Elliott C. Back: In Aere Aedificare

Check out this awesome virtual sculpture by John Gerrard:

“In the work an oak tree is central to the frame, however a strange transformation has come about with the result that the foliage of the tree is abundantly producing carbon in the place of oxygen.”

Yesterday, Boing Boing erroneously linked to my website with the following description:

Elliott Back uses Gummi Bears to cleverly depict the 7 Deadly Sins. “Envy” shown here, and “Greed” are my favorites. Link (via Martin Klasch)

Unfortunately, I didn’t create that work, as the page itself gives attribution to the actual author:

These photographs were created by Wiedmaier and released under a limited CC license.

The way I understand a Creative Commons Attribution license is that by writing who made the photos and also linking where I found them, that I could republish them on my page, albeit in a scaled down version. That still didn’t stop me from getting hate mail, though:

Email #1)

if you’re going to take somebody’s work, you need to give them credit and link straight to their work. you should also make it so that people can actually submit comments on your blog, I just got an error from hashcash.

Email #2)

Notice that the link on Boing Boing was quickly removed, my guess is that’s b/c they realized you didn’t create those even though you had presented them as such. Linking to the author’s profile is not the same thing as linking to the original page where they appeared, plus you only added that after you got linked to from boingboing, so you obviously just did that b/c you didn’t want to get busted.

I really can’t believe this guy. First, that post has always linked to the author’s page. You can check out the google cache if you don’t believe me. Second, I responsibly called Mark Frauenfelder’s cellphone and left a message informing him that the BB attribution was wrong, which probably led to them taking it down.

There are three interesting scandals going on around the net, and I don’t feel like covering any of them, so I’ll just summarize and give you a few links for more information. They’re interesting and popular, but for some reason, I don’t particularily want to touch any of them.

Tamara Hoover

An art teacher for Austin High School is in danger of being dismissed and having her license to teach revoked because her roommate published naked photographs of her on Flickr, the popular photo sharing site. The Austin Independent School District issued the statement, “Please know that AISD has no intention of infringing upon a person’s legitimate rights to free speech and expression. However, public school educators are legally held to a higher moral standard, in order to protect the young lives they influence.” On her blog, Ms. Hoover wrote, “I have just filed to have a hearing (standard protocol). I should be given a date for that hearing sometime next week. (end of next week) This hearing is where “they” hear my arguments and decide my fate. We have begun due process.”

Britney Spears

After an interview with Dateline to get out all her frustrations with life, Kevin, children, and the press, Britney Spears breaks down in tears and complains that the media hounds are ruining her life. The Gossip Rag has the scoop–and links to the interview on YouTube!

Singaporean Girls

A teengager in Singapore was beaten and stripped in a stairwell, but a video recorded on cell phone has been circulating through MMS and the internet. With her humiliation and assault on tape, the girl should have filed a police report, but probably hasn’t. Meanwhile, confused Americans keep linkwhoring to the term “Singapore” which appeared in the top 10 of Technorati again for the first time since the “Tammy from NYP” cell phone video scandal.

I was browsing the Flickr set for Tattoo photos and decided to blog about the tattoos that I liked most and least. I’m most interested in the back, because that’s the easiest place to hide one, and the most likely place I would be to get one, if I were a girl. Guys generally put them more visibly on their arms, so I’m out of luck for now.

0) My least favorite of the batch. The fuzzy, perhaps self-done, tattoo. It looks out of place, because it’s overly large with wide lines, and lacks definition. here is an example of a sea horse that fits this description:

1) Then, there’s the full back. Instead of highlighting natural beauty, it seems to exists to cover it up. Here’s a great example, but it hides the person underneath too much:

2) Putting a large tattoo on the lower back is extremely popular. However, I feel that size is again an issue, because the tattoo doesn’t seem properly connected to the rest of the body:

3) Slightly smaller tattoos on the lower back are better than large ones:

4) While placed a bit too high, smaller is better when the lower back is concerned. Note the delicacy in simple lettering in a foreign script:

5) Here we being to see something I appreciate. The dragonfly is minimally drawn in looping radius, unfilled. In simplicity and placement on the lower back, art is created:

6) Finally, the best tattoo of the bunch. It is a butterfly in color, placed high on the back. It is delicate and blends with the skin:

Personally, none of these feel quite right. I think I’d want to see something more subtle, on the lower back. Something with extremely fine lines, stretched long across the back, but vertically very condensed. Perhaps Julie will have some suggestions for me, although #5 and #6 would look a hundred times better on her than me.