Bury That Theory Next To Global Cooling

Anthropogenic global warming is dead.  Time for money-grubbing politicians, scientists, and institutes to latch onto a new wacky theory.

Stories In Sartorial Form

America’s Best-Dressed Blogger* gives you hints on how you’re doing it wrong.

* – The $15 to create your own award is definitely worth it, that’s all I’m saying.

Art And The Database Execution Plan

Brent Ozar has pictures of beautiful execution plans.

And, like most art, these plans (and their originating queries) should be framed, stored in a museum, and never made practical use of…

It Fits Perfectly

The Department of Innovation’s logo is a gear that just won’t turn.

Wedding Photos Available

It’s only two months since the event, but we finally have wedding photos available.  The photos include the ceremony at the Whestone Park of Roses, followed up by the reception at the Clintonville Woman’s Club.  Fortunately, it was a beautiful day, with rain in the morning giving us a cool, overcast afternoon.

The meaning of abstract art

Ordinarily, I’m not a fan of art. I divide all art into three categories: stuff, not-stuff, and weird stuff. I like some of the stuff in the stuff category, less than half of the stuff in the weird stuff category, and none of the stuff in the not-stuff category.

If your brain just exploded, I’ll wait for a minute.

Better? Good.

I was thinking on a comment the professor I TA for mentioned during a lecture on the Counter Reformation. She emphasized that the reason the Church used art to win converts was because of low literacy rates. In order to make things understandable to silly peasants, they used pretty pictures.

Now, modern society (at least in the US) is almost totally literate. Therefore, paintings of stuff aren’t really needed. If somebody from the Catholic Church wants more recruits, they can go on facebook and say “HEY EVRY1, WE NEED MOAR CATHOLICS KTHXBYE.” So instead, we turn to abstract art for the same reason the Catholic Church did — to express the otherwise inexpressible. The reason people (like me) don’t get abstract art is because abstract art isn’t necessarily made for public consumption. The artist has something to express, but he or she can’t do it in words. Ultimately, while stuff (or representational art) is designed for a purpose (representing something), the real intended audience for a piece of abstract art is the artist. I would argue the list of things that are inexpressible in words is much shorter than the list of those that can be expressed in words, so if we guessed, we could probably figure out what the artist was trying to say. But that’s not the point. The point is this.

We aren’t really meant to understand abstract art. That’s my point. I think.

In conclusion, I still don’t like or get abstract art, but having reasoned it out, I don’t feel like I’m missing much anywhere. Also, anybody (besides the artist) who says they get abstract art is probably a lying piece of crap. Not definitely — maybe you know the artist personally or just think the same way — but probably. And probably is plenty good enough for 1:50 AM on a Sunday morning.

I would totally buy this

Another great product from the Onion.

Appreciation Of An Old Game

I have some old NES ROMS and decided to give Super Mario Brothers 3 a try and within a few seconds, was hooked all over again.  Super Mario Brothers 3 was given to us as a gift when I was 5 years old and that’s probably the game most responsible for destroying my eyesight.  While I was playing the game, it was hard to remember that this was an NES game, and to think that it’s nearly 22 years old is ridiculous.  We’ve come a long way in 3D graphics, but for 2D enjoyment, this is probably the pinnacle.

Finally, I really enjoyed this hack, because the original was just way too easy, apparently…  I have a copy and will not be trying it anytime soon…

Photos From Greece And Germany

I’ve put up photo albums from my visits to Thessaloniki and Freiburg.  These aren’t complete photo sets of all there is in either city—I didn’t want a lot of overlap from earlier sets of photos—but the Greece set does include Pretentious Artist Close-Up Shots.

Congratulations To Tony

Congratulations are in order to Tony, the first of the 36 Chambers fellows to get married.  I always figured that I would be the first to get married, followed by Dan, but apparently, our swinging bachelor days continue unabated, whereas Tony has settled into the fine institution of marriage, followed by the even finer institution of sleeping on the couch when he is in his wife’s doghouse.  Congratulations, sir, and if I may make one suggestion, invest in a better couch.