Interesting Links for 05-07-2013

• Fascinating discussion of colour in animation, particularly around skin tone (and applied to the Avatar TV series)
  (tags: colour technology animation art tv avatar )
• Douglas Engelbart, inventor of the mouse, and pioneer of the modern GUI, has died.
  (tags: history computers gui )
• The ban on Khat is irrational and preposterous
  (tags: law uk drugs )
• War kitties in hammocks
  (tags: cats war )
• Top 10 Ways To Celebrate Tom Cruise's Birthday
  (tags: satire TomCruise )
• Somewhere between 16% and 40% of the world are not religious.
  (tags: religion poll demographics )
• Have _you_ used Oral Penetration to get more pay?
  (tags: epicwtf advertising )

Comedy without laughter is pain

A while back, Bernard* posted a link to this Simon Amstell live show:

And Julie and I watched it, and laughed ourselves silly. It's tragic, depressing, intensely personal, and incredibly funny.

Today, thegoldenghost posted this:

which is a clip of his new stand-up, with the laughter edited off the soundtrack, and some sad piano edited in.

And suddenly it's ten times as horrible, almost to the point of unwatchableness. Which just goes to show the line between comedy and misery is a very, very thin one.

*Who, if he has an LJ, hasn't used it in so long that I have no idea what it might be.