Simpler times. // Less so. // “Mysterious stains everywhere” and other low-rent hotel horrors. // How sperm whales sleep. // At last, snortable chocolate. // His grip is better than yours. // Battery University. (h/t, Dr W) // Uncombable hair syndrome. // Almost Eighties. // Cocktails 101. Yes, there will be a test later. // Japanese playgrounds. // This just in. // This is one of these. // $15. // Photographing the Moon with a Game Boy camera. // The hazards of golf. // A vet’s life. (h/t, Damian) // Bit chilly out. // Your one-stop shop for Chicago murder stats. // Chinese rap is a thing that exists. (h/t, Elephants Gerald) // And finally, futuristically, “The motors are controlled by pressure sensors in your shoes, under your toes, and communicate to the thumb via Bluetooth connection.”

Commenter John D asked if I had a list of the Android games I’ve linked to in various Friday Ephemera posts. I didn’t, but as he asked nicely, and hit the tip jar, I felt obliged to throw one together. It’s quite possible I’ve missed a few, so the following list may be expanded in the comments.  

Further to recent rumblings in the comments, here’s a Twitter drama in three four parts:

One.

Two.

Three. 

Four.

Via Ben Sixsmith. 

Kyle Smith on what happens when you question the accuracy of a race-activist theatre production: 

Steppenwolf Theatre Company charged [critic Hedy Weiss] with “deep-seated bigotry.” An actor named Bear Bellinger announced that he would not perform if Weiss showed up at a workshop production he was appearing in. An ad hoc coalition that might as well have dubbed itself the Blackball Hedy Movement (but is actually called the Chicago Theatre Accountability Coalition) launched a petition via change.org to organise the theatre world of Chicago against Weiss by denying her invitations to its plays. Several theatre organisations have publicly agreed to join the blackballing effort, and dozens have offered noncommittal statements of support. The group’s broadside against Weiss reads, “Over the last few years especially, we have joined together to make it clear that inappropriate language or behaviour does not have a place within our community, and that prejudice of any kind will not stand.”

I’ll let you find out for yourselves what was deemed to constitute “bigotry” and “inappropriate language.”

Tim Newman spots a pattern: 

I suppose Nigeria and the UK are not the only countries where the wealthy and privileged get together and pretend they’re on the side of the downtrodden masses, but I am nevertheless surprised at how universal such delusions are.

Jim Goad catalogues more examples of leftist high-mindedness: 

It happened amid an insane cultural climate where the day before James Hodgkinson’s rampage, a black male shooter in Indianapolis fired at a truck that was flying a “Make America Great Again” flag. Where on June 11, the Huffington Post ran an article that openly called for Donald Trump and “everyone assisting in his agenda” to be tried for treason and publicly executed. Where a successful TV producer can encourage Trump-haters to “pick up a goddamn brick,” and he doesn’t get fired. Where a college professor says that Republicans “should be lined up and shot,” and he doesn’t get fired, either… A climate where the left is so egregiously insane and bloodthirsty — all in the name of compassion, of course — that the incomparably wormy Jesse Benn, who has previously called for “white wounding” and for violence against Trump supporters, saw no problem with a fellow traveller “shooting a racist lawmaker in the hip” last Wednesday. It’s a climate where, after the shooting, an obese New Jersey Democrat openly calls for the murder of Republicans with the hashtags #HuntRepublicans and #HuntRepublicanCongressmen.

Oh, and trans activist and self-declared “insatiable researcher” Zinnia Jones struggles to apprehend certain aspects of reality: 

Pretty sure they were trying to keep them from jumping.

As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.

When your meticulously planned attempt at bank robbery is cut short. // Close enough. // Under London. // When men lactate. // LSD ‘microdosing’ is apparently a thing now. // Planet X is cloaked. // Plus one. // Pedal cars of yore. // Showbiz. // Hombre. // Birth of the camera phone. // Feel my babies. // Place your bets. // On Britain’s collective tea-making menace. // Animated bodies. // Paper puppets. // 1970s Spider-Man. // Cityscapes of note. // Tornado. // Storm. // Squirrel combing. // “A flight in China was delayed for five hours after an elderly passenger threw coins into the aircraft’s engine for good luck.” // And finally, rather pleasingly, “When a security developer was contacted by an IRS phone scammer, he decided to do more than simply ignore their call.”