A Timeline of Imagery Firsts at MaxPower
Dec 5 at 2:02pm by wilkins
Max Power has published a series about photographic “firsts.” Here’s the first image of a planet other than Earth:
A Timeline of Imagery Firsts at MaxPower
Timeline of Imagery Firsts at MaxPower.
Strange Ink: A FAQ of a different color.
Dec 1 at 11:11pm by wilkins
We just discovered that Sunnydale Recycling has made it onto Strange Ink’s blogroll. Which is very flattering. I was going to post about some of the newer cool stuff at Strange Ink, and thenhappened on their FAQ. Which is hilarious. Since I think I’m going to plagiarize it one phrase at a time - and also because I haven’t mastered the WordPress pull-quote technique -I’m not going to quote it here.
Joe. My. God. (what a good blog!)
Nov 24 at 9:09am by wilkins
We’re excited to learn of Joe.My.God . The man can write - and we particulary commend to your atten attention a four-part series called Blogdaddy. You can read all four pieces here
He’s also got some outgoing links that held our attention:
Dog Poet this man’s dog is so cute that it beggars description
The Ninth Circle of Helen (”Helen Damnation,’ which seems to be based in Brooklyn.
Oklahoma - Okay! (not so much)
Nov 17 at 5:05pm by wilkins
[singlepic=1,320,240,,left] Tony Comstock has an interesting piece about, among other things, Oklahoma anti-pornography statutes:
Many of the people who I spoke with were professors who taught sexually or researched aspects of sexuality in a university setting, and several of them were interested in our films, either for use in their classrooms, or in their experiments. This included a professor from an Oklahoma university, who himself was at the conference to present a paper on BDSM. “I’d really love to use your films in my class, but penetration is illegal in Oklahoma.” This is the second time in a month that I’ve heard this. The first time was last month at a trade-show in Las Vegas. A woman who owns a lingerie shop was at our booth, delighted by what she saw. “Do your films have penetration?” she asked. “Of course they do. Our films are about sex.” “Oh, then I can’t carry them. Penetration is illegal in Oklahoma. If you stick your tongue in someone’s ear and it’s sexual, it’s illegal in Oklahoma.” Of course this is nonsense. Legislators in Oklahoma can no more outlaw the photographic depiction of sexual penetration than they can outlaw the photographic depiction of blue shirts. Yet apparently they have. There is variety of expression not seen as worthy of First Amendment protection – obscenity. Throughout the Twentieth Century, what is and is not obscenity has been the subject of a number of Supreme Court decisions, the last being the 1973 case of Miller v. California. With regard to what sort of sexually explicit expression is not protected by the First Amendment, Miller v. California ((http://www.oyez.org/cases/1970-1979/1971/1971_70_73/; Wikipedia entry here)) is the law of the land, and defines obscenity by a three-pronged test. A work is considered obscene, and therefore may be suppressed by the government if: The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest And The work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law. And The work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value. What that means is that if a jury decides the answer to any one of these three questions is “no”, then the work is not obscene, and if it’s not obscene than the state of Oklahoma has no power to suppress the distribution of the work. In theory. In practice, the threat of an obscenity prosecution is enough to prevent work from being seen, even films recently described as, “Perhaps the most cinematic and pro-social depictions of sexual behavior ever produced.” (You gotta love how sex scientists talk!) The simple fact is that the Oklahoma professor I talked to this weekend is afraid that if he uses our films in his classroom, he’ll go to jail. The Oklahoma shopkeeper we talked to is afraid that if she offers our films to her customers she’ll go to jail. And that fear is enough to keep people from seeing our films in the Sooner State.
Tony Comstock’s Blog: When Penetration is Illegal in Oklahoma, Oklahomans Get Fucked
I’ve been looking through Oklahoma statutes - and haven’t found the relevant “penetration” provision. But here are provisions which are a bit disturbing:
Oklahoma Statutes, Title 21, Crimes and Punishments, §21-1024.1. Definitions
[(A) defines child pornography (B) essentially recites the Miller test, with a few details to make it even easier for prosecutors]
B. As used in Sections 1021 through 1024.4 and Sections 1040.8 through 1040.24 of this title:
1. “Obscene material” means and includes any representation, performance, depiction or description of sexual conduct, whether in any form or medium including still photographs, undeveloped photographs, motion pictures, undeveloped film, videotape, CD-ROM, magnetic disk memory, magnetic tape memory or a purely photographic product or a reproduction of such product in any book, pamphlet, magazine, or other publication, if said items contain the following elements:
a. depictions or descriptions of sexual conduct which are patently offensive as found by the average person applying contemporary community standards,
b. taken as a whole, have as the dominant theme an appeal to prurient interest in sex as found by the average person applying contemporary community standards, and
c. a reasonable person would find the material or performance taken as a whole lacks serious literary, artistic, educational, political, or scientific purposes or value.
The standard for obscenity applied in this section shall not apply to child pornography;
2. “Performance” means and includes any display, live or recorded, in any form or medium;
3. “Sexual conduct” means and includes any of the following:
a. acts of sexual intercourse including any intercourse which is normal or perverted, actual or simulated,
b. acts of deviate sexual conduct, including oral and anal sodomy,
c. acts of masturbation,
d. acts of sadomasochistic abuse including but not limited to:
(1) flagellation or torture by or upon any person who is nude or clad in undergarments or in a costume which is of a revealing nature, or
(2) the condition of being fettered, bound, or otherwise physically restrained on the part of one who is nude or so clothed,
e. acts of excretion in a sexual context, or
f. acts of exhibiting human genitals or pubic areas ….
Particularly disturbing is (B) (4), which essentially makes defines child pornography as that which a police officers reacts to as child pornography: From Oklahoma Statutes, Article 21, §1024.1 (B)(4):
“Explicit child pornography” means material which a law enforcement officer can immediately identify upon first viewing without hesitation as child pornography.
In other words - if the government says it’s bad -it’s bad.
The notion of “penetration” as the test - which two reasonable people described to Tony Comstock - sounds like a layperson’s distillation of cautious legal advice in this sort of environment: don’t.
An obvious constitutional problem with Miller is this: by definition, a “community standard” allows a majority to decide what’s acceptable for minorities - this sort of system lets majorities - or powerful minorities - make cultural choices for the rest of the population - with liberty and rights of citizenship at risk.
Oklahoma lyrics (Rodgers & Hammerstein) here.
From Rominita on FlickR
Oct 21 at 7:07pm by wilkins
Beta-test - WP-Offline 0.02
Oct 21 at 7:07am by wilkins
Mike Malone has released a beta version of WP-Offline, a WordPress plugin which will let users of Google Gears reads blogs offline.
It requires Google Gears . Malone plans to update this so readers can read blogs offline, post comments, and then upload and synch comments later.
Here’s Malone’s main site, which is likely to be of interested to sophisticated WordPress and other developers. He’s also, with his brother Ted Malone, developing the oenophile site Vino2Vino.
Two from Carol Acworth
Oct 20 at 9:09am by wilkins
Richard Hoogendijk
Oct 20 at 7:07am by wilkins
Dog survives fire by hiding in tub; clever maneuver demonstrates intelligence greater than the combined intelligence of U.S. Legislators
Oct 18 at 5:05am by wilkins
Not since Thomas Jefferson … Fire. Dog hides in tub. Not for water - but to breathe air through drainpipe. An old firefighter’s trick, apparently.
Coverage via neatorama. We made up the part about Congress. Our libel counsel told us not to lose any sleep over it; truth is, after all, a defense.
Pez Mods
Oct 17 at 11:11pm by wilkins
From Atypyk:PEZ mods!
Unfortunately, and as might be expected - no werewolf. Those of you who care, you know what I’m talking about. The rest of you - move it along, nothing to see.
Oct 14 at 9:09pm by wilkins
From Photography of the Unexpected and Neglected Architecture .
When is a Placebo even more effective than the real thing?
Oct 13 at 3:03pm by wilkins
When is a Placebo even more effective than the real thing? When it’s PlaceboKatz.
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