Raw Consciousness

MY LIFE - Peak oil....

Anybody heard/read about this before?

http://www.americanassembler.com/issues/peak_oil/peak_oil.html

Bman sent me a link this morning... it all sounds fairly rational... so I wonder...

MY LIFE - what kind of movie are you...

Answering 18 questions, I came up with:

"You are Schindler's List. You put the needs of others before your own. You strive to be helpful to your fellow man."

Scary thing: I entered the quetions again and got the same movie. The questions this time, at least a third were all new.

Hmmm....

Does being a Schindler's List movie include being a doormat or martyr? I am truly sick of those.

MY LIFE - Hmm bummer....

Sometimes I feel as If I am "connecting" with someone in a friendly trusty way and all of a sudden then I realize that there was nothing beyond the common courtesy and, what I will call right now - and the term may be wrong - "circumstantial friendship" - ... where either the context of a particular group your are with in a weekend, or the work environment, or some other whatever seems to join both more than it actually is.

Well I thought I was more "in the inside" and I dared to ask a couple of more personal questions, but faced a wall. On the goodside, the invidibual involved was very kind in letting me know of that... very few times I get that luxury.

It's still a bummer though. I feel - whether rational or not- rejected. The more I admire the person involved, the worse I feel... but it's all good.. looks like I have learned something in life because this is not affecting me as much as it used to, and I can already see the light at the end.

VIDEO GAMES - N-gage 2???

From Gamasutra:

"N-Gage 2 Details Revealed
After the company yesterday announced a major press conference for 14th April in central London, Nokia’s Kirsi Kotilainen has hinted at a major redesign of the N-Gage.

Speaking at GDC Kotilainen indicated that the next iteration of the hardware would have its speaker and earpiece mounted on the face of the device and that users would no longer have to unplug the battery to install new game cartridges"

Nokia, please... just like.. give it up. I don't know, maybe there's a big market in Europe for this.. but frankly... I mean... can you truly compete against Nintendo & Sony here? Or maybe you know something marketwise that I don't, which is in spite of the infinitively smaller numbers you will have, you will still earn some cash.

MY LIFE - Trader Joe's

Hey Chicagoans! There are Trader Joe's in Chicago land... go and check them out:

www.traderjoes.com

This is the supermarket chain I have been talking about that has *quality* food *and* cheap. Imagine Whole Foods, but smaller variety, but FAR cheaper.

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY - sunset...

Here's a sunset of today, Saturday, from my balcony. I wanted some of the ground to show up but only this shot captured the crispness of the colors the way I wanted without post processing.

- Raist

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY - how about this....

Not what I captured originally in shape and feel, and I still would like the original shape and feel but I think this is still cool:

What do you think?

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY - framing....

Here's a picture I took today at my old apartment complex where I had to verify I didn't hand them the wrong keys today... that I feel looks awesome except... umm... the framing... I hate post processing for making photos better.. I feel it's kinda like cheating in a way (for my own work) but I may play with post processing to see if I can put a right perspective or something cool.

Anyway, I think otherwise the photo looks pretty good...

The photo is taken with +0.67EV exposure compensation, SOFT, and Chrome color settings. Yes, if you click you will see the full big 2832x2138 pixels original photograph straight from my Fuji F700 camera.

MY LIFE - politics & caught

If you have not seen this video, you just have to. Talk about backtracking, "mis spoken" words, screwing up. Way to go Rumsfeld. Another reason why the current USA administration needs to get out of the office.

MY LIFE- USA - Founded on Christianity?

One thing that I have truly learned is that history is written by the winners. Very indeedly so. Since there are still many right-wing christians that insist on how this nation was founded on top of christianity - somethign which IS NOT TRUE, I have set my mind in doing what I can do to help this myth die.

Here are a couple of very interesting links with references:

http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/ffnc/

http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/tripoli/tripoli.htm

And now for a couple of very interesting quotes:

"Thomas Jefferson interpreted the 1st Amendment in his famous letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in January 1, 1802:

"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State." "

Treaty of Tripoli

Unlike governments of the past, the American Fathers set up a government divorced from religion. The establishment of a secular government did not require a reflection to themselves about its origin; they knew this as an unspoken given. However, as the U.S. delved into international affairs, few foreign nations knew about the intentions of America. For this reason, an insight from at a little known but legal document written in the late 1700s explicitly reveals the secular nature of the United States to a foreign nation. Officially called the "Treaty of peace and friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli, of Barbary," most refer to it as simply the Treaty of Tripoli. In Article 11, it states:

"As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

HOW IRONIC! This is when signing a treaty with friendly intent with a Muslim nation!!!! Those friking terrorists!???!

Why is this never taught in the classroom?