An Ultra-Minimalist Cabin Takes A-Frames To The Limit
By Suzanne LaBarre, fastcodesign.comWilliam O’Brien Jr.’s “cabin of curiosities” was designed to house a quirky client’s quirky collection of artifacts.
Tucked into the woods of the scenic Mountain West, the Allandale House is not your typical forest cabin. You won’t find any…
Amazing design.
What a BOSS: “here’s a sword, if you cut my beloved movie, I’ll cut you.”
Japanese animation legend Hayao Miyazaki has a strict ‘no-cuts’ policy when his films are brought to the US. To emphasize it, one of his producers sent a samurai sword to the co-founder of Miramax
You might’ve never heard of Hayao Miyazaki, but he’s responsible for some of the best animated…
When the web started, I used to get really grumpy with people because they put my poems up. They put my stories up. They put my stuff up on the web. I had this belief, which was completely erroneous, that if people put your stuff up on the web and you didn’t tell them to take it down, you would lose your copyright, which actually, is simply not true.
And I also got very grumpy because I felt like they were pirating my stuff, that it was bad. And then I started to notice that two things seemed much more significant. One of which was… places where I was being pirated, particularly Russia where people were translating my stuff into Russian and spreading around into the world, I was selling more and more books. People were discovering me through being pirated. Then they were going out and buying the real books, and when a new book would come out in Russia, it would sell more and more copies. I thought this was fascinating, and I tried a few experiments. Some of them are quite hard, you know, persuading my publisher for example to take one of my books and put it out for free. We took “American Gods,” a book that was still selling and selling very well, and for a month they put it up completely free on their website. You could read it and you could download it. What happened was sales of my books, through independent bookstores, because that’s all we were measuring it through, went up the following month three hundred percent
I started to realize that actually, you’re not losing books. You’re not losing sales by having stuff out there. When I give a big talk now on these kinds of subjects and people say, “Well, what about the sales that I’m losing through having stuff copied, through having stuff floating out there?” I started asking audiences to just raise their hands for one question. Which is, I’d say, “Okay, do you have a favorite author?” They’d say, “Yes.” and I’d say, “Good. What I want is for everybody who discovered their favorite author by being lent a book, put up your hands.” And then, “Anybody who discovered your favorite author by walking into a bookstore and buying a book raise your hands.” And it’s probably about five, ten percent of the people who actually discovered an author who’s their favorite author, who is the person who they buy everything of. They buy the hardbacks and they treasure the fact that they got this author. Very few of them bought the book. They were lent it. They were given it. They did not pay for it, and that’s how they found their favorite author. And I thought, “You know, that’s really all this is. It’s people lending books. And you can’t look on that as a loss of sale. It’s not a lost sale, nobody who would have bought your book is not buying it because they can find it for free.”
What you’re actually doing is advertising. You’re reaching more people, you’re raising awareness. Understanding that gave me a whole new idea of the shape of copyright and of what the web was doing. Because the biggest thing the web is doing is allowing people to hear things. Allowing people to read things. Allowing people to see things that they would never have otherwise seen. And I think, basically, that’s an incredibly good thing.
—Neil Gaiman on Copyright, Piracy, and the Commercial Value of the Web (X)
(Source: roominthecastle)
—David Foster Wallace, The Pale King (via aneclecticmess)
(via valerie2776)
(Source: hipsterjohngreenquotes)
A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis
Love.
(Source: leanourway, via changing-soul)
YES, this right here is what I’m talking about. We’re all stuck in some sort of societal rut where we’re all like: yeah, this is as good as it gets; then go back and watch formulaic Hollywood movies and buy formulaic gadgets that really aren’t all that different while THINGS COULD BE SO MUCH BETTER! Why does it take the economic crisis and people starving and a nation of unemployed to shake us out of this “whatever” mentality?!
WE ALL HAVE THE CAPACITY TO IMPROVE and CONTRIBUTE to SOCIETY. You tell them little bird!
CLAIRE, YOU SAID YOUR TWO CENTS. IT’S MY TURN.
YOU KNOW HOW WHEN YOU SAY, “CHINA IS COMMUNIST,” SOMEONE ALWAYS CORRECTS YOU AND SAYS “ACTUALLY, CHINA HAS INSTITUTED A LOT OF CAPITALIST POLICIES SINCE MAO’S DEATH AND THAT’S HOW THEY’VE SHOWN SUCH A FREAKISH INCREASE IN GDP, AND BLAH BLAH BLAH”? IT’S NOT LIKE THEY’RE WRONG. THAT’S QUITE TRUE. BUT CHINA’S STILL COMMUNIST, RIGHT? MY QUESTION IS, WHY CAN’T WE DO THE REVERSE? A CAPITALIST COUNTRY THAT ADOPTS CERTAIN LIMITED COMMUNIST POLICIES TO FIX VARIOUS PROBLEMS? OR SOMETHING ENTIRELY DIFFERENT? AMERICA IS A VERY YOUNG EXPERIMENT. WE’VE BEEN AROUND FOR WHAT? 250 YEARS, GIVE OR TAKE? CHINA IS LIKE, A FEW THOUSAND YEARS OLD. SO ARE A LOT OF OTHER COUNTRIES. THINGS CHANGE.
UNRESTRICTED FREE-MARKET CAPITALISM IS POINTLESS SINCE IT COMPLETELY IGNORES A WIDE RANGE OF SOCIAL NECESSITIES, AND YOU CAN’T RUN A COUNTRY BY IGNORING THE PEOPLE IN IT. WHY NOT TRY TO PIECEMEAL SOMETHING NEW FROM THE EXISTING STRUCTURES WE’VE ALREADY SEEN IN ACTION AND ADD THEM TO OUR OWN? REMOVE WHAT DOESN’T BENEFIT US. WHEN YOU START A SMALL BUSINESS, FOR INSTANCE, YOU LOOK AROUND AND SEE WHAT’S WORKING FOR YOUR COMPETITION AND WHAT ISN’T AND STRUCTURE YOUR BUSINESS ACCORDINGLY, YES? THAT’S ALL I’M SAYING. SOMETHING NEW. THE BEST OF WHAT’S OUT THERE.
OBVIOUSLY WE NEED SOME ’SOCIALIST’ POLICIES TO ENSURE OUR CITIZENS DON’T DIE IN THE STREETS AND TO HELP HEAL THE ECONOMIC DIVIDE. BASIC INFRASTRUCTURE, EDUCATION AND HEALTHCARE ARE STANDARD IN 90% OF THE DEVELOPED WORLD. WHY NOT HERE? DON’T TELL ME IT’S SOME SORT OF DEFINITE BLACK AND WHITE ISSUE. WE’RE THE MOST ADVANCED COUNTRY ON EARTH AND WE’RE SACRIFICING DEMOCRACY AND DECENCY FOR SOME SORT OF “MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY” ECONOMIC TANTRUM WHEN WHAT WE’RE DOING IS OBVIOUSLY NOT WORKING. WE DON’T HAVE TO PULL A 180. WE JUST NEED TO STOP BEING STUPID AND FIGURE OUT WHAT WOULD DO THE MOST AMOUNT OF GOOD FOR THE LARGEST AMOUNT PEOPLE AND THEN MAKE IT WORK.
THERE. NOW IT’S YOUR TURN. HOWEVER, IF YOU QUOTE SOME IDIOTIC UNFACT YOU HEARD ON FOX NEWS I WILL SHIT RIGHT ON YOUR FINGER. I’M NOT JOKING.
OH, SO IT’S NOT CORPORATE OUTSOURCING OF PRACTICALLY EVERY MAJOR MANUFACTURING AND TELECOM JOB IN THE COUNTRY THAT’S GUTTED US ECONOMICALLY BUT IMMIGRATION? IS THAT WHAT YOU’RE SAYING? YOU HAD A BRIGHT FUTURE PICKING VEGETABLES FOR $3 AN HOUR ALL LINED UP? WE’RE A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS. IMMIGRANTS BUILT OUR COUNTRY. YOU’RE IRISH FOR CHRIST’S SAKE.
I’M JUST SAYING IT’S ALL SOCIALIST OR SOMETHING. I SAW IT ON A NEWS SHOW. WE GOT TO KEEP THESE PEOPLE FROM BECOMING CITIZENS. IF WE LET THE MEXICANS AND THE WHOEVERS COME OVER AND TAKE OUR JOBS WE WON’T HAVE NO MORE JOBS FOR HARDWORKING AMERIC- HEY! JESSE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
KILLING MYSELF, LENNY. KILLING MYSELF SO I DON’T HAVE TO TALK TO YOU ANYMORE. GOODBYE.
Lion King meets Up, but rated R with some sort of “edgy dysfunctional family background”-esque thing. Hmm.
LET’S GO TO THE MALL!
NO.
LET’S GO TO TOYS ‘R’ US!
NO.
LET’S GO TO ONE OF THOSE EYES WIDE SHUT SEX PARTIES AND STAND AROUND UNCOMFORTABLY IN MASKS WHILE NUBILE WOMEN AND RIPPED UP GUYS GET ALL INTERCOURSEY!
… YEAH, WE CAN DO THAT I GUESS.
AWESOME! I LOVE YOU, GRANDPA.
SURE, WHATEVER. GET YOUR COAT.
BWAHAHAH: inter’racial’ gay wolves! Basketball and youth pastors! Drunken douchiness! I can’t even-. This is too-. Yeah… so much love. You tell that questionably homophobic racist, wolf!
I’M SORRY, I COULDN’T HEAR WHETHER THAT WAS HOMOPHOBIA OR RACISM! YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO SPEAK UP!
WHAT’S THE MATTER? IS IT THE WHOLE GAY THING OR THE FACT THAT IT’S INTERRACIAL? OR IS IT BOTH? IS YOUR BRAIN JUST GOING TO EXPLODE THINKING ABOUT IT? BECAUSE YOUR FACE IS DOING SOMETHING TERRIBLE RIGHT NOW.
STOP TAUNTING HIM. YOU’RE SUCH A DICK SOMETIMES.
SHHHHH. HE STARTED IT.
YOU WANT TO REALLY HAVE YOUR MIND BLOWN? HE DOESN’T EVEN LIKE BASKETBALL AND I’M A YOUTH PASTOR! WE’RE GOING TO GO HOME AND MAKE A STEREOTYPE CONFUSION SWIRL CONE!
I SWEAR TO GOD YOU’RE LIKE A TEENAGER WHEN YOU’RE DRUNK.
IT’S OKAY. HE RAN AWAY. HE PROBABLY HAD TO GO CALL RIPLEY’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT.
I WISH YOU WOULDN’T DO THAT.
I WISH YOU LIKED BASKETBALL. PLAYOFFS START IN TWO WEEKS.
Walter, have you been mechanized?
BOOYAH! IT’S CALLED A DEFENSE BUDGET, MY FRIEND!
“INSURGENTS” IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN ARE FIGHTING US WITH ANTIQUE AK-47S? LET’S SEE THEM TRY TO USE THOSE ON A GODDAMNED DOLPHIN WITH LASERS. I’M NOT EVEN A PERSON! AND I HAVE LASERS, MOTHERFUCKER!
You don’t think that’s a bit excessive?
WE BOMB LIBYA FOR FUN! WE INVENTED GUNS THAT SHOOT AROUND CORNERS! WE SPEND TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS EVERY YEAR ON “DEFENSE” FOR A COUNTRY THAT IS ESSENTIALLY ISOLATED FROM EVERYTHING EXCEPT CANADA AND MEXICO SO THAT PEOPLE WITH SLINGSHOTS AND REVOLVERS DON’T “TERRORIZE” US! NOTHING EXCESSIVE ABOUT THAT. THAT’S OUR TAX DOLLARS IN ACTION! ALL THAT MONEY HAS TO GO SOMEWHERE. WHY NOT MY FINS?
But this is an illegal war started under false pretenses. Shouldn’t the government be trying to end it, not wasting the money of citizens who want their troops brought home? Shouldn’t we be letting these ‘insurgents’ get back to their lives?
YOU THINK MAYBE OUR RESOURCES WOULD BE BETTER SPENT ON INFRASTRUCTURE AND HEALTHCARE AT HOME? YOU THINK THESE BROWN STRANGERS WHO NEVER ACTUALLY ATTACKED AMERICA JUST WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE TO REBUILD THE CITIES WE ILLEGALLY INVADED AND DESTROYED? WELL, TOO BAD! GOING I’M GOING TO RISE UP FROM THE WAVES AND SAW THEM IN HALF WITH INTENSELY FOCUSED LIGHT! I GOT THAT BOOM BADOOM BOOM BOOM BADOOM BOOM BASS! I GOT THAT SUPERBASS! AND LASERS!
The more I read about our society, our media, our people, the more despair I feel. How is it we are left with such a shitshow mess to clean up? Are we even fucked bothered to take a breath, look around and CARE about the world we live in, or are we too obsessed with our statuses as consumers and the hard choices we have to make in life (e.g. hmm, should I get the iPad or iPod touch - which would showcase my individuality and freedom of choice)? Well, someone has to start somewhere, so let’s make a list of the things we need to fix:
I think the list is unending, and my heart too heavy to continue on. This is the world we are inheriting - I hope we do a better job.
