Word to Marc Owens and other Western tools: either learn how to behave in Japan, or keep the fuck out of it. Jackassery like this just makes life all the more difficult for those of us who try to fit in here. Walking aggressively up to people, even if you're dressed discretely, is one of the biggest social mistakes you can make in Japan. If he got his ass kicked, he would totally deserve it. In fact, if he had done that to me, I would've kicked his ass myself.

Those guys aren't even remotely "gangster dudes". They are, as Boba Fett Diop mentioned, just a group of rockabilly revivalists; I see them hanging out in Yoyogi Koen all the time.

"Actually, a unified police force, one that works for the people, not the man in charge, has only been around since 1829. Robert Peel and the metropolitan police act."

Prevarication. Law enforcement has existed since at least Rome, and has served to maintain the public peace, interdict and discourage crime, etc.

"Disguises are used in street crime, especially rapes, because 9 times out of 10 the person being raped knows the rapist."

Say what?! 90% of rapists who are known by their victims wear disguises to rape women on the street? Where on earth did you get this nugget?

"Most criminals will scope out a spot to commit crime, not walk aimlessly waiting for a hot pick to come across their path."

I don't buy this for a minute. Most street crime is opportunistic or an act of passion. There have been a number of high-profile assaults/murders in SF in the past few years, and in none of them have disguises played a part. I've been robbed twice; neither perp wore a disguise. If, as you claim, criminals scope out a spot to commit crime, then it's all the more reason to use concealed cameras.

"Police cameras will not stop crime..."

Chicago's experience has suggested otherwise.

"Disabling a camera, wearing a disguise, these are just a few ways to disprove the effectiveness of cameras."

There are ways to evade in-person surveillance too, but that doesn't render in-person surveillance obsolete. Cameras are just a tool in the hands of police, not a panacea. They are no different than undercover work, stake-outs or even walking the beat. All of those things have their weaknesses, yet all of them are useful.

"Civil rights work the same way. Every tiny little scrap you give up 'for the greater good' was purchased with blood and tears. Trouble is, no one ever understands until they have the experience ..."

That seems to me to be utterly naive. But let's follow that line of reasoning for a moment.

Asserted: Americans should be free from surveillance.

Facts: there is an infinite number of other civilians who can freely surveil you in public. Those civilians are free to record your actions in public using any of a number of devices. The freedom to observe and record in public is a basic American freedom.

The media is free to record the actions of others in public;indeed, their doing so has proven to be one of the strongest safeguards the public has against malfeasance.

Law-abiding Americans should be free from being victimized by crime. The right to be free from crime is more compelling than the right to civil freedoms.

To protect us from criminal victimization, we have established law enforcement agencies whose personnel may legally carry weapons, wear disguises, pretend to be someone that they're not, take people into custody and use lethal force as necessary to secure the public safety. This practice is as old as civilization and is nearly global in use.

These are all facts, and every one of them is at least somewhat opposed to your notion that "civil rights" are under attack from police cameras, and that they represent the thin edge of the wedge towards the abolition of rights and privacy. I believe that is nothing more than alarmism and slippery-slope fallacy, based upon flawed understanding of the divisions between public and private, and of the fact that we already willingly accept certain practical concessions to privacy in public.

"The present government of the United States has been operating with out any legal constraints for almost a decade. They can and have done whatever they want with all kinds of illegally acquired data. They've even passed laws pardoning themselves for it."

Ah, good old overstatement. "Without any legal constraints"? Please. Just because you (and I) don't like the way that this administration has sometimes been able to circumvent the law doesn't mean that it has been able to operate "without any legal constraints". For the vast majority of matters, the rule of law still applies. Do I need to cite examples?

Look: I'm perfectly happy to admit that the government at large, the Bush Administration in specific, law enforcement, the garbage collectors and every other group sometimes manage to get away with malfeasance, but the fact is that the legal system is still largely functional. Slow, somewhat uneven, expensive and frustrating, but largely functional. If it weren't, do you think that we'd even be having this conversation? The police would've already put the cameras up whenever and wherever they wanted, public be damned. The police can't put up such things by fiat. Look at the huge public debate we had over whether or not just to allow traffic cameras!

Police cameras are simply an extension of police patrols. In a perfect world, where crime still existed, there would be a cop car on every block, with two officers in each, looking through binoculars at potential problems, and rushing in and arresting perps, and a few more, walking the beat. Obviously, we don't have the budget or manpower for that. So what is the difference between a camera surveilling a street and a cop surveilling it through his eyes? That's a question that has never been addressed by those who claim that civil liberties are being abridged.

"And understanding crime is hardly an impossible goal. Right now, we seem only interested in responding and punishing it, which is a problem in and of itself."

I don't buy that. Sociologists have been studying crime for literally centuries. There's nothing about crime and its causes that's still a mystery. And apologists have been excusing it for decades as well. Remember the 1989 LA riots? How dozens of murders, hundreds of assaults and thousands of other crimes were basically excused away by a lot of people because the criminals were "underprivileged"? So what's the solution -- privilege? There's poverty all over the world, but only in certain places and by certain groups does that translate into a pretext for crime.

"In alot of armed robbery cases, especially on banks, the disguise usually connect the criminal to the crime in the end."

But we're not talking about robbing banks, now are we? We're talking about street crimes. It's _very_ rare for street crimes to involve disguises. Just appearing on the street in disguise is in itself suspicious, and disguises are often awkward and interfere with the commission of crimes. And banks rather go against the previous notions, don't they? After all -- all banks are heavily surveilled. Is that "big brother"? -a violation of your right to privacy? Hardly.

Really -- I'm getting a little tired of people conflating two different things and thinking that the relationship is telling.

Crimes on public property ≠ crimes on private property.

Public surveillance ≠ private surveillance.

Anytime that we can get back to the issue of police cameras as a deterrent to crime on public streets would be fine with me.

So you actually think that do-rags and ball caps effectively circumvent police video cameras and allow perps to commit crimes within view of those cameras? How 'bout some evidence to back that up? I don't believe it for a second. And please don't bother describing criminals to me; I can look out of my window right now and describe a half-dozen of them to you.

Cops are aware of the gangs? So what? The issue is whether the cops can be there when the gang members commit crimes. Obviously, they can't always. That's why cameras are a tool, just like stake-outs and undercover disguises are a tool.

"It is the same attitude police expect when they ask to search your house with your consent." NOT EVEN REMOTELY THE SAME. Here's the difference: _Private_ _Public_ Spot the difference? If you were driving 150mph without wearing a seatbelt on private property, no cop in the country could pull you over. Do that on public property, and you're going down.

"Truth is, it is not monitoring crime that we need to worry about, it is our education systems, our availability of after-school programs, increase in psychiatric caring that we need to start funding and other ways of preventing and understanding crime."

Again, the detachment of the suburbs. I assure you: _I_ need to worry about monitoring crime; I live in a crime-ridden neighborhood. And we can worry about finding ways to prevent and understand crime just as soon as we complete those other two categorically impossible goals of "winning the war on terror" and "wiping out poverty".

Actually, yes. Since you assert that there's "a big difference between (me walking up and down your street with my video camera, recording everything I see) and the government surveilling everything you do in public", suppose you explain what that difference is. Really; I'd like to know. Because not only do I suspect that I'll find the explanation novel, but that it won't be Constitutionally supported.

And here's something to work on: when _I_ videotape someone on public property, there are very few legal boundaries as to what I can do with that recording. When the government/law enforcement does the same thing, there are strict legal boundaries as to what they can do with it, from FOIA disclosure to limitations on how long they can keep the recordings.

Takuan -- ballcaps and do-rags have never been used as a disguise tactic by urban perps, so far as I know. They would stand out to the cops who patrol the area. Perps are as much identified by their height/build and clothing as they are by their skin color or hair.

What on earth makes you think that I, or anyone else, should have a presumption of privacy on city streets? It's public property, you know. Any citizen is legally entitled to walk up and down your street with a video camera, 24/7 and record you coming and going, hailing a taxi, scratching yourself, whatever. Do you really believe that the police shouldn't have the same right to record public behavior as you or I?

People in comfortable suburbs are welcome to debate the issue in the abstract until the cows come home, but as someone who lives in one of the most crime-ridden areas of SF, I totally support the installation of security cameras.

Using more hidden cameras would eliminate the problem of perps moving out of what they believe is the range of known camera locations. 250-foot range? That means that one or two per block will ensure that my wife doesn't get attacked as she walks home. Not worth it to you? Tough shit.

It looks a little different through a microscope

@ Kathryn -- Thanks for the info about the construction of the fake stone structures. I would guess that the steel frames were covered with wire mesh, over which they shot gunite, then troweled it into the texture they wanted. In the photos, it looks like they did a great job with the realism, especially since it's been left out in the elements for 15 years.

Fascinating post!

I wonder what materials/techniques they used to get such realistic natural rock effects, such as here.

@ InverseSquare -- I never said it was a genuine commercial; it could very well be "faked", as you put it. That would make it parody. It would NOT make it "art". I'm beyond sick of people's lazy thinking leading them to claim that something they can't get a handle on must be "art".

@ Schickm -- "Dangerous water"? Good thing I'm qualified to offer an informed opinion, being that I'm an artist, and one with a pretty comprehensive grasp of the history of, and current streams in, art. I'm well-versed in performance art. This ain't it. It's a genuine commercial or it's goofing on them.

"Dear cryptome, what is BIOS?"

Not "what", but "whom". It's the "Big International Organization of Spies", of course!

PLEASE -- Let's not call this "performance art", even if it is done for effect, rather than as a genuine advertisement. As a work of "art", it is utterly worthless; devoid of content. At most, it's parody. Art, it's not.

"Bricology: But the concept of 'wa' is stupidly flawed. I've had ridiculous concoctions such as 'omuraisu' fed to me and been told they're "western" food. I've lived many places in the 'west' and NEVER encountered anything like that outside of Japan. Yet Japanese people won't accept it as their creation because they're not comfortable with that."

Sorry, but if that's your example, it appears that you don't understand what "wa" is.

"If 'wa' had the ability to accept small changes over time and grow maybe it would survive, but the mindset that there's one correct way to do everything is bound to fail. No questions asked."

You may have missed the fact that wa has indeed survived for at least a millennium, through invasions by the Dutch, Portugese, Chinese, Koreans, Americans and others. It's in no danger of "failing". You want proof? Take a look at the crime rate in Japan, compared to all other "first world nations". Now, America, on the other hand...

Avram wrote "Except, Bricology, that most of the people making those comments were Westerners. Their complaints are part of the Western liberal ideal of free speech in support of the Western liberal ideal of individuality. Asking them to refrain from those complaints is an attempt to impose another culture's values upon them. Ironic, hmmm?"

Perhaps you would be so kind as to point out where I "ask(ed) them to refrain from those complaints". Of course I did no such thing; they're as welcome to make those comments as I am to disagree with them. My comments were critical of theirs, not censorious.

"Furthermore, the comments in this thread have no power to alter the behavior of Kazuo Umezu and his neighbors. These commenters have no power to make the imposition you claim they've been making."

See above.

...and Kyle Armbruster -- your views on the subject are interesting reading, and seem well-informed.

"What are you talking about, Bricology? I thought Kazuo Umezu was Japanese. Is he a Westerner, imposing his alien values upon an adopted country?"

Sorry -- I presumed that my point was clear: the vast majority of posts here have been of the "how dare they not allow Umezu to build whatever he wants? -and damn the whiny neighbors!" variety. To break it down, they're promoting an America-centric value of unfettered expression and visible individuality, and criticizing the Japanese value of wa. But in doing so, they're the doppelganger of what they condemn: imposing one cultural value above another, as if expression and individuality were clearly superior to wa, when no such thing has been proved. It's just as rigidly enforced of a societal expectation as they're accusing the Japanese of being "limited" by. Ironic, hmmm?

"That argument would hold more water if Meiji reforms hadn't swallowed Western culture hook, line and sinker. Hello Kitty Victorian Maid hookers aside, Japanese physical culture is in many ways far drabber than it was at the end of the Tokugawa era. Governmentally imposed wa only exists because real, internally acquired wa has flown the coop."

I don't think it's a case of one or the other, and I don't believe that Meiji reforms entirely displaced genuine, traditional wa. My wife's 97 year-old chadō sensei is a perfect example. Despite coming from a prosperous merchant family in Tokyo, having been born in Meiji Japan, and having emigrated to the US in the '50s, she wears wafuku every day, eats mostly washoku and speaks Nihongo more than English, although she's perfectly conversant in the latter.

Our friend Ai, who lives in Ibaraki, is another example; he's a "slow life" proponent who also wears wafuku and is self-sufficient on the family's old farm, even though he has a degree in economics from TU. The Japanese are the ultimate syncretists. The polity-wa didn't displace the cultural wa, nor did Westernization; they co-exist, to varying degrees. I think that we're starting to see the pendulum swing back in the direction of rediscovering "Japaneseness", now that the shock of the burst bubble has worn off. And from my Japanese friends still in Japan, I've heard very little about them wanting to import Western exports such as stridently eccentric domestic architecture and other overt expressions of individuality. They don't seem to need that to feel like they're somehow unique, the way that so many Westerners seem to.

"I find nothing more offensive than someone else telling you what you should do with your own property. The house there is a bit extreme, but if I wanted to arrange an army of garden gnomes and flamingos reenacting the battle of Gettysburg in my front yard, then by jove I don't see why not."

Written, I suspect, by someone who's never had to endure a neighbor whose tastes in "self-expression" have run too far counter to his own. But utterly irrelevant to the issue of neighbors and customs in Japan.

"In a country where school children are forced to dye their hair black so as not to stand out, I can't see him getting away with this."

And rightly so. Japan only works because everyone (well, most everyone) participates in the wa. The last thing that I or any Japanese want to see is Japan turned into a junior US with its cult of the rebel, where a person's house can become a "fuck you!" to the neighbors. Trying to impose the Western value of public freedoms of expression upon Japan is really just cultural imperialism from an inferior empire.

I like Umezu and eccentrics in general, and this house would be fine somewhere else, but it's totally inappropriate in a suburban Tokyo neighborhood. I hope the neighbors get him to tone it down.

"Oxygen free copper cables"? Please. Don't make me laugh. I have chapped lips. OK, is it oxygen free cables that sound better because the electrons don't bump into the oxygen atoms and slow down and get all out of sequence, or is there some other BS about oxygen free copper I'm forgetting?"

I believe that the name comes from the way that the cables are manufactured, with oxygen excluded from the process so that when the wire is coated, there's no oxygen trapped, which could cause oxidation (corrosion) of the copper. It's standard practice on good cables made of any metal that corrodes through reaction to oxygen.

Wow! Makes me wonder how much my signed first edition of the Bible is worth!

So they took a butt-ugly Lotus Elise and tarted it up so it will operate -- extremely slowly -- underwater, with the occupants getting soaked. Thrilling!

I love the point in the video where the two scuba divers go speeding past, pulled by their cheap little scuba-tows, leaving the $400,000 car in the dust, er -- damp. And it's hilarious that, at the end, they show Captain Smarmy and Miss Bleached Bimbo standing there, perfectly coiffed and dressed. Aren't these the same people who were soaking wet just a few minutes earlier? Does the Rinspeed have built-in hair dryers and clothes dryers? In reality, they'd be a soggy mess.

Note to Rinspeed: don't bother us again until you can make your car's cabin actually stay dry, and make the car go faster than 1.8mph underwater. Even as toys for the idle rich go, this thing is just laughable.

Is anyone else confused/disturbed by the fact that the US COAST GUARD is doing something a thousand miles from the nearest US coastline?

Shepherd Fairey: proving once again that fifteen minutes of manipulating someone else's photograph with Photoshop filters will indeed produce some of the most banal, predictable images imaginable.

"But this one has blinking lights!"

I'm waiting for the version that goes "ping!"

W000T -- it reminds you of the Sapporo because it's a rip-off of the Sapporo, which has gone on since before WWII.

It really is shameless how the Chinese are determined to copy everyone else. It's a rip-off culture, on every level.

http://gemssty.com/2006/10/29/top-10-copycat-cars/

It's worth pointing out that the obvious rival to the Su-30MKI -- the F-22 Raptor -- has stealth tech and can fly a mile above the Su. That's worth more than a bucket of tail-stands.

"However, that doesn't negate the fact that he's deliberately living far below his means - not because he has to, but because he prefers to. It's a simple concept, but one that's so alien to most western people that it's worth noting. As a strong believer in the voluntary simplicity movement, I think his is an example non-stupidly-rich people could benefit from following as well. And maybe once people get used to the idea that 'you don't have to spend it just because you have it', they'll be more willing to give their excess to help out others."

True, but does "having it" require stockpiling it? He could just as easily subscribe to the voluntary simplicity ethos (as do I) by simply accepting a much lower compensation package. If he accepted say, enough to support himself in the manner he prefers (say, $50,000 a year) and kept enough in the bank to live off the interest if he ever decided to retire (say, $10 million), he would free up an incredible amount of resources with which to do good. Not just symbolic good, but real good. $32,990,000,000 could do a tremendous amount of good the world-over, don't you think? That could cure some major diseases, feed all the hungry and build schools and hospitals in 100 needy towns. Is setting an example of "spending abstinence" to seem good really anywhere near as beneficial as spending that money to actually do good?

To wear out my earlier analogy -- if I had 33 billion cans of food but ate only enough to survive on, some people might be favorably impressed with my economy. But if I only ate enough to survive on while at the same time giving the surplus to those who need it -- is there any question as to which sets the better example of voluntary simplicity?

"Maybe part of the reason they are rich is because they saw the value of saving money instead of spending it?"

"Also, this guy probably has something to teach us. He's probably one of the most qualified people on earth to determine whether money can buy happiness...This guy actually has that opportunity and apparently decided it wasn't for him."

Sorry, but wrong, and wrong. Money is a symbolic resource; that it its only value. There's only one reason to hoard a symbolic resource, and that's to have it for use in the future. But by all indications, Mr. Kamprad seems unlikely to suddenly start spending his $33 billion in the future.

Simply replace the "$33 billion" with "33 billion cans of food". What would be the purpose of saving 33 billion cans of food, especially if one shows no indication of wanting to eat them, or give them away? Hoarding 33 million cans deprives others who could use it. Just think if he decided to "spend" those 33 billion cans of food. World hunger could be wiped out for a year, I'd guess. Or if he spent $30 billion -- what a boon that would be for the local economy; how many people could benefit! And of course, by donating that $30 billion to environmental, animal and human rights charities, he could do an astounding amount of good for the earth.

But instead, he's just a hoarder.

What will happen if he doesn't? Let's say he dies with $33 billion in assets. The State will get a huge chunk of that (not that they would've earned it in any way), and the rest will go to either charities (who could probably better use the money now, than then) or to his heirs, who will likely spend it as most inheritors do.

So what is the virtue in tying up $33 billion in symbolic resources? Wouldn't it be far more virtuous to do some good with it now?

Not much of a miracle, if you ask me. Bears are always tearing up teenagers. If he'd sent a pair of sloths or a swarm of locusts or something that had killed the 42 teens, I'd be much more impressed.

Isn't calling a 200 square-foot hole a "home" a little generous? I mean, I built a treehouse bigger than that when I was 14.

"America needs heroin to flood the streets in the US to kill off the poor and the blacks."

Riiiight. Damn America for tackling and holding down all of those poor and/or black people and forcing them to smoke crack and/or shoot smack. I'm sure that none of them decided on their own to fuck up their lives with bad drugs.

Note to self: stop oppressing folks, OK?

Co-operation isn't the issue here. Altruism has been observed many times in other species, across species lines. Dogs and cats have often independently displayed protective and even nurturing behavior towards other species; for example, bitches allowing kittens or other species to nurse on them is quite common. Wild dolphins frequently rescue human swimmers in distress. There's lots about this here.

Dr. Frans de Waal's book "Good Natured" documents many examples of altruism toward humans by other species, such as the incident about 10 years ago at a zoo in Illinois, where a 3 year-old boy fell 18 feet onto the concrete floor of the gorilla enclosure. A female gorilla carefully picked him up, cradled him and carried the seriously injured boy to a zookeeper. That gorilla, although in a zoo, was wild and had not been socialized with humans.

That "gorgeous 'concept dump truck'" will perfectly match my hand-painted porcelain trash cans, and it will look just as wonderfully pristine after being in use for a few days.

"...and a fan to stop it getting too hot."

Huh? At 560 miles above the earth, there's cooling air to be blown around?!

"He says it will fly for several hours at the low attitude of 15 feet."

I wonder if this means that it simply can't fly above ground-effect height.

That's hilarious! I'd like to see someone do a FtLoG parody based on the head of Alfred E. Newman.

Oh, come on. Who among us hasn't fantasized about raping a vending machine?

Franko -- Yes, I played with a friend's iPhone for a few minutes; long enough to realize that inputting text was a bad joke. You should see people using their smart phones in Japan -- they can input text many times faster than any iPhone could dream of. AND they can surf the web, listen to and watch audio and video, and pretty much everything else an iPhone can do. And their screens are generally hidden away, they've got real buttons and they can use any phone carrier they want.

You've carried an iPhone in your pocket for what -- 4 months now -- and you're touting its durability?! Pardon me if I'm not too impressed. Google "iphone+screen+damage OR broke OR crack", and notice that you'll get 645,000 hits. Apple charges $250 to replace that glass screen.

"It's called device convergence, and it's a beautiful thing." Yeah -- exactly the same thing claimed of SUVs. You get a convergence of a sportscar, a sedan and an off-road vehicle, with a little of each of their virtues, but without any of the superlative qualities of any of those individual vehicles. I can't wait for Apple to release the iPocketProtector, which combines the "pen organizing system" of a traditional pocket protector, plus a MicroBib and a kinetic-energy-powered lint retrieval vacuum. Revolutionary! Such a space-saver!

Here's just one example of the compomise that is the pocket iSUV: the battery (not easily replaceable) will last for what -- 6 or 7 hours of video or internet use? -- then your phone is dead. Brilliant! In the interest of making the shape all sleek and shit, they've precluded hot-swapping battery packs, which means that when you've used the iPhone for doing what you want for a few hours, it's as useful as a brick.

Yeah -- what megs said. iPhones are the SUVs of the early 21st century -- overpriced gimmicks that do a number of different things half-assedly, but don't do any one thing superlatively. There have been smart phones in Japan that can do anything an iPhone can do today, for at least the past 3 years, and you could use them with any phone service provider. And an exposed touch-screen and easily-damaged finish = black paint on Range Rover. Apple Service is going to clean up on fixing the stupid things.

You're having too damned much fun; it's keeping me awake.

Bring on the cereal killer!

"Cordone"? "Electrical static"? Sorry -- English, please.

As for "bending back paper to make milk pour" -- things have moved on since the '60s, chum. Most cardboard containers of milk and soymilk have screw-top openings, which are much more sanitary than soggy, non-sealing ends. But because they're poorly designed and situated, they simply replace one problem with another. Back to square one, please.

Ah, another triumph of design over a nonexistent problem. First, this would be very difficult to actually use -- to be able to mix the dry spoonful you're about to eat with the milk that's underneath the rest of the cereal (or to dredge up spoonfuls from underneath). Second, how would one clean the area that's underneath the "shelf"? That would be a prime breeding ground for bacteria. Why don't designers dedicate themselves to something really useful -- like a pour spout that screws onto milk/soymilk carton openings, which will not drip or spew milk everywhere the first time it's used?

...it's also totally derivative of the brilliant 1976 film by the Eames Office -- "Atlas".

oren wrote "saying it's hard to transport is ridiculous! Containers are MEANT to be transported. all you need is a truck and a small crane."

What kind of truck and "small crane" does it take to move a 20' x 8' x 8', 2-1/2 ton container? It requires a truck with a trailer at least 8' wide (the maximum legal width for trailers is 8'6") and mounting points to match the container. The "small crane" has to be able to lift a 2-1/2 ton empty container on and off, which is no "small crane". If you have the infrastructure that can provide a semi truck with a trailer that will accommodate a container, and a freestanding crane, then the odds are that you are already spending more just to site the container than it would cost to ship in and erect a truly portable shelter, much less make it livable. Siting a container is a lot more complicated for civilians to have done than you think. Yes, containers are "meant to be transported" -- by container ship and rail, lifted on an off by huge overhead hoists.

The point is that temporary housing is already available in much more practical, portable, livable forms, which don't require extensive and expensive modifications to be made livable. This is a classic case of "making a silk purse out of a sow's ear", just because it seems like a design solution.

The whole point, tho', is that adaptive reuse of containers for most of these applications is pointless, since there are far better choices available. Shipping containers were intended for one thing only: to securely transport inanimate objects for great distances by ship and/or train. What's sensible about temporary housing that requires a ship or train, plus a specialized crane or jumbo forklift to be able to move the damned thing?! Temporary or emergency housing needs to be able to get to where it's needed. Shipping containers are a major bitch to move.

This zeal for making one thing out of another is novel and eye-catching and all, but it's ass-backwards from a form-following-function program. It's as silly as taking a 55-gallon drum, having someone cut the top off and scribe a curvilinear line around a third of the circumference, and build a padded, leather-lined seat into it. Can it be done? Absolutely. Is it an interesting thought-exercise? Yeah, for about 5 minutes. Should it actually be done? Probably not. Is it cost-effective? Nope. Will it produce a superior or even adequate chair? Not even slightly.

Kickstart -- they're about $20K new, FOB. You can buy a used one at most major harbors for about 1/4 of that in good condition. If they have damage (say, a badly dented corner or a door with issues), you might be able to get one for free. However, moving one is a serious bitch. You'll need a freight company that specializes in moving them to do it. Getting a container from the Oakland Terminal delivered to say, just a few miles away in Oakland or Emeryville would cost somewhere around $500-$600. And you'd better like where they put it, as you can't move it again without a specialized über-forklift.

I know that it appeals to the Lego-lover in all of us, but shipping containers are actually poorly suited to adaptive re-use. They only work as just the lowest-performing shell for subsistence living (i.e., better than sleeping on open ground), or conversion to a mediocre product at a very high technological cost.

The very design of a container -- with a full-width/height door at one end -- is a bitch to seal, and to cut into. Doors and windows are extremely tricky and labor intensive to install, since the walls are corrugated and load-bearing. The steel shell is a nightmare to insulate; it's a serious thermal pendulum, and it booms like a drum. They're much heavier than practical and can only be moved with specialized equipment.

I know, I know -- don't rain on the colorful, building block parade! Full disclosure: I was trained as an architect.

Since you so like numbered lists, lolcat, here are a couple of extras:

1. I didn't "express my beef with the direction of "the culture", I expressed my beef with one over-rated artist. The culture (such as the Iraq) is moving along as it will; Banksy is just a cultural cipher.

2. Banksy doesn't "use rollers and spraypaint largely to piss off the ones who express their beliefs using numbered lists", he uses them to inflate his ego (hence the oversized signature he adds to each graffito) and his marketability. After all, he's got lots of self-published books to sell, and prints at $1,500 a pop.

cycle23 asked "Please, tell me your reasons."

Here you go:

1. The majority of Banksy's images aren't self-generated, but appropriated. While appropriation has become commonplace among the under 40 set of artists, it's too often indicative of laziness than inspiration. Few things are easier (and more lazy-minded) than to merely enlarge appropriated images the way that Banksy does.

2. Stenciling, such as Banksy uses, is a shortcut not only of time but to mediocrity. A few graffitists can justify its use, such as Swoon. But Banksy doesn't use stencils to exploit a hard edge or allow fine lines, he uses it because it's quick and easy. Quick and easy suggest neither great art, nor a great artist.

3. The vast majority of Banksy's projects are derivative of other artists. He has painted a mustache on the face of a woman on a billboard (Duchamp painted a mustache on the face of a copy of the Mona Lisa almost 90 years ago), he has made a replica of Stonehenge using porta-potties (there have been at least two other art installations that replicated Stonehenge using cars, the most recent of which was 20 years ago), and so on. He's a parasite on other, earlier artists.

4. Banksy's attempts to recontextualize appropriated works and imbue them with anything like sociopolitical immediacy are utterly vapid. For example, he ripped off the famous Vietnam War photograph of the girl whose clothes were burned off by napalm. His "recontextualization" consisted of flanking her with Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald. "Get it? It's a scathing indictment of American imperialism. GET IT? Deep, man!" This sort of "insightful sociopolitical commentary" is purely college freshman-level.

5. Banksy's defacing public and private property helps legitimize the act for other graffitists. San Francisco has many great old buildings and other structures that have been defaced by graffitists, such as the picturesque ruins of the Sutro Baths and a beautiful 1920s brick power station that has been utterly ruined by graffitists. By calling what Banksy does "art", it opens the door to any ass-hat with a spray can to do likewise, in the name of "art".

Need I go on?

cycle23, that wasn't flame-bait, it was I, expressing an informed opinion. I'd be happy to debate his relative merits, if that's what you're looking for.

If "the observer is always right" when it comes to art, then Thomas Kinkade must be the greatest living artist, hmmm? And McDonalds must likewise be the greatest restaurant.

There was a crime committed here: someone paid homage to Banksy, one of the most utterly worthless of artists.

I think that the general consensus among long-time fans such as myself is that the show has gone downhill over the past few seasons. Part of this is due to the quality of the writing, but a lot of it is also that the plots have changed from the original formula of mildly subverting reality to the flat-out fantasy scenaria of the past few seasons. (I'm just waiting for "Homer travels back in time to become Jesus Christ, and gives birth to Godzilla. Hey, it could happen!) And just throwing random guest stars at us is equally lame (e.g., Lionel Ritchie just happening to be on Burns' jet, so he could sing "Beer You, Beer Me". That pegged the hoke-a-rometer.)

Family guy relies way too much on gross-out humor and insults, but the thing that *does* work about it is that they've got these layers of reality that they peel back and surprise us with, with the cut-aways, flashbacks, etc. That makes its absurdism work. So instead of just putting Simpsons characters into increasingly implausible situations, why not do something really unexpected? Surely the talented folks behind the show can shake it up in a novel way? Because if the next season and the next after that (and so on) is just going to be more of the same, you can count me out.

There have been a whole row of mid-'60s cars in individual drive-in bays at the Toyota History Garage in Tokyo for at least 3 years now. There's a Mustang, a Corvette, an XK-E, etc.

"She takes just like a woman, yes, she does
She makes love just like a woman, yes, she does
And she aches just like a woman
But she breaks just like a little girl."

Oh, really.

I believe you should've qualified your statement to read that Dylan has written "some of the greatest folk rock lyrics in living memory". If you think that's great poetry, then I suggest that reading some Elizabeth Bishop or Charles Wright to familiarize yourself with the subject.

GENIUS.

bobolikebeer wrote "...I'm just going to say that there is a big diference between doubt and disbelief. I doubt my faith constantly. I don't see any problem with that. I feel it strengthens it."

See, this is a pretty good example of why I can't take any of this profession of progressive Christianity seriously. You admit that you doubt your faith -- faith being "the belief in things unseen", as Paul put it. OK, you doubt your ability to maintain your belief in things you haven't seen; seems a pretty reasonable state to me. But then you say that such doubt is a *good* thing, and that this doubt strengthens your faith. In other words, the absence of evidence gives you more faith.

I'm sorry, but this was either confusedly parsed by you, or it is madness. To argue that the absence of evidence should somehow reinforce belief is, I've no doubt, an essential element in the mentality that allows fundamentalist Muslims to blow themselves and innocent people up in the hopes of earning paradise. Even in people such as yourself who would never think of harming others, it is a profession of the most shocking sort of credulity. Of course, religion thrives on credulity. I cannot.

mrintolerant wrote "Richard Dawkins is small minded. He is just as bigoted and trapped in himself as the worst of the "pound you over the head with a big King James Bible" Christians are."

Please explain how Dawkins is "small minded", bigoted, and "trapped in himself". I'd like to read your justification.

anonymous wrote "Some of us are on your team, guys, and it would make a whole lot more sense to embrace us as sharers of a common cause against the REAL fundie nuts, than to alienate us completely."

Perhaps this has crossed your mind before, but how exactly are we secular folk supposed to be able to distinguish between you supposed teammates, and the "REAL fundie nuts"? Most Christians I've known have looked, acted and sounded like nice folks, at least on the surface. How do you suggest we differentiate between the "fundie nuts" and "progressive teammates"? Is there a litmus test we should apply? Because the "does he or she base their life around the belief in an artificial deity construct?" test isn't going to be of much help there. I prefer my teammates to at least be willing to separate reality from wishful thinking and folklore.

bobolikebeer -- The "bad experience" I had with Christianity in the past was simply endemic to the Christian experience, and the way in which young people are indoctrinated into it. Sorry, but I didn't have any kind of dramatic negative experience that set me against Christianity; I can't be written off as some bitter and vindictive reactionary. Likewise, the thing that made me drop Christianity was nothing but a closer inspection of its claims and its morality. It contains its own poison pill.

Unless we're talking about some new offshoot of Christianity that dispenses with the notion of salvation v/s damnation, then the endemic negatives are still part of the process of inculcating children into Christianity in this generation, and will always be so. Even the most nominally Christian denomination has to admit that Jesus believed in heaven and hell. To tell a child that there is an invisible super-being who knows everything they think or do, and that the child will be damned or rewarded relative to that, after their own lifespan is over is, in my opinion, a particularly perverse form of child-abuse. It's no different from teaching children that there is a deranged killer hiding outside their window and following them wherever they go.

Of course, if we've dispensed with the omniscient, omnipresent god, then what manner of "god" is left, and how is he distinguishable from Santa Claus? And if we've likewise dispensed with Jesus' belief in an afterlife (which would also preclude his resurrection), then what kind of special person is left? A "role model" who was born to a virgin, of whom we know nothing of his life between boyhood and the age of 30, who never engaged in any non-platonic relationship, who had no livelihood, who was apparently delusional about supernatural things, who performed miracles, who mistreated pigs and fig trees, who believed himself to be the king of the Jews, who "comes not to bring peace, but a sword", who offered himself up to die? Sorry, but I don't see much value in praising such a person, especially given the competitors in the moral example role, from the Buddha to Bertrand Russell.

It seems to me that you're postulating some sort of nominally Christian belief system that picks and chooses which supernatural attributes it prefers, while dismissing others, as well as the considerable negative stuff that is inherent in the system. My two questions are, what makes you think that what's been cobbled together is "Christianity"? -and what objective criteria did you use to compare this belief system with its competitors that led you to accept its supernatural claims as valid, but at the same time caused you to reject all others?

Alan wrote "The mainstream denomination I belong to doesn't take the Bible literally, and doesn't have any problem with evolution."

Alan, does your denomination believe that Jesus is literally the divine son of the one god? If not, why? If so, what objective standard did they/you use to accept the Biblical claim of his divinity that at the same time justified the exclusion of the Biblical claim of creation, and its other supernatural claims?

Alan wrote "The mainstream denomination I belong to doesn't take the Bible literally, and doesn't have any problem with evolution."

Alan, does your denomination believe that Jesus is literally the divine son of the one god? If not, why? If so, what objective standard did they/you use to accept the Biblical claim of his divinity that at the same time justified the exclusion of the Biblical claim of creation, and its other supernatural claims?

bobolikebeer, as a matter of fact I was raised in a devout Christian household, went to church every week and prayer meeting every Wednesday, went to a Christian school from first grade through college. My father is a deacon and elder and my mother is a deaconess, I've read the *entire* Bible cover to cover no less than 3 times, and probably know Christian doctrine more thoroughly than 99% of Christian laypersons. You're free to point out anywhere that my posts are in error. Unless and until you do, I'm confident that I'm correct.

Yes, I read the first page of the linked blog. It has some very nice things to say about whom I presume to be some very nice people. But I've no doubt that there are close parallels within Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and even Wicca or Paganism. So what? It seems to me that the whole thing is an elaborately constructed PR campaign: "see? We're not so bad after all!" I'm unimpressed.

The fact is that Evangelical Christianity, Protestantism, Christianity, Yahwehism, theism and superstition in general are *antithetical* to social progress. Did you read that? Antithetical. Social progress is the product of widening the circle of inclusion. Five centuries ago, slaves were excluded from protection. Guess what? The Bible condones slavery. Two centuries ago, women were excluded from most rights. Guess what? The Bible condones the subjugation of women. A century ago, gay people were criminalized. Guess what? The Bible condones their criminalization. Unless Christians are willing to regard the Bible as no more important to their morality than the Encyclopedia Britannica, they're stuck with a foundation document that's rotten at the core. But they'd hardly be recognizable as Christians then, would they?

The point is that Yahwehism isn't something that can be "prettied up" by making it more inclusive and progressive. Yahwehism is *inherently* exclusive and regressive. Judaism asserts "there is but one god and we are his chosen people". Islam asserts "there is but one god and Muhammad is his messenger". Christianity asserts "there is but one god (three gods), and through his son is the only way to be saved from the consequences of your sins." What could be more exclusionary than monotheism?! "Take THAT, Hindus, with your absurd pantheon of heathen gods!" is the subtext that underlies all monotheism. "Take THAT, Shinto infidels! ONE god (three gods), NOT millions of them!"

"Having faith doesn't imply anything about one's social values."

But of course it *does*, unless we're talking about "faith" in the stock market rebounding or some such figurative use of the term. Religious faith is the belief in the supernatural claims made in the central stories of each respective religion. What are the articles of the Christian faith?

1. That Jesus was the son of god who, born of a virgin, took on human form.

2. That Jesus was killed, was resurrected and lives today.

3. That humans need salvation -- "the unmerited grace of god" -- or they will face eternal damnation.

4. That the Bible is the authoritative word of god.

5. That there will be a physical resurrection of the dead, a judgment of the righteous, and that the righteous will live for eternity in heaven while the unjust will be condemned to an eternal hell.

Every one of these is a supernatural claim, and every one relies upon faith, since none have any good evidence to support them. If you have faith in these assertions, then it's a fairly straight path to the following corollaries:

1-2. That our scientific models of both the origin of Life, the Universe and Everything (including reproduction) are wrong. If science is so fundamentally flawed as to have overlooked the existence of a god and the possibility of virgin birth, then it cannot be trusted in any matter.

3. That humans are inherently sinful (in need of salvation), and deserve death for things that are not crimes, but matters of subjective moral determinations. This has and is used to justify killing countless "sinners" throughout history. An accurate "faith" in the edicts of the Old Testament should result in children being put to death for disrespecting their parents.

4. That the "history" of the Bible is right and the results of scientific study of the past are wrong where they contradict it, and that moral codes formed millennia ago, filtered through Elizabethan sensibilities, should be today's moral authority. Consequently, wives are to obey their husbands, homosexuals deserve the fate of Sodom and Gommorrah, etc.

5. That the standard for "righteousness" is Biblical, and again, that death is the appropriate result of morality that doesn't meet that standard, especially for those who reject it rather than seeking forgiveness from Yahweh, through Jesus.

More social values that are logical (well, that's probably not the best term) conclusions from the Christian faith? That women are of secondary status, unless they happen to be the virgin mother of Jesus, or penitent ex-whores, that animals are ours to exploit in any way we choose (such as I pointed out above, with Jesus allegedly killing a herd of pigs), that people should follow their government's orders ("render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's..."), and so forth.

A few other things I disagree with in Zach's post:

"First, progressives will never achieve their goals as long as they are hostile toward and ignorant about the faith of 100 million of their own people who are born again Christians."

What proof do you have that we'll never achieve our goals without co-operating with theists? I'm guessing none, since you didn't offer any. Also, I doubt that many progressives are truly "ignorant about the faith of" theists; quite the contrary -- progressive atheists tend to be better informed about *most* of the world's competing religions than are most theists. Ask 100 theists at random if they can describe the basic tenets of say, Tibetan Buddhism, Jainism or Baha'i. I'd wager that many of them have never even heard of these religions; all of the progressive atheists I know could give a pretty accurate overview on them.

"Second (and we know how difficult this is to believe) there is an incredibly large and beautiful social movement exploding among evangelicals right now that stands for nearly all of the same causes and goals that secular progressives do. Those goals include: eliminating poverty, saving the environment, promoting justice and equality along racial, gender and class lines and for immigrants--and even separation of church and state."

For every evangelical you can point to who is actively advancing these goals, I'll bet I could point out more who are dug in against them. "Saving the environment"? A huge percentage of Christians are dominionists who believe that humans have the right to exploit the natural world, whereas another sizeable percentage believe that an apocalypse will wipe out the surface of the world anyway, and that Yahweh is going to re-create the Garden of Eden in its place, so why try to improve current conditions?

Also, what percentage of evangelicals support equality for those who aren't strictly hetero? Survey says: very few. Gender equality? Abortion rights? The church has been the single largest impediment towards both aims. Wiping out poverty? Again; a tiny minority. The fact is that most Christians have no intention of following Jesus' edict "sell all you have and give the money to the poor". Christianity has more resources tied up in real estate holdings and other assets than are contained in most industrialized nations.

"By learning to work together with "progressive" evangelicals, secular progressives will stand a better chance of achieving their goals and also learn an enormous amount from these remarkable people and their organizations that will help secular progressives strengthen their own movement."

Wrong, and wrong. We will stand a better chance of achieving our goals by disspelling taboos against being nonbelievers, learning to co-opearate with our fellows, and demonstrating sound ethics. If we gain the high ground -- WITHOUT the baggage that all theists carry -- we will succeed. And what is "remarkable" about evangelicals (or more broadly, Christians or even just theists)? That they have invested their lives in serving something no less preposterous than the Flying Spaghetti Monster (praise be upon him)? How can any progressive nonbeliever feign respect for these "remarkable" dupes? Really, I'd like to know what is so "remarkable" about them. Anyone have any idea?

"I think you need to work on your bridge-building skills, bricology."

Only if I believed that a bridge needed to be built from here to Neverland.

Seems to me that theism is terminally ill and it'll die a natural death soon enough; I don't see the need for well-intentioned, heroic measures in the meantime.

"FWIW, I'm not a Christian, although I used to be, and I know a lot of good people who are Christians."

And perhaps some of your best friends are black.

You accuse secularists of "demonizing" Christians. Seems to me that theists do a fine job of demonizing *everyone*, which is hardly suprising, given that demons are a construct of theists. Remember Matthew chapter8?

"And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way. And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time? And there was a good way off from them an herd of many swine feeding. So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine. And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters."

There is your textbook case of not only theists demonizing others, but in using their demonizing to harm others. Demons are the province of Christians, not secularists. Read Carl Sagan's brilliant "The Demon-Haunted World" for ample proof. All secularists do is hold a mirror up to theists to demonstrate how utterly absurd their superstitions are. In what way can theists do likewise to atheists? Show us as being too rational?

And in what way do atheists "proselytize"? We don't ask theists to "believe" anything. We ask them to use their minds in sensible ways, rather than to allow superstition to control them. That's no more "proselytizing" than it is for a pilot to ask his passengers to accept the scientifically proven physics that allow him to fly them through the skies. Even if the passengers don't understand how it works, the pilot's not asking them to believe it's performed miraculously.

mrintolerant wrote "Devout Christians who are committed to the Word of God, those derisively referred to by bigotted 'progressives' as 'born-agains' or Fundamentalists (even 'Fundies'), do honestly believe in the same things progressives do. They just believe for different reasons and with different solutions."

No, we don't. That's like claiming that scientists who accept evolution and theists who claim creation "believe in the same things", because both "believe" that we are here and that we got here somehow. That perspective ignores the (IMO) irreconcilable differences between causes, methods and goals.

Many atheists, such as I, assert that humanity is doomed if we continue to allow the religious strife that has caused so much harm througout recorded history, to continue to exist. How can we work with born-again Christians without reinforcing the friction they have with other religions (to say nothing of interdenominational conflicts)? And what of the born-agains whose objective is to "hasten the second-coming" by setting in motion "pre-apocalyptic events"?

The reality is that secularism is now undergoing a huge boom at the same time that theism is undergoing an overall decline. In a generation or two, the US is going to be significantly more secular than it is now, and born-agains will be a small camp, looked upon with bemusement, as we now view flat-earthers. By co-operating with them now, I suspect that we will only delay that transitional process and prolong their existence. We don't need to enable the rest of their agenda any more than we need to co-operate with fundamentalist Muslims or Raelians or followers of the Cargo Cult. Their world-views are all equally doomed.

Eh -- everyone's a cricket.

I find it astonishing (and more than a little pathetic and disgusting) how much Eames Demetrios is managing to wring ever more money from his grandparents' talent. $1,900 for a child's plywood seat?! Charles and Ray would've been appalled. They were all about democratizing design, not fetishizing it and selling only to rich collectors.

Re: Gwen Stefani -- it's telling that she utterly mangled the pronunciation of "Harajuku" on that godawful song "Harajuku Girls", voicing it "hair-uh-ZHOO-koo", rather than the correct "huh-RAH-j'-koo".

I mean, one ride on the Yamanote-sen or the Chiyoda subway line would've cleared that up, with the recorded voice calling out to passengers with the correct pronunciation of the station -- "Harajuku, Harajuku desu".

"Harajuku style t-shirt"?! Now that's just downright goofy. Wearing a shirt that says "Harajuku", and with a "Harajuku Girl" label on it is the exact counterpart of wearing a shirt that says "Haight-Ashbury" on one side and "hippie" on the other; it's a dead giveaway that the wearer has no concept of the location or of its fashionability. I've spent countless hours in Harajuku and have to say that I've never seen even one young woman wearing a shirt like this; they're all a bit beyond such looks. This is what girls at the entrance of Yoyogi Koen or on Takeshita-dori typically dress like. Around the corner on Jingumae, the styles tend to be more sedate but still -- not T-shirts with "Harajuku" on them.

Re: the anonymous Austrian lawyer who characterized this legal case as a "publicity stunt": here are some examples of what likely awaits Michael Hiast Pan.

Lucy was one of the first of the signing chimpanzees. She was taught American Sign Language back in the early 1970s by primatologist Roger Fouts. Lucy was raised as if she were a human and, among her other accomplishments, she even taught herself how to masturbate using a vacuum cleaner, while looking at pictures of naked men in Playgirl Magazine! When she was 12, her human hosts could no longer keep her, so she was shipped off to a great ape preserve in Africa. Unfortunately, this organzation decided to release her into the wild (for which she was entirely unprepared). A poacher shot and skinned her, chopped off her hands and feet and sold them as souvenirs to tourists.

Ally was a male chimp who learned ASL from Dr. Fouts. He had a vocabulary of 180 ASL signs and was particularly proficient in coining novel terms (for example, after he first tasted a radish, he named it "cry-hurt-food". Dr. Fouts allowed Ally and a female chimp -- Washoe -- to mate. As Washoe became more noticeably pregnant, Ally signed "what that?" while pointing at her stomach. Washoe replied "baby" (neither had been coached in any way). In 1982, Ally was sold to the White Sands Research Center, ostensibly for behavioral experiments. In fact, he was injected with insecticides for toxicity tests, from which he soon died.

Booie was another male chimp taught ASL by Dr. Fouts during the 1970s. A few years later, the university that "owned" Booie sold him to the notorious Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP) in New York. Six years later, Fouts managed to get permission to visit Booie at his cage. After signing a greeting to Booie, Booie signed back "key out" repeatedly; clearly asking to be set free. Unfortunately, Dr. Fouts was unable to secure Booie's freedom, as Booie had been intentionally infected with Hepatitis C by the lab, as part of an experiment. SEVENTEEN YEARS later, Fouts and Hugh Downs, along with a CBS camera crew, devised to visit Booie in the lab. They found him lying face-down in his small cage, with nothing for stimulation (toys or other objects), and certainly no exterior windows or daylight. As soon as Booie noticed Fouts, he shrieked with happiness and signed "Roger, Roger, hurry come hug Booie". This, after 17 years of not seeing each other! After a few hours of signing to each other (Booie had remembered most of the signs that Fouts had taught him, 23 years before), Fouts had to leave. Booie curled up in the corner of his cage, crying and rocking back and forth.

Clearly, the commonality here is that, so long as humans consider great apes to be "things" rather than as intelligent, sentient, communicative hominids, they will always be exploited at our whim.

Kyle Armbruster wrote "...And? We share quite a lot with fruit flies as well. That doesn't make them homo sapiens. That's my argument. An ape isn't human. Only humans have rights, because they are granted by humans for the sake of humanity's shared wellbeing. What human benefits from bestowing personhood on an entirely different species? It's patently ridiculous."

The exact same argument has been trotted out for centuries to justify the exclusion non-whites from the right to freedom, of women from the right to vote, of children from the right to not be subject to essentially slave labor. More saliently, it was also used to justify bull-baiting, bear-baiting, horse-whipping, dog-fighting, cockfighting, skinning cats alive and a host of other forms of exploitation by humans against non-human animals. You claim that non-human animals can't have rights because they aren't human. I have news for you: they already do. Try shooting a California condor and see how far the "it can't have rights" argument gets you. Companion animals are likewise afforded a form of rights; where I live it's illegal to leave a companion animal locked in a car, for example.

You claim that there's something special about humans that entitles us to rights, in an example of the most circular of reasoning: because we have granted them to ourselves. That's remarkably similar to theists "proving" the correctness of their particular superstition by citing their own texts; it proves nothing. Did you miss the part where I pointed out that the very Foundation documents of our nation assert that we derive our rights from *nature*? How are _you_ more a part of nature than is a chimpanzee?

"Regarding language, although I haven't read the book you mentioned, I think my master's in linguistics trumps your light science reading..." Such hubris, Mr. Armbruster! I have a Masters in Philosophy, which I'd be happy to pit against your grasp of that topic any day. The principle objections to the assertion that non-human great apes can adopt human languages come from people like Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker -- both experts in *human* linguistics, but neither anywhere near experts in *non-human* linguistics. Roger Fouts and other primatologists with decades of direct experience in the matter, argue otherwise and, I think, far more convincingly. A century ago, the claim that a bonobo like Kanzi could understand more than 3,000 English words would've been dismissed as nonsense. Now that we know that non-human great apes *can* understand and use human language, the protests have shifted to narrower grounds. Ten years from now, some linguists will be complaining that non-human apes can't properly conjugate nouns. It's a direct parallel to "the god of the gaps".

Strangely, your background in linguistics doesn't seem to have prevented you from missing two central facts: (1) that humans are accorded full "rights" regardless of whether they have the ability to communicate at all, whereas other great apes are not, despite their ability to communicate with us in human languages, and (2) that it is understood beyond any reasonable doubt that many species use their species *own* language with which to communicate *within* their species. In short, communication may not be the litmus test for "being-hood", but what evidence we have so far is more in non-human great apes' support than against it. How many non-human languages can you speak?

And as for your rather bizarre "fuck test" -- need I point out that children of human miscegenation were once denied legal rights in this country (and elsewhere)? What changed between then and now -- the physiology of mixed-race humans or our understanding of our commonalities? It is that same evolution of understanding that has ever widened the circle of regard to include those of other ethnicities, genders, sexual identities, ages, and so forth; each of those struggles dismissed at the time as "absurd", and each eventually accepted as self-evident. If you won't recognize the writing on the wall about this struggle, it's not for lack of good evidence.

Kyle Armbruster, you're wrong, and for all the usual reasons. First, because you're conflating "rights" with "privaleges". No one is asking for humans to join wolf-packs any more than anyone is expecting us to extend the vote to chimps. The ENTIRE issue here is whether or not HUMANS should have the legal right to harm chimps (or more broadly, great apes). The issue of "rights" in this context is tied to protecting the vulnerable from the powerful; protecting THEM from US.

Second, you say "The line between 'animal' and 'person' is simple...If not, it's an animal, and doesn't." I hate to have to point out the obvious, but what are humans, if not animals? We share at least 98% of our DNA with chimps. What are you -- a vegetable? -- a mineral?

Third, you wrote "This whole idiotic argument that being against animal rights is like being for slavery ignores the basic fact that there is a whole host of demonstrable and easily verifiable genetic and social differences between black people and animals." And what are those differences based upon? At this point, they're based upon nothing more objective than reverse-engineering of relative values. Intelligence? A severely-retarded human is surpassed in most cognitive respects by any normal non-human great ape, and yet that human enjoys the full legal protection that is withheld from the non-human ape. Ability to communicate with intelligible language? There are chimps and gorillas who have vocabularies of hundreds of English words and can use them to synthesize new meanings. Before you start pulling the race card, I suggest you read "The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery" by Marjorie Spiegel, which demolishes your argument in about the first 20 pages. Or read some Peter Singer who has written a number of books that provide easy refutations of your claims.

Fourth, you state "I'd like to point out that if we ever are in contact with some kind of alien intelligence, the differences between us and them are sure to cause ultimate horror and hatred, at least on our side, and, it seems to me, very likely on theirs". I might as well ask now: are you an expert on hypothetical lifeforms, SETI, ANYTHING relevant to this issue? Or are you just fond of making blanket assertions from ignorance and expecting to sway the masses? I'll try your tack for a moment and proclaim "if we ever are in contact with some kind of alien intelligence, the differences between us and them are sure to cause ultimate love and respect". I trust you won't expect me to back up my claims.

Finally, on the matter of the "rights" that we Americans of the species Homo sapiens already enjoy, I'll point out the the Declaration of Independence clearly states that we enjoy our rights entirely because we are entitled to them by nature, NOT because we happen to possess average IQs of 100, or have vocabularies of at least 1,000 words, or any other trait. As the Founding Fathers asserted, it is *nature* which endows us with the essential rights of freedom from oppression, nothing else. What are other members of our taxonomic family of hominidae, if not fellow agents of nature?

anangbhai, you're an idiot, as a minor revision to your claim demonstrates:

"No. Never. A 'person' is *caucasian*. Period. We're unique because of evolution and we are the dominant and superior species. Not because of god. That still doesn't mean that *negroes* get to have the same rights as us.

*White people* today, *White people* tomorrow, *White people* forever.

You *abolitionist* fucks sicken me. You want to make it a crime punishable by death if someone *owns slaves*. You're out of your farkin minds."

Enjoy your speciesism. I hear the 18th century is coming back into style.

Call me Cranky McCrank, but I think we need to stop calling any old thing that's vaguely anthropomorphic and animated a "robot". For example, the "battle bots" on TV are not robots; they're remote-controlled toys. A robot's actions have to be autonomous, not controlled with a joystick. A welder in a car factory is a robot, because it needs no human interaction -- even if it doesn't look anthropomorphic.

Likewise, a video like this -- while somewhat entertaining -- is pretty weak. Those aren't anything like "robots"; they're just animated human simulacra. Why would robots breast-feed their "babies"? Why would there even be robot babies? It's not like their body structures are going to grow as they age. I'd like to see the subject of "robot sex" treated with a bit more imagination than just some artist's posable wooden figures spray-painted silver, thrusting like humans. It's not particularly clever, and it just perpetuates stupid myths about robots.

The SRL RoboDock web link headline reads

"A Complete Mastery of Sinister Forces
Employed With Callous Disregard to Produce Catastrophic Changes in the Natural Order of Events".

Ironic? Hmmm...

I really do wish that people could use our language correctly. A "coop" is an enclosure for fowl. Harvard's bookstore is a "co-op", a shortened form of "co-operative". It was originally called the Harvard Co-op Society when it was formed in 1882. The hyphen is the clue that it's pronounced "koe-opp", rather than "koop". This will be on Friday's test.

This game is going to cultivate a whole new level of hentai -- men who are fixated with the broomstick after it's been used by cute girls. Obsessed collector websites will ensue.

"Are you actually an expert on bombs, or do you just watch a lot of TV?"

1. I don't own a TV.

2. I've been making "improvised electronic devices" for about 25 years. I've also made more than a few explosive devices -- for my own entertainment -- and exploded them on private property.

3. I have no sympathy for anyone who doesn't think through the potential consequences of their actions before entering public spaces, especially ones where there is a much higher risk of inconveniencing others, or worse.

Any further questions?

"Sounds to me like the cops in Boston just need training on what DIY electronics projects look like. Perhaps a local maker or DIY club should contact the police and offer their expertise for a training course."

Yeah -- that's a great use of time. Ask security officials to waste their time and attention to learn what "wearable DiY electronics" look like, so the next time they see someone wearing them, they'll know not to overreact. By the law of averages, that next time should be sometime in the 24th century.

And we probably should also train them to know what human skull horn implants look like too, so they don't presume that 1 person in 10 million who comes into their field of operations isn't really a demon.

Of course, we could instead just expect DiY people who are about to enter an airport to have a lick of sense.

As we all know, women never wear IEDs on the outside of their clothing:

http://tinyurl.com/27tyda

This is what 7 oz. of plastic explosives (about the size of a tennis ball) did to a 747:

http://tinyurl.com/2bfj3c

JERE7MY -- And how could you, I or anyone else know whether she was "attempting to fly" until after the fact? For all anyone knew, she simply hadn't made it to her gate yet. Would a person walking into an airport with a classic bomb-looking device strapped to them (red tubes with "Acme Dynamite Co." written on them) who was NOT intending to fly seem innocuous to you?

Regardless, anyone with more than the smallest amount of good sense understands that airports have become sensitive places with heightened security. Law enforcement doesn't have to wait for someone to get on a plane or know whether they even intend to, before dealing with what they perceive as a potential threat.

Oh -- and anyone who claims "it doesn't even look anything like a bomb!" has their head up their ass. I assure you, it looks EXACTLY like what a bomb could look like. And to the poster who claimed it was (or looked like) "jewelry" -- not to 99.9% of civilians or law enforcement, it doesn't.

A 9-volt battery, a circuit board with a few capacitors to store up the electrical charge, a couple of wires to take that charge to a couple of small lumps of C-4 (which looks just like Silly Putty), and hey presto! -- a bomb powerful enough to kill a few dozen people -- or blow a hole in the side of an airplane.

"She said that it was a piece of art and she wanted to stand out on career day," Pare said at a news conference. "She claims that it was just art, and that she was proud of the art and she wanted to display it."

Well, the critics have spoken: her "art" sucks. And if I saw someone in a hoodie with some homemade electronic/putty gizmo strapped to it, I'd report her to the authorities in a heartbeat. This woman is an idiot and does not deserve to fly with the rest of us who are just trying to be left alone and get from A to B. I doubt BoingBoing would be so sympathetic if her shenanigans had caused them to miss their overseas flight.

I don't suppose we could expect to hear the *other* significant statistic: whether the CRIME RATE has gone up or down? It may well be that the cameras have had a deterrent effect, and that crime has fallen. Would that be too much to ask, or should we just presume that the story is biased?

"My cursive has always been atrocious."

Oh? MY cursive has always been pretty fucking awesome, goddamn it!

Re: Mechanical pencils -- I happen to be something of a fiend for mechanical pencils, and have tried literally dozens of different ones to find what suits me best. My two biggest pet peeves have always been a too-small eraser, and an eraser that doubles as the lead-advance mechanism. Both of these are satisfied with one pencil -- the Pentel Clicker (NOT the "Quicker-Clicker" model with its kludgy rubber grip). The Clicker is inexpensive (under $4), so I don't have to worry too much about misplacing one. The black or clear-barreled model is aesthetically pleasing with a sober lack of the blobboid or Transformers "styling" that afflicts so many mechanical pencils.

You advance the lead by simply depressing a long button on the side with your index finger; no need to stop writing or drawing. I prefer the .5mm size, although the .7 has its place too. The lead reservoir holds up to about 15 leads, which is enough for months of use. For lead, I've found Caran d'Ache "B" to be ideal, and I replace the stock erasers with Staedtler Mars Plastic erasers, although it's probably not essential. The only two complaints I have are that the point is a bit sharp for carrying in ones pocket, and the mechanism -- while robust -- doesn't have the satisfying precision metal feel of a higher-end mechanical pencil. Still, the two big design pluses that the Clicker has, its low price and simple appearance make it a winner with me.

"Each utensil has an integrated little "stand" to keep the business end from touching the table when you set it down. Keeps food off the table and germs off your cutlery."

Ah, more great design solutions for problems that don't exist.

In the civilized world, we place the "business ends" of flatware upon the sides of the plate once we've used them. While we are still eating, if we need to put them down we place them on their respective sides, angled towards the top-center. When we are finished, we place them together on the right side, with the fork to the left of the knife, its tines pointing down, and with both angled across the plate (as if it was a clock, with both hands pointing at between 4 and 5) with about an inch of their handles extending over the edge of the plate.

This has been the standard in the West for the past few hundred years. It's not exactly a great leap forward to start telling people to place flatware back on the table. This is just the sort of thing that designers should learn before attempting to solve a problem -- find out first if the problem actually exists.

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Typical gee-whiz product design -- far more about creating sizzle than actually functioning. I'm sure most of us had hare-brained ideas like this when we were teens, but leave it to the media enablers of today to allow such things to be presented as products before they've even made a feasibility study. Ugh. Design isn't (or shouldn't be) about a cool blob-oid form in search of a use.

Mr. Gleason also designed and built an ultra-futuristic circular house (apparently inspired by flying saucers) in Peekskill, New York, during the period when he was filming "The Honeymooners". I've never been able to find any pictures of it, but I'd sure love to!