Pink-eyed fascination. (h/t, Mick Hartley.) // Earthquake van. // Christvertising. Do you have the best brand-prayer alignment? (h/t, Chastity Darling.) // The electromagnetic spectrum. (h/t, Infosthetics.) // BSG teaser. // “I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Dangerous computers. // On HAL’s programming conflict. A detailed breakdown. // The Dawn of Man and Discovery, rendered in Lego. Yes, the pod bay doors do open. // Things turn ugly between HAL and Dave. (h/t, Ace.) // The BigDog robot. Sounds like a fly, walks like a horse. // Dog and machine in perfect harmony. // Wooden elephants. // Wooden horses. // Knit your own squid. // Stefan Kanfer on misplaced pacifism. // Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism podcast. // Madsen Pirie on poverty. // Mary Jackson on a failed accountant’s jihad. // Iranian schoolbooks. Shaping young minds. // Remarkable crushing machines. // Luminescent gravel. // The luminescent pillow. (h/t, Ace.) // Prequels are evil. // Alarming intersections. // And, via The Thin Man, Janis would like some wheels.

The readiness of many Guardian commentators to assume that the views of their own modest readership reflect those of the country as a whole, and perhaps all enlightened beings, has previously been noted. Some project their personal dramas onto crushing social forces like Heat magazine, and Madeleine Bunting rarely misses an opportunity to tell us how we feel about things she doesn’t like. Yesterday’s Guardian leader, titled Fear and Flying, provides another example of this phenomenon while denouncing the use of aircraft as a means of covering large distances. Flying is, apparently, an “addiction” – one which must be curbed for the sake of Mother Earth. The piece states, a tad presumptuously, 

It is easy to preach about the need to restrict air travel…

Actually, I find it quite difficult to preach about the need to restrict air travel, but clearly that’s a sign of my moral inadequacy. More upstanding, and less inhibited, Guardian readers voiced their own ecstasy of indignation:

Air travel is disgusting both in the air and on the ground.

NOBODY who flies casually can call themselves ethical. 

Of note, however, is the article’s opening claim that,

Flying has become a modern middle-class hypocrisy, a source of guilt and pleasure all at the same time.

This belief that the rest of us must, simply must, share in some kind of titillating remorse caught the eye of Mr Euginedes: 

Now, I’m willing to accept that I may not have a finger on the pulse of the nation, but are people really “guilty” about flying? Are there actually people outside the Guardian / Independent Axis of Hand-Wringing who hesitate at the “checkout” screen at Expedia, their pointers hovering, shaky with guilt, over the “Buy” icon, before going back and booking trains to Cornwall instead? And if so, who are they?

It would, I feel, be of tremendous public benefit to repeat the phrase “Axis of Hand-Wringing” at regular intervals in the hope that it will be imprinted on the popular consciousness. Then, given time and sufficient repetition, everyone will come to feel exactly as I do.

Update:

Visitors via Tim Blair may also be interested in a condition that afflicts quite a few Guardian regulars, Phantom Guilt Syndrome.

In light of recent rumblings on bias in academia, Fabian Tassano has some not unrelated thoughts.

Imagine the following scenario. A bunch of intelligent people get together and create — using funding that is more or less unconditional — a system for generating intellectual output. However, this output does not have to pass any particular test except whether a majority of system insiders agree it is worthy. So the members of the system are entirely insulated from assessment other than their own. Like any social group, they create a hierarchy of rank, in which some are allowed to progress to the top of the ladder depending on criteria which the group as a whole decides on. What is the likely outcome? And what happens if there also starts to be an ideology which places pressure on them to produce results which fit with, rather than go against, that ideology?

From the diary of Arthur C Clarke, on the writing of 2001:A Space Odyssey.

August 1, 1964.

Ranger VII impacts on Moon. Stay up late to watch the first TV close-ups. Stanley [Kubrick] starts to worry about the forthcoming Mars probes. Suppose they show something that shoots down our story line? [Later he approached Lloyd’s of London to see if he could insure himself against this eventuality].

As some of you seemed to like the bubblegum drum machine, mentioned here, this may also be of interest. The Drum Buddy™ is a “4 oscillator, light activated, mechanically rotating drum machine.” It has a robust wooden cabinet and a state-of-the-art control system.    

It is, I think we can agree, a formidable instrument. Though I may wait for a version powered entirely by steam.