Friday Ephemera (753)
Just a bit of a bump. || Boiling water is hard. || How to build an omni-directional bike. (h/t, Elephants Gerald) || Bills above. || The adventures of Rupert the Bear. || Because he has been deemed more important than you, ladies. || Dinner and a show. || I’m guessing it tickles. || Good to know. || I suppose it would pass the time. || And it’s wipe-clean, which is always a bonus. || Clearly, she was feeling it. || Venting, near and far. || Vending-machine diplomacy. || Does a doctor’s self-vasectomy video count as oversharing? || Fat Japanese mascots jammed in infrastructure. || More joys of public transport. || Today’s words are time and place. || Pianist enhancement. || Pottery and LEGO, together at last. || Four legs good. || And finally, the experiment in time travel was not without its hazards.
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Fill teapot with water.
Put teapot in microwave.
I have a dream. More dreams in comments.
Hobbit has high standards.
How to Tell if You Are Sexually Normal.
Impressive as that device is, I’m even more impressed by his willingness/desire/ability to video-document the process. When I’m trying to build something, something much simpler than that but something that I am conceiving/developing at the same time, the thought of anyone not involved directly in helping being anywhere in the working space is a huge and annoying distraction.
For the well-turned-out fetishist.
There’s an Irish pub in Dahlonega, GA (a small-college town)that has dollar bills stapled on the ceiling and walls but I don’t think that is this place. Though perusing the comments on that link, there are a number of similar dive bars in Alaska, Florida, and other places doing that. At some point…though they all seem to be firearms-carrying friendly states. What an odd coincidence.
No.
Micro-mini skirts make me break out in hives. Unless she’s got a matching coverlet, she’s always 1/4″ away from The Big Reveal. I don’t know how I’d function in such a thing.
Just a 15-minute window.
Follow-up.
Self-eating sammich.
Michael Malice asks Jordan Peterson what the hell is up with pedos, and Peterson tells him what motivates them.
(I have no idea why Malice is in that getup, but whatevs.)
I see what you did there.
Edna Mode.
Morning, all.
[ Deploys innocent face. ]
[ Slurps coffee. ]
I suspect alcohol may have been involved.
And in bullying news:
Do take a moment to recover from the shock.
Yet I’ve had exchanges with people who assume, quite emphatically, that affirming Net Zero is a sign of Being A Good Person. And that those who fail to enthuse must be contrarian, or simply wicked.
Re: Rupert the Bear traveling to Pussyville … 50 years ago Donald Trump would have been 27yo … a prime age to visit Pussyville and grab him some …
Affordable, reliable energy is something Hitler would want.
Heh. But that was pretty much the tone of my most recent exchange – a spluttering incomprehension that one might even have reservations. That one might dissent.
It was part of a conversation in which other modish assumptions were poked at and during which I offered to provide links to relevant data. These offers were declined with a telling haste. Which rather underlines how for many people, especially those who wish to signal their piety, the facts of the matter are fairly unimportant.
What matters, it seems, is whether noises of a certain kind are perceived as high status.
A plea to Britain in two parts.
Yeah. It kinda went with Today’s words are time and place, but not really. But, yeah…but…
Not unfair.
And it rather dovetails with the exchange I mentioned above, during which Trump was mentioned, as if there could be no conceivable reason to view his election with optimism, as a belated and necessary course correction.
The problem, I think – beyond the conceit that high-status (i.e., progressive) opinions equal rightness, touched on above – is that the situation, the mood, can become so demoralised, so all-encompassing, so personal, that any attempt to poke at the prevailing conceits may involve the kind of discussion that’s quite intense and socially awkward. One might say incriminating.
Sort of, “You believe this obvious nonsense, or pretend to believe it – regarding migration, multiculturalism, the climate, transgenderism, or whatever – and you think that this makes you a good person. But what if these conceits result in a practised unrealism, a habit of pretending, and thereby decline? What if your pieties are very much part of the problem?”
In terms of a casual chat, it risks exposing the kinds of realities that people don’t often appreciate and for which they won’t generally thank you.
From A plea to Britain in two parts:
Americans, especially conservative Americans, could use some American spirit. Badly. Stop allowing America et al to be forcibly taken from you. Yes, we won a recent important, very important victory. We didn’t win it by being polite. At least not by their definition of polite. And the fight is very, very far from being over.
TBH Americans do not have electric kettles…. at least not when I was growing up.
Not sure how she ignored the plastic handle in her hand….
Many American kitchen sinks have an “instant boiling water” spigot in addition to the regular faucet. Because “instant” is the Murican way.
It occurred to me that the other party in the discussion above was accustomed to making a political dig (in an otherwise non-political chat) with little, if any, fear of serious rebuttal. That they could signal disapproval of, say, Trump, or Musk, or whoever, without risking a meaningful challenge or any unpicking of their assumptions. Because the social game being played has preordained ‘correct’ positions. The statusful ones being a disapproval of Trump or whoever.
Which can make such a discussion confusing or emotionally charged, especially if you’re not accustomed to the implied rules. People can get rather prickly and defensive. Hastily rejecting an offer of supporting data, for instance, as above – as they realise, with some consternation, that we’re not both playing the same game of Mouthing Fashionable Pieties. Some, I suppose, may register the implications. About themselves.
It’s a tricky thing to integrate into normal social niceties. You risk exploding the relationship, such as it is. Which not everyone is willing to do. On many occasions, I’ve had to bite my tongue and remind myself that the other party may not actually want an honest or realistic reply. They don’t want to hear evidence or reasoning. They’re just playing a social status game.
See also, The Blurting.
Will the fumes from the melting plastic make her more stupid?
I totally understand. Used to feel somewhat that way myself. But at some point after biting my tongue one too many times it occurred to me that the other party/parties do not give a damn about my concerns with keeping the discussion, nor even our relationship, in an honest nor realistic context. At some point I started to notice these concerns extending beyond political context. Even in regards to people neither of us liked. I found myself wanting to defend such people from the BS going way over the top.
About ten years ago my boss, a technical nerd but an absolute idiot, brownnoser of a manager, got dragged into a meeting of the people he managed (not really a “team” in any other sense) and an HR rep. Now I despised this guy. He was known around the office by a pejorative that I had hung on him. Yet in this HR meeting, which I believe was driven by one or two millennials he managed, the HR rep was being incredibly unfair to the guy. I was the most outside outsider by being not only the oldest guy in the room by at least five years, had come to the project from another project, was newly positioned under him relatively to the others, and was the only person in the room working on the part of the project that I was on. All of the others were on one of two other teams. I spoke up and defended the SOB. I got the impression from everyone that I was alone in defending him. The guy did have a number of issues but for whatever reason none of those issues were the subject of the meeting. It was kinda surreal but what isn’t anymore? Either way, I’m pretty certain that I paid some price for that. Oh well.
Well, a fairly realistic exchange did ensue, on my part at least. Though, being – as you know – a sensitive soul, I did pull some rhetorical punches. There was plenty more that could have been said, but I didn’t want to derail the social moment too far. There was a third party present, largely observing, and you don’t want to end up grandstanding or being a monopolising bore.
I’m not sure my efforts to answer honestly were entirely appreciated. But still. As you say, it gets a bit tiresome when other people think they can get away with what amount to unilateral digs. When other people assume they can drag you into their social status game and that you’ll defer to their conceits, such that they always win. Because you don’t want to seem rude or hurt their feelings. It does feel a tad insulting.
I think we need to see the image while we formulate an answer.
Yes, that’s much better.
Exactly. As much as I admonish people to speak up, it is very important to avoid grandstanding. It doesn’t help matters (much) by becoming that guy. I do understand that. But what is (edited…no idea wtf…could swear I proofread that) especially frustrating to me is knowing that while I am biting my tongue, other conservatives* in the room/context/whatever are putting that same effort into coping. Trying to fit the incongruities being presented into a nice, neat narrative in order to maintain the status quo. For the sake of a status quo.
*Not that I technically consider myself to be a conservative. Nor especially a conservative.
Yeah…ah…nah, bro. I still am mighty curious about the checklist. In the historical context, you understand.
Hey, swimwear, tentacles… Granted, the harpoon may be a bit much.
Electric feet.
No, don’t thank me.
We fucking get it already. You’re the only true conservative.
Yes….yes…the shoehorn and the Narrative. The time has come, the shoehorn said, to squeeze in many things…
Bills above
That’s one of my favorite dive bars, the No Name Pub on Big Pine Key in the Florida Keys. And . . . [checks date] . . . I should be there in about a week and a half. What is also delightful about that place are the tiny key deer that wander freely on the island.
Just a 15-minute window.
I am not claustrophobic but that is terrifying.
To the barricades!
The body cam videos are going to be lit, as the kids say.
Sudanese refugee enriches Wales with his vibrant culture.
Why, it’s almost as if some hiring decisions need to be reconsidered.
Why, it’s almost as if some hiring decisions need to be reconsidered.
Indeed…
Especially the hiring of those who do the hiring.
I’m always taken aback by how self-important some (many? most?) teachers are. They act like they have a little fiefdom that they are an absolute ruler of.
We all know both of those teachers aren’t going to actually do anything if ICE turns up to collect a student who’s in the country illegally. How do they get such a big ego?
You’d think the routine narcissism on display, the promises of violence and law-breaking, and the outright mental illness, might prompt some rethinking of who should be entrusted to educate children.
Yet here we are.
Bint sings.
Why does it have a NSFW warning? It’s just like a suit with a shirt and tie.
Fair point. No idea.
Heh.