Friday Ephemera
Alas, her telekinetic powers failed her when she needed them the most. || For all your kerning nightmares. || Our political titans. || More joys of public transport. || Winter in Japan. || Landing in trees, in 360 degrees. || The thrill of yarn. || Are we there yet, dad? || He does this better than you do. || I question this design choice. || Oversharing of note. || You shall go to the ball. || Shopping centre scenes. || He sees you. || Headline of note. || “You’ve walked out of the movie three times?” || Woke AF. || Feminist standards. || “Rhetorical violence.” || Always respect the media and their lofty moral leadership. || In fairness, it is easy to miss. || And finally, what appears to be the aftermath of a traumatic collision.
No worries, Sam. Winning football in 2006, then basketball for two consecutive years, then ANOTHER national championship in football, the number of national championship t-shirts I had to buy for my nephew and niece, year after year, was not only taxing on the bank account but was also becoming something of a time sink. I really wouldn’t wish such a thing on my worst enemy. No, really.
Though I’ll see your 1958, 2003 and 2007 with our 1996, 2006 and 2008…
Some damn pachyderms say hello from, 1925, 1926, 1930, 1934, 1941, 1961, 1964, 1965, 1973, 1978, 1979, 1992, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017 + 1945, 1966, 1975, 1977, and back to your swamp, swampy…
…at large.
Well now that you mention it, and at risk of being redundant…Pachyderm fans and firearms don’t seem to be a very productive combination.
https://www.wpsdlocal6.com/news/suspect-in-paducah-hotel-robbery-arrested/article_166f2cce-eab3-11e9-8e9a-13a900f4a302.html
Now about those Heisman trophies…
WTP what makes college football so great and terrible simultaneously is that it’s basically the Game Of Thrones of sports. Right now I feel like a Stark after the Red Wedding. Only there’s no hope of hack writers swooping in and creating ever more contrived successes for us.
Can we go back to discussing something fun like the impending societal collapse and civil war?
Daniel: I can think of lots of SF films that require technology we don’t currently have. That is, make no sense with that technology removed.
Bladerunner requires androids that can pass as people.
2001 requires true AI.
Total Recall requires memory changing technology.
Minority Report requires precognition. Plus a surveillance technology that is not yet possible.
Plus an endless number of films requiring time travel or alien visits.
Sure, most of them could be set in the modern world + required technology, like The Truman Show. But they can’t be set in the current world.
Sam quoting me: “Well, except this: Still just a demand that her social interiors treat her with deference
An obvious example of phonesplaining. Even though it’s obvious I know what I want to say, my phone condescendingly insists it knows better and “fixes” it.
I mean, what’s more likely, a machine that doesn’t work perfectly, or an insidious campaign of hatred and oppression against me and everyone just like me? I know what I think.
Oops
Who spilt HTML all over the upholstery?
Welcome back to the 1970s. The only solution is to bring back all the cool 1970s cars.
The only solution is to bring back all the cool 1970s cars.
Only if they bring back pre-1973 gas prices.
“We’re often told to celebrate differences whilst simultaneously being pushed to ignore them. In the world of Minder, though, there are no such ideological acrobatics: what you see is often what you say.”
Using the definition “a science fiction story is a story that could not be told[1] without the science/technology that drives the plot”, there’s very, very little actual science fiction in film or television.
I’d consider Annihilation true (and good) sci-fi, though the alien… entity could have been depicted much the same in a swords-and-sorcery setting. Generally, I find the sci-fi and fantasy I enjoy the most to often be that way; monsters that are alien in nature, technology that would be difficult to discern from magic.
Speaking of which, my only disappointment with Annihilation involved the creature some have dubbed the “alzabo”, but only because Gene Wolfe did it scarier.
Regarding The Exorcist:
https://youtu.be/lb3hIEcRu34
In the Paducah hotel robbery story, when I read this:
“When the woman threw the money on the counter, the robber put his gun down as he moved to put the money in a plastic bag. That’s when the clerk grabbed the gun and pointed it at the robber. Police said the man eventually fled”
I wondered if the robber was going “woob-woob-woob-woob” as he was running out the door.
” Using the definition “a science fiction story is a story that could not be told[1] without the science/technology that drives the plot”, there’s very, very little actual science fiction in film or television.”
Definitions schmefinitions. Though, as a kid, if pressed for a definition I probably would have said ‘does it have lasers and space ships and stuff’?
The Asimov “Robot” stories all pretty much rely on the three laws of robotics. It’s hard to see how these stories could be told with out the premise of robotic technology in which these rules were axiomatic to the robot’s behaviour. Unless it were some elaborate variation on the “one tribe always tells the truth and one tribe always lies” riddle.
More recently, I’m not sure that Gibson’s “Neuromancer” could be told without the technology (of course, that hasn’t been brought to the screen).
BTW, someone mentioned “The Cold Equations” short story. There’s a dramatisation of this story called “Stowaway” on the DUST youtube channel.
That video is scary — they might have well been wearing white hoods and carrying flaming torches.
It does rather reveal the root motives of such people. Unless, of course, the way to address an ostensibly political disagreement with someone is to find out where their parents live and then harass them at night in a fairly sinister way. Having already doxxed and threatened the person’s elderly mother. The point being to intimidate Mr Ngo and his family, and to underline their vulnerability, specifically to violence. To make them feel unsafe. There’s a spiteful ingenuity.
Because, hey, “social justice.” The mark of the pious and compassionate.
[ Added: ]
Hm. I think we’ll give this one a post of its own.
More joys of public transport.
Meanwhile, on the metro in the City of Light…
The Guardian visited my hometown.
Let’s just say I don’t recognize anything that the writer of the piece describes, other than the fact that it seems to tick all the usual Guardian boxes, starting off with her “diversity” meaning a bunch of different-looking hipsters doing hipster-type jobs, to thinking that the people need their sort of “enlightened” leadership and the Glorious Future® jobs that people like her do, instead of real productive work.
Never heard of that festival she’s talking about.
Somewhat related, there’s an undeveloped property on the dead-end road where I live, which borders on about 1,000 acres of state forest. Some hipster type bought the property and has plans to put half a dozen tiny houses on it and market them as vacation cabins. The things would have no privacy, they’re not far enough off the road to be truly out in the woods, and won’t give any sort of authentic experience of being in the middle of nowhere, especially if there are multiple structures. But apparently somebody thinks this thoroughly broken business model will appeal to city folk. Reminds me of the people who built the abandoned ski area 30 years ago.
The real crime in the second video is a Domino’s in Ireland.
[imagines Van Morrison running a pizza place]
Meanwhile, on the metro in the City of Light…
From the same source: in a German park, a sculpture honoring African immigrant drug dealers.
Headline: Hipsters in Kingston New York discover agriculture. Sustainable does not mean what they think it means. These folks should tune into Ag Report on the weekend. It broadcasts early in the morning when actual farmers have time to watch. It is an education in the business of agriculture. Farming on the tiny scale the Kingstoners envision is not sustainable and not even sufficient for the needs of that community.
Headline: Hipsters in Kingston New York discover agriculture. Sustainable does not mean what they think it means.
“Urban agriculture” is a curious concept: how do these hipsters and “progressive reformers” think that there is something “sustainable” about multi-story buildings devoted to gardening? It is unclear how many of them sincerely believe this and how many cynically use it as a method of imposing more “organization” and “redistribution” upon us all.
Ted S,
The article ends with a savvy quote, though.
If the SHTF nobody will come to rescue them, and being ready is a good thing.
But “gallerists” and bike trails from city to farm are not going to be much help.
Bartering for medical care is great, too, but fails to consider where the trained doctors come from, where the sterile instruments come from, where the antibiotics come from, etc etc ad infinitum.
It’s best thought of as parasitism on the past.
Pst314,
I have talked with several startup companies in the urban ag business. It’s amazing but sadly typical that often they have no idea of even the basic physics involved, never mind the complexities of urban infrastructure and logistics.
One guy tried to convince me that he could power grow lights in a three story growhouse from solar panels on the roof. Because, you know, LEDs are super efficient.
God bless you Fred for trying. I’m real curious about these kinds of technologies and I genuinely would like to see them succeed. Some of the people who ramble on about such things seem very bright but only in the stereotypical autistic sense. When I start asking the difficult questions, usually in a genuine hope that these things have been thought out and my sincere curiosity as to what the solution is, I find more often than not I’m dismissed as the old guy who hates anything new. This situation intensifies the closer you get to the subject of globalistic warmering.
This is right up there with the old Onion article about dolphins developing opposable thumbs:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/australian-raptors-start-fires-to-flush-out-prey
From insty.
Some of the urban indoor at folks are targeting “leafy greerns” (no, not dope) on the theory that good fresh produce can be hard to get in cities.
Ok so far, modulo the economics, but then there is usually some story about how this will help make cities resilient food-wise against various major calamities. I’ve yet to see one which was not exquisitely sensitive to the stability of power, water, transport, and usually a host of info-tech issues.
Good luck with that when the hurricane / mass riots happen into town.
Re: Kingston. The funny thing is that private exchange of goods and services, especially with some form of currency, is precisely what “capitalism” is. When the government gets involved and increasingly regulates and restricts things, then it diverges from capitalism into something Marx would be proud of.