Cartoons: the elephant in the room

Today's mix includes cartoonists' comments on the recent FCC (Federal Communications Commission) ruling on net neutrality, the Republican Party, jobs for potential terrorists, and pizza delivery via drone.

It's beginning to look like even some Republicans are unhappy with their party.

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Mike Luckovich, The Week

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Apparently, Americans are ready and waiting for delivery by drone.

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Chan Lowe, The Week

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Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast admits: "Yes, I’ll Say It: Marie Harf Had a Point." Few in the news media appear to agree.

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Michael Ramirez, The Week

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In this cartoon the FCC is portrayed as antiquated. Lawrence Lessig says it's the internet in America that's behind the times:

Defenders of the status quo are now frantically filling the tubes with FUD about the FCC's decision. But as you work through this FUD, keep one basic fact clear. Relative to practically every other comparable nation, America's broadband sucks. Seriously, sucks. Even France beats us in cost and quality. And as the genius Yochai Benkler established in the monumental report by the Berkman Center commissioned by the FCC after Obama was elected, the single most important reason our broadband sucks is the sell-out regulatory strategy of the prior decade at least. Nations that imposed neutrality-like rules beat us, in cost and quality. They have more competition, faster growth, and better access. So for anyone remotely connected to reality-based policy making, it has been clear forever that America made a wrong turn in its regulatory strategy, and that we needed an about face.

BTW, FUD stands for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.

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Nate Beeler, The Week

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IMHO, with respect to net neutrality and many other federal issues, the elephant in the room is American worship of the almighty dollar.

-- Marge

DIY: take air in, let air out

The art of breathing, pure

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"Breathing is something all humans do to live" may be a given, but most of us forget about breathing -- we just do it. And often badly. For example, when I'm working at the computer and concentrating on something, I forget to breathe.

For survival there's a 'Rule of Threes': you can last 3 minutes without air, 3 hours without shelter in extreme conditions, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food. There are variations, of course, but then this is a rule. Some have survived 8 to 10 days without water and we used to practice holding our breaths for 7 minutes. But rules are rules, right?

So why bother learning to breathe better? Because many disciplines teach that correct breathing is essential for success. Disciplines such as sports, music (especially singing), and yoga. Breathing is also touted as a way to relax and revitalize. I've put together a playlist that demonstrates some of the rationales and breathing techniques. At the end of the playlist is a lovely example of what music training can do.

Some webpages that talk about breathing are Time Magazine: "6 Breathing Exercises;" Sing Wise: "Correct Breathing and 'Support' for Singing;" Livestrong: "Sports Breathing Techniques;" and DoYogaWithMe: "Yoga Breathing Exercises – Pranayama Videos."

Here's a video you may enjoy that shows how musical training can be applied.

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-- Marge

Suspended leaps, controlled spins

Sergei Polunin-David LaChapelle, "Take Me to Church" by Hozier, YouTube

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A video of Sergei Polunin dancing, directed by David Lachapelle, crossed my radar the other day.

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The sheer athleticism of danseurs (male ballet dancers in French; in Italian it's ballerino, as opposed to ballerina), is to me a wonder to behold. Beatifully controlled, visually exciting athleticism.

I know of two other well-known dancers in this discipline: Nureyev and Baryshnikov. Nureyev is most often seen dancing with Margot Fonteyn, as seen below in Les Sylphides, Waltz No. 7.

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Baryshnikov's leaps amaze. For seconds he seems suspended in the air.

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As an aside, I include this video because of the dramatic, well-designed sets. The music is nice, too.

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Any post about ballet would be lacking if the amount of hard, sweaty work that these finished, fairytale productions require weren't mentioned. If you get a chance and the dancemaster permits, visit a local ballet studio to see what I mean. Here's a sneak peak at rehearsals for "The Nutcracker" by the Royal New Zealand Ballet.

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If ballet looks to you like it could be a good way to exercise, there's a series of workout DVDs produced by the New York City Ballet and available at Amazon. You can preview a DVD here.

-- Marge

Cartoons: Already missing Jon Stewart

"Jon Stewart to Leave 'The Daily Show' This Year," says the Rolling Stone. And it's sad news indeed. For me Jon Stewart is the voice of reason in a stridently polarized world. His forte was commenting on the news of the day.

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John Darkow, The Week

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Another reporter, this one supposedly a 'real' one, is leaving his post, having been shot down for gross inaccuracies, "Brian Williams' False 2003 Iraq Helicopter Claim Draws Scrutiny To Other War Exploits."

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Adam Zyglis, The Week

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Forbes has an interesting comparison of the two: "Brian Williams, Jon Stewart And The Line Between Real And Fake News."

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Chris Britt, The Week

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Meanwhile, more trouble on the internet superhighway: "Cost of Anthem's data breach likely to exceed $100 million."

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Gary Varvel, The Week

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And, of course, my (almost) weekly shot at the filthy rich.

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Walt Handelsman, The Week

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-- Marge

DIY: presenting your best face

Getting a good mobile selfie can be a challenge. (Your shower curtain in the background likely says something about your social life or absence thereof.) As you probably know, there are apps for processing your mugshot, beautifying it, and changing the background. Here's a survey of them.

Two list articles that give some good information are at Bustle and dotComplicated. There are so many more apps available. If you're paying for the app, try to pick one that has a review rating greater than 4, less than that is too buggy.

If beauty, or retouching, is your main concern, then an app like Facetune is what you want. Here's an example of what it does.

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Facetune Example, First Coast News

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Photo Editor Pro (Android, free) offers many options including frames, filters, stickers, and one-tap auto enhance.

Photobucket has a mobile app available for both Apple and Android. With it you can animate via a GIF maker; add filters, text, stickers, and more; and auto backup to their site.

What caught my attention though are the special effects you can achieve with your mobile phone with some apps like Slow Shutter Cam, Image Blender, and Tiny Planet Photos. Unfortunately these are only available for Apple devices. According to AppCrawler, there are some some photo apps available for Android that will accomplish slow shutter effects. Below are samples of Slow Shutter and Image Blender. There's a group on Flickr that illustrates the many amazing effects you can get with an image blender app.

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screenshot, Slow Shutter Cam, iTunes

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Michelle Robinson, Image Blender Group, Flickr

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An article at Mashable also lists some apps for mobile photo editing; a gallery is included.

-- Marge

So what's the weather like today

Got nothin' in the way of a topic today, so I'm looking at the weather around the U.S. and touching on the weather in the UK.

Freezing rain, snow, and sleet hit New York; and a storm with more snow is predicted. A headline from Syracuse says "So much snow that some schools in Central New York won't start on time."

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Syracuse University students from the Alpha Phi Sorority skate at the Clinton Square
ice rink Sunday afternoon. (Michael Greenlar | mgreenlar@syracuse.com

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Meanwhile a warning of fire danger was posted for Tulsa, Oklahoma on the 6th. The danger is due to dry conditions and high winds.

In both the Northwest and most of Alaska snow levels have been low this year. In Alaska sled makers and mushers are preparing for warm-weather competitions (Iditarod and other dogsled races). A map of the current state of Alaska's snowfall can be found at the National Weather Service site.

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A musher and dog team cross the ice between the Rohn and Nikolai checkpoints in Alaska during the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on Tuesday, March 5, 2013. The Anchorage Daily News / Bill Roth, Sacramento Bee

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In Los Angeles a dog was rescued from the swollen Los Angeles river. After several years of drought, a 'River of Rain' is falling on California.

The UK is enduring what they call the 'winter misery'. Here's an article about heavy snows on the 5th. Other articles talk about low temperatures and torrential rains, all in the space of February 2015.

Miami, Florida, is balmy, for now.

-- Marge

Cartoons: red dots are the new black

With measles outbreaks in California, Ohio, and South Dakota social disapproval of anti-vaxxers is loud and wide. Where our attention is directed, cartoonists can but follow.

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Walt Handelsman, The Week

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Drew Sheneman, The Week

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Tom Toles, The Week

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Steve Sack, The Week

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Not to worry, smallpox--the ancient scourge of mankind--will most likely be used in bio-warfare.

-- Marge

DIY: easy winter trips to warmer places

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After the chilly, snowy surprises of this winter, a desire to be someplace warmer is understandable. You can go to sunny, calming places with a few clicks of your mouse and relax. No airport security, no sardines-in-a-tin-can plane seating, and no serious dents to your wallet.

To remind you what you may be slipping away from here's a video by the Weather Channel's Brainstorm Team about wind chill.

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Places I'm suggesting that you visit are in the metaverse, namely Second Life and Landmark (the game).

Second Life is virtual world like no other. There you can build, script (hopefully your build and not to grief other players), form social bonds, dance, outfit and shape your avatar--the list is virtually endless. There's an emphasis on creativity. You can play for free, but membership has its perks. Getting started can be a steep learning curve, but that's true of many MMORPGs as well. Sign up at the Second Life website.

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Landmark is currently in closed beta, so if you want to get in you'll have to acquire a beta key. Walmart and GameStop may still be offering them--I'm not sure. You can also gain access through Steam (a Settler pack is $19.99). If you belong to a guild, it may be offering give-away keys; a friend who plays may have extras. Landmark interests me in several ways, but mostly I continue to want to see how the voxel-based world develops and what the developers come up with next. BTW, the developers interact directly with the players, a refreshing difference from many MMORPGs I've seen. The blog Procedural World discusses voxel development in detail.

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You can also find these last two videos in my YouTube channel playlists under the title De-stressing in virtual worlds.

-- Marge

Hubble is winking out

NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage, star-forming region NGC3603, SpaceTelescope

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Hubble, aka the HST, has given us hundreds, maybe thousands of images of space, like the one above. But it's reaching the end of its lifetime. Scientists say it could  survive through 2020. Many of us watched with great interest as it was being built. A synopsis of Hubble's story is available at the Hubble site. Its optics are amazing. For a detailed description of the telescope's construction, check out Science Clarified's article. Unfortunately, Hubble's mirror in the newly deployed device "was the wrong shape and could not focus properly (Science Clarified)". If you're interested in such here's a link to NASA's Optical Systems Failure Report (a large PDF).

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Grinding the Hubble mirror, Science Clarified

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Hot in the news right now is a possible replacement for Hubble, one that doesn't require grinding mirrors or transporting a payload of 24,500 pounds. It's called the Aragoscope, and its technology is revolutionary (when is space technology not?). It's being developed at the University of Colorado-Boulder and scientists there say that it could "provide images up to 1,000 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope." This is an illustration of the concept.

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WebsterCash, Aragoscope illustration, Centauri Dreams

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The idea originates with Webster Cash and he describes it thus in an article at Centauri Dreams:

Unlike a starshade, the Aragoscope would be circular in shape, an opaque disk whose diffracted light is directed toward a pinhole camera at its center, then to a telescope that provides extremely high resolution views of stellar objects.  

Cash has also developed the starshade concept, but is now calling the Aragoscopy phase 2 of his efforts to develop a new kind of telescope. Paul Gilster at Centauri Dreams comments:

It’s intriguing that the Aragoscope, in some ways, turns Cash’s earlier starshade concepts on their head, aiming for high resolution rather than high contrast. “I spent a lot of time understanding the physics of destroying diffractive waves very efficiently,” he told the magazine. “In the process, it’s not hard to see that you can use those detractive waves to create images.”

Deploying the Aragoscope would be much simpler to launch than the HST, as described by CBS:

The opaque space disk would be made of a strong, dark, plastic-like material (think Hefty bag) that could be launched in a compressed fashion like a parachute, and then unfurled in orbit. The space shield would be tethered to the telescope at distances from tens to hundreds of miles depending on the size of the disk, said Harness [doctoral student Anthony Harness of the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences].

More information is available at Gizmag and Popular Mechanics.

-- Marge

Cartoons: it doesn't take long

Today's collection of cartoons talks about insidious threats that have or had a potential for proliferation.

Measles.

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Pat Bagley, The Week

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Drug-toting drones.

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Milt Priggee, The Week

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The wealth of the 1%.

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Steve Sack, The Week

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Red-light cameras. (These may be going away due to popular demand.)

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Scott Stantis, The Week

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-- Marge

DIY: Valentine's Day impressions

A friend of mine uses scrapbooking tools and materials to produce Christmas and birthday cards that are real keepers.  So why not one or two for Valentine's Day? 

Scrapbooking was originally only practiced for preserving family history and memorable moments, but has expanded since about 2001 into an industry that supports making cards, invitations, and artwork-- including steampunk and digital. A nice piece of digital scrapbooking was found at ArtFire.

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"Tiny Moments #4," Chili Designz

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There are many websites offering supplies, such as paper, cardstock, stamps, inks, and pretty little doodads, to add to your design. Some are Papersource (mostly offers kits), Amazon (search on 'scrapbooking'), and Michaels. 

You can find a number of design ideas and kits for Valentine's Day at Scrapbook. Here's a sample.

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Sanna Lippert, "Live in the Moment," Scrapbook

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PaperSource has a selection of kits, crafts, stamps, stickers, and card ideas. There is a selection of steampunk stamps available at Pinkflamingo61 on ArtFire.

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 Steampunk wood mounted rubber stamp, pinkflamingo61

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Now, who to send one to?

-- Marge

Art: some 2D animation for inspiration

Asuka Langley Soryu, sampaikini

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There are so many ways to approach animation (a discipline/art form I'm trying to learn), that I find myself turning to works that I like for inspiration. In animation there's not only the artwork, but also storyline, voice, music, camera angles, and--maybe most important--motion and timing.

This one's my odds-on favorite. I love the sketchy, yet fluid style, transitions, now-you-see-it-now-you-don't effects and the song is lovely, too.

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This one has a similar story, but very different style. Again I'm attracted to the wispy effects.

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The backgrounds are really, really good in this film. And the story is fun--it reminds me of questing in an MMORPG.

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This last film is a collection of scenes from a Japanese animated television series called "Neon Genesis Evangelion." In most of the animé/manga films I've seen the artwork is outstanding. If you'd like to get an idea of how dedicated its fans can be, here's a page listing the author's top ten favorite characters. The page will also give you an idea of the wide range in artistic styles. Keep in mind that some animé can be pretty riské by America's prudish standards.

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To play these videos in sequence the playlist is available on YouTube.

-- Marge

Cartoons: well, don't that beat all.

My regard for America and thinking that it's the best country in the world has taken a pretty serious beating in the last five, ten years. And things just seem to get worse.

The aptly-named Patriots cheat at football.

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Rick McKee, The Week

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The Republicans spent millions of dollars to take control Congress and they can't find a presidential candidate who has national appeal.

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Bill Schorr, The Week

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The rich just keep getting richer, and have the Supreme Court's sanction (see Citizen's United) to buy anything American they want.

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Chan Lowe, The Week

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And the British in the form of BP (British Petroleum) are still treating us like the Colonies.

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Walt Handelsman, The Week

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Sorry for the dark, sort of snarky, viewpoint--today's just a don't-that-beat-all day. Maybe it's time to stop watching the news again.

-- Marge

DIY: what do you want your avatar to say

And where can you find one?

While psychologists are trying to figure out what your avatar says about you, I say what do you want your avatar (aka icon) to say. Do you want an image that approximates what you look like? Or one that makes a statement about your interests, philosophy, or general view of the world. Perhaps one with shock value will do nicely. You could decide on an animated one, although they can be quite annoying to some.

Before continuing further, let me say that I'm not talking about the kind of avatar that you drive in a virtual world or MMORPG. What I am talking about today is the icon or small picture that identifies you on a social site or forum.

Here are some examples of avatars seen on social media and found through Google's Image search ("avatars").

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left to right: four icons from findicons, oldtimersguild (Mr.Nubba),
biodegradablegeek, and NinaPaley 

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An article at Mashable--Avatars Everywhere--lists 27 sources for avatars. The list includes virtual worlds like Second Life and IMVU, which seem to me like a lot more work than necessary. Digibody's Caricature Maker is one I tried. See below.

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avatar made at Digibody's Caricature Maker

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There are a number of sites where you can create an avatar online using an uploaded photo. Picasion is one. It's pretty simple: you upload a photo, crop it, then save it to your computer. What I like being able to instantly see what the cropped photo will contain and select the size of the finished product. This site also offers you the opportunity to animate your photos.

Sizes of avatars differ from site to site--some want none larger that 100px, some want none smaller that 200px. What to do? One of my favorite apps for browsing images and doing some simple editing is FastStone Image Viewer. It's free for personal and educational use, and costs $34.95 for a lifetime, commercial license. This application will resize, change the resolution, and convert an image to a different file format.

A note to the wise: while I was looking at a variety of avatar generators, some wanted me to download an application. Not a good idea unless you know the site.

-- Marge

Martin Luther King: visions of the man

It being Martin Luther King Day, a tribute to the man is in order. Many people have idolized him with their artwork, relatively few really knew him. In the images below I'm attempting to capture moments in his life rendered by artists he or his memory touched.

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cxard, Martin Luther King Jr., DeviantART

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Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, National Park Service

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Here is King when he gave his "I have a dream" speech in August, 1963. To me he looks lonely--a solitary man standing exposed above the crowd.

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Martin Luther King, Jr., I have a dream speech, MSNBC

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Shepard Fairey, Martin Luther King 2004, ObeyGiant

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The Graphic Design & Publishing Center site features a collection of Martin Luther King Jr. artwork you may enjoy.

-- Marge

Cartoons: the race is on

Here are today's cartoons, freshly picked for humor and ironic twist.

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David Fitzsimmons, The Week

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Bob Gorrell, The Week

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Tom Toles, The Week

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Jack Ohman, The Week

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-- Marge

Cartoons: One last word about Charlie Hebdo

Ok, two last words.

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Steve Sack, The Week

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Cameron Cardow, The Week

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-- Marge