Friday Ephemera
Hog toys. || Big Bob ahoy. || Witches’ brew. || Build your own engines. || Dog versus leaf blower, metamorphosis begins. || At all times, dignity. || Godzilla versus Mito Komon. || A gift for the mother-in-law. || Good idea. (h/t, Perry) || Day 14. (h/t, Damian) || Moon whales detected. || The sounds of cake. || Customer service. || Cat chatter. || Leader of the pack. || A project for the weekend. (h/t, Dicentra) || Her missing shoes. || I think they may be wombles. (h/t, Julia) || Today’s word is intervention. || Lively scenes. (h/t, Neontaster) || Minus 7 Celsius. || Paranormal car crashes. || The transparent jigsaw puzzle you’ve always wanted. || And finally, quite instructively, on the proprieties of video conferencing.
’ A popular bakery chain, known chiefly for its sausage rolls, I think.’
I can vouch for the sausage rolls – best hot. Quite missing the occasional one for breakfast, now I’m working at home. You can get them in Iceland, but I’ve tried them and they just don’t taste the same…
Nando’s is great, and Subway isn’t bad. But nothing beats Wagamama. Not that I’ve ever managed a dessert there yet.
The current police line over the coronaviruspanic – ‘there’s thousands of interactions a day and they mostly get them right’.
‘We agree’, said the White Star Line owners, ‘Almost all our ships made it across the Atlantic in 1912…’
Not that I’ve ever managed a dessert there yet.
I can vouch for most of them. The ones I can’t vouch for I haven’t yet tried.
Damn. Now have a hankering for chili chicken ramen.
I know I should have stopped reading when I saw “I moved into my house in Brooklyn a year ago.”, but now…
…I can’t wait for Chapter Two of “Corona Quarantine, A Lesbian’s Lament”.
Well of course it is.
Well, maybe not.
Well, maybe not.
Heather Mac Donald on the same.
Men and minorities hardest hit…
And in polyamory news.
In happier news, the weather hereabouts is glorious. Warm and sunny, windows open, birdsong everywhere.
The only obvious downside to the day is the realisation that I may need a haircut soon.
Related, from the same source, you can’t tell the players without a scorecard.
Heather Mac Donald on the same.
Yeah, they keep saying that about the South in general, and it is true, in my county alone (not known as being a hotbed of the Davos going crowd) the cases have Skyrocketed!™ 100% over the last week. We now have two. Somehow they keep forgetting about that whole “population density” thing.
Update of note.
One for our host
https://www.pressreader.com/usa/the-modesto-bee/20200410/281960314873136
Guess who.
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/1936398
😄
If I wrote in BlackDoctor.Org, an article entitled ARE BLACK PEOPLE IMMUNE TO THE CORONAVIRUS? it would be very short.
There very act of “researching” gives it far more oxygen than it deserves.
It’s just the flu. No big deal. The American news media suggests people calm down. Get a grip.
It’s just the flu…Get a grip.
No, no, no, Get a Grippe.
Meanwhile, bad data discussed, as well as lockdowns probably not the smartest move.
Guess what…my God, it’s spreading.
The Penny virus, I mean.
From Ace, the smart device concept taken to idiotic levels.
“We’re not compatible… I’m a 35 and he’s a 37.”
A prototype smart toilet that can identify you by your “analprint” and monitor your trip to the loo has been created by researchers.
Really puts the ‘anal’ back in ‘analysis’.
The hankering is strong.
Via Holborn.
No, no, no, Get a Grippe.
Bien joué!
The hankering is strong.
The Muslims or the chip shop? 😀
The Muslims or the chip shop?
Heh. The chip shop. Though I suppose it works for both.
For some reason, Twitter now seems to be arranged in such a way that if you try linking directly to a reply of interest, it defaults instead to the post above the reply. Which is slightly irritating.
Damian is miffed.
Sad news, Stirling Moss (or Sir Stirling to you lot over there), one of the legends who, unlike today’s drivers, could hop into anything and drive the wheels off on any circuit anywhere, has entered the pits for the last time.
Inevitable.
Via Holborn.
“Sad news”
“Once the flag fell, I went flat out”. 1,000 miles on public roads at an average speed of, as near as dammit, 100mph. The greatest.
“Once the flag fell, I went flat out”. 1,000 miles on public roads at an average speed of, as near as dammit, 100mph. The greatest.”
If you can find Denis Jenkinson’s reports as Moss’s co-pilot for that race, they’re well woth the read.
Or you could just try to picture sitting beside Stirling Moss for ten hours of absolutely ba11s out driving…
who, unlike today’s drivers, could hop into anything and drive the wheels off on any circuit anywhere
Except that the best drivers still can. I would put money on Scott Dixon being a world beater in any motorsport you could name within a week.
It was always intriguing seeing just how much faster the pros were on Top Gear in “a reasonably priced car”. https://topgear.fandom.com/wiki/Star_in_a_Reasonably-Priced_Car
They would get into the sort of ordinary car that they would never drive any more, and take many seconds off everyone else. (And, remember, those other people had spent the day being taught by a F1 driver how to get the best out of the circuit.)
Except that the best drivers still can.
Dan Gurney – Le Mans, F1, Indy, Nascar, other road courses, all in the same season. Hill, Brabham, Clark, (to name a few) similar, all in cars with minimal safety equipment onboard or on the track, no launch control, traction control, ABS, driver adjustable suspension, telemetry, and all the other electronic frippery that does the driving for the new guys. Put one of these new guys in one of the old cars full out (not the Goodwood type showboating) and they have it in a wall by the end of a lap.
Lurking to protect rural areas from the criminal luncheon basket.
I’m to the point I’m not finding these particularly amusing anymore.
When people have time on their hands.
@David above, in a similar vein, I am not sure whether the NHS media twitter team didn’t think this through, or someone is expressing an opinion… @NHSuk.
Put one of these new guys in one of the old cars full out (not the Goodwood type showboating) and they have it in a wall by the end of a lap.
Put the old guys in an F1 and they wouldn’t even get it off the grid — even guys who really know cars can’t get them started until they have been taught. Once started they’d flip or spin it almost instantly, because they would never have met power like that.
Race car drivers have always driven right on the edge. Having ABS brakes doesn’t mean that they drive more safely, like it would mean in my car, it means that they brake even later, on the edge of what ABS will deal with rather than on the edge of what non-ABs will deal with. It’s ridiculous to suggest that F1 drivers of today are suddenly less manly and know less about cars because it is more technical. That means they are harder to master. That you can’t just leap into one and take it away isn’t proof that it is easier — it’s the exact opposite.
There is one area that the eras differ, and that is safety. In the old days if you hit the wall you often died. That doesn’t happen so much any more, because the crash impact features on modern cars is so much better. You needed to be braver to drive in the past, but also that meant you drove just that bit more conservatively (because drivers that didn’t, didn’t get to drive very long).
…because they would never have met power like that.
Porsche 917/30, 1973, 1,000-1500HP depending on boost
Brabham BT52 1983, 800HP for qualifying, 650 for race, max output the engine derived from a stock M10 block, >1200
Renault Gordini engines in various iterations 1980s, 700-1200HP
Those just off the top of my head, plenty more examples and only launch control is a foot on the gas, one on the clutch, no electronic gadgetry to limit torque, no (or little) aerodynamics (other than often enough lift to be a bad airplane), and seeing as how at 80 years old Mario Andretti can drive the new junk, I’d bet the ranch Phil Hill, Jim Clark, Senna, or even Fangio could too.
That you can’t just leap into one and take it away isn’t proof that it is easier — it’s the exact opposite.
No, it is proof that they were more versatile and skilled in much the same way as test pilots.
It’s ridiculous to suggest that F1 drivers of today are suddenly less manly…
People get the craziest notions.