Friday Ephemera
They arrive flat-pack. (h/t, Julia) || In-flight escalation of note. || An unexpected noise. (h/t, Damian) || Welcome to the world of nappy status notifications. || Today’s word is inadvisable. || China’s vertical dramas. || A collection of tiny vases. || Modern headline. || I think this is called ‘going out of your way to be angry’. (h/t, Darleen) || ‘Free’ explained in chart form. (h/t, Dicentra) || It’s a zoetrope, it’s a chocolate cake. || Willy Wonka goes ska. || Airport scenes. || Today’s other words are progressive law enforcement. (h/t, Jeff) || Our betters lead complicated lives. || One for the ladies. || She has furry friends. || It, er, comes with a remote. (h/t, Captain Nemo) || And finally, a reminder that parking is hard.
progressive law enforcement
I have seen a few of these videos.
If I was a cop, I’d sit in my car in a nice neighbourhood, keeping an eye on the residents and eating donuts. No risk of getting soaked, shot or accused of brutality for trying to do your job.
Let the scum drown in their own Darwinian shit.
One for the ladies
Juliet Stevenson, Drowning by Numbers.
Also, first. Which is nice.
progressive law enforcement
Update: some of the punks have now been arrested. Some have very long criminal records, are even gang members:
https://www.weaselzippers.us/427076-multiple-suspects-in-custody-for-dousing-nypd-cops-with-water/
Not all, um, heroes wear capes. Here.
https://www.sadanduseless.com/neckbeards-funny/?fbclid=IwAR385WsbBHOlLjwiLwQ1JvyjVH-_3Hth-bCW-fqEoSlOBQ0LKAxCSf6jUiM
(Actually putting the link in twice because I can’t trust my hyperlinking abilities anymore. WTP was saying it’s because of my quotation marks?)
“In-flight escalation of note.” … “Airport scenes.”
I haven’t been on a plane since 1979. (Yes, seriously.) Air travel’s changed, man.
Not all, um, heroes wear capes.
Ouch. Alternately sad and creepy.
And by the way, is that kid holding a pair of shock absorbers as if they are firearms?
I assumed they were just spring coils from somewhere that he wrapped around a cut of hose. I gave him points for effort and ability to design his own weapon.
I liked the kids who seemed to be doing it with a sense of humour – some were just sad, like the guy with a chain mail helmet and t-shirt(!)
progressive law enforcement
It’s a shame. I heard they were both just starting to turn their lives around…or at least planning to start planning to do so. Such a waste what with our overcrowded prison system and all that jazz.
WTP was saying it’s because of my quotation marks?
I assume that the root of the problem is as follows:
The HTML language only recognizes the traditional ASCII* quote marks; any other quote mark characters are not recognized as such.
Try typing some quoted text in a plain-text editor like Notepad and then in a full-featured text editor like MS Word. In Notepad the quotes will look like little vertical lines, while in Word they will look be curly–and what’s more the opening and closing quote marks will be different. (These are what you traditionally see in newspapers, magazines and books.) Those curly quote marks are not recognized by HTML, while the plain ones in Notepad are.
If you are composing your links in a text editor, use a plain-text editor like Notepad and you should be okay.
I hope this helps.
* I’ll spare you the history of ASCII, Extended ASCII, Unicode, etc. 🙂
I liked the kids who seemed to be doing it with a sense of humour
I once saw an advertisement in which a file of grim looking men each of which was holding a lug nut drill in one hand as if it were a firearm while with the other hand he rolled an automobile tire. The long coats and Russian style fur caps completed the image.
Thanks, pst. Was about to ‘splain but am currently having disagreements with the washing machine.
is that kid holding a pair of shock absorbers as if they are firearms?
Yes.
Some of those are clearly kids goofing around, and some are intentional cosplay. I spotted a half dozen anime I’m familiar with, a couple of video games, and Highlander.
Now, I’m not sure entirely inadequate cosplay is better…
Morning, all.
Ah, Letraset. As a stroppy teenager, I had sheets and sheets of this stuff.
Hey WTP –
If you are composing your links in a text editor, use a plain-text editor like Notepad and you should be okay.
Nope, only the comments box.
Maybe it’s an iPhone vs Computer thing.
Also, first. Which is nice.
That must chafe.
Some have very long criminal records,
Say it ain’t so.
If I was a cop, I’d sit in my car in a nice neighbourhood… No risk of getting soaked, shot or accused of brutality for trying to do your job. Let the scum drown in their own Darwinian shit.
Somewhat related.
Maybe it’s an iPhone vs Computer thing.
It’s the type of quotation marks.
And finally, a reminder that parking is hard.
F*cking hell. The guy in the black shirt was very lucky.
The guy in the black shirt was very lucky.
As someone quips in the comments,
There’s background on the incident here. Five people were injured but no fatalities.
It’s the type of quotation marks.
Even if you use the approved quotation marks, Tim, Preview is essential. This has been my experience:
I have the linking markup stored on a clip tray, handy for pasting into the comment box when I want it. Then I paste the URL between the quotation marks. Should be clear sailing, right? But Preview reveals a garbled link, and a coser look at what I’ve typed gives the reason. The pasting automatically added a space between the quotation mark and the URL. Closing that space makes the link good.
Hope this helps.
A closer look at what I’ve typed.
Be this irony?
Be this irony?
The gods, they mock us.
In-flight escalation of note.
“Ma’am you are going to be charged with assault”
“Fine whatever”
I don’t think it’s her first time.
The ship thing, looks like one of those incidents where someone in a big 4×4 flips because a little Mini stole their parking space at the supermarket.
“Oi! That’s my space!”
I don’t think it’s her first time.
Oh, I very much doubt it’s a one-off aberration.
Letraset! I used to use it on certain engineering drawings and other projects. I think I still have that spoon-looking tool (a burnisher?) around here somewhere.
My Labrador Retriever behaves like that ship around my Longhaired Dachshund.
“Move over shorty. This is my spot.”
If I was a cop, I’d sit in my car in a nice neighbourhood… No risk of getting soaked, shot or accused of brutality for trying to do your job. Let the scum drown in their own Darwinian shit.
Also related.
From the article:
The authorities keep telling us that if you’ve done nothing “wrong” you should have no reason to fear being surveilled, but note how the cops themselves don’t want to be surveilled.
“No longer a person of colour”
https://twitter.com/DamCou/status/1154713736248209410
Can’t they hear themselves?
Re the shock absorbers: I thought they were creative and funny.
I suspect a lot of those guys were having fun. Also, the fat guys may have been posing for their “before” pictures.
But then I spend a lot of time these days looking at things from the viewpoint of residents of another world so my vision may be bit clouded. Like I came out of a 2-day scribbling session about the time the Ranger or SEAL or whatever he was got in trouble for posing with a (his?) kill and before my mind shifted back to American I thought “Well, what else would he do?” Then after my mind shifted back I thought “Oh, yeah, this country ratified at least one treaty that requires our troops to be polite and gentlemanly when fighting barbarians, and the gentleman knew that when he signed up.”
I think my non-fiction notes got accidentally tossed (the life-changing magic of tidying up!). But I’m reassembling them.
Historical tidbit: Japan signed the Geneva Convention but never ratified it (they may have got round to ratifying it in the last seventy years), so, however morally deplorable their actions may have been in WW II, such actions were not, technically, illegal. But history, as well as punishment, is decided by the victors, so a lot of Japanese officers ended up in big trouble anyway.
“No longer a person of colour”
Or, “The negroes will think what we tell them to think.”
Er, that’s “at about the time” etc. I left out a word, sorry. Didn’t mean I’d been scribbling for two days about Mr. Special Forces.
Now that I think about it, one of the numerous problems with the U. S. military is not so much that troops are expected to conduct themselves in a gentlemanly fashion, it’s that they’re expected to conduct themselves in a ladylike fashion. (A concept so wacky and far out as far as residents of Bookland are concerned that I don’t know what they’d think about it because it would literally never occur to any of them.)
David, are you still having a heat wave, a tropical 🌴 heat wave? We had ours last week.
are you still having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave?
We’re now down to a more manageable 23°C / 73°F. Though it’s unpleasantly humid.
but am currently having disagreements with the washing machine.
Sirius Cybernetics Corporation? I hate smart appliances.
Can’t they hear themselves?
Yes, lima charlie, and therein lies the problem.
progressive law enforcement
Somewhat related:
Rafael Mangual, here
Maybe it’s an iPhone vs Computer thing.
I would not be surprised if iPhones do not come with any apps that use plaintext, making it impossible to type ASCII quote marks.
Sirius Cybernetics Corporation? I hate smart appliances.
No, some standard brand like Kenmore or WTF (not at home right now). It’s an older machine but not ancient. Came with the house 7 years ago. I think something is amiss in the control board. It’s not a completely dumb machine but it has 10^80 settings that don’t EXACTLY match up with the dial position. It works quite well for the most part. But every 8, 10, 12 months or so it decides to just stop at the soak cycle. Then I have to monkey around with the settings, sometimes that “works”. Other times, like last night, it finally occurs to me to unplug the damn thing and restart. It remains fussy for a few loads and then it goes back to working nominally. Until 6, 8, 10 months pass and the cycle continues. Not a big deal except last night I wanted to get a load going and then dried before morning, so when just before bed I check on the damn thing, it’s still full of water.
I’m becoming a magnet for gremlins as I age. I love my 2016 Tacoma truck, except for some reason it shows songs playing from my iPhone music app (and I think this is an iPhone problem not so much the truck) but doesn’t play the damn song. Just the album cover, etc. pops up on the display. One interesting thing is I never start the iPhone music app myself. I don’t really care much because if I’m in the truck for more than 10 minutes I use Pandora, which works just fine. But if I don’t play Pandora nor the radio and drive along in quiet, out of the blue one (sometimes two or three) of the songs from (I presume) my iTunes library will start playing. Then back to silence when the next song pops up. And one day, it started playing Phil Collins. Now not that I explicitly HATE Phil Collins but I grew quite tired of him back in the 80’s because he was on the radio constantly. And if not the radio, the beer commercials. Never bought an album or song of his. I still have no f’n idea how that happened.
But thanks for asking!
Maybe it’s an iPhone vs Computer thing.
I really think for me it started after an iOS upgrade. Just started happening out of the blue until I noticed the serif-ish quote marks. Also, per my luddite rant above.
Ah…should have also said per if iPhones do not come with any apps that use plaintext, making it impossible to type ASCII quote marks
I’m almost certain it was a default that I had to turn off. But at what level (app/device/???) I don’t recall.
Now that I think about it, one of the numerous problems with the U. S. military is not so much that troops are expected to conduct themselves in a gentlemanly fashion, it’s that they’re expected to conduct themselves in a ladylike fashion.
OK, Missy Expert who quite obviously doesn’t know the difference between Special Forces, Rangers, and SEALS (let alone MARSOC or AFSOC), enlighten us about the myriad problems of the US military and how it is ladylike to know not to piss on enemy dead or take pictures of them as if they were hunting trophies.
And one day, it started playing Phil Collins.
Sounds serious. Have you tried calling in a priest?
Sounds serious. Have you tried calling in a priest?
While somewhat unpleasant, like I was driving around in a 1980’s Michelob commercial, I consoled myself with the thought that at least it wasn’t Journey. That would have necessitated some serious this-and-other-worldly fire power.
While somewhat unpleasant,
Death by reverb-heavy drum solo. It’s a nasty way to go.
It, er, comes with a remote.
Is it machine washable? Asking for a friend.
>And one day, it started playing Phil Collins.
>Sounds serious. Have you tried calling in a priest?
Now, whilst I like taking the piss out of 80’s megastars as much as the next man, I fell compelled to stand up for Phil.
Aside from his well documented prog involvement, he also did a load of genuinely groundbreaking stuff in terms of sound engineering (Gated Reverb in particular defining the sound of the 80’s, which was Phil’s idea, but carried on by Hugh Padgham, IIRC) and he was a huge PiL fan- to the point he got Kate Bush into them sufficiently for there to be some kind of bizarre cross-fertilisation of drum sounds from Flowers of Romance into one of her dreary mopefests (the album with the one Utah Saints sampled, I think).
Add in the bizarre In the Air tonight (Avant Garde Much, Phil?) and I think ytou can make a case for him being one of the most influential musicians of our lifetime.
(No I don’t own any records by him)
Can’t they hear themselves?
It turns out that Kerry-anne Mendoza is a co-founder as well as current Editor-in-Chief of “independent non-profit news website” The Canary.
Amongst her various duties are apparently a Devil-may-care approach to unintended irony as this from the The Canary‘s About & FAQ section clearly shows:
Our Vision
A free and fair society where we nurture people and planet.
Our Mission
To achieve this, we deliver campaigning journalism that informs and empowers people to change their world.
Our Values
The Canary is progressive, open and rigorous. We work with respect, courage and generosity.
She takes the same approach to her biodata, which includes this:
Her passions are politics, economics and current affairs, which she examines with the basic question: “How do we build a world that works for everyone?”
Clearly, “everyone” means something quite different to Mendoza than it does to me.
Honestly, the content of that Tweet is quite possibly the most disgusting thing I’ve seen in a good long while.
Surely Twitter will shut down her acc- oh, no wait.
From Willy Wonka goes ska…
The dude is holding a trombone on the thumbnail of a ska song (a genre famous for using trombones) which begins with extended trombone solos and still the description completely ignores that magical instrument.
And people wonder why most trombones are sad.
I think you can make a case for him being one of the most influential musicians of our lifetime.
[ Quickly dons headphones, unearths Love and Dancing by The Human League. ]
I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.
And people wonder why most trombones are sad.
Wah-wah-waaaaaaaaaaaaaah
🙁