New art

"I Told You To Stay Away From Auntie's Medicine"


"Here's Looking At You, Kid"


"A Stained Glass Window of this Size Will Be Really Quite Pricey, Mr. Disney"

Off day, what the f***

I'm out of ideas, I'm taking a day off, or two. Laters.

Joe LedBetter art

Joe LedBetter art.

Penny Archade

Facebook cleaners

Wow, Facebook employs a hundred and fifty people to keep the site clean! That's a lot of people, hours, and work to avoid offending squeamishness.

I'm reminded: when Bart Simpson was skateboarding in the buff, the cop yelled: "Stop! In the name of American squeamishness!"
Of course, the US is far from the only country with its share of squeamish people. For example, in Brazil, home of the micro-bikini, bathing nude is a serious crime. And OK, even in Denmark it's strictly speaking illegal to be naked in public, although the chances of being arrested are smaller than most places.

By the way, I was charged recently with promoting a "nudists' paradise" which not everybody wants. Sure, there are many people I don't want to see nude either. But the pretty ones I don't mind. And listen, as an analogy I find smelly people offensive, but there's no law against poor hygene and there shouldn't be. I think nudity is on the same level. Where most people will find it offensive, it will regulate itself, no reason to call the dang coppers.

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On a different note, I'm a bit surprised at how, this late in the game, FaceBook (or "FriendFace" as The IT Crowd calls it) actually seems to be about to become the global default social networking site. People are starting to talk about it like it's something one is bound to be using, like having a phone or an email address. I'm not sure how I feel about that. It is a private company after all, and you have no recourse if they don't like what you do or vice versa.

Pete said:

It's a rare day when I come close to defending Facebook, but you should keep in mind that there's a lot to manage besides policies on nudity. I believe it's the responsibility of a provider of an innovative platform to provide some mechanisms that prevent it from being used as a platform to attack individuals, or to foster criminal or antisocial behavior. Just look at encyclopediadramatica.com for an example of where this can go when unchecked. (I haven't in some time, and prefer not to. I remember elaborate pages written to attack, demean, and discredit individuals who aren't particularly public figures -- photoshopped pictures depicting them having sex with animals, things like that.)

I'm not going to defent where Facebook draws the line, but it's probably worth keeping in mind that many nude photos of people under 18 are illegal to possess in the USA, and without having an automated mechanism to determine which are ok and which aren't, it seems sensible to me that Facebook would employ a lot of people to keep an eye on things.

By the way, I flippin' hate Facebook. I use it, but I hate nearly everything about it -- mostly, their anti-end-user licensing policies.

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Beware facebook phishing.

Bedroom light

One of the things that puzzle me as I watch TV shows about architecture is that many of the newly built houses have these modern, pretty bedrooms with big picture windows... and no curtains or blinds!

Do you know if that's normal these days?

How do people sleep in the summer? Me, I have blinds and a "blackout curtain" (a light-tight layer added to the curtain) in my bedroom in order to get decent darkness for sleeping.

30 Rock and NYC in the thirties

Some desktop candy.
Even bigger versions here and here.



Man, that RCA building is a muddafokkin big building! I wonder why I've never really been aware of it.

Off day, What The Duck

Congrats to author Aaron Johnson for his well-executed new WTD plush toy.

Heap big medicine

Heap big medicine.

Clockwise

Inspired by writing this, I got hold of Clockwise.
It's a near-perfect comedy. No special effects, no fancy settings, no extreme behavior, and the plot is all logical and believable. And yet the whole thing is written and timed so well that it's continually engaging and often funny as hell.

And nothing is ever pushed in your face. For example there's a character so shy that he never finishes a sentence. It's really funny, and yet nobody ever points out that he never finishes a sentence.

Another character is muddied up by trying to push a car out of a muddy field. Most other comedies would have the character absolutely covered in mud, really overdone it. But here they didn't do that, the whole thing stays real.

Ballpoint art

Here's another entry in the "art or sport?" category.
Well, it's clearly art, but is that why it's interesting? I submit that it's interesting because all the work which goes into it and because of the fidelity to the photo. In other words, skill more than creativity. It seems to me you could get the same result with a mechanical device which made big prints of photos using ballpoint pins. (And there are actually printers which use pens.)

Sinfest

Sinfest.

Math Homework 911 Call

Totally hys.

Domespace (updated)

Eric points to the cool French Domespace houses. Pictures. Videos. (A lived-in one. A bit of a fluff piece, admittedly.)
I am not sure about the rotating bit, but maybe it could turn out to be good.

I have long thought, though, that the most desirable and aesthetic materials for building are timber, glass, and granite. Of course they are also amongst the most expensive, so I guess if I build a house it won't be huge. But that was never an ambition anyway, size is mostly a status thing. Except for large rooms, which I think have a positive influence on mentality and emotions. I would like to have a two-story living room, and big windows.

I'm watching a show about a young couple who built a HUGE house on a hill side. While it turned out very impressive, two things I don't get: why stretch your energy and finances so much to get a house four times as big as you need? And the other one, which of course is just a matter of taste: their house is all white walls and hard lines, which seems very clinical to me. I much better like the pleasantly warm tones of the interiors on these pictures. And more: the textures. The floors are wonderful, both the tiles and the wooden parts. It's alive. Of course again it's more expensive per meter than sleek white.

I love the staircase too, both the steps and the railing.

One thing though: there's a large space in the center which is not used for anything. And maybe it can't really be? Clearly the house is not space efficient. (This of course is less important if you have a big lot and big money.)

Stob Start

Here's my well-received smoothie recipe, "Stob Start". It's a nice drink for a morning start, or an evening desert.

One mug of water
A half mug of orange juice
A half mug of milk (full or skim, to taste)
One banana
A half mug of berries (strawberries or mixed)

Blend well.

It's very lovely.

I like it very cold, so I use chilled water and frozen berries, sometimes even frozen bananas (peel before freezing!) and a few ice cubes.

If you want it more desert-like, add more berries.

You can make it more mellow and nourishing by adding protein powder.

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Bet you didn't see that coming. Well, I'm a man of unknown depths. Like Snoopy said: "the fruits of my labors shall be reaped by future generations."

Mambo Combo

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It seems Lou Bega is another one who got the message about not changing a working formula: his I got a Girl song is a virtual copy of Mambo no. 5, even down to the theme of the lyrics.
It's interesting that so many of the world's best songs were made by people who never before or after got even close to making anything as good. I wonder why.

John Cleese interview

John Cleese interview, very funny. Part two. (I wish they posted the whole thing. This seems to be just two small bits.)
And here's a spoof interview. Maybe not the funniest thing he's done, but at least he's going out of his way to offend everybody!

Denmark is flat

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
-- Aristotle

I can see the viewpoint, but I'm not sure I agree. Even though I've been self-employed for years now and loving it, before that I had several different day jobs which I was perfectly happy with. The work was not bad, it had variation, I liked my boss and colleagues, and I earned my keep and learned new skills and could forget about the work when I walked home each day.

I have a friend who loathes any kind of hierarchy. She could never be in a paid job, she tells me, it would be degrading. I really don't see why. In a couple of my paid jobs I was very friendly with my boss, and half-jokingly called him "boss" sometimes (which is not normally done in Denmark).
Maybe it's because Denmark is very flat, both geographically and socially. There is not a lot heavy hierarchy going on. Or maybe I was just lucky with my jobs, I think I was. But it seems to me that a hierarchy is not such a horrible thing if both parts are doing it willingly and know it's all just in good fun, and there's mutual respect.

It does not have to be twisted domination games. The fact is that in any operation bigger than a couple of people, there has to be a central coordination and control point, otherwise people trip over each other.

From watch to motorcycle

[Thanks to Capt. Kirk.] (I don't know where these are from.)

I think a few of them are really good, even just seen as sculptures. 

Solid Potato Salad - The Ross Sisters (1944)

[Thanks to Jan.] This is not just a fun song and cute singers, it's also an astounding contortionist act. Holy moley, what girls!

(By the way, are you aware that you can jump forward to, say, one minute, even though a video has not yet loaded that far?)

Treating wood

I'm just enjoying another season of Grand Designs, the UK TV show about unusual houses being built. (I just realized season five has sixteen episodes... sixteen full documentaries in one year! Kevin McCloud is a regular David Pogue.)

One issue I've not heard about: when they build of wood, either a log cabin or post/beam structures or whatever, how is the wood treated? What protects it against excessive drying and wood worms and so on?

I started thinking about it watching one episode about a young couple renovating a 400-year old house where big parts of the old oak beams were just rotted away due to death watch beetles. It was a classified building, so they could not just tear down the roof and start over, and it was very difficult and expensive to shore it up and replace parts.
So is anything being done to make new wooden buildings last four hundred years?

Big model rocket

Notice the scale right in the beginning. This muddafukka is big! Must be about ten meters. (Update: it's close to eleven. Good estimate, bully for me.)

John Cleese Philosophers in Oxford

The Secret Policeman's Balls. 1977. Overall pretty spotty, I have to admit, but I liked this one, quite innovative. I got it on a DVD and wanted to share it with you.

Seen from above

Thanks to photography site Neutralday for the link to these aerial photos.

Some of these are very like the book Earth From Above. I have the postcard edition, and many of the cards have been on my fridge for a couple of years.

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Will you look at what my spell checker did? Suddenly insert Chinese words? WTH?

(What's up with English spelling? It goes from "air" to "aerial"?) (I'm not talking about the screen shot now, but about different spelling about two words though they have the same root.)

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BTW, I'm so happy I changed from making post with Mozilla to using Firefox. My big posting problems have disappeared. And well, Mozilla is not being updated anymore anyway.

Irregular bottoms

We've had some of these before.




The one below is not from the Telegraph, it's one I took myself two minutes walk from here: