Well, if they didn't mind having so much of their leg exposed, and as long as they had the opportunity to take those shoes off in the back...sheesh, yeah, the shoes are more than a little unbearable for 12 hour stretches on one's feet.

Nah, it's anthropomorphism

"Attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behavior to inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena."

Unless you are a vegan. In which case it is anthropocentrism, because that rat is obviously being tortured.

/rude

Oh my god, I can shoot people in front of the building I have eaten and shopped in many times? I wonder if I can go across the street and shoot up the office building my dad works in...LOL

Yeah, makes me want to see more of the story, too! Thoroughly enjoyable and well-made.

#19: Complaining is a sign of being observant enough to know what can be changed for the better. Hopefully, people will never stop complaining. If people stop complaining, the world stops progressing.

#16 is a terrorist. He knows details about ferries, and seems to have an interest in them that most people do not have. Arrest him.

Sheesh, could you imagine if the authorities applied this same line of thinking to say, cars, at the local car show? "This man is more than normally interested in the specific car part being displayed at the Hybrid display over there. He must be plotting to infiltrate a Hybrid factory and destroy its contents, in an attempt to keep America from becoming less dependent on Middle Eastern oil. Oh, and also he is brown."

Yeah, wait, was there a control group that had non-broadcasting phones or something similar strapped to their head, just to mimic the fact that something is strapped to their head? The second study sounds less reliable than the first, which I trust.

That's hilarious.

As long as the camera was not emotionally disturbed by the lewdness...

Eh, their lameness, if it's there, (I've had decent experiences with them, pretty neutral) is probably more the company's policy's fault than their individual faults.

Wait, are people actually being disappointed by evil behavior? Get over it! Everyone is evil. Evil is good! It is what everyone does, therefore it is good. Like cheating on a math test. If you're shocked by evil behavior, there is something wrong with you, and you posting your annoyance at evil is a waste of time and stupid. But me posting how evil is good is great, because I am logically correct! -Most posters

This is awful and ridiculous and wrong. We're fuxored. I don't believe it...

bottled air, anyone?

I am SO GLAD I was born in 1988 instead of 1908. My double-x-chromosones would have probably forced me down a path like this, since I'm a "bright girl." Jesus christ, I'm bored to death in my Statistics, Sociology and Journalism classes, in a class like this I think I'd straight out SHOOT MYSELF IN THE FACE with BOREDOM.

Or just draw really fantastic comics and not pay attention at all and still get A's, like all of secondary ed...XD

Being a woman in the US now really is much better than back then. Neo-quasi-feminists like me want more progress, that 75 cents to the dollar still hasn't gone away, but shit, we have made a lot of progress already, too...

CBARETTO (#16):
"If this kind of prevision had the minimum chance of being true most biotech companies, most agricultural lobbies, most governments would be just freaking out.

That's not the case."

They ARE freaking out.
Trying to figure out a way to make a buck while ALSO being green right now. It's huge.

It's just...they're freaking out in calm ways so as not to alarm the stocholders. Calm, slow ways, because all huge structures (gov, business) are very slow.

Read all that's happening in the bizarre world where environmentalists are seen as idea-makers for business instead of crazy hippies ranting, and you'll see a definite, fearful shift: but a slow one, excruciatingly slow...specially for crazy ranting environmentalists like me.

I understand a lot of arguments for civil liberties sort of intuitively, but I can't quite wrap my head around this one. On a practical rather than just aesthetic (OMG DYSTOPIA!!) level, why is the use of fingerprints as keys wrong? This really seems like something that is useful as an actual security tool instead of a creepy way to control everyone...unlike most other ideas "to increase security," this sounds legit.

That's horrible!

Re: HALLOWEEN JACK:

Yeah, a recession for most of us.

This new gilded age is looking nice and shiny, complete with absurd, unnecesary expenses on things that really aren't worth that much.

YES

Great, yeah, it's student work so not expecting perfect but very good. It made me laugh and think, which, what more do I need..?

aaaaaaaaaaaawww.

Times like these I remember that usury was considered a sin type thing by several popular desert-mystic religions once upon a time. Not a huge fan of any of those faiths, but some of their principles...became principles for a reason. This is effed up, and the cocky humans who wrote those fading books probably thought of similar things when making that rule.

Someone can just buy this and be an auto-music-afficianado. Like Great Gatsby's library, the exact same idea...

that is so tragic.

Sigh.

No. No, that's not right.

This is what it feels like, honestly, when I am not having enough Slack.

THE SUBGENIUS MUST HAVE SLACK!!

-Rev. Baz Otherwise

Serious LOLs. This made me so happy. :D

I was about to send this to you, then figured you'd find it without my help...Sylvia

Aaaaw! Can I pet it?

This pterodactyl won't carry me off to feed to its young like those OTHER ones. XD

WHY

WHY?

WHYYYY????

Oh jesus why is it impossible for someone like me to eat food in a restaurant in this country without WASTING it by not being able to finish the whole plate? Doggy bags are only sometimes an option. Sheesh.

When will America realize that giving smaller portions for a smaller or maybe even the same price (whatever! I'd do it!) would make people feel healthier when they eat there...and then increase their business...

It's a good idea to avoid restaurants in general, if you don't want to become obese, but sometimes...that's not an option (read: living in NYC...being busy...)

Why do pasta restaurants only offer "lunch servings" of pasta during lunch hours? I would buy it in the evening if I could. Instead, I get 4X the amount I can eat on this heaping plate that I could use as a lady's garden hat...

TAKUAN: India or China, not sure which.

And shit. This sucks.

Davin: I have a similar feeling too. Maybe it was on Snopes or something... I swear I've seen it...

Very interesting. And I don't see how it's barfingly gross. It's just odd. Odd does not equal gross.

Decay and injury and scat and things like that are all gross. But someone who you don't find attractive trying to be a sex symbol? I don't take that as anything but 'funny.'

I like her spunk, though.

Maybe I would be more grossed out if women were the gender I was most attracted to, I don't know.

Anyone who's not an ubermensch are all slaves!

Holy crap is there something like SFo in NYC? Please tell me, oh please..., it's incredible.

(I live on the Wrong coast, as always.)

...Marx? MARX? During the Cold War? Bold name!

-A young'un

Japanese pop culture, WE HAVE P0NED U!! VrRRRROOOOoooom!

CHRISTOVER:

"congealed fat people had put down the drain as hot liquids"...

so it's a clogged artery writ large? Oh swoon, as above so below indeed!

THE OTHER MICHAEL"
Remember: this sample does not represent your whole generation. Only the members of it who read BOINGBOING. And of other generations.

Yeah, BoingBoinger's might be more into odd things that look like sci-fi than politics or sociology, at least when it comes to whether or not they think their comment will be useful or funny...

It looks like a bizarre fantasy-vehicle created out of legos or tinkertoys by a child. Imaginative and nifty.

Bravo, bravo! A common message for a reason, videos and art like this is necessary...and great tunes. And well-made. :D

What a wonderful, funny, and interesting discussion this has sparked.

And EVALISA- you rock. I agree. Why the hell not?

There are a LOT of ways our government wastes its money. Public art is not one of the number one ways.

People who get angry about its existence probably have a grudge about art in general. All that...postulating, and thinking, and making points and illuminating themes and stuff. Reminds them of their high school English teachers too much. Who they hated, for being 'stuck-up'. It challenges them, so it makes their head hurt. They hate it.

Thinking and imagining and creating (some of the highest elements of the human mind) are for VAGABONDS, slackers and hippies! Pshaw! Only practical things are okay to spend money on! Like war. Lots of war. And sports stadiums, and pork barrel projects. But not art. Does another pansy scarf-wearing ''smart person'' really need our hard-earned tax cash!! Really now!!

I want to gooOO!!!! PRETTY! Or Sapporo, that sounds cool too...

Reminds me of one of R. Crumb's "Waiting For Food" art books, printed collections of his doodles he makes while at restaurants, mostly. In the prologue, he gives the advice to aspiring artists to make real, physical art, THEN make digital copies or versions of it (mostly because if you are concerned about selling it some day, you know...way valuable useful if it only or mostly exists in real life...)

This was published between 5 and 10 years ago.

Yeah, science might be linguistic, but colleges still accept students and teach courses based on mathy assumptions. I absolutely love science but I went into journalism instead because I was, frankly, "best at" english but way better at math than the average person (Hey, this clipping described me: "So there are girls going into the arts that have better math skills than the boys going into sciences (the girls just happened to have even better verbal skills).")

I am saddened by the fact that I do not get to study ecosystems like I wanted to. But in order to get that degree I would have to pass many, many classes based on math. Which I could PASS. Just with C's and B's instead of A's, and I wanted A's, so I am acing Journalism classes...sigh.

The things you only understand after you made the decisions you make. Regret sucks. Should have gotten B's due to my math 'deficiency' and become a biologist.

What a load of horribly badly planned bullshit.

The comparisons to airline metal detectors are apt. And truly. Who carries these papers around with them everywhere? This is absurdly stupid.

When a fire is behind you, do you want to shove everyone you can onto a bus without thinking, or makes sure that nobody on the bus is a sicko first?

How about we just have security people on the bus, ready to arrest someone who is caught doing bad things on the bus if and when that happens, instead of screening them beforehand in a logisitical nightmare? (And they can just have batons and law enforcement skills. No tasers or guns, please.)

And I really do not like the whole sectioning off society into "desirables" and "undesirables" idea. People can change for the better. People who did bad things in the past can do better things in the future and shouldn't be treated like lesser beings for the rest of their lives. Now I wouldn't neccesarily be friends with a former criminal, but the gov shouldn't obsessively keep track of them at the cost of inconvenience, paranoia and in this situation possible death for everyone else around them...

Thanks for pointing this out- very interesting.

Oh, and I feel the exact same way about Byrne.

Could there be a cooler pair to discuss this? Honestly.

Wow! You mean citizens can actually have some sort of an impact on politics? Holy shit, I feel so cool for having called my senators and emailed them the other day. This is the first time I have seen this whole "call your senator while masses of other people call their senators too" thing actually WORK. Thanks for spreading the good news. I will keep it up. I mean, erm, WE will keep it up. :D

Interesting. I want to see how this pans out. Exciting future, actually.

Not the type of publicity the poor Pagan movement needs. Sigh.

This is a great piece of journalism/documentary, really. She manages to not editorialize too much on things very different from her own experience, which is refreshing, and shows skill.

TECHNICAL WRITING GEEK: A disagreement.

I was expecting the damn thing to chop the melon in half and was severrely disappointed when it never did. It kept on looking like it was about to.

That frustration is an emotion. It produced an emotion in me in a subtle way, while also making me think about yeah, the sex reference, too.

This gives it artistic worth, what it did to me. It might not have artistic worth for everyone, but if it works for someone, well, enough people, maybe, then it's art (tricky definition, but IMHO it's art.)

The only problem with this wonderful luxury jackets/hoodies with beautiful images on it trend, aside from the whole sweatshop thing, of course, is that they're all, well...luxury. More than $60 is a bit much for at least a light thing like a hoodie, and more than $125 is a bit much for a jacet. Ah well. Nice things are for rich people, I keep on forgetting that. Think I'd learn by now.

Sigh...wish my friends liked comics so I could actually buy them things that would be fun to shop for. Ho-hum.

I looked on facebook.

There is no application called "Beacon" or anything like it.

It's a "feature," built into facebook, not an "application"- what they call the third-party software gizmos that users choose to have on their page.

Moral of the story:
You do NOT choose to have Beacon. Beacon chooses to have you, just because you are a facebook user, who uses the same email for online shopping and for facebook. Some people compartmentalize their email addresses for different uses. Most probably don't.

So this IS a problem: done without the user specifically signing up for it. It's done automatically. (It might be buried under tonnes of legal jargon when you sign up for facebook, as of recently.)

We need some SERIOUS unicorn chasers now. Seriously. Two deformed innocents in a row?

In same mental thread:

DAN VS. COG:
Man vs. Machine.
They Might Be Giants' drummer vs. famous robot.

http://www.tmbg.com/VIDEO/proVid.cgi?song=Dan_Vs._Cog&album=VIDEO&vid=4

JAY LEVITT: LOL.

FINALLY!

Been waiting for this for too long.

I don't know if I can watch it. Just reading about it made me impossibly angry.

But in order to be a good observer/journalist, to truly be able to say that he didn't NEED a tasering...sigh.

To the cop-sympathetic poster(s): Yes, we have already made up our mind that using a near-lethal weapon is only appropriate when the situation calls for a near-lethal weapon. Honestly. What is wrong with using old-fashioned handcuffs/batons to the limbs/arms to the arms? I have not heard of someone dying from nothing more than handcuffs and arm-arm struggles. But I have heard of them dying from tasers.

Just go with the safer, more human route. Why not?

Bogartnoir, someone familiar with The Hipster Express and the neighborhood it runs through might be annoyed by an utter overdose of irony, everywhere.

Just remember that it really is good in small/medium amounts. People latched on to it and ran with it. Too far.

But it wasn't a bad idea to run with it in the first place/

Andrew Brandou, that is one of the best compliments/metaphors/descriptions I have read in a long time.

BINARYLOOP: The disparity in the apparent gender gap could be explained by the general tendency for women to seek medical care and discuss their symptoms in public or with friends more often than men do, who see this as a sign of weakness.

This trend's been reported on for a few years now, as far as I know.

:D This is comedy gold, great find and great idea collaborating with fashion people, guys.

The macros are going on my hard drive for later use on mai internets now, kthxbai.

Zuzu, we could burn it instead of eating it. Less bacteria. Better smell.

God, those side effects read like a piece of satire! Priceless.

But seriously, folks. I am really glad that some entity came out to speak out against these ads. They have been bugging my bullshit-detecting-organ for a few months now.

And flickersticks. That is how doctors work in a morally sound, logical world. But remember where we live. Bribes exist in many forms. It's sad but true.

*screams*

CANADA HERE I COME?

Oh, David Byrne, your completely alien observations about the human world make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

What a smart weirdo.

Creeptastic! Robot-looking military people with GLOWING GREEN EYES-alright, the UK is officially a dystopia now-!!

As an official "member of the press," I am SO GOING THERE NEXT YEAR. YES.

If I wasn't so afraid of bodily harm I would find a way to join them as soon as possible.

Damn my strong bio-survival instinct! Keeps me out of all kinds of fun!

Kobe, that is a SUPERB idea. I am just worried about getting my circle of friends/families/acquaintances into real trouble. Otherwise I would do it...

Yes! Combine two of my favorite internet things: web communities and boingboing!

I know where I am spending way too much of my free time for now on out.

You guys are the best.

THAT should have been the copy in the catalog. I may have bought it out of sheer amusement.

I used to love my country. It's sad to see something you love get uglier and uglier until you just can't recognize it anymore, and it becomes apparent that still loving it is denying its real character...

Man, I hope this gets all over the front pages of all the major papers and news outlets...

...how can I become an ex-pat?

Now's when I wish I got a computer science degree that would make my skills valuable in other countries, instead of this crappy Journalism undergraduate degree...fuuuuuuck I shoulda became an engineer so I can haul my ass to any country in Europe at the whim of a company that wants to hire me .....

Jesus Christ.

Interesting times ahead.

@Farmerbob:

We're not trying to give any advice TO Rural America. We're discussing how politicians treat it.

We wouldn't say that Rural America "needs [our] opinions" any more than you would. Don't worry. We're not trying to tell any rural person to do anything. In fact, if you read the comments, some are saying how they wish they COULD do some of the things farmers do since MAKING THINGS (IE food, etc) is much more useful than being a "middleman" in the city.

When I first read the description of the cops in the film, I thought they were fictional.

Wait, cops like this ACTUALLY EXIST in Brazil? Hence the actual logo shown here that "the actual police unit" uses? Huh? (Don't mind my newbness, just started really paying attention to politics and news about a month ago.)

I haven't felt this way while watching TV since I used to watch Bill Nye in early elementary school.

Wait. A. Second.

...

This is Bill Nye for Grown-Ups! Interesting, non-documentary science information in an appealing format. Wow! Why didn't this exist earlier?

I guess that myth was too perfect to be true.

though I am sad it was false. That was one of my favorite pop psychology tales. ):

Necks are for FIGHTING!

I learned about this in a biology class last year. I will have to ask my professor for a link to the actual study. But I know for a fact this hypothesis is legit.

The excuse for why giraffes have long necks is to reach leaves near the tops of trees, right? But if you actually observe them eating, they don't usually eat the leaves up there, opting for leaves closer to 2/3 their height.

Some biologists postulated in the late 80's early 90's that they really evolved such huge necks to compete with other giraffes while fighting.

The males fight over females, and when with a female they fight her in order to mate with her. This behavior is observed all the time. Funny how it's not really popularized that much, no, giraffes aren't peaceful creatures...
and that might be why their necks are so damn huge...

People get way too worked up about trends. Especially people who can be described, in one way or another, as "hipsters."

Once an idea is used enough times, it is considered a "trend." Steampunk, at least in this little corner of the internet, can be considered as such.

And once a trend is identified, oh my, how hipsters and the like flip out and start getting uppity about how to define it and whether or not such-and-such qualifies and why it exists and whether or not it is cliche and whether or not they like it...

Sheesh. Just sit back and let trends be trends. It's just how information and memes work, and just because something is a trend does not mean it is already "cliche," "passe" or somehow unworthy of my attention.

Some trends are trends for a reason. Like kissing! Oh, how cliche! But I wouldn't pass it up...

Yes, steampunk is like kissing.

I hope this seemed coherent.