bricology

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• Commented on Bentley is making a laptop
  Oh, c'mon -- the Camargue isn't that bad. PininFarina is pretty much incapable of designing a bad body. high angle shot, 3/4 rear, side. The same pF designer who penned the Camargue did the Fiat 130, which it closely resembles,...
• Commented on Pill-encrusted skull
  I would really like to see Hirst's skull slip into obscurity, rather than being parodied, referenced and used as a source of inspiration. Every time someone does something like this, it just ads to Hirst's luster (or at least to...
• Commented on Avatar Machine - Marc Owens' wearable simulator of virtual worlds.
  Word to Marc Owens and other Western tools: either learn how to behave in Japan, or keep the fuck out of it. Jackassery like this just makes life all the more difficult for those of us who try to fit...
• Commented on CCTV cameras move crime a few feet down the sidewalk -- study
  "Actually, a unified police force, one that works for the people, not the man in charge, has only been around since 1829. Robert Peel and the metropolitan police act." Prevarication. Law enforcement has existed since at least Rome, and has...
• Commented on CCTV cameras move crime a few feet down the sidewalk -- study
  "Civil rights work the same way. Every tiny little scrap you give up 'for the greater good' was purchased with blood and tears. Trouble is, no one ever understands until they have the experience ..." That seems to me to...
• Commented on CCTV cameras move crime a few feet down the sidewalk -- study
  "The present government of the United States has been operating with out any legal constraints for almost a decade. They can and have done whatever they want with all kinds of illegally acquired data. They've even passed laws pardoning themselves...
• Commented on CCTV cameras move crime a few feet down the sidewalk -- study
  "And understanding crime is hardly an impossible goal. Right now, we seem only interested in responding and punishing it, which is a problem in and of itself." I don't buy that. Sociologists have been studying crime for literally centuries. There's...
• Commented on CCTV cameras move crime a few feet down the sidewalk -- study
  So you actually think that do-rags and ball caps effectively circumvent police video cameras and allow perps to commit crimes within view of those cameras? How 'bout some evidence to back that up? I don't believe it for a second....
• Commented on CCTV cameras move crime a few feet down the sidewalk -- study
  Actually, yes. Since you assert that there's "a big difference between (me walking up and down your street with my video camera, recording everything I see) and the government surveilling everything you do in public", suppose you explain what that...
• Commented on CCTV cameras move crime a few feet down the sidewalk -- study
  Takuan -- ballcaps and do-rags have never been used as a disguise tactic by urban perps, so far as I know. They would stand out to the cops who patrol the area. Perps are as much identified by their height/build...
• Commented on CCTV cameras move crime a few feet down the sidewalk -- study
  People in comfortable suburbs are welcome to debate the issue in the abstract until the cows come home, but as someone who lives in one of the most crime-ridden areas of SF, I totally support the installation of security cameras....
• Commented on Sony cotton swab advertisement
  It looks a little different through a microscope...
• Commented on Photos from rotting Chinese theme-park in Orlando
  @ Kathryn -- Thanks for the info about the construction of the fake stone structures. I would guess that the steel frames were covered with wire mesh, over which they shot gunite, then troweled it into the texture they wanted....
• Commented on Photos from rotting Chinese theme-park in Orlando
  Fascinating post! I wonder what materials/techniques they used to get such realistic natural rock effects, such as here....
• Commented on Is Fred and Sharon's movie production business real or performance art?
  @ InverseSquare -- I never said it was a genuine commercial; it could very well be "faked", as you put it. That would make it parody. It would NOT make it "art". I'm beyond sick of people's lazy thinking leading...
• Commented on Photos of bugging device found in Dublin vehicle
  "Dear cryptome, what is BIOS?" Not "what", but "whom". It's the "Big International Organization of Spies", of course!...
• Commented on Is Fred and Sharon's movie production business real or performance art?
  PLEASE -- Let's not call this "performance art", even if it is done for effect, rather than as a genuine advertisement. As a work of "art", it is utterly worthless; devoid of content. At most, it's parody. Art, it's not....
• Commented on Crazy design of house sparks neighborhood protest
  "Bricology: But the concept of 'wa' is stupidly flawed. I've had ridiculous concoctions such as 'omuraisu' fed to me and been told they're "western" food. I've lived many places in the 'west' and NEVER encountered anything like that outside of...
• Commented on Crazy design of house sparks neighborhood protest
  Avram wrote "Except, Bricology, that most of the people making those comments were Westerners. Their complaints are part of the Western liberal ideal of free speech in support of the Western liberal ideal of individuality. Asking them to refrain from...
• Commented on Crazy design of house sparks neighborhood protest
  ...and Kyle Armbruster -- your views on the subject are interesting reading, and seem well-informed....
• Commented on Crazy design of house sparks neighborhood protest
  "What are you talking about, Bricology? I thought Kazuo Umezu was Japanese. Is he a Westerner, imposing his alien values upon an adopted country?" Sorry -- I presumed that my point was clear: the vast majority of posts here have...
• Commented on Crazy design of house sparks neighborhood protest
  "That argument would hold more water if Meiji reforms hadn't swallowed Western culture hook, line and sinker. Hello Kitty Victorian Maid hookers aside, Japanese physical culture is in many ways far drabber than it was at the end of the...
• Commented on Crazy design of house sparks neighborhood protest
  "I find nothing more offensive than someone else telling you what you should do with your own property. The house there is a bit extreme, but if I wanted to arrange an army of garden gnomes and flamingos reenacting the...
• Commented on Crazy design of house sparks neighborhood protest
  "In a country where school children are forced to dye their hair black so as not to stand out, I can't see him getting away with this." And rightly so. Japan only works because everyone (well, most everyone) participates in...
• Commented on Crazy design of house sparks neighborhood protest
  I like Umezu and eccentrics in general, and this house would be fine somewhere else, but it's totally inappropriate in a suburban Tokyo neighborhood. I hope the neighbors get him to tone it down....
• Commented on James Randi Calls Out Audiophile: I'm Sure the Crickets Will Sound Fantastic
  "Oxygen free copper cables"? Please. Don't make me laugh. I have chapped lips. OK, is it oxygen free cables that sound better because the electrons don't bump into the oxygen atoms and slow down and get all out of sequence,...
• Commented on Nails of the Crucifixion on eBay
  Wow! Makes me wonder how much my signed first edition of the Bible is worth!...
• Commented on Submersible car
  So they took a butt-ugly Lotus Elise and tarted it up so it will operate -- extremely slowly -- underwater, with the occupants getting soaked. Thrilling! I love the point in the video where the two scuba divers go speeding...
• Commented on Nicaraguan town wealthy from cocaine bricks that wash ashore
  Is anyone else confused/disturbed by the fact that the US COAST GUARD is doing something a thousand miles from the nearest US coastline?...
• Commented on Homemade Obama "hope beacon" with LED light thingies
  Shepherd Fairey: proving once again that fifteen minutes of manipulating someone else's photograph with Photoshop filters will indeed produce some of the most banal, predictable images imaginable. "But this one has blinking lights!" I'm waiting for the version that goes...