Pain to construct?

OK, I'll take that challenge. I have some nice maple in the shop right now, a computer and a pretty good knowledge of fractals.

$20k? Somebody put $10k in escrow, and it's yours. Seriously. I've been looking for some geeky projects to get some mileage out of all these tools...

Sister Y, please stop reinforcing these stereotypes. Imagine what kind of world it would be if people started selling toothpaste with images of white-toothed men kissing each other. If body spray were sold with scenes of men catching each other's scent on the breeze and being overcome with passion, dancing close against each other at some trendy club, groping, kissing, sweaty...

What was I talking about?

Oh yeah, stop purveying your naughty sexist images!

#5 - yes, this ad is sexist because it implies women are willing to become doormats for a man with especially nice slacks. Flipping it is sexist because it implies that a woman's clothing choices revolve around bagging men. If this ad had a woman as both conqueror and conquered, it would be sexist since obviously such an ad only appeals to a man's prurient interest in lesbian BDSM. (This applies also to woman/animal, woman/furniture, woman/food-item, and the case of a lingerie-clad male posing atop the conquered female.)

If the ad were two men, this also male chauvinist, because it panders to the assumption that women like seeing guys get it on together.

An ad feature a man in slacks sitting comfortably on a normal office chair is sexist because it does not portray women on an equal footing in the workplace.

Obviously, they couldn't win, so they went with the one with the sexy rug as the lesser of many evils. Surely womankind can understand the position we're in here and give us a break?

BTW, that was sarcastic. Please don't hurt me.

Makes me want to create a paragraph or two which are completely unobjectionable but contain censorable words and phrase - and when said words and phrases are removed, say something quite disgusting, in simple clean english. I am sure it can be done, though a list of their censored words would help...

Trying to enforce clean speech is a powerful engine for creative vulgarity.

#19:

"Criminal law does nothing to give wronged individuals a remedy for harm to them. Restitution, if paid, is often paid to the "general restitution fund" rather than to the individual fictim. Assets collected in criminal law enforcement go to more law enforcement."

I don't know if the word fictim was a typo or not, but I believe a beautiful new word was born today. The fictitious victim, victim of a victimless crime, the fictim. Apply as needed.

Oddly, the image that popped into my mind was Karl Pilkington - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Pilkington .

When you assume people are normal, intelligent, thinking beings, and something like that comes out of their mouth, there is a moment of utter discombobulation, as if you have just walked into a transparent glass wall. You have to step back and run it over in your mind to make sure that's what they really said.

Pilkington, in a conversation about what he would do with a clone of himself, famously said "But how would I know which one was me?" - Ben Stein's comments hit me very much the same way - he can't really mean that, can he? Surely that's a joke, a character he's playing? ....

When you hang around rational, smart people, you tend to forget that a lot of people aren't.

Very Burning Man-esque. I assume there is a lot of overlap?

Nice work. Strange not to see the giant metal sculptures spouting flame.

Update: upon refreshing the Flickr page a few minutes ago:

"mmk_kobayashi is no longer active on Flickr."

Oh well.

There are at least a few in there from a well known commercial supplier of high quality naked lady pictures. The "All rights reserved" disturbs me as well, seeming to imply that he has legal rights to distribute these, which clearly he does not.

I tend to associate Flickr with artists who post their own work, I suppose collections of gathered images is inevitable, but it does bug me, especially when friends of mine work hard to put their own (quite good) work up there. (A favorite group is 365days, where people take a self portrait every day for a year http://www.flickr.com/photos/cyan_del_ma/sets/72157601230285131/ )

Ok, back to browsing the funny pictures.

Why do I get the feeling only about 4 people actually followed the link, read the speech, and processed its contents?

(As opposed, that is, to reading the summary, jumping o a conclusion about what Clay was saying based on the summary here, a few key words, and their own opinions about the issues they imagine him to be addressing - then filling in the popular pat answers to those assumptions, and posting this lack of analysis as a response.)

It's well worth checking out Suicide Food http://suicidefood.blogspot.com/ - whether you sympathize with the message of the proprietors or not, there are some jaw-dropping images in there.

Hmmm.... as an artist, if someone refused to look at my work because it wasn't in a particular format that happened to have been popular a few years back, I'd consider myself well rid of that audience segment.

Sure, the lp, the portrait, the sonnet, the 8x10 glossy - all very good formats, but certainly not ones that an artist ought to be straight-jacketed into. Can't a musician construct a piece of art that fits whatever format he/she happens to feel is appropriate? Is the choice of format (choosing to create a stand-alone song for instance) really a good criteria for judging the merit of a work?

WatchfulBabbler - I think Antinous gives quite a reasonable definition of unfood, and it isn't "contains science":

"Unfood requires stabilizing. Unfood doesn't exist for your health and convenience. It exists to maximize profits for the company. It exists to ship. It exists to sit on a shelf. It exists to do everything except nourish you."

Edible products meeting these criteria may reasonably be called "unfood". The addition of emulsifiers doesn't necessarily meet those criteria, but I think a case can be made for frowning upon the use of synthetic and/or highly processed sugars, starches and other ingredients where less processed (more "natural") alternatives exist. Especially where there -are- health and toxicity issues (see NutraSweet, high fructose corn syrup, etc).

I think you'll find that the profit margin in using these highly processed ingredients is their one and only pro, not the overall flavor, consistency or health of the produced food-like substances. Food is science, but it is also greed and politics.

Funny, I was just writing (passionatemind.org) about (or perhaps toward) a very similar sort of idea. The thing that the new atheists seem to miss (or are not interested in addressing) are the very real functions of religion in our society, and how we might meet those (often irrational) needs in a rational way. In other words, lets promote a better way of doing things as opposed to simply tearing down the objectionable way of doing things on principle and leaving there to bleed on the floor.

As a practical matter in social activism, and as a point of effective rhetoric, promoting a superior replacement is often a better way to go than just destroying the thing you don't like.

Religion exists and is strong for a number of deep and powerful reasons. You won't dislodge it without understanding those reasons, whether you intend to simply attack them more effectively, or subvert and/or replace them with better alternatives.