Author Archives: scottsoapbox

Big Ole Digi-Cam

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So your Digi-Cam just isn't phat enough in the Megapixel department? Need to blow an image up to say… 8×10? Poster Size? Mural? Well now you can have huge megapixels without breaking the bank (relatively speaking) with Better Light's Scan Back cameras. 144 Megapixels for under 10 Grand. Now it takes a mere 66 seconds to drink all those pixels in (that's the scanning part of the name). Still, 144 Megapixels is pretty sweet.

He Is Risen!

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He is risen, indeed! Happy Easter everyone!

Easter is one of my favorite holidays, but I've always felt that it didn't quite get the credit that it deserved. Throughout history, Christianity has had a constant, recognizable symbol: the cross. (Google will bring up 935,000 cross images) And this is understandable. The cross symbolizes that God was willing to sacrifice his own son to achieve reconciliation with humanity.

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13 NIV)

This is, of course, of vital importance. Not only as a sign of God's love but against the backdrop of Jewish law and history – it demonstrates the end of sacrifices through the one perfect sacrifice.

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming – not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins… And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:1-4,10 NIV)

So now that I have made quite the case for the cross as a symbol for Christianity – what am I whining about? I never felt that symbolism of the cross should be replaced, but supplemented. Supplemented with the imagery of the empty tomb. Continue reading →

Rip(off) It!

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For those of you that yet believe that you can make money doing just about anything… and you know who you are, Mike. I submit the following: RipDigital.com will rip your CDs to MP3s for you. Yes for the stupid and the lazy, you are now free of the burden of a few mouse clicks to transform old skewl "digital" CDs into iPod fodder. Prices start at $139 for 100 CDs, but most people's CD collections will approach the $1/CD conversion fee. How it works:

  • You place your order.
  • Ship them all of your CDs.
  • They pay some chimp $5/hour to use the same CD->MP3 software available online for free.
  • They ship you back your CDs and a stack of CD-Rs with MP3s on them.
  • Wait! now I need a CD-R to Hard Drive service! Seriously. Too lazy to rip your own CDs? Time to valuable? Why not hire your little brother or the neighborhood kid – pay THEM $5/hr – and save yourself half the cost? Not to mention getting your MP3s in a a day or two instead of a week or two.

I give them:

for an original spin to an existing problem. I have to take the rest of the stars away since, not enough iPod owners are short on MP3s… or else why would they have bought an iPod? Oh wait it's white!! and cool!! But wait, so is the Shuffle. Now if they created a strategic alliance with Apple to send their service to all Shuffle owners (who obliviously like to overpay for products) and then get them to "need" an iPod with their big stack of MP3s… both companies would win and that would be worth at least 2 stars for cleverness. RipDigital.com