Stay Free! Daily

Replacing Ads with Art

Co-blogger Steve Lambert of the Anti-Advertising Agency got some coverage in today's New York Times for AddArt, a Firefox App which replaces advertising on web pages with modern art.

It is a very cool tool, building on the open source AdBlock Plus, not only getting rid of the ads but filling in the space left behind.

I encourage you to read the NYT article because, even if you aren't interested in blocking advertising (really? you aren't?), Mr. Lambert is a striking man and there is a color photo.

Prank of the Month: Fake Gucci Ad

A few years back, I bought ad space in magazines for Matador. To place an ad, I'd call an ad rep, reserve the space, and send them artwork. Shortly after the ad came out, they'd send me a copy of the ad along with a bill.

So I was psyched to see someone making creative use of this system: A guy in Switzerland, pretending to be a representative from Gucci, called up a weekly paper and reserved a two-page spread. He then sent in a fake ad of himself naked from the waist up, flanked by a bottle of Gucci fragrance. When the bill went to Gucci as he requested, hilarity ensued.

Now if only we could get away with that to advertise iDump...

(Via Adfreak)

The Message is the Medium

While Jack is at home watching commercials by himself, Steve Lambert is out blocking ads with his friends.

In response to the ubiquitous public advertising in New York City - including illegally posted advertisements - Steve's Anti-Advertising Agency and the Graffiti Research Lab have collaborated on a project to appropriately label the MTA's grating video ads.

You can read about the project here. As you'll see in the short accompanying film, the cover up is much better than the crime.

Move over Tomagotchi!

If you don't have an 8-year-old in your life, you might not know about Tomagotchi.  They're little electronic keychains/virtual animals that need to be "fed" and cared for every few hours by pressing a series of buttons.  Whatever, that's old news.  Now there's GenPet!  It's not a virtual pet, it's a real, living, genetically engineered pet.

Hybernating in their packaging, the GenPets are awakened from their dormant state when you take them home.  They never grow and stay their cute size for their entire 1 to 3 year lifespan (like having a puppy forever!).  Their combined DNA give them imited motion "like a baby or a doll" and they only need feeding once per week. But remember: never feed your GenPet after midnight.

Blacklisting at Craigslist

I read today in the NYT that a group is suing Craigslist because the site does not fully screen out real estate ads that overtly discriminate. I'm down with policing housing discrimination, but I had two thoughts when reading the article: (1) making it illegal to state a preference in advertising probably only minimally keeps someone who wants to discriminate from discriminating and (2) does this apply to shares? Because I'm not sure that it should apply to shares.

If I were in the market for an apartment, I would want to know if I my potential roommate was a bigot. (It would save me some time when apartment hunting.) So I created an ad that probably violates the policy but is more helpful than the one would have to write if he had a spare bedroom. Read it now; it probably won't be up for long.

Hardwood floors and new appliances are very hard to find in New York for under a thousand.

UPDATE: Posted at midnight, flagged and taken down by 8AM.

More corporate graffiti?

Thanks to Matt Novak for tipping me to this oddly tagged newsrack that he spotted in Milwaukee.... but is it corporate graffiti? No way. How can I tell? Easy: Target would never advertise on something this ugly. This is closer to Lumpen's style than Sony's. In fact, it reminds me of a prank the Cockeyed guy did a while back, where he painted a couple of ratty metal chairs with the Starbucks logo, chained them to a random street sign, then watched for weeks to see what would happen. Street art. Gotta love it.

Talk bubble advertising

Designer Ji Lee makes "talk bubble" stickers that he places on street level advertising. After passersby fill in the bubbles with commentary, Lee photographs them, then documents the results at TheBubbleProject.com. 

The project creates a forum for some dialogue in public space typically dominated by advertisers. Oh, and how it hits a soft spot in my heart! (In fact it was a similar motivation which inspired a project I did with the Anti-Advertising Agency.)  The Bubble Project includes templates so you can print out the bubbles at home and paste them up in your town.

Who's your mommy

Remember the credit card prank we blogged about back when? Well, the same guy has come up with another entertaining way to publicize holes in credit card security. This time around, John Hargrave calls Visa and, when asked for his mother's maiden name, gives an unintelligible response - but the customer service rep pretends he got it right and gives him his account info anyway! The rep even tells him the correct maiden name!

This call is the third (and best) in a series; I couldn't listen to the other two the whole way through because Hargrave is pretty hard to bear in those. (The first call is enough to make you feel sorry for Visa's rep, though he too erred.)

Who will snark the snarkers?

It took a chance meeting with a regular human, but Gawker recently discovered that some blogs allow people to comment. Gawker thought about this and said Really? All of them?, and instituted an invitation-only comment system. And then invited only their friends.

If you had something to say, but are upset that as a mere prole you have no forum, worry no more. Through the wonder of RSS, friend-of-Stay Free Jim Hanas has created Gawker Talker, a headline aggregator that is comment-enabled for the common man.

This better get me a fucking invitation.

American Science, RIP

While standing in line at the post office, I saw this new series of stamps devoted to American scientists...which is kind of ironic considering how our sciences are now under attack from all corners: from evangelicals to pharmaceutical marketing, educational declines, and funding cuts. It's like singing "Happy Birthday" to a man as he's being taken away on a gurney.

I don't know much about the individual scientists, other than the fact that they are dead, and that their tiny, stick-on tombstones can now service your mailings for 37 cents. But Jason, Charles, and I thought a parody was in order.

And with that we bring you an updated version of American Scientists. (We know God isn't precisely "American," but try telling that to the evangelicals...)

Download sheet of parody stamps (pdf)

Original View original stamps