Friday Ephemera
Patriarchy detected. They were “taken by surprise.” || The circle of life. || Altered stone. || I think not. || Enthusiastic newcomers. || Wine glass of note. || Where to put the baby while you use a public toilet. || Medieval trade routes. (h/t, Brian) || Important notice of note. || He spent 3 years building a pyramid of pennies. || Periscope spectacles for the height impaired. || More liveliness in London. || Tesla vs Lovecraft is a game. || Gorilla crow. || Glories of the 1980s. || Thank goodness the clever ones are in charge. || Always respect the media. || Always trust Google. || Entirely unrelated. || One and four, obviously. (h/t, Tim) || And finally, via Dicentra, things that will be found by future archaeologists.
Altered stone
Oh, my. That’s incredibly beautiful. I never cease to be amazed at just how much skill it takes to make a marble figure look like it has been draped in a sheer cloth, and with the artist using comparatively primitive tools at that. As art it’s just so much more powerful and moving than some woman repeatedly walking past a row of automatic doors.
Yes, it is beautiful, I liked it too!
David, are you still gone?
I have to buy a laptop, mine died. I will use it to type books I’ve written, Internet, and e-mail. I guess it better have the latest windows so it can talk to the largest number of other computers. Recommendations, please.
Glories of the 1980s.
I had one of the dual cassette models for a few years.
Wirtschaftswunder
Patriarchy detected. They were “taken by surprise.”
It’s genuinely surprising how often that happens. Patriarchal wiles, I assume.
Recommendations, please.
Ugh. They pretty much all suck. Everything is built in China for the lowest BOM cost and QA is terrible. I’d ask what your budget is, but honestly anything less than $800CAD should be considered disposable (by contrast, I’m using a four-year-old Dell E7250 that’s still rocking along just fine).
Avoid Acer like the plague, they’re made of cardboard; I’m not a fan of the Dell and HP consumer line but their prosumer and engineering systems are good, if pricey. Asus seems to be holding the line on quality in the consumer space. Whatever you do, get as long a warranty as you can buy.
Thanks, Daniel!
From what my wife tells me NZ netball at the highest level have for years had a training programme playing mens teams.
Sound thinking I’d say. If you want to get better at something compete against those that are better than you.
Always respect the media.
Dear gawd, in the comments to that article, there’s a “masters in history” going by the name of “Trapper John” trying to claim that “Trump’s lies” are every bit as bad as those of the Soviet authorities after the Chernobyl disaster.
Well, not really.
Any linux box can do pretty much anything you’d want, assuming that you want to write a book or something. There are other formats than Microsoft Word; they can even be converted to MS word.
But, if you know Windows already and are happy with it, then don’t allow me to convince you otherwise. (I assume that you simply want to get something done and not mess around with operating systems; that’s perfectly reasonable.)
Hi Richard,
Yep, just want to get things done! 😊
yawhook: “Sound thinking I’d say. If you want to get better at something compete against those that are better than you.”
No, no, that’s not the modern way! Just complain that the other side aren’t really better than you, it’s ‘the system’ that makes it appear that way.
Morning, all.
Dear gawd,
If you think of Chernobyl as a horror story, it’s pretty clear from the first episode, the first scene, who, or rather what, the real monster of the story is. (There’s a wonderfully grotesque exchange early on in which the nuclear physicist Khomyuk is arguing with an obstructive Soviet bureaucrat, a former shoe factory worker, about the release of radioactive graphite, a reality that the apparatchik rejects as ideologically impossible and less important than the chance to indulge his class-war resentment of someone much smarter than he is.) And by the final episode it’s about as explicit as a thing could be.
But apparently, some critics will jump about on one leg to avoid the obvious. Which is just a tad ironic.
De-lurking to comment…
But apparently, some critics will jump about on one leg to avoid the obvious.
It is absurd to see, considering what Chernobyl is about. The show shocked and horrified me, even though I’ve heard stories of what the USSR was like and I’ve seen for myself the scars communism has left in the old Eastern Bloc countries. The soul-crushing awfulness of everything is what gets you (or got me, anyway). The whole country was just a meat grinder.
Anyway, I thought the show was admirably on-the-nose about the religious fervor of communism, the pervasive lies, the shabbiness of every machine and every building. That critics refuse to see it just tracks with the way communists today are somehow not run out of town on a rail, the way actual Nazis (justifiably) are.
De-lurking to comment…
Yay. Welcome aboard, madam.
I thought the show was admirably on-the-nose about the religious fervor of communism, the pervasive lies,
Absolutely. Almost every character is neurotic or resentful or obliged to lie. The scene mentioned above struck me as particularly telling. As if the sole consolation for all the dreariness and lies was the chance to be needlessly unpleasant to anyone over whom you had any kind of power. Sort of, ‘Everything is terrible and depressing, but at least I can frustrate and humiliate others.’ In fact, this is pretty much a recurring theme.
The soul-crushing awfulness of everything is what gets you
Yes, they captured that rather well, the air of squalor and decay. It reminded me of this video of a Moscow supermarket, in which unhappy-looking ladies poke at grey meat.
De-lurking to comment…
Ooh, a new commenter!
[slides jar of pickled eggs down to Lois]
Mr Reed said Hastings suffered from post traumatic stress disorder after suffering injuries to his bowel when he was stabbed with a samurai sword in an unprovoked attack.
Your burgled burglar. Leeds sounds like an interesting town.
Leeds sounds like an interesting town.
I wouldn’t go that far.
The public toilet baby holder is actually a great invention. There are a few times when I’d wished for something like that.
@LCoL: “Recommendations, please.”
I’m fairly IT savvy – I build my own desktops – and I’d always tried to find a sweet spot for laptops of specs and price. And always been a bit frustrated with them, so I figured last time round I’d see if it was a false economy. Turns out it was.
Current laptop was not cheap (I got a – very good and you’d never tell – ‘refurb’ and it was still £1500. But it’s fast, light, boots up in 5 seconds and can flip to be a tablet to read pdfs and, um, graphic novels. HP Spectre 360.
So my advice would be to pay a bit more than you think. I don’t ‘need’ the power in mine as I don’t use heavy software, but the power is noticable in everyday use as everything is fast and easy. If you don’t care about weight or screen flipping, you can pay a lot less than I did. If there is a focus, get as much RAM as you can.
Thank you!
Re the sword story: where is it, I couldn’t find it. And how come you can have swords in GB but not kitchen knives?
Altered Stone
Obviously the product of the Imperialist/ Colonialist/ Racist west.
This is the new standard of beauty
…the religious fervor of communism…
The religious fervour of an avowedly atheistic ideology, as it’s true it would be completely hilarious if not for the hundred million or so corpses left behind.
ideologically impossible
That.
That.
There’s also the scene in episode one, where Dyatlov, a bullying inadequate, browbeats his subordinates and denies the disaster that’s obviously unfolding, shouting defiantly, “You didn’t see graphite on the ground… You didn’t.” (Meaning, you cannot be allowed to acknowledge unauthorised reality.) His tirade is cut short by a fit of vomiting.
Leeds sounds like an interesting town.
I wouldn’t go that far.
The poet Sir John Betjeman takes an irreverent, eccentric look at the architecture of the place in this half-hour film from the late 1960s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J6E4w-AFAA Many of the buildings featured are still standing, and look a lot better now they’ve been cleaned of a century of accumulated muck and grime.
Enthusiastic newcomers.
Net contributors contributing netly. I always wondered what it looked like.
“Any Linux box can do pretty much anything you’d want…”
Yes, but that’s only for people who are fairly IT savvy.
Tesla vs Lovecraft is a game.
Lovecraft FTW every time as Tesla self-combusts and/or falls apart.
First the Planet of Teh Wymxn™, now Teh Planet of No Sex Binary™. You will be surprised to note the author of this Deep Thought™ is a visiting professor of sociology, you know he is profound by the stern look and goatee, although I don’t think there was any less of a sex binary before the Enlightenment, but then I am not a visiting professor of sociology.
Meanwhile, according to The Sun, researchers at Cambridge have discovered that if you are between 40 and 79, your chances of dying young can be reduced by exercise. It is unclear if young people can avoid dying young with this one simple trick.
Enthusiastic newcomers.
What exactly was it that was being celebrated?
The patriarchy happens in hockey too, unfortunately. The bias in the article is funny. The Canadian “men” are “midget” aged – ie 15 year olds. Plus, these “men’s” teams are made of of boys in one city – not the best of the best in the entire country like the grown women they are playing against. Add onto that they have to play the women’s rules – no body contact.
https://www.hockeycanada.ca/en-ca/news/2009-nwt-007-en
Altered stone.
From the comments:
Shaving was not at all uncommon back then as it tended to keep the lice problem under control, however, that brings us to the 21st century where a women’s razor company decides to run ads for their razors by promoting “body positivity” and , in a brave and stunning strategy, not shaving. (Work caution – the Daily Mail so no nudity but some bikini type pics you might regret even if not at work – click at your own risk).
More liveliness in London.
Part and parcel of living in a big city as the mayor would say, but it will all be sorted by these cool new £35,000 BMW sparky cars for the rozzers.
”And how come you can have swords in GB but not kitchen knives?”
I believe you can’t, but the authorities won’t know about Dad’s sword until you carry it in public.
I believe you can’t,
But those Congolese and Somali borra gangs, the ones enlivening London, have made large, sharp implements, including machetes, so terribly fashionable.
Are you abused by classical music ? This gentleman is.
OTOH, you just might be lousy as a composer.
PTSD from classical music and capitalism – OK, that is a new one.
Oh come on now, you knew that was where this was headed. RTWT, it is a unique rant by our author who manages to hit as many diversity bingo squares as he can, but, oddly enough claims to be influenced by several wypipo.
Western classical music is not about culture. It’s about whiteness.
Or, “Counterpoint is hard and that’s so unfair.”
Part and parcel of living in a big city as the mayor would say,
So vibrant.
So vibrant.
And all thanks to the notion, embraced by our betters, that you could import large numbers of savage morons from a place where savage morony is the norm, dump them in a sink estate where almost everything is alien, and somehow, by some magical process, the result would be mutually beneficial, fragrant and harmonious, and would in no way resemble a zombie apocalypse.
Or, “Counterpoint is hard and that’s so unfair.”
Having made the mistake of listening to bits of his recordings, there is that, I think, but the stuff pulled, apparently, out of his fourth point of contact is the kicker.
“The specious belief that whiteness has a culture…”, but of course blackness, browness, and every other hue does, regardless of the fact that among the hues there is a wide variety of cultures.
“Its main purpose is to be a cultural anchor for the myth of white supremacy.” Right, classical music is all about yte supremacy – OK, maybe some Wagner, but a Bach etude ?
Finally, what the hell does this guy want to be “liberated” from ? The unutterable anguish of being able to be a musician in 21st century America living in a city that bends over backwards for winners of diversity bingo ? The oppression his long lost ancestors felt under the Phrygians ?
The toilet baby holder is, of course, to be installed in men’s toilets too as we now know men can (and often do, unless they have opted for an abortion) have babies.
In other news, I will buy the Star Wars furniture if–and only if– it allows me to zap the person in the other chair when they least expect it. I like the idea of laser beams blasting across the living room, especially during the ad breaks in Corrie.
I have to buy a laptop, mine died.
What part of it died? If the main processor is still ok most component parts can be purchased really cheap these days and there are dozens of very good diy videos on youtube.
My hard drive died on my 4-year-old laptop. I bought a new solid-state drive and doubled the RAM for under $100. It runs faster than a lot of brand new machines. The most complex things I run are spreadsheets and Access databases.
I did the same thing with my wife’s 2008 Macbook Pro and it zips along. She doesn’t do anything more taxing than email, internet and the odd word document.
If you’re buying new, get the best processor you can afford and then swap out the RAM and hard drive yourself. There are some cheap machines on the market that are still using Celeron processors. Avoid them, they are crap. The price will make you happy but you’ll be dissatisfied with the performance right from the start.
This is the new standard of beauty
WTF? “Disumbrationism”, a modern-art hoax perpetrated by author Paul Jordan Smith aka “Pavel Jerdanowitch” actually became real.
Thank you, Steve E!
WTF? “Disumbrationism”, a modern-art hoax perpetrated by author Paul Jordan Smith aka “Pavel Jerdanowitch” actually became real.
Because only a true artist would deny being an artist. Now f*** off.
Because only a true artist would deny being an artist.
Indeed, from Miss Gould at the article:
It is almost as if Miss Gould is in denial about being duped herself.
Welp, just got word from Microsoft that my Win7 won’t be supported as of 2020, which means if I want to stay safe online I’ll have to buy a new box.
(My current box is from 2007. I tried adding more RAM, and despite my best efforts it increased it only a tick. And when I upgraded to a free W10 when it first came out, running time was so sluggish my productivity went down as my blood pressure went up.)
Worse, I doubt I’ll be able to reload my Office 2007 since they’re no longer keeping track of licenses, which means probably buying Word 2020 (I’m never paying for subscriptions) or using OpenOffice for everything else.
This is why I still use Fireworks 3 from 1995 to manipulate art. Works fine, and not vulnerable to the licensing mothership.
Welp, just got word from Microsoft that my Win7 won’t be supported as of 2020, which means if I want to stay safe online I’ll have to buy a new box.
It’s possible that Win10 will run fine on your current box. Worth checking, unless you just want to get a newer more powerful box anyway.
This is the new standard of beauty
I’m not clicking that. This isn’t my first time round these here parts, Jonathan.
What exactly was it that was being celebrated?
The French World Cup victory.
What?
We will no longer depend on white elites to fund diversity initiatives and hope it trickles down.
Whew thank goodness! Glad that’s finally been settled.