Tuesday, September 4, 2001
First of all, the spam a lot of you received from that punk publisher, they don't have an IAM page. So I can't TOS them. I strongly urge everyone to forward the mail including all headers to their server's abuse department. As far as I can tell, either they harvested IAM for emails before IAM went members-only, or they harvested BME. Considering that they went to the effort of removing my email from the spam, it was definitely a malicious action.
To make it clear: I *NEVER* sell email addresses or membership information to ANYONE. So if you get spammed, it is NOT with my permission.
Speaking of spam, for the past six months or so I've somehow gotten on snailmail spam lists. I have no idea why vinyards think I'm a good guy to spam… Maybe someone has been blabbing about how much drinking happens at the BBQs.
This morning I went to get four prints from the ModCon book framed. Two will be auctioned off at the BBQ on Sunday. One will be put up in some yet-to-be-decided contest, and the remaining one is for me to keep.
Image update later today with some real neat stuff in it, including, for BME/extreme fans, a WEEK OLD healing bisection.
Saturday, September 1, 2001
I just got this photo (along with a special extreme secret superprise superthing surprise that will be revealed at the BBQ) from Mr. Blair. Is there any doubt that he's one of, if not THE best strike brander currently at work?
Saturday, September 1, 2001
Ack! I was just browsing one of the other piercing zines online and read the interview with their piercer of the month. I'm not going to mention names (there's no point), but MY GOD. It always amazes me when people who've been in this business for five or more years have no real concept of what they're involved with. I don't know if they were trained by idiots and then never learned on their own, or what the reasons are, but I hear a never-ending stream of insanity coming out of professionals mouths all the time — a reading of many of the experiences on BME illustrates this. Anyway, here's a sample quote, in response to a “what's your favorite kind of jewelry” question:
Definately 100 percent Surgical Stainless Steel. There's this big European phase right now about how terrible S.S.S. is and that we should only be allowed use of Titanium made products due to it having less nickel content in the metal. I have been at this profession a few years now and I insist only upon using S.S.S. as I have had such wonderful responses! I've seen terrible results in using Gold and Silver due to these substances being magnets for dirt. And only when a customer requests, or it is a know fact that they are completely sensitive to any metal will I resort to Titanium.
Let me point out a few things:
- There's no such thing as surgical stainless steel. “Surgical” is a marketing term. I'm going to assume that they're attempting to refer to “implant” grade (aka “ASTM F138″, or “ISO standard 5832-1″ and “ISO standard 6892″).
- Stainless contains nickel. Lots of people react to that. It's a simple fact — most people with nickel issues can still heal with stainless, it just takes longer. There are a very small number of stainless alloys like Elgiloy that don't contain nickel, but when you buy stainless jewelry, this isn't what you're getting.
- Saying gold and silver being “magnets for dirt” is lunacy. I don't even know how to respond to this. It's insane. Low grade gold is problematic BECAUSE it has nickel in it. Silver and silver alloys leech into the body as well… Just like nickel leeches out of Stainless Steel. ALL materials will attract bacteria when placed in a wound. None will draw DIRT. I sure hope this piercer understands the difference.
- The comment about titanium having “less nickel” is also insane. Titanium in pure form has NO nickel — it's not an alloy; it's an elemental metal. Titanium alloys include aluminum and/or niobium — no nickel there either.
In any case, you can argue back and forth all you want about how sensitive the average person is to nickel, but ANY piercer who tries to tell you that nickel allergies are virtually unheard of or tells you that stainless is a superior material for piercing is either a dimwit or trying to scam you by selling you cheap jewelry with a higher profit margin — it's no mistake that the medical implant industry has all-but phased out stainless steel in favor of titanium alloys.
Ask your piercer these about things — if they don't know, they have no right to be piercing you. There's no excuse for a piercer not having at least a basic comprehension of materials science… It's unethical and dangerous for them to be putting things under your skin that they don't understand.
Saturday, September 1, 2001
OK, I didn't do much clean-up — it was mostly MiL0 and enthalpy… I mostly just wandered around aimlessly and I think it might have looked like I was doing something productive. She tried to throw out my umbrella, but hey, I'm a big guy — I need a big umbrella, right? We've also got some pretty lights hanging in the tree — they don't really illuminate but they sure look nice.
