Friday Ephemera (680)
Nommy-nommy-nom. || Scenes from Quebec’s Museum of Civilisation. || Strange doggo. || Dogs, as understood by artificial intelligence. || He does this better than you do. || Bathing suit. || Brum brum. || The erotic arts. || Tickle my hindquarters. || Best to give it some clearance, I think. || Romancing detected. || New rules issued by unhappy man. || The fear that men know. || Pretentious guilt will take you to some strange places. || The unspanked at large. || The situation, alas, did not improve. || Stayin’ Alive. || His day at work was worse than yours. || For people who like folding and unfolding their furniture. (h/t, Mark) || A little something for feet enthusiasts. || Fly with confidence, they said. || And finally, via Darleen, have you fiddled with yours in the last twenty minutes?
Should you be tempted, you can follow me on Twitter.
The progressive dining experience, a possible series.
Already gone.
OT, but nice article here by Kathleen Stock:
Fly with confidence, they said.
As Saint-Exupery said in Terre des Hommes, set in the skies above Argentina, perfection is attained not when there’s nothing more to add but nothing more to take away.
The reddit links are no good for me as it wants me log in. Is this just me ?
I hope he saved his truck, because that is what would have mattered to him
Morning, all.
Bugger. Link replaced with something equally edifying.
“Stayin’ Alive.”
That’s some fancy footwork!
“The unspanked at large.”
UK edition.
Holy crap. That is nightmare fuel.
The words trying circumstances come to mind. And I would imagine that holding on for 20 minutes is no small thing either.
They’re going to need to change the name.
UK edition.
Not so much highlighting the feral behaviour of our new population (which we already knew about), more the utter insanity of our equity-driven police recruitment (which we also knew about).
And now here’s what happens when the two collide.
In all seriousness the ineffectual and undersized police of all genders were extremely fortunate that this particular crowd was, apart from the one medium-sized lumpy who still managed to turn the tables all by herself, more focused on live-streaming the debacle. Another day and just the slightest rising of tension would have resulted in some serious and permanent damage to plod.
‘A’ for effort.
“When she squeezed me tight she nearly broke my spine”.
Ray Davies 1970
Dogs, as understood by artificial intelligence.
I have been playing with Midjourney and it actually served me well by generating the background of a tennis court so I could create a composite for a senior (high school graduate, not pensioner). But I asked it, just for fun, to create an image for me of Lizzie Borden, noted New England axe murderess, with a Weimaraner. I did not give it a reference photo, just a text prompt. The results were . . . a little off. That;s not Lizzie and that certainly is not a Weimaraner.
To add to my previous comment, mMidjourney did much better when I asked it to imagine my dog, Bronx, taking a selfie at Machu Picchu. Again, just a text prompt and this time it got the right breed.
And just FYI, Adobe’s new Generative Fill in Photoshop is proving useful as well, and will just continue to get “smarter” as more information is fed. It’s a brave new world with AI.
Fly with confidence, they said.
Nope. I rely on the air crew to have a mutual desire to fly without incident and make it safely back on the ground, putting their life’s problems in abeyance while in control of a large metal device held aloft by physics.
A decision was made.
I misread that as “of me as Lizzie Borden.” Just sayin’.
Just imagine my surprise when a quick search revealed that this took place in Portland.
Why doesn’t the world revolve around ME?!
Well, quite. “You’re making my life miserable,” he shouts, seemingly at the entire world. But who’s actually the one doing the thing that’s making him unhappy? I mean, if your mental stability depends on not being perceived as what you obviously are, by anyone, in any momentary random interaction, then this doesn’t strike me as a viable way of being.
We’ve been here before, of course:
As Nikw211 said in reply,
That, as they say.
“LOL at you rubes in the sticks with your cars and trucks, I live in a city and rent a bike.“
“Are you sure this will help us sell mortgages?”
Progressive dining experience 8743.
That was the dining experience that I’d originally used, but which disappeared. Well done, that man.
Close enough. 🙂
The AI doesn’t seem entirely clear on how many mouths dogs have.
Dog Somehow Fused With Car caught my eye, along with Clown Dog. And of course, this magnificent beast.
Mon Dieu! Voici le Arc du Transmois! C’est manifique!
I question the legality of such an device and wonder how a safer anti-theft measure could be implemented. What happens when someone takes a fall under a truck when the timer runs out?
It’s behind the avocados. It’s always behind the avocados.
I question the legality of such an device…when someone takes a fall under a truck…
I believe the video is from China, probably not an issue.
If you have only seen clips of this you can watch the whole thing for free, and it is crazier than the clips let on.
L’Arc du Transmois
I’m not sure if I was disappointed or relieved to read that this was a very well executed photo-shop.
I did however feel a touch nostalgic at seeing the old-style flag before the increasingly bad stuff got tacked on.
I have questions.
Speaking of AI, and sorry can’t remember where I saw this last night (maybe Volokh?) but in a military simulation of an AI drone, the drone got points for killing SAM installations but the operator got the last say and might say “no” (for whatever reason). The AI started killing the operator (simulation, remember) to prevent him from saying no or in some cases destroying the communication tower to cut him off. Scifi turns out to pretty prescient.
I have questions.
Victoria’s Secret, Nomex Edition.
I think this is called rewarding malevolence.
Erotic arts: she don’t need no man…to tighten the screws and install correctly. no siree
When we were in Sienna, this was what we got to look at while lunching. My Italian isn’t up to par but the waitress apologized and seemed rather embarrassed and pissed about it.
UK edition: thanks feminists for insisting that men and women are identical. I believe that all police should be at least 2m (6ft) tall because of scenes like that. The intimidation and ability to wrestle drunks and protesters to the ground and arrest them is an essential part of their job. short women lack the strength to subdue and put everyone in danger. Political correctness kills.
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.
My wife sent me that story this morning. The scary part to me isn’t the warning, in fact I suspect the story which I’m sure was very likely to have happened in development at some point but was, as told by the blowhard speaker, mostly made up. The scary part is that they actually think that at some point they will have worked out all such bugs and thus feel safe releasing it.
I’m reminded of a story I heard about the development of targeting systems where when the handheld device needed to be rebooted the default target setting was to the location of the device. When used in an actual war situation, I believe this was In Afghanistan, some poor bastard in a moment of extreme stress had to reboot the device and targeted himself and his platoon for friendly fire. I forget how they “fixed” that but IIRC the “fix”, while better than the existing problem, seemed rather suspect itself.
There’s no “intimidation” factor if the mob knows the police are too chickenshit to fight back. God forbid they find themselves in another George Floyd situation. The citizens stopped standing behind the police so to some extent I don’t blame the police. To some extent.. But OTOH the police have turned on the law-abiding in general as well.
Yes, the current trans madness is, in a sense, giving those loony feminists what they deserve.
Back in the 70’s, I had arguments with such feminists. They even insisted that the greater male propensity to violence was merely part of the sexist patriarchal culture and would disappear in a true society of equality. Some even went so far as to say that they would be perfectly happy with a future in which women were as violent as men are today, which illustrates how ideology can drive people insane.
As I was saying…
Civilisation?
L’arc de vomi.
Likely more problems than they’d planned on.
Easier to intimidate & arrest.