Thoughts On: The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises is a piss-poor movie. It wasn't unexpected. Few franchises have been able to shoulder the weight of a hugely successful predecessor and deliver a film that serves as both satisfying in its own right and as a worthwhile conclusion to a series of films. But it wasn't inevitable either. There exists a wealth of stories in both comic and animated form to draw upon when it comes to Batman and that the final chapter of Christopher Nolan's trilogy should end up so muddled in spite of this is a pity.

Humanity Doesn't Deserve The Cosmos

On November 18, 2011, The Huffington Post reported that renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking expressed his views that for the human race to survive, we must reach out to the stars and colonize other worlds, as the spectre of man-made disaster looms ever greater here on earth.

This is not an especially new view, nor is it unique to Professor Hawking or even a select few individuals. Many people support the idea of colonization of other planets as a means of avoiding natural and man-made ecological disasters and effectively not putting all our “eggs in one basket.” It is a survivalist mentality that supports the continued existence of the human race above all other concerns. We must be mindful of our impact on the world, but our own survival comes first. It is perhaps a natural line of thinking, as individual survival is coded into our genes, but simply being natural does not mean it should be taken as the correct line of thinking.

In this essay I will attempt to present the case that colonization of other worlds should not be entertained as an idea to solve the problems of this world, and that if we are to be moral beings we must consider our place within the universe before pushing forever forwards towards a ceaseless and thoughtless expansion.

Evolution Of A Painting: Self Portrait

I thought it would be interesting to try doing a self portrait, since I hadn't done any painting of human faces and my last self-portrait sketch was much further in the past than I would care to admit. I decided to try a couple of things differently with this painting, and figured I would document the process.

I started with an older photo that I had taken of myself, probably to document the growth of my facial hair or depression.

I used PAINT.NET to process the image, using posterization and some filters to simplify the colours into basic regions.

I printed this off and then divided the page up into a grid with light blue pencil. I prepared my canvas by covering it in a few layers of white gesso. I then divided my canvas up into an equivalent grid and copied the lines on the printed page over to the canvas by eye.