Heracleum Mantegazzianum

Pannenhuis metro station, Brussels, Belgium, 1982

Pictures by Klaas Vermaas

here’s a list of things i love about this video of a team of croatian armed forces pushing a naval mine off of the top of a mountain

1. introduced with only the vaguest approximation of where or when it is happening

2. the joy in the eyes of everyone presenting the mine to the camera without ever once explaining how it ended up in the mountains or why they plan to blow it up by just sending it careening into the valley

3. “release [unintelligible] sphere”

4. the guy (maybe in charge?) screaming “LIE DOWN” 15 times in a row to everyone after the mine has been pushed off the side of the mountain, with absolutely no effect

5. the guy openly wondering whether they should have warned anyone who lived in the valley below that they were pushing mines down the mountain a split-second before it blows up

you have to understand this game is fundamentally coded NOT TO ALLOW YOU TO GUESS. if you are clicking in a block its because you have followed a chain of deduction to the very end and you know as a matter of certainty what youre doing. the game can tell when you are just randomly guessing, and the way i knows this is that it can spin up on the spot a potential solution out of all possible solutions where your guess would have been wrong. you can only click on a block if there is no possible solution existing on the latent solution space create dby the already revelaed blocks where you could be wrong

and this is all procedural. none of these boards where made by hand, there is an algorithm to determine all this

there is something so beautiful in this, it scratches an itch ive been itching where you get a game that all just math, no graphics, no assets, no effects, no particles, no nothing. this is as barebones black and white, completly naked. the entirety of the processing power of this game is purely dedicated to the math underneath. the entire game takes place inside the calculations in your head which are going against the invisible calculations in your computer.

Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Tenerife, La Gomera y El Hierro (association of architects), by Javier Díaz-Llanos La Roche e Vicente Saavedra Martínez (1966-1971).

Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands - Spain.

© Roberto Conte (2023)

So, yeah…

like, they still look like fairly attractive girls and the artist cant help but showing them as carefree, smiling and merry.

and equivalent comic from today would have shown them as repugnant and angry or otherwise grotesque, deformed and unpleasant.

Cutting - in my opinion, the most labor intensive part of the process. The amount of time/effort needed varies depending on the pattern and if seam allowance is included or marked separately, but no matter what this process can not be done by machine. Each and every panel and piece of fabric that goes into a garment must be cut by hand by a person.

Pinning/clipping - pinning (or clipping) is the stage at which you align the pieces you are going to be stitching together and hold them together with — you guessed it! — either pins or clips. This can not be done by machine.

Stitching - the actual sewing. This can be done by a sewing machine, but that machine still needs to be operated by a human being.

Ironing/pressing - two words that mean the same thing. The iron itself is a machine, but once again, it needs to be operated by a human being.

Finishing - depending on the technique you use, there are certain finishing techniques that can only be done by hand. But, let’s assume we’re talking about fast fashion, which is usually just finished with a simple overlock/serger. Once again: these machines need to be operated by people.

These are just the basic steps to making a garment, and don’t include textile arts that I am not as knowledgeable about, such as weaving, knitting, and crochet. Also, it is important to note that there are a lot of things that can only be done by hand, such as certain stitches and decorative techniques.

Also, the machinery being operated in textile factories is not equivalent to a domestic sewing machine. We’re talking about one of these guys:

See that gray cylinder under the table, behind the knee pedal? That’s the motor. These machines can sew through your fingers bones and all and not even stop. The people in these factories and sweatshops are operating heavy machinery, and are subject to all the risk that comes with that in addition to all of the work I mentioned above.