Friday Ephemera
Let’s call it a partial success. || Sorcery, perhaps. || Ripe and juicy. || Road manners. || Relaxing in the bosom of nature. (h/t, Tim) || For breast-fondling enthusiasts. || Our betters, being so clever, forgot to bring their own. || Suboptimal situation. || Learning curve. || Well, at least there’s lots of it. || Yes, it will be on the test. || Always respect the media. || The progressive retail experience, part 446. || Remember, this never, ever, ever happens. || Harvard student denounces “the violence of statistics.” Which ones, I wonder. || Be careful which questions you ask. || The Internet Movie Cars Database. || When you donate to Wikipedia. || The Manhattan Population Explorer. || Street vibes. || How to thread a needle. || And finally, fragrantly, the thrill of using unfamiliar towels.
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Internet Hall of Fame, Clueless New York Intellectual Division.
And finally, fragrantly, the thrill of using unfamiliar towels.
New York weirdo or San Francisco weirdo?
“I don’t want to learn French, I want to speak French. I’m a goal-oriented person.“
Learning curve.
And it’s gone already.
Immigration means cultural enrichment.
Internet Hall of Fame, Clueless New York Intellectual Division.
Related, as the kids say.
The cars database looks interesting.
As a test I will probably first interrogate it with the Austin 1800 ute and then the Leyland P76.
Learning curve.
Already deleted. It had a tiktok video, the thumbnail being Dylan Mulvaney’s “day 75 of girlhood”. The tweet is archived, but of course the video itself isn’t archived with it. https://preview.tinyurl.com/y7yxj83s
Ripe and juicy.
For a second you had me there.
Our betters, being so clever, forgot to bring their own.
Oh no, really obvious consequences!
Morning, all.
And it’s gone already.
I’ve swapped it for something thematically related, albeit a tad grimmer.
Oh no, really obvious consequences!
Well, yes. Quite. Today’s words are unwittingly symbolic. And the original thread does rather display the eye-widening narcissism at work.
. . . the eye-widening narcissism at work
Rude, pseud, and superglued.
Rude, pseud, and superglued.
Heh. The levels of detestable wankery are quite high, even by the standards of the activist demographic.
Sort of, “I disdain you and what you do, and wish to sabotage your business, and the future of your business, while being hugely inconvenient and thoroughly self-involved. Why aren’t you catering to my every need…?”
Had a 58 Edsel Ranger, great car if the sun was high, early morning or evening the sun’s reflection on the dash would blind you.
In a shocking twist, two people being nice to each other.
the thrill of using unfamiliar towels.
LOL. Eww.
LOL. Eww.
It does, I think, oddly, capture something of our times. It’s simultaneously absurd, unappealing, and not entirely implausible.
Very now.
Common sense alert!
https://youtu.be/ejfECn9b_4s
Common sense alert!
As I’ve said before, we’ve gone from the ideal of burly chaps who will apprehend lawbreakers as forcefully as necessary and send them on their way towards the nearest dungeon, to ladies in funny hats who will be terribly sensitive and empathise with our loss, while we get used to the idea that whatever wrong was done to us will most likely go unpunished.
This, I’m told, is progress.
Tenured faculty member, Diversity Certificate trainer, and Safe Zone trainer, “safe and looking flyyyy” for her faculty photo.
The levels of detestable wankery are quite high, even by the standards of the activist demographic.
The state of these clowns… “Hunger strike”…
https://twitter.com/ShogunCharlie/status/1583372902271176704
The Internet Movie Cars Database
Slightly related: Dave’s Car ID Service.
That’s from the inimitable Iowahawk.
Oooh, there’s a time sink for the lunch break.
I found I’d spent 15 minutes poking through the cars featured in Columbo.
Er, is this for well-educated furriners or poorly educated Brits and ‘Muricans?
Granted, there is an old joke that for engineers English is a second language.
Oooh, there’s a time sink for the lunch break.
And there’s a time portal. Another.
Be careful which questions you ask.
So we’re going to evolve into robots, then robot lizards, then… air ducts?
So we’re going to evolve into robots, then robot lizards, then… air ducts?
Heh. It’s only a matter of time.
The tweet in the thread from the VW idiot when he had to be taken to the hospital after his hand swelled up…”My health is paramount.” This, from someone on a “hunger stroke.” Some people need real worries. Badly.
The tweet in the thread from the VW idiot…
It’s like we’re living through an epidemic of whiny narcissism.
’The Internet Movie Cars Database.’
Oooh, there’s a time sink for the lunch break.
“Er, is this for well-educated furriners or poorly educated Brits and ‘Muricans?”
“Oh stewardess, I speak jive…”
And back from sojourn in FL. All the mouse friends/relatives are good, so there’s that…
Did manage to drive thru a bit of the damaged area, tho. It’s going to take some time.
Is Tedders hungry?
Learning curve: I have been saying for a while that 1) teen girls in particular feel uncomfortable with their new hardware and emotions and 2) they do not really know what it means to be a woman yet, especially the younger they are. They certainly don’t know what it means to be male. This also holds of course for teen boys. Convincing teens and children that surgery and hormones will make them happy, when kids that age are generally morose, is criminal.
“As far as I know I totally pass.”
Ignorance is bliss, I guess.
Happy Trafalgar Day, everyone.
“So, like a surgeon cutting into a patient, we must be careful to use the violence of statistics to do good.”
I speak postmodern, so allow me to translate:
Statistics — and indeed all of science — must always serve the narrative. Should a statistical analysis reach a problematic conclusion then it must be shut down and its participants repurposed to flipping soy burgers. When “reality” is uncooperative, we must reimagine it through shear political will. In short, we constructed reality, and we can reconstruct it.
“Borders are just imaginary lines that don’t exist in nature.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/19/arts/music/crush-racism-kpop.html
Korean popular culture needs to change: not enough blacks are interested in it, and its small number of black fans feel let down by Korean popular culture not meeting them half way by catering to black tastes, black agendas, black egos.
Diversity experts say that Korea has existed for a long time without catering to blacks, the longer its existence the greater its guilt. Not thinking about blacks is in fact such a foundational Korean principle that many Koreans to this day aren’t even aware that they’re not thinking about blacks.
“Always respect the media.“
Remember when “It’s just their way; they don’t know any better” was about as racist as you could get?
“How to thread a needle.”
Hmm. That’s been carefully laid out beforehand. I suspect in reality it’s almost as fiddly as any other method.
“I don’t want to learn French, I want to speak French. I’m a goal-oriented person.”
As far as I can make out, that’s basically* how these AI image generators work: start with a bunch of images of random noise, and pick the one that looks ever so slightly closer to what you’re aiming at. Then add some random noise to that and do it again. And again. And again. Of course, people can’t do millions of iterations every second.
*Yes, I know: massive oversimplification. In reality, it’s actually a form of sorcery.
Beauty pageant sued for selecting contestants that are beautiful.
Just a heads-up. Typepad will be doing some maintenance work tomorrow, so there may be outages. Do try to be brave.
Oh, and by the way, regarding the blockquote issue mentioned previously, it seems that the only way to avoid a change in point size is to put each blockquoted paragraph in its own blockquote tags. If you use long blockquotes, please remember to do that. It’ll save me a lot of faffing about editing your comments.
“Related, as the kids say”
University needs to stop,
It is the single biggest driver of stupidity and wokeness.
Statistics: We now live in a world where the feelings of *some* rule our reality. We must pretend that we can eliminate all fossil fuels with no battery backup–and then pretend surprise when the power is shut off. We must pretend we didn’t just get mugged. The feelings of Catholics or conservatives of course don’t count.
Reality catches up with you eventually. The real world isn’t an app on your phone.
the only way to avoid a change in point size is to put each blockquoted paragraph in its own blockquote tags.
David, would it be easy for you to add a “html hints for commenters” section in the left margin, above or below the “Categories” section, and put links there to posts where you explain such things? That might help people remember how to avoid errors.
But what if we want a change in font size?
Not bad for someone who only transitioned last March – first Forbes, then Ulta Beauty, and now . . . POTUS!
https://twitter.com/ClownWorld_/status/1583476255306829824?s=20&t=q6DijXV4yYSfOMUgEEtM9g
The Internet Movie Cars Database.
They missed one. My 2010 Acura TSX was in the 2012 movie Trouble With The Curve. Granted it was only half a second or so and the focus of the shot was on a beer cooler. I still got paid my $65, though so we’re all good. Some of us Hollywood types are only in it for the money.
But what if we want a change in font size?
Or, say, runaway italics?
Did someone say runaway italics?
Meanwhile…
All this crap always looks the same.