Friday Ephemera (711)
Ladies, do you recycle yours? || Well, I laughed. || The Electric Egg, 1942. || Juggling, from above. || “I’ve been bouncing for fifteen years.” || “Liturgical Barbie with matching vestments.” || Luckily, his balls took the brunt of it. || Bending water. || You have to warm it up first. (NSFW) || Feeding time. || Tall Korean visits Netherlands. || Incoming. || Quite. || A question of eye-hand coordination. || It gives her chills. || This is Sparta. || Today’s word is practised. || Possibly not ideal for pornography enthusiasts. || The progressive retail experience, parts 533, 534, 535, and 536. || Somewhat impractical football pitch. || Intrepid adventurers. || An erotic vision. || Proof, were it needed, that you have a low and filthy mind. || And finally, today’s other words are engine failure.
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[deleted; point already made upthread]
I enjoyed it until that episode where they were about to capture the scientist who was at the center of The Mystery, but then gun-happy guy randomly killed him.
No reason, except that they didn’t want to resolve The Mystery quite yet, so they killed the guy to keep it going. There was NO internal logic to gun-happy guy killing him; even as gun-happy as he was, he had no reason to kill the scientist.
It made me so mad I quit watching.
“They” in this case is Ben Sasse, former Senator and current president of UF, a move called “living his best life.” So maybe it was done in all sincerity.
They are probably required by law to give the severance and offer them positions in the org. Me, I’d never hire them back; I’d just say they can interview for the positions.
Not entirely implausible.
I mean, that does seem to be an inevitable consequence of “diversity,” and especially “equity,” which, as we’ve seen, many times, translates as equality of outcome regardless of inputs.
WTP: ‘Julia… are you sitting down?…’
*boggle*
[ Slides a large one towards Julia. ]
To steady your nerves, madam.
A fetish is not a substitute for a personality
Dammit, now I’m going to have fake willy video’s in my youtube recommendations!
And my work here is done.
I just assume all these videos are staged for profit. We now live in America’s Funniest Home Videos 24/7.
They are probably required by law to give the severance and offer them positions
The memo states the severance is required, probably under the university’s collective bargaining agreement. Private corporations aren’t the same as public universities, but I’ve been part of “head office says we have to cut headcount, we’re going to save everyone we can” RIFs and “this department has gone rogue, it’s time to end this” RIFs, and this feels a lot more like the former than the latter.
I enjoyed [The Expanse ], for the most part
I really, really wanted to, but as I’ve been hankering for a good hard SF series for a while it turned me right off when the inevitable BEMs and ray guns showed up.
It feels like most genre fiction (fantasy, SF, horror) is just collapsing into an ever-shrinking set of overused tropes. All fantasy is D&D, all SF is Star Trek, all horror is Cthulhu, etc. Maybe it’s just sample bias on my part.
Which reminds me of the old joke “he’s only depraved because he was deprived”.
It’s supposed to be a joke, but the left embraced it as a corner principle long ago.
Tyson is not the only scientist who behaves as if he knows more than he really does. Carl Sagan was annoyingly full of himself with a strong tendency to express absolute certainty about things he should have been more cautious about–a personality defect that his undergraduate classmates noticed.* (And it got him in trouble when his public pontifications turned out to be very wrong. Nuclear winter, for one example.) But Sagan had a more solid publication record than Tyson, who seems to have become a popular authority without establishing a reputation as a notable scientist–presumably because of his skin color, presentation style, politically correct opinions, and willingness to be absolutely certain about anything and everything.
* One physicist who knew him when they were both starting out merely laughed in my presence when his name was mentioned.
There’s something odd, and unhealthy, about wanting to live as if you were always on camera, always performing for an audience.
Indeed. Made far more toxic because there is an online audience for even the most depraved behavior.
I sometimes wonder about the relative importance of personality and environment, given that fan culture can encourage all sorts of “non-optimal” behaviors. As an extreme example, consider Isaac Asimov who was frequently mobbed by adoring squealing female fans, and who (I speculate) may have thus learned that he could get away with fondling women in the most intimate ways without first finding out if they wished to be fondled.
Tyson was recruited by Sagan to attend Cornell. Supposedly. I also read somewhere that Sagan had mentored him to some degree. Not sure the sources though. NdGT’s wiki only cites himself for the Cornell recruitment story. Not sure where I got the mentoring thing but it might have been someone else’s exaggeration of the Cornell thing.
What’s interesting is that common absolute certainty thing which made Sagan a bit of a joke in certain college circles. To NdGT’s credit, he’s not quite so insufferable. But his fans are. I would suspect he’s much more popular in those similar college circles today than Sagan was back when I was in school.
I thought the cheer was at the juco up in Tallahassee, not the one in Gainesville.
Not mentioned: “one” here refers to the pickled eggs.
I believe you’re thinking of the Tomahawk chop which last I saw, FSU has continued to do, PC be damned. I respect that. No, the UF one was the “Gator bait” cheer, accompanied by the well known arms-chomping which would occur when the opposing team would take the field. It originates from a pep rally in the mid 1990’s, suggested by a black linebacker. In the George Floyd hysteria, UF banned it (somehow) because of some made up BS that it originated back in the 1920’s or something and had to do with feeding uppity black people to the swamp gators. It’s quite obviously BS yet people I know, in-laws even, insist that it was something that they did even in the early 1970’s. Which is, again, complete BS because it certainly wasn’t done, and I never witnessed it, from 1979 until it actually appeared in the 90’s. Somewhat akin to fake pronouns, I refuse to participate in other people’s (mass) psychosis.
Our ancestors stole the land we live on so we are responsible for the progressive retail experience.
“I do love all people…“*
+(Conditions may apply, offer not valid in Sector R after curfew)
Says this bozo who is so marginalized, shut out, and discriminated against that he has a speaking gig and is a Lieutenant Colonel (though in the Space Force, so paramilitary). BTW, make sure you include your pronouns, even if you don’t play that horseshit.
Not promising.
Where the subsidies are to come from seems not to have been considered.
Or, Fabulist is fabulist shock.
Or, Man who pretends to be woman is prepared to tell other lies shock.
Have you read anything by Michael Flynn?
They come from the ether. It’s just how these bozos, bozos being the vast majority of America, right or left, think. NASA, defense, Ukraine, edjumukashun, arts, etc., even bloody wars get sold as “good for the economy”. And dumb, dumb schmucks across the political spectrum eat it up. Because most people are just…that…dumb.
The slow motion replay is…(*chef’s kiss*)
I don’t think they’d slide, probably more like sprout legs and skitter away like that scene in The Thing.
One Tyson plus one Sagan doesn’t even come close to one Feynman.
Luckily, his balls took the brunt of it.
And thus the “Ow! My Balls!” film franchise was launched.
I did briefly consider “slides a stiff one towards Julia,” but that just sounded… wrong, somehow.
Bitch.
Band name.
If the State can simply dictate the value of your property, and prosecute you if you ever offered a different opinion, then I suppose they can also mandate the future and prosecute you for not abiding by their future laws.
Bitch.
Haha – and Governor Dumb Bitch just got done assuring all the busness people of New York that This Would Not Happen To Them.
Ye gods these people are high on their own flatulence.
Fair enough. I rather liked that series as well, although the description of Ms. Murchison would create problems with her casting in this idiotic environment.
While that’s certainly true, his short stories “Airborne All the Way!” and “A Very Offensive Weapon” were rather funny.
You might be gobsmacked to find (well, I suspect you already know this) that government spending directly goes into the GDP numbers. I rather hope that Sir Keynes is frying in Hell.
James White also wrote some very good standalone stories.
Makes Hochul’s assurances look . . . unreliable.
Yes. For that and a number of other reasons as well. He was quite good at double counting stuff when it was convenient for him. See also his deficit spending magic multiplier.
Here’s something that I ask economically-aware people. I get different answers, sometimes very confident different answers on this, thus what I personally believe may (or may not) be an evolving process. Hypothetically…If I invent a real swell widget that I have mass produced overseas for $5/unit, sell here retail for $25/unit, which saves the typical consumer of that widget unit $50/yr, 1 year being the life of that unit…in the official reported numbers…
1) What is the trade deficit/surplus with that overseas country per unit?
2) How does that per unit item affect both country’s GDPs?
“I warned you, bro”
The left’s assurances always are.
Truth.
Have you read anything by Michael Flynn?
I have not, and thanks for the tip!
I barely know anything about the basic premise, only that here is this Honor Harrington character which fans seem to have a crush on. Fannish enthusiasm is always a red flag.
I have seen other badly failed attempts at putting Hornblower in space. One writer was so obsessed with recreating the world of Hornblower that he actually crewed his spaceships with illiterate dregs of society.
In general, it is a grave mistake to attempt to recreate a favorite story into a new setting. A fanboy mistake.
There is this:
The new regulations are in response to the whole DEI thing going rogue, so it’s actually the latter. It’s a deliberate move to rid Florida universities of DEI and its attendant pathologies.
Goodreads has a fairly comprehensive list. He’s got a new book coming out in July.
Didn’t Roddenberry try it? You know, with that one series?
There’s that edge in his voice, that narcissistic insistence that things will go MY WAY or else, that tone that says, “this time I’m asking nicely; next time I’ll make sure you regret it.”
They always give themselves away, don’t they?
Or as pointed out here:
https://www.freyaindia.co.uk/p/you-dont-need-to-document-everything
That.
It does seem to be a pretty good example of The Unreliable Narrator. And so, we get a man dressed as a woman invoking “dignity and respect,” while peevishly insulting everyone in the audience by insisting that they should aspire to similar dishonesty – that they should abandon probity, disregard the evidence of their own eyes, and become cartoonish and absurd. Lest they be denounced as bad people.
It’s an attempt at psychological bullying. A kind of abuse.
See also, those who enable such farcical scenes and who seek out new players for The Pronoun Game. And so, a familiar question. If they’ll lie about that, something so obviously untrue, what else would they lie about?
Again, it has the air of a civilisational shit test.
That’s precisely what it is.
What I’m trying to understand is how they managed to impose such severe consequences for not “passing” the test in so many places, at nearly the same time. They came in with shock and awe somehow, and put so many heads on pikes that les autres were duly and swiftly encouragé.
I just watched this year-old Triggernometry video about a woman (Rose) who had transitioned her son, but then walked it back. They observed that “let the child lead” had become the One Standard, and that only a horrible person would do otherwise.
Which, that’s exactly the formula they followed during the Satanic Abuse panic and also the recovered memory panic, where there were sacred victims whose word was not to be questioned lest you be complicit in sexual abuse. That panic was started and supercharged by therapists, too, none of whom have suffered any consequences.
“They’re all activists,” Rose observed.
I’m coming to detest self-styled activists. The rank narcissism of thinking that your pet cause entitles you to impose your will on the world, not through persuasion but by force and intimidation. That you can lie and put your thumb on any scale and ignore the law and social norms because your cause is So Very Just.
I remember when fanaticism was considered a bad thing. I think we’re going to have to learn the hard way that it actually is.
I’ll throw together a post on this later today. But right now, I’ve got to head out and forage for provisions.
[ Writes shopping list. ]
I’ve got to head out and forage for provisions.
And, after wandering about over hill and dale, he returns with a few mushrooms, a turnip and a rather plump sheep.
I’m guessing you do understand and this is more rhetorical. It has been quite painful watching it happen. From my teenage years, as much as I tried to deny much of what I was seeing, as I lied to myself in order to fit in, my only hope was that when things eventually did go sideways I would already be dead. Celebrity culture had much to do with it. Though I also blame religion for its failure to adapt to new scientific knowledge. Combine that with the everyone-must-go-to-college hysteria that pulled society apart in many ways that are only now just beginning to be considered and the tsunami of fiction pushing false Narratives at every turn and you have brainwashing on a scale that previous totalitarian societies only dreamed of. The madness is so encompassing it’s like the cliche about fish being unaware of the water they are swimming in.
It’s been said that psychotherapy attracts neurotics and others with psychological problems. And what those therapists did seems more a result of evil traits than mere neurosis–Cluster B, Dark Triad, etc. But I’ve never seen anything but anecdotal reports on the likely frequency of occurrence in the “helping professions”.
And what about credulousness and an inclination to embrace evidence-free faddish ideas such as horoscopes, auras, healing crystals, past lives, etc? I’ve met very few therapists but some were like that and even said they used it in their therapy.
Yes, but that series was semi-successful. And its failures were not due to an attempt to shoe-horn Hornblower unchanged into a 24th Century spaceship.
Fresh eggs.
[ Returns from hunt, laden with booty. ]
There we go. Comments that-a-way.
The only three that I can, off-hand, recall reading were All Judgement Fled, The Escape Orbit, and The Dream Millennium. All were good.
I actually don’t. I’m wondering in earnest.
I’m aware of the societal decay that laid the groundwork, as well as the nonsense in the universities, but I’m asking specifically about the penalties. Did it start with Brandon Eich at Mozilla? That was gay rights, but maybe when trans hit the scene they had learned from it: punish dissent fast and often.
Seriously, when they dug into his donations and claimed to feel “unsafe” around him, despite him doing nothing bad, that was such a serious breach of the social contract on so many levels.
God help us all.
Ah. The penalties. They were bound to happen once sufficient demonization of those opposed had been achieved. Not sure when/what specific event it might have been but by then trying to stop it was too late an effort anyway. Like trying to stick a finger in a dike.