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Hey everyone, from now on go to http://www.earcaraxe.com/blog/ 

Thanks!
-earcaraxe

Microstock

So, during my last couple of weeks in Taiwan Steph came out to visit. She brought her new Canon Digital Rebel XTi along. It’s a really beautiful camera. I’ve been shooting on film with her Nikon FN-10 and my mom’s Pentax. We went together to the photography district of Taipei, which is near the main station, and I bought the japanese version of the XTi. My camera is called the Canon Kiss Digital X.

Boy does this thing take beautiful pictures. The colors, the resolution. It can get incredibly sharp, and because of the ability to change ISO speed, I can take pictures in really bright light and really dim light without the use of a flash. Steph and I spent the last two weeks running around Taiwan taking pictures. Now that we’ve got a significant number of beautiful pictures, we’re looking into Microstock photography. Currently we’re submitting pictures to ShutterStock. I’m also working on rebuilding my image gallery, so stay tuned for updates!

Global Warming

Global warming is a fact. The earth’s temperature has been rising steadily throughout the course of the past 150 years, and will continue to warm into the future.

That having been said, Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” does not present all of global warming. Yes, it presents the realities of climate change, yes the trend of global warming as depicted in the movie is definitely going to happen. Unfortunately, the movie pins the cause of all of this warming on atmospheric carbon dioxide, and ignores the other factors which contribute to global warming.

The movie focuses specifically on greenhouse gasses, because the focus of the movie is to call everyone out to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. CO2 emissions specifically. I sincerely hope that this movie calls many people to enact actual change of CO2 emissions.

There’s another side to global warming, though. There are many scientists who have other things to say about global warming, but their findings are called into question, and their motives called into question as well. If people say things which are perceived to run contrary to the popular model of global warming, they are immediately flagged as being paid off by the petroleum industries. This is both fortunate and unfortunate. Fortunate because it reduces dissent, and unfortunate because the full truth is not understood. There are more ways to help affect global warming than just carbon dioxide emissions.

Many of these scientists want to promote their views, but they go about it the wrong way. They come up and say “Here’s my findings on global warming. It’s not caused by greenhouse gas emissions, it’s caused by ______.” When they say this, it generates dissent about the greenhouse gas theory, and is harped on by business to help delay regulations reducing CO2 emissions. What these scientists need to be saying is “It’s caused by greenhouse gas emissions, as well as _____.”

Everyone is rallying behind CO2 emissions, which is a good thing because it will effect change, but there are many other things contributing to global warming as well, and I am afraid that a policy tuned merely towards greenhouse gas emissions may not succeed. Also, I believe that these scientists, if they listened to each other, could come up with solutions that would help not only reduce CO2 emissions, but help solve other problems as well.

There are a number of other causes to greenhouse gas emissions that are commonly overlooked. There are three that I would like to talk about right now.

Natural warming of the earth
Warming of the sun
Urban development

1. Natural warming of the earth:
Robert Essenhigh, E.G. Bailey Professor of Energy Conservation in Ohio State’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. Professor Essenhigh follows the research of Cambridge University geologists Nicholas Shackleton an Neil Opdyke, who reported that global temperatures have been oscillating steadily over the past one million years. There is a natural warming and cooling cycle going on, and we are currently in the warming phase. The hockey-stick graph which Al Gore presented, is not the most commonly accepted temperature graph among climatologists today. The other graphs show more of an oscillation in temperature, but still show that rising curve today. In 1850, according to ice cores drilled in Greenland and recorded temperature, there was a significant low temperature. The temperature in 1850 was definitely lower than the temperature was during the medieval times. We are coming out of a valley, and ascending a peak, so there is a significant natural portion of the warming cycle which is contributing to global warming.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/06/010615071248.htm

I definitely believe that we are currently in a natural warming cycle. I definitely believe that this is contributing to the observed temperature increase of the past century. I definitely do not believe that it is the only factor of global warming, and that when the earth’s natural cooling cycle begins all of our problems will be over.

2. Warming of the sun:
Another camp of researchers, a cross-national team of Swiss and German scientists have come up with another reason for global warming: natural warming from the sun.

Dr Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who led the research, said: “The Sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures.

“The Sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few hundred years ago and this brightening started relatively recently – in the last 100 to 150 years.”

Dr Solanki said that the brighter Sun and higher levels of “greenhouse gases”, such as carbon dioxide, both contributed to the change in the Earth’s temperature but it was impossible to say which had the greater impact.

This team believes that both the sun and carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to the warming cycle. I believe in this research, and I am glad that Dr. Solanki isn’t arguing that the sun is the only cause of global warming, but it definitely shows that the earth is going to be getting hotter.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/18/wsun18.xml

3. Urban sprawl
John Christy, head atmospheric scientist at the University of Alabama, did an interesting experiment in atmospheric temperature change over the past century. This study showed that most of the global warming over the past century has been recorded on ground thermometers, and not recorded on thermometers in the atmosphere. He and a colleague poured over the temperature readings from weather balloons and satellites in the atmosphere over the past 50 years.

Their research found that the amount of observed temperature increase in the atmosphere is not nearly as significant as the observed temperature increase in the atmosphere, although there is a slower warming trend up higher. This research shows that, while there is significant global warming, greenhouse gasses are only one part of the global warming. To find his answers, he searched closer to the ground.

Cities are expanding rapidly. What used to be countryside – fields, trees, and natural areas are rapidly being replaced with concrete, asphalt, and buildings. These building materials definitely have an effect, called the Urban Heat Island Effect. Temperatures in cities like Atlanta, the temperatures in the cities are 5-6 degrees celsius greater than the surrounding countryside.

Unfortunately, this effect of the heating up will also affect the surrounding areas, warming the climate in and around the cities. As man does more and more of this, it will greatly raise the surface temperatures. The building of cities has been incredibly rapid over the past 100 years, and has contributed to the observed warming of the planet, and also helps to explain why, while the greenhouse gasses are producing a definite warming effect, the observed atmospheric temperatures are rising more slowly than the ground temperatures, which is an indication that there are more factors in play than greenhouse gasses.

These cities and asphalt are raising the earth’s temperature. They’re trapping heat in the concrete and asphalt, they’re rising the temperatures on the surface. They’re playing a large role in global warming. These cities are also the greatest producers of greenhouse gasses, and the single greatest cause of deforestation. As more and more people live on this earth, there is more building of developments, urban and suburban sprawl, and more destruction of the earth. These also cause irrigation issues – people live in areas and put huge drains on water supplies that would naturally be going to keep the terrain the way it is, and this creates desert areas. The spreading of the Gobi desert in China is a definite example of this problem.

Global warming is caused by both natural and manmade factors. There’s nothing that we can do about the natural causes – we can’t make the sun shine less bright, and we can’t change the natural warming cycle. We can do something about the other things though, the manmade things.

“An Inconvenient Truth” calls us to be more ecologically aware, and to reduce our greenhouse gasses. I call everyone to do more than that. We need to not merely be carbon neutral. We need to come up with ways to compensate for deforestation. We must come up with ways to live more in balance with the environment in all aspects of our life, in all the ways that we affect the environment.

Living in Taipei has given me an interesting idea. There are a lot of layers built up one on top of another here in Taipei. A lot of the buildings have grasses and plants on the roofs. There are underground car parks that have parks on top, and if you’re walking around on ground level, you think it’s a park. There are ways that we can build plants and life on top of our cities that would help replace forestation. We can plant trees on our rooftops, grasses on top of our buildings. It would create much more green space. We wouldn’t have to travel miles and miles to enjoy a park. All we’d have to do was walk to the roof of our buildings to enjoy some trees.

Reduce your carbon emissions. Live closer to work – it’s more convenient for you. Help get public transportation in your cities, and use it when it’s more convenient. It’s okay to have a car and use public transportation, you can do both – just don’t fall into the mental trap that if you have a car, you should always drive it around. Busses and metro systems could really be much more convenient. If I’m going across Taipei, sometimes I’ll ride a motorcycle, and sometimes I’ll use the metro system. The United States needs better public transportation.

Vehicle emissions aren’t even the main CO2 producers. Coal power plants are probably the single biggest creator of carbon dioxide. Find ways to make alternative power cheaper. Lobby your congresspeople to put taxes on coal, and to provide incentives for using greener technologies such as Nuclear, Wind, or Hydroelectric.

Plant trees in your yard. The shade they provide will help cool the area around them. They will help neutralize some carbon emissions, but they’ll also help to restore the kind of landscape that existed before humans came.

Carpool. It’s cheaper. If you’re making a commute everyday to work, and a coworker lives nearby, ride with him. Switch off days. It’ll save you both a lot of money, especially with gas prices the way they are. It’ll help to save greenhouse emissions. It’ll be an extra car off of the road, which will help ease traffic congestion, and will help everyone arrive faster.

Lobby your local government to provide incentives to carpoolers. Try to start a program which refunds gasoline taxes to people who can prove that they carpooled. Lobby them for carpool lanes if you’re in a larger area. Less cars on the road means everyone gets there faster. Less cars on the road means fewer roads needed to be built.

This isn’t to say don’t use your car. I love driving. I love cars. Use your car, drive your car, but make the best use of it. If you use it for recreation, don’t drive at rush hour. If you use it for a commute, try to find someone to carpool with – it’s nice to have company. Don’t add to traffic congestion – if people distribute out the times that they drive, less time would be spent on the road for everyone. Less greenhouse gasses would be produced from cars just sitting in gridlock. Driving would be more enjoyable for everyone. If I had the choice between driving in gridlock all day, and taking public transportation, I would definitely choose public transportation. I want to drive and enjoy it. I want to feel the road underneath me and really get to move. Driving in gridlock is a frustration. Don’t do it unless you have no choice.

Hypermedia

Hypermedia
(Hypermedia blogging community)

A random jumble.

The internet is a collection of knowledge in short snippets. There is audio, video, text, and images. There are all of these things floating around in cyberspace. Blogging is important because it allows a lot of people to publish their ideas ontot he internet, but the idea of blogging can be extended greatly. Bloggers are constantly pushing their blgos into more and more complex technologies. There are podcasts, video podcasts, videos (ala youtube), images (flickr), news (digg), information (wikipedia).
All of these things are available for the blogger to cut apart and stick in his/her blog. Unfortunately most blogging takes advantage only of text.

The next generation of blogging is no doubt going to become and is headed to a multimedia blogging experience. Mixed medias, pictures, images, etc. All of these things can be arranged and rearranged to create knowledge. If a system were generated to easily incorporate video, audio, and text, cut them apart, snip them, put them back together again, it would greatly allow humans to reorganize data in meaningful ways.

This is the theory of the cutup. With all of the information out there, people can rearrange it from its original form to create new revelations. It does not have to be random, it can be human-guided and still provide insight. I believe that a system which encourages the mode of the cutup for blogging is one that would definitely succeed.

Right now the limitation appears to be on the attention span of the reader, all of the other media need to be organized into something that is short and that the user can observe and understand within a short period of time. More time generally means more bandwidth, and bandwidth is the limitation of the internet.

Anyway, sorry that this is all a jumble, but I will be updating with details in the future.

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2004/08/03/primetime.html for further reading

Thanks,
Mike Minneman

Dead-Alive and Alive-Alive

I’m currently reading a book entitled We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. The book describes a dystopian future similar to that of Orwell’s 1984. In actuality, Orwell drew most of his inspiration for 1984 from this book by Yevgeny Zamyatin. I’m going to refer to the author of this book from now on as simply YZ, since typing out the romanized version of his cyrillic russian name is, quite simply, ridiculous. Anyway, this book was “published” in 1920 or 1921, I can’t remember which, but it was during the time when the communist ideals and the marxist government systems were gaining popularity and power. This work seems to be a satirization of the mechanization of man YZ sees the communist party attempting to accomplish. He looked at Henry Ford’s factory assembly lines for cars, and realized that they were a heavy influence on the minds of the communist party leaders. Those who wanted the society to work together and to become something other than humans, those who wanted the society to become machines.

The story is told through the main character’s seemingly journal-like entries. He records these because he is the builder of a spaceship which is supposed to send media and material supporting and explaining the views of their state and the extreme level of efficiency they have achieved and what sorts of things they need to do in order to achieve this. The main character, D-503, sees the world through a series of equations. Almost everything he thinks of has to do with the math behind it. When he is invited by a person to come to an auditorium, he looks at the mathematical probability of being asked to that specific auditorium by that specific individual. Everything to D-503 seems to be an equation.

Right towards the very beginning of the book, he looks at the sky and sees that it is clear. He thinks this is a thing of beauty because it has no clouds that make it mathematically imperfect. He thinks the love of clouds by his ancestors was incredibly silly, why should one be interested in suspended water vapor?

YZ very obviously does not actually share this view, and embraces and promotes this view to the extreme in this book in order to satirize the direction in which he thought his society and country were going. It is plain from some of his other works that he does not actually support this view, and looks at those automatic human beings as dead and not alive.
“It is an error to divide people into the living and the dead: there are people who are dead-alive, and people who are alive-alive. The dead-alive also write, walk, speak, act. But they make no mistakes, and they produce only dead things. The alive-alive are constantly in error, in search, in questions, in torment.”

I really like the views put forward in this book, and I am only a few chapters into it, but it has gotten me thinking if our society isn’t so much like the dystopian society of the book. I feel that our society has a need to quantify everything, to force everything down into simplified expressions and equations. To make formulas for success. Efficiency seems to be the most highly revered ideal, and entropy, the most feared and loathed force in the universe. We are constantly attempting to rearrange our surroundings. We want to take the random groves of trees in the forest, cut them up to our specifications, and then build houses from them. Houses which were made from plans drawn up from architects. Architects, who were no doubt students at one point in time, and were told which the most efficent buildings are. What shapes need to be put together. What materials should be used for waterproofing and what angles work best to keep the house cool in the summer and warm in the winter. What types of designs make the best use of limited space in a city; what designs make the best use of cheap materials in the rural areas.

Architects who believe X1 + X2 + X3 = A good house, where X1, X2, and X3 are things such as money saved on heating, ease of obtaining the materials required, and price, among a good number of other things. These architects take this equation and turn it into different equations and schematics. The entire thing is a fight against the process of entropy.

Perhaps that last example wasn’t necessarily the best. I am not an architect, so I can only guess as to what things seem to govern most architects. I have developed my knowledge of architecture almost exclusively from that famous work of Ayn Rand’s, The Fountainhead.

I find other things in the life I currently live similarly formulaic, however. In school, we’re given a set of guidelines and rewarded a GPA at the end. Assuming every student is given the same mental faculties, we’re given an equation such which seems to be:

hours spent studying + accuracy of notes taken in class + attendance = GPA

 

We’re given these types of equations all of the time. Almost everything in our daily lives can be resolved down to equations that somebody or another taught us. Susceptibility to tooth decay = sweets eaten – (brushing + flossing). Even when we do the simplest actions such as tying our shoes, we follow a strict set of steps which has been given to us and handed down as knowledge from our parents and our grandparents. It’s yet another algorithm, a set of steps in order to make sure that your shoe does not fall off. Take the two strings, cross them, tuck one string under the other, pull tight, take one string and fold in half, wrap the other string around the midsection, pull through. It’s a set of steps that we’re given and we follow mindlessly, not realizing that it’s an algorithm. Not realizing that it’s programmed into our systems. We do these kinds of things each day.

 

Organized religion is another thing that seems to me to be another set of equations, another set of steps to meet an end. A procedural method for saving your eternal soul. It seems to me that modern Christianity has also fallen victim to this set of steps, to these rituals and these predefined steps which must be taken in order to become a Christian. Even as an evangelistic tool, the current-day church hands out a booklet entitled The Four Spiritual Laws, which outlines a procedure which, when followed through correctly seemingly equals spiritual salvation. The equation is something like this:

Believe in God

Believe in Jesus

Pray to Jesus to forgive your sins

Have faith that Jesus will forgive your sins

Go to church

Perform actions and deeds which show that you are indeed a Christian

Behave in the way that Christians behave

 

While I don’t disagree with all of it, I think that spirituality and having a relationship with God and with your soul is a lot more than a set of steps. People in Christian circles are always asking “are you saved?” “are you a believer?”. If the answer to this is “I have prayed to become a Christian,” then it’s accepted and taken for granted that you are a Christian. It’s also accepted that once you become a Christian, it’s not really possible for you to ever not become a Christian, and that if you stop exhibiting the behaviors of a Christian, that you were never really saved in the first place.

 

This is confusing to a lot of people because they are taught that if they say the prayer that they are saved. Unfortunately Christianity cannot be curtailed or codified into an equation as simple as the one that the church has to offer. It’s not that the Bible and the message of salvation aren’t true, it’s that they cannot be truncated into something as simple as a four-page booklet and a five minute speech given at a bus stop at 9:24 p.m. at the bus stop at the Allen Street Gate.

 

Our society seems to live by equations. We live by the bus schedules. I know that I personally seem to run my life around the bus schedules. It’s an extremely simple if-then statement.

 

IF(I get to the bus stop before one of the times listed on the bus schedule) THEN

I will get on the bus and I will make it to campus on time

ELSE

I am out of luck and I should probably start walking

END IF

 

Quizzes and tests are other examples of this sort of pervading mathematical mentality. These exemplify the biggest lie and fallacy that the schools teach children, and that is the falsehood that performance can be measured numerically. The falsity that the answers provided to a set of trivial questions listed on a sheet of paper can accurately reflect the performance of any individual. This formula is spread all throughout our society, and I think that you or I would be hard-pressed to find someone who has no experience with this system. Unfortunately, this system, as is the system of the Four Spiritual Laws and simplified evangelistic Christianity is one again completely invalid. The formulas and requirements for meeting these kinds of goals do not and cannot actually capture the soul of a man or the extent of his knowledge and expertise.

 

An interesting development is that it seems that teachers and professors are learning more and more that this rote memorized learning of tests and quizzes isn’t accurate. They have attempted to discard the old algorithm for academic success and are attempting to implement a newer one. This algorithm is called “Problem Based Learning.” This algorithm, PBL, for short is definitely an algorithm. It appears on the outside to be something new, something free. Students working on projects. Since you take out the completely obvious formulaic elements of the old system, then the new system must not be formulaic, and must encourage more freedom and flexibility.

 

Unfortunately just because an algorithm is different does not mean that it is not an algorithm. And if an algorithm cannot be applied to solve something, then changing the algorithm and deluding ourselves into the belief that it is not an algorithm isn’t going to actually help. I remember my CAS 100B class and the presentations we were given on “PMOPS”. PMOPS is the Procedural Model for Problem Solving. It is how to solve problem-based learning questions. It was a list of step by step instructions of things to do and steps to take in order to accomplish a goal. This to me is a clearly defined set of instructions, or, algorithm. It had a list of things for a group or individual to do in order to tackle the problem. It leaves the student to significantly freer use of his resources in order to accomplish the tasks set aside for him, and I think that it is better suited to achieve the needs of our current-day students, but I do not feel that it is completely right. I do not believe that it will work.

 

Those that are dead-alive do not make errors. They are completely procedural. They follow instructions given and do not make mistakes. Those people are the people who our society and our schools and our religious institutions make. They produce only dead things. Those who are alive-alive produce living things. Unfortunately it seems that there are fewer and fewer of us left.

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Bathroom Knowledge

I recently inhabited the first stall in the men’s bathroom closest to the reserve reading room in Pattee Library. The one that’s somewhat hidden behind some sort of coin machine or vending machine. I can’t remember which.

Normally I enjoy reading bathroom graffiti — it gives me something for my mind to think about other than “Is this going to smear when I wipe?” Thankfully this stall had enough written material to make it worthy of being a library bathroom. Tomes upon tomes of words from the everyman.

Curious what the everyman had to say?

“Perno is gay” — What? Does he mean porno? Paterno? I don’t know.

“I would write my name here but that would be graffiti.” — A half-baked attempt at irony… better than “insert name here takes it up the ass”
“John 3:16” — Shouldn’t you write it out? Most christians have this memorized and don’t necessarily need to read it on the bathroom stall. How many nonchristians walk into the bathroom with a Bible?

“Those who write on shithouse walls
roll their shit in little balls
Those who read the words of wit
eat those little balls of shit.” — I think this might be more accurate than the author originally intended.

“Leeroy Jeeeeeeeenkins” and “All your mullets are belong to us.” — These rank in there as quite frightening seeing how recent and topical they are. (although… why mullets?)

Stolen quote from boss

“Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been
sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious,
and immature.”
–Tom Robbins

Of Bookworms and Anarchy

This morning I was riding the bus in to work and I looked ou tthe window and saw a small, very nerdy looking asian girl. She looked like she probably read a lot and studied very hard for school work. What made this girl stand out in my mind, however, was the anarchy sign on her tshirt – half-hidden by her jacket sitting unzipped on top.
I was quite honestly surprised.

I started thinking about anarchy. Anarchy is a total absence of governance. Dictionary.com says that anarchy is “a state of society without government or law”. I began musing about this out loud. It seems to me that with any number of people, anarchy becomes a complete impossibility. I don’t think that complete anarchy is possible. If two people interact, they will almost always draw up either explicit or implied guidelines governing the behaviors of the two individuals. Anyone who enters into a partnership tends to start off with “you do this for me and I will do that for you,” or something similar. At this point there is already guidelines set up as for the proper behavior. It essentially becomes a law. If it is violated, the trust between the two individuals is violated and there are consequences for the violation of the law.

It is essentially impossible for humans to interact in numbers larger than 1 without developing relationships. Relationships have very much ingrained rules about trust and betrayal. It would appear that law is not something completely external to humans. While not every culture has the exact same laws, and not all cultures agree on the same things as being good or bad, all cultures have sets of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors. These are laws or cultural mores. The need for law is rooted so deeply in humanity that it tends to wind up being expressed externally through written contracts and guidelines, but every human has a sense of law or fairness. To pull an Ayn Rand, I refer you to the first chapter of C.S. Lewis’ book Mere Christianity for a more in-depth look at law as a basic property of human nature.

If law is a part of human nature, it would then logically follow that anarchy is impossible without a suppression of human nature, and that any group of normally functioning human beings will attempt to externalize these laws in their relationships and partnerships with other people. If anarchy is impossible due to the technicality of being human, why wouldn’t normal intelligent people realize this?

But then again this is Penn State.

I suppose that intelligent people would promote ideals that are similar to what they are currently looking for. I would assume that this promotion of an impossible concept is due to a lack of faith in the current structure and a desire to change what is currently going on. The Bush administration has not necessarily been very endearing or inspiring trust in our country’s leadership. So the girl wants changes in government; probably due to a feeling of corruption or evil. Something is wrong with the current government. So promote change of the government. Unfortunately people do not tend to listen to exactly what is being said. Promoting change in the government will probably not have a big enough impact to make a difference in anyone who is looking, so promote the extreme. Promote anarchy. Promote the abolishment of the government. Promote something extremist so that people will listen. Wear an anarchy t-shirt.

At least that’s what I’d like to believe that’s what she was thinking when she got dressed this morning.

The glory of the writer.

I think that of all the things you could write about — real life would be the easiest possible topics to write about. Fiction is so much more difficult to write about than life. Real life is merely telling of events and facts. Mere regurgitation of research and experience. The next step up on the difficulty level is nonfiction writing where you make speculations and personal remarks upon the subject. Taking the subject material and analyzing it and putting out points of view is one step up from mere historical or factual writing.  These sorts of things require creation. It requires creativity and intellect in order to take something and make it your own. The most difficult writings however are fiction.

Maybe difficulty isn’t the right word. Honorable, possibly. It is more worthy of praise than any other kind of writing. Fiction has to be made up. The writer has to take real life and pieces of reality and then create an alternate reality. It is not easy to create alternative realities. If the author makes mistakes, the reader will catch on and it won’t be real. Fiction is not fiction because it is not real. Fiction is real. Fiction is just an alternative reality. It is not what exists in our world, bu what exists in the world created by the author. The fiction writer is arguable one of the most powerful individuals in the world. He can create and destroy worlds – raise up or destroy life. Fiction writing is the closest humans can get to becoming God. God created us in His image, so does the fiction writer create characters and worlds in his. Fiction is our mimickry of God – our best attempts to match him.

Writing also creates a sort of immortality. Far more than athletes or political leaders, authors are the ones who are known and remembered the longest. Their worlds last far past their lifetimes. They continue to exist once their god is dead. Continue existing – continue living on showing glory to their creator. Atlantis has lived longer than most ancient civilizations, and it never even existed in this world other than in writing.

There are other professions like that of the writer. Speechwriters for famous political readers and writers of history books can alter the reality of this world. Hitler created an alternate world that actually existed in our own. It lasted from 1939 until 1944. The Third Reich was a completely different world. It did not have nearly as much of a concept of human rights  as the rest of the world. It was a world that existed without external facts. Anything that Hitler or his propaganda ministry didn’t like was axed, not permitted into the world. The people of the third reich loved it. They burned books with a zest that would have made Beatty weep with joy. Hitler wasn’t a bad man in the world he had created. He was a bad man in our world. He was a horrible man measured by the standards of our world, but in the world of the third reich, he was the ultimate man. He was an ubermensch.

World War II was not so much a war of separate nations within our world. It was a war between two very separate realities. One reality held by the Allies and one reality held by the Axis. It was as if the two sides were residents of different dimensions. They were very much alien to each other.

Filmmakers also have a similar power over reality and creating worlds. They can create alternate worlds which can be experienced through sight and sound. Unfortunately they do not have the control that writers have. Writers command all senses – filmmakers command only two.