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Assimilate

World AffairsPolitics & Opinions

6 months ago

I was doing a little research on another article when I came across this great site.  On it I was acquainted with a video series on YouTube (now pulled due to 'intellectual' property rights) which reveals tolerance training our corporations are subjecting their employees to.  This training series was created in 1968 by a third grade school teacher. (Jane Elliot)  With the exception of including women's rights and homosexuality the training hasn't changed in 40 years.  She subjected her third grade class to this exercise to teach them about racism.  I have no doubt that racism still exists in America today, however, as demonstrated by Reverend Wright in the past month or so, much of today's racism is propagated by blacks.  I had the privilege of living outside this racist society for two years courtesy of the U.S. Air Force and I know the difference between a society that expects little of blacks and places failing programs in their communities with its blacks carrying a chip on their shoulder and believing that most people actively work to victimize them and the society that has blacks integrated into the society.  When I met a black person there, I knew he did not expect me to think less of him than of people from my own heritage.  But there is much more to the story than tolerance training is willing to deal with and therefor tolerance training is an ineffective means by which to address these issues.  In fact, if you've been through this course you've seen this former third grade teacher discount assimilation as meaning "make you like me."  In some ways that is true, but the way it was applied the very idea is to blaspheme the tolerance gods.  Assimilation means to work within the system with the same rights, protections, and benefits as the rest of us, not to make your heritage irrelevant and certainly not to excuse self destructive behaviors or to give special privileges to atone for our racist sins from 150 years ago.  This has to be true of all cultures in the melting pot. 

The reason integration is failing is not the responsibility of the white Christian male anymore.  When a white man is 60 times more likely to die at the hands of a black man than a black man is to die at the hands of a white man, fear of blacks is not unreasonable.  This is not xenophobia, phobias by definition are unreasonable fears.  Blacks are much more likely to die at the hands of black men than white and whites are much more likely to die at the hands of whites so we should be more afraid of our own kind than of others.  When crime rates are staggeringly lopsided on race indicators, it is not the broken system to blame for the high representation of blacks in our prisons.  When broken homes and unwed mothers are staggeringly lopsided on race indicators, it is not the white communities debt to blacks that can fix these problems.  Liberals want to do something for blacks, well guess what, Conservatives do too, but I don't want to throw good tax dollars after bad.  I want systems that work, rather than propping up miserable failures.  That's why I vote Republican.  Republicans are the party of ideas that work.  Republicans are the party that worked to free slaves, the party that institutes programs that work the same as we have done in national parks, environmental cleanup programs, and a host of others.  Look at the history of Democrats' programs.  Which one, which single program has helped black people out of oppression?  There isn't one.  Rather, their programs increase oppression and dependence.



The same is true of the women's movement.  Women won the right to vote on the Republican controlled legislative process in both houses in the 19th amendment where it failed under the Democrat controlled body.  The first woman congress member was Republican.  The Democrats run around making noises about caring for the poor and oppressed but they enact programs that ultimately do much more damage than they help.  But, come election time, they make those appeasing noises and the milk toast voters believe every honey dipped word of it.  They have been on the wrong side of every conflict we as a nation have ever been in save two.  That was when a Democratic president was in office and either he had a difficult time making the call for war or had a very difficult time calling his party into the fight for right, good, and humanitarian causes.
 
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Getting Caller ID in Windows 7 Media Center

TechnologyComputers

10 months ago

Vista Caller ID One of my favorite features of commercial DVR boxes is that many of them include the ability to display caller ID information directly on your TV display. Nothing beats the ability to see who’s interrupting your favorite movie without having to actually get up and check the caller ID display. Thanks to VistaCallerID.com it’s possible to get this feature integrated into your Media Center based home theater as well. Even better, once you’ve got the hardware you can get software to thwart telemarketers or even just annoying acquaintances as well!

The first thing we need to do is get the proper hardware. I don’t know about you but I haven’t used (or even seen) an analog modem in the last decade. So the first thing we’ll need to do is pickup the proper hardware. I went with the Rosewill RNX-56AG which at $7 from Newegg is by far the cheapest component in my home theater setup.

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Retrieving Video Encoding Information with MediaInfo

TechnologyComputers

10 months ago

MediaInfo Logo Sometimes we might need to find out exactly what set of tools was used to encode a video file. Maybe you would like to double-check the output bitrate of your encoding tools or the output resolution. Perhaps a friend did your encoding and you’d like to double check his workmanship. Could be that you stumbled upon the file among the flotsam and jetsam of the internet. No matter the case MediaInfo can give you more information than you’re likely to ever need.

Using MediaInfo is as simple as can be, first download and install the program for your particular platform. Upon first launching MediaInfo you’ll be presented with a few options including how to display the information gathered. Each output format has it’s advantages but you can easily change the format from inside the program so there’s no need to speed to much time worrying about it now.

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HD Movie Trailer Download Program for Media Browser

TechnologyComputers

11 months ago

logo Can’t get enough of those high resolution movie trailers on Apple.com or Yahoo? If you’re running Media Browser there may be a cure. A simple program called HD Movie Trailer Downloader will give you a complete list of movie trailers available and give you the option to download them in any number of resolutions. The app is fairly handy for anyone looking to download recent movie trailers in HD to their box without sifting through the Apple or Yahoo websites.

To get started download the program from the HD Movie Trailer Downloader site and extract the files into a new folder on your hard drive. After that just run the GUI.exe file to launch the download utility. On the first run you’ll be presented with some options to fill in including the default folder in which to place downloaded trailers.

 

You’ll also notice an option for creating a MyMovies.xml file containing synopsis information, however, this option didn’t work properly with Media Browser beta 11 and should probably just be turned off.

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Beginners Fine Tuning & Tweaking Comskip

TechnologyComputers

11 months ago

comskip Comskip is the default commercial detection software for most commercial skipping Media Center programs. In some cases to get optimal results you will need to tweak the settings to get the best results for your situation. There is no GUI for editing comskip’s settings and instead it must be done through a settings file named comskip.ini in the same folder as comskip.exe.

First thing you’ll need is a file or two to test comskip detection on. To get these you’ll need to convert a few recorded shows to DVR-MS. The comskip guide suggests using a small and large file, say a 30 minute show and an hour one. You may also want to check to make sure you have the latest version of comskip from the official site.

Once you have your test files create a shortcut to comskip and then open the properties for that shortcut. In the Target input box add “-w” without the quotes and save the shortcut. Now drag and drop your first test file onto the shortcut. Comskip will begin to process the file with a window displaying a number of graphs and the show in the background in black and white.

 

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Convert Single Video Files or Create a Queue with Handbrake

TechnologyComputers

11 months ago

handbrake Need to convert a video or two into a different format? Have some MKV files you’d like to play on an extender as MP4 files? Handbrake has the solution for you. Handbrake is a free, open-source program with more features for converting and encoding video than you’ll likely ever need. The interface, however, is easy enough to for basic users to jump right in.

To get started you’ll need to download and install a copy of Handbrake. It’s available for a number of platforms including Windows, OS X and Linux. Command line versions are available as well but for this we will be using the Windows GUI version. Once you’ve got Handbrake installed open up the GUI by selecting HandBrake from the programs menu.

Once inside the first thing we need to do is select the source video. To do this press the “Source” button in the toolbar then select “video file” from the drop down menu. Next set the output file in the Destination File input, you may either select the output type in the Save as type drop down box in the file save window or select the type in the main window.

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Add Channel Logos to 7MC with the latest My Channel Logos

TechnologyComputers

11 months ago

logo Though we’ve looked at this handy program for adding channel logos to your Windows Media Center TV Guide when it was first released, it has undergone a number of improvements and increased support since it’s release. Since it’s initial offering, My Channel Logos has added the ability to detect affiliate stations such as those associated with ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX. Quite a few extra channel logos have been added for various countries, auto-populating logos has been optimized and support for Dish Network has been introduced as well.

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