Friday Ephemera

The cat in a shark costume riding a vacuum cleaner returns. In night vision mode. // Pond water inhabitants. // Your very own drinking horn. // Nazis on the Moon? // Quote of note. Explained in detail here. // Stool of note. // Sweets sorted by colour. // Streetmix. // One day all actors will have compressed faces. // Forests from above. // First issues of famous magazines. // Fight like Shatner. I dare you. // Ocean floor cams. // For Julia, the evolution of Wolverine’s wardrobe. // Avengers sex toys. // Europe’s architecture by night. (h/t, Tim) // Architecture and abseiling. (h/t, Dr Westerhaus) // Minding the gap in Singapore. // Layering paper. 

Comments

[Tim Newman]

On the abseiling and architecture collection. I quite often have to visit the huge satanic-looking black building in No. 12 (hint: I am allowed to walk around it unaccompanied), and once I visited the toilets on the 40th floor. A better view of Paris I've yet to see. It's a nice area, La Defense. A good example of what a business district should be like.

[Col. Milquetoast]

Avengers sex toys

Is this why Antman wasn't included in the movie's lineup?

[Col. Milquetoast]

Your very own drinking horn.

Personally, I've always felt that with today's technology the big end of the horn should be sealed and you should drink from the little end. I also think it should be pressurized so that if someone wants a sip you can spray them from across the table or across the room.

I think this is apropos, a shoe in the shape of a whale(?) which is really a bottle (c. 1675-c. 1700)
https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/BK-KOG-1382

[JuliaM]

"...the evolution of Wolverine’s wardrobe..."

Or 'For god's sake, someone take their yellow ink away from them!'... ;)

[David]

Or ‘For god’s sake, someone take their yellow ink away from them!’

21 attempts and not a winner among them. But at least they ditched the whiskers.

[witwoud]

After certain recent posts I'm a bit nervous about clicking on 'Stool of note.'

[sk60]

Len Headey's massive chin. That is all.

[rjmadden]

Sunny Hundal says the Guardian isn't leftwing.

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2013/08/16/the-centre-for-policy-studies-and-their-bizarre-report-on-bbc-bias/

[Rafi]

Sunny Hundal says the Guardian isn't leftwing.

Real lefties demand purity of essence!

[David]

Sunny Hundal says the Guardian isn’t leftwing.

The key words being “Sunny Hundal says.”

[Andrew Zalotocky]

I definitely agree with the Thomas Sowell quote. It's one of those Gods of the Copybook Headings ideas in that it's an utterly, blatantly obvious truth that is still widely ignored. I suggested something similar, but less pithy, here.

[Andrew Zalotocky]

In a William Shatner dojo your progress would not be measured by the colour of your belt but by how easily your shirt ripped in combat. The tenth dan masters would have shirts that fell apart the moment anybody looked at them. Then you'd be in trouble. Unless/especially you were an attractive female, depending on how you look at it.

[David]

it’s an utterly, blatantly obvious truth that is still widely ignored.

Sowell is very good on this; it’s a recurring theme in his writing. And it very much relates to his observation that, “The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.”

He’s also quite good on the asymmetries of left and non-left thinking, particularly the tendency to self-flatter.

[David]

In a William Shatner dojo…

Regarding poorly-made shirts, I was recently obliged to watch G.I. Joe: Retaliation, a film I can’t honestly recommend. It does, though, have a memorable scene in which Lee Byung Hun is wearing what must be the world’s flimsiest combat suit, which promptly disintegrates whenever a bad guy clears his throat, thus revealing Mr Hun’s sculpted torso – and his apparent ability to exude baby oil. It out-Shatners Shatner by quite some margin.

[Ray]

I brought that GI Joe DVD thinking Stephen Sommers directed it. Hoo boy, that'll learn me.

[AC1]

This hopefully is of interest.

https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1544

watch the youtube vids. When he "flies" over the rings of Saturn it looks rather awesome.