Friday Ephemera

Hubris meets nemesis. (h/t, Damian) // There’s a GoBoat with your name on it. // 12 hours of air conditioner hum. Use it wisely. // Darth by Darthwest. // Bath time. // Behold. // Do not swallow your phone. // For all your subtitled Soviet movie needs. (h/t, Tom) // “History’s most dangerous piece of intellectual malware.” // Suspiciously quiet on Mars. // Miniature nineteenth century photo studio. // Man’s besties. // The making of you. // Hardcore ivy. // Stiff breeze. // Headline of note. // Because Korean hip-hop exists. I denounce the cultural appropriation. // Corgi orgy. // And happily it’s washable. (h/t, Paul) // For the wee ones, a cuddlesome cephalopod. // Sculptural fish tanks. // And finally, thrillingly, the Great Crepitation Contest of 1946. It’s all in the knees, apparently.

Comments

[Hal]

Hubris meets nemesis

Nemesis meets hubris, at about 13:45 . . granting that yes, the rest is excellent as well . . . .

[Hal]

There’s a GoBoat with your name on it.

Reminds me of Little Nellie.

[Hal]

Darth by Darthwest. . . . . Behold.

Ooooh, those are well done . . . .

[Hal]

Miniature nineteenth century photo studio.

Probably not built with sort of a matching tool kit, but the idea is nice . . .

[Hal]

Man’s besties.

The cat's diary vs the dog's diary.

[Hal]

Stiff breeze.

Buster again.

[Hal]

Headline of note.

A few years back there was an article in the Oakland Tribune which told of a Frenchwoman who had given a talk at UC Berkeley about the importance of women going into science. As example, the article pointed out that not only was the speaker a successful scientist, but one of her parents was a Nobel Prize winner, and both of one set of grandparents were Nobel Prize winners, which tells you who Her family was . . . . The newspaper headline read something to the effect of "Curie's ancestor says women should go into science."

[Hal]

Corgi orgy.

Ehn. Still prefer the original . . . or as close as is apparently available.

[Hal]

For the wee ones, a cuddlesome cephalopod.

But of course there has always been The Old(er) One.

[Hal]

Sculptural fish tanks.

The shapes are a bit reminiscent of playing with concrete, or aluminum.

[Alan]

I'll get some mileage out of this.

(And bonus point for correct use of 'nemesis'.)

[Hal]

And finally, thrillingly, the Great Crepitation Contest of 1946.

Ehn. Probably not quite the match of the original, or so.

Of course, then there was extending from the original, or so . . . .

[David]

Hal, take a deep breath. And maybe ease back on the coffee.

[Hal]

And maybe ease back on the coffee.

Heh. Actually, reactions simply relate to the list . . . and beyond that, where is everyone?!?!

[David]

and beyond that, where is everyone?!?!

Slackers, the lot of ‘em.

[David]

And bonus point for correct use of ‘nemesis’.

I’m by no means a pedant about grammar and such, but using ‘nemesis’ to mean ‘enemy’ or ‘arch-enemy’ erodes a rather useful, even poetic, notion. Also, when people say “begs the question” when they mean “raises the question.” There’s a non-trivial distinction being lost.

[Liz]

"Government at work in one perfect photo."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-19/government-work-1-perfect-photo

Sorry I'm late. :-)

[David]

“Government at work in one perfect photo.”

Heh. It does work rather well. I think it’s the attempt at solemnity that pushes it over the edge.

[Joan]

This.

http://order-order.com/2016/05/18/hard-left-silent-over-venezuela-chaos/

[jones]

"Slackers, the lot of ‘em."

Some of us have to do productive work......

[PiperPaul]

"There’s a non-trivial distinction being lost."

Weasel-wording (like verbing nouns) is a terrible practice. Oh, the irony.

Redefining words and terms in the vernacular via pop culture reinforcement is a great tactic to keep your opposition guessing and to dilute previous, useful concepts. Look at the term, "social engineering", for example.

Was social engineering used to popularly redefine the term, "social engineering"? That'd be ironic, too.

[R. Sherman]

I denounce Hal. He has over half the comments so far, thereby depriving the rest of us of our fair share of comments.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

And happily it’s washable.

Also not new, that is just a Texas Catheter which have been used forever either for men with incontinence or in hospitals for men who require a catheter but for whom a regular catheter might be contraindicated.

I am not sure why one would want to wash the HaWee, seeing as how a Texas catheter can be had for the princely sum of 36 cents US.

[David]

I denounce Hal. He has over half the comments so far, thereby depriving the rest of us of our fair share of comments.

[ Tilts head, taps watch. ]

[BackwardsBoy]

Zephyr Window would be a great name for a band.

[mojo]

"Now, THAT'S a gun, son."

(Sic Transit Gloria Mundi, Tuesday is usually worse.)

[Rafi]

[ Tilts head, taps watch. ]

My bus was late.

'Hubris meets nemesis' now doing the rounds in the office.

[R. Sherman]

[ Tilts head, taps watch. ]

Personally, I think you should take a page from the Chavez/Maduro playbook and deploy the henchlesbians to round up the hoarders and wreckers of the comment section. That would be followed by a three hour speech against a backdrop of beige curtains during which you rail against "foreign influences" seeking to bring down your regime. The occasional Instalanches come to mind.

[WTP]

Re fields, fvcks, and related barrenness...our IM system at work (Skype) provides a space to put a quote, usually something busines-y or intellectual. Of course some people lean to the provocative and pithy which led to some murmuring in management. Consequently I changed mine from a Dilbert-y riff on management to simply "{}". When someone finally asked what that was about, I said it was the set of all the f*cks I give.

[David]

a three hour speech against a backdrop of beige curtains during which you rail against “foreign influences” seeking to bring down your regime.

Heh.

[sH2]

Graph ratings of your favorite TV shows.

http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/

[sH2]

*favourite*

[David]

Graph ratings of your favourite TV shows.

Hm. I just graphed Modern Family. The graph dips a little, around season four, but it doesn’t reflect just how steep the decline in quality has been, at least in my mind. It used to be slick, well-paced and very funny; now it’s forced, badly-paced and barely funny at all.

[Hal]

[ Tilts head, taps watch. ]

Granting, with my time zone, it was rather late on Thursday when I got home from a meeting and event, and then started reading through.

---For me, I've noticed the Friday publication time tends to be about 16:15 on Thursday, which does correlate for 00:15 in---as pretentious and silly gits around here keep fantasizing they could claim locally---The City.

[David]

Granting, with my time zone, it was rather late on Thursday

It’s like some heathen witchcraft.

[Fred the Fourth]

The cellphone in the endoscopy diagram looks like a classic Nokia, urging the question: will he get a replacement, since of course that one still works?

[Farnsworth M. Muldoon]

Somewhat OT:

There is a new title holder in Oppression Olympics, the lovely Miss Lucy Vallender, former soldier, who has sex change surgery AND converted to mohammedanism, to become the first British transgender mohammedan "woman", now married to some chap called Murad (Lucy's first, his second, as in number 2/4 allowed) whom (s)he met online - whether this makes him technically gay to add to his portfolio of oppression, as he is still XY in the chromosome department, I will leave for debate as he evidently had relations with men before the surgery.

She now wears a full veil outside her Swindon home to show the world she is married.

Stout fellow ! Or something.

Alas, all is not beer and skittles for Lucy, as (s)he "...says her local mosque has victimised her because they asked her to worship with men, not women...", but that is not all:

'The way they treated me was disgusting.

'They asked me questions about my bra cup size, asked about my Adam's apple, about my period and asked to see my birth certificate.

'They said I had to pray with the men so I left and pray at home instead.

'I hope people will change their attitudes and other people like me will realise they are free to just be themselves.'

Good luck with that last one with your fellow parishoners.

[Hal]

Re fields, fvcks, and related barrenness...

A friend of mine has spent so much time in online discussions of sorts that he has a handy stash of links and summaries to save time typing the same thing over and over.

A favorite of mine comes to mind when encountering hipsters demanding that intended incompetence, malevolence, and failure must be accepted and excused.

"I apologise."

To be fair, on rare occasions this actually does mean something -- specifically when the speaker means he understands where and why things went wrong, regrets shooting me in the foot, will do what's feasible to set things right, and can & will take effective action to prevent recurrence. This is true about one time in a hundred.

The rest of the time, it means "I regret that I got found out, and want you to overlook it as quickly as possible. I messed up because I'm inept and/or don't give a damn. If allowed, I'll do it again."

So, if you really are sorry, don't apologise: Concentrate on fixing the problem.

Probably rather popular around here would be another handy observation from that same page:

"You're not showing respect for my views!"

And your point is...?

The underlying assumption is that everyone must "respect everyone else's views". Wrong. Each featherless biped is entitled to decide that anyone else's views are without merit, and might also elect to state this position along with reasons for thinking so. Don't like it? Better luck next universe.

This isn't the same as being rude. If that's what you mean, please convince me: If any rudeness of mine seems unwarranted, I'll be grateful for the feedback, and try not to repeat the behaviour.

[R. Sherman]

@Hal

As to your second observation, the phrase "you're not listening to me" comes to mind. It really means, "you're not doing what I want." A nice little sleight of hand to avoid being seen as bossy.

[Spiny Norman]

It’s like some heathen witchcraft.

Or the Tardis*. What else do you have hidden away in your secret lair?

O_o

(*Old Timblair.net running gag.)

[WTP]

Re Hal's point about "I apologize", yes. That one grates on me as well. But one that really gets under my skin, and often comes from well meaning squishies on the right, is "it's unfortunate..", used when conscious human action was involved in the "fortune" being referenced.

[mojo]

(scribbles "henchlesbians" on to-do list)

[Hal]

the phrase "you're not listening to me" comes to mind. It really means, "you're not doing what I want."

Oh, yes, I had a particularly inept wannabe administrator try that one on me one time. I gave her the only honest reply which was available to either of us, that the story she was telling me still did not hold together, regardless of how frantically and repeatedly she waved the tattered pieces about.

[R. Sherman]

@ Hal

"Oh, I'm listening. What I'm hearing is an illogical, irrational, incoherent jumble of words."

[Hal]

"Oh, I'm listening. What I'm hearing is . . . .

. . . or what tends to be the case in my experience, I absolutely refuse to listen or acknowledge reality, therefore I'm going to claim that You are not listening.

[Hal]

Oh, dear. It's official. Venezuela is doomed.

Coca-Cola halts production in Venezuela
CBS News - ‎42 minutes ago‎

CARACAS, Venezuela - Coca-Cola is halting production in Venezuela of its namesake beverage due to a sugar shortage brought on by the country's grinding economic crisis.

[Hal]

'El Chapo' extradition to US clears another legal hurdle
CNN - ‎3 hours ago‎

. . . . I keep reading El Cheapo.

No, I don't think he'll be remembered as the sixth Marx Brother.

Myself, I am a proper Marxist. And a Lennonist, too!

[Connor]

Hm. I just graphed Modern Family. The graph dips a little, around season four, but it doesn’t reflect just how steep the decline in quality has been,

The new season is terrible. Not one laugh out loud episode.

[David]

The new season is terrible. Not one laugh out loud episode.

The last good episode I can remember was Connection Lost in season six, with everything taking place via laptop, Skype and social media. And that was the first solid episode in quite some time.

I think one of the main problems is that the kids have grown up. Hard to avoid, I know, but it’s changed many of the comedy dynamics, and mostly for the worse. The endearing Phil-Luke dad-son relationship is now practically gone and the precociousness of the smarter children has lost its charm as they’ve become older teenagers or young adults – Alex is just boring and Manny’s effete sophistication now seems forced and tiresome. Ditto Lily.

Haley’s relationship with Dylan was funny, as were Dylan’s songs, as were Claire and Phil’s concerns about him as a potential son-in-law - but he seems to have vanished and been replaced by a dull babysitter. And taking over Jay’s business has made Claire much less interesting (and much less funny) as a character. Her attempts to bring order to the family home were reliably entertaining, but without the kids as dependents and foils, and without her efforts to restrain Phil’s looser approach to parenting, there’s not much for her to work with.

[jones]

Hal,

"Oh, dear. It's official. Venezuela is doomed."

I read the article and if one were to be a sugar Nazi I'd say things must be looking up for them because the sugar-free production is unaffected.

An ill-wind and all that........

[Nikw211]

You have to hand it to these contemporary artists - every time I think they have reached the ultimate depths of meaningless narcissism, there’s always one who seems to manage to delve just that little bit deeper, go that little bit farther.

It’s not the depravity of it - that would no doubt make the artist thrilled if she thought she had shocked anyone - but the almost sublime lack of imagination that it takes to manufacture such tedious blandness that surprises.

World - meet Sophie Hewson

[David]

World - meet Sophie Hewson

Oh dear. I see that before we even get started she’s telling us, at some length, how we, the audience, are supposed to react. Apparently, we’re supposed to agree with her various conceits. Never a good sign. And I suppose there’s no point asking where the aesthetic is.

You know, the thing that makes a thing art.

[Hal]

I see that before we even get started she’s telling us, at some length, how we, the audience, are supposed to react.

Well, unless doing improv, one's fellow actors do need to have their script to follow . . . !

[R. Sherman]

World - meet Sophie Hewson

From the gallery notes:

Caught in her gaze, the viewer is not only forced to bear witness to her subjectivity, but impilicated in her desolation. (Emphasis supplied)

Really? She orchestrates and films a sex act with a stranger, defines it as "rape" and puts it to film, (now "art" instead of "shitty porn,") in order to show same to the world and, presumably, derive some monetary benefit from same. But somehow, this is our fault. And I note her conceits are basically a litany of generic feminist talking points, all of which are certainly open to debate including this from the footnotes:

Describing rape as the foundation of the patriarchy /s Susan Griffin explains “women live their lives according to a rape schedule. . .”

The fact that all of said conceits are refuted by the fact that she planned and executed the whole thing herself doesn't seem to register.

Or, consider this bit:

It’s essential to the patriarchy that rape is taboo, because demystifying the act challenges shame and erodes the fear that is needed to suppress the majority.

Well, which is then? Is rape "taboo," i.e. prohibited by custom, which is presumably a good thing or do we have a "rape culture," supported by the nefarious "Patriarchy" for its own purposes?

The sad thing is, there will be hipster dipshits who read this drivel and nod their heads, pay over perfectly good money to watch it and say things like "wow, that was really powerful, man."

God help us.

[R. Sherman]

Make that, "Which is it then?"

[Hal]

I read the article and if one were to be a sugar Nazi I'd say things must be looking up for them because the sugar-free production is unaffected.

Billy Covington: What the fuck are you doing here, man? Do you believe in this war?

Gene Ryack: I used to believe in all these wars. See, I had this theory once. I believed in the politics of Saturday night.

Billy Covington: And?

Gene Ryack: I rated all governments and countries by how good or bad their Saturday nights were... and... I knew that Moscow and Peking had to be a stone drag at that time of the week. So I was flying for a cause. I was fighting to defend chicken BBQs and weinee roasts, and Ray Charles songs and drinkin' Southern Comfort till you passed out behind the bar.

Billy Covington: Politics of Saturday Night. I can relate to that theory.

Gene Ryack: Yeah, it's not bad, is it? Just not particularly true, that's all. I hear they party pretty hard in Moscow.
---Air America

One will have to be a proper and connected party member and government official to have a rum and coke when the coke has to be shipped in all the time. After all, as usual, the lesser people will just do without . . . .

[mojo]

Swiss LMG25, aka "the world's biggest Luger". With accouterments.

"Hasn't seen much use..."

[mojo]

Also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0O_VYcsIk8

[Captain Nemo]

I found this amusing:

https://twitter.com/Furmadamadam/status/730161192354877445

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Would that this be ephemeral, Black Feminist Calculus.

Neither of us was taught calculus, algebra, or any other form of math that resonated with the limits, inequalities, and imbalences that were most relevant to our survival. Black feminist calculus is based on a method for reading black feminist poetry circa 1979 developed by Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Neither of us are mathematicians...

Neither, my surprise is complete. Scroll through the rest at the link for some USDA Grade A arglebargle.

[David]

Black Feminist Calculus.

“The limits we face as black feminist time and space travellers cannot be ignored.”

[WTP]

Dude, that book is like $68. Marked down from $85, so you're saving like...something anyway, cause...marked down. I'm sure it's worth it because

Janell Hobson is Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She is the author of Body as Evidence: Mediating Race, Globalizing Gender, also published by SUNY Press.

So like SUNY is for smart people and stuff. So you prolly oughta be pretty smart to go there and take a class that requires this book. Which is expensive so like the government needs to provide and guarantee loans so people can afford to buy stuff like this. If we care about the future and stuff.

[Anna]

Sorted.

[Nikw211]

Snort

[David]

Snort

They seem very pleased with their untainted womanliness.

[WTP]

Others noted lack of blackness, indianness, etc. Rather age-ist as well. Or am I showing my age by noticing?

[Dom]

The amazing thing about that huff post picture is the age of the women / girls. Three seconds out of college. They probably all think they worked for the position. Worked hard.

[PiperPaul]

They're all using MacBooks!

[Farnsworth M. Muldoon]

Others noted lack of blackness, indianness, etc...

There are three oriental - oh, wait, the Pres says I can't say that anymore - three Persons Of Color Who Have Descended From Other Persons of Color Whose Nation Of Origin Is West Of The International Date Line.

Much better.

Of course they are way in the back, which is probably because they lack Pallor Privilege.

[Hal]

There are three oriental - oh, wait, the Pres says I can't say that anymore . . .

If there are any carpets in the room, they prolly aren't oriental, regardless of how many Asian or non Asian staff stroll about on 'em . . .

[Hal]

Labour members not happy after receiving email addressed to 'Firstname' asking them to donate £20

I don't see what the problem is . . . After all, if a bureaucracy is to rule and command everything, then that is almost the perfect bureaucratic name.

[jabrwok]

If there are any carpets in the room

But would they match the drapes?

...I denounce myself.

[Geezer]

The folks at Merriam-Webster provide this Simple Definition of oriental:

of, relating to, or from Asia and especially eastern Asia

[Hal]

The folks at Merriam-Webster provide this Simple Definition of oriental:

of, relating to, or from Asia and especially eastern Asia

Bingo. Oriental carpets, oriental furniture, oriental food, oriental decor, Etc, all generally originally created by Asians.

[WTP]

all generally originally created by Asians.

Which would apply to the Asians themselves, would it not? Generally, I mean.

[Geezer]

Which would apply to the Asians themselves, would it not?

Visit the link I provided and scroll down to Definition of ORIENTAL for Students, which says:

In the past, this word was not considered offensive when applied to Asian people. In recent years, however, many people have come to find the word hurtful when applied to a person, and you may offend someone by using it in that way.

In other words, it is now politically incorrect.

[Ben]

But would they match the drapes?

It's mostly hardwood floors these days.