Friday Ephemera (705)
Judgement promptly validated. || Ice-cream scoop insertions and other medical emergencies. || Somewhat related: Things done to penises in 2023. || Recovered Kodachromes of New York in the Fifties and Sixties. (h/t, Lancastrian Oik) || Like conkers, I guess. || On crime and incarceration. || Question asked, answered. || Being so clever, he doesn’t believe in sky daddy. || Lion relocation. || If you got rid of the toaster, you’d have space for one of these. || Suboptimal road surface. || Set-up and payoff. || The progressive retail experience, parts 526 and 527. || Pressing oil. || For enthusiasts of diecast model cars, The Little Wheels Museum. (h/t, Things) || I laughed and I’m not sorry. || A little artistic licence. || At last, a shower-toilet combo. || And finally, a hawk encounters a kitten with a force field.
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“homicides in Britain”
It’s all such big data – ms mouse was part of a project examining infant/ birth mortality, and as she put it, said data was “uniformly crap”. I do know that “homicide” is calculated very differently around the globe, so I chuckle when such “comparisons” get bandied about.
I have read about how differently infant mortality is calculated around the globe, but know nothing about global differences in calculating homicide data–aside from the fact that some countries just don’t record all deaths.
S. Weasel is now a British citizen. I wonder what crimes she has in mind.
Nah. They’re not seriously expecting to attract men. Their grift is in making themselves as unappealing as possible and using that reality as grist for their whoa-is-me victimization, gimme-gimme-gimme game. Especially if by any chance..bonus… they may have previously reproduced and thus have hungry mouths to feed. Not that they’re all that interested in letting much of that gift ever make it to those hungry mouths.
Most big data, the kind of data that has any human subjectivity applied to it at all, is garbage. Ms. Mouse is spot on in her suspicions. I find it somewhat amusing that the Big Head that is Scott Adams seems to think he caught onto this reality as a result of observing Covid data. Long after the fact. The only data from this historically most observed, most measured, most commented on “scientific” event in the history of the world is maybe, maaaaaaybe two things. One, the Diamond Princess study, and two, the excess mortality numbers. But both, especially the latter, are themselves wrought with issues. But don’t believe me. I’m an idiot. I’m being told this often and repeatedly now by ever so many of my betters. Because they be smaaaaaart. College and shit. Advanced degrees. Not stupid dumb ass BS’s from land grant colleges.
Infant mortality data: in Europe many countries only record a “live birth” if the baby lives past a certain number of days. In the US if the baby takes a breath it is a live birth but if it dies a few days later is infant mortality. This accounts for most of why US infant mortality is higher.
Does anyone believe that Africa records homicide stats?
Today’s X.com entertainment.
Fancy a flutter on which substance(s) were involved?
Also trending: #shrinkage
Looking to hire a nanny? I have the perfect candidate.
“Sites like io9 used to have quite in-depth articles by people who knew their nerdish stuff. But now, the content is by default ineptly-written trash.“
I still visit them, but the quality has dropped off a cliff, and browsing sites like Tor for upcoming literature has become a minefield too, as ‘queer/ethnic retelling of …’ seems to factor promintently as if it was a good thing in and of itself, rather than any other factor about a new book.
It’s the same laziness and pandering that infests film and tv making.
The drop in quality – which tracks pretty much perfectly with the rise in wokeness – is quite striking. At one time, pre-wokeness-by-default, the reader could differentiate at least some of the contributors, who had differing interests and perspectives, areas of arcane knowledge. You could read a lengthy article and not necessarily agree with all of the points being made, but still appreciate the writer’s knowledge of the subject matter, and enjoy being reminded of episodes and subplots you’d forgotten about.
Now, the site, like so many others, is a generic slurry of shilling and contrived fangirling, written largely by people with no discernible standards or talent.
Where there used to be a sense of knowledgeable niche fun, and people sharing an enthusiasm for obscure comics or dodgy TV shows or whatever, there’s now just woke boilerplate and a weird political conformity. And the more they mention “diversity” – by which they mean brown people and lesbians mouthing identical claptrap – the more monotonous and flavourless the site seems. In short, it’s lost any character. It’s now just another woke shilling platform, indistinguishable from dozens of others.
One of my best managers was female. She worked for Bell Northern Research many moons ago (she relocated to Richardson, Texas, to manage Yanks like me in the mid 1990s). Maybe females that manage semi-real things (I’m a software weasel) aren’t as crazy as those that don’t. (I can think of a couple more examples of non-crazy female managers; I’m married to one of those examples. The other one is the CTO of a multinational company; she too worked at the Big Nerd Ranch back in the day.) YMMV.
Maybe they’re kinda sorta on the spectrum, so they are not possessed of typical female AWFLness.
But woman-despising George Takei disapproves of your “bigotry”.
I strongly suspect our different experiences are mostly due to random chance. Even if the average is less good than for male managers, there can still be lots of good ones.
I experienced, back in the 70’s and 80’s, what I now believe was a harbinger of this: According to the gay and/or leftist writers and fans, the only good sf writers were gay and/or leftist. It was annoying, but I never suspected that things would degenerate as they have.
Perhaps because when expressing suspicions that things would degenerate as they actually have one was met with sufficient pushback and outright derision causing one to employ a subconscious repression of thoughts that other things could possibly degenerate further. Bah. That’s crazy talk.
Moral decay of another sort:
Hamas supporters have been blockading the Jewish community of Armour Heights in Toronto for more than a week. There are no embassies or other Israeli government presence there, just lots of Canadian Jews.
Police are even facilitating the delivery of food and coffee to the Hamas supporters. In contrast to how they treated the Canadian trucker protesters, who were arrested and their bank accounts frozen.
Heh. Speaking of things degenerating to levels one might have imagined but dared not speak of. Because crazy talk.
It never occurred to me that things could degenerate because these were seemingly just a few people and especially because I did not notice the pattern for a while. (Nor could I notice a pattern until I found out about all the recommended writers, which took years.)
Furthermore, you have to notice not only what people say, but also what they don’t say.
That reminds me of something I read long ago:
(This is only a vague restating, as best I recall, of what I read long ago.)
And also:
It would be difficult to find anyone at Harvard (or MIT or Stanford etc) who grew up on a farm–much less had a parent or grandparent who did. That’s something that only the plebs do, not us Superior Minds.
(Found via Douglas Murray and Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Twitter.)
I don’t feel fear, just pity.
Reminds me of childhood.
But then I scrolled down and saw this.
Does that inspire pity or a Terrible Resolve to Smash the Heretics?
I don’t feel fear, just pity.
TBF, it is not all that different than a bean burrito in a flour tortilla other than the fact that the beans in the burrito actually have flavor and a burrito is edible.
I think perhaps they picked this up trying to culturally appropriate from Spanish sailors captured from the Armada but the concept of a tortilla was just too much.
Regardless, I’ve got to find something innocuous to tease the Brits about.
I hope that’s the end of Solomon Grundy.
More bewilderment.
To be clear, I’m not at all sniffy about comfort food. And if someone were to serve me, say, poached eggs on toast with a whisper of grated cheese, I’d be quite content.
Poached eggs can be tricky to get right.
More bewilderment.
Not as bewildering as putting milk and sugar in tea.
How long ’til he sues Bass Pro Shops for not having warning signs?
I rarely drink tea, though I don’t mind it if it’s offered. I do have an occasional cup of green tea, with a drop of unsweetened lime juice. But it occurs to me that you can’t really offer that to any workmen you have in. So there’s a neglected box of PG Tips somewhere.
Fidel would be proud of his son’s accomplishments.
If it’s any balm to your wounded sensibilities, she’s making iced tea.
Yes, James Patterson really is more a brand for ghostwriters than an author.
This is a real James Patterson book which you can find on Amazon:
It’s the modern day Mrs. Grundys that concern me.
Milk and sugar in hot tea is quite nice.
I thought microwaving tea was one of the few remaining capital crimes in the UK.
Microwaved vs. brought to full boil in a kettle.
Lipton vs. real brands.
Bags vs. loose.
Let the religious wars begin! Deus volt!
Yes, but the arrival of millions of hostile savages is a very big problem.
Not sorry.
ARGH, make it STOP …
I don’t remember Romanians being so, shall we say, middle eastern looking.
Decades ago my lab senior told me, “There are only two constants. God, and battery voltage.”
One of the things I’ve noticed is that men are more able to make a decision and then be happy with the outcome because they weighed the costs and accepted those costs. For example, if a husband decides it is worth it to commute farther so his kids can go to a good school, he will be ok with the commute and not complain.
Women (at least in America) tend to want the ability to have a do-over. They return far more to stores. They dump husbands (70% of divorces). They simultaneously want a career and to stay home with kids. The inability to recognize and deal with costs/consequences I think explains lots of what has gone off the rails. It also explains why the more feminism has won the battle, the more unhappy women are (as shown by many surveys).
Bound and determined to piss away what little credibility they had left.
The Language of Astronomy Is Needlessly Violent and Inaccurate.
Yes, most hugs involve the collision and destruction of stars and planets.
Scientifically truthful truthiness from “Scientific” American.
Of course.
You beat me to it: I was going to make the same comment.
The author is a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Texas. There is no excuse for such twattery. Unforgivable.
Half the population has an IQ below 100. Ten percent below 85.
Very roughly five percent are psychopaths.
Need I go on?
U of Texas, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, ad infinitum. This sentiment comes to mind.
This. This this this this. Similarly it’s not exactly a recent trend where women want girl babies, get boys, then try to convert them. In the past it was limited by other social pressures and the fact that even a butcher’s attempt to change biological reality was a non-starter.
But just try saying such a broader thing (Donna e mobile) in the presence of a psychologist, psychiatrist, or even a great number of other physicians. Not saying you shouldn’t. In fact, encouraging you or anyone to try. You might be able to get half that point out before taking such abuse that you never get out the other half, but it needs to be said. Often.
In a recent interview, Jordan Peterson connected this to the fact that women are on average more anxiety prone (trait neuroticism) than are men.
Heh. Again with the data. I would be curious to see the numbers for single men vs married/in-a-long-relationship (heterosexual) men vs women, married or otherwise. Of course it’s all fuzzy data and can be bent, even lied about. Well, while we still have a marginally trustworthy society…
And they all ended up in the humanities.
I think it’s very reasonable: The statistics on male-female differences in various personality traits (conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, etc.) are pretty solid.
That doesn’t mean there cannot be other exacerbating factors which relate to the current deplorable state of our culture, but the male-female difference is real.
Returning to this…
The real danger is neither Amazon nor the degeneration of our libraries, it’s the fluidity of meaning of words, ideas, history, science, etc. via the wiki model.
Coolest street name I’ve seen in a while….
When you think you can do whatever you want, whenever you want.
See the “SOS Cuba” banner. I believe this video is from the 2021 protests in Miami Florida in support of anti-Castro protesters in Cuba.
Coolest street name I’ve seen in a while….
No doubt in one of those quaint English villages where there is rampant murder as seen on TV…
When you think you can do whatever you want, whenever you want.
She forgot to scream “I can’t breathe” repeatedly. Poor form.
The UK seems to be packed end-to-end with them.
By law, only blacks and leftists may say that. /sarcasm
2024 will mark a run on popcorn. This will truly be a FAFO moment. Over and over and over again.
Coffee, black, no sugar. Not tea.
Interesting that this lone woman, granted behaving in a bothersome and improper way of protesting, elicited such a fairly brutal takedown by an obviously physically superior male cop. Maybe out of context but unless there were a number of others behaving , or threatening to behave, similarly that takedown seems rather excessive. She was endangering herself to some degree but traffic wasn’t fast or heavy, drivers seemed to be lightly impacted. A touch of the brakes at most. Once she was out of the road, the body slam to the pavement when he had pretty much complete physical control of her, and plenty of other cops available to help him, is a bit hard to justify IMNSHO. If pst is correct and the number of Cuban flags is some indication, I suspect our copper here has been enthused by the opportunity to put the hurt on a (likely) conservative. Where is this macho-macho brutality when it is truly needed in much more disruptive street takeovers? I smell a rat.
Hopefully it doesn’t turn into a cancelled-by-overkill situation. He seems a shade too enthusiastic here:
Plus I do not trust the recently woke-from-being-woke. Not necessarily that they are faking but also because their corrected thinking has had time to ferment.
Interesting that this lone woman, granted behaving in a bothersome and improper way of protesting, elicited such a fairly brutal takedown by an obviously physically superior male cop.
A parade of black SUVs followed by a black ambulance and more motorcycle rozzers, plus the plainclothes or SS quys would seem to indicate there was some Important Person/s™ in the parade. Given the leftist proclivity for violence – note her skateboard (Skateboards™, The Favorite Weapon of “anti”fa, Get Yours Today!) wielding pal – and not knowing what she might have had in her shoulder bag, I can’t really fault him.
He seems a shade too enthusiastic here
This wasn’t about attacking him … they went after his wife. And for what? This moderate Democrat finds out that he is just too darned Jewish (how dare he support Israel over the poor oppressed Hamas “militants”) for the current party. And if they go after his wife, how soon his kids or parents?
After the AI statement you quote, he does go on to talk about the need to really nail down what is/is not “plagiarism”. The Ivies have been playing fast and loose as much with the charges of plagiarism as they’ve done with other “transgressions” like mis-gendering and allowing students to be harassed and bullied according to group identity.
Time to go scorched earth on these fat, entitled cows.
Reasoned debate from New Zealand.
Coffee, with full fat milk and Splenda.
Lapsang-soochong with honey, all winter.
All heretics to the comfy chair!
I agree in general but I am highly, highly suspicious of the overemphasis of this plagiarism angle. We don’t have a crisis of plagiarism on our campuses, not a crisis that directly impacts the rest of us anyway. We have a leftist indoctrination problem. By focusing too much energy on the easy play of plagiarism, that is something that they can easily fix and move on from without addressing the real, broader problem of leftist indoctrination and general incompetence. Again, where has Mr. Bigmegabucks been until now? This crap didn’t happen overnight.
Which grandmother is this, the one who arranged the 5 year old Ayaan’s genital mutilation? Is Ali being an elitist here (my superstitious illiterate grandmother wouldn’t have trusted Claudine even to herd the goats), or an anti-elitist in the mode of George W. Bush pretending to be a ranch-hand?
Plagiarism: This is NOT a problem in the hard sciences. You almost never are quoting anyone. If you mention something that is common knowledge, that is not plagiarism. Reviewers will force you to cite things that need citing. I suggest it IS a problem in the social sciences because there is a tradition of sloppy thinking, sloppy scholarship, and sloppy writing in those fields.
You’re overanalyzing.
Let the games begin.
I’d be more impressed if she practiced mokomokai . . .
They never stopped. God, how I wish they’d stop.
Happy New Year in New York.
I didn’t even know that yet another Alien movie was in the works. The Critical Drinker makes some good points, which remind me of the success of Die Hard which was in part due to Bruce Willis’ “ordinary guy” hero character instead of the usual Hollywood hyper hero fantasy.
All of them?
Revolutionary War fort we discovered inside old plantation house in West Virginia.
OT: The new BBC adaptation of All Creatures Great and Small is taking dramatic liberties with the original books, injecting personality conflicts that were not in the books. I have already commented disapprovingly on how the 1980’s BBC All Creatures Great and Small took liberties, spicing up the characters with personality quirks such as Tristan’s fecklessness. Both series are well done and entertaining, but it would be nice to see a TV series or movie which was more faithful to the original.
I love a good haka. My alma mater’s (American) football team used to perform one before every game; maybe they still do. It’s a great bit of ritualized trash talk before conflict.
I don’t know what point she’s making in that setting, tho. “Back off”? “I’m Maori and I’m gonna mess you up”?
It does cause thoughtful people to wonder if, perhaps, Maori culture is incompatible with civilization. And on that note, I wonder about Maori crime statistics.
Looks like someone’s got some sky daddy issues. Just sayin’.
Sorry- I know this is late, but I’ve had a few very busy days.
“See also the pompous eruptions that followed entirely apposite use of the word feral.”
Band name.