Friday Ephemera
I’m not entirely sure what’s happening here. || Plaything of note. || Today’s word is ambition. || A searchable archive of old book illustrations. (h/t, Things) || The village of upside-down boat houses. (h/t, PiperPaul) || Premature greeting. || Snout patting of note. || “Something needed to be done.” || Scenes. || No, don’t thank me. || You’d never tire of this. || Continue the research. || The thrill of the circus. || The thrill of Tesco. || The thrill of mould. || Sounds of the forest and a nature sound map. (h/t, Things) || Struggle session detected. || When the circus comes to town. || Self-censoring font. || Found reading the book laborious, but anyway, this is coming. || Flamingos feed. || And finally, in fly-related news.
The thrill of the circus.
Aerial human bowling. She got one point for the first frame, and two more for the second.
The camel was the randomized launching platform.
Self-censoring font
My what a lovely place you have here barkeep. Why it is so clean and bright-lit! Such interesting conversation and such a woke crowd! Gender Studies and Race Relations PhDs abound! Ah, a copy of the Guardian and CNN on the telly! Is that a Joe Biden poster? And a framed photograph of you and Jerry Corbyn. My, well I’ll be telling all my friends and we’ll be sure to drop by every night. Cheerio.
“Found reading the book laborious, but anyway, this is coming.”
Didn’t need to click the link to know what the film was! 🙂
“Something needed to be done.”
Brilliant.
Scenes.
LOL. That can’t be real… can it?
Morning, all.
That can’t be real… can it?
Alas, no.
Didn’t need to click the link to know what the film was! 🙂
Fans of the thing insist that Dune is a massively important book, a great work, a classic, etc. Well, maybe it is. It has scope, certainly. But from what little I remember of reading it – or rather, trying to read it before giving up in despair – it’s also tedious, rather clunky, and the prose is awful.
Didn’t need to click the link to know what the film was! 🙂
I don’t have much patience for novels at the best of times and haven’t read one in years. It’s not a form I enjoy particularly. As a way of delivering ideas, it’s a bit slow and round-the-houses, almost antiquated, and even in the good ones the ratio of insight to padding isn’t great. They tend to lack economy.
The self censoring font didn’t change “pakeha” which I thought was derogatory, but it did change another word I entered to “vulva”
Also the “something needed to be done” is indeed brilliant
No, don’t thank me.
I’m not sure what I am seeing there.
On the self censoring font again, if you try “arse” and “ass” you get a dot pattern thing and they are different. Can anyone explain that?
I’m not sure what I am seeing there.
It’s Laurie Penny, being, er, sexy. Found via her Twitter feed.
Couldn’t you feel the sexy?
I don’t have much patience for novels at the best of times and haven’t read one in years. It’s not a form I enjoy particularly.
In my dotage, I’ve turned to the short story. The format gets to the point more quickly while still packing a punch.
I read Dune in my late adolescence and loved it enough to read all six books in the trilogy. Reading the first book was frustrating at times because it was necessary to flip to the back of the book to look up the odd alien words in the glossary. So it was a chore at times, but only because it interrupted my involvement with the story.
The self-censoring font has some hilarious bloopers. Type in “Pakistan” and it’ll give you “Pakistani peopletan“, because clearly the first element of the country name is a slur…
The words are different length? “asshole” gives you another larger dot pattern thing.
The self-censoring font has some hilarious bloopers.
Svulvahorpe
The self-censoring font has some hilarious bloopers.
“Diane Aboriginal person”
Today’s word is ambition.
Quite the other end of several scales, Cattt.
San Francisco 2020
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/399873/
Have to say I enjoyed Dune when I first read it many, many years ago. But my favourite of the series (and I couldn’t finish all of them) was the second, Dune Messiah. Much shorter, more cryptic, almost Greek Tragedeic in its inevitability. Better written too I thought, but to be fair I haven’t many to agree with me on that.
Dune was considered one of the three late 60’s essential Sci-Fi blockbusters, along with “Stranger in a Strange Land” and “Stand on Zanzibar” (John Brunner). Of the three, I think Dune has lasted the best. Just FWIW.
And that “ambition is unbearably cute, to someone contemplating a new kitten.
San Francisco 2020
Dawn occurred at 6:46, which was the first thing I looked up once home from work.
At 8, all buildings and streetlights in what I saw of SF and the East Bay were still fully lit up for 3 AM . . . .
“Diane Aboriginal person”
“Diane Aboriginal persontt”, please. 😉
I’m not entirely sure what’s happening here.
“I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle.”
What’s happening here
The hi-viz man in the 3rd photo is ROTFLHAO?
That self-censoring font leaves ‘Fenian’, ‘Taig’, ‘Prod’ and ‘Sammy’ untouched… F**k all use in this part of the world.
Something needed to be done
I have something in my eye…they are all watery
I have something in my eye…they are all watery
Well, I’m not dusting again until Spring.
Something needed to be done
I seem to have something in my eye….
F**k all use in this part of the world.
F**k all is perfectly fine, as are bugger and shite. Idiot turns into a cloud of dots. Gormless is fine.
Self censoring font: Antifa are leftist vulvas. Well it didn’t change what I wrote very much.
I seem to have something in my eye….
I think Felicity’s caught in some kind of temporal loop. Someone shake her by the elbows.
Why do they ALL look like this? https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1304291625040924672/photo/1
Oops. Sorry for the double post – I don’t know what happened there.
Why do they ALL look like this? https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1304291625040924672/photo/1
Why do they ALL look like this? “>https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1304291625040924672/photo/1
. . . . . it might not be Felicity . . . David, have you been strolling about in a black duster recently?
Self censoring font: I tried “mewling quim”, and it didn’t censor that.
Here’s a story I haven’t seen much of outside of GA and would only know of it because an old friend’s son (not mentioned in this article) was one of the whistleblowers in this case. He was also harassed by the Chief for his refusal to play in their little dick-pic game…
https://www.11alive.com/article/news/investigations/the-reveal/dunwoody-police-lt-sexting-reveal-investigation/85-8ab458d8-63eb-43db-89ce-3645825cbac1
Some amusing wildlife photos for your delectation. Might cheer us up a bit.
Might cheer us up a bit.
I’m actually feeling rather upbeat at the moment. For some reason, grocery shopping does that to me.
[ Drapes tatty and suspiciously discoloured bunting above bar. ]
See? Positively jolly.
Something needed to be done
It gets better: a handful of NASCAR drivers are sending stuff to the kid and the homeowner.
[ Rummages under bar, slyly opens canister of nitrous oxide. ]
I bet you’re feeling more cheerful already.
Bugger. Wrong gas.
[ Hurriedly drags canister away, starts flapping bar towel. ]
while watching the flamingos feed I couldn’t but help but think it unlikely any of them got out of the water to go to the bathroom.
I recall enjoying Dune though, admittedly, I was rather younger then. It was the sequels, each more tortuous than the last, that put me off.
Again?
Fans of the thing insist that Dune is a massively important book, a great work, a classic, etc.
I don’t know about important – I tend to be skeptical of claims that any work of fiction is “important”.
But it is absolutely a classic of science fiction and I would put it up against any of the “great 20th century novels” for quality.
And remember, the book was written as an allegory for both the rise of Mohammed and Islam in the 7th century and modern oil politics in the 20th. It predicted the 1973 oil crisis a decade in advance.
But it is absolutely a classic of science fiction and I would put it up against any of the “great 20th century novels” for quality.
I read it, or read it in part, decades ago and can’t recall enough to say much about it, beyond the unhappy prose style and the slog of reading it. Rather like David Lynch’s film, the details of which also seem to have evaporated from memory, except for a general dislike, and a vague sense that its sentiment regarding messiahs seemed somewhat at odds with what I remembered, or misremembered, of the book.
But again, I’m not an enthusiast of novels as a form.
I passed the self-censoring font around to some friends. A few highlights we found:
Spice -> Latinxe (with a dozen funny variants, like Suspicious -> SuLatinxious)
Homosexual -> gay peopleexual
Hoe -> sexually active woman
Fatty acid -> voluptuous person acid
Prostitute -> sex worker
Commie -> leftist
Skyscraper -> Sky*****er
Prickling -> *****ling
Hearse -> He****
Those with the asterisks really make the word look far more obscene after the censoring, don’t they? We also found that despite the replacements for Commie and Prostitute, it won’t touch Nazi, Fascist, Fash or Pimp. Neither is there any politening of Murderer, Rapist, Pedo. Finally, a ‘freak accident’ is now a ‘non-conformist accident’.
And this would all be silently edited client-side. What an absolutely terrible idea. I have written a letter to them advising them to cease and desist, because that particular project appears to be at the narrow intersection of people who might plausibly listen to outside reason and people who threaten to make the world noticeably worse. Not that I have high hopes.
I find it my marital obligation to describe to my wife the benefit I incur from this site in order to justify the occasional foreign currency tender to a stranger in England. Surely this week’s ephemera will illuminate the steady brilliance and measured but playful critique on our mad world that I find irresistible, so that any discussion around future contributions will be downright unnecessary.
Ah. Well. “I promise this isn’t for prOn, honey” will still have to suffice.
in order to justify the occasional foreign currency tender to a stranger in England.
[ Exudes air of mystery and exotic sexual intrigue. ]
I recall enjoying Dune though, admittedly, I was rather younger then.
As the old joke goes, the Golden Age of science fiction is not the 1940’s or 1950’s or 1960’s. It’s ages 12-16.
I read it, or read it in part, decades ago and can’t recall enough to say much about it, beyond the unhappy prose style and the slog of reading it.
Yes, Frank Herbert was not all that great a storyteller, but he had some interesting ideas and was sometimes able to build an interesting story on them, but most of his stories I found hard to get through.
Having grown out of the pulps, a lot of sf was rather badly written: terrible prose style, bad characterization, clunky plots, etc. In defense against criticism of these weaknesses there developed an attitude that writing quality did not really matter as what was important were the ideas. Fortunately the quality improved greatly with the arrival of more talented writers. Amazingly, there actually were sf fans who angrily opposed the new, better writers, presumably out of a misplaced defensiveness but perhaps because they actually liked crappy pulp fiction. (Consider that there are fans who profess to be unable to see the fascist theme running through the movie Starship Troopers.)
Couldn’t you feel the sexy?
Was it supposed to be an accident that she was in frame and/or in her case underwear?
And is she trying to help ruin DnD now, too?
Much shorter, more cryptic, almost Greek Tragedeic in its inevitability.
I’ll have to pick that one up, now.
On the subject of short and cryptic, it occurs to me that Gene Wolfe’s most revered work,The New Sun Cycle, mostly consists of some of his shortest novels. (Props to The Fifth Head of Cerebus as well – a shorter book, composed of three novellas.)
Premature greeting
Last heavy rainfall I found myself driving through a neighborhood I don’t normally traffic, as I was coming around a bend at a low point between two small hills, I noticed three young girls standing on a storm drain next to the street where a large puddle had accumulated. At first I started to slow down and move over to avoid the puddle but then I saw that they were all wearing bathing suits and had huge grins on their faces. Needless to say I channeled my inner Farragut and did my best to soak those three young ladies. I haven’t seen kids enjoying that kind of innocent fun in a long time.
The thrill of the circus.
1. She was wearing panties
2. They even appear to be clean.
Her mother would be proud.
…Dune Messiah. Much shorter, more cryptic, almost Greek Tragedeic in its inevitability. Better written too I thought
A common sin in sf is the short story padded out to novel length, and the novel padded out to doorstop length. Also the endless sequels written either because the fans will buy them (and thus the publisher demands them) or because the author has run out of ideas.
Gene Wolfe’s most revered work,The New Sun Cycle, mostly consists of some of his shortest novels.
I don’t recall them being noticeably shorter. But bear in mind that the first 4 books were only published as separate novels because of the problems with selling a novel which is 1200 pages in one volume. In fact, the New Sun tetralogy was originally conceived as a short story or novelette and “just grew” as Wolfe wrote it.