So, while dabbling around I pulled a picture I took from last Winter… cleaned it, balanced the lighting, passed it through a black & white filter, and then gently applied an indigo gradient. The results were pleasing… so here it is for anyone to enjoy if they wish (1600×1200).

Anyways… I hope all my fellow Americans are having a great July 4th, and I just want to leave you with this Independence Day speech from July 4, 1946, given by a young John F. Kennedy (excerpted from his full speech as found in the JFK Presidential Library).

The informing spirit of the American character has always been a deep religious sense.

Throughout the years, down to the present, a devotion to fundamental religious principles has characterized American thought and action.

Our government was founded on the essential religious idea of integrity of the individual. It was this religious sense which inspired the authors of the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”

Our earliest legislation was inspired by this deep religious sense:
“Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion.”

Our first leader, Washington, was inspired by this deep religious sense:
“Of all of the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”

Lincoln was inspired by this deep religious sense:
“That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

Our late, lamented President was inspired by this deep religious sense:
“We shall win this war, and in victory we shall seek not vengeance, but the establishment of an international order in which the spirit of Christ shall rule the hearts of men and nations.”

Thus we see that this nation has ever been inspired by essential religious ideas. The doctrine of slavery which challenged these ideas within our own country was destroyed.

Recently, the philosophy of racism, which threatened to overwhelm them by attacks from abroad, was also met and destroyed.

Today these basic religious ideas are challenged by atheism and materialism: at home in the cynical philosophy of many of our intellectuals, abroad in the doctrine of collectivism, which sets up the twin pillars of atheism and materialism as the official philosophical establishment of the State.

Inspired by a deeply religious sense, this country, which has ever been devoted to the dignity of man, which has ever fostered the growth of the human spirit, has always met and hurled back the challenge of those deathly philosophies of hate and despair. We have defeated them in the past; we will always defeat them.

How well, then, has DeTocqueville said: “You may talk of the people and their majesty, but where there is no respect for God can there be much for man? You may talk of the supremacy of the ballot, respect for order, denounce riot, secession–unless religion is the first link, all is vain.”

• Let beggars be choosers. Let those who don’t have a job get to spend other people’s money if there aren’t any “desirable” jobs they feel like doing. Do this even if there are those who have willingly worked those same “undesirable” jobs for years to make ends meet and feed their families. In fact, in a show of utter idiocy, make those workers doing the “undesirable” jobs give spending money to those who feel “too good” to do those same “undesirable” jobs. And keep raising that minimum wage because you have to have the latest IM-capable cellphones, you know.

• Value esteem over excellence. Don’t speak any truth that will possibly offend anyone, ever. Never imply that anyone is better at anything than anyone else. Don’t fall prey to the twisted notion that there are absolutes. Standardized tests are evil devices designed to artificially lift up those who are good at learning information and applying that information under pressure… and this is bad because nowhere in life will you ever have to know any information, nor will you ever be under any pressure, so these tests are all unrealistic and divisive. In fact, all tests, grades, scores, and ratings are evil and divisive.

• Take money from the few to buy votes from the many. Since most of the wealth in the US is in the hands of just a few at the top… take their money, label this theft as “fair”, and use the money to buy the votes from the much larger number of people at the other end of the economic spectrum. Be sure to hide the fact that they, at the lower end, are still wealthier than most of the rest of the world… and don’t tell them that if they are fat, have cellphones, wear gold chains, and watch multiple TVs in the apartment then they probably are doing well enough. Oh yeah… also fudge the numbers so that nobody realizes money taken from the top hurts job growth and economic development in the middle and the bottom. In fact, burn every economic book you can find… then buy yourself some votes while you dine for $125 a plate and smoke Cubans in your jet.

• Offer free health care. Especially offer free health care to those who prefer to spend their money on chips, cellphones, gold chains, and TVs. Make sure that there is no incentive to stay healthy. And in the spirit of “beggars being choosers” let them demand the most expensive pharmaceuticals that they see commercials for while watching soaps on their multiple TVs during what we would call the “working hours” of the day because there are no “desirable jobs” for them. Of course… not everyone would get free health care… I mean, it’d be free on the surface, but you’d have to tax the heck out of everyone to pull it off. And pay no attention to the politicians paying big bucks to go to private hospitals to see private doctors… the Canadians don’t. After all, nobody pays attention to US politicians sending their kids to private schools while trumpeting the value of public schools.

• Judge by emotion. If someone was killed, they’re dead. They’re gone. Don’t dwell on ghosts… but show compassion to the poor murdering rapist who now must suffer with that guilt. Not only do they have to suffer the guilt of knowing they stabbed and raped twelve pre-teen girls… but then you want to further torment them by locking them in what amounts to an animal cage… to be mocked and taunted by REAL animals like crooked CEOs. Pay no attention to that middle finger the court camera caught them pointing at the victims’ families… that’s just their guilt and pain cruelly bubbling to the surface. You need to understand the society that drove them, against their will, to that unfortunate end… otherwise you’ll lose fact that they have rights and dirty cops want to take those rights away. Thank goddess for the ACLU that protects the rights of murdering rapists because who knows what this country would be like if we got medieval on them.

• Maintain two political parties. Only two. First of all, you’ll only have to make sure that there’s more people who like you than like only one other person. That’s pretty easy… and you can always make up good stuff that you’ll do if you need a boost to your likability. And with just two parties, when one loses, the other wins… and vice versa. This ensures that you don’t have to stand FOR anything as long as you can stand AGAINST what the other guy is for… then if you win you won’t have to DO anything… you just have to NOT DO what the other guy was going to. How joyous for you that you get to WIN and NOT DO anything!

Memorial Day was this week and provided yet another reminder of how fortunate we are to live in a country this great and free. The things we complain about (gas prices, spotty cellphone coverage, slow computers) are – relatively – totally insignificant. I wonder how many people are being tortured around the world as you read this? Oops… sorry… I forgot we don’t trouble ourselves with such negative thoughts… after all, those are other people’s problems, not ours.

So here are a couple good wallpaper reminders to myself of how good I have it. The one on the left is a great Memorial Day wallpaper compliments of the US Air Force. The one in the right is compliments of yours truly and is the view of the beach from our Cancun resort hotel room we stayed in recently.

When your fortune improves, the columns on your house appear crooked.
-Armenian proverb

Here are two gorgeous horizons. The one on the left is Tide by Inga Nielsen. The one on the right is Relative Calm from Moodflow.com.

So instead let’s stay calm and think of happy places. Here’s are two fantastical getaways straight from Ryan “The Man” Bliss and my favorite wallpaper destination Digital Blasphemy. The one on the left is called Once Upon a Time and the one on the right is called Temple Stairs at Night. Check out Ryan’s site and tell him I sent you.

Here are two 1152×864 gems from my all-time favorite wallpaper site, Digital Blasphemy. The one on the left is called Saguero2001 and the one on the right is Neopolis. These particular wallpapers stood out to me because I’ve been experimenting with brighter and deeper colors over dark gray backgrounds lately in my own web development (kind of like Negative99). Ryan does some amazing work so be sure to check out his site.

Anyways, these 1600×1200 images of love both come from DT-Extreme, a website actually devoted to fan art of the band Dream Theater (one of my absolute favs). If you’re a DT fan you can find a myriad of wallpapers and mix CD covers of great quality here. And… occasionally you can even find a good Matrix wallpaper with scripture on it. That’s the one on the left. The one on the right features many lines of lyrics from various DT songs across their many albums. Enjoy.

This wallpaper is called Caribbean Dream by Martin Scholte of the former terraholic.net site.

The two images here are both 1600×1200. The one on the left is a night shot of Ankara, Turkey, and the one on the right is a circuit board.

Here’s a wallpaper called Desert Rock by Ryan Bliss at Digital Blasphemy. This one is one of my favorites because of the use of colors. If you like it head over and check out his works.

In the story, the main character (said red violin) was the perfect creation of a master Italian craftsman named Nicolo Bussotti. However, every search I do for him only comes up with information on this movie. Is he a fictional character? I’m so ignorant… I just thought he was like Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri.

For my instrument, the modern guitar, there are no grand movies spanning centuries… nor could there be, unless to unfold an epic featuring an ancient lute or oud from Biblical times that gets smashed by… I dunno… a meteorite and is unknowingly rebuilt by a drunk luthier into a Fender Stratocaster. Weak… very weak. So instead, let’s just munch on a few guitar wallpapers for Wallpaper Wednesday. I have no idea where the one on the right came from (but it does tie in a Biblical reference to the guitar!)… but the one on the left is from guitare-nstructor.com.

If you want some light reading on castles, go to Wikipedia’s article. And Castles on the Web is also a fun link, too.

Anyways, speaking of astrophysics… some of my favorite wallpapers come from astronomical and cosmological depictions of space. Maybe it’s my personal interest in reading about astrophysics, or maybe it’s my interest in science fiction, or maybe it’s the unusual brilliance of color and detail that are typical of the genre. At any rate, you’d have to surf a long ways to find better space scenery wallpaper than at Greg Martin’s website. Check out his sweet new Flash gallery! Very nice. Here are two gems from his collection: the one on the right is called Shattered (1024×768) — the one on the left is called Celestia III (1024×768) and is one of my absolute favorites of all time. As always, if you enjoyed the wallpapers you found here please visit the creator’s website and pay homage.

Both of these beauties are by Rob Randtoul from Plasma Design. The one on the left is called Canyon Gateway and is 1600×1200. The one on the right is called Furnace and is 1024×768. As always, if you enjoyed the wallpapers you found here please visit the creator’s website and pay homage.

As a side point, I get all sorts of emails about various parts of my site, including the wallpapers. Lately even more so… and my site traffic has been ramping up, along with unique visitors and bandwidth utilized. Funny, though, that while overall activity increases in every category, comments tend to trend the opposite. And the opposite seems true, too. Is this like the voltage-current curves in electrical power engineering? Should I create a polar plot of my blog’s power factor as voltage and current lead (or lag) one another? (if I just lost you you are the better for it…) As always, if you enjoyed the wallpapers you found here please visit the creator’s website and pay homage.

Now, the 1600×1200 resolution is formally known as UXGA. [Hey, that's the title of this blog entry!] Yes, you’re very perceptive. There is an exotic hierarchy of high resolution monitor standards and their equally fascinating naming conventions. Most any resolution has a widescreen cousin with a ‘W’ in front of it. UXGA’s cousin would be WUXGA with a resolution of 1920×1200.

The best quick reference for all screen resolutions is (you guessed it) at Wikipedia in the article computer display standard.

Here’s an interesting wallpaper I came across on Musician’s Friend… and, yes, this is actually a real guitar… the stormtrooper has been skillfully painted on (including onto the pickups).

And let’s complete the hat trick with a couple cool chords to chew on. These can be found in many pop, folk, and celtic tunes, and even in some rock. The fingerings are similar and can sometimes be used together, especially in the keys of E, A, and B.

x o     o o          x o     o o
===========          ===========
| | | | | |          | | | | | |
-----------          -----------
| | 1 2 | |          | | | | | |
-----------          -----------
| | | | | |          | | | | | |
-----------          -----------
| | | | | |          | | 3 4 | |
-----------          -----------

     A2                 Bsus/A

As a note, the Bsus/A is also frequently fingered with the first and second fingers. It all depends on how you are moving through your voicings in the progression.