Friday Ephemera (815)
“They can strip a man to the bone in 30 seconds.” || She just wants to get in her room and eat and put this behind her. || Big fellah. || Facilities. || The word holding caught my eye. || Igor Sikorsky, 1945. || Captures something, I think. || A night at the opera. || Wrenches and ratchets. || New racism detected. || The cow-like reflexes kicked in. || Waardenburg syndrome – striking eyes but often accompanied by deafness. || Death Valley in bloom. || From above and below. || Bitesize. || Someone’s knocking at the door. || Discourse was attempted. || The alternative press, 1971. || Apocalypse early warning system. || For enthusiasts of quadraphonic vinyl. || Immortality, £1000. || The thrill of, er, moon clams. || Unladylike driving. || And it turns out ants make more noise than you’d imagine.
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Just caught myself checking the lawn in case the deer had come back.
I suppose it’s like when people think they’ve seen a UFO and then keep glancing at the night sky, just in case.
BUT THE DEER WAS REAL.
But putting them in gulags lasts longer. 😀
Also costs more. Go with cheap and cheerful, I say.
Goodhart’s Law (via ESR)
On the motivations of the belligerent moron.
If you say so.
Since construction started on a couple of homes up the hill from us we have been seeing the deer every day, usually a couple of times. It’s getting kinda creepy. I will be outside working on something and I hear their footsteps creeping up on me. I look up and they just stare straight at me now. I have to shoo them off sometimes.
I’m beginning to feel like Jodie Foster at the end of Contact.
I’ve mentioned before an abandoned, heavily overgrown cemetery about a mile or so from here, in which there are, or were, deer living quite happily, next to a fairly busy road. Given the part of town it is, and the proximity of the cemetery to the road, it’s faintly surreal to think of there being deer wandering about and nibbling at things. They have on occasion wandered into the car parks of nearby businesses.
And hereabouts, there is woodland on two sides, so it’s not quite as improbable as it seemed when the bloody thing was gnawing on the shrubbery.
A similar problem has happened with computerized market trading. Once a methodology becomes too successful it can undermine on itself. It’s like an inbreeding of ideas. At some point the underlying weaknesses, like recessive genes, get amplified in ways unforeseen and thus unaccounted for.
If they do become a problem, we have had pretty good success using a product called Deer Scram. It’s mostly based on predator blood or something…I forget…but pretty sure it is, or should be, environmentally sound. Though how that gets interpreted over yonder is another rabbit hole.
I don’t think we’re quite there yet.
[ Daubs self with war paint, fetches spear. ]
Is this on pay-per-view?
Retreat is a less-than-optimal “solution” to invasions of ferals.
Pleasant dreams, everyone. (via ESR.)
Surrender by another name.
Eventually you run out of places to move to.
Racist glasses: for her information, the nose pads are ADJUSTABLE but if you are an idiot and buy the wrong glasses, then they won’t fit. I see white people with glasses falling down too.
Crown shyness: note in the video that even branches within a tree don’t touch. It is because of the wind banging them against each other.
Bodycam: commenters said cop should have wrestled it out of his hands or shot him in the leg. Sure, you first. A leg is easy to miss. A man with a weapon is dangerous. Attacking with a hoe could be fatal. These people don’t live in the real world.
In the Army, they teach you a dozen ways to kill with an entrenching tool.
Let this observation be a warning that we never forget:
I love that editing … it reminds me of a cross between old-style photo tinting and a portrait drawn with colored pencils. Lightroom filter?
BUT THE DEER WAS REAL.
Is the deer with us right now, David?
I can get this shabby treatment at home, you know.
[ Listens to recordings of ants. ]
[ Starts bombarding ants with atomic radiation. ]
You think you’re going to be able to control them? I wouldn’t count on them being as docile as the henchlesbians
As I have been saying:
To wit:
Based on my discussions with people, many (most?) seem to think that these non-November elections are just “primaries”. Maybe it’s the constant din from the candidates positioning themselves to represent the gop in November but even conservatives don’t seem to understand, or perhaps forget, that there are many other important offices, especially “non-partisan” (BS term) judicial and school boards offices and other items on these ballots along with the “primary” races. Thus…
This is your threadly reminder that the next election (AFAIK) in this country is May 12 in West Virginia (or so someone told me). After that there are elections in Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Oregon and maybe even other states on TUESDAY, May 19. Also May 26 in Texas.
Also June 2 in California (top-two primary; includes governor, U.S. House, and more), Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota.
Early voting in these and other elections may have already begun. Check with your local election offices for verification.
Pro-tip that is apparently necessary for republicans…If you look at your watch and see that it is a TUESDAY, ask yourself…”Do I need to vote today? If not, what upcoming TUESDAY will I need to vote, who are the candidates, and what are the issues?” Hope this helps!
I’m surprised you didn’t link to the 70s film with Joan Collins. That feat of cinema.
[ Continues bombarding ants with atomic radiation. ]
[ Smoke, shouting. ]
[ Gigantic Joan Collins emerges ]
Meh. And heh. I’m an originalist…mostly. Originally…I read the story before seeing the movie. While the movie did come out shortly before I read it or maybe shortly after, I had to wait until it showed up on TV…or maybe some youth group summer film thing…I forget…to see it. I do remember it being one of the very first movies that I saw that involved a subject matter that I was interested in yet thinking…damn, I should like this but it kinda sucks. I do blame Joan Collins. Never could take her seriously.
I always liked Phase IV better; at least, it’s much, much weirder.
I’m Canadian. Two flights a day from Montreal to Varadero.
The Cuba tourists see is like a Disney World attraction – except not, because Disney World attraction are at least believable. Tourist Cuba only works if you consciously decide not to notice how thin the veneer is.
On my last trip, we wandered off of the main drag in Varadero to see the neighbourhoods. It only takes half a block before the facade crumbles and you see Actual Cuba – dirty, decaying, and cripplingly poor. We stopped next to a school (high school, I think) which was surrounded by a six foot wall covered with revolutionary “graffiti”, including a poetic paean to Che Guevara. While taking photos of same a soldier in full uniform toting an AK-74 strolled around the corner, then strode up to us and in no uncertain terms told us to go back to the main street.
Canadian tourists are advised to bring toiletries, feminine hygiene products, and children’s toys to leave as tips for the resort maids. Because they’re searched on the way out of the resort and having any foreign currency (including CUCs) on them will get them arrested.
My travel companion stopped into a dive shop to book a dive and ran into a former dive master and got to chatting, leaving me in the taxi for 45 minutes. Two military police pulled up behind the cab and grilled the driver for ten minutes, during which he was sweating bullets. I found out later they were ensuring he wasn’t running up the meter on me, or otherwise trying to take advantage – for which he would have been arrested.
Cuba takes its tourism very seriously, because it’s the only thing propping up the regime. Every resident knows that if they don’t smile for the tourists, they’ll be replaced with someone who will.
“We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” — Zohran Mamdani
Getting serious about pronouns?
Because it’s been a while since anybody has expressed disdain for the French.
The truth is out there.
…Maybe this will be of some help, David.
“Changing consumer habits” stole my car.
Approval required.
The not-quite-as-obese woman fluttering around enabling her is her mother.
There are entire martial arts based around ‘gardening tools’ as weapons. Just sayin’
An acquaintance of mine adamantly insists that sai and jitte can be sharpened for fighting use, and that his karate instructor showed them how to use sharpened sai against an opponent.
I want to ask him if his sensei has a kata for vibranium shields and uru-metal hammers, too.
Ex-con on the time someone made the hair stand up on the back of his neck.
One for your art category! https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/may/08/swimming-urine-venice-biennale-review
Repent!
From which,
Ah, a gathering of lefties.
A fair assessment of an underwhelming holy book.
The big hands aren’t helping his optics.