Friday Ephemera (665)
Artificial eye contact. || I fear suspension may be tested. || A job that calls for teamwork. || Face time. || Ah, yes, the old face-in-scrotum thing. Wait, what? || Mind the wires. || What the magician sees. || Feel the power of Mac OS 9. (h/t, Things) || Assorted starship corridors. Previously and related: The chairs of Blake’s 7, and an impressively thorough study of the chairs of Doctor Who. || The lost episodes of Doctor Who. || The thrill of trimming asparagus. || More joys of public transport. || The progressive retail experience, parts 457, 458, and 459. || More things that never, ever happen. || More than is strictly necessary. || In other news. || “No-one has asked what my pronouns are. What the fuck?” || Injury of note. || Chopper casualty. || And finally, think good thoughts.
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[ Breakdancing now at Olympic levels. Crowd go wild. ]
“Isn’t anybody going to help that poor man?”
–Blazing Saddles
All my friends who live in Florida chose the southern half of the Gulf coast.
I am assuming you mean somewhere between Crystal River and Marco Island, but the nicest part of the Gulf Coast is the panhandle (from the Alabama border through the Big Bend).
The problem with the aforementioned is the same as the the Homestead-Jupiter megalopolis, too many people crammed between the beach and the swamps. It is true that there are areas of crowding on the Redneck Riviera, but a lot more habitable open areas. Having actually performed this inadvertent experiment, you could live on a huge Ponderosa in the boondocks around Defuniak Springs and be at the beach in less time than it would take you from Coral Springs.
The panhandle is also less infected with refugees from the uncivilized states. The horsey area in and around Marion County is also nice, as long as you can avoid Ocala.
I think the reason refugees choose the southern coasts on either side is because they are used to living crammed like sardines and are frightened by trees.
It’s more that the situation is inherently frustrating, at times to a degree that borders on the surreal. The situation with the badgers comes to mind, or the efforts to help neighbouring farmers who are teetering on the brink of going under, or the doomed attempt to lay a simple gravel pathway on his own land.
That. It’s the endless red tape that stops anything getting done.
Soon to be on the books: Aggravated Pronoun Joke With Deadly Intent, Class A Felony, mandatory 5-10 without parole.
If anything, he’s almost endearing.
Come on, like when he declared the cow that couldn’t pregnant would be a pet instead of eating it? The man is clearly an unreasonable psychopath.
“Affirm my delusions, and do it on demand, or I will kill myself and it will be All Your Fault” doesn’t strike me as the kind of thing a decent person would say.
And again, missing the point. Clarkson’s mouth/keyboard gets him in sufficient trouble with the wokey-woke-woke smarty-smart guys and whatever is in the can never sees the light of day. And as I also said, we waited way too long for this season because…reasons. Four more seasons? That I should live so long. Hopefully…
South Florida/West Palm, Orlando, St. Pete/Tampa, and Jax have their problems. Especially Miami and WPB. Like all urban areas the crime is bad. As I related previously my niece had her car stolen in broad daylight on a Sunday. But that’s not unique to FL and nothing in comparison to say….Chicago. As you well know, there are nice areas of Chicago. Same in FL. Lauderdale-by-the-Sea is very safe (for now). Stuart, Vero Beach, Naples, etc. are fine.
I am assuming you mean somewhere between Crystal River and Marco Island…
Yes, if you replace Crystal River with Tampa-St Petersburg metro area.
They do indeed all live in urban areas, neighborhoods of suburban density rather than central big-city density.
Yes, a recurring theme, and often eye-widening.
One of the more telling lines is when, at a meeting, Clarkson is told, rather triumphantly, “You don’t need an income” (and can therefore, by implication, be thwarted with impunity). As if the farm as a concern and the people it employs, and others whose livelihoods depend on his efforts, are of no importance and can simply go without. That’s another recurring theme. The conceit that a vast, scenic, rural environment can somehow exist, indefinitely, without economic activity. Without jobs or prospects, or hope. Even as the farmers who shape and maintain that scenic environment approach insolvency or just wink out of existence.
And who do so, in large part, because of what appear to be gratuitous and impractical restrictions.
…doesn’t strike me as the kind of thing a decent person would say.
Nor does this…
“Affirm my delusions, and do it on demand, or I will kill myself and it will be All Your Fault” doesn’t strike me as the kind of thing a decent person would say.
At least it’s not as bad as “or else I will kill you”.
Tell me you never had a class on Greek mythology without telling me you never had a class on Greek mythology.
Clarkson and local council: “you don’t need income”–this is the same attitude as AOC who stopped Amazon from opening a distribution center in her district because it did not pay enough. As if people who lived there would be forced to take the jobs like medieval serfs.
If I may paraphrase: “Become wretched and neurotic, just like me, and leave yourself open to manipulation, dishonesty and psychological abuse. Don’t trust your own judgement. Just submit.”
Again, one might question the motives and character of someone who advocates such pretension and credulity.
Seems slow. I never had a Mac, but I used to run OS8 on my Amiga, and it was way snappier than that. Mind you, as we all knew at the time…
“I want to be treated like a human being”
Here’s a tip: try behaving like one.
And they say there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
This lady appears not to be a Sam Smith fan. (Language)
Bringing new meaning to “It’s not cricket”.
Or she’s read Camus. Or had it read to her. Or the Wiki entry. Or the Cliffs Notes. Or something.
Yeah, well I used to bullseye womprats in my T-16 back home…
While I despise the blame-the-victim mentality, it applies here. According to the article, this idiocy has caused injuries “though not intentional”. GMAMFB. Sick of the willing participation in these farces. It was bad enough with the Penn swimmer but in these sorts of sports women and girls can get seriously injured. Just across the state line from us in NC in a high school volleyball game a girl had her head and neck seriously injured playing against a guy. The failure on every level from the other school, it’s coaches, the parents of the girls on that team (who play against this ogre regularly), the victim’s school district, the high school athletic association, the victim’s school, its coach, the parents of the players on that team, and the victim’s parent(s) themselves all failed this girl. All of them. As an engineering/statistical exercise consider the extended odds there. It’s bloody pathetic. We are a society of cowards.
Seems slow. I never had a Mac, but I used to run OS8 on my Amiga, and it was way snappier than that.
I worked for a company that ran Mac. As soon as I came in to the office I’d turn on the computer, then hang up my stuff and get my morning coffee. By the time I came back to my desk it was just finishing it’s boot up. But it was faster running applications than the earlier versions. To be fair though, a lot of our work was actually done on AS400’s. The Mac merely provided a window for those applications.
How curious: All my Mac using friends neglected to mention that or any other defects. Even though they were passionate debaters over all sorts of IT tech questions. I cannot explain that silence. /sarcasm
Back in college we had a volleyball thing co-ed. It did not take long for the girls to quit because a small bump from us guys sent them flying and some guys could not resist spiking the ball. Women do not appreciate quite how much stronger men are.
The thing I love about Clarkson vs the council is all the blather about Area Of Unusual Beauty, or whatever the label was. I was starting to have a bit Of sympathy for that point Of view. Until Jeremy provided us with The actual scenic pov. Every single bit Of which had the stamp of Man (specifically, Farm Man) on it. As far as the eye could see.
Apparently the Council thinks that’s just “Nature” at work out there.
Also, most of the nice Chadlington townsfolk struck me as “retired to the country” types for some reason. My area used to be infested with them – they love “farm country” but hate actual farming and farmers.
“retired to the country” types
Quite so: Clarkson’s principal private adversary has a painting restoration business in St James, London.
England has been occupied by industrious and creative people for thousands of years: there is nothing in the landscape that hasn’t been created or substantially modified by them. There is no wilderness here, and hasn’t been for a very long time.
It’s ironic that Chadlington isn’t so far from Steeple Aston, where the great W.G.Hoskins explained all this (in The Making of the English Landscape).
Stumbled across a quote I believe worth repeating:
England has been occupied by industrious and creative people for thousands of years: there is nothing in the landscape that hasn’t been created or substantially modified by them. There is no wilderness here, and hasn’t been for a very long time.
I have read that this was also true of much of North America even before the arrival of Europeans: The Indians managed the landscape to encourage the growth of desirable plants and trees and discourage others, which made a more congenial environment for the animals that they hunted. And there have been articles in popular science publications about very recently discovered traces of such land management in the jungles of the Amazon basin. So much for all that romantic “forest primeval” stuff, but the reality is much more interesting.
But perhaps some parts of the landscape were not reworked until relatively recently?
“Alighting at the small wayside station, we drove for some miles through the remains of widespread woods, which were once part of that great forest which for so long held the Saxon invaders at bay—the impenetrable “weald,” for sixty years the bulwark of Britain. Vast sections of it have been cleared, for this is the seat of the first iron-works of the country, and the trees have been felled to smelt the ore.”
–“The Adventure of Black Peter”, in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle
I have read very brief passages about how much of Northern Europe was once dense forest before the growing human population began to make serious inroads in the Middle Ages. But who knows?
Thanks! I just looked it up on Amazon–which also yielded two more books, both titled The Making of the British Landscape, one by Francis Pryor and the other by Nicholas Crane.
Also from the world of red tape and bureaucracy, South African electric grid is failing despite their sure fire solution. A mystery for the ages.
Meanwhile in the world of severely broken people, there is no doubt someone deranged enough who will make her dream come true.
Much of N europe was cut etc but not farmed because the soils were too heavy for old plows, until modern iron plows were invented.
Of course, some of the “primeaval forest” was regrowth particularly after the depopulation of the black death.
Parts of the amazon were giant orchards where the indians favored trees that gave nuts and fruits. Burning the forest was a big thing. The forest in New England was so open due to burning that you could drive a wagon through it and bison were found there. Western pine forests were very open due to fire every 5 yrs or so. About half the density of now.
See the documentary film Empire of Dust.
S Africa: this reflects the strange idea that white people are just given jobs and don’t have to have any skills, that anyone can do any job. This is why gov offices full of affirmative action hires are so sloppy and incompetent.
South Africa is mega-fucked in a profoundly depressing way. And as a bonus, the SANDF has been allowed to decay so far that the authorities can’t even try shooting their way out of the coming troubles.
Inclusivity!™
Of course they are, or how to show that the South Park episode was on point.
Bad link. Oops.
Related: The “woke” western superstition that civilization will continue to function just fine, no matter how much wealth and attention is diverted to the enforcing of political conformity.
Related:
Bad link. Oops.
The old way of doing links was far superior to the button method.
Inclusivity!™
[ Fetches slippers, rocking chair. ]
Inclusivity! tm
This looks like the opening scene from a low budget all-female (mostly female?) wrestling show.
The new comment box toolbar is just fiendish in its complexity.
The new comment box toolbar is just fiendish in its complexity.
You kids and your “toolbars” today, next thing you’ll be telling me you play music on a “CD”, whatever that is, because rewinding a cassette with a pencil is too hard.
….
I disagree: The new way merely means learning new habits and thus having new ways to make mistakes. And as a matter of fact, the old way made for problems doing links from my phone, for reasons I could never fathom.
Don’t get me started on Microsoft’s “ribbons”.
I have SO MANY rants about maintenance. But to save my social life I mostly abbreviate them all to : “Maintenance isn’t sexy.” Some folks actually comprehend that.
The problem I have with the comment toolbar is that on my device , a Kindle Fire, it functions inconsistently. Italics, especially. So, for bloody obvious reasons I don’t use italics.
I’ll just leave this here…
The problem I have with the comment toolbar is that on my device , a Kindle Fire, it functions inconsistently. Italics, especially.
You have to remember this stuff (and trash like Office Toolbars) is designed by people like this, so odds of it working logically, let alone right, are about the same as being hit by a meteorite.
I guess this was inevitable, when you can get people to swallow one insanity, why not try to cram another down their throats as well?
I guess this was inevitable,
As was this…
I guess this was inevitable, when you can get people to swallow one insanity, why not try to cram another down their throats as well?
The general climate in the liberal groups I used to have contact with tended towards “It would be rude to question someone’s honesty” with the unspoken caveat that this pathologically hyper-courtesy only applied to categories of people that the left sympathized with.
I guess this was inevitable
Note, once again, that although the Daily Mail is often disparaged as “unreliable” and “sensational”, it covers stories which the “respectable” press ignores or even misreports.
Replace “misreports” with “covers up”.