Friday Ephemera
Bit nippy out. || Banana-related breakthrough of note. || She does this better than you do. || His knife is sharper than yours. || Passionate exchanges. || Script Doctor recaps Picard with suitable ruthlessness: “Too bad the writers don’t think beyond the surface of their own ideas.” || Intriguing odour detected. || Disappointing soap. (h/t, Perry) || Upscale toasting. (h/t, Elephants Gerald) || Restaurant scenes. || Nommy nommy nom. || The thrill of sorting nails. || Achievement unlocked. || 85,000 British Pathé newsreels, 1910-2008. || A brief history of the URL. || Ice resurfacing simulator. || I did not know this. || Hands up if you own one. || Folded paper. || And finally, a slaughterhouse-related mishap.
She does this better than you do.
That can wind up coming back to you
And finally, a slaughterhouse-related mishap.
Frederick Wiseman, Meat
“Hands up if you own one”
Haven’t seen one of those in decades. Never bought one but admired the cleverness.
I have 4 and 5 year old grand kids. Got told off a couple of weeks back for teaching them how to make simple paper planes. Apparently the pointy bit “could take an eye out” and are “dangerous”.
Some good did come out of it though because I ended up finding this. Nakamura Lock Paper Plane They have a blunt front, hold their shape and fly much better than a simple plane if made carefully.
Next lesson will be Mentos in a warm bottle of coke.
Yeah, contour gauge. Have one from 1970 or thereabout.
One of the things about being a “the Fourth”, one inherits stuff.
#2 was a pump engineer in Chicago c. 1915.
#3 was a pilot and woodworker.
I use #2’s monkey wrench every week.
At least I only have 3 wood routers now…
Drinkwater’s Law: You’re never done until you’ve used every tool in the garage.
Drinkwater’s Corollary: Buying new tools makes things worse, not better.
Got told off a couple of weeks back for teaching them how to make simple paper planes.
You are a more patient man than I. Several years back my sister and her kids were visiting our parents when I went to the porch out back and rolled myself a cigarette. A few minutes later little nephew pokes his head out the door, and I hear my sister asking our mother where I went. So mom tells her, and so sister loses her shit, yelling at the kid to come inside like he was standing at the edge of a cliff above a river of venemous snakes.
I just looked at nephew, then at the door, and yelled back, “[SISTER’S NAME]! CUT THE PLAY-ACTING BULLSHIT!”
“Too bad the writers don’t think beyond the surface of their own ideas.”
Wait til he sees episode 8.
Guys am I just being a bit gumby or has Holborn gone?
Morning, all.
Guys am I just being a bit gumby or has Holborn gone?
No sign of his account. Not sure why.
Wait til he sees episode 8.
I hear that it’s now so careless, inconsistent and generally cack-handed that they’re already, in season one, retconning their own previous episodes. Which is quite an achievement, really.
Also, how many mysterious all-female organisations can one show have?
Holborn is back.
Oh good! I was worried he was another twitter purge victim…
Dear Mr D, I have been lurking for a couple of years and thoroughly enjoying the non-troll like discussion & comments of this site -so refreshing to have balanced comments & non-acceptance of hate filled vigilante opinionated & baseless attempts at indoctrination/brain washing/re-education. Yelling & screaming at a person has never seemed a cogent argument to me.
I shall be contributing to your tip jar (in the hope of a pickled egg), shall continue to lurk as I am IT illiterate and completely unable to contribute clippings or such as your other clever followers do. Perhaps I may stumble upon an interesting item & refer it to you for your magical touch in providing it to fellow readers.
In the meantime I shall continue to lurk, & hope to make some sort of contribution to the only sane people I can find left on this planet.
I shall be contributing to your tip jar
Your host wholeheartedly endorses this sentiment.
shall continue to lurk as I am IT illiterate and completely unable to contribute clippings or such as your other clever followers do
To be fair, and to avoid swollen egos, many of them also have drinking problems or terrible hygiene.
. . .retconning their own previous episodes. . . .
Actually no—barring some specific citation in mind, not what I was seeing— . . . this one was rather interesting; watching Borg switching themselves on and off was rather intriguing . . . and the quintet of holographs was rather cute, the actor there is clearly having entirely too much fun.
Script Doctor recaps Picard
“Picard is essentially a show about a 96 year old man pursuing a 20 year old woman, which seems more like a sitcom premise than one suited to science fiction”
LOL
the actor there is clearly having entirely too much fun.
I suppose it’s good that someone is. I can’t comment directly on the latest episodes. I gave up on Picard a couple of weeks ago as it promised only further disappointment and more undercooked ideas that go nowhere, or nowhere of interest, and are abandoned in favour of some other undercooked ideas. And there’s only so much fun you can have listing the various incongruities, needless convolutions and lapses in narrative logic.
But it seems to me that throughout the series Mr Kurtzman and his writers have been throwing lots of unrelated bits in a bag and hoping that somehow something will cohere and become interesting. Structurally, thematically, dramatically, it’s a shambles. As others have pointed out – and despite some contrived gushing in the woke media – it’s like watching bad fan fiction.
. . . it’s like watching bad fan fiction.
Hmmm. Rather than Wagon Train To The Stars, there could have been Conan, instead . . .
Disappointing soap.
Wait, what?
Wait, what?
I’m now picturing someone trying to shower and rub up a lather using a confectionery not unlike gritty fudge.
And which, on reflection, sounds pervier than intended.
Tim Worstall detects a tactical misstep.
Passionate exchanges
When I first visited the Middle East some three decades ago, I very quickly became aware that if not for the geological accident of crude oil, the entire population of the region would still be living in tents and making goat cheese. Those “debates” are simply a microcosm of their backwards Stone Age culture. The Greeks called them barbarians, and they were correct.
They are no less barbarians today for wearing tailored three-piece suits. Do not make the mistake of assuming they are civilized, because I can assure you from personal experience, both on the battlefield and across a business desk, that they are definitely not.
And which, on reflection, sounds pervier than intended.
Oo-er matron!
Drinkwater’s Corollary: Buying new tools makes things worse, not better.
WTP’s Rule Of Owning A Second Home:
You will learn that the tool or jar of unique hardware bits that you KNOW you have and have scene recently is located in that other house’s garage/barn. So you might as well accept your fate and go to the hardware store to buy another one/set/whatevs.
WTP’s Corollary:
Weeks later, when searching for a different tool/unique hardware bit at the same location you will run across the thing that you were looking for that you “accepted” was really at that other location.
“WTP’s Corollary:
Weeks later, when searching for a different tool/unique hardware bit at the same location you will run across the thing that you were looking for that you “accepted” was really at that other location.
Y. Knott’s corollary to WTP’s corollary:
The only way you will ever find the missing whatev’ is to buy a new one and then cut the blister-pack open so you can’t return it. This goes double for an item you had in your hand just this morning and need RIGHT NOW to fix the leak so you can turn the electricity/water back on, and three-times ~ the number of females in the house badgering you to get it working, they need to use the powder-room.
First-world problems can kill, on occasion…
yelling at the kid to come inside like he was standing at the edge of a cliff above a river of venemous snakes.
When I was a youngster, one of the moms in our swimming practice car pool was an absurdly anxiety driven chain smoker. Once a week we would all be loaded into her station wagon, with the windows rolled up, and driven 30-40 minutes to swim practice. Combine that with teachers who smoked, adult friends and relatives who smoked, etc. if there is anything to this second-hand smoke BS many, many more of us should have been dead years ago.
My mother grew up on Mt. Washington in Pittsburgh. The smoke and such from the steel mills blew that direction. There were times, depending on where one’s school was located, when children walking to school would be covered in soot by the time they got to school. My mother and her five closest friends all lived into their 80’s.
Now this isn’t to say that pollution, or even cigarette smoke, is something completely benign but decades and decades of greeny hysteria is probably causing more health problems than the problems themselves. Which is something I fear now more than COVID-19.
many of them also have drinking problems or terrible hygiene.
I keep hearing about Embrace The Power Of And. I think it’s a movie or a book or something.
I keep hearing about Embrace The Power Of And.
I didn’t want to push my luck.
The power of the Corollary:
I once could not locate a particular piece of yard plumbing that I KNEW was right THERE last week. On the way to buy a new one I mused that I’d soon have two. And sure enough, halfway home from the garden store i remembered precisely where the original one was. So now I have two.
I wonder what would happen, right now, if I tried to put my hands on them. Doesn’t bear thinking about…
it’s like watching bad fan fiction
I’ve alluded to this before: most genre fiction isn’t intended to be a Tolkienesque, internally consistent world. Most genre fiction is allegory, or at least mostly about a theme. This goes double for television, where writing decisions are made mostly based on what’s easiest and cheapest to film, rather than out of dramatic consistency. That’s why one of the worst things that can happen to a franchise is for it to fall into the hands of its fans; they have an emotional attachment to the details of the IP but miss the larger allegory.
Similarly, once Roddenberry died Star Trek stopped being about anything in particular, and became whatever show the writers actually felt like writing with the Trek trade dress slapped on top.
Ice resurfacing simulator.
I can write my name with it. #achievementunlocked
“Disappointing soap.”
Ooh, now I fancy a spot of tablet.
(The good stuff isn’t really gritty. The whole knack to making it is to get it to set without the sugar crystals growing too big, while still solidifying enough not to end up as fudge. Well, I say “knack”; it’s more of a black art known only to the initiated.)
“Upscale toasting.”
His toaster is better than theirs. I mean, he actually says so in the title of the video. Can’t argue with that, right?
“To be fair, and to avoid swollen egos, many of them also have drinking problems or terrible hygiene.”
Aw, c’mon… I had a bath last week.
“Picard is essentially a show about a 96 year old man pursuing a 20 year old woman, which seems more like a sitcom premise than one suited to science fiction”
Patrick Stewart’s good, but he’s no Reg Varney.
one of the worst things that can happen to a franchise is for it to fall into the hands of its fans; they have an emotional attachment to the details of the IP but miss the larger allegory.
You may well be right and it’s certainly easy to get enthused – or gleefully nit-picky – over fairly incidental details. Though whether in terms of arcane Trek lore or just basic storytelling, Mr Kurtzman and his team don’t seem to know what they’re doing. The structuring and editing are really quite bad. Again, the impression given is of ideas that aren’t developed or particularly related – some of which might have been interesting if handled by someone else, but which don’t sit well together or have any obvious or compelling reason for being in the same story. It’s not a yarn; it’s more of a pile.
It’s not a yarn; it’s more of a pile.
https://youtu.be/zRY1vnXgx9Y
Well, unlike most of these slackers here, SOME of us give 110%—we have drinking problems AND bad hygiene.
So there.
Ice resurfacing simulator.
Needs the wounded guy so I can re-enact this.
Hands up if you own one.
Yep, a small one I have used for a tile job and sorting some car body work. There is also a 3D version if you want to clone yourself
Terms that are now racist: blacklist, blackball, blackmail, Black Monday, Black Friday, Black Plague, black hole…
Time for me to revise my press release: The economic reforms I propose will put the budget back in the
blackAfrican American.“The power of the Corollary:”
The Comforting-Falsehood-of-Numbers corollary, a.k.a. If You Have It You Won’t Need It And Vice Versa:
There are certain items, yes tape measures I’m looking at (or more likely, for) you, that it does not matter how many of them you own; you can’t find one when you need it.
Hell, I own at least a half dozen tape measures, so I have a solution. See, most folks try to deal with the “why can’t i find that damn thing” problem by putting things away where they belong after use. My current scheme is more stochastic. I deliberately scatter them around so there’s USUALLY one nearby when needed. I learned this from my old workplace paper filing system.
Mr Kurtzman and his team don’t seem to know what they’re doing. . . . It’s not a yarn; it’s more of a pile.
A number of years back there was to be the next Bond movie, where that time someone(s?) came up with a story idea and then handed off to John Gardner for a novelization, and some production team for the movie. I got the novel, read through it, and quite looked forward to the movie.
In the novel, there is Bond against a drug cartel, in the middle of which is kindly old Professor Joe. Professor Joe is an archaeologist with a life mission of helping the local Maya, raising money for their aid—and oh, by the way, it’s during his TV broadcasts that the timing and location of drug deliveries is handled with coded messages.
In the movie, kindly old archaeologist Professor Joe, the quite aged and caring, was played by Wayne Newton.
The production results weren’t entirely at the level of utter and total fiasco as ”Spectre”, but License To Kill is one of three Bond movies that I only saw once and then just ignored because of the scale of the total storytelling screwups.
Mr Kurtzman
You know, I was wondering why I found that name so familiar. Turns out he was the one who totally piledrived Xena: Warrior Princess’ ratings before he was yanked and the show returned to its winning formula.
He’s been screwing up beloved franchises for some time, it seems.
License To Kill is one of three Bond movies that I only saw once and then just ignored because of the scale of the total storytelling screwups.
Thing is, generally speaking, I don’t think I’m overly nit-picky with entertainment – not usually. But good pacing is very important, not least because it can hide – or make an audience forgive – the occasional gaffe. For instance, there’s a pretty obvious mistake in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, regarding which ship is carrying the doodad to “catalogue gaseous anomalies” and which proves rather handy in the final battle. (At the very start of the film, it’s implied as being aboard the Excelsior but at the end it’s on the Enterprise. Presumably, during a script revision someone lost track of it.) But the film rumbles along quite nicely and has enough charm to easily outweigh the oversight.
Kurtzman’s Picard, however, really struggles with pacing, and charm, and fails to generate much in the way of narrative momentum – it feels unfocused, haphazard. And as a result, all of the glitches and blunders are that much harder to miss. We aren’t immersed, we aren’t losing ourselves in the story, and so we start noticing the joins and dodgy stapling.
[ Edited. ]
“To be fair, and to avoid swollen egos, many of them also have drinking problems or terrible hygiene.”
Aw, c’mon… I had a bath last week.
And I have absolutely no problem with my ability to drink.
(I was going to write “I have no problem drinking” but there are two ways of reading that.)
Terms that are now racist:
Wuhan Virus
I looked up Picard. The premise sounds decent. The writers must have worked very hard to screw it up.
You’d think by now, folks would know to leave their dead raccoon at the door.
Only in San Francisco.
This soap is terrible! I feel all sticky and smell like spoilt milk.
As an American, I demand a refund at once!
You’d think by now, folks would know to leave their dead raccoon at the door.
Only in San Francisco.
No, no, no, he was just helping with the menu.
The writers must have worked very hard to screw it up.
I think part of the problem is there are too many ingredients, few of which feel like they belong together. If it were a meal it would be bananas and sausages and eggs and fish, with a pickled onion and a sprinkling of instant coffee granules.
This thread is weird: dissections of Picard and dead raccoons (well, I suppose that could be taken metaphorically) and Americans committing unholy abominations with one of the most delicious comestibles on the planet.
This thread is weird
You’re getting this now?
This thread is weird.
Why should it be any different than any other thread?
Why should it be any different than any other thread?
I still think this is one of our stranger, and certainly longer, threads, running as it did for eleven days – the one regarding the James Damore / ‘Google Memo’ saga. It begins much as you’d expect, with lots of examples of the eye-widening dishonesty of the mainstream media; but by page three or so it starts taking, um, fanciful tangents. Including speculation as to what happens each time we add another 100 comments. If memory serves, at one point we detonate a nuclear device.
Amenity of note.
Via Damian.
detonate a nuclear device
[ears perk up]
I KNEW we were the kool kids.
As elsewhere, the first Covid19 panic (cleaning out the grocery stores of toilet paper and non-perishable goods) has set in where I live. Cancellations and closures for a least three weeks have been announced for most services that involve groups of people. As close as we are to St. Patrick’s Day, the long standing parade and celebration has been canceled where I live. So an enterprising group had their own parade. One vehicle with about 20 people traiing adorned in various costumes of green. They went down my street (a small residential drive with 11 houses on it) with music playing and crazy truck horn blasting.
God bless them!
The local museums are all closed indefinitely.
The local museums are all closed indefinitely.
Similar in Chicago and Milwaukee. The British Museum, on the other hand, remains open. Keep calm and carry on?
@ Bloke in a Shed, I have 2 grand nephews with idiot parents, especially the Canadian techy, woke father. Over the last year the kids have got The Dangerous Book for Boys, The Double Dangerous Book for Boys, Things to do with Sticks and of course several slingshot Flying Screaming Monkeys. This gives the kids and I great pleasure.
The local museums are all closed indefinitely.
Because they were too crowded? I would have thought museums were one of the few public spaces where it would be very easy to keep your distance from others.
And if it is because of the staff, just open up without having to pay. They’re losing the money anyway.
4:30 pm PDT — some great skiing resorts are shutting down the lifts.
I haven’t skied at Mammoth in years (knees) but great memories and I’m always checking the snow conditions. Sad. I feel for all the small town businesses that depend on the season.
When I was a youngster…
Oh, we’re both old enough that the local diner was still split 50/50 between smoking and non-smoking after we’d both graduated high school. And to have ridden on the school bus while Mrs. Rome was at the wheel, cigarette dangling between her lips. And, want to guess which one of us smoked when we were teenagers, and which one did not?
Her freak out was all for show, and we both knew it.
My mother grew up on Mt. Washington in Pittsburgh.
Heh. Our mother is from Yinzer territory as well, albeit on the Ohio side. Grandpap, of course, worked at “the mill”, and our father’s first paying job was shoveling coke.
Over the last year the kids have got The Dangerous Book for Boys, The Double Dangerous Book for Boys, Things to do with Sticks and of course several slingshot Flying Screaming Monkeys.
Gifts given while they (boy/girl twins) were still in infancy have included Have Spacesuit, Will Travel and the entire Day of The Tripods series. Another couple I am friends with received Galahad: Enough of His Life to Explain His Reputation upon the birth of their first son.
They’re closing churches here. Churches. Some until at least April. AIUI, it’s the churches themselves that are closing. So voluntary. Though not sure which is worse. I suppose voluntary is better, but I’ve changed my mind on that three times already since this afternoon.
Meanwhile, I just got back from cruising Bike Week here in coastal central Florida (kinda accidentally, in the truck) from Ormand Beach up to Crescent Beach, and if there’s anything to this reason to quarantine the whole country right now, some bikers are gonna be needing a whole lot of toilet paper or WTF it is that cures this thing. The biker bars and such that were open, that being every one we passed, were elbow to elbow, standing room only.
Grandpap, of course, worked at “the mill”
You of course mean the “still mill”, like dem Pittsburgh Stillers dat play dahnner at Heinz Fild, acrass the riva from dahntahn. Ah, but yinz from Ahiya. Nowheres near dat mistake uppair on Lake Erie Ize hope.
Nowheres near dat mistake uppair on Lake Erie Ize hope.
East Liverpool, halfway between Pitts and Youngstown.
If there’s one thing people from Youngstown have going for them, it’s that they can make fun of Cleveland, the city named, and misspelled, after its absentee founding father.
Haven’t seen that design before, but there are surfboard holders on the Metrolink trains here in Southern California, too.
WTP:
“Voluntary” should probably be in sneer quotes.
A week ago I got stuck behind an idiot in the self-checkout “express” line who had about eight multi-roll packages of toilet paper (different brands, so not one item x8 even though I don’t know you can do the x8 in self-checkout) plus enough other stuff to go over the 14-item limit for traditional express lanes.
On the bright side, the liquor store seemed normally stocked. Picked up a case worth of wine plus an extra liter bottle for 10L total so I’m set for dinner every night for a good two months.
Coronapanic update: At the local Walmart yesterday, they had restocked toilet paper. I saw one socially responsible couple emerging from the store each carrying one 8 pack of TP. That would probably last the guy at least two weeks. The woman, maybe two days. Inside, as expected, the cleaning products, bleach, cold remedies, antibacterial soap, and frozen food were gone. Inexplicably, there was no iodized salt. They had plain salt, sea salt, lite salt, and Kosher salt.
The local University closed with the exception for now of the University Museum and Rowan Oak (Wm. Faulkner’s home). The guide at Rowan Oak said they had a great surge of visitors looking for something to do before an Administrator realizes that something, somewhere is still operating.
Inexplicably, there was no iodized salt. They had plain salt, sea salt, lite salt, and Kosher salt.
Sometimes in situations like this it’s not the supply of product itself but its place in the hierarchy, temporary or not, in the numerous logistics branches between producers and consumers. Room on the truck was probably all taken up by toilet paper.
Got back from Publix this morning. We used to go at 7 AM on Saturday or Sunday but hadn’t done that in a while. This morning there were a good number of people already there at 7:15. They’ve been closing an hour earlier in the evening so they can restock, etc. Some fruits and vegetables were completely gone (yes, we have no bananas), milk was mostly gone, only the expensive eggs were available and just a couple cartons of those. Asked the checkout guy who was really some sort of manager if supply was a problem and he indicated it was mostly a turnover issue. They can’t get stuff in To keep up with how fast it goes out the door. As we were leaving we saw a supply truck just pulling away from the back. I usually stop by a second time on Sunday afternoon to get fish for dinner so I ll get some perspective on AM/PM supply status later on.
Got back from Publix this morning.
At ours, equally inexplicably, the pasta was wiped out, along with nigh anything made by Pillsbury™ that comes in a cardboard or plastic tube, and fresh chicken.
Spaghetti and chicken gravy and biscuits for the duration, I guess.
Farnsworth, are you the same Muldoon as Muldoon who comments on Ace of Spades?
No, that one is a pretender to the throne of the Muldoon Dynasty.
The Multiplying Muldoons would be a pretty good band name. Or possibly a fringe act on the working men’s club circuit.
…the working men’s club circuit.
Working men’s clubs – the things one learns about here about strange UK ways. Speaking of which, last week we had an exposition on the f-word, previously a discussion of the many ways “chuff/ed” could be used, but what about:
“Penny was pissed when she found out Paul wasn’t taking the piss when he said he was so pissed he pissed himself when it would have been a piece of piss* just to go to the loo.”
A stranger would think there was some sort of Roman orgy going on.
*(or piss easy)
So curious, is this herd immunity approach being seriously considered over there? I see various opinions from Guardian and other sources but none that I would trust. My gut feeling, given that you can (supposedly) transmit this thing for two weeks before you realize you have it, is that the cat is already out of the bag and all this shutdown of everything will only make matters worse.
Working men’s clubs – the things one learns about here about strange UK ways.
I shouldn’t imagine many of them still exist. I used to live quite close to one that was run by a school friend’s parents. As a wee seedling, I spent many hours overhearing acts of questionable comedic or musical quality while enjoying a complimentary bottle of coke and bag of crisps.
“My gut feeling, given that you can (supposedly) transmit this thing for two weeks before you realize you have it, is that the cat is already out of the bag and all this shutdown of everything will only make matters worse.”
No, at the least these social distancing measures will flatten the curve so the medical system will be better able to handle it.
[ Returns from nostalgic reverie and checking online to see how many of his school friends still have hair. ]
Dad skills.
Via Holborn.
Also this.
Also via Holborn:
David, I have found the ideal musical entertainment for this fine establishment:
No, at the least these social distancing measures will flatten the curve
I think there’s some room for argument here, depending on environments. Not that we have God-like knowledge to make the best possible decisions here, and again, perhaps you are right, but one consideration is the area under the curve. Be it flat or (multiple) spikey.
Regarding my PM trip to Publix, the bananas and potatoes that were AWOL this morning were available this afternoon. No eggs though. Some more milk. The gallon sizes whereas this morning there was only half gallons. Spoke to the kid behind the fish counter and he said they haven’t seen a hit on the fish supplies as yet. Bread was almost totally gone on the shelves, though the fresh baked varieties were available and the sammich shop was making sammiches. Some other stuff was bare but for the most part, aside from what I just said was missing, it seemed more like a normal afternoon trip to Publix.
David, I have found the ideal musical entertainment for this fine establishment
[ Slides grey, well-thumbed pastry along bar. ]
WTP: The area under the curve might be the same, but if the peak is lower the hospitals and drug suppliers will be less likely to be overloaded. As for supplies of food and toilet paper, I am confident we are not going to run out…unless every damn fool were to hoard until every room were filled to the ceiling. 🙂
Understand. My point is that we really don’t know enough to make the best decision. No one does and I feel for those who are in a position of responsibility because no matter if you were to make the best decision possible, as determined 5 years from now or whatever, you will be crucified for whatever decision you make that goes against the consensus, intelligent or otherwise. And certain decision makers will be damned regardless.
This report from the Diamond Princess ship I found interesting due to how long all those people have been quarantined and the ability to test them all.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.05.20031773v2.full.pdf
When you are desperate…
It just says “Toilet paper”, but “paper” is anglicized as “Bumaga”, wherein “aga” is probably the sound you make when used on one’s bum.
This report from the Diamond Princess…
It also speaks to the communicability when you have 3700 people locked in a big iron box ass to elbow and there are only 619 cases, half of whom are asymptomatic.
“My point is that we really don’t know enough to make the best decision.”
Agreed.
“and I feel for those who are in a position of responsibility because no matter if you were to make the best decision possible, as determined 5 years from now or whatever, you will be crucified for whatever decision you make that goes against the consensus, intelligent or otherwise.”
Agreed! And of course not making a decision is in effect making a decision. In any crisis it is impossible to know what the best decision is and the consequences of dithering are likely to be very bad. Best to simply makes the best decision one can and make it promptly.
“I think there’s some room for argument here…”
But instead of arguing, could we post funny things found on Twitter? “This is the funniest!” “No, this is the funniest!” “No, this…”
Apparently,
Further evidence that it’s possible to dig mental holes from which there’s no escape. And some will do it with glee, while applauding themselves.
“Nebal Maysaud is a queer Lebanese composer based in the Washington D.C. Metro Area. Since buying their first notation software in 2009, Nebal (pronounced [niˈbæ:l]) has grown to become an impactful, socially minded composer.
Their music is a convergence of faith and identity, using their artwork to advocate for the traditionally silenced…
Nebal Maysaud is a deeply spiritual thinker. Their fascination with the mysteries of the universe, combined with their dedication towards justice and equality, creates a sound profile that is unique and universal. Their works emphasize openness across religions and identities, revealing religion as a source of spirituality while also a source of suffering through abuse of power…”
“And some will do it with glee, while applauding themselves.”
Nebal may have learned that at the very expensive university he went to.
pst314 and Muldoon, or whomever, one thing in regard to the link I provided for the study of the Diamond Princess…tried to look this up and either getting lost in the weeds (or the vodka) or just simply not understanding…what is the difference in this statistical sense between a “case” and an “infection”, re CFR vs. IFR?
WTP: that took some tracking down, as Wikipedia only has a page for Case Fatality Rate.
But here is a link explaining the difference between CFR and IFR: “The infection fatality rate (IFR) gives the probability of dying for an infected person. The case fatality rate (CFR) gives the probability of dying for an infected person who is sick enough to report to a hospital or clinic. CFR is larger than IFR, because individuals who report to hospitals are typically more severely ill.”
Re: Classical Music
Short summary of article: Segregation now, Segregation tomorrow, Segregation forever.
I do hope this petite bourgeois racist will be consistent and give up all evil white invented instruments, electronics (synths, amplifiers) and recording devices while he confines himself to a more accurate musical presentation of his own history and culture.
pst314, thanks very much for that. Yeah, I was expecting a wiki on IFR once I saw one for CFR, but then down the rabbit hole I went and wife has been b*ing at me enough for the time I spend on this damn iPad lately…well more than lately, but…sigh…
Why is this thread different from all other threads?
“Why is this thread different from all other threads?”
Slaves we were unto the BBC and Guardian…we eat only gray pastries to remind us of the mediocrity of the news coverage, and hump fat to remind us of the smarmy unctuousness of the news purveyors.
?? Huh??