Friday Ephemera

I now have a Gettr account.
Can you say that like John McClane?

Her prounouns are “a little bit too complicated”…
Actually, now that I’ve watched it… Fine.
“Clown / clownself” it is, then.

Further to the above. Hypothetically:
Would I be guilty of misgendering, exactly, if I used the “clown / clownself” pronoun set for, say, Laurie Penny? Or Justin Trudeau?

The conversation continued with Musk offering Sweeny $5,000 to shut it down, citing a security risk.
He also sent a message saying “I don’t love the idea of being shot by a nutcase,” but even after all of this, Sweeny said he’s not taking it down.
“Not really, I mean it hasn’t been that much of an issue, he has a security team,” Sweeny said.
The teen boldly counter-offered for $50,000.
Musk at first just wanted the teen to help with updating his security but did go quiet after having said “It doesn’t seem right to pay to shut this down.”
As Sweeny waits for a reply, he said he’ll continue to do what he loves.

Yes. Waits for a reply. Teenager tangles with the richest man in the world. A man who owns a rocket factory. The suspense…

“Creature comfort.”
Wow, it;’s rare to see a creature I’ve never seen before, but that’s one to tick off the list!

Morning, all.
It’s a great series.
It does reveal quite a lot about some prevailing assumptions, and how certain lines of enquiry will be avoided, even if it requires an elaborate dance.
Why do they *always* sound like that?
It’s practically a caricature, albeit unwitting. Imagine being so insecure, so insubstantial as a person, that this manic regurgitation of lecture notes, all those casually begged questions and patent idiocy, is what passes for intelligence and sophistication. Remember, he’s trying to impress. Trying quite hard.

More joys of public transport.
Via Julia.

And finally, rather briskly, scenes of forbidden love.
I had a date like that (about 20 years ago).

They call him Max
That made me smile.

Someone’s hard drive needs checking.
Somewhat related.
Being clown-quarter academics, there’s a pressure to be unobvious and supposedly daring, albeit in quite narrow and predictable ways. One has to find the “queerness” of this and the “whiteness” of that, while sneering at anything bourgeois or commonplace, and therefore low status. Inevitably, this custom of mannered contrivance, of competitive perversity, offers cover to actual perverts. And the kinds of people who say, repeatedly, that they can’t “quite” see why raping one-year-old children isn’t a thing one should be doing.
Our betters, you see.

413
The smugness of the commenters on that tweet saying that the stolen phones are useless because of the serial numbers (actually there’s another word for the pertinent number yet after having been in the business for 17 years I can’t think of wtf it is) miss the point. Someone down the line (may) get screwed but the thieves are likely going to fence those phones not keep them for themselves. Like a lot of this retail theft. Can’t smoke a cell phone, nor a pair of sneakers. This laid back attitude toward such things is lame.

Say it ain’t so, ladies.
Oh, it ain’t just gf’s. I’ve pissed off four white women so far this week and two of them I didn’t even know existed until now. And there’s two days left to go. I used to think these sort of arguments, the wild hysteria was reserved, well mostly, for those to whom women were personally/emotionally connected. But as more and more everything is made political and political is made personal…well, the whole bloody world has gone insane. As it is beginning to dawn on some of them that they’ve been hoodwinked over this virus idiocy, it’s not going to get better anytime soon.

Copy here, with comedy soundtrack added.
Heh. Although I suppose it’s funnier if you can forget that these are real knife thugs in a real city.
Also: Note the Twitter avatar: Lieutenant Howard Hunter of Hill Street Blues.

Although I suppose it’s funnier if you can forget that these are real knife thugs in a real city.
Yes, if it were the daily commute, it might get a little tiresome. What with the stabbing and slashing and such. I think it was Holborn who suggested that anyone caught engaging in such activity should have their eligibility for benefits rescinded, for life, along with their immediate family. A ticket to some distant stabby shithole could be provided as compensation.
[ Added: ]
If that sounds too harsh and beastly, I suppose they could be rehoused next door to Mr Kotsko here. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.

Expanding the definition of race.

“Nice save 2.”
Oh, great. Count “refusing to play videos” as another of the many improvements Twitter has brought to non-subscribers this week.
“Say it ain’t so, ladies.”
[Twitches at mention of “1.44Mb” floppies, muttering darkly about 1.76]
(And yes, I’m aware that this is the part that spoke to me. I’ll be over in the corner, sobbing quietly into my drink…)
“Expanding the definition of race.”
Yet again reality follows satire:
“You can’t actually say that, because that’s like racist against cowards”.

Genderfluid
I’m going to go out on a limb here and declare my belief that them is a parody!

“say it ain’t so ladies”–too true, except that there can be errors in the hard drive, with imaginary events and misinterpreted events being thought real. Such is memory.
3 yr old skateboarder–I’m glad I was little before the internet so no one could compare me to the most precocious kid in the world. Pity the parents whose kid is not gifted (see also drum solos by 4 yr olds).

Oh, great. Count “refusing to play videos” as another of the many improvements Twitter has brought to non-subscribers this week.
Works for me.

“Genderfluid vegan”
Genderfluid, hmmmm [ checks dipstick ] Yep, you’re down a quart ma’am.

The smugness of the commenters on that tweet saying that the stolen phones are useless… miss the point.
Which is, that a society in which a growing and feral demographic feels entitled to thieve in broad daylight, to violate others brazenly, and feels impervious to normal consequences, is not on a happy trajectory. The ultimate value of the items to the thieves, and whether said items have full functionality, is immaterial. It’s a question of pest control.

One of the joys of IT is dealing with intermittent problems
You fix things and they stay fixed just long enough for you to forget how you fixed them, THEN they break again.

Is there such a thing as a sufferable twat?
paging, Brand. Russel Brand.
but only of late.

You fix things and they stay fixed just long enough for you to forget how you fixed them, THEN they break again.
Or you never find a solution in the first place. More complexity = more bugs.

One of the joys of IT
But doesn’t IT stand for Intermittent Technology anyway?

More complexity = more bugs.
Wife is right now trying to reset password for the Total Wine app on her iPad. We were encouraged to download/use the app when trying to redeem coupons/rewards at the store yesterday. For some incredibly stupid reason, we cannot enter the reset code via her iPad. I downloaded the app and did it on my iPhone.
Of course all this is MY fault…along with “and this is going to be easier, how?”

Carjacking fail detected.
I was hoping to see the carjackers get run over.

That.
Well, it is pest control.
A couple of years ago, I was standing by the entrance to a local supermarket, laden with bags and checking my phone for the whereabouts of a cab I’d booked. A rough-looking woman in her twenties approached me and asked if she could borrow my phone, which seemed to interest her a great deal. I pointed out that if she needed to make a call, the enquiry desk just inside the supermarket door, maybe six metres away, would most likely oblige. Her eyes moved from the phone to me, and we exchanged a look of, shall we say, mutual understanding.
Needless to say, her disappointment didn’t result in her walking the six metres to the enquiry desk, where a call could have been made. Instead, she wandered off looking for other prey.

Spend some time with a dozen or so non-technical, non-engineering, non-medical people trying to accomplish anything.
In the end, the problem isn’t technologists, or bicyclists, or whatever: It’s people. Endless screw-ups.
Trying to run just a small board with concerned owner input.
You mean like a homeowners association? Board burnout is frequent, thanks in part to dealing with difficult people.

Instead, she wandered off looking for other prey.
I like a legal system that deals with predators in a long-term way.

You fix things and they stay fixed just long enough for you to forget how you fixed them, THEN they break again.
That is a brilliant observation!
I fixed a broken dryer three years ago. Took it apart, determined the problem ordered the parts, replaced the parts and put it back together and it worked perfectly. Late last year it broke down again. It was like I had never worked on the thing before.
Some sort of fever dream, I believe. I’m serious. You watch a couple hundred youtube videos, you maybe buy a new tool or two, you go through the problem in your head dozens of times. It’s like you’re in a completely different state of consciousness while you’re doing the project. Then when it’s over, you wake up and it’s like…what just happened?

The threat of an unvaccinated foetus
I THINK this might be a parody account, although not as funny as Tatiana McGrath. Not so sure about some of the commenters – they seem to take the message seriously. There was another tweet by this person complaining of lack of free menstrual products in the Walmart men’s room. It could be real – it’s so hard to tell the difference nowadays.

My workplace had many people whose kids were, apparently, gifted.
Scholarships, PhDs, international level sportsmen/women etc.
The parents were of course modest and discreet about their kids’ achievements. *Humblebragging *
There seems to be a lot of people in white collar occupations who would make charter citizens of Lake Woebegon. It’s become a de rigueur passive/aggressive game of one upsmanship amongst the “UPPER” middle classes.
Same with “upscale travel” Thankfully the coof has put a temporary stop to that.

Then when it’s over, you wake up and it’s like…what just happened?
I learned long ago to take pics/video of everything I’m doing during a project.
(young, fit, ok dressed) people asking for $ at an intersection with a sign saying “2 kids blah blah”
In my town the police have a policy of picking up the homeless/mendicants and dumping them in the next town over. Which means the mendicants standing on the median with begging signs are all cops checking to see if you’re using your phone while driving.
I used to amuse myself by holding a Hershey bar up to my head and when the cop knocked on my window, pretending to loudly be speaking with the police non-emergency line, reporting a beggar unlawfully standing on the median.

For those still having trouble with Twitter, you can fix it by clearing all cookies from Twitter and then blocking Twitter from creating more cookies. I found this advice on another site a few days ago. Sorry I can’t recall where. It’s worked perfectly for me.

I suppose some might regard the woman as an object of pity…
I used to feel pity for such creatures, and thought that liberal do-gooders were right, but that was a long time ago.

If that sounds too harsh and beastly, I suppose they could be rehoused next door to Mr Kotsko here. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.
Kotsko still says that all white people should kill themselves, and he’s still a professor at Shimer College. Although he is technically a Christian theologian, his beliefs put him far outside of Christian theology and philosophy.

No, seriously…send tanks.
You rang?

…how bloody obviously derivative they are…
Indeed, and both derivative of the original, The Nairobi Trio.

LW: Thank you for the tip.

Really scruffy looking?
Well, they try but since it’s a shit job it’s given to the rookies. That means they’re not too many years off of having to pass the academy physical, which means they’re all young, fit, healthy and over 6′.
If you drive to the town where the derelicts get dumped, you get a much starker picture of what a street beggar looks like.

Her facial expressions are amazing.
Heh. I don’t think Ms McElvoy is coping terribly well, and she’s not far from inadvertently illustrating the point that she claims to have trouble digesting. Which is sort of funny, given her supposed experience in thinking deeply about things. (Ms McElvoy is a senior editor at The Economist and has been a staple of BBC discussion programmes for years. The Moral Maze, Night Waves, etc.)
I still think that’s one of the recurring pleasures of Peterson being interviewed by Our Glorious Betters. They tend to accidentally reveal just how narrow and parochial their chosen worldview is, and just how much mental territory, and everyday experience, has to be avoided or denied, often with some contrivance.
And for those who missed it, still a glorious example.
As noted in the original thread, I can’t think of another interview in which the interviewee has to correct the interviewer – say, on obvious facts or simple points of logic – so many times, after almost every question.

Heh. I don’t think Ms McElvoy is coping terribly well…her supposed experience in thinking deeply…
Heh indeed. These hacks tend to have great difficulty when faced with someone who is well-informed, articulate, and unwilling to defer to them.
“Thinking deeply” is not something that occurs often at The Economist, nor can it as long as they continue to embrace so many falsehoods.
“They tend to accidentally reveal just how narrow and parochial their chosen worldview is, and just how much mental territory, and everyday experience, has to be avoided or denied, often with some contrivance.”
Most of their mental effort must be expended in contriving defenses of harmful policies, leaving very little for doing anything useful: The history of the last 100 years is a chronicle of the repeated failure of leftist ideas. That continued failure has forced the left to invent ever more complex reasons to explain away the failures and claim that their ideas still have merit.

These hacks tend to have great difficulty when faced with someone who is well-informed, articulate, and unwilling to defer to them.
As many have pointed out, it’s as if the arguments he presents and the statements of the obvious – things one might expect an educated person to know, or know of – are utterly alien to their thinking and therefore bewildering. At best, something to dismiss out of hand, as somehow embarrassing and unworthy of consideration. I suppose it’s the difference between being interested in reality, i.e., finding things out, and being interested in being seen to hold the fashionable opinions of one’s peer group.
The exchange with Ms Newman being a sustained and rather eye-widening example.

That continued failure has forced the left to invent ever more complex reasons to explain away the failures and claim that their ideas still have merit.
One of their chosen defenses is to be stubbornly ignorant of history and economics so they can claim without guilt that Stalin was a great guy and Venezuela collapsed due to western sabotage.
I love Peterson. I think the trucker convoy perfectly illustrates his point that the left pushing too hard leads to a backlash. The Virginia election is another good example. The Left hates cause and effect because it contradicts their preening. Everyone should study how Peterson reasons and debates. He is so precise in what he is saying whereas the interviewer thinks political pushback is domestic violence. hahahah tool

And following that link I found a BBC interview of Thomas Sowell
I’m surprised that I didn’t comment on that thread. Surely that wasn’t before I found your site, was it David?

You started commenting here in July 2007. So, no.
Maybe my visits were infrequent back then–that was also about when I started to spend a lot of time caring for my parents in their last years.
But clearly, I need to start taking attendance.
At least there seems to be no dress code–you have never commented on my state of dress or undress. Much as we have rarely called attention to your blogging thong.
Absenteeism will require a note from a parent or guardian.
What if I declare myself to be my own guardian?

What if I declare myself to be my own guardian?
Piker.
I, OTOH, am my own grandpa.
Or something.

“What if I declare myself to be my own guardian?”
There’s a joke about Cleveland in there somewhere, though probably not a very good one.
That Peterson interview, well I thought I saw this here but looking up thread and checking my tabs it seems this one came from Insty. I’m not one to sit through an hour long video interview but this one was well worth it. Though in discussing with my wife over brunch, I rarely learn much from Peterson that I don’t already know, but damn he communicates these things so clearly and precisely. That’s the part I really try to learn.
“Joke About Cleveland” – band name. But again, not a very good one. Kinda like Cleveland.

Absenteeism will require a note from a parent or The Guardian
You know the folks at The Guardian yearn for such power.