The other day, someone said to me (and I honestly can’t quite remember who or where, but I seem to recall someone on 365project.org) that I should watch a documentary named “The Case For Christ”, as it was made by a sceptical guy who, upon investigating some science things, suddenly realised the one true path and became a Christian – a guy named Lee Strobel.
Being somewhat interested in this field I already knew his name, and the “Oh but I used to be an atheist!” card he attempts to play. If he really wasn’t already a Christian when he set out to make this documentary, then his choice of experts is pretty amazingly coincidental – they all turn out to be pro-Christian “scientists” from pro-ID fronts like The Discovery Institute! What are the chances?!
If he really wasn’t already a Christian, why did he use the most retarded conservative-right-wing-hardline-Christian form of language when talking about “committed atheism” and “darwinism” and suchlike? Curious… veeery curious!
Anyway, I decided to sit through the thing, as it’d had an effect on the person who said I should watch it, and I wanted to respect that. So, notepad.exe open by my side to keep track of bits to research, off I went.
Then An Hour (And A Bit More For Rewinding To Check They Really Tried To Make That Claim, A Few Times) Happened
Then I sat down and started writing this, lamenting that my amusing title didn’t factor in the extra hours it was going to take to research and write up the problems contained within the hour of absolute horse-shit I’d just witnessed, and that extending it would kill its brevity. Ah, the struggles of a literary retard. Anyway – ah yes.
Fortunately, this guy saved me the trouble of both wasting yet more hours, and factoring a mention of them in anywhere, writing, as he has, a pretty thorough commentary on the various mistakes and fallacies of both Strobel’s “experts” themselves and the claims they jointly make. He includes references too. It’s very good. Being a big fan of “not re-inventing the wheel” these days, I smiled a lot, deleted the paragraphs I’d already written, and wrote this part instead.
So that’s that.
Or Is It?
As the above-linked critique is pretty off-putting in its length, I wanted to provide a few handy snippets here, to a few things.
No, 600 scientists did not sign anything refuting the modern theory of evolution, they signed something saying “Darwin’s original ideas do not give a complete picture on their own”, which is true (there’s been progress since he came up with the original hypothesis, you know), and the Discovery Institute then published it with a misleading title. Also, only about 25% of them are even biologists. The modern theory of evolution is a scientific fact, it is not doubted by the scientific community at large, it is perfectly stable, and has a vast body of evidence behind it. There is no “controversy” as ID proponents like to claim.
Michael Behe has been peddling the same “irreducible complexity” line for years, despite his only examples of it having been refuted many times. During the Kitzmiller vs Dover case Behe maintained that there could not be an evolutionary answer to the existence of the immune system, despite being presented with several books detailing how it came about, which he said he had not read, and would not read, for “God did it” was the only possible answer to him, despite what “actual facts” might say. He’s probably the most well known of the retards Strobel turns to.
DNA’s “information” is not “a language” in the sense that we use “language” to communicate; the analogy is completely false. To abstract it and call it “information”, “language” etc and attach emotion and extra dimension to it is entirely unfounded. Besides which, our languages did evolve naturally over time, emerging as a useful system to have, they didn’t just appear one day, and nobody sat down and designed them from the outset. So the analogy could swing entirely in favour of evolution if spun a different way.
TL;DR
Strobel was never in any doubt as to his belief in the Christian deity, and it shows throughout. All of his “experts” ignore crucial evidence, and/or straight make stuff up, in order to back up their pro-deity beliefs.
You cannot have a scientific argument for a non-scientific thing, basically. Strobel and his band of merry blingwads need to stop trying to create them, because it can’t be done. If it could be, then god would be able to be tested (that’s what science does), shown to exist/not, and the question would be solved (and then someone would come along and invent a new god character, unable to be tested scientifically, and we’d be where we are already, all over again).
When you desaturate it a little bit in Lightroom. What? This:
Amy Hughes from 365project posted up a new challenge earlier today, for a bunch of us to take a shot of a common object, and see how varied the results would be. I had a bit of a crazy idea and ended up with this:
The smoke looking like condensation as if it’d been in the freezer or something. Well, I’ve tried sticking stuff in the freezer to get nice billowy condensation shots before, and it didn’t work at all, so I got a bit creative this time…
Boiling water into steamer, light hob under steamer; generate smoke steam.
Place can above vented steamer pan; smoke steam eventually wafts around can.
Panic! Wall tiles too light, camera can’t see smoke steam!
Get chopping board, balance precariously on steamer handle; steam visible to camera.
Panic! Can looks dim and indistinct!
Grab conically-surrounded light bulb from light tent setup, angle upwards to illuminate can + smoke steam; can looks rad.
Et voila.
To finish, some desaturation in Lightroom to enhance the frosty look of the can, and lots of luminance noise reduction to combat the ISO1600 necessary to get the shutter quick enough to capture the smoke steam. Ended up using 1/400, as anything lower than this the fast moving smoke steam was just an invisible blur.
I’ve just been awoken, for the third time in recent memory, in the early hours of the morning, by my computer deciding to play the YouTube-based music video I’d left open in a browser tab, all by itself, for no reason.
Well, I say “for no reason”, but that reason can only possibly be “because the blasted thing is haunted”, I’ve come to realise.
Just to get specific here:
Open a web browser tab to YouTube, find a track, listen to it
Mmm, sounds nice. Think I’ll leave that tab open for repeated listening
Haven’t touched it since it stopped playing. Timer bar thing is played out
Some time passes…
Go to bed!
I’m asleep now. Wow it’s all nice and fluffy in here (apart from nightmares like the other night where I was in a house made of glass being bombarded with bricks hurled by local toughs who the police refused to deal with because “you’re not ethnic”)
Oh no, hold the phone; I’m actually awake. Hrm. What the fuck’s that noise?
Oh it’s that track I left open in JewTube… WTF how can it be playing?!
I’m standing at the PC now. The timer bar in JewJewbe is still played out, the “play” icon also is indicating that… nothing should be playing
… and yet... it… plays…
Only Viable Conclusion: PC Is Haunted
It plays by itself, and doesn’t indicate that it’s playing.
It’s clear enough to me.
My PC is haunted.
By a ghost.
I don’t know who it’s the ghost of, but it seems to be someone who wants to kill me via destroying my sleep cycle… and who is only able to achieve this in one very specific way.
It’s probably Patrick Swayze, “star” of “Ghost”. In fact yes I’m 100% certain it’s him.
Fuck You, Patrick Swayze (‘s Ghost)
I’d really like to be asleep right now, and not sat here writing this stupid thing.
So I knew Google had rolled out some pretty impressive speed updates in the last few months, and were updating portions of their index much more rapidly than they’ve ever done before, but I’d not had a first hand experience of it myself until just now.
About an hour later I post a comment, mentioning how conspiracy theorist retards think the logo contains the Eye Of Osiris
~5 minutes later OP replies to me
~5 minutes later I see there’s been a reply, so go to Google and search starbucks eye of osiris to find mention of these idiots, to demonstrate to OP
I find my own comment from 365project.org listed #3 in the results
Spook!
Now, 365project.org is moderately busy. It had about 5,000 new people sign up to it at the start of the year, so it’s got reasonable traffic and presence, but in the grand scheme of things is a drop in the ocean. Yet a fresh comment made to it has appeared in Google’s index within 10 minutes. That’s pretty astonishing, considering the size of Google’s index.
Of course, it could be that it’s only indexing the site once per day and this day’s crawl just happened to coincide with my comment, but… it’s awfully coincidental, if so.
¬_¬
Update O’Clock
Hrm. Not 5 minutes after making this post, the post itself is now appearing third. From my tiny blog, that gets no visitors, and is by several orders of magnitude a much tinier drop in the ocean than 365project.org.
1280 x 1024!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Haha DYSWIDT?!?!?!!?1 etc
But no, really. I don’t “do” New Years Retributions because they’re generally done in mawkish ways by mawkish sorts and abandoned inside of January… and why only decide to reboot yourself once per year? Stop being mawkish. What’s in a name anyway? A new year’s just another day; why not resolve to better yourself on March 23rd?
So, with that said, let’s get mawkish!
1. Stop Using The Word “Mawkish”
Bah, if I must.
2. Be More Hydrated
Dihydrogen monoxide is serious business. Yes, we’ve entered the realm of 100% E/N Bullshit, so you can safely stop reading.
3. Gym-Me-Do
As started in the latter portions of twenty-ten, one must continue ones dedication to gym whoring in a fashion that’d make Roy Castle go “Now that’s dedication”.
4. Maintain Photographic Endeavours
While my 365 project was a royal pain in the ass at times, I did rather love doing some of those “shoots”, so let’s continue to do so… if a tad less frequently.
5. Publish An Android App
I’m pretty much in awe of my new Desire HD and the possibilities of the “mobile space”, and want to get in on the action. The first obstacle is thinking of something to create…
6. Amusing Culmination
Come up with a witty ending for my shit “New Year’s Resolutions” post. I’ll leave this until last.
Picture the scene: you picks up your mobile phone, and you dials in a specific class of number, usually free from a land line – an 0800, say. Now perhaps other networks are different but, with Orange, you presses dial and the first thing you’s greeted with is a lovely little pre-recorded message;
You’ll be charged for making this call. How much will depend on your Orange service plan. If you wish to continue, stay on the line and we’ll put you through.
Which, let’s not gets it twisted, is helpful. It’d normally be a free call, but from a mobile it isn’t, so they let you know; helpful. Well, helpful for the first handful of times. After that, it’s just an annoyance. Now, let’s not gets it twisted [part 2], it’s not so annoying that I’m losing sleep over it, but still. Why does it needs to be there on every call?
Ah yes – for the retards who would complain if it weren’t. For the utter blingwads out there who aren’t capable of remembering such simple things as “0800 numbers aren’t free from mobiles”. I can only presume such retards exist, or why would the message need to play out on every call? Despite what Derka #1 (his actual name) initially said when I phoned Orange on the off-chance this’d be configurable per-account just now, it isn’t possible to disable it.
Gnnhh.
Picture the scene: you turns on your TV, and your Virgin Media TV box thing, and you fancies watching, say, an episode of god-mode-genius cartoon comedy series South Park. You goes to the on demand part, you locates your episode, and you clicks play – but what’s this? Ah! You have to enter a PIN code because it’s 18+ content, and it’s before 9pm. Oh, you silly sausage, what did you think, that you actually had control over your media box doohicky? Silly silly!
So you picks up your mobile phone, and you phones Virgin Media’s help line;
You’ll be charged for making this call. How much will depend on your Orange service plan. If you wish to continue, stay on the line and we’ll put you through.
You grits your teeths, and wistfully dedicate a few more seconds of your life to Retards. Eventually you’re through, and you enquire as to how to disable this silly PIN system, given you’re an adult (well…) and have no kids around;
Sorry sir, but you can’t do that. No, you can’t disable the family controls. No sir I don’t know what “flags in the firmware” means or how you can change them, even if you can see them in the read-only options screens. It’s not retarded sir it’s just company policy.
So you sighs to yourself, sets a PIN you couldn’t possibly forget even if you tried, and curse out those retards and blingwads once more. Of course, family controls are useful – for those people who are too lazy to discipline and manage their kids themselves, they can let technology do it. That’s all good. But why can’t it be disabled?
Retards, making life difficult for power users since forever.
Had an idea today – how about shining a torch onto the back of my finger, and actually painting with my finger? Light shining through, maybe I’d be able to paint with fingerprints being visible!?
Well, my mini maglite torches weren’t bright enough to shine through my fingers strongly enough for that. So I just did these instead:
I did cheat though – sitting in front of the camera I wrote these the right way as I was looking, so had to flip them horizontally. Derp. Let’s get literal:
Talking of derp:
Also: shining a light into your own eyeball and trying to light paint with it by moving your head slowly in front of the camera: actually stupid. That shot didn’t work at all, and left me unable to see (exaggeration: fairly strong) out of my right eye for several minutes. Oh man!
Bokeh. Pronounced “bow-key” (ish) it’s a word I find enormously phonetically annoying which means “stuff in a photograph what ain’t in focus, like”; technically speaking, of course.
Well, specifically, points of light/colour which aren’t in focus, oft-times looking similar to this:
Well, that’s all well and good, but it’s rather boring. Luckily, due to some stupendously complex trickery of the photons, it’s possible to liven things up and shape this “bokeh” yourself, whilst leaving the contents of your focal plane perfectly intact. There’s a fine tutorial on how to do it that there’s no point me re-writing, but the basics are:
get a lens with suitably low f-number
get a bit of card (or paper)
cut out the shape you want your “bokeh” to be in from your card (the linked tutorial explains how big to make it, which is important to get right)
align this now be-holed card in front of your lens (as close as possible)
????
profit
Mostly, as in that tutorial, people tend to create little heart- or star-shaped pseudo-lenses and thus create heart- or star-shaped “bokeh”, which is improving on the vanilla… but pretty played out.
I decided to go one step dumber better, and made the below. Now in this example I don’t have anything in my focal plane so you’ll just have to take my word for it for that stuff in focus wouldn’t be in the shape of STEVE, but, it wouldn’t.
Much better!
How? This:
Two 100W bulbs shining through holes poked in a black cardboard box, with the two parts of my little custom bokeh-pseudo-lens-holder(tm, naturally) shown there too. On the left, my painstakingly carved out “STEVE lens”, with the holder to insert it in to (which then fits snugly over my 60mm f/2.8 prime) on the right. In this way I can easily carve out other shit custom bokeh lenses and slot them in to the same holder. Bingo!
The size of your STEVEs (or hearts, or stars) depends entirely on how far out of focus the points of light are, so you can achieve varying effects with this:
Neat-oh!
P.S. I was hooked up to this tutorial by This Guy Named Jonti who does video production stuff in Brighton and is all round a bit of a camera dude. Happy now?!
With quite some scepticism I clicked the link to the video entitled The XX Gon’ Give It To Ya (DMX Vs. The XX). Not being, generally, a fan of “mash” “ups”, and with these two being so contrasting, how could this ever work?
Well, this is how.
If you like it as much as I do, there’s an mp3 available from The Hood Internet, who created the thing.
