R.I.P. Adam "MCA" Yauch

4. May, one of the members of Beastie Boys passed away, after battling with cancer in the preaortic lymph node and gland, since 2009, he was only 47 years old. I remember when I was just a grade schooler, and I found a old cassette tape on the attic, titled: "Licensed to Ill". It turned out I really liked that old school hip-hop, a little mixed with rock. So I have always paid attention to news and new albums by the Beastie Boys.

Aperture Facebook Preset

When you upload a high resolution photograph to Facebook, it is most likely destroyed by Facebook’s uploading method, meaning «pixel chaos». I don’t know why this is, maybe it is a bad image resizing algorithm Facebook uses. But there are ways around it, a very simple way.

Best way is to manually resize the photo before uploading. Facebook has changed its picture formats sometimes the last years, but at the moment it is at maximum 960px wide or tall. You can do this in Adobe Photoshop or any other application. Just save it as .jpg, Facebook converts other file formats to .jpg, and then «pixel chaos» appears.

A couple of other good tips when uploading photos to web, is to use the standard 72DPI/Inch. If your going to print your photos, a higher DPI is recommended, but it is useless on the web. When it comes to color profiles, sRGB is the best way to go. There are simply not many screens that show profiles like the «Adobe RGB (1998)» profile.

I have provided a screenshot from my Aperture Export Preset list, which I have quality to maximum, and metadata activated. If you write a caption on a photo in Aperture, it will show up in the photo description on Facebook.

Update on Thursday, 3. May 2012 at 21:09 by Tom Andre Skarning

For some weeks ago, Facebook upgraded their maximum resolution. And finally improved the quality of uploaded pictures. The new maximum resolution is 2048px wide or tall.

Joseph Kony and the LRA will fail to prevail

Joseph Kony is the leader of the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) in Uganda. He and the LRA has used, and are using tens of thousands of children as soldiers. He has no other goals than to maintain his power. This war criminal needs to be brought to justice! And if this campaign succeeds it will revolutionize how our world works, how we help each other and how we solve problems.

The documentary below is fantastically made. It tells a story of how cruel mankind can be, but on the other hand it tells a story of how caring and cooperating humanity can be, when facing a common evil world foe.



Do what you can to spread the word. Make Kony famous, and shed light on his atrocities! Head to Kony2012.com for more information.

Ambient & Minimalistic; Suprisingly good

Eufloria is a type of game which I nearly ever play. It was the iPad Game of the Week, so I decided to buy and try, and I was pleasantly surprised. The graphics are very minimalistic with very relaxing, slow ambient music. The gameplay are likewise very basic.

In-game you take control of a fleet of seedlings on their way to colonize surrounding asteroids. Enemies will try to stop you, and you need to find the source of a mysterious illness. This is an indie game, which is also available on Steam and SOE (formerly known as PSN).

This wasn't my type of game, but it turned out it was. A strategy game worth your bucks. You can get it at the App Store. The trailer is showing below.

The Singularity Is Near, by Ray Kurzweil

Very interesting book. I doubt 20 years ago many would foresee the smartphones we now take for granted. It is the same thing now regarding what will be common in 20 years, only with greater differences.

«Many scientists and engineers have what I call "scientist's pessimism." Often, they are so immersed in the difficulties and intricate details of a contemporary challenge that they fail to appreciate the ultimate long-term implications of their own work, and the larger field of work in which they operate. They likewise fail to account for the far more powerful tools they will have available with each new generation of technology.» -Ray Kurzweil.

This book covers many of the scientific fields from physics and mathematics to neuroscience and nanotechnology, and is a must read for any one who has an high interest in science and technology.

Where's the winter?

I really wonder if the winter is coming at all here in southern Norway. Last year in January, we had dug "trenches" around our house. The current weather is a mixture of fall/spring, it isn't winter.

The climate is unbalanced, and I do not think this is a natural change from natures side. Natural changes tend to take its time. 10 or more years ago, winter was winter and summer was summer. The last summers have been cold and rainy. Something is really messed up.

Took this photo at Hove, Tromøy 12. January.

My 2012 predictions, and Zeitgeist 2011

I’m going to try to predict some of what 2012 has in store. I’m not seeing this as an solemnly prediction, but writing most for the fun of it.

Technology
Speaking of technological advancements I’m thinking we will see more of augmented reality implemented in various digital devices. There are a lot of applications, games and electronics which have these capabilities. But I’m thinking augmented reality will be more frequent to see in new devices, and more people taking this technology to use. Due to the fact that many people resent 3D TV glasses, advancements in autostereoscopy is a must for selling more 3D TVs. I think we will see more advancements in this field; improved picture quality and the use of 4k or higher instead of 1080p since 3D breaks down the resolution.

Science
It would be a lot of fun and probably a little scary for the firsts tourists in space, which may happen in 2012. Maybe we will see a breakthrough in cancer research? This is shot in the dark, but the biggest flood in a hundred years may occur, somewhere in a developed country.

Politics
The chances that the fragile economy will be drastically improved is much less than it is to be drastically deteriorated. This crisis will continue throughout 2012, and be slowly improved in oncoming years. We will see more revolutions and confrontations in more of the world’s countries with totalitarian governments. The «arab awakening» will continue and spread. But may be put on hold by an possible war between Iran and the rest of the world. If Iran blocks the strait of Hormuz, the economic consequences will effect everyone. Therefore I think most of the world, even Russia and China, will look down on Iran’s government and will be willingly to take part in an operation. This possible war will unfortunately take a huge toll on innocent citizens, like any other war.

Media
Maybe we will see an Xbox 3 / 540 / 720 since the coming of Nintendo Wii U. I don’t think we will se a new stationary console from Sony’s camp, since I think there are so much unfinished business with the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Network. Commercial physical media formats will soon be a thing of the past. Digital purchases and digital deliveries via the Internet will be more and more common. Movies will be rented and purchased, as well as games, music, software and other medias. Before the audio cd can be called «outdated», high quality lossless audio formats must be better and more incorporated in online stores. Maybe one last physical medium will come after the discs. Memory cards; lightweight and you could have an collection of 1000 movies on one shelf. This is more ahead in the future, but we will see more discussions on this topic and most probably a high rise in digital purchased and delivered medias.

If you want a fast highlight reel of 2011. The video below is one of my favorite end of year summaries. Google made one for 2010, and I hope they will continue for the oncoming years.

Twelve Truths of Christmas

So it’s that time again. Time to celebrate Jesus Christ’s day of birth. Or is it? This is a minor summary of what christmas is, and my opinion what christmas should be like.

Is it true, that Jesus Christ was born on the 25th of December? While most of us know that this statement is incorrect, we ignorantly continue to pass this wrong information from the current generation to the next. If you look at the opinions of biblical historians and date calculations from the bible. You end up with the birthdate in the late summer/fall. The exact date is not know, since the bible don’t emphasizes Jesus Christ’s birth; it however emphasizes more on the death of Jesus Christ. In prechristianized countries, they already celebrated in December. They celebrated solstice, and the coming of brighter days. In nordic countries they called it «Yule», and they put food out to the nisses. The «old» nisses were cruel creatures accordingly to the some folklore at that time. With green-glowing eyes, they spread diseases amongst the humans and farm animals, and was accused of killing farm animals. The other side of the folklore depicts the nisses as a helpful farm aid, doing many tasks while the farmers are sleeping. In the early days after the christianization of Norway, one farmer could blame a neighboring farmer for having help from nisses at the farm, there so getting help from occultisms and the devils minions. The poor accused farmer could get a harsh punishment.

These mythological creatures are one of the occultisms and paganisms that are popular in this time of year; which is condemned in the bible. Some other pagan celebrations that has influenced christmas is the festival of Saturnalia. Which was held to celebrate the agricultural god Saturn. The christmas gifts and greenery has strong inspiration from that festival. Koleda is a slavic orthodox celebration of the old new year (meaning new year of the Julian calendar). The celebration is named after the winter god Kolyada, and the goddess of sunrise Koliada, and is in honor of the god Dažbog. Christmas carols and the bonfires at St John's Eve on midsummer solstice; are influenced by the Koleda festival.

The date of the birth of Jesus’ birth was decided between 243 anno domini and 336 anno domini by the western christian church; the eastern christian church had their own date, which would later be changed accordingly to the western. It was a good idea to use that date, because of nearly all of the unchristianized countries were already celebrating paganistic and occult beliefs at that time of year. So it was easier to christianize those surrounding countries, meaning they could hold on to their current festivities.

Then there was the christmas star. By nearly all regarded as a friendly star. The three wise men were sent by Herodes to kill Jesus, these men are also known as astrologists, which is by the bible regarded as demonism. Now if you think «logical» about this story. If these three men, were to kill Jesus, they would probably seek answers of were to go in the stars. Now, if the bible condemns astrology as demonism and who would be most satisfied of the killing of Jesus? Probably Satan. He wanted to kill Jesus, so he gave an helping hand.

Now, I don’t regard Christmas as a christian holiday. It is a mixture of different religions and paganisms. One point to top this is Jesus' teachings of to be aware of materialism and all it’s «temptations». Despite that, christmas is the most materialistic season of the year. If Jesus exists, I think he would be pretty pissed at the moment.

Instead of mixing christianity in to this season, or any other religious doctrine, why not have an holiday for the humanity? A worldly human celebration.

Anyway, I’m going to wrap this up as Sheldon in tBBT would do it. Since Sir Isaac Newton was born some time this season, Merry Newtonmas!

15 Alternative Holiday Tunes

Just wanted to share some non-traditional holiday songs. The YouTube playlist is located here.

Break the mental obstructions

When you hit a wall, when life gets a staggering amount of bottleneck points. When people say it isn't possible, when the narrow-minded inflicts stagnation on the world. Think of this quote, that will break many mental obstructions of creativity and innovation.

«From now on we'll live in a world where man has walked on the Moon. It's not a miracle, we just decided to go.» -Jim Lovell, "Apollo 13".