I decided to get off Facebook at least for a while because I was getting pissed off. Not about politics. I enjoy people showing passion and I enjoy poking holes in arguments. But about a matter here in Town. A few high school kids were at a house where they had some alcohol and a couple decided to Snapchat a few bits I gather they thought, under the influence, was either funny or something else. The snapchats contained some racist words. It’s not clear to me what they meant or, indeed, if they meant anything at all because they were kids doing stupid stuff. People in the Town FB group were calling for expulsion. One guy, a lawyer, has previously argued against deporting adult undocumented criminals but he demands expulsion for kids saying stuff on snapchat. I couldn’t take it. A guy I know is a history teacher and had one of the kids – not one of the ones making the video but in the room. That kid is now hiding in another state because he’s been threatened with bodily harm, even death. One of these bleeps came out and said she was speaking her ‘gut’ demanding expulsion, seemingly unaware as an adult that her rash behavior mirrored the rash behavior of adolescents she demands be horribly punished. I don’t want to be in a virtual room with such people. So I backed away. Quit the groups and decided I was getting too worked up about this shit.
Author: Jonathan Mitchell
Composition is not “fake”
Nice examples of the extent to which images are created. I don’t like the word “fake” in the headline; these are examples of the extent to which what we see is a composition. One gif, for example, shows 3 groups of “soldiers” photographed separately. That is how many painting masters worked: this guy poses here, then this one, then this one. Those paintings aren’t “fake”; they’re compositions.
http://reframe.gizmodo.com/these-before-and-after-gifs-show…
We all know that the modification, retouching, and compositing of photographs is utterly commonplace. But few actually realize the extent to which some advertising…
REFRAME.GIZMODO.COM|BY MICHAEL HESSION
Is a call to prayer the same as a bell?
This piece in Slate by William Saletan misses the point. After the usual mandatory asides about Islamophobia, he never even gets to the real issue: why is a call to prayer being allowed in public? Are there Christian calls to prayer? No, just bells that sometimes play the hour, sometimes play tunes, sometimes mark services. Do people think of ordinary Church bells as calls to come to Church? I don’t. I’ve been around Church bells for decades and they sometimes play at the end of services, sometimes play when there’s a wedding, etc. In the famous John Donne poem, the bell tolls the age of the person who died so if you hear 30 bongs you know a 30 year old died (and you may then think of sending to know for whom the bell tolls). Are there Jewish calls to prayer? Never heard one. Don’t know if they exist in some corner of the Jewish world but no, they generally don’t exist. Putting out a public call to prayer isn’t an accommodation to Muslim worshippers but is a way of establishing a religion that hasn’t been done for other religions.
http://www.slate.com/…/duke_reverses_decision_on_muslim_cal…
Duke University, under pressure from angry Christians, has backed down from a plan to allow a Muslim call to prayer from its chapel tower. Many students and civil libertarians call this rank capitulation. They may be right. But the story is more…
SLATE.COM
From the annals of credulous reporting
From the annals of credulous reporting … is it reasonable to believe these empty shelves are actually typical of Target stores in Canada? The general reason Target is closing is they looked at the potential returns in the market and saw a loser because the stores already there were capable of competing on price … and were doing exactly that. Another reason is pretty obvious too: think about the Canadian dollar. It’s currently worth 84 US cents. Now think about what that means for the supply chain: the more you bring in from the US, the more you have to charge for it (because what it costs in US dollars is more than what it costs in Canadian dollars). So you need to develop a separate supply chain, which is expensive and which your rivals already have. And that supply chain has to cover a huge area. And that doesn’t eliminate the exchange rate risk. And lastly, think about the size of the Canadian market: 35 million total coast to coast, with about ⅓ in Ontario. The entire market is smaller than California and the largest part of that is smaller than the NYC Metro area. I think it’s safe to say companies in the US do fine without competing in CA and/or NYC. So the business decision would come down to small, extremely spread out market where you face price competition rooted in expensive supply chain management and where there is big currency exchange rate risk.
Target is giving up on Canada. The retailer announced today that it would close all 133 of its stores north of the border, which have been losing money since it arrived in the…
SLATE.COM
jomi: playing with perception 