Architectural Photos Tuesday, January 08, 2008

These are some great pictures even if the colors look a bit overprocessed for my taste.

!pr0n Thursday, January 03, 2008

Ever play that game: notpr0n? It's game where the idea is to figure out each little puzzle to get the URL to the next level. And while I don't know if it's "the hardest riddle on the Internet," it's certainly very cleverly designed, and has a distinct lack of adult material of any kind.

Well I saw these images and thought the moniker was perfectly applicable. There is absolutely nothing dirty depicted at all; but I closed the web page pretty fast after I viewed it at work. So the question is: is this pornography?

Sure. After all, silhouettes are still art, and the canvas is just as much a part of the painting as the paint is. But the philosophical implications of these images are what really got my gears turning. The definition of what is obscene (or what is art, or what is beautiful) cannot be derived at all from the actual content of a given piece of art. These terms only become meaningful in the context of the individual's perception of a piece. But if this is so: how can we hope to define standards at all? Perhaps Justice Potter Stewart was right on the money. We can't define obscenity, but we know it when we see it.

Beholder Pumpkin Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Tomorrow's Halloween, the only holiday dedicated to mischief and evil rather than all of that feel-good stuff, religious stuff or government-mandated social consciousness. And Steve Jackson's Daily Illuminator helps us remember to let our inner geek shine through with this awesome picture of a Beholder pumpkin.

But sadly, this bit of text accompanying the image just ruins it:

When I was a kid, we played Dungeons and Dragons in the 5th grade. It was fun, but so complex that we had to cheat to make it more interesting. Soon afterward, I decided that riding my BMX bike was more fun and didn't do so much gaming.

I did keep one relic of these days, it is a book called the Monster Manual and it describes all sort of different monsters. Someone sent in this carving of the monster called "The Beholder". I am unsure what it is, but it looks spooky.

I wonder if the monster manual is worth anything on E-bay.

"We had to cheat to make it more interesting"? This guy sooooo missed the point.