Where are those elusive images?

A recent post at ProBlogger emphasizes the importance of visual elements and how they can alter the impact of the written word.  Okay, what the article says is any blog post is better with pictures.

I agree and I try to use something for every post.  It's not as easy as it seems.  I am an amateur photographer, but even in my catalogue of pictures, I can rarely find something to go with every topic about which I write.

Not that I haven't tried to forage beyond my own small collection. Once I tried to find a simple picture of a dump truck, using the search terms of free pictures or royalty free pictures.  Almost all links took me to sites selling pictures, but not allowing them to be used otherwise.  Well, I'm not a professional blogger so I don't have any money top spend on pictures that will likely get used only once.

It seems as though every blogger out there has found a secret cache of free pictures/money with which to buy pictures.  I just haven't found it yet.

So, fellow bloggers, when you can't find a picture for your blog post in your own collection, where do you go to find it?  Outright free pictures are good, but I'm more than happy to use someones pictures in return for an attribution.  I am always eager to promote someones good work to the one's and two's of my blog followers.

My little corner of the Blogosphere

If anyone tells you that writing a blog is simple, easy or some other sort of larking about, punch them in the beak for me.

I have a difficult enough time writing my own blog and now friends of mine, some who are veteran bloggers, others who started around the same time as me, have been on my back about reading their blogs.  rightly so I guess, as I promised them all a mention here and haven't even done one of those yet!

So, here is the update on my little corner of the Blogosphere!

My friend Holly went back to school this fall. She's taking a course in Interactive Multimedia.  Holly is already an accomplished graphic artist but I think she may have found her 'special little niche' when it comes to moving pictures.  She's been spending a lot of time on her video projects and especially flash animation (which I think is her strong suit).

The end of semester quickly approaches and hopefully she has been able to move past that little bit of controversy regarding her "Call to Action" video.  Go check it out!

Sandy Carruthers is a long time comic illustrator. He was the original artist for the Men in Black, and for a number of years has been illustrating kids adventure books. The latest is out now, called "Peril in Summerland Park", which is available from Lerner Publishing Group.  Sandy also penned political cartoons for over a decade at the local newspaper. As if that isn't busy enough for ya, he also has his own comic book character. Canadiana might soon be hitting the paper as it were.

Never one to let his own muse rest idly, Sandy has been practising his inking skills with a Cintic Tablet from Wacom.  Get on over to his blog and check out how the Sandy and the Cintiq do on the sketches of some of the comic book masters.

In other gadget news, the Nearly Mad Mind continues to dig out neat stuff, this time around a multi-lens addition that will make your iPhone look like one of the machines your eye doctor uses.  It might even take better photos as a result!

Kent is also a book reviewer and has added another to the growing library of books he has reviewed on the subject of Moodle.  His latest is "Moodle 2 for Teaching 4-9 year olds".  The Madman is the administrator for the E-Learning system (Moodle) where I work, so if you have questions about Moodle, get over to his blog!

Last but not least is the veteran of my blogging world and the single biggest motivator for my own blogging.  Bonnie Stewart has shared her personal ups and downs, her educational adventure and many other aspects of her life, with the tools warm humour, sharp analysis, and a somewhat other-worldly compassion.  The latest adventure at cribchronicles is her family's move to a new crib, er pad, uh house!  The story is gold with a bit of a twist.

Sorry God, no last minute recant here

I learned this morning that outspoken journalist, essayist and atheist Christopher Hitchens has passed away. No doubt, the religious among you are having a nice guffaw, clap of hands or perhaps just a sigh of relief that one of the world's best know atheists is dead.

While I have been aware of Hitchens and his beliefs (or lack there of) I have never been a "devoted follower". To me, those that weep and cry and gnash their teeth over how proper atheism is as opposed to any other belief system, are just as bad as the any religious fanatic - Jihadist or Crusader alike.  To me, talking about how you don't believe in God is as good a promotion for God as going to church.  I don't spend a lot of time talking about the fairies that make my lunch every night while I'm asleep, why would I moan on about an equally mythical apparition like God.

However, I *am* an atheist and so what he has to say occasionally amuses me and because he will never again utter a word, I thought it proper to commemorate one of his best bits - re-chiseling the Ten Commandments.

First, the video of 21st Century Decalogue ~or~ Don't swallow your moral code in tablet form.

After watching this, I searched around a lot, but couldn't find a location where the 21st Century Decalogue was actually typed out.  Bad Internet and yet another reason why video on the Internet does more harm than good.

Regardless of my own personal rants, here is Hitchens' newly realized 21st Century Decalogue:

21st Century Decalogue

~or~

Don't Swallow you moral code in tablet form

1. Do not condemn people on the basis of their ethnicity or colour.

2. Do not even think of using people as private property.

3. Despise those who use violence or the threat of it in a sexual relationship.

4. Hide you face and weep if you dare to harm a child.

5. Do not condemn people for their inborn nature.

6. Be aware that you too are an animal and dependant on the web of nature.

7. Do not imagine you can escape judgement if you rob people with a false prospectus.

8. Turn off that fucking cel phone.

9. Denounce all Jihadists and Crusaders for what they are: psychopathic criminals with ugly delusions.

10. Be willing to denounce any God or any religion if any Holy Commandments should contradict the above.

It's a pretty straight-forward list.

Here's another one. Read, weep, spread around or ignore as you see fit.

101 Atheist Quotes

1. The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality. - George Bernard Shaw

2. Faith means not wanting to know what is true. - Friedrich Nietzsche

3. I believe in God, only I spell it Nature. - Frank Lloyd Wright

4. We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes. - Gene Roddenberry

5. To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today. - Isaac Asimov

6. A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows. - Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)

7. Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. - Seneca the Younger

8. Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. - Anonymous

9. Not only is there no god, but try getting a plumber on weekends. - Woody Allen

10. If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul. - Isaac Asimov

11. Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination. - Edward Abbey

12. With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg

13. I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence. - Doug McLeod

14. The world holds two classes of men - intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence. - Abu’l-Ala al Ma’arri

15. Since the Bible and the church are obviously mistaken in telling us where we came from, how can we trust them to tell us where we are going? - Anonymous

16. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. - Susan B. Anthony

17. The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike. - Delos B. McKown

18. Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer. - Anonymous

19. Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men. - Francis Bacon

20. The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. - Richard Dawkins

21. A God who kept tinkering with the universe was absurd; a God who interfered with human freedom and creativity was tyrant. If God is seen as a self in a world of his own, an ego that relates to a thought, a cause separate from its effect. he becomes a being, not Being itself. An omnipotent, all-knowing tyrant is not so different from earthly dictators who make everything and everybody mere cogs in the machine which they controlled. An atheism that rejects such a God is amply justified. - Karen Armstrong

22. It is not as in the Bible, that God created man in his own image. But, on the contrary, man created God in his own image. - Ludwig Feuerbach

23. People ask me what I think about that woman priest thing. What, a woman priest? Women priests. Great, great. Now there’s priests of both sexes I don’t listen to. - Bill Hicks

24. All the biblical miracles will at last disappear with the progress of science. - Matthew Arnold

25. Blind faith is an ironic gift to return to the Creator of human intelligence. - Anonymous

26. Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one. - Richard Dawkins

27. What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof. - Christopher Hitchens

28. In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point. - Friedrich Nietzsche

29. It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line to the Bible. - George W. Foote

30. On the first day, man created God. - Anonymous

31. I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. - Stephen Roberts

32. You do not need the Bible to justify love, but no better tool has been invented to justify hate. - Richard A. Weatherwax

33. What’s “God”? Well, you know, when you want something really bad and you close your eyes and you wish for it? God’s the guy that ignores you. - Steve Buscemi (From the movie “The Island”)

34. As far as I can tell from studying the scriptures, all you do in heaven is pretty much just sit around all day and praise the Lord. I don’t know about you, but I think that after the first, oh, I don’t know, 50,000,000 years of that I’d start to get a little bored. - Rick Reynolds

35. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish. - Anonymous

36. Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color. - Don Hirschberg

37. God should be executed for crimes against humanity. - Bryan Emmanuel Gutierrez

38. To say that atheism requires faith is as dim-witted as saying that disbelief in pixies or leprechauns takes faith. Even if Einstein himself told me there was an elf on my shoulder, I would still ask for proof and I wouldn’t be wrong to ask. - Geoff Mather

39. I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it. - Mark Twain

40. Of all religions the Christian is without doubt the one which should inspire tolerance most, although up to now the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men. - Voltaire

41. And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence. - Bertrand Russell

42. Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? - Epicurus

43. I’m a polyatheist - there are many gods I don’t believe in. - Dan Fouts

44. If it turns out that there is a God, I don’t think that he’s evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he’s an underachiever. - Woody Allen

45. A lie is a lie even if everyone believes it. The truth is the truth even if nobody believes it. - David Stevens

46. Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a God superior to themselves. Most Gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child. - Robert A Heinlein

47. I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing. - Douglas Adams

48. It ain’t the parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand. - Mark Twain

49. He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; he that dares not reason is a slave. - William Drummond

50. Remember, Jesus would rather constantly shame gays than let orphans have a family. - Steven Colbert

51. Which is it, is man one of God’s blunders or is God one of man’s? - Friedrich Nietzsche

52. Religion does three things quite effectively: Divides people, Controls people, Deludes people. - Carlespie Mary Alice McKinney

53. Religion has caused more misery to all of mankind in every stage of human history than any other single idea. - Anonymous

54. When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life. - Sigmund Freud

55. They felt that science would be corrosive to religious belief and they were worried about it. Damn it, I think they were right. It is corrosive to religious belief and it’s a good thing. - Steven Weinberg

56. Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains. - Robert G. Ingersoll

57. History teaches us that no other cause has brought more death than the word of god. - Giulian Buzila

58. Atheism is a non-prophet organization. - George Carlin

59. We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

60. A believer states everything must have a creator but fail to say how he was created. - Anonymous

61. “There are no atheists in foxholes” isn’t an argument against atheism, it’s an argument against foxholes. - James Morrow

62. People will then often say, ‘But surely it’s better to remain an Agnostic just in case?’ This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it. (If it turns out that I’ve been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would choose not to worship him anyway.) - Douglas Adams

63. Properly read, the bible is the most potent force for Atheism ever conceived. - Isaac Asimov

64. If all the Christians who have called other Christians “not really a Christian” were to vanish, there’d be no Christians left. - Anonymous

65. An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support. - John Buchan

66. Gods dont kill people. People with Gods kill people. - David Viaene

67. If God were suddenly condemned to live the life which He has inflicted upon men, He would kill Himself. - Alexandre Dumas

68. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make when in the presence of religious dogma. - Sam Harris

69. I don’t believe in God because I don’t believe in Mother Goose - Clarence Darrow

70. No philosophy, no religion, has ever brought so glad a message to the world as this good news of Atheism. - Annie Wood Besant

71. I refuse to believe in a god who is the primary cause of conflict in the world, preaches racism, sexism, homophobia, and ignorance, and then sends me to hell if I’m ‘bad’. - Mike Fuhrman

72. Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions. - Frater Ravus

73. Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-o, and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have. - Penn Jillette

74. Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power but absolute power is corrupt only in the hands of the absolutely faithful. - Anonymous

75. Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense. - Chapman Cohen

76. The inspiration of the bible depends on the ignorance of the person who reads it. - Robert G. Ingersoll

77. When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. - Robert Pirsig

78. I wonder who got the shit job of scouring the planet for the 15000 species of butterfly or the 8800 species of ant they eventually took on board Noah’s Ark. But at least we got that magical rainbow for all their trouble. - Azura Skye

79. I have no need for religion, I have a conscience. - Anonymous

80. Man has always required an explanation for all of those things in the world he did not understand. If an explanation was not available, he created one. - Jim Crawford

81. I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. - Richard Dawkins

82. What has been Christianity’s fruits? Superstition, Bigotry and Persecution. - James Madison

83. The characters and events depicted in the damn bible are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. - Penn and Teller

84. If god is the alpha and the omega. The beginning and the end, knows what has passed and what is to come, like it states in the bible, why do people pray and think it will make any difference. - Mark Fairclough

85. The finality of death is the coldest truth one must face. Religion makes the perfect distraction. - Anonymous

86. Religion is the opiate of the masses. - Karl Marx

87. If God created the world, then who created god? and who created whoever created god? So somewhere along the line something had to just be there. So why can’t we just skip the idea of god and go straight to earth? - Ryan Hanson

88. If we expect God to subscribe to one religion at the exclusion of all the others, then we should expect damnation as a matter of chance. This should give Christians pause when expounding their religious beliefs, but it does not. - Sam Harris

89. Atheists will celebrate life, while you’re in church celebrating death. - Anonymous

90. Animals do not have gods, they are smarter than that. - Ronnie Snow

91. I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever. - Daniel Boorstin

92. I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God. So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake… Religion is all bunk. - Thomas Edison

93. Fundamentalism, of any type, due to its prerequisite lack of intelligent thought, could prove to be the worst weapon of mass destruction, of all. - David J. Constable

94. To really be free, You need to be free in the mind. - Alexander Loutsis

95. Most religions prophecy the end of the world and then consistently work together to ensure that these prophecies come true. - Anonymous

96. Jesus hardly made the greatest sacrifice. He knew he would be resurrected anyway. - Anonymous

97. Religion is like a virus that affects the behaviour of its host in such a way as to propagate itself further. - Jack Pritchard

98. Religions are like pills, which must be swallowed whole without chewing. - Anonymous

99. Today’s religion will be the future’s mythology. Both believed at one time by many; but proved wrong by the clever. - Steven Crocker

100. The Bible - A Fairytale book of rules brainwashing millions. Obliviously used to help create war, kill, hate, judge and discriminate. - Anonymous

101. Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? - Douglas Adams

(I never did find an attribution for this one, so if you own it, fess up and I will properly attribute it.)

John Carter of Mars, come save me!

I've been reading a lot of moaning lately about the upcoming John Carter Movie.  Of course, it has nothing to do with the actual movie - you know, because it hasn't been released yet and so we have no idea if it's good or bad.  Here were my first comments (made to me inside my brain, because no one else listens):

For cryin' out loud it's a frickin JOHN CARTER OF MARS MOVIE people.  How many other John Carter of Mars movies have been made that you can turn to if you don't like this one?  The movie hasn't even been released yet! Just a trailer. Wasn't there *anything* in the trailer you liked?

In case you didn't know, I'm speaking of an eleven book series written by Edgar Rice Burroughs in the first half of the 20th century. The series is about a disaffected human living on earth after the war. He longs for the days of adventure. When men where men, and women would fall at their feet.  It's pulpy writing at it's finest and if you can take the old fashioned, backwards attitudes about relations between the sexes, it can actually be pretty fantastically entertaining writing!  Burroughs also created Tarzan, who to this day remains a firmly planted  cultural icon and he created at least 4 other book series including the three book Caspak series that features The Land that Time Forgot.

Learn more about Edgar Rice Burroughs at Wikipedia.

So, as you can see, I am a big fan.  I've only read a few of the Tarzan books - my interest is firmly focused on Barsoom - but I continue to try to collect all of his writings.  The paper books are quite difficult to find. I imagine this is because the first editons are now over one hundred years old, and because they were "pulp" novels, many may never have been published as high quality bound volumes. In fact several of the John Carter novels I have in later, paperback editions have all disintegrated.  Thankfully, a lot of his material is available through the Public Domain via Project Gutenberg.

As a self acknowledged "big fan" I am also biased about this project.  Because I've seen so many other properties get trashy unsympathetic treatments from Hollywood, I do not hold a lot of hope for this movie.  Oh, I have no doubt *I* will thoroughly enjoy it but I am discouraged by the comments I recently read in response to the trailers, over at IGN.com.

For your own sake, let's start with watching the actual trailers without the ignorant comments.  You can find them both over at the IMDB - John Carter - Trailer 1, John Carter Trailer 2.  Hell, you might even want to download the first book in the series from the Project Gutenberg link above, entitled A Princess of Mars.

Complaint #1 - the lead actor is icky

To quote a comment from IGN:

realdjfakt - "I'm a huge fan of the actors from Friday Night Lights and The Wire..."

I have never seen either of those shows (movies, series?) so I can't judge if any of the actors are going to be a big deal for me.  In many ways I prefer it that way.  I won't have any preconceptions of what might be right or wrong with this movie.

Complain #2 - I don't like the title

I can take it or leave it - the story is the thing for me.  Interestingly enough, director Andrew Stanton has offered an explanation of the title and it could be as classic an example as any, of why Hollywood shouldn't be allowed to make movies.  From the interview at collider.com:

"...the title had already been changed from A Princess of Mars because it was a “truth” that boys wouldn’t go see it if they kept author Edgar Rice Burroughs’ original title. But then, when they changed it to John Carter of Mars, Stanton believed it was also a “truth” that girls wouldn’t see it because apparently girls hate planets."

I can hear girls growling across the universe.  This is the type of marketing induced ass-hattery that seems to run rampant in Hollywood. I agree with some saner comments that the title of the original book, "A Princess of Mars" would outright be the best title for this movie. At least it would directly link the movie to the books upon which it is based.

Director Andrew Stanton says the movie is not entirely faithful to the word-by-word plot of Princess. He says he felt free to take memes from later books, in order to tell a better story.  I have to admit that the sense of fulfilment I get from the John Carter books is largely due to how the world of Barsoom unfolds in later volumes.

In the end he can call it "A Walk in the Tall Grass" for all I care because I think this movie is most likely to draw established fans to the theatre, and not so much new fans.  If you think you want to become a fan, read the books. They *are* the original stories after all.

Complaint #3 - this just looks like a remake of [insert recent crap remake or movie]

The comments are that this movie is a ripoff of Star Wars or (heaven forbid) Avatar, revealing the overall ignorance of humans beings when they gather in herds of more than 2.  Again, I turn to a quotation from the comments at IGN:

david alexande11 - "H P Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke and George Lucas have referenced him as a founding influence - you have got to take the guy seriously this is foundational work.  If the film looks like so many other things, that's because the conventions it established are so deeply embedded into the genre, we can't imagine that once upon a time they were novel."

As I mentioned elsewhere, this is a book that over 100 years old and to think that Avatar and Star Wars are *not* derivative is another example of how humans probably shouldn't be allowed to talk, never mind gather in  herds of more than 2.

All and all, I am excited about this new movie (oh, really?) and I'm looking forward to seeing it.  About the only thing that could sink my happy little boat right now would be an announcement that this movie is going to be ruined by being 3D.

Hollywood seems to be bankrupt of good ideas or even new ideas*** and so a movie based on one of my favourite books from way back, that apparently few have ever heard of (no one seems to be able to read for longer than 60 seconds these days) is about as close as I can get to that Christmas thrill I felt as a kid. Hey, isn't that Christmas thing coming up soon?

***bankrupt of new or good ideas

Maybe this should be another post - maybe when I have fully realized my "bankruptcy of Hollywood" rant.

Just last night I saw a trailer for the new movie "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". Yes I hear you - "Oh silly Curmudgeon-at-Large, I saw that movie a couple of years ago, what do you mean "new" movie?"

Well, some knucklehead in Hollywood decided the original movies weren't good enough and was able to convince  some marblehead in Hollywood with deep pockets that they should be remade.

Yes all three "Girl" books have already been turned into movies.  The books are written by Danish author Stieg Larsson and so the original movies are Danish but that shouldn't stop you from seeing them.  Just do what my video store hero told me to do.  When you start the DVD, go into setup and turn on the English sound track.  Yes, Scarlet my dear, that means there is English over-dubbing for the original Danish sound track.

I was skeptical but I have to say whoever did the dubbing did an incredible job.  Within 5 minutes, I was completely accustomed to the dubbing and was able to concentrate on the movie and it's story. Granted the dialogue can be sparse, but in scenes where there are full blown conversations going on, the voice actors in the over-dub are completely synced with with the on-screen actors. It's truly the best lip-sync job I have ever seen and it remains fantastic across all three movies.

I'd like to read the Larsson's books to see how they compare to the movies, but I can say this about the movies - they are riveting and suspenseful and a must see.  You are free to ignore the ass-hat versions now spurting forth from Hollywood.