Super Awesome Blog

Noah Kalina started taking a self portrait of himself on January 11, 2000 and hasn’t stopped yet.

6 years of these self portraits are found in a video I found by chance on YouTube – it’s set to a powerful piano piece by Carly Comando, and shows 6 images per second of Noah as he ages over the course of 6 years – from January 11, 2000 to July 31, 2006.

Noah’s eyes are entered on the camera as the age progression occurs and his background changes, creating the effect that he’s staring at you with those big, sad, brown eyes. The work is really powerful -- transcending normal YouTube offerings and entering the realm of art.

Amazing.  Noah is still taking pictures – you can see them here.  I hope this video is either updated or a new one is made following his progression from 2006 to the present.

Xkcd had this to say about Youtube Comments:

How devastatingly true.  YouTube is a great resource for videos on the internet, however for every great video, there is a Swamp of Sadness surrounding it – idiotic, poorly spelled comments making you lose your will to live.

But rejoice!  A Luck Dragon is here to help in the form of YouTube Comment Snob for Firefox!  You can select just how badly written comments have to be to be blocked, or you can set the filter to zero and effectively block every single one!

Download YouTube Comment Snob here.

Carl Sagan’s Cosmos got me looking around for some interesting Sagan interviews on the Youtube.  I found some interesting ones, including the one below.  As you can tell from the title of this article, this clip shows quite the line-up for a television program:  Arthur C. Clark, Carl Sagan, and Steven Hawking discussing some of the biggest ideas of our time!  Enjoy!

If you’ve never seen Carl Sagan’s poetic series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage you simply must.  It’s a beautiful trip through our universe’s history and far more than a science documentary.  Carl Sagan’s thoughtful and compassionate narration makes every episode of Cosmos spellbinding.

So it was with some trepidation that I watched “Carl Sagan -- A Glorious Dawn:”

I think Carl would have liked it…

If you’re interested Amazon has a good deal on Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.  Why not pick it up?

Wow. I just can’t get enough of this guy (whoever he is.)  I have to laugh everytime I watch this.   His rambling, self assured self promotion is Patrick Bateman-esque for certain.  You have to respect his enthusiasm… but wow.

“This is the most impressive business card I’ve ever seen. It’s mine.”

Amazing.

This TV ad is about to be aired in several states, most likely including Iowa where the State Supreme Court recently ruled that banning same sex marriage is unconstitutional.  It’s full of people that look like they just smelled someone who passed gas talking about how scared they are that gay people exist.  As a gay man and an atheist, I’m continually perplexed at the "fear" people profess toward gay marriage, and homosexuality in general.

The ad is from the National Organization For Marriage, or NOM,  an anti-gay group that recently helped in the passing of proposition 8 in California.   The text of the ad is as follows (with footnotes provided by me).

"There’s a storm gathering…
the clouds are dark and the winds are strong…
and I am afraid. "

Have these people ever met a gay person? Or are they only getting their impression of them from those crazy Chick Cartoon pamphlets fundies hand out ? The Gays are some of the happiest people around, they absconded the word "gay" for a reason!  I don’t really imagine Mordor style cloud fronts coming when I think about the gay agenda.

"Some who advocate for same sex marriage have taken the issue far beyond
same sex couples.  They want to bring the issue into my life."

What a cryptic statement.  First, starting out any statement with the phrase "some who say…" lets you say pretty much anything.  What do they mean taking the issue far beyond same sex couples? Marrying our pets and so on? Arguing ad absurdum seems to be that anti-gay marriage crowd’s fall back position, one that they resort to suprisingly quickly in any argument.

"My freedom will be taken away"

The only freedom taken away by passing laws ensuring a couple’s right to be recognized as being in a civil marriage is the freedom to hate.  It sounds soooo ugly and opponents of same-sex marriage and gay rights opponents in general will say that it is about god’s will and the nature of society and lots of other flowery, laced arguments. When it comes right down to it though they find it "icky" and they think the fact that an old book mired in contradictions lends them credible justification. It doesn’t. It’s hate. That’s all.

"I’m a California doctor who must choose between my faith and my job."

The video includes a helpful disclaimer at the start that reads "The stories these actors are telling are based on real incidents." It goes on to say that you can find out more at their website.  I looked all over their site, and couldn’t find what events these actors were purporting to be inspired by.  The only time I can imagine a doctor facing a moral conundrum regarding gay marriage and homosexuality in general would be in the feild of psychology, where any kind of repression of one’s sexuality has been shown to be extremely destructive and unhealthy. If some doctor was telling someone that who they are is unhealthy and to repress their sexuality, you’re damned right they should probably be fired.

"I’m part of a New Jersey church group punished by the government because we can’t support same sex marriage…"

I’m not sure how a New Jersey church group could be punished by the government. Perhaps they fired someone for being gay? Maybe they had their charitable orginization status pulled for being bigoted? Who knows, but the free ride church’s get for being charities is pretty dispicable, especially when so many other charities have such trouble getting charitable status.

"I’m a Massachusetts parent helplessly watching public schools teach my son that gay marriage is OK."

This one made me feel particularly sad.  The implication here is that schools even talking about being gay is bad.  Growing up I had no idea what being gay even was.  All I saw around me was heterosexual pairing.  From my parents, from my school, even in movies, being straight was the only imaginable way of feeling.  As I grew up and saw other people become interested in the opposite sex I felt confused and lost for not feeling the way they did.  "What is wrong with me?" I would ask myself.

I’ve heard this from so many of my friends and peers.  Gay kids growing up have it pretty rough most of the time, and when they’re not even told that being gay is ok they feel miserable. The "icky" factor comes up again -- images of kids watching guys getting it on pops into people’s heads and… Eww!  Grow up. Kids need to know what’s happening in the world and with their own development.  Denying them information is child abuse -- simple as that.

"But some who advocate for same sex marriage have not been content with same sex couples living as they wish…"

Another "Some who say…" opening, but an even more cryptic one.  "Living as they wish" to NOM probably means being gay in the bedroom, but pretending in public life that you’re "like everyone else."  In that sense, no, "we" are not content with that. I demand the right to be who and what I am.

"Those advocates want to change the way I live…"

Again I have trouble understanding the concept of one person getting married to another person effecting the quality or structure of another person’s marriage, or the institution of marriage itself.  I see people in shitty marriages all over -- explain why they can be married and not change the nature of marriage but gay people can’t.

"I will have no choice…"

There are no rainbow mobiles coming around forcing you to be gay.  What exactly does this ad mean to imply that you will have no choice about?  The choice to hate?  Apparently.   Scary hyperbole does make for an attention grabber though.

"The storm is coming…"

Speaking of hyperbole…

"But we have hope, a rainbow coalition of people of every creed and color are coming together
in love to protect marriage…"

It does hurt when I see other minorities being used in ads to discriminate against other minorities… it feels to me like they’re being used.  It hurts even more when someone belonging to a minority actually says something themselves about sexual minorities being less of people than they are.  It’s all so ugly.  I had to laugh when they used the term"rainbow coalition" though.

If you want a laugh, check out these actual auditions for this commercial.  Originally thought to be a parody, it seems that these are legit.  Sad, but funny.

I’ve been humming this song all day now.   Good music, funny actors and some decent looking guys… all wearing Fanny Packs.  I kinda want my own now…