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Um, no. The Shah was installed in 1953, after FDR left office. It was the Eisenhower administration that was responsible.

http://www.iranchamber.com/history/coup53/coup53p1 .php

Saddam was a US-backed assassin charged with killing the Iraqi prime minister:

http://www.rise4news.net/Saddam-CIA.html

Here's a picture of Donald Rumsfeld shaking the hand of his good buddy Saddam:

http://cnparm.home.texas.net/911/Backg/Rumsfeld-Sa ddam.jpg

During the Iran-Iraq war, the US fully approved of the use of chemical weapons against Iran:

http://www.antiwar.com/glantz/?articleid=2804

Why were WMD ok back then, but not now? Huh? Does anyone have an answer for me?

And what was the US's interest in the war anyway? They wanted to stop the revolution in Iran, the revolution to overthrow the brutal dictator that they themselves installed! Instead of letting a country's people decide their own destiny and form of government, which might affect the flow or price of oil, the US would rather prop up brutal dictators.

Carter is not at issue here. If the US hadn't planted a dictator there to begin with, we wouldn't be in this situation, and the people in that region would have no reason to be angry with us for interfering in their affairs.

For anyone raised with decent morals and values, it should be plain that all of these actions by the US were downright wrong. The fact that the US acted out of self-interest alone, instead of having any concern for the people in those countries, is an act of evil. On a personal level, that's how people who have no conscience, called sociopaths, act: with regard only to their own self-interest. What's interesting is that all the people who claim to be "good christians" and standing for "family values" are the ones who promote this sociopathy on a national level.

AHAHAH you're so funny, I nearly burst out laughing here.

Terrorism is a military issue, since it invloves defending the entire US against a foreign army

N O its not. Who's dumb now? the grandparent? or you, who just died because you succumbed to your profiling crap and decided to ignore the real threat of angry white men?

You need massive resources on top of smarts, luck and determination to pull off such an attack.

Right, it takes massive resources to fill up a 55 gallon drum with gasoline and kick it from the back of your pickup truck into the middle of an interstate? There's all sorts of ways a single lone person could wreak havoc without "massive" resources or even luck. Oh, but like any true Republican you're only concerned about the good ol' buds at the RNC. Just like on 9/11 when "key" leaders were evacuated immediately under the continuity of government plan. Which was supposed to evacuate all of congress, but well, the Democrats didn't matter so much, so they had to wait for their turn to come hours later.

I am a dark skinned male, with a crew cut and in my 20's

See above as to why this kind of profiling is doomed to fail catastrophically.

AHAHAH you're so funny, I nearly burst out laughing here.

Terrorism is a military issue, since it invloves defending the entire US against a foreign army

N O its not. Who's dumb now? the grandparent? or you, who just died because you succumbed to your profiling crap and decided to ignore the real threat of angry white men?

You need massive resources on top of smarts, luck and determination to pull off such an attack.

Right, it takes massive resources to fill up a 55 gallon drum with gasoline and kick it from the back of your pickup truck into the middle of an interstate? There's all sorts of ways a single lone person could wreak havoc without "massive" resources or even luck. Oh, but like any true Republican you're only concerned about the good ol' buds at the RNC. Just like on 9/11 when "key" leaders were evacuated immediately under the continuity of government plan. Which was supposed to evacuate all of congress, but well, the Democrats didn't matter so much, so they had to wait for their turn to come hours later.

I am a dark skinned male, with a crew cut and in my 20's

See above as to why this kind of profiling is doomed to fail catastrophically.

No, seriously. It's a game that you can get your wife/girlfriend/whatever involved in. They love the communicative aspects of the play. We get together to play Settlers of Cataan at least twice a month, with as many as 14 people showing up. All the spouses/SOs like to play at least as much as the guys do, so it's one of the rare events that joins both sexes in talk and play. Of course, when you've got that many people, you can't just play with a regular peanut...and thus, the Linear Trinut.

Employees' only compulsions to work there are their own personal preferences.

Wrong. You're assuming an open availability of jobs, which doesn't exist either in the real world or any theoretical ones. The job market is terrible, especially for people who lack education or skills to get a modestly paying job (>$18000/yr).

There are several reasons a person might have to work for Wal-Mart or a supplier. They may have no useful education or job skills to work anywhere else in their area, there may be no other employer in their area that is hiring, or Wal-Mart might be (believe it or not) the highest paying employer they can work at. And before you say, "Ah, but they could move!" no, they very well may not be able to. They may lack the money to move, they may not want to remove their children from their school, they may need to care for sick/elderly friends or family members, etc.

It is possible to be "forced" to have to work somewhere. Wal-Mart knows this applies to more than a small percentage of its employees, and treats them accordingly.

Wal-Mart's low prices sustain development in third world countries.

That's an equivocation that conservatives often make. Jobs being produced in third world countries and factories being built does not mean "development" is taking place, if the jobs being created do not pay a high enough wage that employees are bettering their lives through working there, or if the factories are not running cleanly enough that they are polluting the area and causing health and environmental harm to the area.

Your points are all so easy to refute.

Tu quoque.

It may *prompt* that question, but it does not beg it. 'Begs the question' != 'prompts one to ask'

See here

Yours, the Language Taliban

I should have also posted that these exerpts are in Digital Deli, from the contribution "The Telephone System of the Future" by Lamont Wood.

I believe you mean "raises the question." Begging the question means something entirely different.

I believe you mean "raises the question." Begging the question means something entirely different.

Here are some links to images of subpoena's found in a Google Image Search. As you can see, there isn't much to it other than "be in court". Unless SCO tells us we won't know until the date of the summons why they've been served.

Since we're all playing Grammar Hitlers, someone (me) should point out to you that you misused 'Begs the Question.'

I apologize; I interpreted your "Is it because...?" question not as an honest request for somebody to tell you if it was correct or not, but as a way of conveying information as part of the question. I've seen that tactic before; it's called "begging the question" in rhetorical circles (although that term is widely misused). I thought you were begging the question. Here's more info on that tactic. Again, if you did not intend to beg the question, I apologize.

To give you a more direct answer to your question, then, the RIAA, like most entities, wants to act as efficiently as possible. It's a lot easier to take civil action in the form of a hailstorm of subpoenas than to try to arrange criminal prosecution of the same number of people.

I was going to point out the NET act to answer your other question but it looks like somebody beat me too it. For what it's worth, although the NET act is currently being applied to music pirates, one of its original intents was to close the loophole used by software pirates who were providing free warez FTP sites.

Also for what it's worth, sadly, I have read the material carefully. However I acknowledge how that "private financial gain" can easily trip up people who aren't familiar with the NET act and its implications.

This is getting to be a very tired strawman, so let me put it as simply as I know how: you don't have to ASSUME something is bunk to CONCLUDE that something (say, Peter Popoff's performances, or a pyramid scheme) is bunk. The conclusion may not be silly at all.

Unfortunately, THEY DO. It's called Free Speech. Bill of Rights, at the top.

Any form of argument in which the conclusion occurs as one of the premisses, or a chain of arguments in which the final conclusion is a premiss of one of the earlier arguments in the chain.

Example:

"To cast abortion as a solely private moral question,...is to lose touch with common sense: How human beings treat one another is practically the definition of a public moral matter. Of course, there are many private aspects of human relations, but the question whether one human being should be allowed fatally to harm another is not one of them. Abortion is an inescapably public matter."

It begs the question why goverments around the world are ...

Aaargghh!!!

What next? Back doors so advertizers can see where we surf?

Slippery slope fallacy, I'm afraid. There's a huge difference between showing an advertisment as default homepage/screensaver, and facilitating criminal activities at the cost of your customers.

No need to panic just yet, I think.

It's only fair since your posts have been nothing but straw man fallacies

But then again, a good theory doesn't have to be logically irrefutable. Science, history, and yes, criminal justice are full of theories that are valued mainly for their explanatory power. Circumstancial evidence (the butler had access to the fatal candlestick, the butler cannot acount for his whereabout when the crime was committed) can't irrefutably prove that the butler did it. But it can be strong enough to convict the butler, if there's so much of it that alternative theories cease to be plausible.

So only because Paul Wellstone unfortunately died during the campaigns, Walter Mondale should have won the election? What would be the purpose of voting?

I don't believe that AC said anything of the sort. He seems, rather, to be talking about the contrast in the personalities the two project -- many people see Wellstone as an articulate, moral-bound idealist, always outspoken, no matter how much that alienated half his constituents; and Coleman as the smarmy, amoral climber, who would come out in favor of eating live babies if he thought it would get him a position the next rung up. If you do view the two that way, then it's hard not to feel depressed about the election. Certainly AC's comment had nothing to with polls; discuss what he said, Wolffenstein, not some strawman you concocted.

And, I have to admit, I'm one of the people who's held a view something like this of the two candidates, so I'm surprised to see Coleman taking on an issue that puts him on the wrong side of a powerful corporation. What's he getting at? Perhaps there's more in this for him than we see -- or perhaps he's not really amoral after all. I do like being surprised to find a politician more principled than I'd expected!

heeeeyyyyyy, fucktard. he's probably getting a lot more than you. really, for once the geek gets some decent WARM WET PUSSY... lengthened to perfection and all warmed up, ready to accomodate the infamous geek horse cock.

damn, this guy really scored: here

kudos to you buddy. perhaps you could join the zero altitude club in your nifty little homemade cockpit.

That phrase does not mean what you think it means.

It doen NOT beg any damn question. The claim may suggest a question, or raise a question or perhaps.

Does any-fucking-body know the meaning of "begging the question"? I don't believe I've heard correct use of the phrase even once in the past year.

</peeve>

How fucking weird it is that you figure the 'default' state for copyrighted material is to allow copying.

Nice strawman, but I did not claim what you argue against. I claimed the the default *MINDSET* of people includes arbitrary copying of material, regardless of legal limitations on that copying. Not that the material itself (or rather, its owners, since "content", as an inanimate thing, can't allow or disallow anything) allows copying by default.


Actually, if MPlayer is in violation of the GPL, then they don't have the right to distribute.

False. MPlayer can use whatever license terms they want. If that means "GPL sans section 6", they have every right to do so, the inconvenience of that choice falling on those who want to USE or DISTRIBUTE such material, not the authors themselves. I think you may have misphrased your statement that I quoted, however, since the rest of your comment implies exactly the opposite of what you actually said in the above quote. In which case, I would *legally* agree with you, IF they had also excluded the "modification and free redistribution" portions of the GPL. However, not having disallowed that, I don't see the MPlayer authors as having a choice in the matter. They chose to use a license not entirely compatible with their intent, they now have to live with the consequences of that choice, whether they "want" to or not. They can change the terms for *future* releases, but for what they've done up to now, they don't have a lot of options to repair the damage.


For example, if Martha Stewart was to write up some code and release it under the GPL, and then Pamela Anderson took that code and added to it and released the result with additional restrictions, *you* do not have any rights to that new code.

Bad example. I would indeed have the rights to that code granted by the GPL, because Pam *didn't* have the right to use a *MORE* restrictive license in the first (second?) place.


You don't get the code, you don't get money, you don't get a blowjob, you get nothing.

Wrong again. I don't get money, or a BJ, or any other considerations or damages, but I *DO* get the code. The GPL exists to prevent EXACTLY the situation you describe - someone using GPL'd code to create a non-GPL'd result. Someone can make as many GPL'd derivatives of already-GPL'd code as they want, but they can't just take the source and close it.


But it cannot forcibly make someone release code that they own the copyright on, regardless of whether it's a derivative.

True. But by *starting* from GPL'd code, the derivative work DOESN'T own the copyright. No one forced the author of the derivative to start with GPL'd code. They made the choice all by themselves, and byt the terms of the GPL, that choice includes releasing that derivative under the GPL (or not releasing it at all).


God it's fucking amazing how stupid people can be.

I agree with that completely. You make an excellent example. With all the possible valid responses you could have made to my post, you chose an inarticulate (obscenity in moderation makes a point - obscenity for lack of a well-thought-out turn of phrase makes you look like an idiot) one, materially false in every important point.


The one situation in which you would seem not *quite* so wrong involves MPlayer's use of copyrighted 3rd-party binary modules (such as using the Sorensen codec). However, you did not mention anything about that, so I will presume you meant something completely different (and wrong). This would read more like "If Martha released a closed commercial program, Pam couldn't take it and release a derivative GPL version". In that case, no, I would have no rights to it, because Pam had no rights to GPL it in the first place.

Even then, this becomes somewhat sticky in the case of MPlayer, *precisely* because of their licensing terms - Similar to how XVid gets around MPEG-4 licensing, since they don't actually produce an MPEG-4 (binary) implementation, only "source code for research". For a more familiar real-world analogy, a CD player program "uses" copyrighted material to which it has no rights whatsoever. Without that copyrighted material, a CD player seems completely, utterly useless. Yet, would you claim that a CD player program, GPL'd or not,violates some third-party's copyrights?

Here you go, this HOWTO is even more complete than the article referenced for Mac OS X.

http://weigand.home.texas.net/efs.html

Of course, there are Linux distributions that does it out of the box. I use Suse that does this just fine ...

That document is a load of scare mongering [...]

...but it is a document which the inventor of TCPA himself, Bill Arbaugh, seem to agree with. He opens his comment on Ross Anderson with this statement:

"We are all aware of the criticisms that the TCPA has received. Ross Anderson did a good job of explaining the problems in an abstract fashion, but I felt that there were some things left out (Privacy concerns)." (my emphasis).

You write:

And I don't care if he uses words like "could" or "may" or any other wishy-washy term.

The rest of your comment, "Reality Master 101", builds on ignoring what Anderson is actually saying and is thus just a straw man argument, with which you have apparently fooled yourself.

You are right about cost cutting being a problem during the AMF era, the other problem was AMF dramatically increased production without investing in more/better tooling, and so they had to cut the quality of the hand assembly and fitting work to make due.

Balderdash! "Intellectual property" is a very vague term designed to conflate lots mostly unrelated ideas. It can refer to trademarks, patents, copyright, trade secrets, etc. All of them are valid, although all of them can be and often are taken to unnecessary or harmful extremes.

"Intellectual property" is a propaganda term designed to confuse thinking. Not entirelly dissimilar to the "either you're with us or you're with the terrorists" bifurcation we've been treated to.

Exactly: This is an example of typical natiocentricical thinking. This even trickles to the state level, i.e., californitinos, louisiajuns, and canaminesottians to name a few.

The USian reference is a deunificating process by which the majority befog political borders.

Be sure to visit Bruce at his site. He is a Texican. :)

Has several chapters on the raid. The full text of the book is available at Bruce Sterling's site.

Taking the bill to it's "logical conclusion" as you call it would be commiting a logical fallacy, invalidating any argument that you have against it. All you have done is set up a "straw man" that anyone can knock down.

I mean... if we are going to use fallacious arguments, there are better ones to use.
Ad Hominem - Jack Valenti is ugly, therefore this bill sucks.
Dicto Simpliciter - Laws that restrict our freedom are *usually* bad. This bill will restrict our freedom, therefore it is bad.

How about we try some logically valid arguments against the bill as it currently stands. That would hold more weight. I'm just glad that you didn't misuse "begging the question". That one's a pet peeve of mine.

one of my favorite sites about logical fallacies is The Fallacy Files

>> You mean the company that was such a major D party contributor?

According to this and to the major national newspapers in Switzerland, they certainly were not choosy when it came to brib^H^H^H^Hcontributing to the other party as well.

>>Ahh -- the one who found they could not bribe W as easily as Clinton and was exposed?

Without supporting facts, this looks like a "Post Hoc, Ergo Poster Hoc" fallacy (Enron got busted under the Bush administration, therefore the Clinton administration was corrupt and the Bush administration is not). I'm not saying that there is no causality, only that without solid facts, it's just wishful thinking.

Raymond

>> As it turns out, MS Security is not as bad as Sun's or IBM's [objectwatch.com]

I think that's not a very good example you're giving to support your argument. From the website you're linking to:

"Roger Sessions is highly respected within Microsoft. He has given many keynote talks at Microsoft sponsored conferences. Thousands of copies of his book have been given away by Microsoft."

That alone is of course not sufficient to question Mr. Session's bias or professional qualifications, but let's just say I got a little bit leery after reading this.

Furthermore, your logic seems fundamentally flawed to me. According to your chain of reasoning:

1. Microsoft has security problems
2. Other's have security problems, too
therefore
3. Microsoft is not so bad as everybody says.

This looks to me like a classical "tu quoque" fallacy. I see it again and again on /., and when I have modpoints I always mod those posts down as trolls - not because they're contrarian to /. groupthink but because they're using faulty logic and are either trolls or just clueless.

>> I'll probably be modded down as troll or flaimbait, but then it just shows the /. mentality.

Moderators, whenever you see a sentence similar to the above ("C'mon, mod me down, I have karma to burn..."), please think hard if the poster really made a soundproof argument or is just doing some social engineering on you by doing an appeal to pity in order to gather/avoid losing some karma.

Raymond

btw, I've read the other comments, and most of the others suggested (especially cuckoo's egg, and hackers) should be read first, but The Hacker Crackdown is also an interesting historical examination of a short period and is available free online. Just make sure you read hackers and the cuckoo's egg first :)

And there's the difference between faith and science. There's a large amount of evidence supporting quantum mechanics and little supporting the existence of God. Science isn't a crutch for anything. It's just a formal method for finding out how the world works. You hold yourself to strict rules of evidence, and bit by bit, fact by fact, crawl toward a greater understanding of physical phenomena.

It's nowhere near that simple. Scientific observation is inherently flawed because we're viewing the system from within and the mere act of viewing not only limits our view, but instantaneously changes the system. Sure, science can build better and better models, but it will never explain the true nature of the universe or the meaning of our existance. And yet people try to make science do that everyday with unprovable theories of how the universe/life was formed or how free will and consciousness could be described through the collapse of quantum states in superposition. This sort of theorizing is in fact using science as a crutch--a crutch for trying to fulfill the need for certainty and meaning in life. When you really get down to it, science requires just as much 'faith' as faith in the belief in God. There is just as much evidence for the existance of God, both philosophically and through human experience. As for scientific evidence, you cannot prove a theory simply by giving examples of it working. You would either have to test every possible condition--which being infinite is impossible--or prove that the contrapositive is always false--equally impossible. One counterexample and you're back to the drawing board, thus limiting science to building crude models that work most of the time, not perfectly, but good enough to have practical application.

"Science is not powerful because it is true; it is true because it is powerful."

Nike and newport should look into this. Newport cigarettes' logo is an upside down swoosh, one hemisphere would see the nike swoosh, and the other would see the tobacco advertisement?

This happens with suspected "hackers" all the time as well. In fact, up until a few years ago, prosecuting hacking and computer crimes was a pain in law enforcement's butt. It was too dry and they couldn't get an angle on it in most cases that would engage the jury (and sometimes they succeed with only limited results). Instead it was a lot easier to confiscate all their equipment and scare the hell out of them (see Sterlings book, The Hacker Crackdown). They didn't just pull this trick on teenagers, either. They went after an odd, but respectable, game maker as well. Check here for Steve Jackson's account of the mess and here for Bruce Sterling's.

This seems like the most underhanded and rights trampling kind of things that they can do... but it is totally legal. Ugh!

This happens with suspected "hackers" all the time as well. In fact, up until a few years ago, prosecuting hacking and computer crimes was a pain in law enforcement's butt. It was too dry and they couldn't get an angle on it in most cases that would engage the jury (and sometimes they succeed with only limited results). Instead it was a lot easier to confiscate all their equipment and scare the hell out of them (see Sterlings book, The Hacker Crackdown). They didn't just pull this trick on teenagers, either. They went after an odd, but respectable, game maker as well. Check here for Steve Jackson's account of the mess and here for Bruce Sterling's.

This seems like the most underhanded and rights trampling kind of things that they can do... but it is totally legal. Ugh!

Much of his writing, including the Crackdown, is available here

I live in the Houston, TX metropolitan area, which encompasses a population of about 4 million. There have been no organised protests here yet, and I know that out of that many people there have to be some that know about what's been going on.

Allow me to make a wild, but conservative, guess. Let's say there are 1000 Slashdot readers in the Houston area. Let's also say that there are 49 other cities in the country that hold 1000 Slashdot readers. From what I've seen, counting all the protesters in all the cities that have seen protests on Sklyarov's behalf, their numbers total on the order of 1000. This tells me that the large majority of Slashdotters have not actually done anything, and the chances are that you yourself haven't done anything.

So if we're not doing anything, Mr. Katz is doing about the only thing he can do by preaching to the choir--because we choir members are sitting on our asses, and if we don't get up and do something, it's a sure bet that no one else in the world is going to. We are the main community who gives a damn about this particular subject, and if we sit on the sidelines while our rights and liberties get snatched from under our noses, it will probably be because we were too busy sitting in front of a screen writing smart-assed comments on Slashdot.

To any readers in driving distance of Houston: I think we should have a protest. If you think so too, mail me. Let's do it.

THE HACKER CRACKDOWN:
Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier
by Bruce Sterling

From the Preface to the Electronic Release
"However, if you were so foolish as to print this book and start retailing it for money in violation of my copyright and the commercial interests of Bantam Books, then Bantam, a part of the gigantic Bertelsmann multinational publishing combine, would roust some of their heavy-duty attorneys out of hibernation and crush you like a bug. This is only to be expected. I didn't write this book so that you could make money out of it. If anybody is gonna make money out of this book, it's gonna be me and my publisher."

Actually, Van Gogh did mix his colors.

However, his painting techniques eventually led into pointilism, the use of small specks of color (like a computer screen) that, from a distance, give the illusion of multiple colors and gradiations.

The classical example of pointilism is Seurat's "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte." In this image, you can zoom in on the specks of colors to see how the yellows next to blues look green. By the way, this painting took years to do and takes up an entire wall... it's huge!

Beyond the aspect of hyperlinking to ads or other commercial features, this situation raises some question about inserting hyperlinks into reprinted copyrighted text.

Take for example an an article by Bruce Sterling. Most of the writings on that site are described as "literary freeware". The acceptable use policy points out that copyright is retained by the author, but permission is granted for unlimited copying and distribution in any media for non-commercial uses only.

So the non-commercial clause would clearly rule out links to ads or e-commerce "services" such as Deja.com is offering. But what about other links?

The acceptable use policy also forbids altering the text. So if I reprint one of his articles on my website, that is fine. But what if he makes a mention of, say, NASA. Would I be forbidden from linking that word to the NASA website?

Is adding a hyperlink to a word truly "altering the text"? The sentence still reads the same as the author wrote it. Perhaps it is in the same way that adding italics can alter the text. What about a reverse situation: taking an article from the web that contains hyperlinks and printing it on paper for distribution, but not including URLs. Would that count as altering the text?

If I printed out an article for distribution but added footnotes connected to certain words, would that be permissible? I would think it probably would if I made clear that the footnotes were my own and not the original author. Likewise if I inserted commentary into the article.

So then how to create hyperlinks in the original article but to indicate that they are not part of the original article? Putting them as footers to the text is awkward. Putting them in a sidebar puts them closer to the original word but still doesn't provide the direct intuitive connection that linking the actual word provides. Perhaps the link could take the reader to an intermediate page with a disclaimer that then auto redirects after a few seconds to a target page.

This is a new situation in copyright brought about by the nature of the web. Perhaps there needs to be a new "fair use" created here: the right to add non-commercial hyperlinks to a reprinted article.


Trickster Coyote

The Hall of Statuary

The Medusa Realm

Statuephiles

Studs in Stone

Maki's House of Petrification

ASFR Master List

Mannequin Lover's

Kimy's House of Living Mannequins

The Flat Philes

The Living Mannequin Circle

Alt.sex.fetish.robots

The Cobalt Jade Website

The Mad Scientists's Lair

Pop's Transformation Art

In Praise of Golder Women

Golder Women Yahoo Club

Frozen Statue Yahoo Club

"net" was traditionally intended for use by network service providers.

Yes, and I've only seen one ISP (UUNet) which actually uses that as their primary address.

How about Jump.Net or Texas.Net?

You can. It's called Hercules. It runs under Linux and emulates a S/370 or ESA/390 mainframe. Although not quite Open Source (and definitely not GPL), it's free "...for your own personal non-commercial educational and hobby use". You can use it run OS/360, MVT and other old stuff which is public domain. See Jay Maynard's page for instructions on how. You can just about run Linux/390 under Hercules :-)

Why do I have to keep repeating myself?


It's different for every person, of course. But here are a few sites to check out:


The Hall of Statuary


The Medusa Realm


Statuephiles


Studs in Stone


Often on the message boards at some of these sites, or on the newsgroup, or in the IRC channel, someone will ask "Why do YOU like the idea of people being turned to stone?"


Here's what I wrote in response to someone recently wrote to such a question. It's not an essay or anything, just a free flow of thoughts, but I think it explains things pretty well.


I would appreciate feedback on this.


*BEGIN PREVIOUSLY-WRITTEN TEXT*


After years of wondering, I think I've figured it out.


But it's rather hard to explain.


I've been meaning to try to write it out in an essay form that actually
make sense, but I'll try to sketch it out here.


For me, it's about glorification of the (female) human spirit. The spirit
is a beautiful thing. It fascinates me. And as with other non-physical
things, such as God, we can see it in the clearest and purest sense when
we are NOT seeing evidence of it, but simply know that it's there.


What is a person? Look at a female. She's many things. She's every emotion
she's ever felt, everything she's ever done, everything she has the
POTENTIAL to do and feel and accomplish. She is every facial expression
she has ever made, every time she's ever cried, everything she's ever
seen, everything she's ever experienced. She is what she is, what she has
been, and what she has the potenial to be.


But, look at what we have. People, who are so much more than what we
see, are running around in bipedal bags of goop & blood & guts called
a physical body. They're running to and fro and living hectic lives and
chasing after their goals and dreams. The spirit guides the body, the
spirit is reflected on the face of the body, and in the body's actions,
and because of the interlink between the body and the spirit, it's
hard to tell where the body ends and the spirit begins, or where the
spirit ends, and the body begins. In this active state, it's hard to
see someone as a complete person, a single person, a sum of all that they
are. We see what she's doing now, but we don't know what she was doing
yesterday, we see what sort of mood she's in, but we don't know the
bredth of her mind. Being forced to interact with the world, she's not
able to be her entire self. She's not able to spend all of her time
just being happy of who she is, or on an even lower level, being happy
JUST EXISTING.


I consider it wrong that women have to live this way. They should be
able to be who they are, all of who they are. I consider actually
being alive in an animate body to be the REAL bondage, the real captivity.
It's sad that women must grow old, visit Wal-mart to purchase
feminine hygeine products, pay taxes, etc. (but usually not in that
order). By extending themselves into the world rather than into
themselves, they're robbing both themselves and the world of their full
potential. They are changing too fast to truly observe the beauty of
their souls as it was meant to be observed.


Enter a way of quantifying the spirit. Quantifying isn't the word I'm
looking for, because quantifying implies numbering, grading, or
labeling. But I can't think of any better word no matter how hard I try.
When a woman is turned to stone, she is no longer reacting to the
world except within herself. Instead of DOING, she IS. She exists in a
more pure form.


So why do I like turning women to stone? Simply because inside the
statue exists the entirity of the woman. Her entire spirit, her
entire mind, her entire potential, her entire being, exists within a
single, static container. And that's the key. We see the statue. That
is the body, one expression of her being. But I know that SHE is within
the statue, in a state of completeness, free to be who she wants and
think what she wants. And knowing this, I can truly see the beauty of her
spirit. The world is a better place because a complete person exists
within it. A person who is as free as any person in this physical world
can ever be.


(And then I touch her butt.)


Did that make any sense at all to anyone? At all? I figure I'm
completely out in left field here. But if anybody could manage a
"yeah, maybe that kinda makes sense," I'd really appreciate it.


*END PREVIOUSLY WRITTEN TEXT*


Have a great day!

Hello, I'm the person who started the "naked and petrified" trend on Segfault, and helped it grow and mature on Slashdot. I've been nurturing its tender spirit for more than half a year now, and it's been incredibly rewarding, not just to myself, but to the millions of fans. I'm glad also that so many other people have taken it up and copycatted it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Anyway, I've never petrified anyone in real life. I know, like any sensible person, that it's not possible in real life. But it's possible in Greek mythology, and in Hollywood movies, and in science fiction! And most importantly of all, in our fantasies! And that's what really matters. I know I'll never actually have a cute little petrified girl to call my own, and that makes me sad, so sad that I've actually been tempted several times to settle for a non-petrified girl, but I've resisted that temptation.

I also wrote the "Tatoo the DeCSS Source on Natalie Portman's Ass" thing, by the way. I'm glad you enjoyed it! It's fan like you that motivate me to continue!

Anyway, if you want to know where it comes from for me, here's an explanation.

****

It's different for every person, of course. But here are a few sites to check out:

The Hall of Statuary

The Medusa Realm

Statuephiles

Studs in Stone

Often on the message boards at some of these sites, or on the newsgroup, or in the IRC channel, someone will ask "Why do YOU like the idea of people being turned to stone?"

Here's what I wrote in response to someone recently wrote to such a question. It's not an essay or anything, just a free flow of thoughts, but I think it explains things pretty well.

I would appreciate feedback on this.

*BEGIN PREVIOUSLY-WRITTEN TEXT*

After years of wondering, I think I've figured it out.

But it's rather hard to explain.

I've been meaning to try to write it out in an essay form that actually make sense, but I'll try to sketch it out here.

For me, it's about glorification of the (female) human spirit. The spirit is a beautiful thing. It fascinates me. And as with other non-physical things, such as God, we can see it in the clearest and purest sense when we are NOT seeing evidence of it, but simply know that it's there.

What is a person? Look at a female. She's many things. She's every emotion she's ever felt, everything she's ever done, everything she has the POTENTIAL to do and feel and accomplish. She is every facial expression she has ever made, every time she's ever cried, everything she's ever seen, everything she's ever experienced. She is what she is, what she has been, and what she has the potenial to be.

But, look at what we have. People, who are so much more than what we see, are running around in bipedal bags of goop & blood & guts called a physical body. They're running to and fro and living hectic lives and chasing after their goals and dreams. The spirit guides the body, the spirit is reflected on the face of the body, and in the body's actions, and because of the interlink between the body and the spirit, it's hard to tell where the body ends and the spirit begins, or where the spirit ends, and the body begins. In this active state, it's hard to see someone as a complete person, a single person, a sum of all that they are. We see what she's doing now, but we don't know what she was doing yesterday, we see what sort of mood she's in, but we don't know the bredth of her mind. Being forced to interact with the world, she's not able to be her entire self. She's not able to spend all of her time just being happy of who she is, or on an even lower level, being happy JUST EXISTING.

I consider it wrong that women have to live this way. They should be able to be who they are, all of who they are. I consider actually being alive in an animate body to be the REAL bondage, the real captivity. It's sad that women must grow old, visit Wal-mart to purchase feminine hygeine products, pay taxes, etc. (but usually not in that order). By extending themselves into the world rather than into themselves, they're robbing both themselves and the world of their full potential. They are changing too fast to truly observe the beauty of their souls as it was meant to be observed.

Enter a way of quantifying the spirit. Quantifying isn't the word I'm looking for, because quantifying implies numbering, grading, or labeling. But I can't think of any better word no matter how hard I try. When a woman is turned to stone, she is no longer reacting to the world except within herself. Instead of DOING, she IS. She exists in a more pure form.

So why do I like turning women to stone? Simply because inside the statue exists the entirity of the woman. Her entire spirit, her entire mind, her entire potential, her entire being, exists within a single, static container. And that's the key. We see the statue. That is the body, one expression of her being. But I know that SHE is within the statue, in a state of completeness, free to be who she wants and think what she wants. And knowing this, I can truly see the beauty of her spirit. The world is a better place because a complete person exists within it. A person who is as free as any person in this physical world can ever be.

(And then I touch her butt.)

Did that make any sense at all to anyone? At all? I figure I'm completely out in left field here. But if anybody could manage a "yeah, maybe that kinda makes sense," I'd really appreciate it.

*END PREVIOUSLY WRITTEN TEXT*

Have a great day!

It's different for every person, of course. But here are a few sites to check out:

The Hall of Statuary

The Medusa Realm

Statuephiles

Studs in Stone

Often on the message boards at some of these sites, or on the newsgroup, or in the IRC channel, someone will ask "Why do YOU like the idea of people being turned to stone?"

Here's what I wrote in response to someone recently wrote to such a question. It's not an essay or anything, just a free flow of thoughts, but I think it explains things pretty well.

I would appreciate feedback on this.

*BEGIN PREVIOUSLY-WRITTEN TEXT*

After years of wondering, I think I've figured it out.

But it's rather hard to explain.

I've been meaning to try to write it out in an essay form that actually make sense, but I'll try to sketch it out here.

For me, it's about glorification of the (female) human spirit. The spirit is a beautiful thing. It fascinates me. And as with other non-physical things, such as God, we can see it in the clearest and purest sense when we are NOT seeing evidence of it, but simply know that it's there.

What is a person? Look at a female. She's many things. She's every emotion she's ever felt, everything she's ever done, everything she has the POTENTIAL to do and feel and accomplish. She is every facial expression she has ever made, every time she's ever cried, everything she's ever seen, everything she's ever experienced. She is what she is, what she has been, and what she has the potenial to be.

But, look at what we have. People, who are so much more than what we see, are running around in bipedal bags of goop & blood & guts called a physical body. They're running to and fro and living hectic lives and chasing after their goals and dreams. The spirit guides the body, the spirit is reflected on the face of the body, and in the body's actions, and because of the interlink between the body and the spirit, it's hard to tell where the body ends and the spirit begins, or where the spirit ends, and the body begins. In this active state, it's hard to see someone as a complete person, a single person, a sum of all that they are. We see what she's doing now, but we don't know what she was doing yesterday, we see what sort of mood she's in, but we don't know the bredth of her mind. Being forced to interact with the world, she's not able to be her entire self. She's not able to spend all of her time just being happy of who she is, or on an even lower level, being happy JUST EXISTING.

I consider it wrong that women have to live this way. They should be able to be who they are, all of who they are. I consider actually being alive in an animate body to be the REAL bondage, the real captivity. It's sad that women must grow old, visit Wal-mart to purchase feminine hygeine products, pay taxes, etc. (but usually not in that order). By extending themselves into the world rather than into themselves, they're robbing both themselves and the world of their full potential. They are changing too fast to truly observe the beauty of their souls as it was meant to be observed.

Enter a way of quantifying the spirit. Quantifying isn't the word I'm looking for, because quantifying implies numbering, grading, or labeling. But I can't think of any better word no matter how hard I try. When a woman is turned to stone, she is no longer reacting to the world except within herself. Instead of DOING, she IS. She exists in a more pure form.

So why do I like turning women to stone? Simply because inside the statue exists the entirity of the woman. Her entire spirit, her entire mind, her entire potential, her entire being, exists within a single, static container. And that's the key. We see the statue. That is the body, one expression of her being. But I know that SHE is within the statue, in a state of completeness, free to be who she wants and think what she wants. And knowing this, I can truly see the beauty of her spirit. The world is a better place because a complete person exists within it. A person who is as free as any person in this physical world can ever be.

(And then I touch her butt.)

Did that make any sense at all to anyone? At all? I figure I'm completely out in left field here. But if anybody could manage a "yeah, maybe that kinda makes sense," I'd really appreciate it.

*END PREVIOUSLY WRITTEN TEXT*

Have a great day!