Outside the Lines

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posted 02/01/07 by Todd Hunter Beware The Miltant Marker Activist

It's like we are all walking on eggshells these days, trying not to offend someone or some group of oversensitive numbskulls. The history of progress in this country is based on offending people, so that they might rise to the challenge and advance themselves, or become competitive, thus perpetuating progress. The inventor of the wooden pencil, Lothar von Faber, was so offended when Charles Marie de la Condamine invented the eraser, he challenged him to a duel, citing that Condamine intended to wipe out everything he had worked for. A business man himself, Conamine accepted the challenge and the men met for a duel with pistols. When the duel commenced, each man fired simultaneously and each man was mortally wounded by the other man's bullet. Both men were so enraged that before they died, they grappled and fought with each other hand-to-hand. It appeared that Faber would be the last to die from his gunshot wound when he had Condamine by the throat against a rock, but in his last gasp, Condamine pulled one of Faber's own wooden pencils from Faber’s jacket pocket, and jabbed it into Faber's eye, killing him instantly. Condamine died moments later.

The artisan and writing community soon got word of the horrific sight of the two men dead on top of one another on the dueling field. This group was so offended by the mere thought of such barbarism over to two very useful tools, that they lobbied their local governments to decree that all pencils will also have an eraser affixed on the opposite end to both commemorate the two inventors Faber and Condamine, and to symbolize that not everyone draws it right the first time.

In the days before political correctness, when things actually got done and no one was sued for doing those things, being offended actually resulted in useful advancements. Sure someone is always going to take a pencil in the eye but in the name of technology, is it really that big of a deal?

Fast forward to 2007… Of course Autodesk is a large target when it comes to opportunistic whiners needing to claim to be offended by someone. Here we are trying to develop a tool that not only helps designers be more productive but is also fun to use, giving the user feelings of enormous satisfaction and fostering creativity in a whole new medium. Well you can never please everyone (which is the greatest American attribute) and so a new group of whiners has emerged: The Global Marker Alliance. We at Autodesk got wind of the GMA right after Impression went live on Autodesk Labs. We’ve tried to contact them on a number of occasions, but for some reason, they are not responsive. We are not sure at this point who was initially offended and initiated the GMA but we have evidence that the GMA is funded by large marker manufacturers. There is speculation that the ACLU will back them. You can read about this subversive group at this link http://www.savethemarkers.com I recommend that you forward this link to as many designers that value their productivity as you can. People need to be aware of this potentially dangerous group.

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