Friday Ephemera

Attention, citizens. Rotary dials are coming. (1936) // Duet is a maddening game. // A small miscalculation, an atomic explosion, and a rapidly moving manhole cover. // Home-made smart mirror. // Home cinema on a budget. // Alaskan blue. // PlantBlock. // Baby swordfish. // On Kubrick’s beginnings. // Because she could. (h/t, Franklin) // A brief history of spite houses and passive-aggressive architecture. // The London that never was. // Wearable chair for the upright citizen. // Yiwu Commodity City, Zhejiang, China, is a really bad place to get a migraine. (h/t, Coudal) // People holding posters, a Tumblr. // Lover’s eye and other horrors. (h/t, Things) // A brief history of Japan. Some liberties taken. // And finally, athletically, Jurassic Parkour II: The Revengening.

Comments

[Spiny Norman]

The shaft had, in effect, become a enormous 500-foot long, four-foot wide gun barrel with the energy of billions of pounds of TNT released at one end and, at the other end, the now insignificantly small metal cap, about the equivalent of a bottle cap on the end of a naval gun.

Messrs Hynemann and Savage are looking sideways at each other, smirking, and chuckling slightly sinister laughs.

[dicentra]

Via AoSHQ and Rob Long, "The 'Other Side' Is Not Dumb":

Sharing links that mock a caricature of the Other Side isn’t signaling that we’re somehow more informed. It signals that we’d rather be smug assholes than consider alternative views. It signals that we’d much rather show our friends that we’re like them, than try to understand those who are not.

Oh, I MUST beg to differ, on behalf of the denizens of this blog and its host.

We mock the "caricature[s] of the Other Side" because what the hell else are we supposed to do with this dreck? Engage the perpetrators thereof, in good faith, as if that were even possible?

Furthermore, those of us who are Not Of The Left have been inundated with unquestioned left-wing messages our whole lives; it's only because we understand the other side that we have declined to join it.

Well, props to Mr. Blanda for recognizing the clubbish, self-congratulatory nature of his cohort.

Now wait until he talks to a libertarian lesbian who catches WAY more flak from the Left for being Not!Left than from the religious right for being gay.

Maybe he'll even have the good fortune to realize how well his putative enemies understand his side compared to how poorly he understands them.

Maybe he'll even be excommunicated from His Side.

One can only hope.

[Hal]

Home cinema on a budget.

Oh, piffle. If you're going to do a private theatre arrangement, Then Do One.

[Hal]

. . . of the Other Side . . .

Um, other side? From where?

. . . a libertarian lesbian who catches WAY more flak from the Left for being Not!Left than from the religious right for being gay.

Uh, huh.

See also the Pink Pistols . . .

Yes, there are the right wing extremists and the their mirrored left wing extremist opposites, and all such will still be bookending the rest of us holding the middle

Also see also;

Here's the thing: we now live in a three-part society.

One aspect is Capitalist: people with money making investments in companies that produce consumer goods and services. (Michael says this while checking out the new Huffington Post app on his for-profit produced iPod Touch!)

One aspect is Socialist: Commonly owned resources -- parks, schools, libraries, clean air, clean water, etc., and commonly provided services -- education, law enforcement, etc., which we collectively pay for and provide for ourselves. (Michael takes a deep breath of federally regulated, cleaner-then-it-would-be-if-left-up-to-Wall-Street air.)

One aspect Communist: Self/Worker owned businesses. (Remember -- all that Stalinist shit wasn't communism. That was Totalitarianism, mixed with "For the People" slogans. Communism simply means the workers own the means of production, and Marx said the Communism without Democracy was unthinkable. Michael thinks Stalin was a punk who gave every worker-owned barbershop or art collective a bad name.)

The big problem of modern societies has been the battle between each of these important aspects for primacy. It's like the movie "Highlander," and the life and death struggle between immortals because "There can be only one!" The battle between Unregulated Capitalism vs. State Socialism vs. the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Some countries have worked towards a balance, but in the United States Capitalists have fought long and hard against common ownership of anything (except their debts), and in the 1980s the Free Market Zealots started going freaky maniacal against anything that did not turn a profit.

The fact is we all slide fairly effortlessly between each of these seemingly incompatible economic systems each day. We check our Capitalist 401(k)s while driving down publicly financed streets to get our kids to our essentially Socialist schools before we go to the Communist owner-operated/worker owned coffee shop on our way to a corporate cubicle. Even the biggest Capitalists in the country, who blast Federal spending on services, rely on the Socialist network of roads, schools, environmental protections to keep their workers or consumers from rising up in rebellion. What we need, and the only salvation for our society, economy, and our children's future is to stop the battle, and create a new system in which each of these philosophies is responsible for its aspect: A well-regulated market to generate investment in innovation, a government big enough to provide all the services (and that includes Health Care, Transportation, Energy, and Basic Nutrition) a modern society needs for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and an intercommunal spirit of worker-ownership and responsibility.

Sooo much rather easier to stick to the administrative basics, ie, does something work, or does something not work?

One particular analogy does come to mind for the right and left wing liberals, and the guidance and leadership of both that is provided to both by the conservative.

The left wing liberal fantasy is that all individuals are individual and independent vines, each vine just like every other vine, and there is nothing but vines, everywhere . . . and all these vines thus wind up stuck on the ground, with everyone in everyone else's way, with all being trapped in a quite flat and limited sprawl, no room for growth, no place to go. Everyone thus achieves very little, if anything at all, ultimately finding blatant failure.

In turn, the right wing liberal fantasy is of all together forming the totally massive, monolithic and uniform structure that encompasses and consists of everything . . . and there is no space, no flexibility, total rigidity, no room for growth, no place to go. Everyone thus achieves very little, if anything at all, ultimately finding blatant failure.

Contrasting with the left and right wing liberal extremes, the conservative sees and seeks out an ever rising and always open lattice, rock solid, ever extending, providing the support for all the vines to rise up in whatever ways and means that all and every vine can thus reach, with the lattice being totally rigid and totally open, so that all will achieve anything and everything, ultimately finding total success in all areas of absolute growth.

[David]

Messrs Hynemann and Savage are looking sideways at each other, smirking, and chuckling slightly sinister laughs.

It’s a strangely pleasing tale, despite the rather alarming miscalculation of yield, out by five orders of magnitude. The comments over there are now rumbling about whether the atomically accelerated manhole cover’s speed record has been beaten by NASA probes that were accelerated by the gravity of the Sun, and by particle accelerators on Earth. Does an accelerated electron count as man-made?

[Quint&Jessel, Sea of Azof, Bly, UK]

Welp, I gave that History of Japan thing 3 inaccuracies until I bailed. Mutter mutter why can't people read history mutter snarl.

[svh]

A small miscalculation, an atomic explosion, and a rapidly moving manhole cover

Er, what happened to the manhole cover?

[David]

Er, what happened to the manhole cover?

Apparently, it was never found. I’d imagine it may have been melted and vaporised, at least in part, given the blast and its somewhat brisk journey through the atmosphere. Whatever was left of it is presumably buried, or strewn, somewhere in the New Mexico desert.

[dw]

Yiwu Commodity City, Zhejiang, China, is a really bad place to get a migraine.

Felt stressed just looking.

Duet is a maddening game.

Thanks for making my commute even more frustrating.

[David]

Felt stressed just looking.

Eight hours at a time, it would be a bit… much.

[David]

Modernity.

[TomJ]

The thing about this blog is it doesn't laugh at caricatures of the other side, it laughs at examples of the other side. Possibly because the only other reaction to the examples is to weep. How else could you deal with this:

But isn’t our only hope the removal of excessive male humans from the continents? If women don’t take the reins of this doomed planet and get cracking on resolving those few items listed above, we don’t stand a chance.

Lori Day is an educational psychologist, consultant and parenting coach.

[Spiny Norman]

Lori Day is an educational psychologist, consultant and parenting coach.

Ohdeargawd. I have little doubt she's turned more than a few happy, playful young boys into life-long misogynists.

...and surely blamed the boys' "maleness" for any unpleasant results.

[David]

Lori Day is an educational psychologist, consultant and parenting coach.

But remember, we must never associate feminism with misandry, dogmatism or the phrase “bitches be crazy.”

[David]

Toddler with GoPro attached to head plays hide and seek.

[Quint&Jessel, Sea of Azof, Bly, UK]

Lori Day and spiritwind, two more Underpants Gnome Theorists:
1. Remove most or all males from the planet.
2. ???
3. Utopia, with all the mod cons men built still in place and functioning!

[jabrwok]

Re: Lori Day.

As more and more babies are born with microcephaly, male politicians in Latin American countries are requesting that women not get pregnant for the next two years, while simultaneously denying them access to contraception and abortion.

Apparently Miss Day suffers from the delusion that celibacy and solitary vice are fatal.

Also, once the "Mandemic" thins the Oppressive Patriarchal herd, who does she imagine will be left to make abortion and contraceptive technology necessary? I sense a degree of cognitive dissonance, or just plain intellectual dishonesty.

Nothing unusual there of course.

[Darleen]

Re: Lori Day and her list of evils that only penis-people are responsible for --

"Overpopulation" -- how does a parenting coach not know about how the human reproductive system works?

"FGM" -- it ain't the penis-people performing those mutilations AND how dare she criticize the cultural practices of an oppressed minority?

"Domestic Violence" -- "Yes, officer, I stabbed my boyfriend to death, but HE MADE ME DO IT."

Oh, and her closing 'gotta break some eggs for an omelet"

Most women have some men in their lives that they dearly love. There are tons of wonderful men! So sure, it will be sad and tragic when the Mandemic rages with the fire of a thousand suns and randomly selects enough male victims to disrupt the current power structure around the world. This will be necessary to create an opening for women to become equal — maybe even dominant.

Such a sweetheart!

[W Krebs]

I’d imagine it may have been melted and vaporised, at least in part, given the blast and its somewhat brisk journey through the atmosphere. Whatever was left of it is presumably buried, or strewn, somewhere in the New Mexico desert.

I would have thought it (or its remains) would be ejected into the galaxy.

[W Krebs]

Meanwhile, on the frontiers of intersectionality, a small snag appears.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-35504185

[JuliaM]

"Er, what happened to the manhole cover?

Apparently, it was never found. I’d imagine it may have been melted and vaporised, at least in part, given the blast and its somewhat brisk journey through the atmosphere. Whatever was left of it is presumably buried, or strewn, somewhere in the New Mexico desert."

See, if they'd only thought to put it inside a fridge, it'd be ok.

[David]

See, if they’d only thought to put it inside a fridge, it’d be ok.

I’m getting you one of these for Christmas.

No, don’t thank me, the pleasure is mine.

[mike fowle]

Well, I enjoyed the history of Japan. There are no doubt inaccuracies but Japanese history was not taught at all when I was at school, and even now it is not something that is obvious in a library etc.

[JL]

One of the guys involved in the "manhole" test wrote it up as a joke. It didn't achieve escape velocity, despite the fact that an idiot in Australia made a short film suggesting it was the first man made object in space.

You only have to think about it a little bit to realise that whatever the ginormous forces behind it, it wouldn't have gone very far. And of course, it's nothing like a bullet in a gun, or even a sparkling wine cork.

[Jonathan]

Black History Month Explained (NSFW)

[David]

When you’re being all sassy and ting and your mum really blows your cool.

[Rafi]

When you’re being all sassy and ting and your mum really blows your cool.

Still laughing. :-D

[mojo]

"Er, what happened to the manhole cover?"

"six times escape velocity" = bye bye, mr. manhole cover, you sexist object.

[WTP]

and your mum really blows your cool.

Heh...hehehehehe...ok, I lie. Is there an English translation? Or I'm guessing it loses too much in the process.

[dan]

With that ball shop above you could probably make a pair of monochromatic goggles so that everything was a soothing shade of pink?