RasterWeb!

Art is a provocative medium. It always has been, and hopefully it always will be.

So when MoveOn.org recently held a contest called Bush in 30 Seconds, which asked for submissions from the public, there was quite a stir caused by two pieces that compared Adolf Hitler to George W. Bush.

I won’t voice my opinion on either of those guys, but needless to say, this is nothing new in the art world. I’ve seen such depictions of political leaders as [insert something icky here] since the days of Reagan, and I’m sure things go back further, but since my memory doesn’t, that’s all I can speak of. I did do a project in school that looked at how collage art was used as a weapon against propoganda during World War II though, so I’m sure this goes back a long way.

There’s always been subversive and underground art, but it’s pretty much been, well… underground. The internet tends to change those things. If you want it to. I’m fairly sure the folks at MoveOn.org knew what they were doing when they choose the finalists, and put the on the web. It’s called publicity.

So it’s 2004 now. I just wanted to update and let you know I’m still here. I get more emails from people I know who read this who are not techie-geeks who tell me they have no idea what I’m talking about. I suppose that’s ok. I saw The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and I enjoyed it. I also played The Lord of the Rings version of Monopoly. This was also enjoyable. We went rock climbing and got raw milk, and other fun stuff. I enjoy not going to work. Ok, well, that’s it for now…

I am saddened by the death of Joe Strummer. The Clash were influential to me in many ways, and I still listen to them on a regular basis. Goodbye Joe, thanks for all the great words and music. Now we’re all lost in the supermarket…

I got myself a cordless drill for Christmas. It makes holes in things. I’ve already taught the girls how to use it. Every 6 year old, and almost 4 year old, should know how to use a cordless drill, right?

Lots of work has been happening in the Drupal world lately, and the admin section is getting better by the day. Hopefully everyone working on it will keep up the current level of improvements, and we’ll soon have a nice little system to deploy.

I’ve not yet deployed Drupal here because it still doesn’t work the way I do. I think if you’re considering a new publishing system to replace your current system you’ll find two things:

1. Systems that conform to the way you work
2. Systems that force you to conform to the way they work

Right now Movable Type is the first one, while Drupal is the second one. In my mind all systems should probably be able to conform to the way you work, while being able to suggest that the way they work might be a better alternative. (This reminds me of the Mac OS X dock controversy.) Drupal’s taxonomy is probably a lot more powerful than Movable Type’s category system right now, of course things change quickly on the internet…