Recently in Satire Category

Artbollocks Preflight Script

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Inspired by the scripts to find weasel words, passive voice and lexical illusions from -

http://matt.might.net/articles/shell-scripts-for-passive-voice-weasel-words-duplicates/

I've written a script to check for artbollocks in essays or reviews.

http://robmyers.org/git/?p=scripts.git;a=blob_plain;f=artbollocks

To use it, download it and add it to your PATH. Then use it like -

artbollocks my-essay.txt

Can anyone think of any words I've missed that should be added to it?

;-)

Blue Ant

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2010-08-05 16.54.57.jpg

"She pulled out a molded vinyl figure of the Blue Ant ant. [...]
It had a determined smirk, the expression of a cartoon underdog fully aware of its own secret status as a superhero. Its posture conveyed that too, arms slightly bent at its sides, fists balled, feet in a martial artist's ready T-stance."

- Spook Country, William Gibson, 2007.

Two Shoe Salesmen

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The boss of a shoe company sent two salesmen to a new country to see whether there was any market for footwear there.

The first salesman returned and gave his report to the boss. "Everyone there already has shoes, but if you try to change your laces you go to prison! That's terrible! We should make sure that doesn't happen here!"

The second salesman returned and gave his report to the boss. "Everyone there already has shoes, and they are much more fashionable than ours. We should stop making shoes and make a deal with their manufacturer to be their franchise here! Think of the opportunity! We just have to sign one little contract!"

And the moral of the story is - don't be like the first salesman! Embrace cool and opportunity!

Screwdriver Sketch

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SCENE 16.
--------

ANIMATION - AND NOW, THE SCREWDRIVER SKETCH.

SCENE 17.
--------

INTERIOR, DAY. A SCREWDRIVER SHOP. JUST PUT A SIGN SAYING "SCREWDRIVER SHOP" ON THE COUNTER OF THE CORNER SHOP SET FROM SCENE 8.

CHARACTERS - SCREWDRIVER VENDOR, BEHIND THE COUNTER IN A SHARP SUIT AND WAXED MOUSTACHE. CUSTOMER, IN WORK OVERALLS, FLAT CAP AND GLASSES.

CUSTOMER: Good morning, I'd like to buy a screwdriver.

SCREWDRIVER VENDOR: Certainly sir, what colour?

CUSTOMER: Red, I think. No, blue.

SCREWDRIVER VENDOR: Certainly, sir, just sign here.

CUSTOMER: What's this?

SCREWDRIVER VENDOR: Oh that's the contract for the screwdriver, sir.

CUSTOMER: Oh, how modern.

CUSTOMER SIGNS THE DOCUMENT

CUSTOMER: There you are.

SCREWDRIVER VENDOR: Thank you, sir.

SCREWDRIVER VENDOR HANDS BLUE SCREWDRIVER TO CUSTOMER WITH A FLOURISH.

BOTH TURN TO LOOK EXPECTANTLY AT THE CAMERA.

SCENE 18.
--------

INTERIOR, DAY.

A KITCHEN. ON THE TABLE IS A LARGE TRANSISTOR RADIO THAT THE CUSTOMER WANTS TO FIX.

CHARACTERS - CUSTOMER, SAT AT THE TABLE HOLDING A BLUE SCREWDRIVER.

CUSTOMER LOOKS AT THE CAMERA WAITING FOR AN UNSEEN CUE, HOLDING A BLUE SCREWDRIVER UP NEXT TO THEIR HEAD. THEY WAIT FOR A MOMENT, THEN AT THE SIGNAL OF THE UNSEEN CUE THEY LOOK AT THE RADIO AND SLOWLY START MOVING THE TIP OF THE SCREWDRIVER TOWARDS IT.

OFF CAMERA - A KNOCK AT THE DOOR FRONT DOOR OF THE HOUSE.

CUSTOMER STOPS MOVING THE SCREWDRIVER AND LOOKS BACK UP AT THE CAMERA.

CUSTOMER: I wonder who that could be?

SCENE 19.
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EXTERIOR, DAY.

THE FRONT DOOR TO THE CUSTOMER'S HOUSE.

CHARACTERS - CUSTOMER, SCREWDRIVER VENDOR, POLICEMAN, KNIGHT.

SCREWDRIVER VENDOR IS STOOD OUTSIDE THE FRONT DOOR.

CUSTOMER, HOLDING THE BLUE SCREWDRIVER AGAINST THEIR CHEST ABSENT-MINDEDLY, OPENS THE DOOR AND LOOKS OUT.

CUSTOMER: Oh hello.

SCREWDRIVER VENDOR: I'm sorry, sir but you can't do that.

CUSTOMER: Do what?

SCREWDRIVER VENDOR: There's no need to be common, sir. I was just saying that you cannot do that.

CUSTOMER: No, I mean what can't I do?

SCREWDRIVER VENDOR: You cannot use the nice shiny blue screwdriver I gave you earlier to open that grubby old radio.

CUSTOMER: Why not?!

SCREWDRIVER VENDOR: Well, sir, if you'd read the contract you signed you'd have seen that you have to buy a red screwdriver to open radios with. Not a blue one.

CUSTOMER: That sounds a bit stupid if you ask me.

SCREWDRIVER VENDOR: Well it's very fortunate that I didn't, then, isn't it? But think of the alternative, sir. You'd be able to use that screwdriver for anything.

CUSTOMER: Well that seems perfectly reasonable to me. I mean, after all I bought it!

SCREWDRIVER VENDOR: You *licenced* it, sir.

CUSTOMER: I should be free to use it however I want! Well, unless I was going to lever paint tins open with it, possibly. Or stab someone. But that doesn't strike me as any of your business! Just sell the bloody screwdriver and get on with your life!

SCREWDRIVER VENDOR: But sir! Imagine if you could just use the screwdriver however you wanted, imagine if I was not free to tell you how to use the screwdrivers that I sell-

CUSTOMER: Licence.

SCREWDRIVER VENDOR: Ah! Yes, my mistake, thank you; licence - you. I would not be free to do business as I wish, and that would be slavery for me! Slavery!

CUSTOMER: You're loopy!

SCREWDRIVER VENDOR: No, sir, I am just a man who loves freedom more than you do.

CUSTOMER: No you don't!

SCREWDRIVER VENDOR: Yes I do!

CUSTOMER: No you don't!

SCREWDRIVER VENDOR: Yes I do!

CUSTOMER: No you don't!

SCREWDRIVER VENDOR: Yes I do!

CUSTOMER: No you don't!

SCREWDRIVER VENDOR: Yes I do!

CUSTOMER REMEMBERS THAT HE IS HOLDING THE SCREWDRIVER AND LOOKS AT IT.

CUSTOMER: Wait a minute, this isn't the screwdriver I bought off you, this is my *old* blue screwdriver!

SCREWDRIVER VENDOR: Yeah, right! Prove it!

CUSTOMER: Well alright I'll just give it to someone else then!

SCREWDRIVER VENDOR: You *really* didn't read the small print, did you sir?

THE SCREWDRIVER VENDOR BECKONS TO THE THE POLICE OFFICER WHO IS WAITING OFF-CAMERA.

THE POLICE OFFICER WALKS UP TO THE CUSTOMER, PUTS HIS HAND ON THE CUSTOMERS SHOULDER AND LEADS THE CUSTOMER OFF-SET.

THE CUSTOMER LOOKS DEJECTED AND SHAKES HIS HEAD ON THE WAY.

THE SCREWDRIVER VENDOR WATCHES, LOOKING SMUG.

A KNIGHT IN PLATE ARMOUR WALKS SLOWLY UP TO THE SCREWDRIVER VENDOR FROM BEHIND AND HITS HIM OVER THE HEAD WITH A PLUCKED CHICKEN.

SCENE 20.
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ANIMATION - SOMNAMBULIST STEEPLEJACK AIRBAG LEGISLATION.


Quantitative Iconography

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This is clearly intended just as a bit of fun, but it is also a good example of using statistical methods to analyse images -

http://io9.com/5340578/proof-that-every-fantasy-book-cover-must-contain-a-sword

Coals To Newcastle

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Having read Marx, Lacan, Deleuze, Negri, Zizek, and possibly having nipped back for a bit of supplementary Spinoza, you might think you are ready to tell Free Software what it has got wrong and how it can be made better. Not so fast! There are just two more things you need to read.

The first is Richard Stallman's essay "Why Software Should Not Have Owners". Even just the title will do.

The second is Stallman's personal website. Especially the political notes.

These sources show that free software contains as part of its ideology a definite if limited answer to the property question and that this limit neither precludes nor can be coherently extended to encompass (rather than exist as part of) a broader progressive political commitment.

Innit.

Non-Relational Aesthetics

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Sometimes, in a free society, we may read things that we not only don't agree with but that we find personally offensive. For me, Charlie Gere's "Non-Relational Aesthetics" is that book. It is the most godawful piece of shit ostensiby about art that it has ever been my misfortune to read. But rather then firebombing the publisher, as Gere defended other aggrieved critics doing recently, I'll commend Artwords Press for seeking out new voices and encouraging readers to engage with ideas that they might not otherwise encounter.

If anyone wants a copy let me know in the comments and I'll send you mine, post free.
[a rant, via netbehaviour]

Art *is* the specialised language [for art].

Being smart at medicine is no good when a car won't start. But being
good at quoting Theory is good no matter what, apparently, much like the
transferable skills of management. The idea that Theory is the proper
domain language of art is one that needs "problematising". Or spanking.

I'd refer to my favourite theorists Art & Language to make two points.

The first is that art is only a defensible activity if it does things
that cannot be done any other way. Reducing art to a mash-up of
fashionable cod-philosopho-political jargon doesn't do this, and *art*
students are within their rights to reject the verbal fetishes of this
cult in favour of actually making art. And/or theories.

The second is that given the current march of a corporate information
culture grinding the world down to manageable, sellable binary digits
(cf Alan Liu), the aesthetic is not the conservative fetish of the
illiterate - it is a vital means of resistance. One that the semiotic
managers of Theory are helping to neutralise.

Number Crunching

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[from Private Eye]

£85bn Tax contribution from financial sector, supposedly crucial to the UK economy, from 1997 to 2007

£250bn Officially predicted increase in government debt, to be repaid from everybody else's taxes, following banking-induced recesion

Snow Fail

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As Canada points and laughs, another bit of England succumbs to a few centimetres of snow. The bit I'm in, as it happens. Brrr.

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