shapeless

May 25

I paint during lulls at cons.

May 21

HijiNKS ENSUE: You Can Take The Convention Out Of The Library... -

Dallas Comic Con and I have always been at odds. I resent it for being so close to my home and yet such a poorly organized, terribly mismanaged convention, and it resents me for being alive apparently. In years past, Dallas Comic Con was held in a local library here in town. The artists alley…

Joel’s being nicer than Dallas Comic Con deserves. All the attendees were polite and I loved meeting my readers, but from a business point of view, it was abysmal. On the heavy foot traffic day my table was obscured by a line for the concession stand for four hours, easily.

DCC is a shitpile of poor planning. I won’t be back until they figure out what they’re doing. And while I’m pretty pissed about getting screwed on booth location ( seriously, DCC, that was NOT worth the price I paid), I feel bad for attendees - many of whom just seemed miserable. Also, the poor volunteers. Too few of them, and the ones they had were doing a job best handled by 5-6 people, not one volunteer.

May 20

My next plushes & sorcery painting-to-be

May 14

mijomy asked: So the 'blog' part of s*p has said "Tomorrow's post: reactions to “Nailed!” and reader reactions in general." for 6 months now... You going to get on that soon?

Nope - never. Gonna leave it there forever specifically to bug yooooooou <3

(Seriously, though, the recent I never finished it was ‘cuz I couldn’t get into words what I wanted to say about complaints I get versus complaints people assume I get)

May 11

[video]

May 10

devieklutz asked: Did you recently get a cat? and if so can we get some pictures?

I do not have a cat. But there are many people in my life who have the furry little hateballs.

“And Then Things Got Weird,” 8”x8” pen and watercolor on 140lb watercolor paper.

I actually did this this to test out a tube of Holbein’s gold watercolor. I used it for the sky. Sadly, it doesn’t really show as anything but orange in scanning. However, the sky in the painting is actually shiny.

Such is life.

May 08

The FBI is asking Internet companies not to oppose a controversial proposal that would require firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, to build in backdoors for government surveillance. . . . The FBI general counsel’s office has drafted a proposed law that the bureau claims is the best solution: requiring that social-networking Web sites and providers of VoIP, instant messaging, and Web e-mail alter their code to ensure their products are wiretap-friendly.“If you create a service, product, or app that allows a user to communicate, you get the privilege of adding that extra coding,” an industry representative who has reviewed the FBI’s draft legislation told CNET. -

wilwheaton:

Moreover, for anyone who defends the Obama administration here and insists that the U.S. Government simply must have access to all forms of human communication: does that also apply to in-person communication? Should home and apartment builders be required to install monitors in every room they build to ensure that the Government can surveil all human communications in order to prevent threats to national security and public safety? I believe someone once wrote a book about where this mindset inevitably leads. The very idea that no human communication should ever be allowed to take place beyond the reach of the Government is definitive authoritarianism, which is why Saudi Arabia and the UAE — and their American patron-ally — have so vigorously embraced it.

Greenwald points out that the FBI does not need this, because they can go to a judge, get a warrant, and use traditional surveillance when it’s necessary. “But what about encryption?!” Well:

the problem cited by the FBI to justify this new power is a total pretext: “investigators encountered encrypted communications only one time during 2009′s wiretaps” and, even then, “the state investigators told the court that the encryption did not prevent them from getting the plain text of the messages.” As usual, fear-mongering over national security and other threats is the instrument to justify massive new surveillance powers that will extend far beyond their claimed function.

I’m profoundly disappointed in the Obama administration’s record on civil rights and privacy. I expected better from a president who is a Constitutional law scholar.

tl;dr: The very idea that no human communication should ever be allowed to take place beyond the reach of the Government is definitive authoritarianism

The only thing missing is the whole, “If you’ve done nothing wrong you have nothing to be worried about” bullshit argument we were force-fed for almost a decade.

(via kezhound)

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

abangnotawhimper:

You’re not alone. People care. It gets better.

tastefullyoffensive:

Reblog if you…

[via]

This. A thousand goddamn times, this.