Friday Ephemera

Competitive hair freezing is a thing now, apparently. // Fun with uranium and a cloud chamber. // Tiny floating worlds. // If the Star Trek films were devoid of people. // Oh nO, a game of deduction. // Ultra-tiny sculptures are measured in microns. // An ambitious weekend smoking project. // At last, your very own life-size Hulkbuster. // Lovely mould. // A ball of eyes. // Urban tree housing. // The Revox man. (h/t, Coudal) // Why rats don’t vomit. // Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise, redone. // Age of Ultron, redubbed. // An electronic nose. // Acid. // And finally, curse those evil corporations. What have they ever done for us? 

Comments

[JL]

The Acid House generator is amazing. Simply press a few buttons and you can create something just as crap as was popular in the late 1980s.

Guess you need the drugs as well.

[Hal]

Lovely mould

Depending on which mould.

Urban tree housing.

Oh, that looks fun.

[svh]

Age of Ultron, redubbed.

All Marvel trailers should be done like that.

[Ben David]

thanks a lot for Ohn0 - addictive!

[dw]

Age of Ultron, redubbed.

This is why I come here first thing on Friday. "Whooosh!"

[David]

Simply press a few buttons and you can create something just as crap as was popular in the late 1980s.

Can’t type. Too busy jacking my body. Jack-jacking my body.

Whooosh.

My inner 8-year-old is very excited.

[Tim Newman]

Ha! Play that game with the circles for 20 mins and then switch the window to something else: everything seems unnaturally square!

[Tim Newman]

Tiny floating worlds.

Nice. I have a passing interest in model railways, and in reading the various online communities associated with this hobby I found an awful lot of it is dedicated to creating buildings and landscapes as accurately as possible, with the actual rails and trains sometimes being an afterthought. Some of the effort and dedication that goes into recreating scenes is incredible, and is sheer artistry. Have a look at this, for example, and tell me you're not impressed.

[David]

Have a look at this, for example,

Blimey. There’s something not dissimilar with fish tanks. Organising the environment is half the fun.

[Ted S., Catskill Mtns., NY, USA]

Brides throwing cats

[David]

Brides throwing cats

I see we’re getting the hang of Fridays, then.

[dicentra]

Regarding the Samsung ad, here's Anthony Watt's account of getting his hearing back. The Anthony Watts who is at the forefront of AGW skepticism.

Some of the activists in the deaf community are batspittle cray-cray, but some got there honestly: the social isolation of deafness is genuinely painful. Sometimes you can explain bad behavior by looking for the underlying pain.

The rest of the time it's sociopathy and narcissism, lest you think I'm going soft.

I love those forest aquariums. I want to do the opposite: set up little tableaux in my garden to look like fish tanks, with bitty fishes swimming round. Most garden ornaments are unbearably tacky, and nobody thinks to make FISH.

Fish in air is not my idea: I got it from one of my favorite illustrators, James Christensen, who frequently features air-fish, e.g., Resistance Training, The Fish Walker, and Conversation around a Fish.

[David]

the social isolation of deafness is genuinely painful

A point made rather well by Samsung, I think. Among some, the fashionable view is to regard such adverts, and presumably the service they’re advertising, as manipulative, a fig leaf for wickedness or whatever. “They’re just trying to make you like the brand and buy their phones, washing machines, etc.” But it’s a service some will presumably find very useful and it reminds those of us with functional hearing of something that’s easy to forget. Go Samsung, I say.

lest you think I’m going soft.

She’s gushing. Fetch towels. There’s sentiment everywhere.

[Theophrastus]

For me, the eyes have it. And I've hit the tip jar - for the asthmatic kitten, of course.

[David]

A sainthood for that man.

[Ten]

God Particle, not.

When the Large Hadron Collider switched on, lots of theorists predicted it would find other phenomena besides a new particle, the Higgs Boson. Instead it found the Higgs and basically nothing else. “I was at CERN at the time,” Turok said. “Experimentalists were very happy. Theorists were very sad, and they still are. If you ask most theorists working on particle physics, they’re in a state of confusion.”

[Hal]

. . . set up little tableaux in my garden to look like fish tanks, with bitty fishes swimming round.

Hmmm? In your garden?!?!?!!!

I thought he got banned from here, whatever for would you want 'im in your garden?!?!!

[Hal]

God Particle, not.

I've been rather fond of Peter Carrol's proposal for some time now . . .

It's detailed, but does appear to be more detailed then complicated.

[Ten]

I've been rather fond of Peter Carrol's proposal for some time now...

From the linked article:

...singularities do not exist.

The Universe does not expand.

Dark matter does not exist.

Inflation did not occur.

All of which are consistent with an emerging new cosmology that confounds the standard model's relativistic fantasy, to the consternation of the ESA and NASA, whose press releases post-Rosetta have taken on an air of official bewilderment at the same time as they scramble to own a new vernacular already 40 years in the making elsewhere.

Who knew institutionalism was such an equal opportunity employer?

It appears we're on the cusp of a flat earth moment. Quite exciting, and thanks for the link.

[dicentra]

I thought he got banned from here, whatever for would you want 'im in your garden?!?!!

In my garden, I decide who lives and who dies and who has to occupy the hottest spot in the garden all summer and who sits near the kitty poo.

[Ted S., Catskill Mtns., NY, USA]

Who has abortions?

The answer may surprise you:

Who has abortions? For most of human history, the answer was obvious: women have abortions. Girls have abortions. Not any more. People have abortions. Patients have abortions. Men have abortions. “We must acknowledge and come to terms with the implicit cissexism in assuming that only women have abortions,” wrote feminist activist Lauren Rankin in July 2013 in truthout.com. She went on to criticize as exclusionary slogans like “the War on Women” and “Stand with Texas Women.”

[David]

“We must acknowledge and come to terms with the implicit cissexism in assuming that only women have abortions,” wrote feminist activist Lauren Rankin

We’ve been down that road before. Some of the comments in that thread are interesting.

[mojo]

Have a look at this, for example,

They were loading a dinosaur onto a boat in one of those. Triceratops, I think.

[Tim Newman]

Yes, it's a dinosaur. In what must be the ultimate in geeks' geekiness, railway modellers often put little jokes into the scenery, some of which has become "famous" in railway modeling circles. One mentioned in this piece is a hotel saying "Livestock Welcome" above it. Even if you don't like the jokes, you can't help but marvel at the skill that goes into the recreating the environment.

[Tim Newman]

Oh, and it's from these articles we learn that Rod Stewart is a huge railway modeller, who allegedly has built one of the finest in the world. He is notoriously private about what he's actually built, but regularly gets invited to the various conventions which he says means more to him than his rock stardom!

[Tim Newman]

Sniff. One of my comments has been blocked, possibly due to the link containing railway modeling porn.

[David]

The spam filter has ambitions above its station. Fixed.

[David]

the social isolation of deafness is genuinely painful

Also, this.

[Dom]

I can't stop playing oh no. Help!

[ac1]

https://vimeo.com/122368314