While I was having coffee with my best friend, Mark I showed him a rap music video. He informed me that he thought rap was a pointless art form void of skill, and meaning. Later I took it upon myself to attempt to construct the most meaningful rap I could that would be filled with famous quotes of wisdom, and be purposeful.
It was quite the challenge, I struggled to follow the rap format (which I believe is written in quatrains - 4 line versus), I could not remember if each line had one or two statements. I worked hard to rhyme the most famous quotes of wisdom while making the connection to my own ideology.
I believe if one has an insatiable need to be creative and express one self - one ought to use their gift to spread a message that is either positive and/or productive. Anyways, here are the lyrics to my highly experimental meaningful rap song, I hope you like it.
The un-examined life - is not worth living,
knowledge speaks but wisdom listens,
Love one another, it's the gift the keeps on giving,
Alife lived for
others - is the only life worth living,
Love what you love, but without love your life is nothing,
Thus the meaning of life is love, that's the message worth
mentioning,
Imagine conflict, and pain, without empathy and compassion,
Anxiety and depression, it's those who love that bring
resolution,
You got the power, you got got the power,
The power of love, the power to love,
Do the right thing, it's not a left or right-wing thing,
It's the real thing, do the compassionate thing,
cause if you don't do the right thing, your life won't mean
a thing,
So stop and think, and do the right thing,
Judgement, without care and concern,
Is wanting to attack and burn,
criticism that's not constructive, is simply destructive,
What would you choose, if you had to walk in another man's
shoes,
You got the power, you got got the power,
The power of love, the power to love,
Relationships are full of complexity,
When it comes to love, they test our ideology,
What love looks like, What love feels like,
Trust leads to intimacy, love her like you love yourself is
the way it's got to be,
We're all looking for love, All we need is love,
Everything we dream of, The reason we live is love,
Why do we have to debate believing in God,
Can't we all agree on love,
You got the power, you got got the power,
The power of love, the power to love,
Life is finite, giving our life infinite meaning,
Do right, and stand for something,
A rebel without a cause is just another soul lost,
Are you a human doing, or a human being,
Be the change you want to see in others,
But it's got to start with loving one another,
Society is either everyone for themselves, or were all in
this together,
Be passionate, but compassionate, and you'll be seen the
world over,
Interview with Lowell Levine - President of the Stop Bullying Now Foundation
Anti-bullying interview with Lowell Levine President of Stop Bullying Now Foundation (YouTube video)
Introduction
I have had the pleasure of interviewing anti-bullying advocate Lowell Levine who is the president of the Stop Bullying Now Foundation.
The Foundation operating out of United States, Florida provides education on bullies, and bullying for children, teens, parents, and grandparents. The foundation also works with the schools advocating on behalf of the bullied.
Their economic model allows them to operate purely on donations from companies, organizations, and individuals who are empathetic to their cause. Thus there is no cost to those requiring their help.
Lowell, has stated that he is one of the top 3 anti-bullying advocates in the country - effectively helping hundreds of bullied children.
You can reach Lowell at 1-561-374-0673. Or check out his website at the following link;
Lowell has said that one of the biggest challenges in his work is getting the schools to cooperate in reducing the bullying problem. In his opinion, the schools are more concerned about their image than those being bullied within their schools. And school administrators fear that addressing a bullying problem in their school could lead them to lose their jobs.
He also points out that no school has a true,'no tolerance' policy when it comes to bullying. And that most schools are inadequately educated on handling the bullying problem but persist to make no constructive changes.
I for one would have to agree with Lowell's assertion. I have personally mailed and shared my bullying story with every school principle, school superintendent, school board member, including the minister of education here in my city of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada - and not one of them offered to meet me to discuss the bullying problem.
There seems to be a silent conspiracy where schools simply do not want to deal with the bullying problem. Perhaps they are afraid to admit that the education system is incompetent when dealing with the bullying issue.
Bullying is first experienced and learned in the home or within the school. Schools therefore should be concerned with not only the well being of their students but the emotional nurturing of their students.
I believe schools need to be concerned with building and teaching emotional intelligence within their students - not just promoting academic performance. The truth is that those who have a great deal of emotional intelligence tend to be quite successful in their own lives.
Every school has a bullying problem. What the schools do not realize is that if they admitted that they had a bullying problem and were genuinely seeking resolution - their image would be one of a school of integrity that genuinely cares about the well being of their students.
There is a cost to schools that choose to ignore the bullying problem - and that is more High School drop outs, and a over-all lower academic success of that school.
But Schools ought to consider that they are the one's responsible for the type of society that we ultimately have. Because they teach those of us that make up society.
We can either have a society that is empathetic, understanding, compassionate and made up of effective communicators . Or a society only concerned about academic and financial success at the cost of others.
If you live in the United States, and are feeling hopeless or helpless or know someone that is, please call; LIFELINE 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
Largest Photo Slideshow - 15,430 photos (YouTube Video)
Summary
2017 01 18 I successfully uploaded the largest photo slideshow unto YouTube after 4 failed upload attempts. The photo slide show, aptly named,"Largest Photo Slideshow - 15,430 photos - Darryl Learie" was made up of 15,430 photos.
The original file uploaded to YouTube was an 8GB AVI. The file took 2 hours, 58 minutes to upload to YouTube. Previously I had spent 5 hours trying to upload the file during the first 4 failed upload attempts (what seemed to work was clearing the cache of my Firefox browser and setting cache at a high 1,003 mb).
The video itself was 1920 x 1080 HD, and each photo had a duration of 1 second, thus 1 photo per second. The duration of the complete video was 15,430 seconds or 4 hours, 17 minutes, and 10 seconds (not counting a 3 second introduction).
There are YouTube photo slide shows that play 5 hours and more but none that I have searched for and seen exceed 15,430 photos. The closest I found with the claim of being the largest photo slideshow ever, had 1,000 plus photos. Of course I could of set up the video so that each photo would have a duration of 2 seconds, that would had been the longest photo slideshow at 8 hours, 34 minutes, and 20 seconds. I could not have the photo duration at 3 seconds because that would exceed YouTube video limit of 12 hours.
If you were to extract each image from the full HD video, you would have 2 megapixel images - since each image is 1920 x 1080 at a 16:9 aspect ratio.
The greatest challenge in creating a slideshow of thousands of images is first accumulating all of those images (so that each image is unique from one another), processing the images into a video, and organizing the project perfectly.
The 15,430 images I had were family photos from 1885 02 11 to 2016 12 26 (they were all .jpeg format).
How to create a massive slideshow
I have not found a slideshow program that could render thousands of images into a video slide show - its just too much to process with too many operations to execute for any one program.
I had to resort to batch processing. That is to use simple programs that can execute a single operation involving many files at a time.
The first batch processing program I used was the Bulk Rename Utility (freeware) to rename all of my image files sequentially.
Initially all of my family image files are names as such; 1998 06 23 0003 (year, month, day, and index number) The index number 0003 means the 3rd picture taken of that day.
However, despite trying to be perfectly organized, I had 174 images out of 15,430 that had the same name so my computer added to the name (1), (2), (3), and so on. Because you cannot have files of the exact same name in the same folder. And the Bulk Rename Utility failed to appropriately rename those files because its first operation is to ignore a certain count of characters of the old name.
The files had to be named, photo_00001, photo_00002, and so forth to work properly in this project. If there was a single photo number skipped - the final processing would fail.
So because of those 174 misnamed files, I had to find the 174 instances of the photo number that had been skipped.
And even the Bulk Rename Utility cannot handle all 15,430 files at once, so I had to rename 3,000 files at a time.
The moral of the story is perfect organization.
Secondly I had to prepare each image to have the same dimensions of 1920 x 1080 because most of the images were different shapes and dimensions. And they all have to be the exact same dimension for the end process to work.
I used a program called FastStone Photo Resizer (freeware). Which allowed me to resize each image to a perfect 1920 x 1080 (2 megapixel image). The program has a great function known as 'smart crop' where it will fit any shaped image within the specified dimensions and fill in the empty sides with a solid color of your choosing. The FastStone Photo Resizer can handle 15,430 images, and did so in a time of 8 hours.
The 3rd last program I used was Virtual Dub (freeware). You can load at least 15,430 images to Virtual Dub to create a video photo slideshow (from my experience).
However all the image files must be named as such; photo_0001, photo_0002, and so forth. The following example would work for 9,999 images. For my project I had to add an extra '0' to the 'photo_' name because I had to count back from one's, tens, hundreds, thousands, and ten thousands.
And all images must be the same format like .jpeg and be of the same dimensions.
Once all your images are contained in a folder, all you need to do is simply drag the first image to Virtual Dub and the rest of the images will follow.
The last program I used was AVS4U for you. The reason being was that Virtaul Dub created such a huge AVI file (20 GB), and that is the data upload limit of YouTube (as far as I know). AVS4U is not freeware but I am confident that many free video converters can be found online.
Once I used AVS4U to convert the 20 GB file, I had the final 8 GB AVI 1920 x 1080 HD Video to upload to YouTube.
Things to consider
I highly recommend no less than 1 picture per second because at 1 second you still know what you are looking at, and furthermore you have enough time to fully appreciate it. It is definable and appreciable.
If you start having pictures lasting fractions of a second, they will simply go by too quickly. And at say, 12 pictures a second you start perceiving movement (if the pictures are of the same subject). In other words - its no longer a photo slideshow - its a video. In either case, if your not percieving movement your percieving 'blur'.
Also every picture ought to be uniquely different than any other picture. It's not as much of an achievement if you only repeat the same series of pictures, and of course it seems that less impressive.
The over-all concept is simple if you use the right programs. In this case I had to use batch processing programs cause there is no one program that could do all the operations required.
But perfect organization is a must, and expect trial and error. I was playing with the idea of doing a 4k version, I even spent 17 hours resizing images to dimensions of 3840 x 2160. But soon realized that I would probably surpass YouTube's imposed data upload limit of 20 GB.
To put all into perspective, given YouTube's 12 hour video limit, one could produce a photo slide show of 43,200 images (at 1 photo / second) but it could not be in HD because the likely file size would be 22 GB (2 GB past YouTube data upload limit).
I accomplished about 35% of whats possible in the realm of high definition.
***Note: Any person or company soliciting their services in the comments, will have their comments promptly deleted. It is rude and not the point of this blog!
Facebook Posts Responded To : 434 / 609 (71.26 %) Facebook Likes VS Posts : 1,294 likes / 609 posts (2.12 likes per post)
(Wolfram Alpha Report 2016 11 20 10:50:27pm)
Analyzed Posts : 650 Total Likes : 1,156 (1.78 likes per post) Total Comments : 333 (0.51 comments per post) Average Post Length : 28.8 words (193.8 characters)
(Facebook Records)
Most Facebook Friends (2020 01 22) : 396 friends Followed by the Most people on Facebook (2019 12 31) : 32 People Longest Facebook Post : 2,481 words (13,872 characters) - 2016 10 13 12:38pm Most Liked Facebook Post * : 26 likes - 2017 07 24 2:31pm Most Commented on Facebook Post ** : 23 comments - 2016 07 29 9:13pm Most Liked Link (my own) Shared on a Facebook Post : 18 likes - 2016 07 10 4:52pm Most friends Tagged in a Facebook Post : 52 friends - 2016 07 10 4:52pm Most Liked Written Post : 22 likes - 2018 09 05 10:56am Most Commented Written Post : 19 comments - 2014 05 09 8:11am Most Liked Picture Shared on a Facebook Post * : 26 likes - 2017 07 24 2:31pm Most Commented Picture Shared on a Facebook Post ** : 23 comments - 2016 07 29 9:13pm Most Viewers During A Facebook Live Video : 112 viewers (117 views) - 2016 05 09 4:20pm Most Comments During A Facebook Live Video : 32 comments - 2016 11 04 2:54pm Most Viewed Uploaded Facebook Video : 116 views - 2017 02 09 3:32pm Largest Facebook Page Created : 643 Likes (639 Follows) ""I made it into the Ripley's Believe It or Not Book" - 2019 06 03 Most Shares of a Facebook Post : 2 Shares - 2017.09.05 7:33pm Most "Happy Birthday" Posts Received : 40 Posts - 2019 12 06 Most Popular Facebook Post in a Facebook Page or Group : - 250 Likes
(172 Likes, 48 laughs, 21 Loves, 4 Angrys, 3 Surprised, 2 Sads) - 51 Replies - 2019 04 13 9:56am
Persiscope (Periscope Records)
Most Followers : 745 Followers - 2016 04 06 Most Live Viewers During (in and out) of a Single Broadcast : 546 Live Viewers - 2015 08 Most Live Viewers at the same time during a Single Broadcast : 83 Live Viewers - 2015 08 Most Hearts given in a single Broadcast : 4,052 Hearts - 2015 06 21 Most Hearts given by a Single Person : 2,720 Hearts - Jessica Targett - 2015 05 21 Longest Periscope Broadcast : 2:50:27 hours - 2015 09 08 Most Replays of a Broadcast : 3,410 Replays - 2018 01 07 to 2019 05 30 (2,450 Replays - 1 Year)
Most Viewed Post (2016 02 22 to 2020 01 22) :843 Page Views - Longest 3D Video on YouTube Most Page Views in 1 Month : 2,247 Page Views (2019, December) Longest Blog Post (2014.11.29) : 11,202 words (70,884 characters, 65 pages) Most Pictures in a Blog Post (2016.02.06) : 147 Pictures
Donald Trump does NOT respect women (in my opinion) (YouTube Video)
This presentation does not have a political
agenda. I am a Canadian, I cannot vote in the US election. I have far more
invested interest in my own Canadian government, and how the current Canadian
government affects me and my country.
I am however deeply concerned about Donald
Trump's negative and damaging attitudes and behaviors concerning women. It
concerns me because Donald Trump has so much influence over American society.
And half of that society is made up of women.
I am also disturbed by the multitude of
people who dismiss, excuse or downplay Donald Trump's unhealthy attitudes and
behaviors towards women. Because it illustrates that our society has a serious
sickness when it comes to how women ought to be perceived and treated.
I will attempt to illustrate that Donald
Trump does not respect women, and why his attitudes and behaviors towards women
is damaging to all women.
In the recent leaked 2005 video of Donald
Trump speaking with Billy Bush, Donald Trump says;
"Yeah, that's
her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing
her. You know I'm automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing
them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait."
I personally believe that
this not only brings into question, Donald Trump's lack of self control over
his own sexual urges but that kissing a woman without her consent is
inappropriate and wrong.
Unless a woman has
established a consensual relationship that merits a man kissing her, it is an
intimate invasion of her personal space. And the truth is there are many women
who are intimidated and uncomfortable with being kissed by a man who they don't
even know - all you need to do is ask women, and they will tell you.
Now from country to
country there may be cultural differences regarding acceptable ways to greet
the opposite sex but if there's a chance it may make a woman feel
uncomfortable, and intimidated, than why would you do it?
Than Donald Trump goes on to say;
"And when you're a star they let you do
it. You can do anything."
And Billy Bush asks;
"Whatever you
want?"
And Trump replies;
"Grab them by the pussy. You can do
anything."
So now Donald Trump is
positing that because he's a star, he has special permission to sexually
assault any woman, and they'll let him do it. Not just grab them by the
genitals, but do anything you want.
This is a 59 year-old man
essentially bragging about sexually assaulting women.
This is extremely
troubling, because at 59 years-old, this man has still not learned that sexual
assault is not only a crime but absolutely wrong. And goes on to further
promote a behavior that can easily turn to rape. And rape destroys lives of
women.
And far more troubling is
the possibility that Donald Trump is talking from experience. Otherwise how
would he know he could get away with such actions towards women? I suspect that
Donald Trump severely lacks appropriate boundaries when it comes to interacting
with women.
And this man may even
justify his behaviors towards women as appropriate if there fails to be
anyprotest on behalf of the women. But
just because the woman in question does not protest does not mean she approves.
She could be feeling shocked, humiliated, embarrassed, or angry.
Than in 2016 (9 years later)
after Donald Trump's comments were made public, he issue's an apology;
"I never said I was a
perfect person nor pretended to be someone that I'm not. I've said and done
things I regret. And the words released today on this more than a decade old video
are one of them. Anyone who knows me, knows these words don't reflect who I am.
I said it, I was wrong, and I apologize..."
Then he goes on to talk
about how his travels during his campaign changed him, and how he's humbled by people's faith in him. And he
pledges to be a better man tomorrow. And says he will never ever let you down.
Then goes on to say;
"Let's be honest,
we're living in the real world. This is nothing but a distraction from the
important issues we are facing today."
Here are my issues. He
starts off his apology by saying, "I never said I was perfect." That
sounds like an excuse because he is implying that any imperfect man could or
would do the same. And all men are imperfect. So it can't be that bad, right.
Then he goes on to state
that the video is more than 10 years old, and that anyone who knows him knows
those words don't reflect who he is. One thing we can be sure of is that that
video reflected exactly who he was 10 years ago when he does not think he's
being recorded.
So there could be a bit of
a contradiction because a man is the product of his past. And even Dr.Phil will
tell you that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. But maybe
he did learn that his comments were wrong after-all he said I was wrong, I
apologize.
But then he dismisses the
seriousness of his comments by saying, "this is nothing but a distraction
from the important issues."
I could not disagree more.
Number one this is an insight into how Donald Trump viewed and perceived women just
10 years ago. If his views and attitudes concerning women did not change during
the first 59 years of his life - how likely is it that they changed during the
last 9 years?
And secondly, if this man
truly does not respect women what kind of president will he be when he is
representing that half of the US population that is made up of women? And if he
becomes president will he appropriately deal with other women in positions of
power? And what kind of example and message will his conduct concerning women
have on the US population and other countries.
So I believe it is a potentially important
issue. It is more than a distraction - it's a serious concern.
The key here is that Donald
Trump never explained 'why' his comments were wrong. I honestly believe he does
not know 'why' his comments regarding women were wrong. And if he does not know
why his comments regarding women were wrong than how can he truly learn from
it, and therefore truly be apologetic.
But then during his second
debate with Hilary Clinton, Donald Trump refers to his comments on tape as,
'Locker Room Talk.' And goes on to posit that they are 'just words not
actions.'
To brag about sexually
assaulting women as locker room talk is deeply troubling. That is to posit that
it's common for men to brag about sexual assault in the locker room behind
closed doors.
But that does not mean it's
any less wrong.
Even if there is a
multitude of men speaking this way in the locker rooms it does not mean it's
okay to do so. Even if women have heard worse than those words spoken by Donald
Trump - it does not make it okay. What it means is that there is a serious
societal sickness when it comes to how men in general ultimately perceive women
and what they think of women.
A sick perception that
needs to be addressed.
It is not indicative of a
man's human nature - it is indicative of what a man has been taught as being
acceptable behavior. And women who think this is simply who men are by nature
have been desensitized to the very ugly nature of this type of behavior by the
frequency of this behavior.
The inherent danger of this
type of talk, belief and attitude is that it will ultimately mold the actions
of certain men concerning women.
Going back to Donald Trump's statement that his
comments were just words and not actions. Women like Temple Taggart (21
Year-old, Miss Utah) was reported to have been kissed by Donald Trump without
her consent back in 1997.
In an interview with the
New York Times, she commented;
"He kissed me directly
on the lips,"
"I thought, ‘Oh my
God, gross."
"There were a few
other girls that he kissed on the mouth. I was like ‘Wow, that’s
inappropriate."
This sounds exactly like
what Donald Trump essentially admitted to on the 2005 leaked video. I just kiss
them, I don't even wait.
Remember during the second
debate against Hilary Clinton, moderator, Anderson Cooper asked Donald Trump,
"Just for the record, though, are you saying that what you said on that
bus 11 years ago, that you did not actually kiss women without consent or grope
women without consent?"
Back in 2005, on the
Howard Stern show, Donald Trump admitted to going into the dressing rooms
during the Miss USA pageant which he owned while the contestants were changing.
Trump also has bragged before that,
as owner of the beauty pageant, he is entitled to walk in on contestants.
“I’ll go backstage before a show, and
everyone’s getting dressed and ready and everything else,” he told Howard
Stern.
“And you know, no men are anywhere.
And I’m allowed to go in because I’m the owner of the pageant. And therefore
I’m inspecting it.”
Trump continued from there. “You see
these incredible looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like
that.”
A contestant at the 2000
Miss USA pageant told BuzzFeed Trump had walked into a pageant changing room
when everyone was naked.
Now there's a report of
Donald Trump walking into the change rooms of the Miss Teen USA pageant back in
1997.
Buzzfeed reported that Mariah
Billado, a contestant from Vermont, who recalled having to get dressed “really
quickly” because Trump had entered the room.
Girls were “just scrambling
to grab stuff,” she added. Billado paraphrased the GOP
presidential nominee as saying: “Don’t worry, ladies, I’ve seen it all
before.” When she first learned that Trump was running for president she
thought, “Oh, gross, this guy walked in on us in the pageant.”
BuzzFeed said three other women also
remembered Trump entering the changing room while the contestants - some as
young as 15 years old were in and out of their clothes.
So this guy feels it appropriate to
walk into a changing room filled with women changing, women who could be naked
just because he owns the pageant.
I don't care if he paid for their
schooling, paid their bills, bought their houses - he has no right to walk into
a women's changing room, period. That to me is nothing short of perversion.
No warning, of his entering, no
everybody has 5 minutes to cover up Donald Trump wants to inspect how things
are going. That is just absolutely wrong.
And if the story of Donald Trump
walking into the change rooms of Miss Teen USA are true, than that is beyond inappropriate
- especially when there are girls as young as 15 years old.
This man has absolutely no sense of
appropriate boundaries when it comes to women.
Now, there is increasing
news reports through various media of Donald Trump sexually abusing women. At
least 5 women who allege Donald Trump sexually abused them. Honestly I cannot
keep up with these reports.
Whether you believe the
newest reports of sexual assault, Donald Trump admitted to Howard Stern that he
goes into the Miss USA pageant change rooms and gets away with it.
As a note, however, the
newest allegations of sexual assault do align very well with Donald Trump's
comments on the 2005 video, "grab them by the pussy, you can do
anything...and they'll let you do it." Perhaps these women only coming
forward now after so many years gave Donald Trump the impression that, 'they'll
let you do it.'
Another concern regarding
Trumps attitudes towards women is his objectifying women. In a recent 1992
video, Trump asks a 10 year-old girl if she's going up an elevator, she
replies, "yea." Than Trump turns to the camera and say's, "I'm
going to be dating her in 10 years - can you believe it."
Trump has made his share of
highly questionable comments regarding women. Back in 2006 on the View, Trump
made a comment regarding his daughter, Ivanka, "I've said if Ivanka
weren't my daughter, perhaps, I would be dating her."
His comments are creepy
because they are aimed at those people that we don't associate sexual thoughts
with like his own daughter, and a 10 year-old girl.
There is no shortage of
insults aimed at women that can be found online on behalf of Donald Trump. Most
comments usually carry a commentary insulting their appearance.
In fact, there are too many
for me to comment on.
In fact there is far too
many examples of Donald Trump miss treating women for me to comment on. All you
need to do is do your own research. And you will most likely come to the same
conclusion that I have that Donald Trump does not respect women.
Alas, let's not forget that
on the 2005 video, Donald Trump talks about trying to have sex with a married
woman. Donald Trump is heard saying," I did try and fuck her. She was
married.."
This is a man who thinks
nothing about a respecting a married woman and the possible consequences of
destroying a marriage, and possibly lives connected to that marriage. This
demonstrates a complete lack of empathy for the possible consequences of one's
actions on other people's lives.
I have worked hard on this
presentation because Donald Trump has become a role model to so many people,
and as such, his negative values concerning women carry a huge influence unto
American society. And I am making the point that his perception, values, and
behaviors towards women is not appropriate and should not be tolerated.
It is my opinion that
Donald Trump approaches women as if they are all sexually available to him, and
that their quality as a human being can be rated by their appearance - with no
consequence to him. And that is not acceptable, period.
I don't believe my
presentation will be popular with too many people, but I have to stand up for
women because half of humanity is made up of women.
And women live in a reality
where they face the possibility of stalking, sexual harassment, domestic abuse,
discrimination based on sex, being objectified, rape, and unwanted sexual
attention. It's not right that half the human population has to put up with
this.
People want to be
appreciated for who they are, not taken advantage for what they have.
I have been shooting photospheres (pictures that rotate 360 degrees left and right, and 180 degrees up and down) for the Google Street View app since 2016 05 28. I will not go into any further technical explanation as the focus of this blog is to expose the beauty of the City of Edmonton through 360 photography. But I also use the Google Maps app to view my summarized analytics, like views per photo.
I have shot 1,408 photospheres, resulting in 1,067,708 over-all views (758 views / photosphere) - The actual view count is actually higher but the views have not updated since 2016 08 11. And of all those 1,408 photospheres I have painstakingly chosen the top 15 photospheres of Edmonton to feature on my blog. I have also created a Google Photo Album of my top 89 photospheres of Edmonton provided in a link within this blog.
I have since become a Trusted Google Photographer and pursue this passion as a volunteer, adding photospheres to the Google Maps that the Google Car (Google's car that drives on the roads with a mounted 360 camera) can't shoot from the roads. I focus on the parks of Edmonton which receive little to no exposure.
My voluntary mission is to provide a window within Google Maps so people can see the hidden beauty and beautiful parks of Edmonton without having to go there. It is just one of my many ways of giving back to the world - and I spend many hours working very hard at it.
For those who are Google Local Guides, here are my statistics. I am a Level 5 Local Guide with 549 points.
It would seem that we were born into this world with no choice. We did not ask to be born, nor did we ask for the circumstances we were born into. Some will be blessed from birth and others will be cursed from birth. Unless there is some divinely inspired purpose for this, the reality is absolutely unfair and unreasonable.
However, some time after we are born into this world we inherit a moral responsibility to others in this world. And that moral responsibility is not to further harm others by our actions or lack of..
Every individual born is equally important because every individual is self-aware, continually thinking, and personally experiencing real emotions and physical sensations. Furthermore, the extent of pleasure or pain that can be felt (emotionally or physically) by any individual seems to be not only profound but beyond comprehension.
Self-awareness alone (or consciousness) is the greatest phenomenon that exists in the known Universe - it is only paralleled by the phenomenon of the Big Bang (The very beginning of space-time, and existence). The true miracle of life is that the Universe itself has become self-aware, and has done so through every individual born.
We must respect this experience of being truly alive in others because it is also our own experience. Not only that but we all have the very same psychological and physical needs. This is my initial argument for empathy.
Why should we be careful not to cause pain and suffering to others? Because we all share in the same reality, we all experience the same paradigm. Like the Golden Rule illustrates, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." We live in a world of cause and effect, every action on our part has a potential consequence affecting the very well being of others. It is logical not to inflict pain and suffering on another because we do not desire the same for ourselves.
When we intentionally or unintentionally harm another we have no control over just how much pain and suffering we have caused that individual. And at the fear of being redundant, the extent of pain and suffering that individual can experience can be so severe - it can be beyond what we can imagine or comprehend. It personally amazes me just how much pain a person can feel.
Every human being has earned their right to exist. Every human being is the product of genetic material that has survived despite the deaths of many previous generations of life not selected by the process of billions of years of evolution. To go even further, the odds of you being you and not somebody else is astronomical. It requires the right sperm out of millions exchanging DNA with the right egg out of tens of thousands every time across thousands of generations of the right people.
We as individuals are inherently valuable. But we must seriously consider if our presence is an asset or a liability to others who make up society. Is society as a whole benefiting from our existence? Of course if we go around causing others to suffer than society would not deem us as valued members of society.
How do we know if we are good people? This is a question that continually concerns and haunts me - how do I know if I'm a good person? How do I know if my life has had a positive net affect on society as a whole?
Am I truly a good person if I am kind to strangers, but hurtful to someone in my family, one of my friends, or even an ex-girlfriend? Have I out of ignorance hurt people in the past? Have I posted something on-line that has negatively affected others? Is my ideology, and what I believe constructive or destructive to society? Am I merely a product of my environment, and if I was, was that environment conducive to learning to becoming a good person? Is my psychopathology destructive towards others? Could I be a bad person and not know it?
Another reason it is so critical that we do not cause harm to others is because every person has the potential to greatly benefit others in society. Therefore it is important that others be allowed to mature, and develop in the most supportive, and nurturing environment possible. To negatively affect one's psychological development could potentially have severe implications for society as a whole.
That is to say, if we hurt one person it could inadvertently result in hurting other people we are unaware of. Because of the relationships that person has with other people and how they interact with those other people when they're hurt.
How do we effectively measure the gravity of our actions on others? How much impact do our words truly have on others, and how far reaching are those words? How has our lives shaped future generations yet to be born?
Society is a bee-hive, we as individuals do not survive very well on our own without support from others. Society does not work efficiently unless enough individuals fulfill a specific niche (a purpose) that can benefit the hive as a whole.
Society requires different people of various skills, strengths, aptitudes, and personalities to appropriately achieve all the roles that need to be fulfilled for society to work. Of course these roles can take the form of jobs and volunteering efforts. That is why every person is so potentially important.
Every person despite their socioeconomic status has something valuable to offer others; like a purposeful and meaningful friendship and/or relationship.
But there are those who like parasites do what they wish at the expense of others. They cripple the very people they benefit from by their selfishness, ego and greed. Some are bullies, some are thieves, and others simply use people for their own gain.
Einstein said,"Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile," and Socrates said,"The unexamined life is not worth living."
What Einstein means is that the only way our life can be truly worthwhile (or have value) is if we have in some way benefited others in our life. In other words having a purpose that results in a better quality of life for others makes our own lives worthwhile.
Socrates goes as far as saying, if you have not even taken the time to examine your own life - than your life is not worth living.
