20080427-Get Smart-20-Edit

Originally uploaded by charsplat.

Just goofing around with the camera, a bowl, some wire, a 100Mbit NIC, and a lightbulb.

This was inspired by a shot I saw for the upcoming Get Smart movie. I wanted a new facebook profile picture.

Lighting info:

Main Light – Sunpak 555 @ Camera Upper Left into umbrella.

Fill – Sunpak 544 @ Camera Right, Red Gels, Stofen + big piece of foam core.

An article “Immunization coalition wants vaccination rates to rise” appeared on the CBC with some new immunization targets for Canadians. The interesting part is the comments that arise whenever immunization is discussed.

Because of immunizations we, generally, don’t die from small pox, polio, or the measles. It’s annoying and dangerous when the anti-immunization folks spread misinformation regarding the efficacy and importance of immunizations.

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Vaccinations like all the rest of the over prescribed medication real only serve lazy medical systems and of course the drug companies in the long run . To assume getting immunizations make us healthy and safe is like the belief that taking a pill will make you healthy , it’s not that simple . This is why the belief immunizations are the answer works for many people , it’s simple and you don’t have to think for yourself… I do find it interesting very little if any statistical information on vaccines and there effects exists , except the overwhelming social medical anecdotal belief that they have changed the world … — John Tenbear

People who claim things like “vaccines don’t work, my kids weren’t vaccinated and they never got {insert eradicated disease here}” don’t understand that the reason their kids didn’t get the disease is because the majority of kids do get immunized. Without widespread immunization against these diseases they will spread and those who are not immunized will certainly be at risk. By not being immunized you are making yourself a weak link in society’s defense against these diseases. It’s not to say that vaccines do not cause problems. There certainly have been fatal reactions to vaccines but those cases are extremely rare compared to the huge numbers of deaths from the diseases they eradicate.

I rather liked the sarcastic, and harsh reply from “schull”.

I totally agree that too many people are being vaccinated. As one who is quite worried that our modern system stymies evolution by keeping the weak links in the human chain alive when nature (pre-vaccinations and modern medicine) would have hithertofore eliminated them from the genepool, I believe we need to return to a day when infant mortality was huge, when children died of common diseases, and few people lived to middle age. Those out there who avoid giving their children vaccines because they are totally ignorant of history should enjoy the same benefits our ancestors did before such medical progress and have maybe 1 out of 4 children live long enough to have their own. All those anti-vaccination mothers out there should be ready to start pumping out kids at an 18th century pace. Ignorance is a choice and as such should be top of the list for elimination from the genepool. Not forcing these people to immunise their gene-bags (children) would be a great service to humanity when and not if these lines die out from PREVENTABLE disease.

Another very similar discussion can be found on this article about the measles cases in Calgary.

More information on vaccinations can be found:

• Wikipedia Vaccine
• The Center for Disease Control

It’s really frustrating when people, either through ignorance or malice, totally misrepresent the concept of evolution to further their agenda.

I realize that, if you believe in a literal interpretation of the bible, evolution certainly will pose a problem because it is in direct conflict with Genesis. However, even the Catholic church has recognized that this is a battle they can not win and they officially accept the theory of guided evolution.

Read the incredibly ignorant “Defeating Darwin in 4 easy steps” and the much more intelligent response “Four Bad Arguments Against Evolution“.
(Note: when I say incredibly ignorant I mean (1) ignorant to what claims evolution actually makes, (2) ignorant to science in general, (3) ignorant to the laws of thermodynamics 1&2, (4) ignorant to the current state of evidence for evolution, etc)

Sorry for the continued rants on this. The mess surrounding the movie Expelled has me a tad angry. Science is responsible for so much good that it really bugs me when groups (ie. naturopaths, homeopaths, IDers, etc) try and water it down.

20080412-185148-443-Edit

Originally uploaded by charsplat.

I’m pretty pumped. My first solo wedding shoot was this past weekend and I think it went really well despite some pretty difficult shooting conditions.

The formals were outside in horribly harsh high bright sunlight and the ceremony was dark and backlit. I had to use flash throughout the whole day but at the results were pretty decent.

My Wedding Portfolio such as it is thus far.

I had no idea but there are a plethora of “haunted” dolls being offered up for sale on e-bay these days. Like this one…

Lois Jane ~Highly Spirited Doll ~ Sweetly Haunted

If you were not constrained by scruples or, you know, normal human decency you can make a killing reselling old crappy dolls as haunted. You don’t even need to shell out for a decent camera nor learn how to use it! All you have to do is slam together a terrible ALL CAPS DESCRIPTION with poor spelling and grammar, add a couple photos (the worse the better) and voila!

I love this part of the description:

“What is magic? Magic has a thing in itselfness. It is what it is. It’s all around us. Everywhere. Capture it. Use it. Cherish it. Whirling like a invisible tornado. Grasp it in your hands. Does anyone really know what magic is or how it works? No. It just works. It’s like asking what is electricity?”

It sounds a lot like that other totally ridiculous pop phenomenon, The Secret, with the stupid old guy who says “you don’t need to understand how it works. We all use electricity every day and none of use understand how it works.” Um… sure.

Stuff like this makes me positive that we need to increase the general publics science education because this is retarded and yet they are selling!