Episode 50 – Bah Humbug

Tonight on Friday Night Party Line…Luke Burrage doesn’t care, Scott Johnson’s walls are held up with spackle, Churba preserves his artistic integrity, and Timo reinvents the Microwave.

Topics:

“Congress authorizes Pentagon to wage Internet war”
Note: The headline says they’ve authorized it, but they actually haven’t yet.

The Aura of Art
Philosopher Walter Benjamin, in his essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, tells us that something important has been lost now that art can be duplicated so easily; that works of art have lost that special quality (or “aura”) that comes with context and uniqueness and, instead, have gained “exhibition value”.
Is that really the case, or has our understanding of art changed to allow for millions of copies of a single work?
Luke’s Painting

Multi-funtion or Mono-function: Is either better? 
So many things in our lives are multi-funtion; smartphones, multitools… some mice have as many as 15 buttons. As we work harder and harder to make our gadgets smaller and smaller, we try to cram as much functionality into them as we can, hoping to make our pockets lighter in the process. The problem is that, most of the time, it just doesn’t work out. There is something to be said about doing one thing and doing it well.
Is it better to specialize or to consolidate and settle? Is this restricted to things, or do people apply to this as well?

Obligatory New Year’s Resolutions Topic


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