData.com and mailed him a written letter.  No response.  It seems his new church doesn't allow him to talk to outsiders (or he has chosen to based on their teachings).  So as the years tick by to 2008, every year I attempt at some point to contact him.  I shoot an email, sometimes it bounces, sometimes it doesn't based on an email I can find searching public records, but regardless, he never answers.  Someone suggested to me that someone else, either family, or church associate might read his emails before he gets them and deletes them.  I suppose this is possible.

Last night was my day in 2008, that I attempt to hunt Kevin down again.  Each year, when I search for him, the information becomes less and less.  It's as if he is slowly but surely being removed from the grid.  Everything that used to come up for him (such a domain names he used to own) all come up as CarriedCross or SoundDoctrine (Carried Cross are the same people as Sound Doctrine).  It appears he or someone else purposefully does not want him to be found.

So I thought I would do some research on the Sound Doctrine guys.  I really wanted to get a grip on who they were and what they stand for.  The most interesting article I found is called "Sound Doctrine: Will they Pour the Kool-Aid soon?" which is a reference to cults poisoning themselves in suicide pacts to meet God.  It appears that all of my fears about this place and their teaching are real.  According to their interpretation of the Bible, my family, everyone I know, including the pastor of every church I have attended and all of their members are destined to go straight to hell!  I won't bore you with the contents, you can read the link above to learn more.

I'll end this incredibly long post with one last thought.  If Kevin and other members believes that this church's teachings are the truth, I have to wonder about something.  He attended Liberty Church for quite some time.  According to Sound Doctrine, Marvin Raines would be a heathen and teaching from the devils throne!  Does he look back on his life and say "Wow.  That Marvin really taught me some flawed material."  I doubt seriously based on the SD teachings that he could think Liberty Church taught him anything useful or true.  In fact I would venture to say that Kevin and other members of the SD Church would tell you that they were never saved until they found Sound Doctrine Church.  It's quite amazing to me the power that cults have over people.  And yes, I believe firmly that Sound Doctrine is a cult.  Looking up top 20 cults in America.. on Google.  Guess who is at number 19?

Kevin, if you're out there, shoot me an email sometime.  It would be great to hear from you. You have nothing to fear from me, unless you fear acceptance, forgiveness, and grace.

Well, where to start, I don't even know.  So I'll just begin.  Recently I was tipped off to a piece of software called HandBrake.  (Don't even ask why it was named that.  You do NOT want to know.)  HandBrake allows you to rip a DVD, removing the CSS and compressing it into a smaller more portable format.  You can pick from standard formats, such as XBox360, AppleTV, Playstation and many others or pick your own settings.  It simply uses the FFMpeg compressor in the background, so the sky really is the limit.  I chose to use the AppleTV format for two reasons.  First, I have an AppleTV.  Second, the AppleTV format is standard Mpeg-4 H.264 video.  It's NOT hacked up Mpeg-4 wrapped in Microsoft AVI format.  So it's pretty portable.  Well, I started ripping my movie library like nuts into my iTunes library.  Before I knew it, my 500GB hard disk was getting full, and I still need room for video editing.  More on that in a minute.  So now with HandBrake, and a huge video library in iTunes, my entire video collection will soon be one remote control click away on my Living Room AppleTV.  This makes me want another AppleTV upstairs.  One last thing about HandBrake.  The PC version is terrible.  It was written native for OSX and is simply beautiful.  The Windows version pops DOS boxes and crashes a lot.  No Thanks.  Run it on a Mac.

In the process I went to Fry's and bought two 1TB Western Digital 7200RPM SATA drives.  This puts a total of 4 hard disks in my Mac Pro and a total of 3TB.  1TB for the main disk.  1TB for Time Machine backups.  1TB (500GBx2 RAID0) for HD video editing.  I used a program called SuperDuper for the Mac to move all the data around.  Quite simple.  The machine is an unbelievable power house.  With two Quad-Core 2.8Ghz Xeon's, GeForce 8800GT, 3TB of disk space and 23" Widrescreen monitor I feel like my office is running a NASA supercomputer.  Actually, I think that might be better than what NASA has. Ha!

Lastly, I purchased yet another Sony HVR-V1U HD1080p Video Camera.  I decided that the church, (Keystone Church in Keller, TX) needed it more than I did, so I gave them mine.  They were shooting with my camera almost every week it seemed.  They had a PD-170 which is low def and the tape deck just doesn't work right on anymore.  I tried to give them money to buy one about a year ago and they wouldn't let me.  So this time I just gave him mine and said "You can't say no."  So I ordered another one from B&H which arrived today.  I'm sure the very talented team at Keystone (Brian Burton and team) will put it to some excellent use as always.  Brian is a rock star at creativity.  On a side note, it appears they changed the firmware just a bit, but it's virtually unchanged from Version 1.  I'd absolutely dig a hard disk pack for it, but for some reason, Sony thinks a 60GB hard disk with an LCD screen is worth $1599.  It most likely costs them less than $200 to make.  Sad, but true.  But you have to admit, Sony has the absolute best Pro Video Cameras money can buy (well, in their price range,  sure, millions could buy better...).