derrickdirge's comments

Can you think of something that's sufficiently 'disproven' so as to make those labels appropriate?

So you know if it works in space.

And here I thought this was a prime example of it 'happening'.

In what sense is pink the worst color? I rather like it. I like purple better—more regal—but pink is a fine color.

And pink is only the color of breast cancer, not all cancer, since it's seen as a 'women's issue'.

Do you have a problem with all privately funded art? Because every private entity that funds a work of art has an agenda.

It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the artist's agenda. Should an artist be expected to turn down funding for their work just because they don't like the way the funder interprets their work?

I wish this kind of stuff was being resurfaced more aggressively in the face of all of this absurd backlash about 'the meaning' of a piece of public art.

The thing is, once you put a piece of art out there, you give up control over what that piece 'means'.

Di Modica's bull meant one thing to him when he made it. Now it means millions of different things to the people who consider it every day. If he wanted to maintain full control over the meaning of his work, he should have kept it in his private studio and not let anyone look at it without him standing by to explain the piece and answer any questions.

Similarly, Fearless Girl meant something specific to the asset management company that commissioned it, and something else to the artist who sculpted it. But now it takes on new meaning to everyone who encounters it. What it means to any given individual may or may not incorporate any of the intended meaning, and that doesn't make it any more or less valid.

If digging into the origins of the statues helps give them meaning to you, that's great. But most people who encounter them necessarily appreciate them at face value, and that's great too, because deriving meaning from art is intensely personal.

And beyond taking on different meaning to each individual, as time progresses and the world continues to evolve, so too will the symbolic value of any work of art placed into the world. God knows the Charging Bull has taken on a lot of additional meaning to a lot of people since '08. How did Di Modica feel about how that event 'changed the meaning' of his work?

If you don't like a work of art, that's fine. But no one has the authority to tell someone else what it should mean to them.

I have a hard time imagining how Apple Store level service wouldn't be a big improvement over what I currently receive.

Also there's nothing routine I do at the Apple Store that requires me to wait any significant amount of time. Anytime I have a question, or want to buy something, or pick up an online order the service could hardly be any more prompt.

The only thing I have to wait for is the Genius Bar, and if I schedule in advance I don't usually wait very long. And I only have to do that when something actually breaks.

When my car breaks I generally have to schedule something in advance as well.

Boy this sounds familiar.

It's not just banks; many state (and presumably federal) angencies have this exact problem.

The agency I work for now has a large COBOL code base that's been in the process of being converted to Java for a very long time now with varying degrees of success. I frequently have to read through COBOL to figure out what a particular project was supposed to do in the first place. It's not hard to understand, but it's certainly not immediately intuitive for someone who came up on Java.

We have the privilege of still having a few of the authors of the original systems hanging around, but we won't for much longer.

Just the cost of a computer and internet access.

Which I pay for with money from...where, exactly?

Seriously. Every day I go in I think about how much more productive I could be if I could literally shut out distractions with a real live door.

Honestly I don't see how it's any different than a prospective employer running a background check on me, which has been a relatively common practice since before google achieved ubiquity.

Do you find that gauche as well?

What an excuse.

He describes a very poor practice that they still failed to follow.

My experience with old people is they take a shocking amount of time to consider googling something or they have me google it for them.

Some people just don't take kindly to being tricked.

So is Smalltalk a joke language now?

So who will survive? And what will death look like for those who don't?

So is it time to kill myself yet?

Louis CK edits his show on a MacBook. I don't know if you consider that serious, but it's a pretty good show.

Just because it's always been irrational doesn't mean it isn't especially irrational now.