The Fountainhead of Youth:

[Judith]

All right, guys, you asked for it. I brought my photo album in to work and used the scanner, and now you're going to be subject to all my photos.

The standard school portraits. First grade:

Third grade:

Sixth grade:

Eleventh grade:

My second birthday:

Showing my early love for big dogs...

...horses...

...and reading:

Me as a new girl scout. Note the knife on my belt:

Me at twelve:

Me at sixteen in Tanzania standing next to a Masai:

Me at seventeen in the Poconos:

There. Enough, Victor?

Judith

Edited March 16, 2007 by Judith

[Victor Pross]

Judith! WOW! Thanks! I would give you a big kiss about now (if you wouldn't hit me).

EDIT: You have been included in the 'cutie pie' post (#69)

Edited March 14, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Philip Coates]

These pics are great!!!

I have one worry though, don't Michael and Kat have to pay extra monthly charges if the disk space becomes too great, chewed up by photos, audio, and god forbid home movies? Also, speaking for myself, I don't have broadband...and every time I click on this thread it take upwards of fifteen minutes to load...Just now I terminated the load.

Would it be a good idea for people

i) to not repeat the previous photos in a reply post? [in general it's not even necessary to even always do this with text, I think...people have already just seen the post just above.]

ii) only load your -two- best photos...and since everyone is so cute, we'll all hit the hyperlink....give us a link to your website or what's it called, MySpace, where you can put up your entire album?

(Not my call, though...Michael and Kat, am I butting in here with unsolicited advice?)

[Dragonfly]

I agree. Judith's photos are far too big, I think some 6 megabytes in total! All the photos I've put on this forum are no more than a few dozen kilobytes big. Nevertheless my photos are clear enough. As an example how a smaller picture can be good enough, I've made a reduced version of one of Judith's photos, originally 400kb, and here only 32 kb, 12 times smaller!

Especially when you put a lot of photos on the site, you should reduce them even more.

[Judith]

I agree. Judith's photos are far too big, I think some 6 megabytes in total! All the photos I've put on this forum are no more than a few dozen kilobytes big. Nevertheless my photos are clear enough. As an example how a smaller picture can be good enough, I've made a reduced version of one of Judith's photos, originally 400kb, and here only 32 kb, 12 times smaller!

I'm really new to this stuff. I'd be glad to put the reduced photos on Photobucket if someone will reduce them for me!

Judith

[Dragonfly]

I'm really new to this stuff. I'd be glad to put the reduced photos on Photobucket if someone will reduce them for me!

I can do that tomorrow (it's now 2 am here!)

[Philip Coates]

I'm curious as to -how- exactly one reduces photos.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dragonfly,

I did it already and sent the pictures to Judith by e-mail. I prefer to let her use her own Photobucket account, so we have to wait until she uploads the new files and replaces the URL's in her post.

Phil,

You need an image program to make an image file size smaller. There are many out there.

What you want out of a picture for easy loading is a small file size. This does not mean a small picture size. It means a small number of bytes. This is achieved by several means, since there are several things that increase the number of bytes.

1. File type. For general users, it is best to use a jpg image instead of a tiff or other format. You will be able to choose this on most image programs directly when first saving an image, or at least when you use the "Save As" or "Export" command. DO NOT USE BMP FILES ON THE INTERNET!!! You can change them over to jpg on almost any image program.

2. DPI. This means "Dots per Inch." This is also called pixel size. For Internet viewing, most low-end scanner programs are preset to scan at 72 dpi. This is OK but I don't like it for printing. I use 100 dpi in general.

3. Picture size. There are several elements that influence this and it gets confusing. Basically, when you scan an image, it will be saved by the program at normal size (in inches or centimeters), but not all programs do this. So you might have to test the image to make sure. Also, when you scan, your whole picture might be too big because of the empty space. Learn to use the "crop" feature.

You can also load an image and resize it. Unfortunately, all image programs have this command in different places, so you have to hunt for it. If your image program does not allow you to resize the image by percentage, you can resize it by cutting the DPI's (pixels) in half but restoring the inches or centimeters. That can get complicated, though. Frankly, if your image program does not allow you to resize by percentage, find one that does. There are too many available to suffer like that.

In Judith's pictures, she scanned them at 300 DPI's (probably thinking about quality). For printing, this is not a bad idea, but for the Internet screen, this is not needed as the quality is almost imperceptible. I saved her pictures on my hard drive, then lowered her DPI from 300 to 100. I also resized her pictures to 50% for better viewing as the pictures were really large on my screen. In this manner, a picture that was 469 kb ended up being 26 kb. That's a huge difference. Then I sent the resized pictures to her (with different file names so she does not accidentally save an old one over the new one).

Now she will upload them to Photobucket and switch the URL's in her post to the ones for the smaller pictures.

There's much more, but these are the highlights that should resolve about 90% or more of your problems.

Michael

[Roger Bissell]

The individuals identified in this photograph with reasonable certainty are: center row from left, Fronz and Anna Rosenbaum, Alice’s parents; Alice’s maternal grandmother; Alice’s cousin, Nina; Alice’s maternal grandfather; and on his knee, 4 year-old Alice [Ayn Rand].

Question: without knowing (or trying to forget that you know) the identities of any of the individuals in this photo, look at all of them again and ask yourself: which of these individuals would be least likely to learn how to drive an automobile and/or to train him/herself to speak English without a thick Russian accent? :-)

[Jonathan]

I'm curious as to -how- exactly one reduces photos.

Phil,

If you don't have imaging software, you can use flickr.com as your photo storage site, and it automatically creates thumbnail, small, medium and large files for each photo that you upload to your account. Once you've uploaded an image, just click on it and then click on the "all sizes" button above the photo. Flickr provides URLs for each of the different sizes, and you can copy and paste them into your posts.

J

[Jonathan]

2 1/2 and skeptical of Santa's existence:

J

[Victor Pross]

2 1/2 and skeptical of Santa's existence:

J

Wait a minute! That’s a current photo, isn’t it? :turned:

[Jonathan]

Wait a minute! That’s a current photo, isn’t it? :turned:

I should have seen that coming. :twitch:

J

[Barbara Branden]

I resent the fact that so many of you are simply ignoring the fact that Objectivist Living is the property of Michael and Kat. Michael has stated what he wants to have happen here -- and what he does not want. Surely, out of gratitude for the fact that he has established the only Objectivist Forum where name-calling, intellectual dogmatism, and excommunications are not allowed, his requests should be honored.

Michael is quite correct when he says that the preponderance of non-serious threads and posts is turning away many people interested in discussing ideas. It has been painful to me to see this, and to hear from people who are disappointed in what is happening here. And it is not an answer to say that those who want serious threads should create them; when they do, their threads are often taken over by nonsense.

Michael and Kat have worked extremely hard to make OL a forum they can be proud of. I know of no other forum owners who have done the equivalent reading and study. Surely, the forum they have created should reflect their work and not be given over to light banter and public love-making.

Victor, you asked who decides what should happen on OL. Why, Michael and Kat decide, of course. It is their property, created in order to achieve their purposes. It is not a democracy.

Barbara

[Victor Pross]

Barbara,

I respect MSK and Kat. Yes, we have banged heads, MSK and I—but this does not mean I don’t respect him. I have acknowledge his wish to have a greater preponderance of serious posts, and that’s why I have put aside the more playful side to engage in (and contribute) to the more serious threads—such as the ethics thread—and I also have many ideas for threads that will ignite some interesting philosophical conversations. I am always creating—in one way or another.

Barbara, with all due respect, the Youth thread is here; it has already been started. It’s already here and so many people are getting a kick out of it. Plus MSK only made his wishes known after the fact. So if people continue to post here, I don’t see that being disrespectful to him. Hell, MSK and Kat posted their youth pictures! (So did Ayn Rand…Well, okay, I did that). So I think that they think this thread is a good idea. This thread is a good idea, and I can see it making people smile. This type of thing makes OL a much more interesting site to visit. And fun. Buy yes, it is an intellectual site. I acknowledge that—regardless of my grumblings. So I have not recently posted another like it. I’m on to intellectual issues.

If I may pat myself on the back, I think I have made some good contributions to OL. I have contributed art—for which I did not receive my expensive customary fee. But that’s okay. If people—like our beloved Chris—get a charge from it, then I’m happy. If the Biddle caricature got a few charges (for different reasons) then I’m happy. Aren't you? Now, this not to say that nobody else is dong anything—of course not. People bring things to the table here--fun and intellectual wise. I’m merely saying I have something to bring to the table, too.

I don’t want this post to be taken in any hostile manner nor as a cause for any riff between us. That is the past and I would much rather interact with you than quarrel.

-Victor

Edited March 16, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Laure]

I thought we'd cajoled Michael and Kat into playing along, since they kindly posted some kid pictures of their own. It's certainly up to them ultimately, and they can lock any thread anytime they see fit.

I like having some non-serious threads, because it helps to see the other posters as human beings; might help keep us from getting too harsh in other discussions. It seems to me that most of the serious threads are continuing without undue interruption.

[Judith]

I did it already and sent the pictures to Judith by e-mail. I prefer to let her use her own Photobucket account, so we have to wait until she uploads the new files and replaces the URL's in her post.

Done! Thanks, Michael!

In Judith's pictures, she scanned them at 300 DPI's (probably thinking about quality). For printing, this is not a bad idea, but for the Internet screen, this is not needed as the quality is almost imperceptible.

Hah! No, actually I scanned them as 3 - 4.5 meg tiff files, and used the software on the machine attached to the scanner to REDUCE them to jpegs under the instruction of the guys helping me at the time. Obviously I didn't make them small enough...

Judith

[CNA]

The other posters who have posted have already spoken in defense of this thread as well as other threads and that it humanizes the members which I very much agree and can also see that it may very well deter harshness in other discussions so my post won't address this. I already posted my defense of this thread in the very beginning. I am also glad to see that both Mike and Kat have taken part in this thread as well. I especially enjoyed Mike's conductor shot and would love to see more of these pix from his career.

But something hasn't been addressed as of yet and I would like to bring it to the forefront. I've read in quite a few posts on this thread that people have left OL or are turned off by OL because of the ratio of serious to nonserious posts. I understand about this offset but don't lay this solely at the feet of why people are turned off by OL or have left. I personally know of quite a few people who have left OL because there is too much Rand bashing. I also know of some people that do not have a membership to OL but post on other forums who have told me the same thing, that they wouldn't become a member of OL nor do they frequent the site because they found that there was too much Rand bashing. So please don't lay this solely at the feet of nonserious posts versus serious posts. There are many reasons why these individuals are leaving.

[Victor Pross]

Victor, you asked who decides what should happen on OL. Why, Michael and Kat decide, of course. It is their property, created in order to achieve their purposes. It is not a democracy.

Barbara,

You misunderstood me here. When I asked “who decides”—I meant it in the sense of “who decides” to initiate any given intellectual post or otherwise? MSK does not set out a quota of who is to contribute what, how much and within what time frame articles and posts are to appear. We, the people, the contributors of OL, are the lifeblood to the site. That is what can’t be regulated. People are here because they want to be. Not a democracy? It's also not a dictatorship. And the same people who want to be here—are the same people who read and create threads. Those are the people that MSK and Kat count on to have a successful site---fun and interesting people. They have them! MSK and Kat made it possible, yes, it is their site. And that people are here at all—contributing their energy and time—is their way of saying “thank you.”

-Victor

Edited March 16, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Barbara,

Thank you. I have also heard what you have and it has bothered me enough to make a public statement.

All,

The present thread is OK. And the level of the banter, etc., has fallen in general. I fully agree that a few light threads are good and I heartily contribute to them. But I don't think people are understanding what Barbara was talking about. She does not want to eliminate them all. There was too much going on and she perceived disrespect to Kat and me when I asked for less. (She certainly is adorable. )

Angie,

There is one particular point I want to address. I am not worried about "people" leaving OL or not becoming members because I am not actively seeking a wide audience of "people." I have opted for quality over quantity, especially as regards good will and independent use of a person's mind. The charge of OL as a Rand-bashing site is simply untrue and, frankly, the type of person who makes that kind of charge is not one I seek. His is correct to seek his values elsewhere. Here we value reality.

It is true that I do let a person speak against Rand and/or Objectivism if I judge it is a sincere conclusion and not simply hate-rhetoric. I especially focus on whether he is seeking the truth or is simply trying to grandstand and preach. My attitude comes from this question: How can anyone convince another if that person is afraid to express his true thoughts? This holds on both sides of an issue. (I also don't like to play games, like a poster thinking that expressing his true thoughts includes constantly being rude and insulting to the person he is addressing.) The intent of honest understanding is very important to me.

At any rate, I think it is very clear to all but the Rand-worshipers that each person on OL is responsible for his own thoughts, and any negative opinions of Rand by any one poster does not necessarily reflect the views of the other posters. I also think it is clear that most of the regular posters respect and admire Rand, even the ones who are critical of her.

I am more severe about Branden-bashing because of the irrationality and/or hysteria that occurred in the orthodox Objectivist world (and that whatever-you-want-to-call-it over on SOLOP) with that silly book, PARC. And I tend to be harshly critical of irrational elements in the Objectivist world, especially the tribalism promoted by ARI and other orthodox leaning groups.

Now, as to the people who have curtailed their posting on OL, the ones I was referring to have not "left." They merely stopped for a while or greatly reduced their contributions. They are intelligent independent thinkers of good will and I value them highly. I have specific people in mind and those are the ones I meant, not any nonspecific "people" or "they."

It should be clear, especially to Objectivists, that if one of my values is being compromised and the reason is clear, I have every right to request my guests to avoid the excessive behavior that compromised those values. And Barbara is right. Rather than argue about it and try to pretend it doesn't exist, my request for less (and notice that I not once said "stop") on my own site should be respected.

I practice this myself. I still post periodically on RoR, mostly out of nostalgia because I started there, even though now it is essentially a hostile environment for me. The owner has made the boundaries clear—hell, I am under moderation over there—and I respect them without pause or discussion. It's his place, not mine. I am his guest, even if we are not friendly. I never forget that and I conduct my actions accordingly. I respect his wishes on his property.

One final comment about the ones who worship Rand. I actually prefer the Rand worshipers to stay away from OL. They usually drag down the good vibes whenever they step outside their own little circle.

Michael

[Victor Pross]

Come on, folks.

I ain't worried about people having a good time and I HATE being the traffic cop. But somebody has to say you can't play hide-and-seek and tag in the study hall.

The trivia to content ratio is too high. Some of our best and brightest are migrating to other places because of it. And I hear about it backstage. That's the problem.

Don't stop. I just need some balance.

And I do find the photos attractive.

Michael

Michael,

Don't worry. Nobody is migrating to other places. If they are, they'll come back -- as you said. :turned:

Victor

[Philip Coates]

Michael,

1. Thanks for the information on how to manipulate/reduce/dealo with photos! It was very helpful, and I particularly appreciated the level of detail!

2. On the other matter being discussed -- and this would apply to OL, RoR, Solo or any other discussion board I have participated on -- for me a high level of banter is very enjoyable -- as long as people have common sense and a sense of proportion and it's not the only value being offerred.

More important would be as long as it's not a hijack of a serious thread. What bothers me more (speaking for myself) is if a lot of thought is put into thoroughly detailing something or making a really substantive post (rather than simply long-winded or repetitious) and it tends not to be followed up or developed in any real way. (I envision really good postings as the beginning of a lively dialogue, the beginning of a chain reaction of thought, the beginning of expanding the mind.)

Speaking only for myself, but I know this has happened to others: when I've worked through something in detail which has more meat to it than "Objectivist gossip and personalities", it's profoundly depressing when no one responds with a similar level of substance (or not even one or two saying 'good point' or 'interesting' or "Lot's of points - i'll have to think about them".). Once or twice is okay--I just had that experience here this week -- making a substantive post on reasons for Anthem being translated into every language which didn't get a single response. But if it happens repeatedly or virtually every time, THAT is demoralizing and may be what leads people like myself to be less likely to invest time or emotional energy in the future.

In this regard, one reason I posted at Solo for a long time, even thoughI encountered both hostility and strong disagreement, was at least there was often some kind of vigorous and detailed engagement on the one hand and a minority of thoughtful posts in response, and it can be of value sometimes to see even mistaken or fallacious response as a lesson in types of error. However that seems to have died in the last few months on Solo as Linz has insulted and chased so many people away. I 've been getting almost zero responses or no thoughtful ones, as the Jim Heaps Nelsons and Boaz's and Bill Nevins and Ed Hudgins (perhaps) have become inactive, so I'm getting ready to "bail" over there. For the past year, I actually found it was -more- likely that I would get active engagement and interesting responses rather than *dead silence* when I spent a half hour writing something at Solo than at RoR - which is why I've basically been posting at the former rather than the latter.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Phil!

Thoughtful response to your Anthem posts coming right up!

Michael

[Barbara Branden]

Okay, guys! I expect to have my scanner installed in the next few days, and I'll dazzle you all with my pictures.

I don 't suppose anyone here can walk me through installing my scanner on my Mac. . .? If there's a genius here who can and will, please contact me at my email address: BBranden1@aol.com. No point in taking up space here with it.

Barbara

[Greybird]

I just got here ... on this board, and now in this thread ... People are leaving? Because it's not serious enough?? They said that about a forum with Objectivists present??? The world HAS turned upside down. But in a good way. {g}

I respect Michael's viewpoint about having genuine discussions, as well as his property rights. I'm also glad he saw that people were rising to the occasion and genuinely contributing here, and that this also was to be valued. The conceptual and the personal cross every hour of every day at conferences, conventions, even at every corner tavern.

What gives me more pause is Philip Coates' concern about substantive works being buried without a chance for attention. That's a danger anywhere. I've already had to extract two such posts to begin new threads, and I believe nobody here should be reluctant to do so.

As for a blog, I already have made stabs at starting one in two other locations, and I fear it might be diluting what effort I can devote to it by doing one here. For now, anyway. I also tend to doubt that blogs work well for personal contributions from many people. I take part in one where only two of us find it hard to coordinate matters.

Sooooo ... My own pictures? I only have a couple where I don't look like a geek, as I have since I learned to read at age three. But I have to scan them, very soon, I hope. (Now, which box are they in? Empty albums, I should use the friggin' things ...)

And as to tools, the best all-around graphics Swiss Army knife is IrfanView. Very compact, regularly improved, entirely freeware. (Only for Windows as yet, unfortunately.) It can do every task Michael outlined above and many more. It even plays MP3s.