Can art go too far? Obviously the definition of art can be a little strained.

Finger-painting is to art as Curling is to the Olympics. Some might remember Muslims declaring a fatwa against a Dutch cartoonist who depicted the Prophet Mohammed, and the controversy surrounding the creators of South Park who did the same.

The newest controversy  in the art world  is now at the venerable Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC.

The eye  of the artistic storm is a video on display at an exhibition about the suffering caused by AIDS.

The video, made by the late David Wojnarowicz, featured a clip of a crucifix covered with ants. The video has since been pulled by the Smithsonian.

Many prominent Republicans including Minority Wip Eric Cantor and Minority leader John Boehner have condemned the artwork as offensive to Christians and an attack on Christmas. Many on the right are now suggesting defunding the Smithsonian.

It is obvious to see the video “Fire In My Belly”, which harms no one, can be unsettling. It is definitely very creepy, so we won’t post it here but if you want to see it to make up your own mind click here.

The image of a crucifix swarmed with ants makes up about 25 seconds of a four minute video. To be honest whether or not this video is legitimately offensive to Christians is seriously up for debate.

Ultimately the debate will come down to federal funding for the Smithsonian. While Mr. Wojnarowicz was certainly within his rights to create the film, the question is whether or not a federally funded entity can display something that may or may not be offensive.

Is this big government censoring free speech? Or do federally funded agencies have an obligation to uphold “common decency”?

The Google-supported Planet Wars Google AI Challenge had over 4000 entries that used AI and game theory to compete against one another. C at the R-Chart blog analyzed the programming languages used by the contestants with some interesting results.

The usual suspects were the most popular languages used: Java, C++, Python, C# and PHP. The winner, Hungarian Gábor Melis, was just one of 33 contestants who used Lisp. Even less common were entries in C, but the 18 “C hippies” did remarkably well.

Blogger C wonders if Lisp was the special sauce:

Paul Graham has stated that Java was designed for “average” programmers while other languages (like Lisp) are for good programmers. The fact that the winner of the competition wrote in Lisp seems to support this assertion. Or should we see Mr. Melis as an anomaly who happened to use Lisp for this task?

To promote a more consistent user experience, Mac apps submitted to the App Store must write files in the appropriate location. This avoids users being confused when applications store data in unexpected areas of the file system (e.g., storing databases in the user's Documents folder or storing files in the user's Library folder that are not recognizably associated with your application).

Learn more about file system usage

To promote a more consistent user experience, Mac apps submitted to the App Store must write files in the appropriate location. This avoids users being confused when applications store data in unexpected areas of the file system (e.g., storing databases in the user's Documents folder or storing files in the user's Library folder that are not recognizably associated with your application).

Learn more about file system usage

Your website is the best place to provide demos, trial versions, or betas of your software for customers to explore. The apps you submit to be reviewed for the Mac App Store should be fully functional, retail versions of your apps.

Your website is the best place to provide demos, trial versions, or betas of your software for customers to explore. The apps you submit to be reviewed for the Mac App Store should be fully functional, retail versions of your apps.