This was gross... but sadly I must say that I highly enjoy the art of expelling the contents of zits. For some reason, my sister does as well - she even begs her boyfriend to let her pop his zits, too.

I also enjoy things like pulling off huge sheets of sunburned/dead skin. I think we got that from my mom or something.

The question is, is it weirder that I'm a furry or that I like popping zits? I think there are much worse idiosyncrasies to have :)

Wow. That literally had me in tears... 'intense' indeed.

But this ad was very... awesome?

I am pretty sure that they used sound effects from Half Life in there somewhere. Could be wrong though.

OH. Nevermind... it's on Paper Zen 2005. Silly me!

Oh for crying out loud, they missed Origami Boulder!

I'm curious as to whether it's just an open-minded activist or an actual furry :)

My first thought was: "DON'T GET THE FURSUIT WET!!!!"

#1: It's too bad this isn't Slashdot where you can mod up posts. +5 Funny

I've come to the conclusion that most companies that reach a certain size are all about as bad as each other. I think we've just yet to see Google's true colors (besides the primary ones on their homepage). (In reference to some of the comments on the Flickr image re: moving over to Picasa). They're all motivated by money and all seem (based on my uneducated and limited observation) to lust after the same goals and attain them in somewhat-comparable ways.

At the risk of being off-topic, I bet none of these people would care if it was being bought by Apple instead, who in my personal, jaded opinion, is a worse company, if only because their PR cleverly hides their insidiousness (whereas Microsoft doesn't seem to bother doing a whole ton of cover up - everybody knows what they're up to, don't they? That, to me, makes them just slightly less evil.)

"Regardless- totally agreed, the artsy/ techy appeal here resounds far beyond the utility the post has to those interested specifically in an alternative lifestyle involving cosplay. As such- it's perfect Boing! Boing! material."

You got me thinking here. Typically you don't hear much about anime or other fandom-oriented cosplaying on Boing Boing, though I'm sure it's been covered before. Reason probably being, anime cosplay is neat and all, and it takes skill of course to create the detailed costumes, but furries (who tend to pride themselves on this above other cosplayers) are most often cosplaying original characters that are often representations of themselves. Yet at an anime con you go and find 35 people all cosplaying the same Bleach character. It's not NEARLY as interesting (this coming from a perhaps-biased furry who does enjoy anime from time to time and has attended conventions of both types).

Go to a furry con and you can meet a hundred new, original characters. They all have stories and personalities, unique characteristics. Are some of them creepy? Well, uh, yeah (most furs probably agree there; there is always that one guy at the con everybody kind of avoids). But many of them are most definitely not. And I think that's true anywhere (in the world of fandom-oriented conventions).

And thanks, Xeni. It was possibly one of the only clever things I've said to date!

Here's a few fursuit makers that I like:

http://www.onefurall.com/

http://www.mixedcandy.com/

http://www.arendstudios.com/

They're not the same style, and definitely not as detailed as Lionel's heavily detailed and functional suits. But believe it or not, furries do not always want the most realistic, detailed fursuit possible. Many (such as myself) would prefer them to be a cross between 'toony' and realistic (my favorite balance there can be found at One Fur All, linked above.)

And @ #6: "furry enabler"? Am I missing something here? As far as I'm aware, furries arn't any weirder than anything else on BoingBoing. You don't call them out for being a hobo-enabler, do you?

This is the guy featured in the American Furry video, isn't it? He's probably one of the most detailed furry costume designers I've ever seen.

Not quite my thing though, little too realistic for my tastes. :p

Awesome - homebrew is one of my favorite things to do with a console. There's a couple of drawbacks:

- Since you're doing things with your console that it wasn't designed to do (for example, with the PSP, you might be flashing a firmware), there's always a potential for screwing up your console. I, for example, bricked my PSP this way. (I also bricked a first-gen iPod installing linux on it, but it was worth it, truth be told.)

- The game companies can't condone it because opening up the hardware means that they are basically opening the floodgates for people booting ISOs of the commercial games availible for the system.

At the very least, game companies should provide a legit means for writing custom code. If it means that Nintendo has to approve it, whatever - there are plenty of awesome games and apps that would be nice to see on the Wii.

Here's actually the best solution - give people the SDK, and let people write the code on their computers (but remove functionality of booting commercial game ISOs, perhaps). Let people then submit their apps and games to Nintendo for inclusion for free on the Wii Shop as free downloads (or at the author's option, as a pay download where the proceeds are split somehow between Nintendo and the author). That way, homebrew games/apps won't require any kind of modifications, they will be available to the public, and won't tempt people into breaking open their hardware and potentially breaking it.

Not saying that you SHOULDN'T be able to break into your hardware, but if you can avoid it, for the sake of not screwing it up, it's probably a good idea.

Also, I support the notion that opening your stuff up should void your warranty. Nintendo shouldn't have to do warranty hardware repairs on systems that have been purposely broken into (physically). But at least, don't treat those people like criminals if they decide to do it!

The Cake is on The Internet, but it's still A Lie.

What gives?

Thespreads is right. VST is almost universal in the software sequencer world (at least for Windows, anyway).

The only major music sequencer for Windows that I know of that DOESN'T support it is Reason, for a reason I cannot fathom (other than the fact that they want you to use generators developed by their company).

FLStudio FTW (anyone who refuses to believe that FL is powerful hasn't used it for four or five years like I have :)

PS: Xeni definitely has friends in the fandom (I'm pretty sure) :)

@B88
I am sorry that you (or other geeks, as I was unable to determine if you count yourself within their ranks) require other people (i.e. furries, klingons, whatever) to look down upon to feel good about your/themselves.

Furries, in general, are pretty happy with who THEY are without having to look at someone else and consider themselves superior.

However, most furries are glad they arn't "mundanes". That's what we should all really be afraid of being (every BB reader included!). For the purpose of this post, I'm broadening the definition of 'mundane' past 'non-furry'; it could also refer to people who are just simply mind-numbingly normal. Fate worse than death :)

Wow. This is pretty awesome. Though I haven't yet watched it, will do so at first opportunity.

Honestly we all (*cough* the furries, that is) think that SOMEONE here at BB is a furry. Prolly Xeni. (Yeah, we know you've said it creeps you out, but come on now, any furry says that if they're in the furry 'closet' you know.) Or possibly Cory since there's a furry character in Down and Out... or that could just be crazy theories :)

In any event, I'm pretty sure at least a fair amount of furries read BoingBoing so it's nice to see the coverage, even if the *other* BB readers are left a bit clueless :)

And @License Farm: Unfortunately being a furry does not make you interesting or cool. However, it doesn't prevent you from being interesting or cool, either. And people who tell EVERYONE they know (including co-workers, random people they meet) right off the bat like that probably has a 'furry pride' complex. You know, if they don't make it known to everybody, they're not properly showing their uh, furry spirit?

Okay, I can see both sides of this issue here. I, like many, at first was very upset about this post. Then I started to see both sides a little bit.

Of course, I think complaining about something that's technically 'free' isn't really called for, but on the other hand, Xeni's point was that if they honestly wern't expecting any money from you, they would, indeed, have offered a much higher quality file and the "whole album".

What did Radiohead get by doing this? An ASSLOAD of publicity. Everybody covered this story with the assumption that they were giving away the music to people who didn't want to pay, and people who wanted to support the band will pay anyway. (Which is true, sort of). But, ultimately, they got just a modicrum more credit than they deserved and 10x the publicity for it. And likewise, they made a HUGE sum of money and came out way, way, way ahead for it.

It's like someone who helps a charity for a tax write off. They did a good thing.. sorta.

As for the whole Cory issue - I think Cory's perfectly in his rights to do what he does with his material. He's also within to advertise it (ON HIS OWN BLOG I might add, keeping in mind that when MY album comes out, you better believe I'm going to pimp it on my own damn site!). Sure, if Xeni had made the direct comparison herself, and expected Radiohead or anybody to do the same thing just because, that would be lame, but she didn't, so, uh, yeah.

The WHOLE issue at hand is one of subtle, ulterior motives. Which, actually, does not seem like that big a deal to me. So I don't know if I would have written this post myself, but I can see the point being made, and it's a valid one.

Nuff said imo.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1411/1479424464_18dab312c3_o.jpg

A very quick hackjob as a response to Dave X / #3.

I'm at a public PC at my college, trying to study, so I hadn't much time to make it look better. ;)

Oh boy.

Do they sell bundles with dart sets, too?

Every day I'm furthur amazed how people can associate with (and/or tolerate) the conservative movement in the US and keep a straight face. *sigh*

I'm not suprised. Apple's a pretty terrible company if you ask me. They grab anyone and everyone by the balls if they can do it. Media industry, consumers, etc.

That's all just business, of course. Microsoft and the other guys all do that too, BUT....

Apple hides behind Jobs' smiling face, and come off looking like friendly hipsters in the process to everyone in general. At least nobody generally has any false visions of decency when it comes to Microsoft.

But holy crap, it's definately genius. I can't imagine how long it took to put that together. Crazy insane.

Anon #5:

"Oh, bonus round: I also asked the Apple folks if they planned on releasing an SDK for iPhone any time soon, given that so many developers were working so feverishly on installable apps. No plans to do so at this time, quoth the spokesperson. They're encouraging people to develop and use Web 2.0 apps instead."

That's what I was commenting on. Although next time I'll try to find something to rant about that touches on every nuance of the post :p

Though the second half of my post dealt with the fact that I think Apple products (iPods, iPhones, whatever) should incorporate removable media, which, I dunno, I felt was at least somewhat relevant in response to a discussion on (flash) iPods.

If I was furthur in my IT degree, already had my label set up, and lived in Florida, I'd absolutely love to work for you guys, but sadly that all might be a little ways a way.

Quite honestly this is the VERY FIRST TIME I have seen a music distribution model that I had absolutely no reservations about. Fucking bravo :)

That bug picture reminds me of the Butt-biting bug thing that was posted on the main blog about a week ago. XD

It's too bad Apple doesn't give a shit about being able to run user-created apps on the iPhone. It's the things like lack of Flash, inability to write apps (unlike Palm/Win Mobile devices), etc. that pretty much, considering that I don't need a fancy phone with an expensive plan and AT&T service, make me just consider buying a replacement PSP for my broken one (Wi-fi, good web browser with flash, can play games, music, video, replaceable media, and people have hacked the hell out of it for things like emulators and all sorts of nifty other apps. Oh, and I wouldn't have to install iTunes.)

I don't understand why Apple's products don't support removable media. Well, wait, I do - because nobody would have very much reason to upgrade. (considering that SD cards are so cheap these days and getting cheaper by the gig...) As of right now, you buy a 4-gig flash-based device and you have to buy a whole new one if you want to double your storage. Wheras with removable media, you can buy whatever is affordable now, an d spend just a little bit of money upgrading your capacity a few months later. Or you can buy a ton of cards and have as much capacity as you can afford (albeit requiring you to swap out and carry cards). But it'd be nice to have that as an OPTION in addition to built in storage.

I just picked up a copy of this guy's DS game, Elektroplankton. It's easy to see that it was made by the same person :)

(FYI: Elektroplankton is a RARE DS game which, well, isn't really a game.. it's a series of musical 'toys' that you can use to generate music just by playing with the thing. It's pretty cool.)

"it's like my mom trying to sell me her conspiracy stories of the great reptilian city under Lake Michigan."

Ooh, something a little more close to home!

Something in me WANTS conspiracy theories to be true just because they sound so friggin' cool. Honestly, who WOULDN'T want to find out that there's a great reptilian city under Lake Michigan?!? (Do they accept tourists?)

"The Super Sliders

These skates are crazy!! I about cracked my head open on the
first try but after that i loved it. They provide hours upon hours of
enjoyment. We even built a ramp on the stairs. I wouldnt suggest this trick for the younger tikes. It gave us the chance to have a
neighborhood club-THE SUPER SLIDERS!
*thanks for the fun Super____sliders 4ever Matty
matilda aka matty - anchorage, alaska"

How's that for safe? A personal account posted on the product's own website. http://funslides.com/StaticWeb/products/feedback.php