Friday Ephemera

These followed by this. // A chorus of keys. // Cat-ear headphones. They glow, obviously. // Rubber stress mushrooms. You tug them for relief. // Blowing Billie Jean. (h/t, EBD) // Tiny brontosauruses. // It’s basic science, people. // Make your own music video with SeeHearParty. // 3D-printed car. // Scorpion chair. // The chemistry of pizza. // Spacecraft selfie of note. // The world’s roundest object. // The world of Ronco. // Chocolate skulls gone nuts. // Owl massage. // Lego Galactus is so adorable. // Hallowe’en masks of yore. // This woman is a psychic. // A map of Autumn foliage. // Teamwork. // Burning wood. // Testing 5G. // Star Trek fact check, for hardcore enthusiasts. // The first spacewalk. // And finally, this is my belly, here. I’ll tell you when to stop. 

Comments

[Account Deleted]

Hey, guys! More racial fretting, pretension, condescension, baiting on the behalf of the Graun.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/16/west-ebola-response-black-patient

It deals with Ebola virus, this time.

[Richard Powell]

Gosh is it Friday already? Will it be one of those rare days when the Graun does not publish an article which is beyond parody? The article by Hannah Giorgis represents a new low - but then the Graun seems to be approaching rock bottom asymptotically, so it will almost certainly go bust before it gets there.

[Account Deleted]

Apparently this woman was said be to throwing "truth bombs" from her cohorts on her twatter feed. It gives you a good idea that these cretins really believe their hype and self importance but than what is Twatter than one big echo chamber?

[JL]

That CIF article is quite deranged, even by the standards of the Graun. How would Hannah manage it without the anonymising "we"?

"[I] will try to hide [my] fear behind jokes with dying black bodies as their punchlines." NO

"[You] will try to hide [your] fear behind jokes with dying black bodies as their punchlines. UM, MAYBE NOT

So who are you taking about, Hannah? As always, "we" means "other wicked people, not me or the reader".

[Jimmy]

Somehow disappointed that scorpion chair isn't a little chair for scorpions.

[Pete of Perth]

Need a consultant not afraid to tell it as it is? Try a$$holeconsulting.com

[JL]

The spacewalk link is interesting. The first US spacewalk, by Ed White, appeared so effortless that NASA concluded that it was pretty easy (Ed was having such a great time that Capcom had to order him back into the capsule). Subsequent missions demonstrated that space-walking was much more difficult than they thought.

[Sam]

Samsung's… been able to crank its 5G network download speeds to 940MB while stationary, which is bananas.

I want it now.

[David]

One for Dr Westerhaus:

“Tuning ‘77” [is] a seamless audio supercut of an entire year of the Grateful Dead tuning their instruments, live on stage. Chronologically sequenced, this remix incorporates every publicly available recording from 1977, examining the divide between audience expectation and performance anxiety.”

And if that’s not a good time waiting to be had, I don’t know what is.

[David]

I want it now.

It is rather brisk.

[David]

More racial fretting, pretension, condescension, baiting on the behalf of the Graun.

Re Ms Giorgis and her bizarre column, it’s worth noting that this “feminist and organiser” has most likely been taught to think in the way she does. Which is to say, to make lurid and sweeping assertions with no regard for evidence or internal consistency. It’s also worth noting that, as yet and despite well over a thousand replies, she’s chosen not to engage with any of her critics.

[Connor]

Rubber stress mushrooms.

I'm a bit put off by the fact they're so phallic and the instructions say 'Stretch them, twist them, smash them on the desk'.

[svh]

Lego Galactus is so adorable.

I can't believe I watched it all to see how it ended.

[David]

I can’t believe I watched it all to see how it ended.

I’m almost tempted to buy the game.

< spoiler >The mighty Galactus, devourer of worlds, is foiled by a wormhole and a giant Lego cake.< /spoiler >

[Hal]

Up to date art criticism.

[Theophrastus]

Have you ever considered doing a 'greatest hits' of your animal behaviour clips, David? Many are fascinating.

[David]

Theophrastus,

It’s a thought, but I try to use cute in small doses.

[Tim Newman]

How a square baler ties its knots, courtesy of New Holland. Fantastic mechanical engineering.

[Hal]

How a square baler ties its knots, . . .

A while back a friend commented online that if just one more of her co-workers walked over to her desk to yet again ask the same totally and surreally stupid question---whatever the question was---she was going to go rampaging through the hallways with a farm implement.

Always happy to be helpful, I sent her a link.

After a bit she replied that she wasn't certain it would quite fit through the apparently limited spaces . . .

[dicentra]

The Billie Jean on bottles is better than the original.

[dicentra]

Now it can be shown: Deleted scene from the Tennant era of Doctor Who.

[Theophrastus]

David - Point taken about cuteness, but many of your animal video links are astonishing rather than cute.

[David]

but many of your animal video links are astonishing rather than cute.

I think so too. Of course then there’s the question of finding the bloody things. By my reckoning I’ve posted close to 8,000 ephemera items over the years. Which of us volunteers to sift through them all?

[Agha_Memnun]

David,

I'm certain that you will find this most...well, um, edifying. Or dismaying. Take your pick.

http://www.blackgirldangerous.org/2014/09/reclaiming-sacred-black-indigenous-qtpoc-science-sustainable-living-survivor-ship-magic/

[Account Deleted]

Wow, that person sounds like a bigger cretin than the aforementioned cretin mentioned in the Ebola article above. First of, do these people live in the real world? Secondly, are they trying to recreate reality? More importantly, ethnocentrism from POC is every bit as disgusting, ugly and creepy as if it where coming from the hateful, micro-aggressing, privileged, patriarchal, heteronormative, cis, white males (see what I did there). Also, let me say these twats really are beyond parody.

I say this as a gay US Latino/Hispanic of Puerto Rican descent, but surely my fair skin for some Social Jusice/race warriors would involve me having to spank my own ass and apologize for my very own existence and "privilege", even if I'm just as much as descendant of Blacks/slaves and Amerindians, those nose peoples, as the rest of them non-White folk. And for writing this, I'd probably considered a reactionary, a right wringer, and even a Tio Thomas (Uncle Tom).

It's all very exhausting.

[jimmy]

Mercy Medusa Mahogany Immanuel Thokozane Minah is a genderqueer survivor chronically ill writer, artist and revolutionary who writes themselves into a magical existence everyday of their life.

I think maybe she needs some professional help.

Is she living multiple lives through her writing while stuck in bed (due to her chronic illness) ?

[dicentra]

Ebola is now a stand-in for any combination of ‘African-ness’, ‘blackness’, ‘foreign-ness’ and ‘infestation’ – poised to ruin the perceived purity of western borders and bodies

These incantations have become every bit as tedious, canned, and irrelevant as the preachers who declare everything to be Judgment from God because Gays.

If everything is Judgment/Racism, then nothing is.

[ac1]

I like this one best.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/lightbox/nikon-small-world-2014-unranked-entries-1413410871-slideshow/nikon-small-world-2014-unranked-entries-photo-1413470221889.html
I'd title it "A bug planet!".