Best not to look down just yet. || Big trees. || Just breathe. || Coffee substitute. || Thirst quenched. || Selling lemonade. || It’s a thing, apparently. || I’ll just leave this here. || Legally haunted. || At last, a practical application for fluid dynamics. || The pretending can get competitive. || How to land a plane, a big one. || Go on, tickle his belly. || It’s noisy, but the view’s not bad. || “Observing whiteness.” It’s intersectional science, baby. || A day at the beach, 1928. || The thrill of Green Shield Stamps and “instant mashed potato,” 1977. || Incoming. || Outgoing. || It wasn’t me. || Attention, Seattle taxpayers. || Toy ads of yesteryear. || An uncanny transformation. || And finally, for the love of God, don’t tell your mother.

Lifted from the comments, where much of the fun happens:

Says Min,

Well, we live in unhinging times, so it can be hard to tell. It did occur to me that maybe the parent, the one seeking pre-approval for adjectives, could have been indulging in some elaborate wind-up, one that passed undetected by its target. Or maybe the anecdote is a fiction, a self-flattering fantasy. Again, it’s hard to be sure. As the archives here illustrate, a thing being farcical doesn’t mean it can’t happen.

But either way, it must be quite strange to go through every day with your own “identity” foregrounded, forever in mind and endlessly referred to, and always craving an affirmation that is at best a polite lie. And with unending deference and flattery as an aspiration, an ideal, an ‘A-plus.’

And oh yes, the adjectives expected.

Theodore Dalrymple finds himself denounced:

Dalrymple again, on habitual crime and perverse leniency:

Lifted from the comments, a thrilling development:

Because “gender fluid” and “bigender” employees should have “multiple pass-cards with different forms of gender expression or linked email accounts / intranet accounts with different names and photos.” You see, “workplace equality” will apparently be enhanced by enabling “non-binary employees to have their identities recognised on all employee-facing workplace systems.” And by introducing confusion and farce into the workplace, along with security complications and a kind of obligatory collective pretension. Such that employees may be unsure of which make-believe “identity” a colleague is inhabiting on any given day and, consequently, which email address to use in order to avoid complaints or claims of being oppressed.

Pulse of note. || Interspecies duet. || The Commodordion, an 8-bit accordion. || How to climb a tree. || Are you “living your best life” thanks to your smart ring? || The thrill of mechanical watches. || When A.I. generates an episode of Top Gear. || When you want it both ways. || Bubble simulator. || Hers is bigger than yours. || Because it can be done, apparently. || Today’s word is boundaries. || Satire, but only just. || She hopes this clears things up. || The ghost village of Craco. (h/t, Things) || Slow Roads, a driving game. || On the properties of hair. || A project for the weekend (h/t, Elephants Gerald). || The Volkswagen office chair. || The Sunday Format. || For when you need instant fabulousness. || The future is now. || And finally, we’ve been having one or two issues with the chocolate fountain.

Yes, 654. Or around 13,000 links. Since you ask.