@29: It's because this is utterly BOAKYAGB.

I JWLKOMGQQ'd like 4 times.

"I'm not the least bit offended by the suggestion that the media's enthusiasm for a particular candidate might be inappropriate."

It still seems reductionist, like the artist is deliberately ignoring the reasons why Obama has a more compelling story to tell. Since their overwhelming concern is chasing ratings and profit margins rather than pushing some secret agenda, I rarely see the media as more than passive participants in the creation of media darlings.

But maybe my first posts were just overanalyzing. Nigel Warburton once wrote that we are often tempted to mistake visual art for an actual discussion of ideas, even though most works are, at best, just one liners.

(Not that "No Joke" added anything more constructive to the current political dialogue.)

I find that more offensive than the New Yorker cover.

The NY cover was poking fun at the ridiculous straw men the media was using to scare the public about Obama, whereas this poster uses a ridiculous straw man to scare the public about Obama (ie - people are attracted to him because of his rock star like fame, not because he has anything interesting or different to say... an absurd oversimplification when the current administration has an approval rating almost in the negatives.)

I once tried to poll my friends to see who got free text messaging, so I could figure out who to text all day long.

I decided to use a few internet catchphrases and creative misspellings so they'd know it wasn't urgent, and joked about how I would text them updates on where to buy the cheapest V1agra.

The email never actually made it to anyone.

Of course, looking back, I'm not sure that was a false positive. I wonder if I can get a spam filter that will censor my outgoing mail when I'm just being an idiot.

@4: I wonder if they'd publish my book anonymously...

I've been reading a lot of Kurzweil recently. He makes me pessimistic and optimistic.

Pessimistic, because the hope of telling a computer from a human is going to be basically impossible within years. Optimistic, because at the Singularity, as soon as something becomes useful enough to be widely adopted, and thus targeted by spammers, it will already be hopelessly outdated.

This reminds me of my favorite animatronic opera/thrash/death metal/comedy troupe: Captured! by Robots.

A new show is written, constructed and programmed each year by one man (a former bassist for the Blue Meanies and Skankin' Pickle). The story is that he built some robots to help him on stage, but they rebelled and took him as a slave.

Wikipedia Page
YouTube video

Outside of the performances, which are amazing, the music itself is a bit... raw.

I apologize for posting after Nina explained the situation, it's hard to catch every comment in a list of 1200.

Thank you for clarifying the situation, and please be kind in disregarding my embarrassingly belated post.

I don't mind the unpublishing, and I don't mind the attempt to be discreet. But when someone claims you have hurt them in some way, and you acknowledge the action but refuse to tell that person why, it makes the world really Kafkaesque.

In addition, none of us know exactly what sort of actions constitute "behaving in a way that makes BB reconsider associating with you." We just know BB will take actions against such behavior.

Uncertainty can generate chilling effects, as everyone guesses at the sort of conduct they should avoid on or off the blog.

You asked us to respect your decision to keep the reasons discreet. Respect for an action is not something we can choose, though, it depends upon whether or not that action is justified, all things considered. Here I am scratching my head as to what could justify this FISA-level obfuscation. But since I read you all because you routinely give me such great guidance on issues of speech and technology, I'm sure you've weighed all these issues, and I can't help but give you the benefit of the doubt.

Just remember, you guys are kinda my heroes, and it'd proper suck to find out two years down the line that VB was just kept in the dark out of spite or something.

Sorry for the mistake, but it'd be more accurate to say Hansen's suggested we may have passed the tipping point (while stressing the uncertainty of that sort of forecasting).

James Hansen has also argued that we've long passed the tipping point.

I fourth(?) the Amarok plug, but when on Gnome, I use Exaile, which has a similar feature set: wikipedia integration, auto album art downloading, etc.

Unlike Amarok, Exaile plans on being omniplatform sooner or later, so it might be worth watching.

Freakonomics talked a bit about radiation this week as well, and how the media habitually treats it like "scary future science stuff," even though it's been around for decades, and way safer than all the other science we use (think electricity).

On an average, there were 120 entries per year on motor vehicle accidents, which kill 50,000 Americans each year; 50 entries per year on industrial accidents, which kill 12,000; and 20 entries per year on asphyxiation accidents, which kill 4,500; note that for these the number of entries, which represents roughly the amount of newspaper coverage, is approximately proportional to the death toll they cause. But for accidents involving radiation, there were something like 200 entries per year, in spite of there not having been a single fatality from a radiation accident for over a decade.

It's like journalists look out at the teeming millions, but only see those people predicting doomsday scenarios from the Hadron collider.

I'm not sure where this story fits in with all that, surely you haven't suddenly gone anti-future on us, eh Mark? ;)

That's nothing. In NY, you can outwalk traffic, especially buses.