Fun phrases in Latin

scw1217
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Fun phrases in Latin

Postby scw1217 » Tue Mar 04, 2008 10:07 pm

Somebody sent me this site and I am still laughing. I am particularly fond of...
Ecce potestas casei
Unfortuately, I don't know enough Latin to actually pronounce it!

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com ... latin.html
Suzanne D. Williams, Author
http://www.feelgoodromance.com

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gailr
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Postby gailr » Thu Mar 06, 2008 6:36 am

Thank you; an online source of the kind of fun in Latin for All Occasions. One of the posters on another forum has the tagline, "Quid, me vexari?"



Here's a source for 'serious' Latin phrases.

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Postby Bailey » Sun Aug 09, 2009 3:02 pm

the site is no longer there.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Make the most of it...
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scw1217
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Postby scw1217 » Sun Aug 09, 2009 4:16 pm

the site is no longer there.
I see that. That's a shame because it was humorous.
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Slava
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Postby Slava » Sun Aug 09, 2009 10:25 pm

The serious one is still there, though, so all is not lost.

As to love of photography, scw1217, is that photography, or what I call digital diddling? I'm not old enough to be a devotee of early B&W, sit and grin, stills, but I am a vehement foe of Photoshop and other such twaddle. That's not photography to me, as it's what happens after you've taken the picture, not what the picture is. Cropping I can deal with, but not enhancements. Foo!

Am I ranting? Yes, I do believe I am. I'll shut up now.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

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Postby Stargzer » Mon Aug 10, 2009 1:03 am

I'm not sure what the photo in question is; I suppose it was on the page with the dead link.

It's one thing to "enhance" a photo by putting things in that aren't there. It's quite another to enhance a photo by brining out details that are already in the photo.

Before the first repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, the one that installed "corrective lenses" in the light path between the mis-ground mirror and the detection equipment, scientists at the Hubble Space Telescope Intstitute came up with software that massaged the raw data and brought some correction to the images returned by the flawed mirror. Even before the repair mission Hubble was producing better images than any ground-based telescope.

I am no Photoshop expert, but I did use it to enhance some photos my wife took at her school. I used it to crop the photos first, saving the interesting parts (some child and/or their parent) and forcing them to a 4 x 6 format, and then darkened some overexposed areas and lightened some underexposed areas. In these last two uses Photoshop is no different that the dodging and burning that was used to correct exposures on prints made from negatives in the pre-digital days of film.

A friend of mine who IS a Photoshop expert makes good money on the side by touching up old photos for a local photo store. He does a better job for a better price than the store can get when they send it out to another place. He also showed me some photos a while back that he had processed that weren't that photographic. When I commented on that, he said it was no different than any other artist; his medium just happend to be in the digital realm, and he manipulated the bits in a picture instead of paint on a canvas.

I have some old photos I will try to retouch myself, but if I can't figure it out, I'll farm it out to my daughter who has worked with Photoshop more than I have.
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Postby Slava » Mon Aug 10, 2009 2:23 am

I'm not sure what the photo in question is; I suppose it was on the page with the dead link.
Actually, it's just from scw1217's signature, where she says she's into photography. No real picture involved here.

While I agree with much of what you say, gzer, and understand the idea of retouching old photos, I have to say there is far too much digital diddling going on. Is there any such thing as a "photograph" any more? Few and far between, I'm afraid.
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Postby Slava » Mon Aug 10, 2009 2:35 am

...he said it was no different than any other artist; his medium just happend to be in the digital realm, and he manipulated the bits in a picture instead of paint on a canvas.
This is what I'm fighting against. The attempt to equate digital diddling with art. In no way shape or form does the digital realm approach physical art.

No one can re-create a Van Gogh, Monet, etc. with perfect exactitude. ANYONE with the patience and time can exactly recreate, perfectly, indistinguishably, any digital creation. A program can be written to analyze and spew out a perfect copy of every pixel of anyone's digital diddle's. That's why I don't consider such productions art.
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Postby Stargzer » Mon Aug 10, 2009 12:27 pm

... In no way shape or form does the digital realm approach physical art.



And there, my friend, you are wrong.

The computer is a tool, an amanuensis, transcribing the artist's or author's thoughts and commands. Are novels no longer valid because an author uses a word processor instead of a typewriter, or a quill pen and ink? The didital realm is merely another technique, another medium. How many people did not accept Impressionism or Modern Art when they first appeared?

Back in the early 70s I saw a Mona Lisa drawn by computer, done by a mainframe on a plotter. No, it was not the same as as the original; it was a line drawing done in red ink, but not bad, considering the state of the art of computer art back then. Although computers are putting a lot of inkers out of work in the animation field, the animators themselves have a new tool, a new medium, with which to express their art.

Is art only that which is drawn by the Rennaisance Masters?

Norman Rockwell was looked down upon by some because he was an illustrator, not an "artist." Yet, if you've ever been camping on a moonlit night, you know that his painting The Scoutmaster on the cover of the Boy Scouts' old Scoutmaster's Handbook was almost a photographic copy of a night campfire scene, complete with the pale wash of moonlight on the figures. Was that art or merely illustration?

Now, I don't understand Jackson Pollock's works, and I don't know which end is up on any of his later paintings, but I don't deride it as not being art. Decorative art, perhaps, as far as I'm concerned, but art just the same.

Just as Beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder, Art is in the eye of the beholder.
Regards//Larry

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-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee

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Postby skinem » Tue Aug 11, 2009 10:22 am

One of the best definitions of art I ever heard was that if it can be replicated by most people, it isn't art.

It's a tough thing to define...but to paraphrase a past supreme court justice....I know it when i see it.

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Postby Slava » Tue Aug 11, 2009 6:23 pm

One of the best definitions of art I ever heard was that if it can be replicated by most people, it isn't art.
Yes, this is what I was driving at in my rant. While some great things can be done on computer, the fact that it can be replicated by anyone with a wee bit of talent and some patience detracts heavily from the art value for me. And reworking photographs is really drudge work, as far as I'm concerned. Taking the photo, knowing what you did and why you did it, is the art part. Anything on a computer is digital diddling.

However, I accept that others will disagree.
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Postby gailr » Wed Aug 12, 2009 8:23 am

I have to side with Stargzer here. I am an artist, and I LOVE my computers. Whether I am creating an entirely new piece from scratch, manipulating an image I created conventionally, or even retouching a digital version of a damaged photograph too fragile to handle, I consider the final product art. (The last art exhibit I helped to judge had some *fantastic* photos, in which the artists had taken their own images to another level with photo-manipulation software.) In fact, there are inspired pieces I can bring to life with the unique tools my vector and bitmap programs offer which I could never have achieved with conventional methods and media.

I have seen several pieces in which a person of small imagination takes a company name, for example, applies four or five (or five hundred) different fonts and styles to that name, under the delusion that s/he is "creating logos". And you know what? As much as I may personally look down on it, there is a market for that sort of thing: a market which would balk mightily at paying me to create "real art" for their logo.

There are people who scan (or download) the work of others and apply (badly!) some filters under the delusion that they are creating art. Again, there is a market for that, and I'd just as soon not compete for it.

There are also a lot of people who perpetrate godawful oil paintings, frighteningly bad charcoal sketches, hideous clothing, and worrisome wood carvings, all inspired by religious fervor, love of the child or pet in the portrait, or the desire to "make art". Such pieces are neither better nor worse than their digital equivalents: they're just in a different medium.

Art is in the eye of the beholder. 8)

And in the hand-eye-mind coordination of the artist. :idea:

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Postby skinem » Wed Aug 12, 2009 1:42 pm

Gailr, I certainly wasn't saying that manipulation of digital photographs isn't art, or more accurately, couldn't be art. With the tools that are out there, anyone who is technically proficient in their use is theoretically capable of creating art.
The key word is "theoretically".

I think you hit the core of it when you said it's "in the hand-eye-mind coordination of the artist." Those who create it are the true artists. Just because I could come along after the fact and replicate it doesn't make me any more artistic than a copier. I appreciate art, love it in fact, but am as artistic and original as a brick.

By the way, I ran across some of your stuff on a website some while ago...don't remember which one...beautiful.

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Postby gailr » Fri Aug 14, 2009 3:24 am

I know, skinem, and to be honest, artists do curl their lips in disdain at those who confuse possession of a tool with proficiency with a tool. (It's my understanding that plumbers and building contractors have similar worldviews -- ha!--)

This thread detour is quite relevant to a word site: does "art" include self expression, regardless of skill level, or only "great art"...?



Also, thank you for the kind remarks about my art.
:appreciative blush smiley:

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Postby Stargzer » Fri Aug 14, 2009 12:41 pm

I know, skinem, and to be honest, artists do curl their lips in disdain at those who confuse possession of a tool with proficiency with a tool. (It's my understanding that plumbers and building contractors have similar worldviews -- ha!--) ...
I know HOW to play a guitar; that doesn't mean I play it WELL.
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee


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