Friday Ephemera
Stalker. (h/t, Damian) // Chores. // Horse yoga. // The wrong sperm. // Clothes-folding robot steams and de-wrinkles. // Ravel conducts Boléro, 1930. // On the distribution of lions. // We three. // Robotic bee. // Christopher Snowdon debunks some myths. // Who earns what (maybe) in a hypothetical $200M blockbuster movie. // It is difficult to overcook mushrooms. // Discuss. // An oldie but a goodie. // The strange story of Tetris. // “On September 3, 1967, all traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right.” // Levitating plant rotator. // This. // “The heart has already formed.” // Concentrated coffee. // Attack of the clams. // Picasso meets Kubrick. // “The largest private residential ship on the planet.” // The crushing patriarchy.
Poor Gawker, all bashed up.
In all seriousness, isn’t Bolero a trite piece of music?
“The heart has already formed”. The video was taken down. What was it about?
The video was taken down. What was it about?
Chicken gestation.
Poor Gawker, all bashed up.
Imagine, no more Jezebel. Tragic.
Imagine, no more Jezebel. Tragic.
The unhappy ladies won’t be missed here. I wonder if io9 will survive. It was the only one of Gawker’s offshoots that I enjoyed poking through. Though even there, leftist politics has been shoehorned in with increasing frequency and precious little skill.
[ Added: ]
The assumption that any readers with an interest in science fiction, films, comic books, etc., must automatically share a rote leftist outlook is a tad grating. (See also Metafilter, where any political content almost invariably leans left, usually with the same air of “But how could anyone hip and happening disagree?”)
Whoa! Metafilter is still a thing?
“The assumption that any readers…”
I dropped Metafilter and BoingBoing from my daily reading for that reason. Those places are infested and make me a Sad Puppy. Jalopnik still seems to be OK.
I dropped Metafilter and BoingBoing from my daily reading for that reason.
I can’t be sure how recent or widespread the shoehorning is, but over the last few months I started noticing lots of clumsy and, to me, incongruous political sermons, all of which presumed the reader’s agreement, as if no other position were conceivable among anyone with an interest in aspects of pop culture. These are, or were, non-political sites that I’d browse for fun, and so the intrusion of “social justice” blather and identitarian claptrap – and the assumption that readers ought to be sympathetic to it, by default – does rather poison the experience.
Tragic news from about a shooting attack on a nightclub in Orlando. Florida. Seems that the perp is a muslim man.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-36512308
Never let it be said though that our Penny Red ever misses the point:
@Jonathan
I’m sort of vaguely disappointed in Penny. I should’ve thought she’d have managed to blame this on the white, cis-heteronormative, male, Christian-ist Patriarchy by now.
From what I’ve read from commenter at reason.com who wade into sites like the Huffington Post, there are actually people claiming that the Christian fundies created the attitude that made Muslims hate gays. Or something idiotic like that.
The hysteria from the Left on the horrible Orlando murders is telling … Blame priority:
#1 guns
#2 homophobia
rinse, repeat
Bring up radical Islam and be scolded about Robert Dear (the Planned Parenthood shooter who lived in a hut & even the court has declared incompetent) or the Crusades.
“Muslim communities in US … will be feeling so much fear”
Well, those in dance clubs anyway.
In all seriousness, isn’t Bolero a trite piece of music?
A couple of years ago I heard a version that added a hint of pitch-bending to the horn swells, giving the whole thing a slightly monstrous and demented feel. It was quite invigorating.
Holy crap, but a man with explosives is arrested in Los Angeles; said he was on his way to LA Gay Pride parade.
LATimes wants you to know
I’m sort of vaguely disappointed in Penny. I should’ve thought she’d have managed to blame this on the white, cis-heteronormative, male, Christian-ist Patriarchy by now.
I’m just surprised they haven’t managed to blame it on Donald Trump. Anyway, this is a f**king preventable tragedy.
Now Darleen, there’s nothing in that LA Times piece that rules out his simply being an NRA gun enthusiast knocking on doors looking for someone to go shooting with. Though it does seem odd why he would be knocking on doors if he was planning to shoot up a parade. just as odd that nothing was reported as to who the guy might be. My money is on Lutheran kindergarten teacher.
Found this rather interesting, given that it was published last Wednesday,
http://news3lv.com/news/nation-world/isis-kill-list-targets-palm-beach-treasure-coast-residents-ex-fbi-agent
Ray,
“1:33 Gaffer $125,468.”
I must have blinked at the wrong moment. Thank you for that.
What does a grip earn though?
“‘m just surprised they haven’t managed to blame it on Donald Trump. Anyway, this is a f**king preventable tragedy.”
Oh they have. When Trump (crassly) pointed out “I told you so” – The left screams Nazi at him.
Of course Obama couldn’t use the words Islamic extremism either.
Expect the media to drive for a gun control narrative as usual, the brazenly cowardly bastards that they are…
“On September 3, 1967, all traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right.”
Reminds me of a joke when I was a kid in France. Went something like this:
The Belgians have decided that they should switch to driving on the left side of the road instead of the right side, so they’ll change over the course of two weekends. Next Sunday all the trucks start to comply, and the following Sunday it’ll be the cars.
Spiny Norman: I guess I’m certifiable as well. Nice eclectic mix of European and US cars they had in Sweden at the time. I fondly remember the Ford Taunus in the foreground (the taxicab – and fondly mostly because I was a young lad at the time). Looks like there’s a Checker cab going in the other direction, behind a Mercedes W110 Heckflosse saloon, the one with the US-inspired fins in the back. Funnily enough no Saabs or Volvos that I can see.
In all seriousness, isn’t Bolero a trite piece of music?
If that. It’s a sonic warhorse for aspiring to high culture. Great things are as rarely appreciated as they are themselves rare.
I think the guilty should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, but the process should be civilized. Otherwise we as a society are embracing a form of lawlessness as well. Mobs are not civilized and in today’s world mobs are often virtual.
Issued with the caveat that legislatures are typically quasi-ethical mobbists, I assume. But the bolded part is encouraging, force being what it is.
Having been once upon a time roundly informed in this space that the law cannot be an ass if erecting its industrialized ham sandwich nation, you can perhaps see my interest.