'Original' is a dead concept

'The day you stop changing is the day you die', they say. I say that applies better to your art in these days.

After browsing a few posts at the you thought we wouldn't notice blog, I realize how difficult, not to say impossible, it is to determine differences between what is 'copied' or 'stolen from' and what is 'inspired', 'based on' something else, when it comes to art and creativity matter.

The idea that one has to protect the perfect, untouchable and unchangeable work is so stupid last century. The very work you call "your own" is NOT original. Somewhere something has inspired you and someone has done something similar. If you want to be the absolute owner of all you do, just don't do it, keep it in your head or in a safe box, locked. Make sure you don't show it to anybody.

Being an artist is not about just creating completely new things from scratch. It is about being able to manage and combine the pieces around you, giving it new meanings and possibilities of use. That is what Lichtenstein and Warhol did with their so called "ready-mades".

The Campbell's tomato soup can was there as a simple can, but Warhol was able to reuse it as a painting. He did play with the pieces and see arrangements that others didn't.

Monalisa's face appears in t-shirts stencilized, and that is no copy, that is a tribute, sameway as it is when a band plays The Beatles' songs.

Whenever you do something you are throwing new material to the world. Where your work ends, the other's begins, it is a cycle. We don't own the thing, we barely determine a small part of it. But the real thing is a huge imagery cyclone, alive and changing every second. We are just agents, get used.

Once it is out there, you can't control: you gave it life and freedom, so be glad if your work is good enough to hit the streets and keep coming back in remakes. If it doesn't, then it is dead.

All you have to do, to play fair, is admit that you are part of the process. It did not came entirely from your brain and it will not stay as it was when you called 'done'.
Someone will still be able to reassemble it. If you're ok with that, you're in the game. Have fun.

Ah, the iFrame!

"I never had an iPod, an iMac nor an iPhone. But damn Im using the iFrame since ever and I’ll never abandon it!"

"Ah, the iframe. So we meet again. How is it that you’ve managed to survive for so long? Hiding underground for what seems like ages at a time, then suddenly uncoiling to reveal yourself and striking the unsuspecting Web developer from out of nowhere?"

Here I was ripping hair outta head, Googling for a workaround to fix a sticky iframe border for (surprise!) Internet Explorer, the nightmare-browser of any developer. I could spend lines cursing that browser-wannabe, but thats not the point here (the community is already doing a great job on it!).

So I found that bolded quotation upthere, at the Stuntbox Blog. It hits me right away.

Do you believe in a love at first sight? Ringo Starr would say "yes Im certain that it happens all the time", and he was right. I felt in love with the iframe ten years ago when I first saw it. The possibilities are endless. A squarebox in the middle of anything, with absolutely anyshitthing you want inside it!

I always kinda hated using frameset in my webpages, but the iframe is a totally different thing. Throw it inside a DIV and there you go floating free.

The curious thing is that the iframe has always been sort of an underground trick. It was just not popular and I've always asked myself, why people just don't use it? what is wrong with it that I dont know? All the innerHTML and complex workarounds... feels like screaming "hey, use the IFRAME, stupid!".

Lately, I was afraid that the iframe was about to be exterminated. It would be labeled as 'deprecated', 'non-standard', 'not-DOM-compliant' (beware of the DOM-nazis coming up folks...). I would certainly build a funeral site for our helpful, shy little ifriend: the iframe. With the words "in his simplicity, he was misunderstood".

But hey, seems that he is finnally showing his face to the world, and coming back in full strength, out of the underground to get his deserved place in the standards.

I never had an iPod, an iMac nor an iPhone. But damn Im using the iFrame since ever and I’ll never abandon it! And now, the world will see I was right.

Long life to the iframe! GO FRAMIE, GO!

(yes, my blogmates, I know pensatta isnt about development, and yes, it was intentionally wrote in engish. Oh, and by the way: to have control over the frame border in IE, by javascript, use the so called 'camelCase' myframe.frameBorder (with capital "B").
As said at Stuntbox: 'All this despite the fact that the very same attribute is all lower case when in it’s in the markup. Sure. Makes perfect sense to me'.

Heh. It is a really nice post, if you like the matter, you should read it. It is always nice to see how does each person curses the IE... ;)

Adolescente francês é preso por tradução pirata de 'Harry Potter'

" Neste mundo gerado pelo usuário, é um tiro no pé coibir a ação de um fã que traduz uma obra de 700 páginas gratuitamente".

A polícia francesa prendeu um adolescente de 16 anos que fez uma 'tradução pirata' do último livro do Harry Potter.

Segundo a notícia no G1, os investigadores ficaram surpresos com a qualidade da tradução, considerada semiprofissional. A notícia diz ainda que o jovem não teve nenhum fim lucrativo com a sua tradução, apenas era um fã que dominava muito bem o inglês.

Isso nos leva a pensar muito sobre a disparidade das burocracias mundiais em relação ao que é, verdadeiramente, a realidade social de hoje.

Não cabe aplicar a pena de uma lei a este jovem, como se ele estivesse fabricando cópias ilegais e vendendo livros piratas há dez anos atrás. As coisas mudaram e quem tem dificuldades são aqueles que ainda vivem sob o modelo obsoleto de comércio e sociedade.

Não tendo nenhuma intenção de lucro, nem de prejudicar os donos da obra, o que se pode realmente dizer do jovem francês é que ele é inteligente, capaz e altruísta. Tudo isso deveria ser enaltecido em vez de punido.

Não sendo uma cópia com a intenção de se passar pelo original, tudo o que ele fez foi contar em francês uma história que ele leu num livro inglês. Se despertou o interesse de muitas pessoas, se o acesso foi fácil porque ele utilizou a internet como meio (e porque não utilizá-la hoje em dia?), parabéns a ele por sua capacidade, não há nada aí para ser punido.

J. K. Rowling, sua editora e sua distribuidora deveriam tirar melhor proveito dessa realidade, usando a internet para divulgação e como catalisador de vendas. Neste mundo gerado pelo usuário, é um tiro no pé coibir a ação de um fã que traduz uma obra de 700 páginas gratuitamente.

Cabe aos marqueteiros adaptarem-se à nova realidade e botar a criatividade pra funcionar, inventando uma forma de lucrar nesse novo paradigma. Talvez eles tenham que abrir mão de alguma coisa, como o controle absouto de suas imaculadas propriedades. Paciência; hoje, tudo são versões e releituras, mixagens e colagens, a informação é mutante e orgânica, inconstante.

Proibir a ação das pessoas não só é impossível como é errado. Não irá se submeter a sociedade ao mercado, mas sim o mercado à sociedade.