By adding extra time to each episode, Project Runway has been able to integrate a 3rd dimension to the evaluation process -- the opinions of the other contestants. While this has shown up in previous seasons, it has developed to the point where the judges' authority is being called into question. This is great for me as someone who has been educated about fashion by watching the show, because I am now at a point in my fashion knowledge where I don't need to be convinced that it's not all just arbitrary, so there is no need to protect me from learning about dissent. It is like the adolescence of the show, or, more appropriately, the transition to democracy from tyranny. You still get the sense that things are censored heavily enough, but they are taking real risks with what they have left in at this point. The judges are making the contestants distraught and it is wonderful to see this conflict, and to know exactly what the contestants see that the judges don't.
I agree with the contestants. I don't understand why they chose that jumper from Gretchen, which they said women would want to wear. Women who live on another planet from me. Even more mind boggling was the decision this week.
At the same time, I don't feel totally confident in my "taste" level in part because I like some of the simpler or more obvious designs. Case in point for this episode is Christopher's little green dress, which the judges didn't like the bottom of for a reason they did not specify.
If you want to see the dress they liked, it's here. The one they should have is here.
BTW, all fashionistas should be Hegelian. If there was ever evidence of the movement of a world spirit....
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
Wave Race
What is great about the old N64 "Wave Race" game that I haven't noticed in other racing games is not just having to slalom through the buoys, but having to do so in the face of the chaotic waves. The problem with racing games is that racetracks are too stable of an environment, which means you don't have to be adaptive once you have figured out how to negotiate the various turns. If you introduce being thrown about by chaotic waves, then no two games are the same, which is part of the appeal of, for instance, chess.
Mario Kart tries to accomplish this with the turtle shells and so on that you can get hit by and by having moving obstacles, and that stuff makes it interesting enough, but the chaotic field of waves is part of the fabric of the game, not just a decoration on top. Racing games are about movement, and the movement in Wave Race is just way more dynamic.
Look at this guy do the stunts!!! (below)
Update: It is also possible, I just learned, to change the wave conditions on any given track!!
Mario Kart tries to accomplish this with the turtle shells and so on that you can get hit by and by having moving obstacles, and that stuff makes it interesting enough, but the chaotic field of waves is part of the fabric of the game, not just a decoration on top. Racing games are about movement, and the movement in Wave Race is just way more dynamic.
Look at this guy do the stunts!!! (below)
Update: It is also possible, I just learned, to change the wave conditions on any given track!!
Adam and Eve
In the creation story in Genesis, Adam and Eve each receives as a punishment for original sin a kind of labor particular to his or her gender. Adam will be condemned to toil in the fields for food. Eve will experience great pain in childbirth. And so the difficulty of making ends mete, punishment, and pain all fit together within the ancient Hebrew perspective. The ancient Greeks related them also, but perhaps differently or not in as clear a way.
The fact of pain in the world is associated with the necessity of maintaining the species through labor in this story, and the fact that this is difficult to do (which is why it is painful) is explained in terms of the necessity of punishment as a response to sin, which is a result of God's divine rule. This is not a story about how the world began; it is a story about what pain means, just like a story about why there are rainbows or how leopards got their spots.
The work of Eden lies in the fact that it gives the ontology in precisely the opposite direction that it should. Begin with God, then work your way to pain. But what happened historically is that this system developed in the other direction (says Nietzsche). In the beginning, there was pain. We can endure pain only by giving it a meaning. This was provided in terms of punishment, justified by sin and carried out by a divine Punisher. You have to tell the story in reverse order in order to cover up the history of the concepts, which is a standing threat to their apparent explanatory power.
The fact of pain in the world is associated with the necessity of maintaining the species through labor in this story, and the fact that this is difficult to do (which is why it is painful) is explained in terms of the necessity of punishment as a response to sin, which is a result of God's divine rule. This is not a story about how the world began; it is a story about what pain means, just like a story about why there are rainbows or how leopards got their spots.
The work of Eden lies in the fact that it gives the ontology in precisely the opposite direction that it should. Begin with God, then work your way to pain. But what happened historically is that this system developed in the other direction (says Nietzsche). In the beginning, there was pain. We can endure pain only by giving it a meaning. This was provided in terms of punishment, justified by sin and carried out by a divine Punisher. You have to tell the story in reverse order in order to cover up the history of the concepts, which is a standing threat to their apparent explanatory power.
Caper
V. To leap or jump about in a sprightly manner.
h/t: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html?src=me&ref=general
h/t: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html?src=me&ref=general
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