Friday Ephemera
“This just looks impossible.” // Why sunny weather is bad for your secret identity. (h/t, Damian) // Why crashing into the Sun is harder than you think. // Westeros mapped. // Old shoe found in well. // Hello, Mr Williams. (h/t, Ace) // Game over. // A billion degrees of separation. // It’s a quaint Swiss villa and also a bunker. // Making tennis balls. // Split flap display combines abbreviations and cats. // Korean cinemas knock it up a notch. // The Darwinist dangers of Pokémon Go – an Islamic scholar speaks. // An enterprising young lady. (h/t, Julia) // Train set of note. // Springtime tornadoes. // How many fireflies would it take to match the brightness of the Sun? // And finally, make your own sperm fitness videos: “This can be done without getting semen on the phone.”
Korean cinemas knock it up a notch.
Alamo Drafthouse, San Francisco and elsewhere . . .
I want the train set.
It’s a quaint Swiss villa and also a bunker.
Ehn, because it keeps coming to mind, Mr. White should have had one . . .
One cool thing about liquid hydrogen is that it is so cold that improperly insulated piping conveying it will liquefy surrounding air. Then the liquid air will separate into nitrogen and oxygen creating an oxygen-rich environment and causing an increased fire risk. Oxygen fires are no fun at all.
Why crashing into the Sun is harder than you think.
My mind can cope with Newtonian orbital calculations and Charles Mingus bass lines.
But that just made me feel dizzy.
“This just looks impossible.”
Oh, right; it’s a variety of high jump.
The edge on one side provides an additional launching platform to spring off of, where yes, there’s the apparent who knows how far drop underneath, but most high jumps merely have a bit of sand or whatever underneath which the conventional jumper also leaps over anyway.
Nah, not interested in trying that as a proof of deconstruction m’self, I have other hobby ideas that I’d rather work on . . .
And finally, make your own sperm fitness videos:
I know how healthy my sperm is feeling by how much he pulls on his lead when I take him out for a walk in the morning.
Why crashing into the Sun is harder than you think.
It’s harder than you think, and it was interesting to see why, but not as hard as they made out.
You use a nearby planet to brake your speed relative to the sun in a “slingshot” which points you in the right direction (and speeds you up in the process). It’s how they build up speed for most deep space missions, and you just apply the same process in reverse. Any rocket capable of making it to the moon would be able to do it.
Chester, thank you, you’ve triggered an idea.
I’m off down to my basement, I may be some time…..
PS. Does anyone have any spare extra-large elastic bands I can borrow?
‘Morning, all.
Laurie Penny:
https://medium.com/welcome-to-the-scream-room/im-with-the-banned-8d1b6e0b2932#.7i9c95vcv
I wonder why it’s on Medium. Didn’t a newspaper want it?
Laurie Penny
Actually, I think that’s one of Laurie’s better pieces – stylistically, I mean. Yes, it’s riddled with errors, lazy conceits and wilful distortions – there’s a big one we’ve already talked about in the very first paragraph – and given Laurie’s track record, I’m reluctant to assume that the events she mentions actually corresponded with her descriptions. But it’s more… evocative than her usual overdriven boilerplate, and funnier:
I mean, that’s a good paragraph.
I mean, that’s a good paragraph.
Did our host just compliment Laurie Penny? *rubs eyes*
*rubs eyes*
Heh. I think Laurie’s hyperbolical worldview is usually quite unmoored from reality – the world, as she sees it, is always “on fire,” whether writing about football or pubic glitter. But the gathering she attended was, it seems, quite odd, as such gatherings tend to be, and at times a little surreal. A big US political convention, regardless of tribe, will to some extent overlap with Laurie’s trademark overstatement. And this election season has been stranger than most.
“Morning, all.”
That has been happening much more ever since the demise of the drafting table and it became “easy” to make changes with CAD.
“If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out of it but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and no-one dares criticize it.”
– Pierre Gallois
I saw this rather splendid video of macro and micro scales this morning: https://www.facebook.com/kripu.kasumarthy/videos/1011891972221362/
You use a nearby planet to brake your speed relative to the sun in a “slingshot” which points you in the right direction
Yeah, but “Set the controls for a slingshot that points us to the heart of the Sun” doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Did our host just compliment Laurie Penny? *rubs eyes*
*faints*
*faints*
It was a very small compliment. Let’s not go crazy.
“This can be done without getting semen on the phone.”
Third time’s a charm.
Shot:
I’m a radical queer feminist leftist writer burdened with actual principles.
Chaser:
He thinks that’s funny…
So do I. Actually, I think that is a) delusional; b)as rare as a real hippogriff.
You know technology has run amok when even phone sanitizers are losing their jobs.
Oh, and sorry, I couldn’t resist:
So do I. Actually, I think that is… delusional
I wonder if Laurie ever considers the possibility that the people and cultural phenomena she says she despises – Milo, Trump, a rejection of political correctness, etc. – are in part a reaction to, and fuelled by broad resentment of, the influence of people very much like herself.
Laurie clearly likes Milo despite herself. Her piece reads like the beginning of a bad romcom.
Laurie clearly likes Milo despite herself.
Cue flatshare comedy.
“pubic glitter”
Aaaaaaaargh the visuals, the visuaaaaaaaaaals…
*claws out own eyes with a kangaroo paw back scratcher*
Aaaaaaaaaarghnononono, I can still see the glitter, how it sparkles in the eternal darkness of my lidless, empty eye sockets. David what have you done?
No refunds, credit note only.
I like how in Laurie’s own piece, which you’d expect to be biased towards her and show those she dislikes in the worst possible light, Milo comes across as fun to hang out with and she is the killjoy.
I suspect that she actually had a lot of fun and she’s putting on a show for her regular readers in her article.
“This can be done without getting semen on the phone.”
Now you tell me.
A bit of music for you.
https://youtu.be/Tk-5RVMerfI
A bit of music for you.
I see the joy of the weekend is upon us, then.
Laurie seems to be experiencing a bit of cognitive dissonance regarding Milo. That is, a person she’s vilified turns out to decent and fun to boot. I wonder whether she secretly believes that Milo is putting on an act merely to garner fame and money and secretly is as left-wing as Laurie. That is, the flamboyant gay guy can’t really be a conservative if he’s this interesting and fun. Ergo, he must, must be really like me.
Cognitive dissonance is Milo’s thing. It’s how he’s able to provoke American college students into such extraordinary paroxysms just by showing up on their campus.
I’m a radical queer feminist leftist writer burdened with actual principles
That’s one for your collection, isn’t it, David?
That’s one for your collection, isn’t it, David?
It’s practically a punchline.
What’s interesting to me is how Laurie appears baffled that anyone could be in favour of Trump or his pronouncements, even as a last resort, while many of her own statements reinforce the fears and suspicions voiced repeatedly by his supporters. As, for instance, when she says, “Donald Trump has just been confirmed as the presidential nominee, to the horror of… 15,000 members of the international press.” That many voters might regard such a uniform political inclination, or presumed inclination, among the media as a bad thing, a dangerous thing, doesn’t seem to occur to her. I’m no great fan of Trump, but his willingness to accuse the media of being baldly partisan, and to press that point, is, I’m sure, part of his appeal.
What I like best about Mr. Trump is that he is not Hillary.
“This can be done without getting semen on the phone.”
Yeah, how many times have I heard that?
Her piece reads like the beginning of a bad romcom.
Is there any other kind?
JerryC: There is. Try “Saving Face”. I recommend seeing it with children of Chinese immigrant parents.
Try “Saving Face”.
Oh, yes, very good one, that.
However . . .
. . . like the beginning of a bad romcom.
Is there any other kind?
JerryC: There is. Try “Saving Face”.
Errrrrrr . . . . . Romance, yes, but comedy?!?!?! Bloody only in a classic sense, happy ending all around, the situational buggering of that hospital director claiming to be The Father, and all that(1) . . . .
I’d say more standard dramaIsh, definitely rather than comedy . . . .
As a parallel example of very good and definitely not comedy, and for that matter, for an actual father being an actual father, see The Wedding Banquet . . .
(1) DO NOT READ IF WISHING TO WATCH FIRST . . . . .
Hospital director issues threats to hospital staff member, demanding a break up with ballerina so that the ballerina can go off to Paris and a “good career”. Ultimately the ballerina declares bugger that and the director, and comes back from Paris anyway.
Heh.
What I like best about Mr. Trump is that he is not Hillary.
I’m not convinced Laurie understands that many American voters might want a president who will be proudly American and who won’t regard that notion as unsophisticated or embarrassing. A president who won’t favour porous borders and uncontrolled illegal immigration, or excuse thugs and criminals as victims of the ‘privileged’. A president who won’t encourage the spread of identity politics for everyone except working class white people, especially white males.
Whether or not you think Trump is the man to deliver on any of that is of course another matter. I have, shall we say, reservations. But I don’t think Laurie even understands the desire for such things, having spent so much time disdaining them, and disdaining “angry white dudes” in general, and thereby feeling superior. It seems to me her career as a “radical queer feminist leftist writer burdened with actual principles” is premised on disdaining such things as alien and unworthy.
“radical queer feminist leftist writer burdened with actual principles”
I think that she now realises that most of her peers have not got “actual principles” is a significant improvement. Add a bit of self-knowledge and we might be getting somewhere.
Jerry C.:
Try The Palm Beach Story. Or The Awful Truth. Or Libeled Lady or Love Crazy. Or The More the Merrier or its remake, Walk, Don’t Run.
Of course, other than the remake, all of those movies are at least 70 years old. And even the remake is 50 years old.
That Roman shoe is infinitely more interesting, and stylish, than either Laurie Penny or Trump.
Gee, Hal, I think you and I watched different versions of Saving Face. For us (Anglo guy Chinese wife) all the humor is in the doctor daughter / mother / patriarch relationship. We were laughing our asses off at that stuff. Guess it helps to be familiar with that particular dynamic.
Re: Roman shoe – it is a tragedy that The Manolo of The Shoe Blog is retired.
“It’s what happens when weaponised insincerity is applied to structured ignorance.”
This is the most highlighted sentence in her article: the sort of pseudo-profundity that appeals to the semi-educated. Other parts are rather better written
I agree that Trump, and Milo, and MRAs and all the rest are the mirror image of leftist identitarians. It’s a reaction to the whining about ‘old white men’, not a proper refutation of it. Just because Milo annoys the right people doesn’t make him worthwhile.
It’s also interesting how Trump’s rhetoric differs from that of Reagan, at least on a superficial level. Reagan told Americans that they were special, that they could return to greatness by hard work and self-sufficiency. Trump tells them that they’ve been cheated by furriners.
“Man” quits his job to play Pokeman Go full time.
Lives at home with mom and granny, quit job as a barista after 6 whole years, you couldn’t get more stereotypic if you tried.
Read the whole thing including the comments to see how many people think this is swell (OK, it is PuffHost) and for some historical insights such as:
Ashley Jones · Customer Service Assistant – Drug GM at H-E-B
Sheesh. I consider Texas to be one of the less fucked up places in the US, but apparently they’ve got their share of morons. I just hope she works at an H-E-B in Austin, not in Lubbock or Amarillo. I can deal with Austin being far out, man… The blueberry floating in a bowl of tomato soup, I believe Governor Rick Perry called it.