Assailed by critics, Twitter pointed out that the new policy puts it ahead ahead of competitors which removes postings without disclosure. Defenders also pointed out the company's proven record of defending users' rights and standing up to legal pressure.
All this distracts us, however, from a simple fact: Twitter currently performs no political censorship at all and has never once removed a tweet at the request of a foreign government. The false choice between degrees of political censorship belies Twitter's third option, of continuing its censorship-free tradition instead of playing with political fire abroad.
Shan sez, "Our guide/map of SF is printed on a single sheet of A3 Tyvek, and is then folded up according to a technique originally developed at Tokyo University for satellite solar panels. The bistable nature of the fold means that it can be fully opened or closed in one smooth motion, and that there is no way to fold it 'wrong.'
The places we included are a mix of overlooked gems, classic restaurants, and other things like hidden parks, games played across the city, and interesting shops and markets.
We just launched our project on Kickstarter yesterday evening, and as of today we're almost 10% funded!"
Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
According to Survival Research Laboratories founder Mark Pauline, the pioneering machine performance group has been banned from staging their provocative, brilliant, and awesome spectacles in San Francisco. What a damned shame. From SRL.org, where you can read Mark's entire statement:
SRL was recently banned from performing in San Francisco by the SF fire dept. In December 2011, Somarts, a local gallery venue,/arts support organization in the city asked SRL to participate in I am Crime, a show of artists who had been arrested for activities related to their work. The SRL participation was to have included an installation of one machine, the Spine Robot in the gallery and a one day street closure of Brannan Street between 8th and 9th for a short outdoor SRL event at the closing of the installation. The city of SF approved the street closure, but the SFFD, citing an SRL show from 1989 (video evidence above), Illusions of Shameless Abundance stated that SRL would no longer be allowed to perform in San Francisco. This resulted in the outdoor show being called off by Somarts...
[Video Link] Mike Haeg made this "Marcel Duchamp Inspired Ice Fishing Tip Up / Auto Jigger." He says, "this auto-jigger harnesses the power of the wind. A silver dinner bell rings when a fish bites. Perfect for catching panfish and Dadaists." It debuted this week at Art Shanty Projects.
Prosecutors in China cited a poem and messages sent on Skype in the trial of dissident Zhu Yufu. The 60-year-old man is charged with "inciting subversion of state power." The poem in question is titled, "It's Time." Zhu's attorney says there's no indication Skype helped police collect evidence. More: Guardian UK. — Xeni
pony H 54" L 49" W 27" is a kinetic sculpture that is reminiscent of one of Paolo Bacigalupi's more disturbing stories, somehow sexual and biomorphic at once. Do you know who made it and where it was exhibited? Please leave a comment.
From Mother Jones: In 1995, "[Newt] Gingrich warned of a horror scenario in which Saddam Hussein trained a hacker army to cause civil unrest by issuing 500,000 American Express cards and then charging absurd fees." — Xeni
Dave King was born in London not long after the Second World War, when there was still food and clothing rationing and children played in mysterious and hazardous bomb sites, between rows of bland and un- damaged terraced or semi-detached houses. It was a grey world which didn't see much colour until the economy finally improved in the Sixties, which were nothing if not colourful. To avoid a job as a bank clerk, King went to Art School (where he met Penny Rimbaud and Gee Vaucher, later of Crass.) For the next ten years he worked as a graphic designer and art director before "retiring" to the communal house that eventually became home to the band. He then moved to New York and fell happily into the Downtown music scene of the late Seventies, joining the band Arsenal. He did illustrations for the Museum of Modern Art and the logo for downtown club Danceteria as well as graphics for many bands. His band then moved to San Francisco in the early Eighties (a very interesting time in the California punk scene), becoming Sleeping Dogs, which appeared (as did Arsenal) on Crass Records. Today Dave King still lives in San Francisco, still designs logos and works on his own graphic, photographic and film projects.
The very first appearance of Dave King's Crass symbol on Penny's Rimbaud's zine, "Christ's Reality Asylum."
In 1977, in an old farmhouse in the wilds of Essex in Britain, I designed a logo for my friend Penny Rimbaud's impassioned manifesto, Christ's Reality Asylum. A heartfelt rant against as many of life's inequalities as would fit into ten pages of a homemade zine. The text was printed direct from typewriter to the page on a prehistoric copy machine and the logo was hand stenciled onto the grey cardboard covers. From the beginning, the logo was designed to be easily stenciled, a quality that would become very valuable later on. Its basic elements were a cross and a diagonal, negating serpent, formed into a circle, like a Japanese family crest.
Fast forward a few months and the soon to be infamous punk band Crass, is forming in that same damp but fertile farmhouse. Some of the ideas and certainly the righteous anger find their way from the zine into songs that the band members developed. The logo was also adopted by the band.
In the intervening thirty five years, Crass' influence spread around the world and took with it what became known as the Crass Symbol, a signifier of both the band and a demanding, counter-cultural questioning of authority of all kinds.
As new generations discover the band and its still relevant critiques, the symbol has been emblazoned on school bags and clothing and tattooed on bodies. Many "homages" have been made over the years, some the enjoyable work of genuine fans, others just blatant, barely altered rip-offs.
Consider the current case of London fashion house Hardware. Taking the original symbol, wrapping it with a chain and adding their name, they then copyrighted the symbol to use on clothing they say is "chic, glam and borderline trashy". They may have crossed that border with their "Whorewear" line.
I wonder what Crass fans around the world (wide web) think of this situation?
It seems ironic that chains have been added to the logo of a band whose abiding hope has been for the breaking of society's restraints.
And what happens to the counter-culture, now that everything can be appropriated and sold back to a world hungry for authenticity?
This 17-minute mini-documentary introduces Michael Garnier, proprietor of the Out'n'About Treehouse Resort in Oregon. Garnier is a thoughtful and salty woodcrafter who's put a lot of thought into the right way to build a treetop B&B, and his guided tour of his little hotel with its Ewok-style treehouses is a delight.
Over the years, Garnier has become legend in his industry and helped invent a better way to build a treehouse. Instead of bolting wood to wood (i.e. beams to the tree), Garnier and his colleagues at the World Treehouse Conference (an event he used to host) developed a way to attach steel bolts and cuffs to the tree.
Dubbed the Garnier Limb (or G.L.), this open source design can support 8,000 pounds. Garnier sells GLs of all different types as well as plans to build your own treehouse. His DIY treehouses are for 12 foot trees ($150) and he sells about 30 or 40 plans per year.
From her 2010 campaign website: "Since I am pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood."
Regarding state funds for the women's health clinics which she acknowledged were used for "breast and cervical cancer screening," she said while campaigning, "I’ll eliminate them as your next Governor."
Lame, lame, lame, lame. Cancer doesn't care if you're pro-choice or not.
The founder and chair of @komenforthecure is Nancy Brinker. Email: nbrinker@komen.org.
PHOTO: A crucifix is held aloft during the "March for Life" in Washington January 23, 2012. Nearly 100,000 protesters marched to the U.S. Supreme Court to mark the 39th anniversary of the Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision on abortion. (REUTERS)
A video for "I Fink U Freeky," from Die Antwoord's new release "TEN$ION." Co-directed by the band and Johannesburg, South Africa-based photographer Roger Ballen (the first of what I hope may be many more collaborations between them).
Thingiverse user Brian Beebe has contributed this great design for an electrified wire-stripper that uses an LED to tell you the instant the razor-blades have penetrated the insulation, completing the circuit that lights it up.
Use: *
Sight down the blades. *
Align the blades with where the wire should be stripped. *
Move the wire into the blades having the blades cut into the insulation. *
When the blades cut through the insulation and contact the wire the LED will light. *
Spin the wire or the tool to cut the insulation completely around the wire. *
Remove the wire from the tool and pull off the insulation.
When Kraft introduced Oreos to China in 1996, it was only moderately successful. They revisited the cookie with a lot of market research and came up with a bunch of different chapes, fillings, colors and recipes, eventually choosing several, providing that they preserved the "Oreo experience" of twisting the cookie apart, licking the frosting and dunking it. They sold it with "emotional advertising" in which children showed their parents the "American way" of eating Oreos and the cookies became a success.
They started to ask other provocative questions.
Why does an Oreo have to be black and white? Davis sent us an Oreo with green tea filling. Another had a bright orange center divided between mango and orange flavor.
And why should an Oreo be round? They developed Oreos shaped like straws. In China, you can buy a long rectangular Oreo wafer, the length of your index finger.
Impossible to twist apart, but Davis points out that it makes it easier to dunk in milk.
Use: