I may find a way to batch convert them and incorporate them into the blog design. That won’t make it impossible for you to read.. Click either “play now” or “play in popup” to see it. If either of those don’t work, click the download link and have a look at it in Windows Media Player.
The screen saver has downloaded a bajillion of these goodies into its cache on my machine. Eye candy. I think this one is morphing between four different “sheep” IDs.
I ran across this today and tried it - so worth it.
It’s a screen-saver that does mutating, “genetic” computer-generated animated art for your screen-saver, and distributes these across the internet to everyone else who has the screen-saver installed, and users can vote for or against the various “electric sheep” (up arrow key votes yes, down votes no) so that cooler ones get promoted. I took the following image from the sites gallery of current images (which fluctuates - they render new “sheep” images from user’s machines during idle time/bandwidth) and scaled it up - it’s a desktop now.
I’m pasting this letter from the Illustrator’s Partnership [edited only to change links to hyperlinked text]. Also following it with my comments is a reply I got from my Congressperson, Chris Cannon (R-Utah) about my letter to him opposing the bill. show
On June 12, three leading textile trade associations announced their support for the Orphan Works bill.
Funny, that’s a 180 degree flip-flop from their House testimony of March 13, 2008. That day a spokesperson from the textile industry testified “on behalf of the hundreds of American companies” who are members of the same three trade groups. She denounced the bill, calling it “unconscionable for Congress to try to impose millions of dollars of costs on individual companies, many of which are small businesses…”
“The proposed orphan work legislation is not a solution to the ‘orphan works’ problem,” she testified. “Instead, it is a blueprint for a radically new copyright law. The inability to distinguish between abandoned copyrights and those whose owners are simply hard to find…is the Catch-22 of the Orphan Works project. This legislation would orphan millions of valuable copyrights that cannot otherwise be distinguished from true orphaned works – and that would open the door to commercial theft on an unprecedented scale.”
Strong testimony. So what happened? Did the bill improve? No, Congress just agreed to exempt textiles from the bill. So now Congress gets their endorsement.
Definition: When is cultural theft on an unprecedented scale not a problem?
Answer: When you’ve been cut out of the problem.
We hope legislators will judge the merit of such endorsements accordingly.
One last irony: the “strong testimony” quoted above was not original to the textile industry spokesperson. It was appropriated verbatim from Brad Holland’s 2006 Senate testimony and used without attribution or citation. You can read the original [here].
Don’t Let Congress Orphan Your Work
You can urge Congress to oppose these bills by linking here to a special letter.
Tell Your Senators and Representatives to Oppose the Orphan Works Act [here].
Please forward this message in its entirety to every artist you know.
My comments:
This is infuriating hypocrisy!
Now about the reply I got from Canon. My letter to him (which I now gather was vaguely scanned by an assistant and filed under “opposed”) specifically countered the oft-cited claim from supporters of the bill - that it supposedly does not endanger any managed copyrights because users of a work would have to perform a “good faith” search for the copyright holder. I went into it in my previous post on this - scan the post for the section of capital letter bullet points, it’s item E. Canon’s reply merely puppets what the drafters and supporters of the bill claim. He writes:
H.R. 5889, the “Orphan Works Act of 2008″ would limit the remedies of copyright infringement if the infringer using a work of art proves that he or she had performed a reasonably diligent search to identify and locate the owner of the copyright, but was unable to do so, or had provided accurate attribution to the author or owner if known. If proof cannot be obtained, then no limitations of remedies are available for the infringer and full copyright infringement penalties may apply.
This isn’t any kind of counterpoint - it’s exactly what my letter to him outlined is not a valid support for the bill (for the reasons I just gave here). His letter gets worse, too -
While it is obvious that the Copyright law needs updating, I simply cannot support a measure that targets or singles out a company such as satellite radio with the intention to shut down the industry as a whole by increasing its fees and negatively impacting its consumers. My position on the Judiciary Committee has given me the great opportunity to advocate technological advances while working to clarify copyright law. I will continue to work with my fellow members of Congress to resolve copyright issues in a way that addresses the interests of both the consumers and the copyright owners.
And that has what to do with the Orphan Works Act? Nothing! This is a typical political evasive non-response - but while Canon is puppeting the talking points of supporters, and he was after all on the committee approving the bill, it would appear he’s going to go right on supporting it - despite the fact that many people I know have written him to oppose it.
Canon mailed the same idiotic form reply to everyone I know who wrote him to oppose the bill.
When is it time to write President Bush and ask him to veto the bill if it crosses his desk? I’m thinking that time is now.
I recently acquired Corel Painter X and am falling in love with it. This is a digital watercolor painting I recently did in it. Click this medium size thumbnail to open the full image.
OR: How the Copyright Office Plans to Aid in Mass Infringements
Update May 16th 2008: I read today that the bill was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. Aaagh! I had meant to write my Senator, Hatch. Now I’ve written him, and Bennett, too. Here’s the letter I sent them via the Illustrator’s Partnership form. I accidentally left the last sentence referring to the House, but I’ve decided that makes a nice negative contrast to the Senate.
Update May 8th 2008: In a page linked from this entry, today it reads: “H.R. 5889 unanimously sailed through the House IP Subcommittee yesterday..” - that should not have happened.
Today I wrote my representative, Chris Cannon, about this bill. It turns out he is on the subcommittee presenting the bill - and my Senator, Orrin Hatch, is on the Senate subcommittee presenting it to the Senate! Two of my representatives! If you are in Utah and Cannon is in your district, your voice has more power opposing this bill. Anyone in Utah has more power writing to Hatch as well. Here is my letter to Cannon (which you may adapt and use; I’ve slightly revised it from what I sent). I pasted it into the form provided by the Illustrator’s Partnership.
But you needn’t be an artist (or for that matter a citizen of Utah ) to oppose this: every voice is valid in a democracy. Here is a link to write to your representatives on behalf of an artist you know. Please use it. Or use this representative finder and simply write about any reason you dislike the bill. You like independent creative work of any kind. The bill will squash that. So squash the bill. Here is someone else’s sample letter. In writing to your representatives in the House, reference H.R. 5889 The Orphan Works Act of 2008. To your representatives in the Senate, reference S 2913 The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008.
If you are on FaceBook, you can join the “Artists Against the Orphaned Work Legislation” group (773 members at the moment - they need thousands upon thousands) as a way of letting others take notice (they’ll see the group you joined).
Also, I’ve got interesting words from an uncle who knew Shawn Bentley:
..how did Shawn Bentley’s name get tacked onto this? Shawn has been dead two and a half years. He was a gospel doctrine teacher in our ward [or congregation]. He in fact left two “orphan” girls - orphans in the historic sense given that their father died, even though Becky (the mother) survived. So maybe this was someone’s clever sympathy ploy.. it’s rather disquieting that this is being packaged with the sainted memory of my friend Shawn, thereby making it sort of like a sacrilege to oppose it.
Update May 7th 2008: The Illustrator’s Partnership has now provided a tool to easily send a letter to your government representatives expressing your opposition to the bill. This is the link:
I urge you to use that link and write your representatives.
Original post; April 30th 2008:
When I first read about this, it sounded too extreme to be real.
But I researched this, and it is true.
There is a bill now before Congress which would reverse the fortunes of independent artists, creative enterprises, etc. in the United States of America. The bill would see the Copyright Office formally aiding infringements of copyright.
Your government representatives apparently take the bill seriously and don’t blink at it. I wonder if they were told any of the negative practical consequences of the bill. Reading statements about the bill from the presenting committee, it is seemingly given to help use already “orphaned” art works (no copyright holder known), but, in practical terms, this bill would enable the change of status of millions of contemporary works clearly connected with their author to “orphan“works, free for use for any purpose by anyone, without any practical copyright protection afforded the original author if the author even finds out that their work has been infringed.
Your government representatives should be made to blink at this bill. More than blink. It should be tossed out of Congress without even a vote, and that is what I ask you to ask your representatives to do, if I persuade you, and I’ll provide links to contact them.
Here is an outline of the situation the bill would create. I’ll cite all the sources (including the actual bill) at the end of the entry.
It would mandate the creation of a government-certified database for copyright searches, allowing more than one, or many. The databases would not be government owned; they would be private business-owned and operated.* A search of any one of these databases would determine whether an individual or organization that infringes any copyright can claim “limitations” on penalties for violation of copyright, should the author of the work find the infringement and come against them for their copyright violation.
This is how the situation this bill presents would play out in practice:
An individual or business finds an artwork (of any kind) that they want to use or incorporate commercially. But it has no author name affixed or associated with it. Under that circumstance or even if this individual knows the name of the author but cannot successfully make contact with them, then
The individual may search one of the few, or several, or many privately business-run databases of artworks which this bill will inevitably cause to come into existence (the reason: the databases will require fees to register works in them, and many companies are eager to start up such databases). If the individual doesn’t turn up a connection of the work to its author or is unable to contact the author, then
The individual may file a notice with the Copyright Office of their intent to use the work commercially. Many situations would end here: they would use the work without owing the author anything. Now comes what kills art.
If the author of the infringed work finds out that it has been infringed, and should he go against the infringer for it, the infringer may claim to the court that he made a “good faith” effort to find the author of the work or make contact with him, but never found them to be in connection with the infringed work, or never made successful contact, and therefore
The court will order the infringer to pay the copyright owner only a “reasonable fee” but the infringer may continue use of the work, without limitation, and
The infringer cannot be compelled to pay attorney’s fees to the individual whose copyright he has violated. This is the real death blow to the authors of infringed works, as this current protection - where copyright violators must pay the attorney fees in cases of violation - this is what currently protects copyright most effectively. But under this bill, this protection will be removed by “limitation”. What this means in practical terms is that the author of the infringed work could never afford to go to court against anyone who infringed their work, because the most money they could get out of it would be far less than the attorneys fees which they, the author of the infringed work! - would have to pay.
I’ll list some of the bad practical results of this now with capital letters.
A. Someone else profits from work they did not make, and the author of the work has no means of obtaining any money for it.
B. The market value of the author’s work is diluted by two thirds, since he can’t guarantee exclusive use to anyone on sale or license.
C. No author is afforded any copyright “protections” unless they register, and they would have to do this for every work of art they have ever created, paying a fee to each of several or many databases, and if they fail to register with all of the databases, anyone can pick up their work for unlimited use from a database they might have overlooked. Worse, the databases are not perfectly searchable, and many works properly registered will fall through the cracks. Images not in any database - the vast majority of contemporary images, since they cannot capture every living artist’s every work of art - are also unprotected.
D. With infringing parties filing their intent with the Copyright Office to use a work, the Copyright Office would be keeping a file of individuals they permit to use someone else’s work without any practical limitation; the Copyright Office will aid with infringement.
E. It’s a reversal of copyright protections. Currently if you register a work you can claim damages whether or not the infringer found you or knew you to be connected with the work, but under this bill, your work would not be protected, if the infringer, uh, managed not to find you. Which would be very easy to do when there are two, three, five, seven databases to search - which database won’t find you? The court will hold that up as a “good faith” search. A simple failed search of any database will be enough.
F. With the private, business-run registries on whose contents decisions of copyright limitations hinge, the Copyright Office - or part of the United States government - would be handing control of citizen rights (copyright protections) over to private enterprise. Do you like this? Your rights being given to private business without your knowledge or consent? That you, or an artist you know, will have to monitor private enterprises for the governance of your copyright?
G. Worst, even if an author successfully monitors all of their works of art in all of the databases and pays a fee to each of the many databases for every work of art they have ever created, and ever finds any work to be infringed, the practical protection of their work remains as nonexistent as the above numbered points describe.
H. It violates the Berne Treaty (Convention) an international copyright treaty to which the United States is signatory. Article 5 of that treaty, regarding copyright protections, that:
The enjoyment and the exercise of these rights shall not be subject to any formality..
The Orphan Works Act does not protect copyright unless authors do certain things (and then it doesn’t really protect them anyway). It clearly subjects authors to formalities for the exercise of their copyright. It also contradicts articles 11bis, and12, and14, and36 (which reinforces 5). It expressly violates the Berne Convention.
But the bill makes no mention of the convention. Instead the title makes us blubber over would-be orphans (more like the kidnapped children of Pirates!) that Big Company, Inc. would otherwise have to pay to use. Or, else, like, create something all by themselves!
Lastly, it must be pointed out that the Copyright Office seems to have, or breed, contempt for the copyright protections of authors. This was the Associate Register for Policy & International Affairs’ reply to Brad Holland (of the Illustrator’s Partnership) in a meeting where Holland questioned the bill:
Holland: If a user can’t find a registered work at the Copyright Office, hasn’t the Copyright Office facilitated the creation of an orphaned work?
Carson: Copyright owners will have to register their images with private registries.
Holland: But what if I exercise my exclusive right of copyright and choose not to register?
Carson: If you want to go ahead and create an orphan work, be my guest!
This all completely assures those who infringe work that they can expect no trouble, while causing those with otherwise sole use of their work unending and excessively expensive trouble, unless they surrender to the involuntary total government/business control of their copyright, hand in their paintbrushes, and surrender their profit to strangers who deserve zero use or money for the work, and go get the MD degree the family always pressured them to get anyway. This bill would be a death blow to independent creative enterprise, and a serious boon - for all ethical purposes - to pirates.
For extra credit, if you’ve read any arguments favoring this bill which seem reasonable, after I cite my sources I will dismantle some which I have read.
Just a firm reminder, since you picked this up already, I oppose this bill. And I ask you to.
The Illustrator’s Partnership is organizing opposition to this bill. They’ll have an opposition “button” soon. I’ll update this page when they do. I am not affiliated with them, but for updates from them send an email with “Add Name” in the subject to mailto:illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com.
Or, the last link in my sources below in turn links to resources to do the same. In writing to your representatives in the House, reference H.R. 5889 The Orphan Works Act of 2008. To your representatives in the Senate, reference S 2913 The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008.
Feel free to link to this page or copy the text of it wherever you please - get the word out against this bill. If you live in Utah or have strong ties to Utah, register your disappointment to Orrin Hatch for even allowing this bill on the Senate floor. He is on the committee that witnessed the drafting of this bill (first link in this entry).
SOURCES.
1. The very text of the bill itself. Reading that is the real test. I have, and all of the above logically holds - or rather it is all a logical conclusion about how illogical and nasty the bill is.
3. This article, which as well as corroborating other things, points out the contradiction the bill poses to the Berne Convention the United States is obliged to.
4. This 40-minute interview by Mark Simon, of Brad Holland of the Illustrator’s Partnership, from this page. Mark Simon has stated that he gives this mp3 for free distribution to oppose this bill. Disclaimer: Mr. Simon is drawing conclusions of ill-will and the like against the supporters and drafters of this bill. I make no such conclusions, but I am, frankly, very suspicious of their intentions. This interview occurred some time ago in warning of the legislation, and now (very recently) the legislation has appeared.
(I also don’t like the music in this interview.)
*The language of the bill does not specify that the government will create the database(s). Toward the end of the bill it mentions that the Copyright Office “shall” certify a database; toward the start of the bill it allows for the creation of private registries. That means that private businesses will be clamoring for certification, and there will be more than one, and potentially many, databases.
Since anyone who would make use of your work under this law would have to search for you, just make sure your name is out there! COUNTERPOINTS: Modern information technology and the nature of information itself assures that you have no control over where your work may go. It is very common for photographers and for photographs of paintings to be published without credit. The “hall of mirrors” effect described above produces a great risk of an artist not being found. And even if they find you, they can pretend they tried to contact you and got no response. It would still be a “good faith” search to the court. One failed search in one of potentially several or even many databases would also be a “good faith” search. But that’s beside the point that no one should be allowed to use your work without your express permission. It’s yours to use - it is not - or should not - be the job of the author to survey the the whole nation (world?) to forestall abuse of his work - which abuse this legislation would provide no practical means of stopping even if it were discovered.
The bill says that the “reasonable search determination” should be “flexible enough” to allow artists to make themselves known. COUNTERPOINTS: The many circumstances under which an infringer may not find or contact an author have been demonstrated, and it goes the other way; if the infringer does not find the author, the author is not finding the infringer either. The word “flexible” here operates, frankly, like a red herring. No database could store all contemporary artwork by all artists. Any artist produces thousands of images in one year. There are potentially millions (billions?) of contemporary images that wouldn’t even be in the databases; the image wouldn’t even be identified, and so it would be free to use. No flexibility is broad enough when the doctrine is that on any failure to find, the infringer may still use the work without limitation - which is precisely the doctrine of this bill. There is no such thing as a “reasonable search” because the search could on failure strip copyright protection from a living author without the author’s knowledge. There should be no search. Because the infringer should create a work for their own profit; not capitalize on someone else’s work without paying. That’s the current law. (Okay, it isn’t the law that you have to create anything for profit. It’s just a good idea.) That would no longer be the situation under this bill.
The bill frees millions of orphaned works up for use in educational purposes and works, and the like. COUNTERPOINT: under the 1976 Copyright Act, those works are already free for those purposes. The only purposes to which this bill can apply are commercial copyright infringement.
No one will lose copyright. COUNTERPOINTS: While it would be true that authors still own copyright at the moment they create a work, all practical means of defending that copyright would be removed. A bird without wings is still a bird, but it can’t fly. A soldier without a gun is still a soldier, but he’s extremely hard pressed to actually defend anyone.
Authors of infringed works can claim damages. COUNTERPOINTS: as the above numbered points show, those damages are severely limited by this bill to the point of utter impracticality.
Because of modern information technology, copyright is very difficult to protect anyway. COUNTERPOINTS: While certainly duplication and information spread is very fast and easy these days, current law provides that an infringer must pay the lawyer fees if the author claims infringement and wins. That is a major deterrent to illicit use of other people’s work. That protection would be removed with this bill. Infringement would be a breeze under this bill. And so what if Copyright protections may be difficult? Should we tolerate them becoming far, far worse in one fell swoop - which this would be? Absolutely not.
The opening sequence to THE MATRIX is among the most beautiful art ever done with film and computers. I just found a Windows “screensaver” (imagery that appears on your computer monitor if you leave your machine idle for so many minutes) that emulates the very thing very well - on your computer.
I first tried the official screensaver released by Warner Bros. back in 1999 (Okay, has it been that long or longer since THE MATRIX? - I’m getting old..), and after that I tried three others - this one is far and away the best. It can emulate the opening sequence to THE MATRIX tracing a program to your phone number, calling on your name .. kinda eerie. Exceedingly cool. Change the speed, speed variation, font animation, line density, and color of the scrolling code also.
Caveat: almost predictably, you have to be a geek to install this thing. 1. It runs on windows (hmmm.. the platform on which most internetworked clients in the world are run?) 2. You have to know where your Windows install places the .scr, or screensaver files, and copy the file to that directory. On my Windows XP install, that is C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 - and then 3. You have to know where to change your screensaver.
I’ve been holding off recommending this film, because ai-ai-ai, will it make a Mormon audience composed of your typical Mormon culture uncomfortable. It is ridiculous how fully Dutcher has taken on the role of The Artist Who Challenges You. If Dutcher is going around touting in his advertisements that the thing is R-rated - one of the hot-button topics in Mormon culture - I cannot see otherwise but that he has taken it upon himself to challenge culture. If that gives you brownie points among crowds that think that’s the mission of an artist (*ahem*AML-list*hem), okay. But I don’t think there’s any chart in heaven detailing how much any artist challenged culture. It’s not about that.
According to Michael Medved - who has given Dutcher some of his best reviews! - the artist as cultural or religious challenger is a mythical role that has emerged only in this last century. Medved argues that most of the artists who created our “classics” through the centuries found plenty to do - under every kind of label or adjective you could conjure: disturbed, glorious, funny, tragic - whatever- without heckling their host culture, as so many artists in our day have been taught to believe they should. It is a point given in Dutcher’s biography at his own web page that one of his teachers while in film school at BYU prophesied that the first great Mormon writer will be excommunicated. Richard, that teacher was full of crap! Without a mass of knowledge to back up my agreement with Medved, I only say that Medved’s take on artists and culture sounds to me a whole lot better than advertising your film as “The first R-Rated Mormon film!” Why don’t we just change the billboard to say “This film will shock and offend you!” What of the dopes in the narrative of this very film who claim the only way an artist will get ahead is by shocking and offending? We’re supposed to think those guys are dopes, right? They’re part of the culture that led to the lead character’s fall. So let’s not listen to them.
Now I know I’ve gone and abrasively criticized marketing. Sometime last year I abrasively criticized a marketing effort coming from Dutcher’s Main Street Movie Co. and shortly thereafter found a comment at my film blog from Dutcher’s marketing guy, abrasively criticizing my (retrospectively) amateurish concept trailer. Tit-for-tat cannon blasts among the artists in Zion. I don’t think it’s easy for artists to separate the line of personal criticism from artistic criticism. And too often we merge them - but that’s an essay for another day.
I believe Dutcher could have told the exact same story of FALLING with just slightly different directing decisions that wouldn’t ensure he turns a lot of his audience away. And his marketing of this film is way off-base. (I know, I hear the cannons blasting still.) If you don’t care about ratings (as I believe Dutcher claims not to), you don’t advertise them. If many Mormons think it wrong to ever see an R-rated film (and that thinking is in error, in my opinion), period, that’s fine for them - it is their right to risk missing out, and frankly, too many who argue against the point would seek to deny Mormons so inclined of that right, or deny them their freedom of conscience to avoid whatever they want - but the inevitable message behind “The first R-rated Mormon film!” is ironically as narrow in a different way. It actually seeks to drive the question of the appropriate to the utmost limits of tolerance - and I would argue that very approach will only produce intolerance - it isn’t going to make anyone think. Nobody thinks when they feel threatened. All they think about is either raising their fists to pummel the hell out of you or getting the hell away from the situation (Dutcher has experienced far more than his share of both, on emotional terms). Fight or Flight. It reduces us to cavemen. Where’s the love in that? Philosophical battles are one thing, but you’ve gotta know that even though there may not be a rational basis for Mormons to do so, they’re simply going to read it as an attack on their religion.
Art isn’t a culture or religion test. Life is a culture and religion test - the way we live. Art is a huge part of life (and for artists, it is literally the subsistence of their life - how they get by) - but as the Indigo Girls penned, “..there’s just no medium for life”. Life is life, art is story (where this film is concerned). And this story should be advertised for what it is - a very powerful morality tale - not for what it isn’t (G-rated).
The unfortunate irony of that advertising is that the film is, in my opinion, powerfully Mormon, but while the advertising raises a question entirely irrelevant to the film, it only invites those whose minds are closed to the question - and I have tried opening many minds to the question, and the steel trap set on that question does not respond to crow bars - it only invites them to keep the trap shut, indeed the trap may only close tighter.
I had to decide whether I think Dutcher himself or his actors went against good principle in their performances. I’ve decided I don’t think they did. The directing decisions over that question are so distracting it could not only tear down the proscenium for many (it nearly did for me, but I’d gone into the film with a lot of forethought and preparation) - it could make them want to burn down the theater. Nevertheless, to those willing to explore them, the questions are so gripping it may not matter. The context and the story, the presentation, the direction, what happens - it all very clearly paints the disturbances the film explores as just that: disturbances which are not wanted in a good life. The obvious implication is that we like good, not evil. Hallejuhah. One more film striking against evil.
This also may not be a film for the squeamish.
This film wallops the bloodthirsty with divine guilt.
Last of all, this film probes deeper into the mystery of the Atonement than any work of art I have encountered. If the story it presents is deeply disturbed, the power is in the questions the story poses of whether those disturbances could be overcome. The ending presents situations on questions of innocence and very powerful symbolic reversals - leading to Christ - which I found deeply affecting.
The green, ringed planet I rendered and posted last here had problems. Light didn’t shine through the rings as in photos of Saturn. After a lot of web searching I finally figured I’d search for tutorials on glass in 3D Studio Max, and was led to a solution - a translucency shader material instead of a blinn material, rendered with “radiosity”. The planet now also has striped shadows on the surface from the varying opacity of stripes in the rings - which you also see in photographs of Saturn. I added some orbiting gaseous moons. Here are new renders of the planet. One of these has fake “false color” like some NASA photos of planets :)I can send you very large versions (1680 x 1050) on request. Feel free to use this for any personal use; credit me me in any public use.
I can send you very large versions of these (1680×1050) on request. Some of these are from renders where I’d forgotten to make the planet oblong, and I stretched them in photoshop - a gas giant stretches from its own sheer centrifugal force produced by its enormous mass. The high “radiosity” render with an angle and lighting resembling this speechlessly gorgeous photograph of Saturn uses a lighting calculation setup I haven’t yet figured out how to get properly working; otherwise these might all have much subtler and alternately brighter lighting.
I also made a mouse-pad from one of these renders at my Zazzle online store (I’ll probably add more options for mousepads, and posters of this too). And I made a quick and dirty animation simulating a flyby. Emphasis on quick; this is a fun sketch. Here’s a link to it (I gave up trying to get them to embed in my blog page).
There are other cool things you see with Saturn I’m still not doing. Future wish list for this planet: atmospheric light refraction/color shift when light travels through the atmosphere for a long length (as along the surface towards the night side of the planet). There are gorgeous pictures of Saturn with bright blue in the north atmosphere from this effect, doubly gorgeous because this bright blue is under striped shadows of the rings. I also want a bright corona atmosphere effect from light bending around the edge of the planet if you view it from the shadow side with the sun directly behind the planet - and a vast light corona refracted from dust far out beyond the rings, as seen from the same angle - both of these effects are seen in one picture of Saturn. I want to figure out how to get this radiosity lighting in Max working with translucency shaders and/or materials the way I want. I also may want to add dimensionality to the rings - they are just flat (which you see as they momentarily vanish in that animation). And.. some custom textured moons (I only added the ones in one of these pictures as an afterthought - wish they’d been there before). And.. an animation simulating tilt and rotation of the planet along with orbiting very distant twin dying giant suns.
I modeled and textured (and lit - which was difficult) this invented planet. I’ve long thought that green should be/is the primary color for exuding, uh.. coolness.. awesomeness.. awe.. in space. So I made this planet green.
Hmm.. I wonder if that idea didn’t have to do with The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, where, if I remember, two kids fly to a decidedly green planet. I love the illustrations in that book. I’m going to my library and xeroxing them. Er.. looking.. at them. There seems to be a reprint out with a cover that is too comic, IMO. Although it is in the comic style of the era. Maybe I’m just biased to what I read as a kid.
Oh, duh. It was inspired by this. Well, many people have thought of green planets.
Oh yeah. I made this green ringed planet here. If you like it feel free to put it on your computer’s “desktop”. The thumbnails link to larger.. er.. huge.. images (1680 x 1050). Tell me what you think. There’s also a smaller one I did inline here trying to composite with a Terragen image I made. Not sure that one fully worked out.
Here’s a link to the same, with attempted enlargement and noise/retouching to make it look originally at 1024 x 768 (the Terragen 2 preview only lets me render the terrain I composited this into at 800 x 600 )
I composited these last two in Photoshop, using a “darken” mask to make the sky eliminate the black shadows on the planet and rings.
While looking for images for my computer desktop from My Neighbor Totoro, I ran across this description page of an Anime based on short stories Ursula K. Leguin set in Earthsea. I also found this YouTube post of a trailer for it (embedded below) - this looks great (especially the art). You can find a UK trailer on YouTube that has a more dramatic punch but unbearable, typically pious unctuous "I am the voice of Wonder" American English announcing.
If my local libraries or video rental stores don't have this in, I think I'll just get it - lower prices for it found by froogle are less than or not much more than rental (the first one it finds has a description of it from an entirely different film, though - what the.. !?).
In regards to Oscar the Cat several folks of my acquaintance made LOLcats. Two of these (the one on a limb and the one at a stack of books) are Pilcrow’s, the ones that say DED and cheezy are Rhapsidiom’s, DED PPLZ is from another fellow, “good gift” from my dad, and the black one is my responsibility Also here is an LOLrus from my unwitting prior such creation.
You may have missed it, but a while back the center-left tried this one (fooling Floridians). They didn’t push strong enough, and now regret it, because the right replied with Fred Thompson.
And in related news (ha ha! I just wandered over there to let them know about this, and behold) ..
Click either “play now” or “play in popup” to see it. If either of those don’t work, click the download link and have a look at it in Windows Media Player.
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made LOLcats. Two of these (the one on a limb and the one at a stack of books) are 
