Fall Colors

Day two of reasonable temperatures (below 80).  It's put me in the mood for cooler weather.  Check out all of these lovely items on Artfire.

Educate Yourself

The Internets are full of sites where you can learn interesting facts, news, and things maybe you didn't want to know.  A growing trend on the Internet has been in the form of online education.  Khan Academy paved the way for may who wanted to expand their education horizon without spending an arm and a leg.  Each month more services and sites become available.  I've collected a partial list of some of the sites I've learned about in the past few months.  Feel free to add your favorite sites in the comments.

• New Charter University - Accreddited online courses (mostly Business for now)
• ThinkTutorial - Free Computer Tutorials and Lessons
• mybringback - Programming & Science videos
• TED - Ideas worth spreading
• KhanAcademy - Science/Math tutorials
• ThinkingAllowed - Thought-provoking videos
• CS50.tv - OpenCourseware - Harvard Computer Science 50
• Open Yale Courses - OpenCourseware - Yale
• Library.nu - eBook database
• MIT - Free Online Course Material - Lectures, Assignments, Projects, Media
• Stanford University - Online course lectures, various subjects
• University of Reddit - Learn & study with your fellow Redditors
• ReadPrint - Online books
• Udacity - Computer Science related courses
• Academic Earth - Online Academic Video Lectures
• Instructables - Makes, How To, and DIY
• HowCast - Instructional Videos
• TopDocumentaryFilms - Watch free documentaries online
• DocumentaryHeaven - Watch free documentaries online
• CodeAcademy – Learn how to code
• HTMLdog – Learn HTML and CSS
• CosmoLearning – Educational website for students and teachers covering all topics

On the Beach

In celebration of the second day in a row with a heat index of over 100, here's a bit of the beach!  See the products featured in this collection on Artfire.

Follow the Ball

In which I make my first video about a ball, doing things that a ball likes to do with it's other ball friends.

Finding Toney

Sometimes I am the Queen of sidetracking..  That's partly why I start much of my writing with a pencil and a pad of paper - too many things to distract me on the Internets.  There's always the temptation to see what's on the front page of Reddit.

But I digress.  (See?  Even without the Internet, I get sidetracked.)  One of the aspects of my sidetracking carries over to researching genealogy.  More than once, I've found myself exploring not just direct ancestors but their siblings, their wives, and eventually their great grandchildren who lived just this past century.  Information that isn't necessarily critical to my family tree - but very interesting nevertheless.

So one day I focused on the family of one if my paternal great grandfathers, Benjamin Jackson, Jr.:

I knew some things about his family.  I was also familiar with many, many mistakes about his family on Ancestry.  Unfortunately, while Ancestry is great at disseminating genealogical information, the website also great at disseminating plenty of completely erroneous genealogical information.  Benjamin Jackson Jr. is listed as his own grandfather on far too many public trees (do people ever even check what they copy & paste onto their trees??).

One of the things I learned about Benjamin was the name of his mother.  I already thought that I knew her name was Lorena Toney Jackson up until I found a scanned copy of his death certificate.  Poor Benjamin had died in his forties from tuberculosis.  His father answered the particulars for his death certificate including the mother's name which was America Coleman not Lorena.  It turns out that Benjamin Sr. married America first and they had two children before she died sometime before 1870.

As I had the opportunity, I explored more on Benjamin Jr.'s siblings and half siblings.  Toney Beauregard Jackson, the baby of the family, was the last sibling I focused on and the one that I found the most information.

Ancestry's search tends to bring back everything but the kitchen sink.  I figured with a name like Toney, I'd be seeing every Tony and Anthony on the east coast returned in searches.  So instead of starting with Ancestry, I Googled Toney instead; not really expecting anything except maybe an obituary.  Toney Beauregard Jackson didn't return any hits to speak of.  But Toney B Jackson had a scholarship fund established in his name at the Citadel, a South Carolina military college.

Not one week before, I had the opportunity to see a college portrait of my father's brother - in his Citadel uniform.  This was getting exciting.

So ok, time for that Ancestry search.  Several pages into it was a Yearbook picture with more than a passing resemblance to my father and wearing a now familiar uniform.  Hello Toney.

Finding a photo on Ancestry, other than a headstone or a photocopy of a census page, is actually an uncommon experience for me.  It's funny how I'd always mentioned the Glover resemblance (something with the eyes and eyebrows) that people could see in my family.  Glover, because I always associated it with my father and therefore "Glovers".  Looking at Toney though made me realize the obvious fallacy of that.  It was the Jackson resemblance all along.

Featured Product: Earth Day In Distress

Earth Day in Distress started with a photograph taken in the mountains of Western Maryland.  Using various techniques and brushes in Photoshop, I gave the photo a more washed-out and rough feel.  This digital print is an outer reflection of inner turmoil; the contradiction of nature's beauty being overshadowed by the pollution threatening our environment.

I've never understood how business and industrialization could be so important as to put our very existence on the chopping block.  Yet year by year, it feels like we as a species are putting ourselves closer to a point of no return.  You can purchase Earth Day in Distress in my Artfire store.

Art's famous on the Internet

I thought his face looked familiar when I saw a post on BoingBoing about this video.  Watching the video, I realized who it was; that cool/funny dude who teaches Yoga over at my gym!  The first class at the gym that my mother-in-law and I went to was his class - yoga for regular guys and gals.  Art is funny as hell, cracking jokes, making comments, "SEVENTEEN!!!" he'd have the class holler.  "Seventeen years since I killed someone!"  This Gulf War veteran has his own way of coping with those memories.  Congrats Art for becoming Internet famous and making the front page of BoingBoing.

Life-Changing books you should read & why they are life-changing

Interesting thread on Reddit so far.

The Bible.
Not for any religious reason, but because it underpins so much of Western art, culture, and literature.  If you have not read it, you will miss out an awful lot.


1984.
Not necessarily because I believe it will happen (in that exact way), but more because it rings to attention many problems that are appearing/being revealed in modern society.  Specifically, the many ills, laws and other regulations inserted by states in many parts of the Western world.


The Republic by Plato.

It lays down so many of the reasons we have now for why we do things. You just have to read it if you're in anyway interested in any sort of academic pursuit.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. 

Brilliant, unsettling and impossible to put down.

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut and The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. 

Both are war related (WWII and Vietnam, respectively) but they are so beautiful, deep, touching and really give a deeper look into war and it's effects on people, especially the soldiers fighting it.

The prose is enthralling, compelling and if you don't cry in at least one part of either book, or at least have it make you contemplate life and humanity, then I don't know what to tell you.

Siddhartha. 

Each time I read it I learn something new or gain a new vantage point. I grew up catholic and before this book, I had NO exposure to the concept of no-self. I literally never had anyone in my life ever even hint about such a concept. Looking back on how much change has entered my life since then, I consider reading that book to be my "opening the wardrobe to Narnia" moment.

How to Win Friends and Influence People.

The reason why this different than your standard fare of self-help book and why it has withstood the test of time is that unlike other self help books, it isn't a simple "read this and it will change your life instantly."

Rather it is a book delineating a regimen for slow, incremental change that requires time to implement, and constant review (the author encourages constant re-reading of chapters.)

But once it is implemented, your life will change, and your social interactions and career will literally change, just not overnight.

Read the full thread here.

Steampunk'd

Steampunk is a genre whose beginnings date back to the '80's and '90's.  Blending Victorian, fantasy, and science fiction elements; Steampunk is simultaneously futuristic and antique.  Movies which help to inspire or were inspired by Steampunk include Rocketeer, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Brothers Grimm.  

It's been a while since I curated a collection on Artfire.  Steampunk has been a favorite aesthetic of mine, so here's a collection featuring some of the lovely pieces from great artists.  See the full collection here.

Weaverton Cliffs

The week that my Father died was part of a slow, inevitable process. We as a family knew he was going, it was just a question of when. Even with that knowledge, his passing that Thursday evening hit like a hammer. None of us had ever lost a close family member.

I had been playing around with the idea of doing an old AT hike that my parents and I had done 20+ years before.  That had been a hike to Weaverton Cliffs which overlooks Harpers Ferry.

This time, I could use the Internets to research the trail and get a map.  I also read trail descriptions, a six hour hike?  Yeah that I could handle, even though I wasn't in the best of shape.  

Turns out I read the hike description wrong; not six miles total - twelve miles over very rocky terrain.  Whoopsie.  

I ran out of steam less than a quarter of a mile from the cliffs.  At that point my knees were tightening up, and I'd had a minor ankle sprain.  Lunch gave me time to prop my ankle up and take a break.  Wisely I decided it was better to focus on the return hike rather than push ahead on what had become the roughest section of the trail.

The return hike became something of a push-my-body-more-than-it's-used-to situation.  I remembered one athlete's description of how he could push himself past his norm on hard hikes; break the hike down into smaller manageable sections.  So I'd look ahead to a particular tree or rock ahead on the trail and set a goal for getting there.  Meanwhile my knees were progressively getting stiffer and more painful with each hill.  Level terrain I could manage almost pain free.  Except for most sections of level terrain I had to navigate over a jumble of rocks.

I had thought that up there on the Appalachian Trail that I could connect with my Father in some way.  Sort of a spiritual ley line.  Understandably, I wasn't thinking of him as much as I had originally imagined. The demands of the hike itself on my out-of-shape body took precedence.  Calling 911 seemed like a looming possibility - especially if I couldn't get back to the trail-head before the sun set.

Then I did start hearing my Father, or rather what he would be saying if I related the story of this hike to him.  Yeah, I never should have taken on such a hike before working up to it with shorter hikes.  Yeah, I should have dressed warmer.  Yeah, it was a bit silly pushing myself to do a hike in January by myself.

Each thought brought a little smile to my face in spite of the pain and self pity I was going through.  Mentally I was starting to compare my pained shuffle to the Bataan death march.  I could see my Dad in my mind's eye snort with amusement and shake his head.

For a while, I hiked with an older couple until my knees couldn't keep up.  We had a cool conversation about different hikes in Maryland.  I managed not to spill out the story of my Father's passing - that was too fresh and too close to my heart.

By the time I took a rest and declined their kind offer to stay with me, I was less than a half mile away from my car.  I knew I could make it and found a little bit of pride creeping in, ignoring the fact that I had been contemplating the very real possibility of having to call for help not too long before.

It was worth it to spend time with my Father.  What the heck, I'd definitely wanted to do it again - on a shorter hike

Improve Yourself

Collated from various sources, here's a list of ways to
Improve Yourself

• Work out every other day.
• Learn something new every day.
• Give back to the community at least once a week.
• Read a book.
• Make your own meals, no fast food.
• Clean out your living space. Get rid of anything you haven’t used in 1 year.
• Make a list of everything you need to do, now or later. Apply a “next steps” to each one with an estimated time to complete and a date of when you’ll do it. Add these dates to you calendar and tell everyone that you are busy at those times if they try to plan something with you.
• Simplify your life. Don’t buy every new gadget.
• Watch a TED talk.
• Listen to Radiolab and This American Life.
• Get a library card.
• Meditate 15 minutes/day.
• Walk to a place that you would normally drive.
• Read something written from a perspective that you do not agree with, and if you still disagree without being disagreeable.
• Think about somebody who has done you wrong. Then forgive them, truly forgive them in your heart, whether they want your forgiveness or not. Whether they know you’ve forgiven them or not.
• Donate money and/or time.
• Do some pushups, sit-ups, and a stretch before bed.
• Listen to an entire album.
• Give somebody the benefit of the doubt.
• Write down a personal 1, 3, and 5 year plan for yourself. Post copies in places that would be helpful to you.
• Watch a classic movie.
• Watch a classic book.
• Yoga
• Watch http://youtu.be/cRmbwczTC6E
• Forgive someone.

Quantum Mechanics explained like you're five

OffColorCommentary does a brilliant job.

Okay, see this stick? If I swing it, it moves swoosh. If I hit it against something, it stops moving smack. If I let go of it, it falls down clatter. You're not very surprised by this, right? That's because everything in the world uses the same rules. About three hundred years ago, a guy named Isaac Newton wrote down all the rules, and we call them the laws of physics.

Scientists still use his versions of the laws for all sorts of stuff, but there are a couple places they found where things are a little bit different. One of them is for things that are very, very small. So if I break this stick in half crack, both halves work just like they did before, right? swoosh, smack, clatter And if I break one of the halves snap it does too. If you had a tiny saw and a microscope, you could keep making smaller and smaller sticks, and they would all work the same way, right? Well it it turns out that when things get small enough, smaller than things that are too small to see, they start to act a little bit weird.

So imagine this stick is just one of those tiny tiny pieces inside the stick. If I throw it to you and you catch it, then someone uses a stick-finding machine, it might turn out to still be in my hand, or it might be in your hand like it would if it was a normal stick. Yeah, it's weird: scientists were really confused about this when they started seeing it, and a whole lot of them working together took about fifty years to get it right, because it's so strange. Eventually they figured out that the tiny stick, and everything else that small, is actually always in multiple places at once. So even though we think it's in my hand, it's actually also in my other hand, and already on the ground, and still in my hand but just a tiny bit to the side of where we thought it was. Even stranger, the stick is more in some of these places than it is in others: most might be in this one spot in my hand, but less in my other hand, and just a tiny bit on the ground. And it's all still the same stick. This is all really weird, but one thing about it is still perfectly normal: all of the places the stick is in still follow Newton's laws. If I drop the stick from my hand onto the stick on the ground, it'll stop when it hits the ground, and the pieces will add up, so most of the stick will be on the ground.

(I think now would be a good point to mention that yes, a real conversation with a 4 year old wouldn't go like this. You'd have to stop and answer questions and re-explain pieces of it. I'm just proof-of-concepting this.) Okay, so remember when I said the stick could be in more than one place? It can also be going more than one speed! So some of the stick could be on the ground and not moving, and some could be in the middle of falling down, and some could be just starting to fall out of my hand so it's still moving slowly. Another very smart man, this one is named Werner Heisenberg, figured out that the more different places the stick is in, the less speeds it is moving in, and the more speeds it has, the less different places its in.

(PS: grammar Nazis, it's really "less," not "fewer." Can you figure out why?)

So if all the tiny parts of everything are acting this strange, how is everything so normal when you get back to big things like us? Well, there is one more odd thing about tiny tiny things that I haven't told you yet. Say I have TWO tiny tiny sticks. You know how one can be in a whole bunch of places at once? Well it turns out that sometimes you have to take both sticks together to figure out how much is in any place. So maybe for most of the tiny sticks, stick one is in my hand and stick two is on the ground, and there's also some where stick two is in my hand, and stick one is on the ground. But, there's no sticks where both are in my hand at all, even though both sticks by themselves are at least a little in my hand.

(This is where the kid will have the most questions, and also probably where anyone reading this is going to have questions, so ask away. Though tell me whether I'm allowed to use grown-up words like "particle" or I have to keep saying "tiny stick.")

When how much of one tiny tiny thing is in one spot depends on how much of another tiny tiny thing is in another spot, scientists call those two things "entangled." That makes it sound like it's a special, weird case, but it's really the other way around. Scientists go through lots of trouble to get tiny things that aren't entangled so they can study them, but just about everything is entangled most of the time. All the tiny tiny pieces of stick in this actual stick are very entangled with eachother. That's how big things like us and this stick don't seem like they're in more than one place at a time. The pieces of stick are all in a few places at once, but every different group of tiny sticks adds up to the big stick in my hand, even if the tiny pieces could be swapped around a little.

(As a final note, I've always heard the phrase as "if you can't explain it to a particularly bright 4 year old, you don't understand it yourself." I think we lost the dim one in the second paragraph.)

Dealing with grief

Dealing with grief. It sounds so melodramatic to me. I've always felt cut off from such emotions having never experienced the loss of anyone close. Until recently.

Now my days vary; I can be be-bopping along doing my thing one minute, sobbing my eyes out the next. It's hard to share, these feelings. It's hard not to feel that the more public I am with my feelings, the more I cheapen the memory of my father. Yet at the same time, the grief is still there.

So what to do? Go on just like this? Does it get better? Because some days it feels like the depression is a very big black hole. Maybe counseling? Yeah that's sooooo appealing. Shit I don't know.

It's that time of year again

It's that time of year again. I'm flipping through various seed catalogs, stalking potential seed swaps, and planning out this year's gardening calendar. Cold January days bring out the hunger for a garden bursting with green. Last year's successes inspire plans an even larger harvest this year. Finally, mistakes from last year will not be repeated this growing season - instead I shall make brand new mistakes!

Things I learned:
1. Don’t plant tomatoes within 2 feet of my fence.
2. Make my fence higher.
3. Deer like tomato blossoms.
4. Wait. Start tomato seeds indoors in March, not early February.
5. Grow extra seedlings and share them around the community garden again.

I have white sage seeds planted that will (hopefully) be sprouting any day. Next up, starting a new indoor herb garden of chervil, chives, and various basil.

Hellvis' response to "What are some unwritten photography rules?"

"Okay, I've been drinking so I'm gonna lay this shit out for you guys, otherwise I wouldn't bother. Former university photo prof and former professional photographer here.

The rule of thirds is horse shit. The 'critics' looked at zillions of awesome photos and from them distilled out that things should be placed on the thirds but they didn't understand why. This is the deal:

There is a balance point between tension and static in a photo. Static is near the center slightly above true center. Look at a portrait. Static to a Tee. The most tension in a photo is right at the extreme edge of the photo. It's so much tension that you'll rarely find a photo that uses the edge effectively. I had a student once though that did a shot of a girl in a pool with her face right at the edge of the photo and it was amazing.

The BALANCE between static and tension is halfway between the edge and the center which just so happens to be on the thirds. If you understand the reason the 'rule of thirds' works you can exploit it to your advantage. Put it closer to the edge for more tension and closer to the center for more static / relaxation and on the thirds for a good balance.

Second nugget for all y'all.

In painting we talk about composition. Composition means you're adding elements to the picture. Unfortunately because photography came along way after painting we still use the same words but those words are horseshit in this artistic medium. You don't compose fuckall unless you're taking pictures of still lifes.

Photography is all about isolation.

You don't get to compose, you certainly don't get to compose mountains, or trees (unless you're Fred Picker*). What you're doing in photography is better called:
ISOLATION.

You're isolating your subject from distractions. When people give you the advice to get closer? What they're saying is to isolate from distractions only they're idiots who are parroting shit they've read on the internet and don't understand the underlying meaning.

Because you don't get to compose your only tool in creating meaning and making that meaning powerful in a photograph is to isolate from distractions. You have to get in close, zoom in, walk up, get in your subject's grill and take the pic so that there is nothing taking away from what you're trying to convey. For big subjects like the Sistine Chapel you can't get the whole thing in. That's a tourist shot. Back up until you can take a picture of the whole thing. Bullshit, now you have a tiny cathedral in your wide angle lens and it looks like ass. Move in until you're taking a detail. When you can't see the edges of something then it might go on forever. Portraits? Don't include the environment unless it helps tell the story and 99% of the time it doesn't.

You're a shitty editor, in most cases.

W Eugene Smith was one of the greatest photographers that ever lived but he was a shitty editor. You are not emotionally divested from your work and can't make objective decisions about it. Be brutally honest about your work and don't be afraid to throw away a photo you worked hard on. Sometimes it just doesn't work. It breaks your heart but it is what it is.

Backgrounds are not subjects. 85% of the photography on the internet is a background in search of a subject. If you want a great photograph you need a center of interest and don't bullshit yourself into thinking that tree over there is the center of interest. It's not. It's a fucking tree that doesn't add shit to the photo. Backgrounds make great uh.. backgrounds on your desktop but they aren't art. If you shoot landscapes carry a red poncho around and stick it on your wife/girlfriend/boyfriend and have them walk out into the scene and be your subject. You just need an anchor.

Finally, shoot, a lot. These days you don't have to pay for film and developing. It's a two-edged sword. On one hand it's awesome because you can shoot mountains of images without cost. On the other hand the cost of fucking up is so low that you don't learn important lessons. Forget to include the filter factor? Ah who cares, re-shoot. It won't stick. When Ansel shot Moonrise over Hernandez he had literally ONE SHOT. He couldn't find his meter and so he had to base the exposure on the known luminosity of the moon and go for it. After he exposed the first sheet the light went off the crosses and the picture was not worth shooting. He had one sheet and so he had to develop it to make everything come out like he wanted. Now we'd just composite in photoshop and it'd be fine but sometimes you don't get a second chance. If you don't learn those hard lessons about forgetting stuff it's going to bite you in the ass one day. You'll only get 10 seconds of good light, or something, and miss the opportunity because you were checking the screen. Know your tools, spend time being familiar with them, and shoot by God shoot your ass off. Shoot until you wear the shutter button out and then buy another camera and wear that out because that's how you develop your eye.

All of you have unique vision. Some of you are probably best suited to shooting senior portraits. I believe you're born with the eye for pictures, you have it or you don't - however, all of you have a vision. Don't take instruction from assholes who couldn't make it as a pro, don't take my word for shit. Shoot your OWN VISION, develop it. Don't become a clone of someone you admire. The worst problem with photography schools is they create neat little clones of the professors. That's horse shit. Break out of the mold and exploit your vision. Nobody becomes amazing by being what came before them.

That is all.

tl;dr: Fucking go read it you lazy fucker.

Also: cocks."

Source 

Redditor words to live by

The real trick is learning to push yourself. My guess is you could slide by in school, and your parents didn't push you, so now is when you've got to push yourself.

First, take out a piece of paper. No seriously stop reading and get a piece of paper. It's a fucking piece of paper, trust me on this get one out.

Got one, great. Split it in three. I don't care how.

Write "What I want to do" in one section.

Write "What I can do well" in another.

Write "What I enjoy doing" in a third.

Got that?

What I want to do Leave this alone for now

What I can do well these are things you did well in school, at church, at home. I don't care if it is "Beat level 32 on Mario Bros", write down whatever you can do well. Keep going. Once you think you are done, think of five more things.

What I enjoy doing again, I don't care if it is "Masturbate in the corner while quietly weeping" write what you love to do down. After you've written everything down, write fiver more things. Remember we're learning how to push ourselves here.

ok, now go through and circle, match up, draw a line between (or whatever) things that you do well, that match with things that enjoy doing. If you have nothing, you didn't really try. Start over with a new piece of paper (i.e. If I enjoy watching porn, and I'm good at masturbating, that's something I'd tie together... so you should have SOMETHING that matches)

Ok, now start looking for jobs where what you ENJOY doing matches something you are GOOD at. Not jobs you could get right now... no you're making a list of DREAM jobs.

Got that. Things that would be awesome.

Put the list of potential jobs under What I want to do

Now prioritize them: 1. Hugh Heffner 2. IBM Engineer 3. Playboy bunny (Sex change required) 4. Muppeteer etc.

I don't care how outlandish they are, just do it.

Then research how someone actually got to do that kind of job. What college classes did they take? What did they do as hobbies?

If what they did makes you feel alive inside, like really an energy, start planning your path. You'll know not just "I'll take engineering courses" but you'll take Bridge building 302, and know what you want out of the course. Everything they say will have 1000 times more meaning.

If it doesn't make you feel alive inside, then pick the next priority and read about someone who did that. Eventually you'll find courses and small jobs that lead you to your chosen career, and you'll enjoy not only that end dream job, but the journey that go you there.

What's more, people will see you as "Driven". It'll make you more attractive to women, and your parents won't be able to nag that tithing or other church things are making you miserable.

This is the great secret they suppress in school. This is what is taught in thousand dollar job seminars. And you just got it for free.

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