Ha ha! It happened in the UK, so let's go ahead and mock the British!

It will appear terribly witty and sophisticated, and not at all like culturally isolated Americans demonstrating their general ignorance of the world.

It should be obvious to everyone now that the global population of humans is still far too high, and still getting higher. And yet whenever any region experiences the slightest dip in its local population, governments launch initiatives to increase fertility.

It's insanity.

"I tried to include only the most blatant examples (such as "cursive handwriting," "handling cash," and "sharpening a pencil"), but there are plenty of other stupid entries."

I think you may be taking this way too literally.

Many of the items on the list, while still not completely obsolete, are certainly far, far less common than they used to be. Most people barely use handwriting at all these days except to scrawl shopping lists. In many countries you really don't need to handle cash much any more. A lot of people use mechanical pencils these days (I still prefer the old sort, though).

You could probably find small pockets of people out there doing every one of the things on the list, but don't let that spoil it for you.

I think the point is that there's no need to use lookup tables to find that information any more.

Yes, of course he will get away with it; all of it. The most (and the least) we can hope for is that he will be seen for what he is. That people will remember this. That his supporters will perhaps take some time to reflect on the part they played. People on the left have always hated Dick Chaney - it doesn't make a blind bit of difference to start hating him more. He needs to be more widely discredited, not more intensely.

Never mind trying punish Chaney, it's not worth it. But if the record can be set straight, maybe that will provide sufficient momentum for some actual, positive Obama. Er, I mean change.

Looks pretty, but it's a bad sign when six pages in, you already find the main character extremely irritating.

Regardless of how dangerous skateboarding through the city centre may or may not be, it's still illegal. And if you are doing something illegal, regardless of how minor, and a cop tells you to stop (which they are bound to do), and you say "um, nope, I won't stop" and keep on going, then you automatically have a conflict situation. How well that situation is resolved is largely due to the skill and experience of the cop, and, as we see, people are often less than perfect. Which is why I have a huge problem with cops who routinely use potentially-lethal tasers on people.

Bt t dsn't hlp rslv nythng whn ppl g nt shrkng hystrcs lk ths. hv lng dsprd t th cmmnts f th rctnry, Fx Nws-wtchng Rght, bt 'm strtng t ntc mr nd mr, th sm ntr f cmmnts cmng frm th thr sd. 'v trd t gv dffrnt prspctv n ths dscssn bcs flt tht th gnrl md hr ws lttl bt t mch lk wtch-brnng mb fr my lkng. nd ntrlly, n dng s, ppl cll m fscst-sympthsng nt cs. Grt.

Sometimes I really do wonder if we (all humans) are going to be able to get it together enough to cooperate and solve anything.

The Beatles were due to break up. Lennon's edgy, stripped-back songwriting was increasingly at odds with McCartney's overcooked cheese.

Actually, before this goes any further - Shudderstep, after just reading your last post (#36) there isn't really much to disagree with there. Myb 'm nt trppd n n ntrnt rgmnt ftr ll.

nd thnk th cp wll lrn frm ths nd mng th sttn mch bttr nxt tm - ppl d mprv wth xprnc. Bt d fl fr hm - th pr gy ws prbbly jst trnd t dl wth crmnls, nd nstd h gts TNGRS.

Argh! I'm not even talking about Salvatore Rivieri! I never even saw that clip! As I said at the start of the previous post! Twice, thanks to my stupid browser! Gddmmt, nw trly m stck n n ntrnt rgmnt!

Shudderstep, I had responded, wth th tmst ftlty (gvn tht y wll n dbt dsmss nythng sy hr, nd frvrmr, s wrng) to a lot of the points you brought up, but I lost it in another browser mishap and I haven't got the stomach to type it out again n th fc f th byng mb. Except to say that you're right - I was referring to the bit at 2:10 where the guy does the odd little lunge, but actually it looks as though another cop may have given him a shove from off-camera.

And no, you don't pity me. Don't say that. You don't.

RE: note to Squashy - I haven't even seen the Salvatore Rivieri video. I was talking about the other video.

Now, I know I shouldn't be getting worked up about this, nd rgng n Bng Bng cmmnts s nly cpl f stps rmvd frm rgng n YTb cmmnts. Bt rlly thnk tht vryn sttng rnd bng smg bt ths, r fx-trgd, r pntng m s sm knd f Bll 'Rlly fgr fr drng t bjct t ll ths trch-nd-ptchfrks tlk, r shwng dstrbng lck f ndrstndng hr. t's sy t st bck nd b dsgstd. But the guy was clearly trying to do his job as best he could.

#28 - that's the easy, cliched and obvious tack to take. Look, the guy was just trying to stop the kids from acting recklessly, before they ended up bowling some old lady into the gutter. He wasn't out catching murderers or drug thugs, because he's not a detective - he was just walking the beat in town. Presumably he was assigned this job - I don't think he was patrolling the dirty back alleys one day when he thought to himself "I've had enough of catching all these rapists, I'm going into town to torment some teenagers". He was there, he saw a problem and he tried to sort it out.

The reason I feel sympathetic to the cop is because I've seen a few of these kind of situations arise, and it doesn't stem from power-madness, latent childhood issues or playing Hitler games, s ppl s ftn snr.The thing is, if you are put in charge of a large group of people - whether you are a cop or a teacher or whatever - you're well aware that your control is an illusion. And maintaining the illusion is entirely dependent on people respecting the authority of your position. If they decide that they don't respect your authority, then you pretty much have to assert yourself by trying to be the dominant personality. Whether you actually feel that way is beside the point - you have to do it and you have to be convincing. Some people do this loudly, others are very good at doing it with quiet intensity. But if that doesn't work - if you're not convincing enough, if they laugh in your face - you're hung out to dry. And this guy was hung out to dry.

When that happens, you don't have too many options left. You could just give up, I suppose, but that's a pretty poor outcome for everyone concerned.

If you're a teacher, you can usually ask them to leave, or leave yourself, and then call their parents if you need to (since you have all that information conveniently on file already). If you're a police officer, I guess you'd probably try to take them down to the station. Maybe try to scare them a bit, get their parents to come and pick them up, and hopefully get them back on the right track? And that's what this guy tried to do.

I certainly don't see any evidence that this was a man who was enjoying himself. It looked like he was having a lousy, lousy day.

Bt yh, t's sy t snr.

RE: note to Squashy - I haven't even seen the Salvatore Rivieri video. I was talking about the other video.

Now, I know I shouldn't be getting worked up about this, and arguing on Boing Boing comments is only a couple of steps removed from arguing on YouTube comments. But I really think that everyone sitting around being smug about this, or faux-outraged, or painting me as some kind of Bill O'Reilly figure for daring to object to all this torch-and-pitchforks talk, are showing a disturbing lack of understanding here. It's easy to sit back and be disgusted. But the guy was clearly trying to do his job as best he could.

#28 - that's the easy, cliched and obvious tack to take. Look, the guy was just trying to stop the kids from acting recklessly, before they ended up bowling some old lady into the gutter. He wasn't out catching murderers or drug thugs, because he's not a detective - he was just walking the beat in town. Presumably he was assigned this job - I don't think he was patrolling the dirty back alleys one day when he thought to himself "I've had enough of catching all these rapists, I'm going into town to torment some teenagers". He was there, he saw a problem and he tried to sort it out.

The reason I feel sympathetic to the cop is because I've seen a few of these kind of situations arise, and it doesn't stem from power-madness, latent childhood issues or playing Hitler games, as people so often sneer. The thing is, if you are put in charge of a large group of people - whether you are a cop or a teacher or whatever - you're well aware that your control is an illusion. And maintaining the illusion is entirely dependent on people respecting the authority of your position. If they decide that they don't respect your authority, then you pretty much have to assert yourself by trying to be the dominant personality. Whether you actually feel that way is beside the point - you have to do it and you have to be convincing. Some people do this loudly, others are very good at doing it with quiet intensity. But if that doesn't work - if you're not convincing enough, if they laugh in your face - you're hung out to dry. And this guy was hung out to dry.

When that happens, you don't have too many options left. You could just give up, I suppose, but that's a pretty poor outcome for everyone concerned.

If you're a teacher, you can usually ask them to leave, or leave yourself, and then call their parents if you need to (since you have all that information conveniently on file already). If you're a police officer, I guess you'd probably try to take them down to the station. Maybe try to scare them a bit, get their parents to come and pick them up, and hopefully get them back on the right track? And that's what this guy tried to do.

I certainly don't see any evidence that this was a man who was enjoying himself. It looked like he was having a lousy, lousy day.

But yeah, it's easy to sneer.

"When he grabs the two kids around the neck and tries to slam them to the ground, very easily could have broken their necks or severely injured them."

Do you mean the part where he says to the girl "hey, come here and sit down" and she says "No" and runs off? And he chases her and grabs her, and the other guy screams "She's riding a skateboard! What the fuck is wrong with you?" and kind of lunges at the cop and tries to do an odd little barge move on him, so the cop grabs him too, and wrestles him to the ground slowly, without any attempt to do any sort of slamming? Because unlike the taser situations more usually highlighted on this site, I really don't see anyone's safety being seriously jeopardised here. Well, except for the risk of injury caused by kids skateboarding though town in the first place, which is the point where people were most in danger of breaking their necks.

"The kid running away, he was being threatened by a man choking another child."
No he wasn't. Stp t wth th mldrmtcs. He didn't choke anyone and he didn't threaten any violence.

Although I'm sure there may well have been much better ways to deal with the situation before it got to that point, and it probably gave the cop a few things to think about that night, I don't have any sympathy for these kids. I know they probably honestly believed they weren't doing anything wrong - kids that age usually do. But I also think that the other people standing around probably weren't supporting the cop for no reason. I'm also sure that knowing that the whole thing was being videoed made the kids act twice as obnoxious for their moment of YouTube stardom. Nothing like having an audience.

n th nd, w hv sttn whr bnch f kds wr bng rcklss, bnxs, slf-rghts nd stpd, cp trd t ntrvn bt lst cntrl f th sttn, h trd t rgn cntrl n lss thn prfct (thgh hrdly trgs) wy, nbdy ws hrt, nd smn flmd th whl thng thnkng thy wr gttng fntstc scp. nd thn vryn sts rnd gttng wrkd p vr th vd.

There are plenty of cases of shocking police abuse out there - seeing several officers hold a man flat to the ground and tase him dead springs to mind, as does having an undercover cop put seven bullets into an innocent man's head on a subway train - but this isn't one of them. This is one guy trying to maintain public order and do his job, and having a rotten day. Cn w sv th trg fr th rl css, nd thn d th trg prprly?

The cop in the video posted on #3 didn't beat anyone up. He just held them down. I seriously doubt that anyone was hurt at all.

I would be the first to call "abuse of power" when I see footage of cops recklessly risking people's lives with their stupid tasers. But for goodness sake, if a cop tells you to stop doing something, you don't run away, and you certainly don't just carry on regardless. And if you do do that, I don't see that having the cop chase you, catch you and pin you down is ushering in a police state. He didn't hit them. He didn't electrocute them. He just held them.

"Squashy, they didn't treat the cop as if he had no authority, they recognized that he shouldn't have any. He obviously can't handle it."

That's really not their call to make. Unless they have decided that they really should be allowed to skateboard wherever they like, and decide to go about changing the law Gandhi-style. In which case, I guess things are going to plan.

#3, I have to say I can see where the cop's coming from in that video. The kids are riding skateboards. The cop tells them to stop, and they don't. Throughout the whole sequence, the cop is giving instructions that the kids are blatantly ignoring, all the while saying "hey I'm just riding a skateboard, man", and trying to act like they are being unfairly persecuted. Never mind that it's illegal, and they're doing it right in front of a cop, and they're ignoring all his instructions.

They're treating the cop like a chump; as if he had no authority whatsoever. I don't think it's unreasonable to arrest the kids in order to disabuse them of that notion.

D'oh! "Readinging".

#62 - hey, the people trashing Yoko didn't know John either. Maybe they were both bad people. Or both lovely people. I always thought she seemed quite interesting, with or without the "John Lennon Seal of Approval".

"I'm not sure you can blame the failure of democracy on a misunderstanding of the definition of trademark."

Rd th rgnl thrd - hlf th ppl xplnng wht th rl ss s, th thr hlf cmpltly bypssng th dscssn, nly rdngng th hdln nd drwng rrns cnclsns frm t.

t's prctclly mdl f mdrn dmcrcy n ctn.

The fact that JOHN LENNON has apparently only been registered as a trademark for sunglasses is a pretty good indication that you don't need to hold an exclusive frickin' trademark on your name to have a successful career in music.

All the relevant information regarding Ono's legitimate objection was already present in the original post, and yet still random outbreaks of FUD are continuing (albeit at a mercifully reduced level now).

This is about the issue of a TRADEMARK.

Pls, pls cn w ll, vryn, b clr bt ths nw? Hnstly, smtms thnk t's n wndr dmcrcy dsn't wrk prprly.

It just needs a little splatch of CG blood at the end to make it properly authentic (in order to get all the way up to 100% wrong).

Mirrormonkey, I feel your pain. Srsly, ppl.

I really find it hard to accept that so many people here think it's perfectly fine for Murphy to own the trademark "Lennon" with regards to music.

As for poor old Mike Rowe - "I never even thought of getting anything out of them," he said, adding that he only asked for the $10,000 because he was "sort of mad at them for only offering 10 bucks." - man, he fell for one of the oldest slimy lawyer tricks in the book. Never ask them for more money; just decline their deliberately insulting offer.

"Why would not calling her band Lennon end her career? Just change it and move on."

She doesn't have to change it, even. Just drop the trademark.

Hey, can we stop with the "making her change her name" FUD? Nobody is trying to make her change her name. Yoko is trying to stop her from holding the trademark "Lennon", which would give her an exclusive right to market music under the name "Lennon". The way it stands right now, if an album of John Lennon's music was put out under the name "Lennon", then Lennon Murphy could sue for trademark infringement.

And you wonder why Yoko has a problem?

"Oh no you're not getting off that easily. This is not a case of "Let's all think positive thoughts and everything will be well!" I totally agree with you that biting cynicism isn't going to help your cause, but you have to understand that not only the people in the US are cynical, also pretty much all of the foreigners."

Yes. I meant that people are cynical and defeatist worldwide (I am not a US citizen). I think that we need to drop the idea that any change for the better is an impossible, futile hope, before we can start to do anything to change anything.

"Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings."- JFK

I agree with everyone who says that calling her band "Lennon" is fine, but registering it as a trademark is pretty damn iffy. Especially since it's a trademark for a musical business, and John Lennon is already *kinda well-known* for his music.

And any sympathy I might have had for Lennon Murphy pretty much evaporated when she pulled the "oh woe, with no trademark my career will be destroyed" line.

"You don't really believe the next Hood Ornament of the Untied Snakes will be able to undo what has been done?"

These days, I really feel, more and more, that this kind of defeatist cynicism is the real obstacle we have to overcome (worldwide).

I understand why people would feel that way; it's perfectly understandable given all the horrible and absurd things going on. I also think that it is perhaps the #1 reason why things aren't getting any better.

"So the light square ends up darker in the image because it's in shadow--so what? We're smart enough to correct for the shadow"

The point is that this correction is done unconsciously, and it is very difficult to switch it off. Even when you know that the two areas are objectively the same shade, your eyes won't "believe" it unless you concentrate very hard.

"So the light square ends up darker in the image because it's in shadow--so what? We're smart enough to correct for the shadow"

The point is that this correction is done unconsciously, and it is very difficult to switch it off. Even when you know that the two areas are objectively the same shade, your eyes won't "believe" it unless you concentrate very hard.

Yeah, your brain basically does an internal "white balance" on images it receives to compensate for light colour. That's why things don't look all orange to us when we are indoors at night, under yellow iridescent light.

Actually, our eyes are a bit crap, and the reason we feel like our vision is pretty good is largely because our brains are really good at filling in the blanks and doing image-enhancement processing on the raw data. There's lots of optical illusions around that exploit our brains' image-enhancing. The ones that demonstrate the blind spot in the centre of our vision (where the optic nerve connects to the back of our eyeball) are particularly spooky.

It makes you realise just how helpless you are to turn off your brain's filtering and actually see what you are really seeing.

Surely the "hot chicks" are bound to be douchebags too?

Anyone who cheats using methods like Cory's probably doesn't need to cheat, and probably ought to get a high grade anyway. I think I would have a hard time teaching my students to memorise binary encoding or resistor colour-codes in the first place.

Ultimately I think that a good cheat, creative, cunning and organised, is demonstrating more useful skills that someone who's successfully memorised a bunch of formulae that will all be forgotten by next week anyway.

I have a Sony MD recorder, bought for making field recordings. Hardware-wise, it works very well indeed. It's a great little machine. Unfortunately, I've never been able to actually use it.

You guessed it, my recordings are all DRM-locked, and I can only access it through a convoluted process involving Sony's proprietary software. Which is buggy, and won't run because my copy of Windows was English whereas my MD Recorder is Japanese.

And then later, I switched to using a Mac. Sony don't even supply Mac versions of their software.

Still, it's a great little piece of hardware. Pity I can't access any of my files.

"This reminds of the vocational technical classes back in the states. They have a program called supermarket technologies where specially educated students (mentally challenged) learn how to count change and stack food on a shelf."

Also probably a good thing?

It's one of several businesses that have signed on for a scheme that allows students to get some of their credits from on-the-job training programmes. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, and it's certainly not McDonald's giving away free University degrees with your hamburger.

But please, by all means everyone, go ahead and freak out.

Nine times out of ten, if the inner workings of someone's invention are a secret, there's something fishy going on.

"we're going to screw up the world one way or the other, call it art or call it industry..."

Then I'll take the art, thanks.

I reckon a better use of a clarinet would be to use it as a clarinet.

This argument seems to make people go crazy. Half the people here are right and half are hopelessly tied up in knots. As soon as the plane starts to move forward at all (which it must do, with nothing actually holding it back), the wheels and the treadmill will both immediately accelerate to infinity. The premise is flawed.

Consider the inverse: if the plane isn't moving forward, then it follows that the wheels aren't moving and the treadmill isn't moving either. Does it make sense to visualise a plane sitting there, blasting its engines on full thrust with nothing happening?

I guess that is quite useful if you only have a small waxwork museum.

We must work to prevent the spread of detectors of mass destruction.

That Bob Hope head was probably made about fifty years ago, surely.

"its exciting to think that the biggest hurdle amateur filmmakers will have to deal with is the acting."

Well, that and the fact that a typical feature film will still require quite a few man-years of work from the initial script to the finished product. Take it from someone who has experienced what it's like to spend years working on their own, trying to produce something that would normally be done by teams of people with proper money to spend - it can be unhealthy (for both the artwork and your own sanity) to try to heroically do it all yourself. Sure, you might be CAPABLE of doing it all yourself, but in most cases it's simply going to take you too long. The work can go stale on you, and you can go stale on the work, and even if you successfully pull it off it's still going to cost you years of your life, and quite possibly your mind - all for some half-baked idea you may have started on a whim.

The main reason that these guys were so successful was because they set out to do something very short and with a simple, straightforward objective. If they tried to scale this up to a full feature film, the project would bury them.

I guess if you ask Amy Crehore to design something for you, you can at least be pretty sure about what you are going to get.

Are handmade signs in front of thrift stores really that unusual? There wasn't even any spelling mistakes.

"I'm now more afraid of frightened citizens reporting ANYTHING they deem scary or suspicious-- which seems to be just about everything."

Are we tired of drawing parallels to totalitarian regimes from the past yet? Because that certainly sounds like familiar territory once again.

Round up the usual suspects (there can't be too many).

Oh no, a picture of Martin Luther King! Teh copyrightzz!!!11!!

Seems like the same simple joke told over and over, and it's kind of an old joke to start with. This kind of juxtaposition is as played-out as Lara herself. I guess you could say that needlepoint and Lara Croft complement each other since they both represent entertainment from a bygone era.

It's all harmless fun I guess, but rather than subverting anything it feels like just more painting-by-numbers.

"Also, regarding wearing out tubes, it takes thousands of hours to use up a vacuum tube to the point where it will have to be replaced. How many guitarists are going to play that thing for thousands of hours?"

Most guitarists I know end up going for a retube at some point. Especially since a good amp will last for decades. But from what you say about it using common, under-utilised NOS tubes from old TVs, it's swung me around from thinking "uh-oh, I can see a problem here" to "what a great idea".

#40: Well, I don't think we need to go crazy and elevate the bank mural to the same sort of status as masterpieces of Chinese painting. I don't think its going to be setting the art world on fire, in any culture.

There is, of course, a rather famous incident in the recent past of UK Police shooting someone dead, which I hope people haven't forgotten yet.

Just pretend the painting is meant to be ironic, and it'll fit right in.

Rob, I guess the idea is probably to show some of the odd little details he noticed along the way, rather than the the big shots that everyone's seen before, or the standard photojournalist schtick of snapping some children begging in the street or a toothless fisherman standing in front of his boat.

"So, I'm confused. How are you supposed to crack the heads of striking teamsters and hippies in this thing?"

You don't crack their heads. Like it says, you use a small opening in the shield to gun them down.

"50 to 500 grand for a one day party"

Man, where'd you get married? My wedding was plenty cheap. 50 to 500 grand would buy the happy couple a new house.

"Gee Mr Weinstein, I thought you donated all that money to me because YOU support MY policies."

It's so hard to find the time to rehearse when your band members are professional celebrities.

To use the brand name Zyklon might be a little bit insensitive and foolish. For the company that actually built the gas chambers to use it is staggering.

I don't even know if it's really optimistic, anyway. It's probably no bad thing for us to slowly fade away. We will in the end anyway; maintaining a vast data mausoleum, in most cases, probably achieves nothing more than massaging our egos. People in the future, like people today, will generally be more interested in themselves than what we were doing hundreds of years ago. Most of us probably don't even know our great-great grandfather's first name, even though we could probably find out quite easily.

How is she supposed to milk the cows and muck out the pigs in those things?

All right, I'm not being serious, but there's a serious point in there. Female fashion is so often focused on being ornamental rather than active - whether it's shoes that you can't walk in or nails that disable your hands. Isn't it more sexy to be capable and independent, rather than somebody who's likely to call a taxi rather than walk two blocks?

I can see why people don't like him. It's hard to pin down exactly why, but his writing is like distilled annoyingness. Biting cynicism can be wonderful and human and strangely life-affirming when someone like Charlie Brooker does it, but here it feels more like that awful, skull-crushing sensation you get when a very stupid person is acting patronising towards you.

Most of the radioactivity from Chernobyl was successfully contained within the hastily-erected sarcophagus, but it's still there and if the sarcophagus is ever breached any time in the next few thousand years we will see the true degree of contamination caused by the accident.

It seems to me that, rather than showing people how easy it is to use television to present people with a false reality (the mushroom cloud), the insertion of the mushroom cloud actually creates a more accurate sense of reality than the calm normality of TV weather.

It's no bad thing if people are occasionally reminded that, by golly, there are certain individuals that have been given the power to quite quickly and effectively end all human life in an automated, mechanical process.

And people think Islamic terrorism is scary? Man, back in my day we were scared of global thermonuclear war, which beats bombs on trains and hijacked planes in the terror stakes any day. And even though people aren't really so scared of that any more, it's worth remembering that hey, all those ICBMs are still out there, ready to roll. Just say the word, chief.

"i hate all consumer electronics, in fact. indeed capitalist garbage."

Did you knit your own web browser?

Unless your fame is as ubiquitous as Michael Jackson's, it's quite certain that a lot of people won't have heard of you. You might as well say "well if Boing Boing is such a popular blog, how come my dad doesn't read it?"

Traveling through New Zealand airport security, I noticed that they were making us throw out our water and similar nonsense now, too. The security staff seemed to be quite openly embarrassed about it, and actually apologised and said they were being forced to do these stupid things even though everyone knew it was nonsense.

All part of the international security agreements imposed, of course.

What they could do is replace their siren with an icecream truck-style jingle, so you are forewarned.

Surely there are some pretty strong divisions right now between libertarian Republicans and Christian fundamentalist Republicans. Might it be time to consider dropping this tiresome and exploitative left wing/right wing false dichotomy and start discussing the actual issues for a change?

US marijuana laws are insane and have a trickle-down effect to other countries. I'm tired of hearing about marijuana users having their lives ruined purely for the purposes of political propaganda.

I'm also tired of the language used in the media to create an artificial division between alcohol and "drugs", which are all lumped together. People die of a "drugs overdose" - which drugs? People are arrested for "drugs" - yeah, which drugs? And talking about "drugs and alcohol" makes as much sense as saying "vehicles and cars". Nothing exposes the hypocrisy of the "war on drugs" like the laws concerning alcohol.

Oh, but it's okay, because everyone knows that alcohol isn't "drugs", right?

You could at least put a beat under it or something. It could be, um, a new sort of ambient music.

So, Cory Doctorow is in my neighbourhood? Though the chances of actually spotting him are close to zero, even if he is wearing his cape and goggles.

Rock Lobster is the obvious choice to link to, I guess, but damn, check out the version of Hero Worship they do there.

Rock Lobster is the obvious choice to link to, I guess, but damn, check out the version of Hero Worship they do there.

All of these torture apologists who keep going on about how this or that technique is fairly mild, or perhaps just a bit "torture-ish" are oh-so-conveniently overlooking that all forms of torture, even torture-lite, are expressly forbidden. And for good reason.

Dammit, they should have explicitly called it "The Truth about the Desire of Heterosexual Females of a Particular Age Group In One Specific Culture". Then it would have been okay.

We need a hipster version where you only get points for bumping things that nobody else likes.

"Don't question a coop drawing unless you can make something sweeter, which has a likelihood of about %.0000112"

Apart from the inherent problems with that argument (don't have an opinion on a movie unless you are also a movie director?), you're claiming that only 1 in ten million people can draw that well, which might be overstating things just a little.

At this point, I can no longer tell if the art showcased on Boing Boing is meant to be ironic, post-ironic, or post-post-ironic.

Gandhi found non-cooperation with unjust laws to be quite an effective strategy.

And also David Bryne's polaroid-produced cover for Talking Heads' More Songs About Buildings And Food.

"This topic _is not wonderful_. It's sick like a bad fever or food poisoning."

I was wondering about this. Isn't that exactly what you'd get from eating real poop?

Most people would be lucky to have half as good a relationship as this guy obviously does with his grandma.

"If I was at a gig and the band offered some goodies, but only for owners of iPods with the appropriate priprietary plug, I would be quite pissed off and never buy tickets for / media from them again."

Woah! Pretty harsh on the hypothetical band there. They were only trying to spread a little hypothetical love.

It got a shit grade because it was a joke essay. Yes, yes it was.

It wasn't a serious analysis. It was a parody of serious analysis.

We never seem to hear anything about the circumstances that lead to the creation of these internet shock videos. I don't want to see them - but I would be interested to know who these people are, why they did these awful things and what is it like to become infamous worldwide for doing something horrifically gross.

Well, if I had billions of dollars I sure wouldn't fly economy, I'll tell you that much. I don't know many people who would willingly submit to that.

And I'd have to be eating out of the garbage before I'd decide it was okay to give myself haircuts. It almost seems like these guys have adopted stinginess as a kind of hobby.

"I wouldn't be able to recognize a good technology person — anyone with a good bullshit story would have gotten past me."

You aren't actually going to take that lame excuse seriously are you? Come on.

Is it a war, or not a war? It seems to flip between one and the other according to convenience. I guess that's the sort of situation you find yourself in when you declare war on a philosophy.

Realcatholicmen's theory that every few generations we are called upon to act like monsters so that our children might live peacefully, with their enemies safely crushed, is perhaps the scariest idea to come out of this discussion.

Ha, I always thought it was supposed to be a cock. Meaning basically the same thing.

As an aside, it really bothers me how many governments (and some citizens) all 'round the world seem to think it's perfectly okay to trample all over people's privacy and basic rights, just as long as they only do it to "foreigners". Since I'm not a US citizen, the US government can intercept all my emails if it wants to, and it seems that this sort of behaviour is considered to be A-OK.

Meanwhile, the Japanese government is going to be fingerprinting and photographing me every time I enter the country from now on - which they won't be doing to any Japanese people, since (surprise surprise) it's illegal to require them to do so unless they are accused of committing a crime. And what rights do I have to ensure that this data isn't misused? I suspect none at all.

The whole idea of basic rights becomes nonsense if you think it's okay for them to only apply to "your own" people.

"I love the look of absolute awe-struck, worshipful, jealousy on Animal's face as he watches Buddy beat the living bejesus out of those drums."

Witness what the extraordinary talent of Frank Oz can do with a very simple puppet.

If you can't see that the writer has a more legitimate claim to be called the "creator" of a piece of entertainment than a set designer or grip, then you're being willfully stupid. A set designer doesn't have to worry about if their uninspiring set design will sink the show. A grip doesn't have to worry about where they will get their next idea from, or if they're losing their touch.

The writers are the font from which everything else flows. Without good writing, you've got nothing. It's as simple as that. If anyone thinks otherwise it only goes to show that writers are underappreciated.

"Kerr said at an October intelligence conference in San Antonio that he finds concerns that the government may be listening in odd when people are ``perfectly willing for a green-card holder at an (Internet service provider) who may or may have not have been an illegal entrant to the United States to handle their data.''"

Yeah, what's the matter with people? They trust some Johnny Foreigner to work at an ISP but don't want the US Government recording all their email? How odd.

Oh well, at least they can keep on recording all the email from everyone else in the world.

#20 - I used the phrase "greater good" because it was the same phrase used by the poster I was responding to (obviously). However, if I am having trouble getting my point across because "greater good" is a phrase that is too idealogically loaded, or because it reminds you of a scene in a movie, then please substitute some other words that mean the same thing.

#21 - Way to twist an argument into a ridiculous balloon animal shape. Honestly. We were talking about patriotism, remember?

Indeed - promoting the welfare of one country at the expense of another is hardly acting for the greater good. And as recent developments are making painfully clear, we are all one species on one small planet, all together - these imaginary boundaries of ours aren't respected by nature. We're only kidding ourselves.

As for respecting your nation's views: to hell with that notion as well. What if your nation's views were abhorrent, such as (ohh, let's say) practicing slavery or racial segregation? Should you say "well, I don't personally agree with it, but I respect it because I am a patriot and a good citizen"?

I have one of these. They are standard issue in Japan. It really isn't difficult to use at all, except if you're wanting to exaggerate in a comical "ZOMG things are different in Japan!" sort of way. It is pretty similar to operating something like a gas barbecue, which I think most people can manage to learn to do.

And, as other posters have pointed out, it will give you endless hot water and also re-heat your bath for you. Japanese-style bathrooms are actually pretty neat, and a very efficient use of space.

"Remember that one t'ime, when y'or mum ired that tart for y'or birtday in at rubbish Gorrila 'uit and spanked y'or bum? The teacher had a right fright she 'id."
I recommend that you never try to do a British accent out loud.

My daughter loves the moon too. I know she'd be thrilled to have the moon in her room - especially one that could do both "banana moon" and "lollipop moon".

I guess David Lynch wasn't being ironic? Damn.

I saw this story written up on the BBC's news website a couple of weeks ago. And I was really quite surprised at how such drivel could be propagated by a supposedly-serious news organisation. It's total fantasy, and encouraging this kind of nonsense is what makes people so willing to dismiss serious studies made by serious scientists.

The brain is in the ears? Surely there isn't anyone else here who visualises a balloon dog's ears as being a huge cleft forehead?

Good idea! Although I'm sure we'd soon get used to hearing "Oh goodness me, it appears there was a camera system malfunction at the time of the incident in question"

Are those the nine small details in Al Gore's film that were judged to be not 100% verifiable, which people have been using to try to discredit the whole thing?

"players can strive to create a greener environment and avoid hazards caused by excessive carbon emissions by choosing from a variety of BP Alternative Energy low-carbon power options. Using hydrogen and natural gas plants to wind farms and solar power, SimCity Societies encourages people to learn about some of the causes and consequences of global warming in an engaging, educational and meaningful way."
Even more importantly, it encourages people to associate BP with responsible environmental management, hooray!

"So a multi-million dollar directors want to rip photos off the internet, taken by people in war zones, not pay a cent or even a credit, and then claim fair use and artistic license?

Please.

He's making money off of someone else's work. If I took one of the photos I'd sue."

But what do you do in the case of so-called "orphaned work"? It's hardly satisfactory to junk all unattributed work just because nobody knows who to send the royalty cheque to.

For a more complete discussion of the various sides of this complex issue (which also touches on the problems of getting E&O insurance), I suggest reading Lawrence Lessig's book Free Culture. It's available online as a free pdf or audiobook, and it's an entertaining and informative read, so if you have a little time you may as well.

I agree with all those people who point out that this quite obviously isn't an anorexic costume; it's a sexy skeleton costume that someone has given a joke name. That's all.

And is "handi-capable" really a word people use these days? Does that even make sense? I always thought a handicap was something that makes it quite literally harder for you to do certain things, no matter how politically correct it might be to deny this.

Reminds me of this.

Reminds me of this.

Oh no! Not swear words! It'll be breasts next.

As bombs go, the F-bomb is a pretty fuckin' harmless one; I'm surprised that people can even muster sufficient hypocrisy to pretend otherwise.

I didn't know I was under any obligation to prove anything! I obviously misjudged people's familiarity of what I thought was a fairly well-known, and frankly terrifying statement by Ann Coulter (relating to why she thinks pollution and environmental destruction is just fine). Feel free to Google it if you are in doubt, but here it is in full, anyway:

"God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.'"---Hannity & Colmes, 6/20/01

I also guess I misjudged some people's ability to read subtext, and their susceptibility to politically correct overreaction ("Shh! Let's not joke about hanging! There's black people present")
. I was trying to make a point about how creepy it was to see that Ann Coulter poster, using sex appeal to sell some very dangerous ideology. I was also making a joke about how these posters are just begging to be Photoshopped and abused.

But jokes are no fun when you have to explain them.

"Police interviewed Barrett and school officials and seized the data memory stick and the computer to determine where the image came from"

Was that really necessary?

By which I mean to say, has everyone gone completely insane?

Squashy@31, that was ugly and uncalled for.

Ah, I did wonder if anyone would miss the reference. It's based on a quote from Ann Coulter herself: "The earth is yours. Take it. Rape it."

Yes, it is ugly.

"May we also suggest: Ann Coulter Poster"

The Ann Coulter poster is yours. Take it. Rape it.

Will there ever be a day when filesharing is discussed without somebody erroneously arguing that copyright infringement is theft?

"Copyright infringement" isn't a euphemism for theft. Duplicating something is not, and never was, the same thing as taking it. You can certainly argue that it's bad and wrong to copy things, but please let's at least keep this fact straight.

For once?

"Sorry, this is a Ralph Bakshi (Frizt the Cat, Lord of the Rings, Wizards) cartoon, not John K"

For maximum effect, try saying this to John K's face.

John K has been very upfront about the amount of credit due to Ralph Bakshi for getting the New Adventures to happen. But John K was probably the main creative force behind the series, and it was John K who directed this cartoon.

Is this just proof by assertion, or do you have evidence? You're saying that Bush knew that thousands of Americans would be killed (on 9/11, it looked more like it was going to be tens of thousands), that the stock market would probably drop like a stone, and he held back from stopping it? He wanted a mass murder of civilians so that he could start a war?
Nope, I'm not saying that people in the Bush admin. knew about the attacks beforehand. I'm just saying that, since so many high-level Bush people were PNAC signatories, who had publicly said that an event like this was exactly what they were hoping for, that we can be pretty sure that they wouldn't have done anything if they did know about it.

So either they knew, and allowed it to happen, or they just got really lucky and had it happen without anyone needing to get their hands dirty at all. But I don't see that it makes a whole lot of difference either way.

It's on the public record that they wanted this to happen. It's on the public record that they intended to use it as a smokescreen to invade Iraq when it did happen. The only thing that surprises me is that they were able to do all of this right out in the open, having already said exactly what they intended to do, without people seeming to mind particularly much.

The suggestion of conspiracy theories is rather quaint and comforting, really. As if they needed to do these things in secrecy. As if someone would have stopped this from happening if only we'd known.

Who needs 9/11 conspiracy theories?

The neo-cons had already publicly stated that they WANTED a Pearl Harbour-type event that they could use as a smokescreen to invade Iraq. Well, they got one.

It doesn't really matter if there was any conspiracy or not, does it? The one thing we can be fairly sure of is, if the Bush administration did know that the attack was coming, they sure wouldn't have wanted to stop it. It was exactly what they'd asked Santa to bring them for Christmas.

So I can't see that it makes a whole lot of difference whether they knew it was coming or not.