Friday Ephemera (752)
I did not see that coming. || A not entirely compelling arrangement. || The next part of the plan is unclear to me. || Incoming. || A collection of Doctor Who title cards. || Mathematics and the Moon. || This is one of these. || An inexact landing. || Autonomous bus, China. || A brief history of arsenic. || Eating uranium, 1985. || Traffic obstruction. || Rugs. || Flattened dog rugs. || Gyrations. || Things deemed racist, a thread of some length. || An awkward pause, a rambling evasion. || Those poor darling looters. || He had a cunning plan. || Perfect for urban skies. || Problematic wheel orientation. || Surprisingly solid. || She hates America with a passion, but you have to pay her to leave. || Public domain image archive. (h/t, Things) || Artful. || Family activity. || And finally, it came from the asteroid belt.
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Can’t believe you didn’t pick this one.
Another reason to acquire Greenland – ice floes.
Perhaps a tad too realistic.
ISWYDT
Sometimes you win.
Sometimes you lose.
And you manage to look awesome both times.
I notice they don’t reveal the sound, probably because it kicks up an unholy racket.
Also, imagine dozens or hundreds of those in the sky at once. You barely clip someone and both of you fall to your death.
Sweet romantic moment.
Decidedly un-sweet: Andrew Gold interviews Raja Miah, who has been uncovering the ties between the grooming gangs, local mosques, and Labour.
Who are these braindead people who feel looters are risking running into a fire?
Looters target evacuation areas. Between the time owners have packed up the kids, pets and important documents and when the firetrucks arrive (can be hours or days), looters feel free to liberate all manner of household or store contents.
Years ago, one of my friends had to evacuate their neighborhood (upscale) for a fire. Husband needed to go back for some documents he forgot and found a rented truck in his driveway and several people emptying the house.
He blocked the truck with his car and called the police. Luckily, they were around the corner (literally) as they were checking to see if everyone had left.
‘Flattened dog rugs.‘
Can’t wait until these show up on estate agent’s sales photos!
It’s what kids are FOR.
I have the hardest time determining whether they’re brick stupid or if they’re emotionally complicit, and saying that they’re Jean Valjean desperate for half a loaf of bread is just cover for their own sociopathy.
Will this be on the test?
Morning, all.
[ Deploys innocent face. ]
[ Slurps coffee. ]
I generally think of it as a mix of spite, unrealism, and an urge to be perverse.
Some liberties may have been taken:
Or, See the world through his eyes.
Have you ever dreamed about solving the problem of who should step aside — and to which side — when meeting someone coming the other way on the sidewalk?
Dream no more: the Japanese have gotchu, fam.
Maybe a cognitive distortion, like an anorexic girl who thinks she’s fat, but in this case it’s a dumpy bloke who genuinely sees himself as a winsome girl. (If that were the case, he wouldn’t alter the avatar.)
So instead he’s an AGP who knows damn well he’s a freak but wears a shit-eating grin because he knows we have to play along.
“I love being me.” But he thinks he’s someone totally different.
The most hilarious outcome is the most likely, says Elon.
Make it so.
Well, I think it’s why the ‘trans’ issue is so chafing. It’s a demand that reality be overridden by fantasy. Often, a glaringly obvious fantasy. And so, there’s an element of insult, an attempt to gaslight, to dominate the perceptions of others.
I am, by temperament, fairly easy-going and difficult to scandalise, and I doubt I’d spend my evenings being vexed by some strangers who like to cross-dress or live as the opposite sex. I have better things to do.
But the demand for laws to compel others to pretend, and to never stop pretending – to make the rest of us complicit, participants in the fantasy – is another matter. Insisting that everyone else surrender their probity and become dishonest and absurd, mouthing lies as and when instructed, is not generally a way to make friends.
The worst thing is the audience applaud her.
Yes. You almost have to admire the chutzpah, the blatant evasion and denial of reality. It’s a bold gambit. And apparently, it worked.
Again, the prevailing assumption in the room was we will pretend. And so, they did.
Some are a little more high-maintenance than others.
Save your bad marriage with adultery!
Meanwhile in New York, the governor is about to deliver an important message.
Meanwhile on the other side of the Atlantic, Wales, the Refugee Council also has a message.
Confirming their inability to coordinate anything.
To be followed, one assumes, by this.
Public domain image archive
I recently bought a subscription to Minimax, an AI video generator and now between that and Midjourney have some fodder for artistic fever dreams. Much obliged for the link!
And as a follow up to my last comment, I have been looking at some lovely surreal AI generated art and videos, such as this chap.
He was just looking for the roadrunner microwave dinners
You just don’t see that in the local Waitrose. Or even Sainsbury’s.
What happens in Lidl, I couldn’t say.
“Sorry, not available east of the Mississippi”
No comment needed.
Heh.
To be followed, one assumes, by this.
Probably, but would be better to be followed by this.
Our very lives, to the barricades, tovariches!
Glossing over looking like Brian Eno is not something to which one should aspire, but as she is in Berekely, getting “compliments” from others with the same uniform and grooming standards is hardly outré.
The answer, a) you are not, you are a conformist; b) imagining yourself “weird” is not a substitute for your utter lack of personality.
It does rather sound like madam desperately wants to be much more interesting than she actually is. And barking “heteronormative” and “white supremacy” over and over again really doesn’t cut it.
Quite the reverse, I fear.
Morning, all.
Proto-Banksy?
Some are a little more high-maintenance than others.
I’m surprised that, with a typically Vietnamese name, it hasn’t also filed a complaint about racial misidentification, South Asian being more typically Indian or Pakistani
What the Hell, David?
More cultural enrichment.
It’s a touchy subject.
David, selecting items for the Friday Ephemera.
Coyote: one just sauntered through my back yard last week.
Moon: I only recently learned that the key evidence for Newton’s theory of gravity was, he decided, to be able to predict the Earth’s tides. He collected data from all over on tides magnitude and timing and did prodigious calculations. He got very close and it convinced lots of people.
Skydiver: back in the days of streaking on college campus, a guy I knew vaguely did a skydive naked and landed in a daycare playground. Arrested. Facing serious jail but argued that it was an accident. Since there had just been over 1000 streakers with no arrests, he got off.
I have on occasion cackled.
Heh.
People already can’t drive in 2D; what’s gonna happen in 3D?
A community note said that the videos were part of a class project to welcome Ukranian refugees in from the war, but they weren’t actually broadcast.
Who knows?
I’m still processing the fact that Mr Newsom was elected by a large number of people who presumably think highly of themselves.
Watched a video on youtube about the defeat of the ottomans invading Europe in the 1500s. The story was fascinating. The author used AI to generate images of soldiers and battles. Pretty good but…in places a little off. At the time mostly bows and arrows with a few muskets. When guns were shown a few were correct but in another scene the rifles looked like WWI carbines (but off even for that). In an after battle scene, the debris on the battlefield has generic parts of things, including metallic globes about the size of a head that were not helmets or anything identifiable. One scene the general is wearing a modern wristwatch. hahahahah
Heh. Ever been to California? Boy, let me warn ya’…
I’m still processing the fact that Mr Newsom was elected by a large number of people who presumably think highly of themselves.
You have to remember the abnormal, like our self proclaimed “weird” queer, female-presenting, Jewish lesbian above, are the new normal, and the old normal are outnumbered by the abnormal.
I mean, setting aside what he actually says, which is bad enough, you’d think the incongruous grinning would be a clue.
Crazifornia.
But not nearly as highly as he thinks of himself.
Have you seen his shimmy?
Ko-ko-bop?
For those who didn’t catch it, the Dementia Patient in Chief has declared the Equal Rights Amendment ratified.
I’ve always been terrible at platform games, but I’d really lose badly to this guy.
Once you’ve rendered terms like “man, “woman,” “male,” and “female” unclear, what chance did “ratified” stand?
I mean, setting aside what he actually says, which is bad enough, you’d think the incongruous grinning would be a clue.
Serious Joker vibes from this guy.
GISS
Really need a That Thing That Never Happens category.
Sociopathy is what that says to me. Improper affect.
remember, never be the first to stop clapping
Prison misconduct statistics.
I got a really strong Saul Goodman vibe from Newsom. Not really a recommendation.
All good choices, but to me he’s a dead ringer for Patrick Batemen (Christian Bale’s character in American Psycho)
[ Slurps coffee. ]
The kinds of people, often progressive women, who enthuse about looting and rioting, and who seem to find it ideologically arousing, are not generally in the realm of coherent argument. I don’t think reality plays much part in what’s happening in their heads and then spilling out of their mouths. It’s about their own psychology, their own brokenness.
See, for instance, this.
The rush to denounce “respectability politics” – i.e., expectations of moral reciprocation and a general aversion to inflicting on others, arbitrarily, the kind of violation one would not care to receive – is, I’d say, a clue.
It’s not politics, it’s pathology.
One might, for instance, wonder how Ms Rachel Miller, the author of the Vice article linked above, would feel if she were the female Amazon driver seen being swarmed and assaulted here.
Having been assaulted and robbed, as if she were nothing, would she be overwhelmed with warm feelings?
I think we’ll give that one a post of its own.
Comments that-a-way.
Sounds like a good investment.
Another thing that never happens just happened.
I’ve been assured, many times and quite emphatically, that noticing the pattern is very much frowned upon.