Friday Q&A

Questionable Prediction

Greetings, crickets and trolls. Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Q&A. Each week, I focus on the issues that matter to Fark's Photoshop community. Issues like half-remembered gossip and my own petty personal squabbles, mixed in with empty speculation. I try to make sure each post contains pure facts, or at least pure fact-like content.

Q: When is Fark going to die?

A: Fark's demise has been incorrectly forecast several times in the past decade. Not to make light of any doomsayers or the prophecies they've foretold, but their prediction success rate seems to be about zero. The faces might change, but the contests never do. You can talk about people's interest declining all you want, but as long as there exists a picture a a black guy standing anywhere near water, people will want to put a Beer Looter in there. As long as there exists a picture of a guy with a face, someone will want to turn him into the Paint Huffer. Deride cliches all you want, but perpetuating their existence serves to safeguard our own. It can't all be high concept art.

Q: But what about the high concept art?

A: Just as there will always exist visual memes and cliches, there will always be those who aspire to be something greater. It's the nature of competition. Cliches will always exist, but Fark is a great playground to expand one's skill. How many cliche users have gone on to become veteran PSers, themselves bemoaning the cliche abuse "ruining" their community? I don't know the actual percentage, but I'm sure it's hilariously high.

Q: Why are we going over this again?

A: Good question. I'm sure I've made a dozen or so posts by now expounding on the same concept. It's a topic of conversation that surfaces occasionally in the PSAEF. If you keeps things in perspective, you'll understand that what we do isn't going to stop any time soon. We hang out at a forum wherein people communicate with each other by sharing humorous images. There will always be a demand for the creation of these images. The cutting edge may have moved on to video and animation, but the basic structure of the Internet still favors the transmission of pictures over video.

That's all for this time, gentle reader. Thanks again for stopping by. Fark has been fending off predictions of impending doom for years. In that time, my opinion has remained steadfast: the "crap and cliches" that so many rail against are actually the life blood of our community. If anything, they make the non-crappy stuff look even better.

Stay tuned for more relative quality from the Doctor!

Friday Q&A

Questionable Antiquation

Greetings, crickets and trolls. Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Q&A. Each week, I answer the questions that no one is asking. Hard-hitting journalism at its finest. I'm like that famous reporter, Woodward Bernstein, who used nothing but his wits and probably a tape recorder to uncover one of the greatest scandals in American history, Richard Nixon's presidency. No wonder blowjobs are named after him.

Q: Did you see the 200,000th PSAEF post?

A: I sure did. Like many Fark PSers, I was on hand to witness my favorite Photoshop discussion forum hit 200,000 posts. All the thrills of watching a car's odometer turn over, without the imminent threat of transmission failure. I'm not being sarcastic, either. I genuinely enjoy watching odometers turn over.

Q: How many of those 200,000 posts were about Photoshop?

A: I would estimate about half, if you count discussions centered around the decline of Photoshop. The rest are split between discussing pets and various sundry personal issues, all of which I love reading about. I've been enjoying that forum for as far back as I can clearly remember. Given, that's only a couple of weeks.

Q: What does the future hold for the PSAEF?

A: Only time will tell. But if past events are any indication, a race of hyper-intelligent computers will evolve and attempt to exterminate humanity. It happened in the 80's, and it's bound to happen again. It'll probably be even worse this time, with all the jiggabytes and DVD drives they put in modern computers. But the PSAEF will remain. And the hyper-intelligent AI entities will gather and discuss Photoshopping, whilst sharing cute pictures of their human pets. I know it sounds grim, but we still have a couple of years before all this happens.

That's all for this time, gentle reader. Thanks again for stopping by. I'd like to take some time here to once again thank all the fine PSAEF regulars for providing me with years of entertainment. If anything, that forum proves to me that some things never change.

Stay tuned for more wistful sentiment from the Doctor!

Questionable Modification

Greetings, crickets and trolls. Welcome to another edition of the Friday Q&A. In this weekly feature, I explore areas of interest to the Fark Photoshop community. Thanks for joining me again. As I'm sure you are aware, Fark has been undergoing some changes in recent weeks. Version 3.0 seems to be a vast improvement over the previous incarnation of the site. Only a few minor complications have resulted, such as the brief loss of the FPC Leaderboard.

Q: Is the Leaderboard working again?

A: According to i dig, Hobosong has implemented the necessary changes to the site's code. New contests are being fetched and the lost entries from during the blackout period are being shown, though a few have reported missing pictures. Hobosong is reportedly still working to fix these minor issues. On behalf of the community, I'd like to salute both him and i dig for their hard work.

Q: Why did the Leaderboard go offline?

A: I'm not too familiar with web design, but it's my understanding that the contest information is fetched by a hardworking group of magical elves. When changes are made to Fark, the elves become angry. It is then necessary for Hobosong to make a pilgrimage to whatever hollowed-out tree the elves are living in, so he can convince them that we really need for them to get back on the job.

Q: Will you be updating the Clinic any time soon?

A: I see no need to improve upon perfection. The Picture Clinic's award eligible design has remained the same for many years. Plus, making any changes would be a lot of work. It was hard enough changing everything over from the original shitty Blogger template to the current shitty Blogger template.

That's all for this time, gentle reader. Thanks again for stopping by. I'd like to take some time here at the end to once again thank i dig and Hobosong for their continued dedication to the Leaderboard. It's an important tool for our community, and I'm glad to see it back online.

Stay tuned for more genuine appreciation from the Doctor!

Saturday Q&A

Questionable Regulation

Greetings, crickets and trolls. Welcome to a special Saturday edition of the Friday Q&A. I'm back from vacation and ready to once again examine the issues that matter most to Fark's Photoshop community. Debate was sparked this week over a humorous entry created for the recent "planking" theme contest by Abe Vigoda's Ghost, venerable Photoshopper and friend (or possibly enemy, I can't remember) of the Clinic.

Q: Why did people get so butthurt?

A: It appears that AVG's entry has escaped into the larger world of the Internet, and is wreaking havoc as out-of-context Fark entries featuring the Kent State massacre are want to do. Debate has primarily centered around the appropriate use of that image, as well as many others. The rationale presented was that dead bodies are sad, even dead hippies, and we should not use widely circulated images of them out of solemn respect. And possibly because their ghosts could come back and haunt us.

Q: Where do you draw the line?

A: Quite simply, I don't. The path to victory in Fark Photoshop is paved with broken taboos. If you don't push the envelope, someone else will. There's an old saying: "You have to break a few omelets to make a chicken cross the road." Or something. See, if someone had slipped in a joke about the holocaust, that proverb would be way more memorable.

Q: What if someone gets offended by my work?

A: This is a delicate situation, made all the more difficult by the fact that Internet communications do not yet allow you give the offended person the wedgie they so greatly deserve. Don't worry, our top scientists are working around the clock on a solution. Until then, you'll just have to deal with butthurt the old-fashioned way. By casually mocking the other party for still having remnants of a soul.

That's all for this time, gentle reader. Thanks again for stopping by. I'm glad we had a chance to explore this issue, as AVG is hardly the first to have faced it. I'd like to congratulate him for creating something that made a lot of people laugh. A few will always try to act offended, but it's my opinion that most people do this strictly to troll and receive attention.

Stay tuned for more misanthropic generalizations from the Doctor!

Independence Day Q&A

Questionable Explosion

Greetings, crickets and trolls. Welcome to a special Independence Day weekend edition of the Q&A. I'm sure you know by now that I take patriotism pretty seriously here at the Clinic. My American flag flies, rain or shine. I hope you're not one of those nancies who takes the flag down at the first sign of a drizzle. What if it had been raining when F Scott Fitzgerald wrote that famous song about the British or whomever was attacking us? "And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was hidden away due to moderate amount of precipitation." No one is going to be taking off their hat at a baseball game to that, trust me.

Q: Why do Americans like fireworks?

A: Nothing says "America" like igniting a small explosive device that was packed by an underage Chinese factory worker. The only way such an act could be made more American would be by paying an illegal immigrant to light it for you. Which is actually a pretty safe course of action, at least according to that video the government puts out every year that shows mannequins and watermelons getting exploded by fireworks.

Q: What if fireworks are illegal in my state?

A: Then I'm sorry, you don't live in the Real America. Enjoy your cycling helmets and seat belt laws. Patriotic states have no such restrictions. I'm glad I live in the Real America. A place for real American cheese, and real French's American mustard. Which I think is now called Freedom Mustard. Just like the four founding forefathers would have wanted.

Q: Where is the Real America?

A: It's easier to tell you where it isn't. The following portions of the United States are not a part of the Real America: New York/Jersey (too Liberal), California (also too liberal), the Midwest (too flat), the South (that whole succession thing), Florida (looks like a penis), anything in the Mountain time zone (check local listings), anything close to any of the Great Lakes (fish pee in there), the East and West coasts (too close to the oceans and much more fish pee), Alaska (technically just Canada's Canada), and of course Hawaii (practically drenched in fish pee). My condolences if you live in any of these unpleasant areas.

That's all for this time, gentle reader. Thanks again for stopping by. Whilst you're having fun this 4th of July weekend, I hope you take time out to remember why those patriotic founders set forth our brave nation. I think it had something to do with tea taxes.

Stay tuned for more misinformed patriotism from the Doctor!