Friday Ephemera (664)
Well, it was a big egg. || A visit to the barber. || Enliven your cleaning with the laser of shame. || Nibbles. || Embiggening of note. || Some cooking occurred. || Row brewing. || Steed and Mrs Peel visit The Town Of No Return. || Remember, this never happens. (NSFW) || Now I want patterned ice. || She handled that pretty well, I think. || Maybe, just maybe, the problem is you, madam. || The progressive retail experience, parts 455 and 456. || More joys of public transport. || Bohemian Rhapsody. || Drag moth. || Today’s word is modification. || Today’s other word is incongruity. || The great house cat migration. (h/t, Things) || Next door, honey. || Shift Happens. || From the hood. || Clarkson’s Farm, series two. || And finally, it’s always a pleasure when someone makes it look effortless.
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I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. The attempt to make chili chutney, in series two, is quite memorable.
“This is gold”
Some people really do deserve to be treated with militant intolerance.
ChatGPT…its potential for easy misuse.
I am very worried about that: Just the other day, in a condo meeting, two people expressed enthusiasm for ChatGPT as a tool for gathering information and making decisions. It looks like it’s going to be a slow difficult process getting them to see how dangerous it is.
Three things? I can think of at least a couple more.
The fourth thing: An ultimatum to work or else die of starvation while freezing in the dark.
Clarkson’s Farm, series two.
I’ve heard that Clarkson had problems with the local Council, and that many of those problems were due to going ahead without proper attention to local building codes. Is that true?
Is that true?
Even taking into account the show is from Clarkson’s perspective, it seems more that the local council is a bunch of petty tyrants and probably driven by jealousy given their utter disregard of what benefits Clarkson’s projects would have for the locals.
That aside, the bureaucracy and red tape he has to through to do anything make the EPA and OSHA look like a bunch of libertarians – a half a million Imperial Dollars to appeal the local council’s idiocy?
Even taking into account the show is from Clarkson’s perspective, it seems more that the local council is a bunch of petty tyrants and probably driven by jealousy given their utter disregard of what benefits Clarkson’s projects would have for the locals.
I will try to avoid attaching myself to a firm opinion on this, but I find that easy to believe, due to other things I have read which have led me to the belief that local councils have a very long tradition of petty tyranny. For one tiny example, in All Creatures Great and Small books, James Herriot and his wife wanted to build a new house but were thwarted by the council which would not allow them to build a house on the plot of farmland that they liked–no agricultural land was to be converted to residential use. Instead they had to either wait for a suitable house to be come available or find a vacant plot within the bounds of the town.
That aside, the bureaucracy and red tape he has to through to do anything make the EPA and OSHA look like a bunch of libertarians – a half a million Imperial Dollars to appeal the local council’s idiocy?
True story from the 1970’s: An American company wanted to set up a data link to their London office. It took about six months to get the new telephone line and modem set up by the British Post Office. Getting the hookup in the American office was only a short wait after a phone call to AT&T. (Which shows that although AT&T was a monopoly which hindered progress, it was far better than the British government monopoly.)
The last item here, by the late Brian Micklethwait, seems apposite.
The last item here, by the late Brian Micklethwait, seems apposite.
It’s possible that my memory of that 6-month wait is low: I was being cautious about something that happened over 40 years ago.
Unions are scum. I have heard various horror stories about corrupt and thuggish unions. And my “friends” who strongly support unions occasionally let slip the mask of civilization to reveal their approval of union thuggery and corruption.
I believe that the chief reason that my “progressive” American “friends” hated Margaret Thatcher was that she successfully fought the corrupt unions.
3 things he needs. This falls under the category of “life is unfair” and he wants everyone else (ie rich people) to pay for him to not work. I’ve got news for him: that lifestyle already exists on the streets of LA, SF etc. If a snake does not work (hunt) it starves–is that the fault of capitalism? If you don’t work in communist china, you also starve. Stalin took care of that problem with labor camps.
This reminds me of the “rich paying back the community” which even the rich fall for. People are so exploited by apple products that their stores are always full of people and apple just prints money. Apple has made people’s lives better. Libtards hate walmart and claim it exploits workers but 1) when a job comes open they have hundreds of applicants, 2) they promote from within and 3) they hire lots of people who cannot do another job (just look around in one). Companies already “pay back” by giving people jobs and paying property and sales taxes. If you remove the companies from a community (e.g., Detroit) the town dies. If you think a company is exploiting you, don’t buy their stuff.
A wait of over a year was not, I’m told, that unusual.
We were told by the Post Office, which ran the state monopoly telephone service,
Duh, well of course it did. There’s a clear and obvious overlap in services. Doesn’t the British Post Office offer banking services too? What can’t a bloated government agency not do?
Which sounds like a cue for me to leave this here.
Brilliant documentary. Totally worth watching.
Duh, well of course it did. There’s a clear and obvious overlap in services.
In the Sherlock Holmes stories, the British Post Office runs the telegram services: When Holmes wants to send a telegram, he goes to a post office. Of course, that was in the Victorian era, when things actually worked.
It is, I think, rather good. The subsequent thread may also be worth a squint.
pst:
As the (very proud) son of a Teamster, I don’t agree with the “scum” judgement. But the interrupted call to family typifies something my father always said – that trade unionism had been fouled by politics.
14 month delay for a line and phone installation.
I wonder how that compares with current delays for various medical and surgical procedures by the envy of the world.
And, indeed, continued to do so until 1981 when British Telecom was spun off from the GPO. The telegram service was terminated shortly after…
As the (very proud) son of a Teamster, I don’t agree with the “scum” judgement. But the interrupted call to family typifies something my father always said – that trade unionism had been fouled by politics.
It’s not just the politicization of unions. It’s also the virtually inevitable descent into corruption. Useless featherbedding work rules. Pressure to work slowly so that lazy workers don’t look bad. The demand for mandatory union membership and union dues. Repeated attempts to eliminate the secret ballot, for the purpose of intimidating employees who don’t want a union. Threats and violence against non-union employees. And so on. I cannot recall personally knowing any union members who respected the idea that someone might have good reasons to not join a union.
Things needed for a period: estrogen, progestrerone, follicle stimulating hormone, lutenizing hormone, ovaries, uterus.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess some of these are missing here even if that makes me a Science!™ denying invalidator.
“If something ‘needs to be normalized’ then it isn’t normal.”