This is clearly not my cat. If this was my cat he's have one arm shoved down into the printer trying to tear up all the internal whirling bits with his bare claws.
- Soup in a TARDIS
Too Funny! Reminds me of the San Mateo Cat Shelter where one of the cats loves to sleep on top of the laster printer where the paper comes out...
- Greg Lato
1600+ to beat the FFundercats live chat thread. I think with this real time now on all threads we're going to see some truly epic comment numbers.
- Simon Wicks
Ivan, no the picture speaks for itself. ;-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Petr, I have no idea what you mean, but thank you. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
@Kol .. :] that, partially, might have been the purpose.... I don't know it exactly either. :] .. was I reflecting on a cat under the fax, and that it is hard to fax that way ... /?:] ... "underfaxing at its worst" ..
- pb:
there ya have me ! :] .... see, to be honest with you, i saw this pic couple days ago, but i let it go, without posting it ..... what does that make me? :]
- pb:
even a flat cat... faxes just can't handle the hair. You'd have to shave the cat first, else the hair will burn and stick to the drum... a mess! (I am extrapolating from transparencies, mind, i don't have access to a cat to test)
- Iphigenie
Hehe, Joelle. This is now tied for the 'likes' top stop. One more then, hehe. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Hehe, Greg. Blimey! Erm, is that not far from 500 likes now? ;-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Bloody marvelous, Kol. Wish I could like it again... too cute (and help u to 500 likes).
- Roberto Bonini
I couldn't believe it when I logged on from the morning over posting it and saw it was at something 200 likes! You all have a strange fetish with cats and fax machines, hehe. ;-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Am I the only one who saw this and their first thought was - My goodness did someone break that cats neck? It still freaks me out a little
- SteVe C
Steve, it does look a little out of place, but cats are pretty bendy. ;-)
- Kol Tregaskes
They fax much better if you flatten them first. What?
- The original Kevin
So we can put this post to rest now. :-) 505 likes final count, wow! :-D Good night all!
- Kol Tregaskes
did 3 people really un-like this? now at 506. wtf (edit: uh, oh, yeah, me and 2 + 506 others makes 509. dammit, jim, i'm an artist, not a mathematician)
- ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ
One of the best funny cat pictures I've seen! :-)
- John Collis
Kristian, it appears to be. Hehe, John.
- Kol Tregaskes
ای بابا این پیشول بی خیال نمی شود، بابا پاشو برو دنبال یه بازی دیگه ، از هفته پیش تا حالا تو فکس ولو شدی حوصله ات سر نرفته، پاشو اقلا بپر رو کیبوردی چیزی
- Maryaminaa
It's really only social convention which regards it as inappropriate, same with Xeroxing it, like one does with their b__tocks. Wait are we still talking about cats cats here or...
- The Real sofarsoShawn
OMGosh 700+ likes now!! LOL. Thank you all 702 of you. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
I'm sorry but this is unbelievable:) I'll give credit to the artist upon more convincing proof! The photogenic look of the tiger and lion really helps the artist's case though:)
- Roney Smith
I'm with Roney... I find this hard to believe... or maybe I'm just jealous that I can't even get stick people right!
- Jasmin Smith
I'm really happy everyone liked these. They're my most liked entry to date, Thanks! There also seems to be some question about whether these are actually Pencil Drawings.I can assure you that they are.When I get home, I should have the links. I have more drawings, too.
- Michael Fidler
from fftogo
Thanks Enrique, I'll post some more soon. They are a little more obvious than these ones. As Luke points out; without being able to look closely it's impossible to tell. He's right; but up close it's more obvious. I'll upload the originals to Picasa later, and then you'll be able to zoom in with any photo viewer and see for yourselves. I can't believe how many people liked these. A few people have reposted them already. Thanks!
- Michael Fidler
Absolutely awesome, Michael. You are extremely talented. Everyone should repost these pix and help to make you famous. You should be doing this full time - you obviously have some passion for this. Bravo.
- Chris Loft
These are really beautiful, Michael. Do you sell them?
- Shannon Jiménez
Chris, I would love to say they're mine, but it's not true. I've had them for a while, but I'll find the artists names. It will just require a little backtracking. Besides, they deserve the credit; all I did was find them:-)
- Michael Fidler
Cut the bullshit! :) Photos are very good.
- Burçak Çubukçu
I draw alot in pencil, but they are amazing, the best for me is the girl, that is the most photo-like one. :o)
- Rob Sellen :o)
I agree Rob, the girl is amazing. My favorite by far! Wait until you see it close up! It's really had to tell, even up close!
- Michael Fidler
Burçak Çubukçu If these were photographs, they would be very good. As Pencil Drawings,(which they are), they're amazing.
- Michael Fidler
@Burçak Çubukçu I can't tell if your serious now or just kidding around. I hope your just having fun! If you are serious, I've never given you a reason to question my integrity, nor do I ever intend to. However, the second set is up now, so judge them for yourself, but don't judge me! http://ff.im/1BJh5 BTW, I messed up and reposted the shot of the women again. Oh well. Hope you like them:-)
- Michael Fidler
@Michael: try deviantART, not Picasa, to submit your artworks
- LouCypher
LouCypher, I know it well, but I don't see why I would want to do that. I hope everyone knows by now that they're not mine? I'm sorry, but I can't say it any clearer than that.
- Michael Fidler
nah, i don't believe it is done in pencil. i am sure it is photoshopped :)
- hasin hayder
I'm finding this both interesting and humorous at the same time. There's a separate message board where this post is being discussed and it has another forty comments on it already. I think its great how this has created some lively discussion, considering that when I posted this I was doubtful if anyone would even like it. When I went to sleep last night there was only had 3 or 4 likes...
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- Michael Fidler
Very interesting. I would like to see them up close and in person...just to make sure. Bill said it's real and possible. Your 2nd set of picts look like pencil. Nice work in finding these!
- LaFern Cusack
Kol, I can't thank you enough! Kol found another post which helps to prove that these are done in pencil. I had my doubts about a few of them because I collected them from several different sites over time, but the site Kol found has done a great job pulling together an impressive collection of these drawings and more. Take a look - http://www.flickzzz.com/2009...
- Michael Fidler
Actually there are more than what this site shows. There's an entire set with the cats(little cats), which I have, and there's a new portrait set.
- Michael Fidler
Found your post here, Michael. :-) I tried my best to find the artists.
- Kol Tregaskes
Amazing and very very very good.... Very impressive ...
- Linda Zeek-Bobinski
Yeah we know, thanks though, James. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Excellent pictures - how long did it take you to scan the photographs into Photoshop and then edit them? The only pencil that has come into contact with these "drawings" is the Photoshop pencil. A tip - stop trying to fool people into thinking you are a "real" artist, because all you are doing is cheapening proper artist's works whom have spent hours creating real pictures as opposed to a few minutes on a graphics editing package.
- The Wimp
A bell does ring here. And I am remembering why I was so attracted to the tiger...and the lion for that matter. These are exact replicas of prints I had in our bedroom when I lived in Dallas. I had bought the prints (in color) at a department store,
- Melanie Reed
Actually, I have learned quite a bit about these drawing since I made this post. Not only have I discovered all of the artists, but I've learned more about how they are created. They are always copied from a photograph or painting, but usually a photograph. It is extremely time consuming and detail orientated work. There are many other artists besides the ones featured here who practice...
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- Michael Fidler
Most of them have portfolio's on deviantart.com and their work is truly amazing even if they are copies of other artists work. I suppose with this level of detail, they have to start with something. Nevertheless, I'm still in awe of their talent. Melanie, the animal prints you refer to are from a very well renowned photographer. The originals are B&W I'll look it up later but I do have...
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- Michael Fidler
Has anyone ever corrected the record and pointed out, with the exception of the Charlize Theron drawing, that these are indeed photos by Alexander Von Reiswitz?
- erik weisz
Erik, thank you for bringing this up again, but I think I already mentioned something about this in my prior comment. However, since it appears that you only signed up to friendfeed to leave a single comment, (ok, why?) I will try to summarize what I wrote previously. In brief, I learned after doing a little research that all photo-realistic drawings like the ones that I shared here,...
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- Michael Fidler
I can assure you that what are claimed to be drawings of animals, in your post here, are photos. I used a website to that allows you to do an comparison of the Von Reiswitz photos and the images you have posted here. There are no differences. Every hair matches up. As a pencil artist myself I can tell you that it's pretty much impossible to get that kind of accuracy and have it look...
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- erik weisz
but... it has to be real, i saw it on the internet
- Iphigenie
Eric, it doesn't matter to me if you just joined, and I apologize if I made you think otherwise. If you have any questions regarding friendfeed, please feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer them. At this point, I would be happy if we could find someone who is an image analysis expert, and finally point this thing to rest. Every time that I look into this, all I find is a...
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- Michael Fidler
the site spammed above must all be done in pencil too, right, thats why you posted it?
- Iphigenie
I'm amazed that people are still posting these photographs of animals and calling them pencil drawings. This is at least the third case I can remember (and there are probably more) of this happening. The myth about them being drawings was debunked long ago. It's also funny that whenever they get posted the person posting them doesn't make it clear that they aren't the artist, exactly as you have done.
- canadianmaple09
@canadianmaple09 I posted these back in March, 2009 when I was beginning to use FF regularly. I ran them through TinEye hoping to find their source, but it returned no results. When I ran through again yesterday, TinEye returned over four pages of results. If I had it to do over again, would I? Yes
- Michael Fidler
The people you refer do don't join "just to slam" someone, they are concerned members of the online art community that want to see real art appreciated and fake art or photos being passed off as drawings revealed for what they really are. Artists such as Brian Duey, Armin Mersmann, Paul Lung, Zindy Nielsen,and many others do not receive the appreciation they deserve because of scams like this.
- canadianmaple09
canadianmaple09, the worthiness of your motives notwithstanding (and they are worthy, definitely) you could definitely have approached Michael completely differently by say, giving him the benefit of the doubt rather than attacking in a highly accusatory tone.
- Chieze Okoye
When you've seen these same pictures posted multiple times by people that just find them on the internet and claim they are pencil drawings, when it has already been established on multiple occasions that they are not, the "benefit of the doubt" approach seems a little too generous. People post these images and claim they're drawings to get views for their own site or blog or page or whatever it is they post it on. It's wrong and it needs to be stopped.
- canadianmaple09
I can understand that, but you should also keep in mind that everyone is not as well-versed in the issue as you are. All I'm saying is that you would probably be more effective in this case if you weren't setting this up as a us-vs.-them, "must destroy with the validity my argument!" attitude when talking to a guy who's been actively having a discussion on the issue in what seems to me (having been around when he first posted the images and the follow up thread and what not) to be good faith.
- Chieze Okoye
Look at his first comment here. People clearly thought he drew them. He doesn't set the record straight. He also claims that they "are actually pencil drawings" and that "I have more drawings too." Later he claims that you need to look at them closer to see they are drawings and that he will "post the originals". Once again, this makes it sound like they are his. This follows the same...
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- canadianmaple09
Greg and Chieze, thanks for your support. I really appreciate it. @canadianmaoles09, for what it’s worth, I share your concerns about giving proper attribution when sharing also. However, I admit that I'm more conscious of it now than I was at the time of this post. Nevertheless, I have never taken credit for anybody's work here other than my own!
- Michael Fidler
BTW, I didn't realize it before, but I just noticed that you're new here too. I hope you like it so far and spend more time here. IMO, friendfeed is still the best thing around!
- Michael Fidler
I would probably qualify as an image analysis expert, but there's no way to prove that online. One thing we can do is look at color. Even though the images are black and white,they're actually RGB images, meaning they contain cyan magenta and yellow. If you look at the image of the rhino you have posted then look at the photo of the rhino at the photographer's site you can see they both...
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- erik weisz
If you're banking on Google to recover your car after a grand thief auto, you might want to try other resources. Bing?
- Micah
Me and my family just picked ourselves up off the floor and dried our eyes after ROFL'ing profusely at this...
- Rah-PM 2012
LOL! <sarcasm>I am going to go talk to the Race Czar's about this immediately!</sarcasm>
- EricaJoy
if you search for "blakc peolpestole my car" you can see the same result.. just change for the correct one and take a print screen... hahaha this is hell funny
- Rafael
huh...I tried both and neither gave a 'did you mean....' Why the difference?
- George Gray
George, this was from earlier. I think it's probably been fixed by now.
- Thomas Hawk
I can't reproduce the results either. Even more proof that Google's damage control department works real f-a-s-t
- BLOGBloke
I can reproduce these results (as it's fake). 1 - Do a google search for 'balck people stole my car' 2 - when the results come back, in the search box type 'white people stole my car'. 3 - Screenshot and fool everyone.
- Will Higgins™
Thomas...ah...I was catching up on my feed and didn't notice when the message posted. Still, I have noticed different results when using Google from: the browser search bar, going right to google.com and when logged into google via iGoogle. Weird.
- George Gray
This reminds me of how commercials for home alarm systems always feature white criminals.
- Akiva
Dude, you win 1000 times over for use of the word 'colored'. I'm about as far from a racist as you can get but that shit cracks me up every time.
- Akiva
i think that google isnt racist, but people that use it yes..infact google shows firstly the most popular results.....this is my opinion..and please apologize me formy english..i'm italian!w La pizza!
- Lyssa
Parfe hemen açıklayayım a- hah iki öbekli bir kelime "a" bir şaşırma veriyor hah ise şaşırmadan sonra gülme efekti. Çok şaşırtıcı aynı zamanda hoş, komik anlamında yani:P o hah uzarsa ahahaha gibi şaşırdım ama çok komik oluyor :)
- Damat Ferit
Wonderful Louis! I just marvel that unlike mine when they were that age, they didn't just throw them!
- Technogran
Love Matthew's demonstration of the keyboard. Sarah is starting to look like, "there was a little girl, who had a little curl ..."
- Laura Norvig
Audrey practically has a conniption fit when she sees the iPad. She gets a big kick out of moving screens around and scrolling with her finger. I'm half-tempted to find some kind of simple game with animals or something for her but I also don't want to establish the idea that it's okay for her to play with it. I keep telling her, 'Not for Audrey,' and she's scrambling over me like I'm a rainbow with banana slices at the other end, pointing at the iPad and saying, 'This! This! This! This! This!'
- Akiva
Oh look, these two little guys found large, square Easter Eggs.. :)
- Alex Schleber
Nice description Akiva. I remember that with the iphone and my daughter. Not sure how long you can hold her off. My daughter has had her own page on my iphone since before she was 2! Scared to see what it'll be like when she wants to borrow my truck...
- metalerik
That welcome ad would be a lot nicer if it sent the next page as a URL param instead of sending you to the homepage.
- Matt M (inactive)
I can't believe they started putting that in, but the only thing worse than an interstitial ad is a broken one. It took 3 refreshes to get rid of it before.
- Mark Trapp
Last night I couldn't get that ad to disappear at all
- Mo Kargas
There is an XXX section on dupedb.com, but it only contains brief descriptions of adult content.
- Vezquex
sincerely doubt office will become obsolete - If I was running a company, I sure as hell wouldn't store essential corporate data in gdocs. They'd be on my own network, where I can control them with an extranet and/or VPN to provide external access to them. However, this doesn't mean the app itself has to be local, I'll agree there as long as the data can remain out of the hands of the provider.
- alphaxion
This is one of those times I realioze that bloggers have quotas
- Holden Page
aye, it is still essential software for companies - tho open office is providing an ever growing threat, it's just not there yet. The issue is, most bloggers like these have no damn clue about the corporate world and either write about their own experience or about the consumer - blissfully unaware as to how a massive chunk of the market functions.
- alphaxion
I'm a big OpenOffice fan - have been for a number of years. I live in MS country but I don't live by MS rules.
- Renee Hendricks
Can't stand open office, the UI is way behind and Office is much more polished. Will pay for Office willingly
- Holden Page
also, most of my IT peers refused to roll out office 2007 because the test users they tried it with were totally baffled by the interface and actually saw their productivity drop. And holden, that's why I said it wasn't there yet. I use office 2007 on my windows desktop and openoffice on my mac... the gulf between the two was quite stark. I especially noticed it had a massive problem with URL's in the text.
- alphaxion
I know my school is going to have quite an issue upgrading to 2010 office since the UI is so much different. IMO though (and i have nothing but personal experience to back this up) once you get used to the UI things just start to "click" in 2007.
- Holden Page
oh, and the company I used to work for had about 10Gb worth of excel documents alone spanning almost 10 years.
- alphaxion
I know. And this was a small to mid sized company. Imagine that across an entire market and you'll realise why many companies like to stick with in-house stuff. It's not cause IT staff are trying to safeguard their jobs, it's cause self determination of your data is abolutely key in the enterprise. Also, as a side comment, try applying for a job outside of the creative industry with a...
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- alphaxion
GDocs and Open Office can not yet replace Office. It's hard to compete with Excel. Word on the other hand isn't really needed unless you're doing lengthy well-organized documents and taking full advantage of many of its features. The problems comes in that most people that use Office just needed Wordpad or something similar. I do love GDocs, but it's only about a 75% replacement.
- xero
Office is alive and well and is the only app suite on my "Cloud Machine". :)
- Louis Gray
Loooooooooooooooooooong tail.
- Johnny
from iPhone
Somebody somewhere is always predicting the obsolescence or death of Microsoft something or other. It's just a way to make a living.
- Brian Sullivan
Anyone document intensive who has tried to use Google Docs as an alternative will tell you that the alternatives to Office are so bad that even Microsoft can't destroy Office. I wish it were different, but it isn't.
- Kent
As long as business uses temporary workers, there will be Office. Nobody wants to have to train people to use something else.
- Dawn
dawn: it's not even restricted to temps, from my experience it's full time staff too. Even tho most jobs will still say "working knowledge of word and excell a must", many do not even have this. I lost count the numbers of times we had calls to the helldesk where a user had changed the formatting of their document and didn't know how to change it back or wanted to do a simple formula in...
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- alphaxion
I went on a business startup course last year, they were talking about managing your business finances and I knocked up a spreadsheet version of the example sheet we had within about 20 mins on my mac with openoffice. The others looked at me as though they were homohabilis and I just showed them a radio!
- alphaxion
On the advantages and disadvantages of having a messy desk authentic treaties have been written, some of whom argue that chaos can be more productive than an order too strict. However, nothing like the quote attributed to Einstein himself supposed to put things in place: “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, then what are we to think of an empty desk?”
- zeroinfluencer
from Bookmarklet
Is an empty desk necessarily the opposite of a messy desk? What about an impecably furnished and formidably organised desk... and what of that mind?
- Graham Sergeant
I find it interesting that we always subject Einstein to these kinds of things. I am working on my #adhd photographic series. But maybe I should properly document them in black and white so it's less scary :) http://www.flickr.com/photos...
- See-ming Lee 李思明 SML
Einstein is the ipso facto icon of genius but like any scientist he was just another obsolete stepping stone in the chain to the next thing.
- Graham Sergeant
While they are of course deeply embedded and indebted to scientific work going back to Aristotle, leaps made by Einstein while formalising special relativity, wave particle duality and general relativity make him more than a mere stepping stone and far from obsolete. Work to understand the ramifications of his theories continues to this day. His desk is still a bit of a mess :)
- James Tindall
Is Einstein's work problematic for us? It paved the way for Quantum Mechanics, whose inherent indeterminism was unacceptable for him. The point of looking at previous paradigm shifts is to show that science, taken as the great totem of objective proof is actually a subjective prism with limited use and lifespan.
- Graham Sergeant
I agree with you completely about the process of science. I feel like a bit of a pedant now, but I don't see that Einstein's theories are obsolete. Some of his ideas paved the way for Quantum Mechanics but that doesn't leave his ideas -particularly General Relativity- superseded. Neither QM or GR are the final answer and both are incomplete. A unified theory will by definition involve...
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- James Tindall
At some point they will pass their usefullness as new paradigms are constructed. There's no doubting the beauty and complexity of his theories and they could be around for millenia, but what I'm getting at is the rhetorical absolutism with which EInstein is used as the default objective proof positive of genius and if he had a messy desk at Princeton... then it's case closed, beyond...
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- Graham Sergeant
Aha, yes, completely with you there. Good point. Einstein could very well be used to replace Nazis in Godwin's law!
- James Tindall
So, to follow the logic, and the spirit of the thread, Hitler was "just another obsolete stepping stone in the chain to the next thing: ? :)
- zeroinfluencer
Ladies and Gentleman... here endeth the thread ;-) (fecker)
- Graham Sergeant
I imagine he had "an impeccably furnished and formidably organised desk..."
- zeroinfluencer
I hear he was holed up in Berlin as his dream of world domination went up in smoke...
- Graham Sergeant
A combo box is a combination of a text box and a drop-down box. You can use it to select an item from a list or type in your own value. Auto-complete boxes are often implemented with these.
- Gabe
I hope all browsers supports it soon
- Ahmed Magdy
Somebody posted this yesterday. I already changed OurDoings registration to use type="email", and I used type="url" a couple places on the site integration page.
- Bruce Lewis
Standard makers seem to always try put the features into HTML. Website makers seem to always try to put the features into JavaScript/ CSS. And not just because of the chicken and egg problem of browsers not yet supporting the element, but also perhaps because UI needs are too specific to define in advance (as soon as you want additional feature X from the UI element -- say, a Calendar...
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- Philipp Lenssen
Well, it's best if a browser knows what is supposed to go into an input area (so it can natively validate it and whatnot) and if it can be styled (so the website author can choose how it looks). To accomplish that it's not an either/or choice, Philipp.
- James Robinson
Well if e.g. the date differentiates between busy and free dates for your AcmeCalendar picker, then the browser would not be able to natively validate the input (unless one could provide a standardized Ajax API URL to the widget handling this stuff?), or would it? So you'd be back to your own JS. Agreed it's not an either-or situation -- one could use the native elements as long as they...
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- Philipp Lenssen
"Outside Egypt's capital, in the shadow of the Pyramids and tucked in the mountains of Mokattam, is an incredible city that literally survives on trash. Garbage City, as it's known, is home to 30,000 Zabaleens-- Coptic Christians from southern Egypt --who, each day, enter Cairo and collect its waste. 60 percent of the trash produced in Cairo passes through Garbage City to be recycled. It is an amazing sight, awash in refuse. Recently, photographers Bas Princen, Klavs Bo Christensen and Alexander Heilner visited Garbage City and returned with some captivating images that depict the close, day-to-day relationship between the Zabaleens and the garbage. Piles of the stuff are virtually everywhere, a fact that these recyclers-by-trade seem none too concerned with. The garbage collecting process is so organized, Cairo has had no need to create a government sponsored program, relying fully upon the residents of Garbage City to collect their trash. Just a single pair of Zabaleens, working...
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- Jason Wehmhoener
from Bookmarklet
I actually found that "feature" a few months ago and was going to use it to make a fun friendfeed toy. Friendfeed's future being uncertain has that project in limbo at the moment (may still do it).
- mikepk
Mike, yeah - if they're going to keep it there are some cool uses for it, but my guess is they probably don't want to keep it. Thought I'd bring it into the open regardless just to see what the official word actually is (and maybe finally get rid of that pesky Tweetmeme button that keeps appearing in my posts)
- Jesse Stay
Feature. Tweetmeme's image is no more out of place here than it is on your blog.
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
maybe I should slap the toy together before they close it. :) I think people on friendfeed would enjoy what I'm thinking about building (those that are left :) ).
- mikepk
Like Tweetmeme, Bruce is trying to inflate his increment count ;) EDIT: oh, Bruce deleted the dup - fun is over :)
- Micah
I did that, but I was heading vertical, school had a vaulted ceiling and I went running, stepped on a chair right were it dropped, on impact both shoes fell off, one hit a guy in the face.
- Jimminy, CoG of FF
wonder if that kid had aspirations of being a stunt guy... "dignity, always with dignity" ;)
- alphaxion
If I weren't afraid of going right through the wall, I'd probably still try that. I know I would have done that (and did similar things quite often) when I was much younger.
- Curdy G
This is still superb this morning after. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Defining the line between brave and stupid?
- Eoghann Irving
If I did that, first the wall would collapse, and then the floor. (So, you see, it's not that I *couldn't*... I just choose not to, for the protection of others.)
- Mark J
You're right. I don't have the guts...and I'm proud of that.
- Tammy Marshall
Hurl makes HTTP requests. Enter a URL, set some headers, view the response, then share it with others. Perfect for demoing and debugging APIs. [via Leah Culver http://blog.leahculver.com/2009...]
- LouCypher
from Bookmarklet
"The data supports the notion that younger people are more supportive of gay marriage than older people. I also think it’s interesting that, even in states that we normally consider quite hostile to gay rights (the ones at the bottom of the table), there is still a significant age difference: 18-29 year-olds in Alabama, for example, are more supportive of gay marriage than people 65 and older in Massachusetts. So, while we like to think about states as “liberal” or “conservative,” spreading out the data by age tells a much more complicated story."
- Jim Norris
from Bookmarklet
Waiting a "generation or two" isn't going to do a whole lot for the gay community now. This is particularly true for elderly gay and lesbian individuals who are facing mortality and unable to secure inheritances etc for their partners.
- Soup in a TARDIS
My guess is that open-mindedness comes with actually knowing people who are gay/lesbian/etc. and realizing that it's an inescapable part of who they are and just a different manifestation of the same powerful feelings of love and commitment that everyone feels. It also probably has to do with marriage being defined as a romantic notion these days rather than a more economic and social framework in the past. As evidence for this, I have nothing.
- Jim Norris
And I may not be the strongest gay-marriage supporter out there by any means... I mean, I'm ok with it and think it should be allowed, but only as long as I don't have to get gay married myself.
- Jim Norris
Ah, so Jim, you support "weak" gay marriage, not "strong" gay marriage.
- Stephen Mack
Interesting. So even if attitudes by age remain constant, in 20 years, the 18 states from Pennsylvania up will be strongly pro gay-marriage, but the 22 states from Wyoming on down will remain opposed, even 40 years hence.
- j1m
And of course, the prediction is that attitudes by age will be far from remaining constant. Indeed attitudes toward gays seem to have made almost all of their progress in the last 15 years, afaict.
- j1m
So are you guys for or against censorship from Apple? I can't justify *not* making a book available to people. And seriously "swach sticker?"
- Dustin Sallings
Maxamad, I totally agree an inconsistent censorship policy is bad. Any censorship policy is bad. Banning books -- even those nobody agrees with is bad. That's the irony here: http://wiki.answers.com/Q...
- Dustin Sallings
NO way! can we boycott that app?! damn Apples is messed up!!
- Susan Beebe
Susanbeebe, absolutely! Don't buy it, don't publicize it (this thread probably sold more copies than would've otherwise been sold). Don't make it sound like super-powerful forbidden knowledge that will give someone power that everyone else should fear because the reader will magically transform into the next Hitler and kill us all. Most importantly, let's not encourage organizations to hide information from us that some of us disagree with.
- Dustin Sallings
I suppose preventing gays from marrying helps Americans feel less bad about their failing marriages. Or something...
- Jonathan Hardesty
Americans? which ones? certainly not me. my marriage is pretty healthy and i don't understand why two people who love each other can't marry, whatever their respective genders.
- Joe The Sausage
"But gays already have the right to marry, just not someone of the same sex."
- Jim Norris
Jim: just change "gays" to "negroes" and "same sex" to "different race" and I wonder how many people, today, would vote the same way?
- Bren
discrimination is discrimination, and the people who vote against gay marriage and gay rights are bigots. it's really quite simple.
- Bren
I think some people just believe that without rules to enforce a certain kind of conduct in society, everything will devolve into chaos and decadence.
- Jim Norris
"certain kind of conduct"? what does that mean, Jim? that gay people are misbehaving? that they are somehow outside of the bounds of polite society? edit: I'll just stick with my original statement: the people who vote against gay rights and gay marriage are bigots, same as the people who have resisted civil rights for minorities throughout history.
- Bren
Bren: I personally believe that gay marriage should be legal; I'm just trying to articulate the opposing argument. If you really believe that homosexual conduct is a sin, for example, it wouldn't make sense for the state to sanction it.
- Jim Norris
Actually, Jim, in our system of governance it would not be appropriate for the state to take into account whether something was a sin to some religious group or not. No one is saying that churches would have to sanctify gay marriage if their doctrine prohibited it. I know the arguments, and they do nothing to abrogate my belief that the people who make the arguments are bigots. I...
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- Bren
Yeah it's hard to play devil's advocate with this.
- Jim Norris
The problem is that there is no rational argument against it. The only option is to use religious doctrine. I just wonder if, for example, those of the Judeo-Christian persuasion were in the minority in this country and the atheist-majority decided that religious marriage should be illegal what they would think? Then again, one of the things I have always liked least about "religious"...
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- Bren
The problem is that everyone here agrees, but obviously millions of people in the country don't, and if we can't appreciate their perspective without disparaging it we can't understand what needs to be done to win over those people and enact real change.
- Jim Norris
Funny that many of those who most violently object to gay marriage are the first to assert that they have a RIGHT to THEIR religious beliefs, to own a gun, to freedom of speech.
- Jeff P. Henderson
Hypocrisy is a necessity to the closed minded.
- Simon Curran
Jim: I can tell you what needs to be done - during the civil-rights movement in the '60s the Federal government (Supreme Court, Nat'l Guard, etc) stepped in and said "state's rights are fine, but you all are not going to continue to practice segregation and de jure discrimination based on race is no longer going to be tolerated. We, as a country, do not need to appreciate the bigoted,...
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- Bren
Jim, for many people, their closed minds and adherence to outdated or extreme religious beliefs define their perspective. I do not know of a simple way to counter either if these forces. Federal legislation as Bren pointed out, is probably one of the only ways to affect change.
- Jeff P. Henderson
devalue the legality of marriage. fine, if people want to have some ceremony in a church where their imaginary friend approves. HOWEVER - make the same legal ceremony where M/F, F/F, M/M can be partners for life and have the same rights as everyone else together in the world.
- Terry O'Fee
i'm not saying i agree, but unfortunately marriage throughout history is tied to religion. so therefore these fundies can scream bashing their work of fiction saying "it's not right!"
- Terry O'Fee
Bren, that to me is one of the strongest arguments for separating church marriage from state marriage. I support gay marriage on a personal level because I believe in love and in families, but I also believe in equal rights under state law because I don't want someone telling me that I can't have my religious marriage because my religion is no longer the dominant religion. Your religion doesn't have to recognize things equally; the government does. For the benefit of all of us.
- joey
I think that is the real problem, the concept of marriage is both linked to religion as well as to rights of partnerships. Really if there was a way that all people can have a civil ceremony that gives them the rights of partnerships then what does the religious crowd have a problem with? I could see if churches etc were forced to allow weddings of gay couples in their churches as being...
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- travispuk
I think the experience of seeing gay couples (or mixed-race couples) being married and relating to one another in real, mature relationships with mutual sacrifice and emotional support is the thing that kills the abstract arguments about the historical definition of marriage. On the one hand, there are these official marriages that may or may not involve any form of love; that may be...
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- Jim Norris
Travis, in WA state we voted on domestic partnerships rather than marriage today. The only religious people I personally know that spoke out against this (and I know several who are against marriage because of the word but are for domestic partnerships) claimed that it was the state sanctioning sin and condoning the gay lifestyle. That was the only argument I heard other than that it would lead to gay marriage.
- joey
@Bren, re the Athiest Majority comment above. The problem then is that by saying the religious marriage is outlawed, then the government is undertaking religious persecution. There are far too many 'special' exceptions for religion that make it outlandish. Example, criminals are allowed to 'confess' to a priest, but that confession cannot be used against them. WTF? Religion gets away...
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- travispuk
@Joey, the whole state sanctioning sin argument is ridiculous isn't it? It is only sin in *their* religion, funny though that sin only really exists in their religion also. Sin as opposed to morals I mean, something the church do not believe can exist outside of religion and faith.
- travispuk
Travis, I'm a person of faith, for the record. There is no one 'church' controlling anything. I have religious acquaintances ranging from evangelical Biblical literalists into prosperity theology to Mormons to Catholics to Anglicans to Lutherans (just for some Christian examples) to Jews to Muslims who all have different views on sin and morality and all interpret scripture and life...
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- joey
But yes, that argument is ridiculous. The state should be neutral. Your sin (and I very specifically mean that to say your business, not the business of others) is between you and G-d and whatever intermediary you choose or don't choose.
- joey
Exactly. I think gay marriage represents the triumph of Marriage As Experience over Marriage As Ideology.
- Jim Norris
Travis: what is a good criteria to determine when confidential discussion should be legally protected? there are some cases such as a doctor and patient, or a news source and reporter, that seem beneficial to preserve
- Mike Chelen
I'm all for separating secular and religious marriage. I find it baffling that Guatemala, an essentially Catholic country, will not allow religious figures to perform legal marriages, but the US not only allows it, they are so much the norm people can't imagine it another way. Religious Guatemalans have two marriage ceremonies: a civil ceremony performed by a lawyer or city official and...
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- Shannon Jiménez
Shannon, many countries in Europe do this as well. It makes sense to me. Though we still have the issue of arguing semantics in the US. Does the state issue 'marriages' to all or domestic partnerships to all? Anyway, I actually wanted to have a separate civil and religious ceremony but it is a pain to do that here (I wanted to have a religious ceremony without a legal marriage yet but here clergy cannot do that; they are required to to fill out the paperwork as well).
- joey
Joey, maybe that varies from place to place. My husband and I were legally married in Guatemala and had a Catholic ceremony here in the US (in Nevada). We never applied for a license or anything here and the priest was happy to give us a "religious" marriage certificate without signing any legal paperwork when we showed him the proof we were already married.
- Shannon Jiménez
Oops, just saw that you weren't married yet (misread it). So yes, I think it is a requirement to be married legally or be going to get married legally.
- Shannon Jiménez
@Mike, confidential discussion by criminals should never be legally protected, particularly when they are about confessing to a crime (More than happy about confidential discussion to legal representatives about a case etc, but I understand that even if a client confesses to a crime to a lawyer they are required to report the crime also. Might be wrong on that though). As for doctor and...
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- travispuk
@Joey, refreshing to hear from a person of faith that also believes that a person can have morals outside of faith. ;) Personally I don't hear that type of talk very often.
- travispuk
@Mike, a little further on the legal protection of conversations, I have a clear difference here in that I believe that anything that relates to a criminal act (ie confession of a crime or evidence of a crime) should NEVER be protected. Also, I hate that there are these exceptions, as you point out, doctors, journalists etc. Why would it be different if say I spoke confidentially to a...
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- travispuk
I guess the discussion of protected conversations is not really on topic though. Sorry for hijacking Alex.
- travispuk
tl;dr but yeah this to me shows that religion and govt are too mixed up together. If marriage is a religious thing than why is it part of the govt in the first place? If you want to protect the church the very last thing you should do is mix it with a democracy since any majority can redefine what certain ideas mean. Now marriage has been mutated and no longer carries the same christian...
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- rei yano
my friend had a marriage a couple of years ago. it was outside, the lady was licensed etc, everything was legit but not once in the entire cermony did she mention god/religion at all. (he's buddist, she didn't care either way). one day in the far future i'd like to do something similar, if the gf approves...
- Terry O'Fee
another thing that I know they must be afraid of is the possibility that pastors will be forced to marry gay people which is against their beliefs and they feel it would be sinful for them to marry a gay couple. the fact is that these pastors and their churches get tax exempt status. if they want to write their own rules then it needs to be a private entity completely free of govt ties.
- rei yano
Preach, brother Alex. Actually, preach everyone in this thread.
- Derrick
Yet again I'm left shaking my head at my Christian brethren. This is yet another fight/debate based upon ignorance. I have never understood how anybody could think that allowing a gay person to marry another gay person has any affect on the marriage of a non-gay person. It makes no sense to me and in the grand scheme of things I think God could care less.
- DB Botts - Just DB Botts
I pretty much think that people of a certain worldview see it as an assault against their Norman Rockwell vision of America. I imagine that they feel otherwise powerless to stop the tide of progress and these ballot measures give them some measure of power.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
from IM
DB: wouldn't any god worth following rejoice in the love between two people?
- Mike Chelen