Friday Ephemera
Dinnertime scenes. (h/t, Dicentra) || At last, 2-D Doom. || Cheeseburger aerodynamics. || Gives good tongue. || The tactical dad hoodie you’ve always wanted. || Hi, there. || Like many housewives, she knows the mortifying horror of hairy stairs. || Heh. || Also heh. (h/t, Dicentra) || Just how hard is magic? || Painted meat. || Privacy is “transphobic” and politely indulging transgender pronouns is “expressing transphobia.” || “Inflatable pads allow you to adjust the size of your pectorals, deltoids, biceps and triceps.” || Porthole scenes. || Improbable space suits and other things. || Space type generator. || Fashion tip. || Last meals. (h/t, Things) || No greater love. || And finally, niche satisfactions, #209.
How to deal with hate mail
G. Gordon Liddy, the Watergate burglar, had a radio show. Really. He was a much better interviewer than he was a burglar. Anyway, he used to conduct dramatic readings of his hate mail. They were pretty entertaining!
“Just how hard is magic?”
“What’s harder: conjuring a frog into existence, or turning it into a mouse? Levitating a frog, or teleporting it?”
Those things are equally difficult because they are all impossible.
G. Gordon Liddy, the Watergate burglar, had a radio show. Really. He was a much better interviewer than he was a burglar. Anyway, he used to conduct dramatic readings of his hate mail.
That reminds me that one of the more entertaining conceptual artists out there, poet Kenny Goldsmith, used to have a show on public radio. During one episode he basically performed an opera version of Harry Potter – singing it out live on air.
EVERYONE looks transgender.
I identify as trans-dragon-kyn and I’ll thank you to recognise the inherent dragonness in me.
At last, 2-D Doom.
However . . .
Gives good tongue.
From one or two Ephemera back, or at least the video of it.
Porthole scenes.
Presenting the guaranteed world’s largest front load washing machine.
No greater love.
Mattis 3:16
“I was a Macedonian fake news writer”
Cheeseburger aerodynamics.
They used supercomputers to design the aerodynamics of Pringles chips. They are so light and produced so fast that if the shape isn’t just right, they wll fly off the production conveyor belt.
Ex-student, 52, suing university for AU$3m after PhD rejection destroyed ‘sex drive’
The gender neutral toilets were branded as transphobic because the (floor to ceiling) partitions make it impossible to peep at people in adjoining cubicles. Transactivists say that’s transphobic as it assumes people might try to peep on others.
Pandering to the mentally ill never works out.
I’m thinking of crowdfunding “Fuck your pronouns’ t-shirts.
Privacy is “transphobic”…
This should be right up their alley (NPI) then.
The porthole scene?
Sudden attack of nostalgia as I recall my favorite ride at Disneyland as a youth was the Submarine Voyage.
A boy and his …. awwwwww
Her job was to churn out semi-plagiarised copies of articles originally published on US extreme right-wing publications, so that her boss could serve them back to unsuspecting Americans thousands of miles away.
How very odd that the other end of the political spectrum doesn’t do such a thing.
Oh, wait…
Much of what she produced was misinformation based on real events, written in a way to provoke fear and anger among its readers. In the aggregate, the stories gave a false, skewed view of the world, playing to people’s prejudices.
Of course. Everyone has heard of CNN.
This should be right up their alley (NPI) then.
Armor week at Fort Knox, 1977. WW2 barracks, just like the ones pictured, only with 2 lines so you could wave at each other.
All Quiet On The Western Front had a page or so describing something similar, only with open air.
https://babylonbee.com/news/12-obsolete-manly-activities-and-what-you-can-replace-them-with
Most of these were lame, but I liked the pickle-jar one. There’s a brand of jelly I really like that seems to have the lids welded on. I can’t even open them with a jar opener. Father (when he was alive), Son, friends, neighbors—jelly-jar squad to the rescue! Oddly enough, my father was able to open the jars until a couple of months before his death although his hand tremor had become very bad.
Had no idea jar-opening was so Controversial and Problematic. 😳
Porthole scenes.
When someone chunders into their gas mask.
Morning, all.
When someone chunders into their gas mask.
Chunder, great word. Damned Australians.
Those things are equally difficult because they are all impossible.
You’d think that impossibility would be a condition without degrees, but fantasy dramas often depend on the assumption that This Impossible Thing is more taxing than This Other Impossible Thing. It’s like with superhero films. If the power levels of a character are too vague or depicted inconsistently, the thing tends to fall apart.
Dinnertime scenes.
Just the salad for me, thanks.
You will memorise and repeat.
Moby wants you to know how woke he is, ladies.
Privacy is “transphobic”…
@Farnsworth, Looks like the military is the same anywhere in the world
SADF Soldiers “Riding Gokarts” during the bush war
You will memorise and repeat.
Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
A boy and his …. huuuuuuh?
.
Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
I’m sure they’re all highly qualified doctors and engineers, and a source of great enrichment. It’s strange to live with the feeling that many of our cultural and political institutions are not merely uninterested in preserving our civilisation, but are actively determined to bring about its downfall.
No greater love.
It’s the earliest Porsche, the sole remaining pre-war KdF-Wagen based Type 64 and it could be yours for a mere $20 million or so.
When someone chunders into their gas mask.
I used to do a sort of half-arsed impersonation of “being a racing driver”. I was never good enough to turn pro, but I was an enthusiastic amateur and shared my passion for seeing how close I could come to killing or maiming myself at high speed with some excellent people. Not for us this “my body is a temple/no drinking the night before a race” crap; we never went anywhere without a well-thumbed copy of the Michelin Guide. In a six hour race at Spa-Francorchamps I was driving at night in the penultimate stint of a six-hour race, sharing the drive with two others. The previous night we had indulged ourselves somewhat, but only one of us had eaten lobster, i.e. the guy to whom I was about to hand over. Having been shown the “IN” board I arrived at our pit garage to be greeted by pandemonium- our other driver, who had completed his driving duties when I got in and who was already three or four beers to the good, was desperately pulling on his race suit over his street clothes whilst his wife searched for his crash-helmet and gloves.
“Go and do a couple more laps whilst we get things sorted” shouted our “team manager”, another borderline alcoholic petrolhead/gourmand who only took on the job because he was unable to drive fast as he suffered from motion sickness.
So out I went and when I came back and we’d despatched the slightly-woozy pilot into the night (he set a personal best lap time during that stint, all down to Dutch courage) I discovered that the lobster-eater, who had been lying on a bunk in the truck all day, groaning and turning a delicate shade of lime green, had declared himself “fit to race”. He got up, washed his face and, suited and booted in Nomex, waited for yours truly to arrive back at the pits. On being given the warning “ninety seconds!” he put on his balaclava and then his full-face crash helmet, pulled down the visor, nodded to his wife….
….and projectile-vomited into said helmet.
He was known ever-after as “Radiohead” because according to our pit crew what happened resembled nothing so much as this, on fast forward.
And finally, niche satisfactions, #209.
*fetches vacuum cleaner, looks for wife*
*fetches vacuum cleaner, looks for wife*
Do let us know how it goes. Assuming you survive, I mean.
Improbable space suits ? Someone needs to read up on the subject at Atomic Rockets
A boy and his …. awwwwww
Great cow like that, hope they don’t eat her all at once.
“No greater love” reminded me of this
WW2 barracks, just like the ones pictured…
Yep, picture is from Ft. Lostinthewoods.
…2 lines so you could wave at each other.
Not unlike the tropical/desert burnout barrel latrines with the screens halfway up so you can chat with whomever is next in line.
niche satisfactions
Curious what this is all about. Saw someone do it to their kid and I presumed it was a joke thing to keep him from getting in trouble. Is there some thrill aspect to it? Or was it in some movie I was supposed to see but stubbornly didn’t and this is my punishment. To wander the world like a modern Diogenes wondering what is the point of it all. It’s that last thing isn’t it? Go on, admit it.
Is there some thrill aspect to it?
I’m not buying that innocent routine.
Is there some thrill aspect to it?
I suppose in a way it’s the opposite of this. Or if not quite the opposite, somewhat orthogonal.
At a former employer, an employee was fired after he wedged himself under the stall partition occupied by another employee. In his defense he said he just wanted to say “Hi!”.
You’d think that impossibility would be a condition without degrees, but fantasy dramas often depend on the assumption that This Impossible Thing is more taxing than This Other Impossible Thing….
Then it’s not impossible within the rules of that fantasy.
And if it’s a fantasy drama then which things are more difficult is a question settled in fantasy rather than science, dependent entirely on the fantasy world that has been invented.
Back to bed. Too much of a fever to even deal with this fine blog.
I’m so old I remember when MTV used to have music videos, but;
Welcome to “Chlamydia Island”, where the you don’t swipe right when you see the clap emoji…
To the Ozzie failed PhD student: harassment, stress, persecution and threats are not a bug in the PhD system, they are its main feature.
If you can’t get a PhD in sociology, go for an Ed D. In my experience, many people who have such degrees insist on being referred to as “Doctor”.
Failing that – a near impossibility – he could try changing his first name.
Chlamydia Island
From the makers of I’m a Diabetic, Get Me Out of Here!
…the movement of people due to, for whatever reason, not finding where they previously lived to be acceptable.
But we musn’t dwell on that fact…
@Lancastrian Oik
Great story, and I’m jealous as hell! You ever get to drive/race the Nordschleife? That’s on the bucket list for me. In the meantime I must settle for a few laps around a local circuit in a Lambo. Woe is me.
Speaking of embarrassing automotive moments…
Why you never hire a millennial art or angry studies grad from either coast when you need a military photoshop job.
Why you never hire a millennial art or angry studies grad from either coast when you need a military photoshop job.
It’s a special-order AirSoft rifle. It shoots the entire unexploded cartridge. The cartridge explodes when it hits the target. 😉
Why are harassment, threats, etc. so important to the PhD system?
“At last, 2-D Doom.”
Get it while it’s hot. There used to be a text adventure and an RPG, but Id had them taken down.
“Space type generator.”
Or “When Hipsters Meet the Demoscene”.
“Great story, and I’m jealous as hell!”
Me too. Kudos simply for having driven at Spa. I freely confess to having a little bit of a man-crush now. Never had the money (or the skill (or the nerve)) to try racing myself. Classic armchair fan, that’s me.
Because cat.
In my experience, many people who have such degrees insist on being referred to as “Doctor”.
Failing that – a near impossibility – he could try changing his first name.
When doing varied account management Stuff, I could always tell the email from someone who’d gone and bought a piece of expensive framed wallpaper.
The word “”Doctor””—double quotes deliberate there–was always treated as being an integral part of the personal name.
Out among my fellow adults, all the actual Ph.Ds that I’ve ever met are all known as [first name]. For one I’ve known for years, where he has additionally stacked up Title, Title, Award, Title, Big Local Job, Title, Etc., he’s known as and matter of factly introduces himself as [mid teens nickname].
Aaawww. Best wishes to Mr. Falloon for a speedy recovery, and may he and his cat live happily ever after.
Moby wants you to know how woke he is, ladies.
“Dating women was often really hard. I would have crushes that wouldn’t be reciprocated…”
So following the path of so many skinny outsiders, he picked up a guitar and dreamed that girls would love him if he was a rock-and-roll star. And he was one of the few who was good at it, who achieved worldly success, and had lots of female attention and lived happily ever after. Nope, he was one of those Generation X rock stars, who didn’t own being rock stars, enjoy the perquisites, and learn to strut; choosing instead to go back and stew in their high school issues of feeling like a creep or a weirdo or whatever. It’s hard to have sympathy for this. He’s in his fifties, a respected veteran of his industry, but he presents himself in his photos as a mopey teenager looking for pity. If he’s unlucky in love he can just shut up, find a hobby, and be dignified about it.
But he’s following the sensitive new age guy script. I don’t read his Natalie Portman story as bragging or even as humblebragging – he’s telling the story against himself, sharing his vulnerability, his self-esteem issues, his difficulty finding himself attractive. He’s emoting in a female style, trying to be the kind of man feminists say they want. He exposed his throat. They’re going to rip it open.
“I was a bald binge drinker and Natalie Portman was a beautiful movie star. But here she was in my dressing room, flirting with me,”
This is consistent. Generation X had been hurt at the time by the dissolution of their long-term theoretical relationship with Winona Ryder. And then along came Natalie, so reminiscent of a young Winona, full of rejuvenating girlish enthusiasms, but an old soul who could fix broken hearts.
“I was a fan and went to one of his shows when I had just graduated,” she said. “When we met after the show, he said, ‘let’s be friends’ … we only hung out a handful of times before I realised that this was an older man who was interested in me in a way that felt inappropriate.”
Natalie is being disingenuous here presenting herself as a naive 18 year old fresh out of convent school. She was a Hollywood veteran at the time, accustomed to adult responsibilities, very intelligent, hardly unaware of her own beauty and sexual power. Moby made a pass at her, evidently in the awkward, drawn-out, indirect, plausibly deniable style of the sensitive new age guy. She was well able to deflect his pass. Nobody was hurt, and there’s no need to make the guy out to be a child abuser.
That space type generator was pretty nifty. Was an enjoyable break from all the insanity.
Moby made a pass at her, evidently in the awkward, drawn-out, indirect, plausibly deniable style of the sensitive new age guy.
Women’s sexual antics generally fall into five categories:
1- Pity sex: the lowest
2- Scratching an itch sex: she’ll use you because you have a pulse
3- Exchange sex: access to her body is being granted in exchange for her financial, material, or social benefit.
4- Relationship sex: you may not be the cat’s ass but she wants to maintain the relationship she has with you.
5- Desire sex: she wants YOU.
A poor misguided soul like Moby probably spends a lot of time reaching with his skinny arms for pity sex, the piss-poorest end of the spectrum. It’s self-sabaotage, and yes it’s something Gen-X and younger males have been deceived into internalizing.
“[T]here is something demoralizing about agreeing to lie.“
“[T]here is something demoralizing about agreeing to lie.”
Evergreen Damrymple quote:
“[T]here is something demoralizing about agreeing to lie.”
That is, I think, the nuts of it, as it were. The attempt to transfer dissonance to others, to impose it.
But we musn’t dwell on that fact…
In other woke news, merit-based immigration is “racist,” apparently. Because the society extending the favour should under no circumstances see any benefit from immigration. In other words, it is there to be exploited, and bled, nothing more.
And in other other news:
It’s all a bit League of Gentlemen, really.
Mildly funny joke, outraged feminist response.
Macedonian fake news?
She sounds like she is applying for a job with the BBC.
‘Muslim attacks all not true’, yeah darling.
It’s all a bit League of Gentlemen, really
Considering who the headmaster was, I would have thought it was more like Rope.
…outraged feminist response.
Sir Lansoylot to the rescue.
Meanwhile…Evidently they ran out of words, though I can see why the Indian kids were spelling whizzes…(right, self denunciation and off to regrooving I go)
Sir Lansoylot to the rescue.
I first saw this on a feminist Facebook page where they wrote ‘do your 50%!’ Can anyone think of any relationship whatsoever where people arrange their lives according to such a joyless quota?
“[T]here is something demoralizing about agreeing to lie.”
The question is why people continue to do so merely because some miniscule but loudmouthed subset of the population will call them a name ?
…a name if they don’t. D’oh.
Sir Lansoylot to the rescue.
Prince Lancelot
Achtung ! Nicht auf die trolley linien pissen !, nor milk your cow while its tail is wrapped around a lamppost !
Many other cautions for everyday electrical activities.
Kurt Schlichter has a message for indebted students.
8 year old definitely does this better than you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91pz1E8pAOY
“[T]here is something demoralizing about agreeing to lie.”
The question is why people continue to do so merely because some miniscule but loudmouthed subset of the population will call them a name ?
It’s worse than that. That miniscule subset of the population has disproportional power over everyday people’s lives, or at least is currently perceived to have it. Refusing to lie can cost you your job, your livelihood, your chances for getting another job – that’s the perception, and in some cases, has happened. That’s what has people scared. That’s why I stay firmly in the closet (the new one, not the old one. Does the old one even exist anymore?) at work, will never have a Twit account, am only on Facebook under my MMORPG character’s name, and even then never let on what I really think. It stinks on ice, but I can’t, and won’t, lie. So I self-silence. Except in places like this one, where truth matters, opinions can be aired, and disagreements can be had, in a mostly civilized manner. I am eternally grateful to our host for that.
A round of drinks on me, bartender!
Oh boy! David, I’d like the single malt, please. And a hump fat for Farnsworth.
https://abcnews.go.com/Travel/wireStory/uk-police-arrest-34-hells-angels-50th-anniversary-63420841?cid=clicksource_4380645_null_headlines_hed
David, if you’re going to bring those snooty high-society bikers in here, us regulars will have to find a more down-to-earth joint.
(And here we all thought it don’t get more down-to-earth than this place, unless you’re a worm.)
Explanation: How to levitate a frog.
Demonstration: Levitating frog.
So relative to the UK, the counties of Switzerland, Czech Republic, France, and Greece are considered “overseas”? Also, Swiss motorcycle club members, Hell’s Angels at that, are a thing? Are there Swiss Crips and Bloods too?
Sir Lansoylot to the rescue
What an exercise in humorless sanctimony.
Re: jar opening, we’re still useful!
Swedes, apparently blitzed out of their minds on akvavit, come up with an idea so stupid only San Franciscans would think it is actually good.
Swedes, apparently blitzed out of their minds on akvavit…
It was the tainted lingonberries.
San Franciscans may soon be able to bounce their way around town, if a Swedish-based mobility company has its way.
May soon be able to…if a Swedish based mobility company has its way. Because, of course, finding a pogo stick in San Francisco is probably as hard as finding reefer there. Can any lawyers give an opinion on this idea…how about a law where journalists are required to read out loud what they write before they publish it.
Can any lawyers give an opinion on this idea…
Why a lawyer ? What could possible go wrong ? Not like on the famously flat streets and sidewalks a person with no pogo experience could slip on a pile of poop and land on an HIV infected needle or anything crazy like that.
Oh, come on. You’d never encounter an infected needle in San Francisco!
No, looking for opinion on first amendment issue of requiring a journalist to read out loud what they write before they publish. Of course silly and unenforceable but nothing unusual about the legal system imposing itself upon reality.
No, looking for opinion on first amendment issue of requiring a journalist to read out loud what they write before they publish.
Well, they already move their lips when they read….
No, looking for opinion on first amendment issue of requiring a journalist to read out loud…
Making the large leap of faith that they can read with any comprehension in the first place (reading itself being a minor miracle), after reading their nonsense, the next thing they would do is submit it to the Pulitzer committee as all the reading would do is reinforce their notion that what they wrote was profundity for the ages. We are talking about people totally incapable of reflection, contemplation, and introspection, after all.
Hey, that cheeseburger is going to stall unless you get the nose down…
places like this one, where truth matters, opinions can be aired, and disagreements can be had, in a mostly civilized manner. I am eternally grateful to our host for that.
It’s true, I’m a magnificent creature. Glorious and awesome.
It’s true, I’m a magnificent creature. Glorious and awesome.
I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of how awesome I am.
David, your magnificence is exceeded only by your modesty.
The UN, always attacking the toughest problems with the brightest minds.
We’ll ignore the operative word “default”.
The other problem is that Siri et al. apparently “lack agency” (in the same way as a paperweight, but wait till Skynet kicks in and Cortana kills you in your sleep), and this whole mishegoss is indicative of not enough wymxn in tech which will of course be solved by the panacea of government funding of quotas.
It is amazing how they come up with a novel solution every time.
“It’s a spoof, right? Not so, insists the startup, which has sprung (sorry) from ODD Company of Malmö [Sweden].”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/05/31/next-big-thing-in-last-mile-transportation-share-pogo-sticks/
Malmo? That explains it. The local Muslims have told the Swedes that they will stop raping their daughters if they make international fools of themselves.
We’ll ignore the operative word “default”.
So many of these articles – I must’ve seen at least half a dozen now – hide until the very end obvious facts that undermine all of the posturing, misleading headlines, etc, that precede them. That, or they simply ignore the facts altogether. Namely, that almost all such devices offer the choice of both male and female voices, and that practically every study and piece of customer research indicates a marked preference, among both men and women, for digital assistants with female voices. But still we get this as an opening line,
And closing lines like this,
But hey, journalism.
There’s an other wrinkle that’s entirely technical: the tiny speakers in mobile devices don’t have subwoofers, which means that higher pitched frequencies – like women’s voices – are reproduced more clearly and with more volume.
£334 London to San Francisco, problem sorted, cheaper than re-arresting her, and she’ll find a welcome home in a like minded community.
The Amazing Kriswell predicts a large fall off of NHS vending machine revenue.
Science ! Lues, Lues, Oh baby, me gotta go…
In a world full of aggravations, one of the more subtly frustrating grievances is that every single smart device has a female digital assistant.
I admit I’d prefer my smart devices to speak to me in Sam Elliott’s voice, but that would be a few moments of distraction several times a day. 😉
Can someone relieve Darleen of that large gin and tonic? She’s already had three.
Too late! She’s already crying!
It’s sarsparilla or ginger beer from now on, Darlin.
Bartender, another Scotch, please.
*burp*
Sure glad Lab Rat is buying…