Friday Ephemera
I’m not entirely sure what’s happening here. || Chickens, roosters and eye-catching cocks. || An unexpected detail. || At last, an endoscopic camera accessory for your phone. || The big freeze of ‘63. || How to make a kitchen knife out of pasta. || Russians paint a cargo plane. (h/t, Tony) || Parenting of note. || Penguin droppings seen from space. || Today’s word is irony. || Anamorphic sneakers. || An archive of scanned Heavy Metal magazines. || Snow thread. (h/t, Julia) || Luggage of note. || How to cast a 15-ton mirror for the Giant Magellan Telescope. || I don’t think those are jellyfish. || Comment seems unnecessary. || “The universe begins in 5… 4… 3… 2…” || Oh, don’t look like that, it’s the reduced sugar brand. || And finally, an elasticated demonstration of the Doppler effect.
Why Americans should give socialism a try
(antidote here)
The kilt part of the Doppler demonstration is a nice touch.
I’m not entirely sure what’s happening here
Looks like the gimpmask guy is getting choked out by his dominatrix friend while she talks dirty to him. And he probably paid a pretty penny for it, too.
(Why yes, I do indeed think I’ve spent way too much time on the internet.)
Parenting of note.
It’s not often you see Daily Mail readers head for the fainting couch, shrieking like neon-haired college feminists, but there you are.
“Penguin droppings seen from space.”
Teach penguins to respect the environment!
“And finally, an elasticated demonstration of the Doppler effect.”
Surely I can’t have been the only one hoping the rope would snap? No? Just me? Okay. I’ll hit the mute button instead.
Where the streets have no name. No, really, they don’t. (I could just post a link to a Tom Scott video every week, frankly. He has the same knack for finding Interesting Things as some of your own regular sources of weekly Ephemera.)
You can see fancy chickens at our state fair every year. Whenever anyone comes to the States, let us know and we’ll show you around!
I greatly enjoy Ephemera.
The kilt part of the Doppler demonstration is a nice touch.
Indeed!!
[Hits replay]
What?
Heh! I knew “irony” would link to that precise tweet of Laurie Penny before I even clicked on it. Talk about a lack of self-awareness.
Chickens, roosters and eye-catching cocks.
Oh, no. Another thread overrun by cocks.
Where I am at the moment the streets have names. Mostly.
It’s just that they have no agreed names. So the street sign may differ from your map’s name. And quite a lot have been changed so that no-one’s quite sure what the official name is.
The house numbering is doubtful too.
Addresses are given by locations such as “the second tower block opposite the petrol station on The first turn right going north from such-and-such intersection” even on official documents such as a visa. GPS is a must.
An entire city of 4 million runs like this, not just the old town. Actually an entire country since rural roads are no better.
It takes some getting used to.
Morning, all.
Heh! I knew “irony” would link to that precise tweet of Laurie Penny before I even clicked on it. Talk about a lack of self-awareness.
It’s quite staggering in its witlessness. Not least given that Laurie’s own career advantages are largely due to her gender and leftwing politics, such that she keeps getting invited to churn out badly-written books, even though her badly-written books aren’t profitable.
Again, projection.
Oh, don’t look like that, it’s the reduced sugar brand.
Ketchup is a vegetable.
The snowmen are hilarious.
The snowmen are hilarious.
I think this one is my favourite.
I watched that big freeze 1963 documentary the other night. What was most remarkable about it – apart from the horrendous weather – was the fact that the BBC used to make documentaries that contained information.
It was a solid information dump. Inconceivable in today’s media age.
From this…
“The universe begins in 5… 4… 3… 2…”
To this…
Oh, don’t look like that, it’s the reduced sugar brand.
You did that on purpose, didn’t you?
You did that on purpose, didn’t you?
This is my innocent face.
But it’s something to ponder, next time you see a fat woman in a muumuu, gargling ketchup at a bus stop. What it took to get there.
You might like my look at talking Obama dolls here:
http://hectordrummond.com/2018/03/08/obama-the-action-doll/
It’s quite staggering in its witlessness.
Plus, she accuses Peterson of degrading the political discourse while flinging charges of racism around willy-nilly, abusing women who don’t share her political outlook, and brazenly telling us that all me are trash and serial abusers.
Plus, she accuses Peterson of degrading the political discourse while flinging charges of racism around willy-nilly, abusing women who don’t share her political outlook, and brazenly telling us that all men are trash and serial abusers.
I suspect it would be entertaining to put the two of them in a room and just let the cameras roll.
Actually, clicking through your previous posts on Laurie Penny it strikes me how successful she is, or at least was, in her chosen field of infantile lefty agitation – but how it doesn’t seem to have translated into material success. From what I can tell, she lives in a crappy basement studio in Brighton and appears to cut her own hair. Nor has her profile grown in the past 4-5 years: she shot to relative fame, and stayed there. Contrast this with the likes of Peterson, for example, who is raking in hundreds of thousands peddling his opinions online with very little traditional media backing.
What this tells me is that lefty politics makes you famous among lefties, but nobody actually wants to dip their hands in their pockets and pay for this stuff. Sure, there is money in lefty politics but this gets creamed off by the people at the top – BBC presenters, for example – and contributors like Laurie Penny are expected to work pretty much for buttons. Word has it that Tim Worstall makes a nice little earner writing his blog and flogging the occasional book without any acknowledgement or help from the estbalishment media, mainly because his audience are willing to part with a little cash for his output. All things being equal, Laurie should be rolling in it, but isn’t. The reason is her fan-base is made up of cheapskates (ref. my comment about them stealing the salt sachets from Little Chef) and her right-on lefty hierarchy is making damned sure none of the big money filters down.
And no, I don’t for one minute believe Laurie is wealthy but not showing it. If she had a decent income, we’d know about it via a waterfall of humblebragging tweets, e.g. “Just told a bank manager to go fuck himself. Now I have some money I’m worth talking to, eh? Where were you when I was penniless?” #feelingood
she lives in a crappy basement studio in Brighton and appears to cut her own hair.
Mee-oww.
I say that admiringly.
What this tells me is that lefty politics makes you famous among lefties, but nobody actually wants to dip their hands in their pockets and pay for this stuff.
I suppose it’s a flaw in Laurie’s chosen line of work. The people who seem to thrill to her blather are largely pretentious teenagers and people much like herself. Which is to say, selfish, grasping narcissists who expect to be given things.
When woke comes back to bite you.
And he probably paid a pretty penny for it, too.
This suspiciously extensive knowledge of the S&M wrestling and bondage scene has been added to your file.
When woke comes back to bite you.
Heh. Inevitable, really, but splendid nonetheless.
When woke comes back to bite you.
LOL
How to make a kitchen knife out of pasta.
*Note to self*- next time don’t boil it first.
Meanwhile, from the Department of Making All Things Problematic,
Meanwhile, from the Department of Making All Things Problematic,
Imagine the mind, the kind of personality, that came from.
“Addresses are given by locations”
Turn right where the tobacconist used to be.
https://goo.gl/oCZ3E4
I came across this on the twitters. I check all the boxes. Does this confirm me as a full fledged Shit Lord? Need to know before I open this bottle of champagne, and order the cake.
Bioessentialist rhetoric?? It is part of the scientific, biologic definition of a female homo sapiens. WTF!!??
It’s too early for this excrement. I haven’t even had my coffee yet.
Imagine the mind, the kind of personality, that came from.
Actually, I kind of agree with it. Am I missing something or isn’t this, by making this cis-centric point, pointing out how sexist this crap is?
Apropos of nothing yesterday, simply out of the blue, a co-worker surprised me, I’m pretty sure as a joke, as to what I was planning to do for International Women’s Day. I responded, and I thought I was making a joke as well, by saying, “Nothing. I don’t celebrate commie holidays”. This resulted in a number of “Ohhhhhs” from the guys sitting around me. Now to understand the context, this is a small, all-male start-up and I am the only one here who has suggested that it would benefit us to hire at least ONE technical woman engineer whose mere presence I am quite sure would moderate much of the idiotic dick-measuring that goes on here. The books I could write on irony…
I check all the boxes. Does this confirm me as a full fledged Shit Lord?
First they presume to indulge in a campaign of racial shaming, then they presume to tell you how you should feel about it.
See also this.
it doesn’t seem to have translated into material success.
Or any form of genuine happiness. Repetitive, self-inflicted misery does not age well.
For contrast, see Natan Sharansky:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/03/celebrating-natan-sharansky-celebratewithnatan/
Or Armando Valladares:
https://afterjujuman.wordpress.com/2017/08/17/%E2%80%8Bthe-story-of-pure-love-armando-and-martha/
Those two men went to hell on earth, and yet look at how they are able to smile. When have we ever seen such an expression on Laurie’s face?
Turk,
Re: All-knowing Elizabeth Breunig,
This an over-indulged child who has been incubated in that great institutional nursery of leftist academia, writing childish things, and expecting to be taken seriously.
It looks to me like she’s revealing a great deal more about herself, and those she associates with, than about Americans in general. She needs to grow up and find a new group of friends.
It looks to me like she’s revealing a great deal more about herself, and those she associates with, than about Americans in general.
That often seems to be the case. Let’s not forget the presumptuous Guardian “we,” so favoured by the paper’s columnists – and which never seemed to bear any relation to the world I inhabit or the people I know. Examples are too numerous to list, but there’s one or two here. Whose world are they describing?
Americans appear to be isolated, viciously competitive, suspicious of one another and spiritually shallow; and that we are anxiously looking for some kind of attachment to something real and profound in an age of decreasing trust and regard…
Funny how that might happen when you engage in a Long March through the institutions, the object of which inter alia is to destroy all belief systems which compete with the State.
…seem to be emblematic of capitalism, which encourages and requires fierce individualism, self-interested disregard for the other…
Because, of course, all human interaction is zero-sum. If I work hard and take care of myself and my family, a) someone else somewhere is getting screwed and b) I am incapable of having any concern for anyone else. Evidence of American individual, voluntary, charitable giving exceeding virtually all other countries should be conveniently ignored.
You can see fancy chickens at our state fair every year.
Maybe you also have cornbread, stock cars and minor league baseball?
Another reason to love the USA.
David,
From your comment at the link:
Readers may recall her emphatic use of the phrase “the fact is” – a bold wording, given that Ms Orr didn’t feel it necessary to support her claim with any.
Ms. Bruenig seems to have taken that laughably common leftist rhetorical device to heart.
Americans appear to be isolated, viciously competitive, suspicious of one another and spiritually shallow; and that we are anxiously looking for some kind of attachment to something real and profound in an age of decreasing trust and regard…
I suppose this might be the result of spending the last fifty years undermining marriage, motherhood, Christianity, civility, beauty, truth, western civilisation generally and importing millions of foreigners who hate or despise white people and refuse utterly to assimilate.
But I could be wrong.
Cows can’t get enough of the accordion:
http://twitter.com/_koshernostra_/status/971752843467280384
I am the only one here who has suggested that it would benefit us to hire at least ONE technical woman engineer whose mere presence I am quite sure would moderate much of the idiotic dick-measuring that goes on here.
I’m supervisor of 40 women & 2 men
I’m always presupposed to hire more men because it tamps down on the mean-girl junior high drama I have to deal with.
[murmurs 18 months until retirement, 18 months until retirement]
Ms. Bruenig seems to have taken that laughably common leftist rhetorical device to heart.
I’m still pondering Ms Orr’s claim that the entire nation is searching out more expensive ways to buy groceries because – yes, because – “people don’t have as much money to spend.”
Maths is hard, apparently.
Russians paint a cargo plane.
Is it just me or no matter how offensive a color is it can look pleasing if applied to a sufficiently large machine? There’s probably a henchlesbian joke in there but the coffee maker is kaput today.
Per Bruenig’s “business-savvy friend”: Nobody gets rich off of bilateral transactions where everybody knows what they’re doing.
This “business-savvy friend” obviously knows that Betty Bruenig is a pillowcase, since anybody who’s ever done any business knows that mutually beneficial trading is the norm. Hell, I just watched my lovely bride trade a set of knit mittens and scarf for somebody who finished a quilt top for her, and both parties seemed absolutely delighted at the exchange.
I also just wrapped up a project where five of us brought our unique talents to bear on a thorny problem, and wound up developing a really elegant solution that none of us could have imagined on our own. Maybe Bruenig would do well to involve herself in that kind of “isolated, viciously competitive, suspicious” environment. She’d need to develop a unique talent first, I suppose.
The time-lapse look at the Universe is fun. I’ll need to bookmark it to send to the next climate change crusader who crosses my path, with a polite question about how much I should sacrifice in order to make an infinitesimal impact to an infinitesimal piece of history.
how much I should sacrifice in order to make an infinitesimal impact to an infinitesimal piece of history
I know you’re being flip but take care to not actually use that line of reasoning in the heat of battle. It could apply to dying to protect a loved one, for instance. =)