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.
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.