@27: Even more ironically, the digital praise logo looks like the logo for the American Humanist Association:
http://www.americanhumanist.org/humanism/

"My, what a yummy slime mold!" :)

Hm. One nitpick would be that this is written in Traditional Chinese, used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, but not in mainland China, which is where Made in China stuff gets made. It would be 美国制作 in Simplified Chinese.

Sniegowski had it right in that the title is really more like "The Great Outdoors".

Regardless, the concept of "nature" IS a bit different in China. When you go to a national park in the US, it tends to just have trees and grass and rocks. When you go to a national park in China, you'll generally see pagodas and temples sprinkled throughout the landscape. The same goes for paintings of natural scenery. They're pretty much considered part of the land.

That said, we're generally talking about pagodas, not cooling towers. :)

FYI, I originally shot this image (though I don't really mind it being spread around). I've now posted it on flickr, where you can see a higher resolution version.

I think calling people who inflict simulated pain "sociopaths" is a bit extreme. I mean, this delves right into the video game violence issue. In video games enjoyed by much of the population, enemies scream in pain when you shoot and kill them, and lots of people enjoy these games. I don't think they're all sociopaths.

I'm not arguing that desensitization doesn't exist at all, though. I'm just saying that maybe it's not quite that big a deal to torture a mechanical animal.

As for the Pleo vs Elmo thing, I think that it's maybe about the degree of realism. Death and pain is often disturbing when it's subtle but funny when it's extreme. As Mel Brooks said, "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."

I would say that Pleo flailing about and whimpering is like cutting a finger, and Elmo going up in flames while giggling (and then the mechanical skeleton still giggling and moving about) is like falling in an open sewer and dying; it's so extreme and ridiculous that it's funny. Perhaps things are funnier when we see them as less likely to happen in real life?