How to do Selective Colorization using Gimp 2.6

Shaiann Daniels

2012; true or false?

The prophecies regarding 2012 are devastating everyone juvenile enough to believe them. But scientists are trying to scare even the brightest of people, somewhat forcing them to believe these ancient predictions.
Sure, this could be believable if you didn’t think things through. It sounds plausible enough right? Well, just because it’s becoming known throughout the whole world doesn’t make it true.
Nothing regarding 2012 is proven, which should ease ones mind as a fact itself. To make a movie up to 2012 standards takes approximately three or more years. If you think back to when you started hearing everything about December 21st, 2012… you would probably say around three, or fewer, years ago.
Now, when you put that all together, don’t you begin to realize something? It’s possible that the specific date could be the end of days, but nobody can ever prove that…not in this time period. So it’s possible also that the money-driven people began the hoax. Manipulating the Mayan calendar by saying just because it ends on that specific date, they predicted it’s the end of the world. Claiming we should fear the year 2012 when it’s feasible that they made the movie when the world started hearing about this. So the movie could make billions of dollars.
It makes sense, considering a lot of people want to know their “fate” when the year finally arrives. Doesn’t everyone want to know how they can save themselves?
Shaiann Daniels

The Never-Ending Walk

One must ask their self; is our nation truly on the pathway to total equality? We all know the statement “It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when” but it seems to be the total opposite in this aspect considering we’re not sure if we will ever be fully equal.
Sure, we have a black president but does that really mean there are not racist Americans out there? Most John McCain supporters were accused of racism, which isn’t necessarily true considering all Americans aren’t democratic but it’s easy to see that some were not falsely accused. When president Obama became the first black democratic nominee, threatening comments inundated the internet. A white supremacist known only as “Rodney” blogged on February 15th posting a foul remark, “OBAMA WILL DIE. KKK FOREVER…The KKK or someone will ASSASINATE Obama.” A second posting from a screen name “amerikkkan” says “The deep south is making plans.”After Mr. Obama was elected president, there were fliers handed out in a neighborhood in Bedford that promotes joining the KKK. In the same neighborhood, a black minister arrived at church to find his church bus covered with racial graffiti. He believes the sudden racism acts sprouted from the inaugural of President Obama.
I’m sure everyone who pays attention to the latest news has heard about the Kanye and Taylor incident. It’s clear that what he did was morally wrong, unethical, and rude but some people took it way too far. Many people twittered, around 300,000, about the occurrence and most of them had some very vulgar notes regarding Kanye. “I really hope I don’t have any black followers and if I do just stop following me. Kanye West is stupid and now I’m racist.” We can understand tweets that say how discourteous Kanye was being when he pulled his little popularity stunt. But to throw around the racist word, like some people were doing, is entirely corrupt. It’s putting them at and below his level.
As we continue our walk to reach equality, those of us who see everyone in the same way must try harder to make up for those of which who carry the racism disease.
Shaiann Daniels

The Invisible Children

They have to live in “the most neglected humanitarian emergency in the world today”. These invisible children have been overlooked for the past 23 years.
The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Government of Uganda (GoU) have been fighting a war that has left millions of people homeless and some dead. Several Ugandan children are being forced to become child soldiers even when they’re still very young. Some even watch their parents die before their eyes and they have to live with that agony everyday.
It is estimated by the FIC that during the war, between 60,000 and 85,000 Ugandan children were seized and held as child soldiers. They then use them for more than just fighting, including murder, rape, and cannibalism.
However some people do care about these children and they take the time to think about how the war is affecting them.
Andrew Briggs, a former schoolteacher, became a promoter for the tormented children of Uganda. He established an organization called “Freedom in Creation” which helps the children cope with the violence in their everyday lives.
About 65 Ugandan children are a part of this foundation. Therapy is a challenge for these small children of Uganda. It’s harder to get a response out of them so Briggs uses art and music as their means of therapy and healing. Some of these children are very receptive when performing the different things.
Briggs does more than just present the former child soldiers with counseling. He tries to bring safe drinking water to the refugee camps.
Briggs and his accomplice Alex Mejias have an exhibit called “The Story of Freedom” which is what they use to raise awareness and funds in the USA. It is a video which includes some of the actual artwork of the Ugandan children.
As of now, the war is still enduring but this program keeps these young children driving on even after everything they underwent in the recent past.

Shaiann Daniels

This Is It Review

Ever wonder what it’s like for Michael Jackson? Sure the king of pop has always been a sensation but have you ever stopped to think of what he had to do to become that?
This is it gives you a behind the scenes look on how Michael Jackson prepared for his final curtain call which I believe, if he would have been able to perform it, would have been extraordinary.
The documentary didn’t show Michael at his best, but it did show what it took for Michael to be the best. In the movie, fans could see what Michael had to go through to prepare for the concert. He was phenomenal in his practices although a little slow-paced. As he focused more on the dancing than on the singing during the rehearsals. Many agree that Michael Jackson was an icon, a dancing prodigy, and an amazing singer despite his somewhat high voice. Yet what many don’t know, atleast everyone who has not seen this documentary, is that he is a very down to earth man....literally.
The camera caught him rehearsing “Earth Song” and it showed part of the original video. “Earth Song” was written by Michael to let people know what’s happening in the world around them and that nothing is going to change unless we help. “It’s like the earth has a fever. It’s sick.”
The movie captured Michael in a unique way. When people think of Michael Jackson in his last few years…they usually think of a skinny, pale, man that’s not very healthy. But the documentary showed him performing with all his might and he looked pretty healthy dancing around the stage. He did look really skinny in some points of the videos we were permitted to see but otherwise he looked in good health.
Instead of showing crying eruptions from the dancers and backup singers, the movie showed appealing actions that Michael does to keep his concerts in the ranks.
It shows Michael on a cherry-picker, quite interesting actually, as Michael seems to be having way too much fun. While rehearsing beat it, Michael goes up in the cherry-picker and Ortega makes a comment about going higher. Michael then says, “Why would you tell me that? He’s teasing me. He knows I want to go higher.”
There was a little comedy edge in some other parts other than the cherry-picker scene. Michael was telling his pianist how he could do better and the pianist said “We just gotta put a little booty in it.” Michael started cracking up, repeated the phrase, then laughed some more.
There were a number of quotes that were repeated by Michael throughout the movie. He said “God bless you” after every segment. He was also pretty enthused about letting the songs “simmer” and “sizzle”.
To appreciate this documentary and recognize the full potential, I would say you have got to be a Michael fan. This is highly recommended for the fans but I wouldn’t say it’s a great documentary if you don’t value the King of Pop.

Shaiann Daniels

The Dark Side of the H1N1 Vaccination

H1N1 is sweeping the nation and it scares us, but is it too new to trust the vaccination?
Pregnant women are one of the highest priority groups to get the vaccine yet medical officials are saying that it’s not safe for children under six months of age. That doesn’t make much sense considering the woman is obviously carrying a baby under six months of age. Though they try to make it safer by reducing the mercury count in the vaccinations they give to pregnant women, reports of miscarriages after getting vaccinated for the H1N1 virus were reported all over the nation.
Many parents are arguing against getting their child the vaccination as it is too new and there hasn’t been much research put into it. They’re not worried about their children obtaining swine flu, unless they already have another chronic illness, considering it is easily treatable using common sense and doctor’s aid if necessary.
The shot could be safe, or it could not be. But it’s for you to decide; do the risks outweigh the benefits? Would you risk future effects to get rid of flu-like symptoms in the present-time?

Shaiann Daniels

2012 December 21: The End of Days?

Prophet after prophet has predicted it; the ancient Mayans set their colander and even our latest most sophisticated technology is all stamping the same expiration date on creation, December 21st 2012. The most notable of the prophets mentioned above is a name that is familiar to many but to most an empty name dusty from the past, with little meaning. That name is Nostradamus, a physician from the 16th century, who later became a seer of the future some say, who finished a total of 946 centuries of predictions. With a track record that is believed by many to be undeniably accurate, foreseeing World War 2, the fire of London in 1666, The French Revolution, and the reins of both Napoleon and Adolf Hitler. He was even said to have predicted his own death a day before it happened. Now what do you ask has this celebrated prophet prophesied about 2012 well his exact words are complex and hard for the average person to decipher, but according to scholars Nostradamus has predicted the rise of a third Antichrist, and a great famine felt round the world. He also sees great floods ahead and endless drought. This prophecy some say is very near on the horizon linking the flooding and drought to global warming, and the new Antichrist with tyrant dictators and a third world war.



Nostradamus however was not the only one foreseeing such events in the year 2012, the Mayans, as is common knowledge to many Americans ended their calendar on the day of December 21st 2012. Their culture was obsessed with time and the predicting of it. Their calendar, the long count, is so precise that it can calculate the date of a solar eclipse thousands of years after its creators fall in 750 AD. The calendar was devised out of sophisticated mathematics far advanced for the Mayas time; in fact they were the first civilization to conceive the idea of the number 0 centuries before its discovery in Europe. Their advanced culture leads many today to trust in their predictions and believe that the end of the calendar means the end of time itself, and still the foresight doesn’t end there.





Scientists and computer programmers teamed up in the early 90s in the hopes of creating computer software that could track financial trends on Wall Street. They called the program the web bot and it was found to be obscenely accurate. After a time the innovation was put to the test by researchers who wondered if it can predict the future of the finance world why not everything else? They re-visited the program and set it to the test having it answer new more pressing questions. Then in 2001 the web bot project shocked its creators when it predicted a life altering event would occur in 60-90 days it also claimed that this event would be felt world wide. Sadly the program was proved right when the twin towers fell in 9/11/2001. The web bot projects, as is to be guessed predicted a world wide calamity would occur in 2012 and with so many other predictors standing behind it, its claims are by many a confirmation of our impending suffering, and if we travel east the predictions continue.

In the year 2800 BC the “I Ching” or “Book of Changes” was written in China and is revered to this day for its ability to answer questions using 3 three coins that are flipped. They give you answers depending on how they land. Two heads, one tails, two tails one head etc. The outcomes of these coin tosses are then matched to answers that have been pre written in the “I Ching” Oddly enough the answers are usually extremely relevant. Little fuss is made involving China’s Book of Changes though until writer philosopher and ethno-botanist, Terence McKenna began extensively studying the book’s king wen sequence. He then mathematically tracked the book, and created a computer program that output fractal graphs on the rhythm of life or the earth’s “novelty” as Terence calls it. He then looked at the end of the last fractal graph the software would compute and was astounded to see it ended on the year 2012, after this discovery Terence made a prediction deciding that time as we know it would end on December 22 2012 only a day after the end of the Mayan calendar, coincidence, pattern, or is it all in the imagination of the public’s subconscious, scared to death of a random date with no substantial meaning.



To answer that question people are turning to scientists for help sorting it all out and too many of their surprises they’re finding many astronomical events that coincide with ancient predictions. For millennia the Mayans believed in a dark rift in the center of the Milky Way, and just recently scientists have discovered that it does indeed exist. Prior to this discovery much of the scientific community was skeptical of the Mayas, and their dark rift that their culture was obsessed with, but now there is no denying it right smack in the middle of our galaxy is a black hole; a black hole that in the year 2012 the sun and the Earth will come in direct alignment with, and scientists are speculating that magnetic waves could shift as a result and the poles could possibly reverse themselves. This theory isn’t new to the world of science though as Einstein theorized that the poles had already shifted before in the year of 1955. It doesn’t end with the poles however NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has already put out a warning of a solar storm in the year 2012, expected to be second only to the historic solar max of 1958, in which the northern lights could be seen as far away as Rome. A solar storm like the one being predicted emits aurora borealis, and this ejected material can strike satellites disrupt GPS units and telecommunications, expose astronauts and jet passengers to excess radiation, even cause power grids on earth to fail as a result of the massive influx of energy. Graham Hancock has also predicted a planetary alignment will take place that will have gravitational effects on the Earth, on December 23 2009. Stunningly close to the ending date of the Mayan calendar.

What can be made of all of this? Do we really only have about 3 years ahead of us? Well not necessarily. According to modern astronomy we are now in the age of Pisces, which is often associated with self indulgence and greed. Many believe that in 2012 we will transition from our current age back into the Age of Aquarius, a sign that is free flowing with a great deal of self awareness and peace. The last time the earth has seen an age of Aquarius was during Egypt’s great rein in the East over thousands of years ago, when the Nile was described as flowing with honey and wine.

Then again, skeptics are not buying into the idea. As far as they are considered Nostradamus’s predictions were too vague to point to anything significant, The Mayans ended their calendar at a random date with no significance, the web bot is just a computer program that will tell you what the nation already believes, Terence McKenna was a drug abuser with no standing in the realm of science and the astronomy linking it all together is garbage produced by people who want to fuel the publicity.

In the end it’s up to the individual to decide what to believe. So ask yourself this time is December 21st 2012 the end of days?