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Category: Arts and Aesthetics

All things creative. All things beautiful, profound, and moving.

Saturday links

Published April 8, 2017 11:17 am by Claire
  • You may have heard about the Garadget flap, in which a petulant CEO “bricked” a complaining customer’s app. The key line from this article: “… when a device gets connected to the internet—whether it’s a cellphone, a thermostat, or a tea kettle—it’s no longer yours.”
  • And given the way the ‘Net is going, this might be good news to some of you old hands and privacy buffs: a 1986 BBS is back online.
  • This real-life heist has the makings of a movie. Except that Cary Grant’s dead and Sean Connery’s too old. Maybe one of the Ryans — Reynolds or Gosling — could handle the role of the suave criminal mastermind. Great mystery carried out in a rarified intellectual world.
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    • Mary: Unfinished

    Published April 6, 2017 4:10 pm by Claire

    “Mary: Unfinished.” Acrylic on Gessobord, 8×10″. The picture is unfinished. I still need to rework the dark side of her face. UPDATE 4/7: I’ve now corrected and finished the dark half of her face. But “Mary: Unfinished” is still the title. (Here’s the originally posted version for comparison. The new one is more correct; I find the earlier version more interesting, though.) My original concept was an impoverished, weary, disappointed Mary (yes, perhaps that Mary). The backstory is that a more prosperous, light-hearted friend has tried to cheer her up by loaning her a bright, beaded collar and letting her…

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    Tuesday links

    Published April 4, 2017 8:58 am by Claire
  • Will Obamacare really require Dominos Pizza franchises to post calorie counts for 34 million potential variations of pizza? Kevin D. Williamson examines the profit-killing absurdities.
  • Yet another court justifies yet another literally unwarranted shooting-by-cop. Hershel Smith turns up the outrage.
  • More on Tim Berners-Lee’s plan to re-create his monster creation, the worldwide web. He wants to return its power to the people.
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    • Weekend links

    Published April 2, 2017 1:07 pm by Claire
  • Sloppy science. It wastes billions, produces non-reproduceable results, and sometimes kills people.
  • Well. Elio Motors may not yet actually have a product to sell. But this is still a pretty cool map of where their registration holders are.
  • Am I following this correctly? The DoJ drops two kiddie-porn charges rather than having classified material brought out in court. Said classified material already being publicly available thanks to WikiLeaks.
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    • Weekend links

    Published March 26, 2017 2:42 pm by Claire
  • Thanks to a link Shel dropped into comments on my “Theda’s Kin” post, I fell down a rabbit hole of the brain’s striking ability to make accurage snap judgments. Here’s a short version of what Shel was getting at: how we can tell criminals from non-criminals with only their faces to go by. And similar accuracy turns out to apply with our “gaydar,” “mordar,” etc. (What’s mordar, you may ask? Why, it’s our unusual ability to quickly recognize Mormoms, even when they’re not walking up to our doors wearing suits and ID badges.)
  • But then, sometimes, as in this short story, identity is a trickier matter. (H/T. MJR)
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    • Theda’s kin

    Published March 24, 2017 1:56 am by Claire

    I set out to draw Theodosia Burr Goodman Brabin, better known as Theda Bara, the silent screen’s original vamp. I was going to do her beaded headdress and all. But the further I got in executing the under-drawing, the more sure I was that I couldn’t get a good likeness. So I drew her … um, great granddaughter, instead. The likeness was closer than I expected. But this is incomplete and a failed experiment. Some okay things about it, but mostly Yet Another Learning Experience. I’m not even sure I’m going to post it.

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    Tamara

    Published March 22, 2017 1:47 am by Claire

    Tamara de Lempicka, one of the twentieth century’s fabulous forgotten figures. A very Art Deco person. This is also always what I’ve imagined Dagny Taggart looking like. Pencil on Stonehenge paper. Light background color added to the scanned image. One of these times, I might try taking on the full image (from the link) rather than just head and shoulders. Ms. Lempicka seems to have been an awful bitch. But talented. And definitely fabulous, at least in that oh-so-dramatic photo. I’m particularly pleased with how her face turned out.

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