Messages

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21994224-2,00.html

Can't you just look up a music video or something on YouTube of the song, and use the audio?

Of course, compression will be pretty bad, but in a pinch...

The meaning to life is 43

Are you sure about that?

Shaolin ping pong anybody? Just kidding...

By this philosophy, Christians can't do things to "earn" their salvation. We are inherently evil. Once we receive Christ's free gift, we are saved. Because of this salvation, and in recognition and appreciation of Christ's free gift, we continue to strive to do good works. Not because these good works save us, but out of gratitude, and a desire to be as like Christ as possible in a sinful state.

To clarify (from my own beliefs), Christ's free gift has been given to everyone. Jesus died on the cross for everyone's sins, and therefore changed the terms of what it takes to have everlasting life. Rather than being accountable for all your sins, He has paid for them all. The terms have been changed to that you just have one decision, which is at the crux of free will: you have the choice to reject Jesus.

Gregjazz: Although it mentions a "second death" and "fire", it never directly mentions Hell. As for broken bones, I meant they never broke any of their own bones.

Get your facts right. Hell is mentioned thirteen times in the New Testament, eleven times of which are spoken by Jesus Himself. Not to mention hell's synonyms: Hades, Sheol, etc.

Want specific references? Here are a few:

Matthew 5:29-30 "If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell."

Matthew 25:41, 46 "Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;...,"And these will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life"

Mark 9:43-44 "If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than, having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched."

Revelation 20:15 "And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire."

Matthew 18:8-9 "If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than to have two hands or two feet and be cast into the eternal fire. If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be cast into the fiery hell."

Luke 12:5 "But l will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who after He has killed has authority to cast into hell, yes, I tell you, fear Him! "

Revelation 20:10 "And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever."

Revelation 19:2 "And the beast was seized, and with him the false prophet who performed the signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who had worshiped his image; these two were thrown alive in the lake of fire which bums with brimstone."

Jude 1:7 "Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example, in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire."

Just because a religion is a distortion of a "core religion" (as you put it) doesn't make them the same. Especially since in this case, distortion of this "core religion" would entail the addition of material. So rather than being a "distortion", I would consider them corruptions, instead.

First off, did you know that virtually every religion has a messiah figure? They all fullfill many of the Biblical prophecies, all of them crucified, claiming to be the Son of a divine being. All of them lived pure lives, cared for the poor. None of them ever broke bones

I don't know if He broke any bones, but boy Jesus was not joking around when He went to the temple and drove out all the people buying and selling.

Now, according to the Christian Bible, Jesus is the only way into Heaven. But, Jesus and God are one and the same, and God Himself says that He has many names.

Put two and two together. These messiahs of different religions are all one and the same.

It sounds like you're getting five out of two and two. That just isn't logical. Just because God Himself says He has many names doesn't mean he's synonymous with all the Messiahs of various religions. You're making that connection via your statement that all religions claim a Messiah that is perfect, etc. What religion would not say their Messiah is perfect, led pure lives, cared for the poor, etc.? It doesn't mean they all are one and the same.

Every single religion is based on one core religion. It's possible that God (or whatever you want to call him) created different teachings, in order to force us to learn.

Force us to learn? Free will is about our choice to reject God--"forcing us to learn" would be an enfringement of that.

Unfortunately, humanity distorted it enough to believe that only their version is the correct one, and that all other religions are sinners, and therefore are going to Hell.

Certainly all religions believe they are the true religion--this is even seen on the denominational level. However, at least with the denominations, a lot of the differences pertain to dogma-related issues. Just for example in terms of Christianity: in the Bible, the conditions to be saved are put very simply:

"That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9
"If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God." 1 John 4:15

Let's take the concept of Hell for a moment. What do you picture? Fire and brimstone? Actually, the Bible hardly describes Hell at all, neither does the Koran, or the Torah.

Errr...

Revelation 21:8 "But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liarsâ€"their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."

Revelation 14:10 "he, too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb."

The Bible, at least, is pretty explicit about what Hell is.

Anyway, just get your facts right. It doesn't give your theories much credibility.

Everybody knows the meaning of life, the universe, and everything is 42.

I'll admit, the reason it is boring at parts and the ending seems to go by too quick is because the boy who played Andy quit production halfway through the film. THis left me scrambling to find a replacement to no avail. So I had to shoot the rest of the film in a way where I didn't need him, making the film much weaker than it could've been, but also shedding a different light on the story.

Great recovery then. That makes a lot of sense, thinking back on it though...

Awesome! Great film, it deserves the award!

Also, thanks so much for putting it out there for us to watch for free!

If this is your first stringed/fretted instrument, as a left hander, I'd say just learn it righty. It'll make instructional videos/books or lessons in the future much easier. (as I mentioned I'm left handed, but I went righty and it actually felt more natural, but then again that could be conditioning)

Andail has a good point, too.

I don't specifically play mandolin, but with fretted instruments, even being left-handed I prefer to play righty. I like to do the fretwork with my left hand; it feels more natural to me.

Just remember when you restring it with the same strings, they'll be weaker and more likely to break.

You have to listen to the CDs to find out which CD is which. Make sure the stereo is on, too.

Absolutely brilliant.

@Greg, how good exactly is FlyFF? I must admit I like the cutey graphics style, but what's the game like? I always hesitate to sign up to these things... once had a NeoPet, though.

I was pretty addicted to it for a month or two... then I realized how much time I spent playing it (I had a level 49 mage). It's a pretty good game--it's updated fairly regularly with new items, etc. Thing is, past level 40, leveling up starts to take a while. At that point (or earlier), you have to team up with other players in order to level at a decent speed.

My advice would be to look at some basic game guides online when starting out. There were a bunch of basic things I wish I had known about earlier on.

No, but I used to be a FlyFF player... Do a lot of people play Rappelz? Even though it's newer than FlyFF, I didn't think many players converted.

Yup, and it's open source, too!

What about just increasing the canvas size in, for instance, Photoshop and paste in the new picture?
I don't see why you'd need a brand new application for this task?

It'd take a while to do that for 100+ images.

However, I just found something that works with PNGs (and is actually created for my specific purpose):

pngStitch:

http://www.niallmoody.com/otherprograms.htm

I'm looking for a graphics utility that can stitch multiple images together into one, vertically or horizontally. I've been using Trentstitch, but that only supports BMP files. I also have a mysterious little program called "masker" that can stitch images together. However, the problem I'm using PNG files because I'm using the alpha channel. "Masker" doesn't get the alpha channel.

Any ideas?

I think Linux would suit you very nicely, then. It has some great software for exactly the purposes you listed.

I love it. Reminds me a bit of Cartridge Music. (John Cage)