Katerina Kamprani: The Uncomfortable.

Katerina Kamprani has some very interesting and entertaining work:

All the objects you will see in this website are deliberately designed to annoy you.

This project started after I failed to finish my studies in industrial design around 2011 and it has continued to grow ever since. My goal is to deconstruct the invisible design language of simple everyday objects and tweak their fundamental properties in order to surprise you and make you laugh. But also to help you appreciate the complexity and depth of interactions with the simplest of objects around us. As a poor designer I have started the project by making conceptual 3d visualisations, but recently I have decided to spend all my savings to produce prototypes, because what would the world be if there were no Uncomfortable objects out there?

Many of these did make me laugh, but there was also a sense of cynical despair, because if these objects were marketed, people would buy them. The concrete umbrella would become a popular garden ornament. The thick buttons would become a new anti-fashion fashion statement. The wineglass would become a new party drinking game favourite. The chain fork would become fashionable jewelry. Ms. Kamprani is in Athens, but here in uStates, people have become such slaves to marketing, I don’t think there would be a problem in selling any of Ms. Kamprani’s prototypes. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to see unscrupulous people taking advantage.

You can visit Ms. Kamprani’s site to see more.

Sunday Facepalm.

Oh Kevin Swanson, the religious extremist’s extremist. He’s at it again, pouring down Jehovah’s wrath in the form of hurricanes, natch. Mr. Swanson has a solution to Hurricane Irma eating Florida, though!

Kevin Swanson declared on his radio program today that the Supreme Court should immediately reverse its Roe v. Wade and Obergefell decisions before God unleashes his judgment on America in the form of Hurricane Irma.

Swanson, who just last week said that Hurricane Harvey was the judgment of God on Houston, said that these “God-ordained disasters” are a warning to this nation to repent for its myriad of sins.

Now, Swanson said this on the 7th this month, and I have to say, it would be a fun experiment, if you could get the Supreme Court to say, okay, the law is suspended until such and such a date, and see if it would magically wither Irma. We all know it wouldn’t have the slightest effect, and the religious reich would claim that Jehovah got all sniffy ’cause it wasn’t a permanent reversal. Of course, it doesn’t take much to make Jehovah all sniffy and pissy.

“God is in control of what is going on,” he said, “and whether or not Irma is going to do $200 billion worth of damage in Miami … is all in the hands of God. Those winds are going to blow where they are going to blow, but they’re going to blow in the direction that God ordains them to go. Friends, God is in complete control and utter control of what is going on with these hurricanes.”

Well, the wind is gonna go where it goes, but Jehovah is in control, you betcha! So, that’s why Mar-a-Lago and other overblown McMansions of conservative assholes are right in the path, and that’s why we’re all getting taxed for the federal coverage of Pres. Pinchpork’s palace. So, one could go with the assumption that Jehovah isn’t upset about gay people, but conservative assholes. Unfortunately, Jehovah’s aim has always been notoriously bad, so a lot of good people are gonna get screwed over here, but Jehovah has never been one to care about ‘collateral damage’.

“The wrath of God against this nation is intense,” Swanson continued. “I wish that American leaders would sit up and pay attention … The Supreme Court of the United States needs to reverse Roe v. Wade and Obergefell now, this afternoon, before Irma does her damage. It would be a good thing if the Supreme Court of the United States understood that God is in control of these things and God is a personality and God is offended by the sins of this nation.”

Oooh, Jehovah is a personality. A psychopathic one. Yeah, I’m not shaking in my boots over your non-existent psychopath, Mr. Swanson. Climate change, on the other hand, there’s reason to be scared shitless.

Via RWW.

Helios Day Mood.

UCD Choral Scholars – Mo Ghille Mear.

MO GHILLE MEAR Written by the eighteenth-century poet Seán Clárach Mac Dómhnaill, Mo Ghille Mear is a traditional allegorical song – similar to the Gaelic poetic form of the Aisling – in which the poet laments the departure of Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie). As is customary, the poetic text portrays the land in decline in his absence. The drum used in this recording is the Irish single-headed frame drum, the bodhrán.

Text and Translation below the fold.

[Read more…]

Annoyed.

Vala is the very picture of annoyed right now, she wants to paint. None of this silly marker business, where she has to stay off the paper, can’t eat markers, and the biggest annoyance of all, no leaving lovely little drops and streams of piss all over everything.

© C. Ford.