Friday Ephemera
Farewell, old friend. (h/t, Damian) || High-speed fabulousness is now a thing. || Lifestyle choice. Choose wisely, children. || A compendium of skillz. (h/t, Obnoxio) || The interactive Bluetooth mood-light salt dispenser you’ve all been waiting for. || Today’s word is tonguebath. || Best done outdoors. || He does this better than you do. || Today’s other word is busted. (h/t, Tim) || Bond title sequences. || At last, a sweat towel for your ta-tas. || Illusion of note. || Kayaking through a cargo ship. || Ye internet of yore. || Voyage ongoing. || Grievance is easy. || The swinging Sixties. || Wardrobe solutions. || Something error happen. || Tiny desktop dramas. || Masculine Women and Feminine Men, 1932. || And finally, the absurd tragedy of the Great London Beer Flood of 1814.
Wondering if there is an 18% man tax?
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2017/08/10/total-losers-unable-to-cope-with-trumps-win-have-professional-cuddling-business-n2366576
There’s a book about a disastrous molasses flood in Boston, ca 1910.
I like the office dioramas!
Here’s a guy willing to defend Countess Bathory.
http://justnotsaid.blogspot.com/?m=0
A related disaster in the making.
Re Illusion…The science says the lines are parrallel but Teh Truth tells us, definitively, that they are not. See how that works?
I’m going to need a bigger bag of popcorn.
Today’s word is tonguebath.
I believe that’s been used to describe the Media’s behavior towards the Teleprompter Jesus his entire presidency.
Here’s a guy willing to defend Countess Bathory.
Well, he lost me with “The fact is, female serial killers are extremely rare, and those who kill for sexual reasons are almost nonexistent.” and “The reason FBI profilers are usually successful is precisely because these killers have a profile.”, all “facts” which have since been shown to be disastrously wrong.
“Beer historian” New dream job found!
Today’s other word is busted.
It’s a miracle! Hallelujah!
Cover version of note.
Farewell, old friend.
They’ve been hiding among us all this time.
They’ve been hiding among us all this time.
And from the subsequent Twitter thread:
Piperpaul,
No: that’s a photo of some barrels that may or may not contain maple syrup.
http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-great-maple-syrup-heist-trial-opens-in-largest-theft-ever-investigated-by-quebec-police/wcm/dc429343-d505-43ab-a628-f6d96b376d43
Choice quotes:
“The barrels were moved to a sugar shack belonging to Raymond Vallières, where they were emptied and replaced with water from a nearby creek.”
“Finally, the thieves drained the barrels directly at the federation warehouse.”
Holy crap, it’s exactly like Fort Knox, but with maple syrup!
Blue lives matter.
https://youtu.be/UJDP043aQfs?t=1m41s
Related to The Thread That Will Nor Die, It’s Time to Give Up on Facts Or at least to temporarily lay them down in favor of a more useful weapon: emotions.
I thought giving up on reality was something the left had done ages ago.
I thought giving up on reality was something the left had done ages ago.
Well, abandoning the conventions of formal debate is more egalitarian. Not everyone can put together a convincing argument, or indeed understand one; but everyone has feelz.
The (very tiny) robots are coming.
The coming part happened before the tiny robots, no?
WTP,
The science says the lines are parallel…
Fascinating – tell us more about this infinite laboratory you have.
Meanwhile, in the world of diversity, Georgetown Law School comes up with some fine Newspeak, as they get rid of the LSAT as an admission criterion.
Right, we want the best and brightest who aren’t bright enough not to bolo the LSAT, as long as they are sufficiently pigmented.
Now there is a Grade A blinding flash of the obvious.
Blue lives matter.
If you watch the reality series Cops, you’ll have seen that behaviour many, many times. Indulging it can have severe, or fatal, consequences.
Nemo,
Good point. Correction…the science says the line segments are parrallel. Better? Or best, since a true line is an abstract concept that conceptually exists outside the rules of a universe, which by most definitions would need to contain objects that have mass and thus … forget it. We’re screwed. The universe is philosophically flawed. Where’d that bong wander off to…
The laboratory needs to exist within Borges’ Library of Babel. If not infinite, approaching it sufficiently.
The NY Times, excavating a near-mantle section of the crust below the bottom of the barrel:
Meanwhile, the AP questions if US ballistic missile defenses *should* shoot down anything aimed at Guam. Moral quandary, that.
Scientists in Guam, however, say they have at least one other major threat in mind:…
Let us never forget this classic threat described by a member of The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body™.
Farnsworth,
Maybe the Guamanians can tip it over for protection, and flip it back again when the threat is passed.
Spiny,
Good point, I understand they already do that to cool it down of if they get too much climate change.
Tipping, drowning, getting too hot, nuclear risks…
Why, it’s almost enough to make one not want to build a retirement mansion there. That and the remoteness.
Sporkatus,
Meanwhile, the AP questions if US ballistic missile defenses *should* shoot down anything aimed at Guam. Moral quandary, that.
I’ve been pondering the same question, but from a strategic point of view – balancing the intelligence value of revealing defensive capabilities against the likelihood of the Norks actually being able to hit anything of value. A little uncertainty in your enemies’ minds can go a long way, though I doubt Trump’s domestic antagonists would understand such nuanced restraint, even where they capable of doing so.
Competitive Victimhood
Competitive Victimhood
There are evidently large numbers of people who’ve been taught to view victimhood, even of the most laughably pretentious kind, as an almost transcendental state, certainly an aspiration, on grounds that it bestows instant piety, at least among idiots, and all manner of leverage.
Left unchecked, it’s a trend that could ruin a civilisation.
WTP,
Certainly amusing, but better? Rather than risk appearing merely contrarian, I’ll give a little more of my reasoning behind my initial comment, and let you decide: science is too often mischaracterised and invoked by those who wish to capitalise on its cachet, even where that cachet is undeserved in the first place; it is a wonderful method to support or – more reliably – refute the things we believe about the world around us; it is both a tool of and utterly dependent upon reason, but no more, yet it is constantly misused by people seeking to signal their rational credentials – the evolutionary hypothesis seeming to particularly cause such invocation, with environmentalism catching up fast. Yet, far from adhering to science as many such people claim, they’re actually undermining it by making exaggerated claims of its power, and erroneous claims about science are particularly galling when supposedly counteracting the anti-science PoMo subjectivists – you’re actually succoring the suckers. Regarding parallel lines, reason and custom are sufficient: no experiment is needed and we’re willing to accept the measurement limitations without running off to infinity.
As to the bong, wasn’t that repurposed for the pickled eggs, storage thereof?
Or at the least, make it quite stagnant.
It’s rather funny how (as some have termed it) the “We was kings” narrative is also “we was victims”. Rather a shoddy sort of empire if just *anyone* can walk in and mess it about a bit.
Me, I reserve recognition of my ancestry to “we was assholes”. Saves time, useful shorthand, etc.
(Assume Steve 2’s ancestral shitlordery tale here)
Nemo, agree.
Regarding parallel lines, reason and custom are sufficient: no experiment is needed
Agree, though the door to absurdity is always there. There’s a line somewhere. It’s sophomore dorm room stuff but back in such of my times there was an ongoing argument, which started with the commonly taught idea that the Arabs invented the zero (which of course they “stole” from the Hindus, who I’m sure “stole” it from … but I digress), as to what was zero? Since there was (as was taught) no such thing as a perfect vacuum, could zero have any meaning? To which I asked, using that reference point, then wtf is one? If there’s not an indivisible unit of something then there is no one. And even if there is, no one can produce such by itself. Which is why I stay away from certain drugs to this day. I was beginning to recover when I encountered The Banach–Tarski paradox, and thus my faith in math (does math include set theory?…another argument) was undermined again.
Hmm…pickling eggs in bong water…hmmm…not for me but maybe fun to watch…
I thought giving up on reality was something the left had done ages ago.
In Australia, the government have offered a plebiscite on gay marriage. What are the left campaigning for? “Stop the vote”. Because the people who oppose it will be allowed to campaign.
I give up.
Hmm…pickling eggs in bong water…hmmm…not for me but maybe fun to watch…
If I wave this torch near it, it’s like a lava lamp.
Rather a shoddy sort of empire if just *anyone* can walk in and mess it about a bit.
That bit never seems to dawn on them.
One Mr. Michael Harrison in the link above seems to think that there were black people some 650 million years ago who populated the entire planet when there was one putative supercontinent, but through anthropogenic continental drift eventually populated Europe and North America (and Antarctica !), but though possessing advanced civilizations, were enslaved by Cavepersons of Pallor, evidently totally exterminated by Indians crossing the “Barrien” Strait until brought back by the aforementioned cavepersons, and I guess eaten by penguins in Antarctica.
anthropogenic continental drift
“This is how the continents were positioned before the Industrial Revolution in the mid 18th century.”
Heh.
… but though possessing advanced civilizations, were enslaved by Cavepersons of Pallor,
WE
David, yesterday we had Sgt Allen of the Sussex Constabulary investigating kids calling each other names, and now this – police dogs, ur doin’ it wrong.
Have all the police high priced help gone round the bend ?
I wonder, were those coppers to have a number of buxom women on chain in a John Normany sort of way, would it be as well received…
WTP,
Well, I’d never heard of the Banach-Tarski paradox, so duckduckgo’d it and my mind instinctively recoiled at what seemed mathematical legerdemain, so I didn’t know whether to thank you ironically or sincerely – though I simultaneously looked at the half-finished bottle of Cab Sauv on the fireplace and thought I’d need to open another. I opened the Fitou, but it only took a glass of the Cab to decide that my first instinct was correct – it seems little more than a hierarchical category issue. Using Russell’s paradox as an example, if I have six apples and put them in a bag I then have twelve apples – six apples plus a bag of six apples. I’m massively oversimplifying for effect, but it does seem to be giving the descriptor the same properties as the thing it describes, which may be useful and even valid in certain circumstances, but a paradox built on whimsy.
As to the roiling eggs, I believe if the money’s right then Rutger Hauer – or his replica – will come down to earth and pick them out for you. Batty as that might sound…
As to the bong, wasn’t that repurposed for the pickled eggs, storage thereof?
*cough*
What?
It seems we can add cartoons to the things the folk at Everyday Feminism don’t understand how to do.
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/896069639389630465
TomJ,
If you wander over to EF, I believe you will find that crappy cartoons have been a staple for a long time.
They are pretty much the “feminist” equivalent of Jack Chick.
I have thus far only experienced the output of EF through the filter of our genial host. There’s no point his risking his sanity by reading that drivel so we don’t have to if we go and expose ourselves as well.
“I give up.”
Prog mission accomplished.
As mentioned in passing, the beer flood was a piker compared to the Great Molasses Flood of Boston:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/27366/bostons-great-molasses-flood-1919
Really, Boston was lucky the toll was that low.
Plus the whole cleanup – I break a beer bottle in my kitchen, I’m a bit put out for 5 minutes. I break a jar of molasses, I’m spending the next 2 hours trying to get it clean.
It’s got to be #1 on bizarro Boston history.
Make your wedding special with a trumpet player. Book now!
Finally, a urinal for women.
Two genders down, 3,564 to go.
Are You Ready To Consider That Capitalism Is The Real Problem?
Are You Ready To Consider That Capitalism Is The Real Problem?
I’m ready to believe the source of the “real problem” are dinks like the author of that idiocy.
Are You Ready To Consider That Capitalism Is The Real Problem?
i.e., think they have positive rights, and someone else must be forced to provide things they want.
One Mr. Michael Harrison in the link above seems to think that there were black people some 650 million years ago who populated the entire planet when there was one putative supercontinent […]
Mr. Muldoon, I caught that as well. I was rather shocked that he acted as if that was remotely close to true.
I hope it was an act, but I’m old enough to realize that it probably wasn’t.
On the gripping hand, there are enough people still on twitter so that you can find the absolute crazies with little to no effort. I didn’t check to see if there were a large number of people re-tweeting his comment.
I’m ready to believe the source of the “real problem” are dinks like the author of that idiocy.
I’m sure the following micro-bio of the author will come as a shock to no one:
Dr. Jason Hickel is an anthropologist at the London School of Economics who works on international development and global political economy, with an ethnographic focus on southern Africa. He writes for the Guardian and Al Jazeera English.
People want health care and education to be social goods, not market commodities…
What people want regarding health care, education and other things is for them to be 1) unlimited; 2) state of the art; and 3) free–or extraordinarily cheap, like tap water. The problem is you can only have two of those three at any given time and it doesn’t matter what economic system under which you’re operating.
If said thing–obviously to those of us with a passing acquaintance with economic theory, all “things” are, in fact, “commodities”–is unlimited and state of the art, the cost will be high. If it is state of the art and free, it will be rationed. If it is unlimited and free, it will be a cancer treatment consisting of an aspirin and a poultice made from buffalo shit and lesbian spit.
Nothing will change that. A pure market system is the only way to maximize quantity, quality and minimize cost. It doesn’t matter whether we’re discussing head transplants, cars or roma tomatoes.
That’s not a pleasant thought for some people, so they’d rather engage in onanistic, socialist fantasies which are less rational than tossing a virgin into a volcano.
One Mr. Michael Harrison in the link above seems to think that there were black people some 650 million years ago who populated the entire planet when there was one putative supercontinent, . . . evidently totally exterminated by Indians crossing the “Barrien” Strait . . .
. . . while at the same time leaving zero anthropological traces of the slaughtered and only the assorted skeletal remains of the Indians . . .
Truly clever Indians, there, with absolutely immense foresight to arrange for the situational cleanup . . .
Blue lives matter.
Black cop gets shot by black man, white man helps the cop. No conclusions can be drawn from this.
Me:” Could the Left get any crazier”?
The Left:” Hold My Beer”.
Twitter Users Report Donald Trump for Threatening North Korea
http://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/896138823108673537
Truly clever Indians, there, with absolutely immense foresight to arrange for the situational cleanup . . .
Indeed, and the penguins burying evidence of the genocide they committed under a mile of ice was also mighty clever.
“onanistic, socialist fantasies ”
I thought the deadline for masturbation jokes had passed!
Don’t have enough room for a dog?
http://twitter.com/catfreq/status/893811196180152321
Ye internet of yore.
Thanks for making me feel old.
Thanks for making me feel old.
Sometime in 1996, The Other Half and I were thrilled by the prospect of actually downloading a film trailer. I think it was for Star Trek: First Contact. Via dial-up, it took the better part of an hour and involved much pacing back and forth. When finally downloaded, the video was about the size of an address label. It was terribly exciting.
Finally, a urinal for women.
Oh… they’ve put a washiki on the wall. How nice.
Ye internet of yore.
You have no idea how excited I was when I went from a 14.4 baud modem to a 28.8.
Dennis Prager at Oxford
What gets me about this particular clip is the tightly-wrapped girl in purple who keeps jumping up to interrupt Dennis to finally speak and does one of those statements-as-questions remarks that pretty much calls Prager a racist.
You just know she has rehearsed that question for days and came to the event prepared not to listen to a word he spoke.
the tightly-wrapped girl in purple
It’s the signature tone of sneery ignorance. And her subsequent expression and body language say more than I suspect she realises. Very much a type, I’m afraid.
the tightly-wrapped girl in purple
Nothwithstanding her prim, self-satisfied, behold-my-virtue posturing, her question was not entirely unreasonable. But, in the event it merely gave Prager the opportunity to emphasise one of his main points. It wasn’t clever debating by the young woman.
Speaking as an Oxford man, and as a one time member of the “illustrious” Oxford Union Society, I can’t help thinking that things have rather gone downhill.
It wasn’t clever debating by the young woman.
True … as she has been obviously taught to view everything thing through the lens of Race/Gender/Class with its accompanying hierarchy-of-victimhood, I wonder is she actually believed that Dennis would start apologizing or backpeddling cuz he was being accused of TheGreatestSin. I don’t think she ever actually considered any other response.
I can’t help thinking that things have rather gone downhill.
I lived in Oxford for a couple of years in the late Nineties, and I once had a workplace conversation with a young woman not dissimilar, a well-to-do student from a very comfortable upper-middle-class background. Incongruously, and apropos of nothing in particular, she launched into a display of socialist piety, about how wealth was “obscene” and how taxes should be raised to an eye-watering degree, presumably as punishment. This random outpouring went on for some time, and with considerable drama, and concluded with an air of anticipated agreement.
After a bewildered pause, I asked her, “To exactly how much of a person’s earnings, and therefore freedom, is the state morally entitled? Is there a point at which the confiscation becomes ‘obscene’?” This was met with what I can only describe as a glare of indignation. No reply was forthcoming and she promptly left the room. I’d apparently become offensive, even indecent, by suggesting that hers might not be the only conceivable position a person could take. She seemed quite unprepared for even polite disagreement, as if no-one in her circle had ever dared.
She seemed quite unprepared for even polite disagreement, as if no-one in her circle had ever dared.
Related — Gizmo doubles down on Damore.
She seemed quite unprepared for even polite disagreement, as if no-one in her circle had ever dared.
Gizmo doubles down
Somewhat relevant.
It’s also telling that Prager is out-grouped in advance as “controversial.”
Oh… they’ve put a washiki on the wall. How nice.
I’m still trying to figure the rationale behind the design of that ladies urinal. If one is supposed to sit on it, it would see rather uncomfortable for short women, and if one is supposed to squat over it, it would also be a challenge for short women, but as the elimination apparatus does not really lend itself to precise aim, I can see this thing becoming a mess in short order. Further, as the sign indicates this is an omnisexual loo, you know men (or women with johnsons) are going to use the thing, and even with elimination apparati that are better suited to aim, you know someone is going to miss.
Very much a type, I’m afraid.
Not unlike the charming Ms. McSneerface at Gizmodo, I suppose it is a job requirement these days.
It was terribly exciting.
The anticipation really made us appreciate the pornography we had, in those days.
Don’t have enough room for a dog?
Wherein Honey Badger Radio brings up an important point about not assuming a person identifies as a tangible presence. Henceforth I identify as a sound wave. Specifically, as part of the noise made by small woman crying alone behind a closed door because she has never believed she was as pretty as her taller sister.
as if no-one in her circle had ever dared.
How good-looking was she?
How good-looking was she?
I don’t much recall, which may speak for itself. She was quite short. Why?
Among the desperately egalitarian it generally seems that the volume and longevity of acquired attention is not unrelated to the attention-seeker’s physical attractiveness, especially when said seeker is female.
especially when said seeker is female.
Ah, well, I’m impervious on that front. It did briefly occur to me that it may have been some bizarre attempt to impress me. And so my reply may have been a bit deflating.
She was quite short.
An alternative to the attractiveness theory…
I recall upgrading from a 1200 to the blisteringly high speed of 2400. Ah, nostalgia.
You have no idea how excited I was when I went from a 14.4 baud modem to a 28.8.
I keep important files on reformatted 3.5in AOL floppies.
Re “best done outdoors”: remember Dr. Klahn from “A Fistful of Yen” in “Kentucky Fried Movie”? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBUZFPv1fHA#t=28m6s
To which I asked, using that reference point, then wtf is one?
Alfred Whitehead and Bertrand Russell’s Principia Mathematica was a solid effort to answer that.
It’s not exactly a quick read. It famously takes 360 or so pages to prove that 1 + 1 = 2.
I recall in the early ’80s pre-internet, my college department received delivery of a magical machine called–stay with me here–a “word processor.” This fabulous device allowed us to view what we typed on a small screen with the dimensions of about 1/2 inch by 6 inches as it scrolled past in little LED red lights. Then–get this– we could actually save what we wrote on 7 inch floppy discs which were placed in a cabinet the size of a Buick. Saving our papers occurred after several minutes of whirling and grinding of gears in the cabinet. One 7 inch disc could hold about fifty pages of text IIRC. It was a marvelous day when I realized I could toss the white-out.
It was a marvelous day when I realized I could toss the white-out.
Jerry Pournelle, paraphrased from memory from a talk I saw him give one day:
I don’t know where this idea comes from that women can’t aim a urine stream. I’ve seen several educational films where they do it just fine.
R Sherman
I hope you hung to some of those seven inch disks, they’re collectors items.
You have no idea how excited I wasn’t when, as a consequence of 9/11, I lost my job, and we went from high speed internet to 56.6.
Related: Google, nine years ago.
It’s almost as if Damore hired her.
We will be looking for the educational video Ray references in the next Ephemera.
I keep important files on reformatted 3.5in AOL floppies.
Two years ago, a colleague came to me with some project data on 3.5″ floppies and seemed quite put out that I couldn’t produce a 3.5″ floppy drive on a moment’s notice. Even more so when I pointed out that the likelihood the disks were still readable was slim.