After reading this article I was horrified at the new insights about these bizarre people.
The article tells of systematic rape and abuse with no punishment, and with generations of incest producing an inbred and backwards society, condoned by the american govt. giving them the legal right to police themselves, dealing out their own justice where they see fit.
After reading the entirety of the article, it would be hard to dismiss this as an isolated case, but if you do and still consider that they represent some noble return-to-basics society and that their rejection of technology is somehow endearing, there are othersources, and a dedicated blog that may help to change your mind.
Dilbert: People are tired, weary, bored, and depressed after a hard day's work. Day in, day out, year after year in endless dead end job after endless dead end job with no future and no hope. That's natural. It's completely appropriate to feel that way. How else should you feel? If you felt good after that soul crunching experience, that would be sick. Chronic cubicle syndrome is just life!
Information Glut? I think it might be a wee bit more complex than that... less fads, less phb's, more treatment, more research, more education.
Art is intentional, purposful and, once upon a time, skillful. Without these it is not art. Thus, art made by donkeys, elephants and babies is not art, but a colourful, wonderful mess. Art made by computers is art if it is the programmers intention for it to make art.
With the onset of 'abstract expressionism' (sneer) the last vestiges of the Modernism were thrown away and is was decided anything can be art if someone says it is, which brings us to the current era where a mess is sold for thousands and every artist is paranoid about being unoriginal, uninspired, a hack, boring, unknown, etc to the point where nothing is created and this shit prevails. alas.
Finally there is the obvious two sides of the fence: those who make art and those who look at it. The artist is always aware of their own intentions, but never quite sure of their purpose, except to 'express themselves' - which is nonsense and has bred several generations of the simpleton artist producing garbage and blank canvases. Those who look at it are an entire global audience eating that same shit defecated by artists, licking their lips and saying "this shit tastes like honey".
Im very bitter, an of course I'm generalizing, there are some supremely good artists out there, but the majority (99%) are awful, awful, hacks. Art these days, art in the old fashioned scope of 'intent, purpose and skill' is best found in graphic designers who Ive noticed have a fuller grasp of the aesthetic than any visual artist leaving uni ever will.
This (seemingly) good thing can quickly be turned on its head as the trend is picked up and ran with. Soon, instead of any research being done into the open sourced, peer-reviewed program X, a programmer is hired simply because they belong on the team of some hot OSS program name -- whether their ability is there or not wont matter (the cult of celebrity doesnt require *reasons* - just fame and a name to stick it to) in the rush to market their own product on the strength of another product... its the same with hollywood movies and their clique of (tired, pathetic, mediocre, awful) actors that get hired for new movies on the strength of their name alone.
Hollywood is stagnant however, and in my opinion, it is much harder for programmers to get celebrity-status as the yardstick of ability is far higher and years of experience more neccessary for getting ahead and achieving fame than a nice ass and a big toothy smile - just my ill-gotten $.02
I completely agree - I made a decision when I left HS not to become a suit and not to get stuck in some corporate rut: for me it was either art or computers, both of which I was very good at - I chose art and for the next three years I was surrounded by people from all ages, drop outs and those younger than myself, to those in retirement who had spent the last 40 years teaching or travelling and working and only a few around my age level.
To go from a HS situation, surrounded by people exactly your age and year level, to those who have lived full lives already and are quite happy and looking forward to the future at 60 something, to work along side them as equals (and not as teacher/student), gave me so much confidence and a vast perspective on life. I stopped worrying so much, got my Bachelor after three years. Now, at 22, after getting various IT diplomas at icarnegie, am starting my own business bringing my two (vastly different) worlds together.
I cannot imagine being as happy as I am had I not known people of such diverse backgrounds and ages when I first started out.
Most anything is possible, and we have many many years to do it all in.
When I can browse directories, open/close/minimize/restore windows, change desktops and preferences - pretty much *everything* (mostly) via mouse gestures (Opera-style (what else?)), I will bow down and let the future desktop use me as a doormat. Until then Im still a CLI type person.
I think I was first hooked with computers and video games when I found my uncles atari stashed away when I was less than five with a shoebox of this blocky game cartridges. The romance grew with the C64 wherein I was given five or six big boxes of these huge floppy disks, literally hundreds and hundreds of them, that provided months of adventure; it was seventh heaven trawling through that lot.
I remember in third grade I had a psychopath for a teacher, who would shake you really hard by the shoulders and scream at you, spitting all over the desk. We got a computer (pc) in the classroom at some point, something revolutionary in teaching apparently, but this text adventure game just had me enthralled until the day I was caught staring at it from across the room for about fifteen minutes (daydreaming probably) and not responding to the teacher... only to be shaken out of it and spending the rest of the day avoiding huge globs of spittle on my desk.
Then there was Granny's Garden and Captain Comic in fourth grade on the PC with some excellent graphics, and this racing game on the amstrad (right next to the pc!) where the drivers would give passing vehicles the finger. Amazing stuff.
Video games really was a romance with technology, they were these worlds removed from our own where the imagination was kind (or queen..) - especially in the early days when there was no real desire for better graphics, a game either had them or it didnt.. it still got played and was enjoyed.
However I didnt actually start programming until a highschool course in robotics, wherein I got a Lego crane and conveyer belt to pick up bricks, dump them on the conveyer and then sort the bricks by size. From there, believe it or not, it was straight into PHP and then Java.
PHP is excellent for learning.. it can be simple or really complex, very forgiving and you always get a result of some kind. With Java its conceptually simplier (I believe) to express to a first time programmer - "this is a 'person' object, it models properties of a person, this is a 'bank' object, a bank has an impatient 'queue' of 'person' objects" etc... however Java, like C/C++ have really really shitty compile time error messages that make figuring out where you went wrong (for a newbie) really difficult and frustrating. It just requires some perseverance.
Perhaps there is a market for an IDE that can provide varying levels of difficulty (accessibility?) to a language. Master one level and you get access to a 'higher' level of complexity... combined with tutorials or in a game context, this could turn out to be more enjoyable for a beginner than being presented with a vast api.
Of course the winner is the one who throws it away and dives into the language;)
absolutley ~ all those points hit the nail on the head. However not all websites are designed with the intention to communicate information, but rather create some sort of environment; an experience, but this really borders on an interactive movie of sorts.
But if the designer gets the tickle to make your browsing experience something of a movie and not provide a (point for point) site map alternative ~ your screwed and theyve screwed themselves.
I browse with plug-ins off personally, flash ads are a pet hate.
*hugs Opera*
I made my own. Sort of...
If your a developer (maybe even if your not..) lastRss offers a single class that retrieves and parses all the various RSS standards and is relatively quick too.
I expanded on an example provided on their website, Id link to it by my host is (still) down:(
As soon as Opera/Firefox/Thunderbird can provide more options for their current usenet/rss features, I wont need to keep looking for seperate programs...
http://www.csszengarden.com/
http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=027%2F027%2Ec ss
http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=048%2F048%2Ec ss
http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=053%2F053%2Ec ss
Some beautiful design using 100% web standard markup/code. Support web standards!
~ LSH
My two cents as a geek and (traditional) artist...
As soon as 'abstract' and 'art' are mentioned, everything, for most everyone, gets muddy.
Abstract, in art generally, can mean:
an abstracted concept/theme/meaning
an abstracted representation
and the formal natural of the work
For that reason we generally stayed away from that (and other) ambiguous terms. It was either 'figurative', which was anything drawn from a model (a model being any object including a naked person) or 'non-figurative', which was a work with absolutley no representation of any model, the emphasis being entirely on the formal nature of the work.
So there are degrees of representation, and abstraction is another thing altogether.
This may help clear up that Minimalism stuff ~ Minimalism was an art movement with an emphasis on formal properties (the objective nature of a work) and simplicity.
I did.
Im a Robot Vampire, created by extremist Argentinian environmentalists that foresaw the need to control the number of cattle, lest they eat all of their fodder and starve themselves.
I use an array of surgical tools, of which are in place of my arms. These tools are far beyond the known scope of human science. These dangerously hot and pointy tools are used to remove tissues with a high density of nerves so that I may graft them to my metallic facade in order to pass for human one day and drink from the fount of human life, and not have to feed from bovine blood (which is of course processed and used by by my bio-mechanic innards).
Scavengers wont touch my leftovers because of the keen and smelly scent I leave behind, untraceble by humans and their petty, near useless senses....
Aliens are more interested in probing, silly.
With all of that probing, who has time for messy endeavours such as analysing what robot vampires eat for dinner?
Slashdot Mirror
The article tells of systematic rape and abuse with no punishment, and with generations of incest producing an inbred and backwards society, condoned by the american govt. giving them the legal right to police themselves, dealing out their own justice where they see fit.
After reading the entirety of the article, it would be hard to dismiss this as an isolated case, but if you do and still consider that they represent some noble return-to-basics society and that their rejection of technology is somehow endearing, there are other sources, and a dedicated blog that may help to change your mind.
Also, the recent flickr activity can be found here.
bah! > Or checking the accuracy of the spelling ;)
eh? ... you're seeing things.
Dilbert: People are tired, weary, bored, and depressed after a hard day's work. Day in, day out, year after year in endless dead end job after endless dead end job with no future and no hope. That's natural. It's completely appropriate to feel that way. How else should you feel? If you felt good after that soul crunching experience, that would be sick. Chronic cubicle syndrome is just life! Information Glut? I think it might be a wee bit more complex than that ... less fads, less phb's, more treatment, more research, more education.
With the onset of 'abstract expressionism' (sneer) the last vestiges of the Modernism were thrown away and is was decided anything can be art if someone says it is, which brings us to the current era where a mess is sold for thousands and every artist is paranoid about being unoriginal, uninspired, a hack, boring, unknown, etc to the point where nothing is created and this shit prevails. alas.
Finally there is the obvious two sides of the fence: those who make art and those who look at it. The artist is always aware of their own intentions, but never quite sure of their purpose, except to 'express themselves' - which is nonsense and has bred several generations of the simpleton artist producing garbage and blank canvases. Those who look at it are an entire global audience eating that same shit defecated by artists, licking their lips and saying "this shit tastes like honey".
Im very bitter, an of course I'm generalizing, there are some supremely good artists out there, but the majority (99%) are awful, awful, hacks. Art these days, art in the old fashioned scope of 'intent, purpose and skill' is best found in graphic designers who Ive noticed have a fuller grasp of the aesthetic than any visual artist leaving uni ever will.
This (seemingly) good thing can quickly be turned on its head as the trend is picked up and ran with. Soon, instead of any research being done into the open sourced, peer-reviewed program X, a programmer is hired simply because they belong on the team of some hot OSS program name -- whether their ability is there or not wont matter (the cult of celebrity doesnt require *reasons* - just fame and a name to stick it to) in the rush to market their own product on the strength of another product ... its the same with hollywood movies and their clique of (tired, pathetic, mediocre, awful) actors that get hired for new movies on the strength of their name alone.
Hollywood is stagnant however, and in my opinion, it is much harder for programmers to get celebrity-status as the yardstick of ability is far higher and years of experience more neccessary for getting ahead and achieving fame than a nice ass and a big toothy smile - just my ill-gotten $.02
To go from a HS situation, surrounded by people exactly your age and year level, to those who have lived full lives already and are quite happy and looking forward to the future at 60 something, to work along side them as equals (and not as teacher/student), gave me so much confidence and a vast perspective on life. I stopped worrying so much, got my Bachelor after three years. Now, at 22, after getting various IT diplomas at icarnegie, am starting my own business bringing my two (vastly different) worlds together.
I cannot imagine being as happy as I am had I not known people of such diverse backgrounds and ages when I first started out.
Most anything is possible, and we have many many years to do it all in.
When I can browse directories, open/close/minimize/restore windows, change desktops and preferences - pretty much *everything* (mostly) via mouse gestures (Opera-style (what else?)), I will bow down and let the future desktop use me as a doormat. Until then Im still a CLI type person.
I remember in third grade I had a psychopath for a teacher, who would shake you really hard by the shoulders and scream at you, spitting all over the desk. We got a computer (pc) in the classroom at some point, something revolutionary in teaching apparently, but this text adventure game just had me enthralled until the day I was caught staring at it from across the room for about fifteen minutes (daydreaming probably) and not responding to the teacher
Then there was Granny's Garden and Captain Comic in fourth grade on the PC with some excellent graphics, and this racing game on the amstrad (right next to the pc!) where the drivers would give passing vehicles the finger. Amazing stuff.
Video games really was a romance with technology, they were these worlds removed from our own where the imagination was kind (or queen ..) - especially in the early days when there was no real desire for better graphics, a game either had them or it didnt .. it still got played and was enjoyed.
However I didnt actually start programming until a highschool course in robotics, wherein I got a Lego crane and conveyer belt to pick up bricks, dump them on the conveyer and then sort the bricks by size. From there, believe it or not, it was straight into PHP and then Java.
PHP is excellent for learning .. it can be simple or really complex, very forgiving and you always get a result of some kind. With Java its conceptually simplier (I believe) to express to a first time programmer - "this is a 'person' object, it models properties of a person, this is a 'bank' object, a bank has an impatient 'queue' of 'person' objects" etc ... however Java, like C/C++ have really really shitty compile time error messages that make figuring out where you went wrong (for a newbie) really difficult and frustrating. It just requires some perseverance.
Perhaps there is a market for an IDE that can provide varying levels of difficulty (accessibility?) to a language. Master one level and you get access to a 'higher' level of complexity ... combined with tutorials or in a game context, this could turn out to be more enjoyable for a beginner than being presented with a vast api. ;)
Of course the winner is the one who throws it away and dives into the language
Southpark is done using 3D animation ever since the second season I think and still looks remarkably 2d ...
~ LSH
But if the designer gets the tickle to make your browsing experience something of a movie and not provide a (point for point) site map alternative ~ your screwed and theyve screwed themselves.
I browse with plug-ins off personally, flash ads are a pet hate.
*hugs Opera*
~ LSH
I made my own. Sort of ...
If your a developer (maybe even if your not ..) lastRss offers a single class that retrieves and parses all the various RSS standards and is relatively quick too.
I expanded on an example provided on their website, Id link to it by my host is (still) down :(
As soon as Opera/Firefox/Thunderbird can provide more options for their current usenet/rss features, I wont need to keep looking for seperate programs ...
fnord
CSS Zen Garden
Gothica
HoriZental
Self Growth
Some beautiful design using 100% web standard markup/code. Support web standards!
~ LSH
http://www.csszengarden.com/ http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=027%2F027%2Ec ss
http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=048%2F048%2Ec ss
http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=053%2F053%2Ec ss
Some beautiful design using 100% web standard markup/code. Support web standards!
~ LSH
My two cents as a geek and (traditional) artist ...
As soon as 'abstract' and 'art' are mentioned, everything, for most everyone, gets muddy.
Abstract, in art generally, can mean:
an abstracted concept/theme/meaning
an abstracted representation
and the formal natural of the work
For that reason we generally stayed away from that (and other) ambiguous terms. It was either 'figurative', which was anything drawn from a model (a model being any object including a naked person) or 'non-figurative', which was a work with absolutley no representation of any model, the emphasis being entirely on the formal nature of the work.
So there are degrees of representation, and abstraction is another thing altogether.
This may help clear up that Minimalism stuff ~ Minimalism was an art movement with an emphasis on formal properties (the objective nature of a work) and simplicity.
Miranda IM requires a MSN plugin upgrade to v.8 if you havent done so already. :)
cheers
Trial and error. Depends why you are taking the photos. Photography is still an art.
I did. Im a Robot Vampire, created by extremist Argentinian environmentalists that foresaw the need to control the number of cattle, lest they eat all of their fodder and starve themselves. I use an array of surgical tools, of which are in place of my arms. These tools are far beyond the known scope of human science. These dangerously hot and pointy tools are used to remove tissues with a high density of nerves so that I may graft them to my metallic facade in order to pass for human one day and drink from the fount of human life, and not have to feed from bovine blood (which is of course processed and used by by my bio-mechanic innards). Scavengers wont touch my leftovers because of the keen and smelly scent I leave behind, untraceble by humans and their petty, near useless senses. ...
Aliens are more interested in probing, silly.
With all of that probing, who has time for messy endeavours such as analysing what robot vampires eat for dinner?