Via Paterrico comes a fascinating piece by Ken White over at POPEHAT who has a very long, informative and downright creepy piece on his (and others) dealings with a particularly nasty internet stalker whose attentions he attracted when he did pro-bono work for a gentleman on the stalkers hate list.
He leaves no sense of what values he promotes, only of what groups
and individuals he hates. There's only one circumstance when you get a
sense that he's enjoying what he does, that he has a craft or a calling. That's when he's describing someone being raped,
murdered, or otherwise abused, or when he's pursuing the families of
someone he hates.
This has led to trouble.
I urge you to read the whole thing. It goes into detail about just how hard it can be to take legal action against the sort of cockroach that knows just how far he can go with online harassment without engaging in actionable threats and incitement.
It's part of a larger story that is pretty disturbing as well involving some bloggers whose posts brought them to the attention of a politically active convicted terrorist and his buddies....who harass them to this day. There's a bit of background on that here.
I have a friend who does art. He used to be a professional animator and he's done a bit of small press work in comics. He's been doing art in various capacities for 30 odd years and has a wide range of interests.
I mean anything involving MMD or Poser will get under his skin and if applied for more than a few minutes will send him into a white hot rage rage. It's rather bizarre, its like his IQ drops 35 points and until the offending media is removed all he can say is "Duuhh..I hate dat stufff..." Now this is not a rational response and would seem to be a matter of personal preference and pig-headedness but he recently made an interesting argument when I pointed out that he'd seemed to like The Incredibles.
Well he does like Pixar films...mostly. His argument is that the MMD videos and such aren't actually art because unlike the big studio productions they're just using someone else's creativity. The person doing an MMD video on YouTube in his eyes isn't doing much more than posting a paint by numbers painting and calling it his. The programer has done all the art.
Now, as it happens, I'm tinkering with MMD right now, but I'm not making much progress because, I'm not artistically inclined and doing that on a Mac is clunky. With MMD one is manipulating these wire frame models and even at the most basic level choosing ones choreography. However the facial expressions in particular ARE all built into the program and were put there by the programers as are (I'm told) some basic movements). It's my understanding though, that MMD can be used to produce things like this....
I'm unsure of the provenance of these .gifs (which I nicked from 4-Chan) except that they seem to be from some Touhou fanfic. I understand that one can download Touhou "skins" for MMD wireframes now (fans made those available some years ago) However, even if the creators of this did use off the shelf " paper dolls" for their character designs there is the matter of the choreography and the subtitles which imply writing a script. Of course this is Touhou so it's fanfic anyway. However the potential seems to be there and is certainly present in the professional versions of Poser to apply ones own skins to the products frames. Such additions would require artistic ability (and being 3d would be akin to rendering a sculpture), but the objection of my friend is that those using this medium are using someone else's art.
My feeling is that this is akin to using Legos or perhaps a paintbrush. I'm of the opinion that even MMD can teach aspiring animators about computer animation, choreography and editing, which in the computer age are quite different skills from what they used to be. However, I don't do art, my figure drawing makes Randall Munro* look like Da Vinci so this is most definitely a layman's perspective. I'm really not sure how much ones brush needs to stray outside the numbers before ones effort becomes art.
I'm pretty sure that this piece done with Poser qualifies though
...but at what point on the spectrum between that piece of magic and simply having Lady Hatsune make a leek face it stops being analogous to stickers on ones Trapper Keeper...well I'm not qualified to answer that.
The person doing an MMD video on YouTube in his eyes isn't doing much more than posting a paint by numbers painting and calling it his. The programer has done all the art.
The same way Fender and Gibson did all the art and Mark Knopfler just played notes that were already there.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Fri Aug 9 06:51:17 2013 (PiXy!)
2
If you produce fine, handcrafted, heirloom-quality furniture, you probably have a low opinion of Ikea. But for a lot of people, Ikea is the difference between nothing and making do with milk cartons.
Or, if we're going to talk about paintbrushes... I use a Kolinsky sable brush from W&N, because it's a really good brush (quite a bit better than the painter, if I'm going to be honest), and the few extra bucks it costs isn't going to break my bank. It's nice having a brush that can hold a point that well. There are also artificial fiber paintbrushes made for the three-for-a-dollar crowd. There are people who get fantastic results with the former, to be sure - but there are also people who can take the three-for-a-dollar paintbrushes and do amazing things with them, because the tool isn't the talent, and it isn't the vision.
Sure, if you're a professional-level animator, you're not going to like tools that let people bodge together their own animation. Professional sound guys scoffed at software that let you do your own mixes on a home PC... and it turned out that a lot of people were pretty good at mixing without being a "professional" sound guy. Heck, for that matter, I'm sure that plenty of vocalists aren't too fond of Vocaloid.
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Fri Aug 9 21:39:20 2013 (pWQz4)
3
At around 1:55 in the video, she appears to be firing the gun by cycling the charging lever on the bolt. Reminds me of a gunslinger firing a revolver by fanning the hammer, although I've never heard of a rifle fired via the bolt lever.
Posted by: RickC at Fri Aug 9 22:28:04 2013 (WQ6Vb)
4
@Avatar comment#2:
I think Vocaloid is a better argument for my friends point of view than MMD. The tone, pitch, and everything else is actually done by someone (or something) else. That being said, editing and songwriting are each definitely arts in their own right.
One thing that (I think) set my friend off is the ease of tracing with the computer. He was in awe of how much better some people were on the computer than on paper. I suspect that this generally has two causes.
1: the person is just much more comfortable in the computer medium (I'd wager that this is very common today given the amount of time people spend on it).
2: They're doing vectors.
This latter has turned out to be the case quite often in his recent experience.
As for MMD, given the sheer ammount of stuff pre-programmed into even the most basic version, I think my friends argument is not without some merit at the most basic levels of competency. I tend to think that his argument breaks down rapidly once one moves out of the orientation phase.
Of course some of this is just crumudgeonism on his part. but given the complexities of the tech, asking at what point a work becomes art and particularly ones own art strikes me as not entirely unreasonable. However, while I'm inclined toward your and Pixy's point of view on this, not being an artist at all makes me wonder. I mean look at the amount of clip art, embedded videos and such I use here.....though of course no one would call the blog "art".
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sat Aug 10 00:17:21 2013 (F7DdT)
5
@ Rick C comment#3:
I'm unfamiliar with bolt actions in practice, however one can do something similar with a pump action weapon if one cycles it very hard and holds down the trigger. Note too that it has been mentioned in the series that she built the weapon herself so chambering a round and closing the bolt might automatically fire it.
Also:
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sat Aug 10 00:25:40 2013 (F7DdT)
6
I've been curious about playing with MMD, but at the time, it seems like people had to patch it to get english or something. Of course, at one point I was going to dabble with Daz 3d (don't bother). And I used to futz around with POV-Ray, but nothing ever came close to some of the amazing images out there.
I just don't really have the commitment to achieve skill with these things, which kind of shoots down the idea that skill isn't required. (Although DAZ probably does, since it's basically a paper-doll system where more talented artists sell content for you to add to the program. It can't really create its own.)
Posted by: Mauser at Sat Aug 10 04:04:20 2013 (TJ7ih)
As Steven reminds us in the comments of a previous post, the Japanese, earlier today, launched the latest and largest of their 'Destroyers'. We've discussed this nomenclature issue recently. However, it's important to remember that a nations warships are not just tools to be used in desperate times, they are symbols that can send messages.
Because the international dateline can lead to some confusion on dates, I just checked and yes indeed, when the vessel was launched it was Tuesday in Japan.
So. Japan launched its largest warship since WW2...on August 6.
1
Somehow, I think you don't mean "because it's the Feast of the Transfiguration." However, it sounds like there's also a message to the Russians and the Brits and the Chinese and us, re: Wikipedia's section on her namesake ship:
"In the Battle off Ulsan on 14 August 1904, six Japanese cruisers defeated the Russian cruiser squadron, sinking Rurik, and severely damaging Rossia and Gromoboi. During the battle, Izumo was hit more than 20 times, and suffered from two crewmen killed...During the crucial Battle of Tsushima on 26 May 1905 Izumo continued to serve as Kamimura’s flagship, taking nine hits during the battle, with 34 crewmen killed."
Izumo served honorably in WWI, but its record in WWII was a lot more memorable to certain parties:
"Designated as flagship... during the Japanese invasion of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Izumo was attacked during the Battle of Shanghai by a Chinese torpedo boat, which it sank. Izumo was also attacked on 14 August 1937 by Chinese Air Force aircraft led by Captain (later Major General) Claire Lee Chennault. During the attack, his floatplane was shot down.
Still in Shanghai after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor at about 0400 on 8 December 1941, Izumo opened fire on the United States Navy gunboat USS Wake, forcing its surrender, and sank the Royal Navy gunboat HMS Peterel* (whose crew refused to surrender). This was one of the first combat actions of the Pacific War following Pearl Harbor."
* "At the time she was acting as a communications station manned only by a skeleton crew." Her commanding officer was a "temporary lieutenant," even.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Sun Aug 11 08:07:16 2013 (cvXSV)
2
Of course, the name would seem to be a reference to Izumo-taisha, possibly the most important Shinto shrine in Japan. Legend has it that it was built for Okuninushi as a sort of quid pro quo or covenantal thing, in exchange for Okuninushi giving Japan to Amaterasu's grandson who'd just come down from heaven to pacify Japan's monsters and father emperors. So basically, it's the spiritual foundation of imperial rule.
So yeah, absolutely no belligerence there. Noopers.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Sun Aug 11 08:20:57 2013 (cvXSV)
3
Of course, if I had China and North Korea in my backyard, and if Obama were giving me the impression that allies were for ignoring or undermining, I'd be wanting a big ol' carrier/destroyer too. And I might feel like sending out some messages that I felt the old agreements to protect Japan, from after WWII, had been broken by the US.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Sun Aug 11 08:24:26 2013 (cvXSV)
As I post this, it's a bit more than an hour before episode 5 of Stella-Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch airs on Crunchyroll. I note this is almost a WEEK after most all the cool kids have seen it.
I've been judiciously avoiding spoilers, but here's not much point in blogging this one.
UPDATE: OK. For those of you who've already seen this.....
2
I think the real issue is with Yura's motivations.
The rest of the team is out there to have fun. They enjoy the camaraderie and the challenge and have more or less come to terms with being, well, weirdos.
Yura hasn't. She's got some character movement, not very difficult since the start was at "scared rabbit in headlights", but what's motivating her isn't so much joy, it's fear. She likes being able to socialize with the others, something she's just not used to, but by contrast she's worried that they're going to reject her for screwing up.
(Incidentally, this is partly Sono's fault, for chewing her out over an etiquette breach when she hadn't bothered to explain the etiquette involved... especially when the other side had itself broken the etiquette by going for the humiliation-victory rather than playing the game. You don't get mad at rookies for doing rookie stuff! But Sono's own issues got in the way there...)
In the meantime, that's got Yura fixated on victory, in a way that the rest of them aren't; everyone else is out to have fun and looking to win as part of that fun, but Yura's out to win because losing would be terrible. It's not a healthy attitude for a sport, and the results could be... well, presumably Sonora's rival didn't get like that by eating too much cake in the light music club.
Yura could use, frankly speaking, getting the stuffing knocked out of her; she'd hate it, but realizing that the aftermath isn't getting turned out of the club would help her attitude a lot. Of course, all that is assuming that ep 4 was a weird aside and that the tone of the series remains normal-ish; if Yura's stepping onto actual battlefields, then taking a somewhat grimmer view of winning and losing may well be a survival trait...
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Tue Aug 6 22:08:25 2013 (pWQz4)
While gathering data for Pixy on a particularly pernicious spammer I think I learned something.
I'm not implying that I learned anything correct or useful mind you. Hell I don't even know for sure that it's Malay...but dealing with that assault was quite the melee.
UPDATE:
Ah.
Kickstarter widgets only work for Pixies.
Anyhoo, after looking long and hard at next semesters finances, I just donated to a rural library project and sent a cool C to support Little Witch Academias 2.
Of course at this point the issue is not in doubt a all except that there are only 4 days left to partake of the goodies.
Kickstarter is a pretty awesome concept. Currently its niche seems to be micro-financing of artistic endeavors. I do wonder how long it will be before it gets regulated out of existence.
For now though it is a really neat concept that has, for one thing, helped a lot of creators bring forth their visions to the world.
1
In addition to Little Witch Academias 2 (thanks for bringing it to my attention), the only Kickstarters I've contributed to so far are computer games that the major publishers wouldn't back. Coincidentally, those games are not due for delivery until the same time frame as Little Witch Academias 2. I wonder how many of them will actually pan out...
I think the greatest threat to the crowd sourcing movement will be lawsuits from people who backed projects that successfully funded, but then failed for other reasons. I've gone in expecting many (perhaps all) of the projects I backed will fail, leaving me with nothing, but I suspect that many of the backers do not fully comprehend the risk...
Posted by: Siergen at Sat Aug 3 22:27:30 2013 (Ao4Kw)
2
The wargaming hobby is going -nuts- with them. The biggest problem with making plastic models is making the molds, which are expensive up front but then churn out cheap models. The risk is around the initial launch; once you've gotten the mold paid for, profit after that is a lot easier.
Kickstarter lets you get the mold out of the way. If you make the goal, you've paid for the mold and then you can keep selling the models for relatively cheap. If you don't make the goal, well, you're not out any real money 'coz you haven't made a mold yet.
Of course there's some fatigue setting in there... with a couple dozen new kickstarters a week for the hobby, a lot of them aren't going to catch peoples' interest.
Dunno that lawsuits are going to do much. Shareholders have certain legal rights; Kickstarter contributors aren't shareholders...
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Sun Aug 4 01:21:47 2013 (GJQTS)
3
Click the <> widgie and paste the code in somewhere that looks good. Should work. I'll see if I can create a BBCode thingy too.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sun Aug 4 03:08:33 2013 (PiXy!)
4
There was one example a writer/Artist friend pointed out to me as one that was TOO successful. They funded this new Dragon/Fantasy critter breeding game, and exceeded their goal by orders of magnitude. But they didn't get the message that this would mean a much larger userbase than they had originally scaled for, and the popularity has taken their site down on a regular basis, sometimes for hours at a time.
Posted by: Mauser at Sun Aug 4 08:26:25 2013 (TJ7ih)
Given that it is a group blog by a bunch of lawyers, I was surprised to learn the extent to which the terms of service at the Volokh Conspiracy are much shorter and straightforward than most.
1
My father's middle name is Ralph. I cut-and-pasted the news that he's banned from a random libertarian blog so that he wouldn't have to violate the terms of service by reading them on their site.
Posted by: Mitch H. at Fri Aug 2 10:11:35 2013 (jwKxK)
2
Gee, thanks Brickmuppet - thanks to clicking on your link, I am now a criminal (furloughed employee of the U.S. government). Be aware that at my trial I am going to charge you with entrapment. Either that, or maybe as my co-conspirator...
Posted by: Siergen at Fri Aug 2 15:52:01 2013 (Ao4Kw)
While still not up to the level of its premiere, episode 3 of RWBY has recovered quite a bit from # 2, though slapstick visual 'cheats' don't work as well in this medium.
This is definitely a cliche' buffet and it has some technical issues, but it's amusing me. This episode was all dialog and the voice work held its own and remained pretty engaging.
Moments after putting up the previous post I was sent this:
Michele Catalano was looking for information online about pressure
cookers. Her husband, in the same time frame, was Googling backpacks.
Wednesday morning, six men from a joint terrorism task force showed up
at their house to see if they were terrorists. Which prompts the
question: How'd the government know what they were Googling?
Michelle Catalano, who once had a blog called A Small Victory was one of those people who inspired me to start blogging a decade ago. She's gone on to write for Forbes and Boing Boing...and now she seems to be on a watch list.
...because we're apparently living in a panopticon...OK at least we're blogging in one.
****************
UPDATE: This is not quite as creepy as it seemed earlier today. The initial tip came from a previous employer rather than Google. However, do note in the Atlantic piece that the LE types seem to think that getting info based on search history is unremarkable and they follow such leads ' about100 times a week'. ******************
But wait...
There's more. However while no less creepy it's actually demonstrably partisan so as per policy it goes below the fold.
Last night Instapundit linked to an Amazon.com page for 'Zombie Apocalypse Supplies'. OK This was silly, so I sent the link to Wonderduck in part to let him know that Snowflake Village is overrun by zombjas...but that is not germane to the matter at hand.
Anyway, a bit later, he and I exchanged multiple IMs trying to figure out what a compression bag was and speculating about the 5 gallon tub 'o meals which advertised 300 odd servings but gave not the slightest indication what they were servings of...or how over 300 'satisfying meals' would fit in a 5 gallon pail. Anyway after sending each other links to various amusing zombie survivalist inanities, we logged off shortly thereafter.
Which brings us to this screencap.....
...and this one....
All of a sudden the Amazon affiliated blogs I'm visiting are very interested in selling me tubs o' food and stuff. So I ask my readers. Especially those who did not spend 20 minutes last night snarking on the zombie apocalypse page....Is this just the Amazon putsch of the moment or are they really tracking us that close? What are YOU seeing on Amazon affiliated sites?
If this turns out not to be creepy and you are feeling cheated by the lack of creepiness, then rest assured gentle reader there is still creepiness to be had.... more...
