Friday Ephemera

At last, shoe drawers. || He draws cities. || How do you draw an X? Anything but #8 is just wrong. || Real-time travel. || “You don’t imagine Romans in socks.” || The Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading, Rio de Janeiro. || At all times, dignity. || An animated collage of Google Earth images. (Photosensitive types beware.) || Golden boulder of note. || Sacred substance. || He does this better than you do. || A snug fit. || A work of evil genius. || Knitted village. || These are some of those. || Thrust. || She can’t hear men. || “The Crippens’ marriage was not a happy one.” || Petals and stems. || He chose poorly. (h/t, Holborn) || Pregnant with no vagina. || And finally, instructively, “How to make thin hamster.”

Comments

[Hal]

At last, shoe drawers.

. . . . O . . . Kaaaayyyy . . . Yes, I was noting the likelihood of drawers for shoes, albeit then fallowed by those who are graphical artists . . .

[Hal]

How do you draw an X? Anything but #8 is just wrong

No particular opinion on wrong or not, but yeah, #8 is mine as well . . .

[Fred the Fourth]

I dunno. If I could make hamsters that thin, next thing you know I'd be stacking them up to see how high I could make the pile.

[Hal]

“You don’t imagine Romans in socks.”

Siiiiggggghhh. Of course you do.

Alleyne quoted the archaeologist heading the cultural heritage team on site as saying," but I am sure they would have been pretty keen to get hold of some as soon as autumn came along."

[Hal]

The Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading, Rio de Janeiro.

We've seen this a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away . . . .

[Hal]

A work of evil genius.

Just riding the elavator

Faked: removed

[Hal]

And finally, instructively, “How to make thin hamster.”

And finally, instructively, “How to write thin hamster.”

[MC]

A snug fit

I'm glad there is a better use for EDM other than as a term Americans use to take all the fun out of dance music.

[pst314]

A small suggestion for workplace camaraderie:

[pst314]

And:

[Pogonip]

Fred the Fourth: great minds think alike! I was also pondering the feasibility of painting Dali-type pictures showing melting hamsters flowing everywhere. We could sell them on the sidewalk in front of the bar.

[Darleen]

Years of cursive writing, so "X" is #7.

[Fred Z]

It's #7. Darleen is good, you others are Big Endian psychopaths.

[Fred the Fourth]

"Bar"?
You mean the heavy double doors with the old-school peepholes and the newish video cams and the discreet titanium plaque reading "Private"? That "bar"?

(Holy cr*p. Glad I proofed before posting. Autocorrect had replaced "peepholes" with "pedophiles". Bet THAT would have provoked some concerned squinting in my direction...)

[Fred the Fourth]

I "x" with style 8. But this is mostly because it's how I draw a minuscule Greek alpha, minus the left side arc.

[Jen]

At all times, dignity.

Best comment: 'It's like watching a baby seal being born'.

[David]

Morning, all.

Years of cursive writing, so “X” is #7.

I’m making a note of the rebellious ones.

Dude.

Via Obnoxio.

[Jen]

He does this better than you do.

Is he single?

[David]

Is he single?

Calm yourself, madam.

[David]

For those of you itching to know, the universe is expanding at a rate of 70km per second per megaparsec, or thereabouts.

You may now resume your humdrum mortal lives.

[TimT]

I've loved John Boorman's films for ages - maybe it's a combination of his eye for spectacular imagery and the very weird and fruity SF/fantasy scripts in 'Excalibur' and 'Zardoz' - so it was quite fun to discover recently that his sort-of autobiographical documentary, 'I dreamt I woke up', was entirely available on youtube.

Check it out! This is the first of five parts. There's a hearty dose of quasi-mystic Jungian psychology in there, more than a bit of self-parody, a 'fantasy' version of Boorman played by John Hurt(!), cameos by his friends and children, interviews with some pretty oddball neighbours (self-styled Celtic bards, for instance). I suspect it was always intended as a home movie, but it's a fascinating little movie curio for those interested in his work.

[Xas7wcrg9e]

#9 seems to have been omitted - top left deosil to bottom left, top right widdershins to bottom right...

[jones]

You may now resume your humdrum mortal lives.

Humdrum?...

I'm ironing my socks don't you know?....

[Clam]

the universe is expanding at a rate of 70km per second per megaparsec, or thereabouts.

One for the pub quiz. :-)

[David]

top left deosil to bottom left, top right widdershins to bottom right...

It’s a bit radical.

[ Adds Xas7wcrg9e to list of suspected subversives. ]

[The Sage]

@Xas7wcrg9e

Exactly -- you do it ⤸⤹, left to right.

[David]

One for the pub quiz. :-)

I think you’d have to accept answers between 66.3 km/s/Mpc and 75.2 km/s/Mpc, strictly speaking.

[David]

She writes about gender politics and has a PhD in rom-coms.

[PiperPaul]

From those who used to draw and print for a living, how to write an X:

https://youtu.be/Ky5p-L_m6BQ?t=77

Later I'll upload a video of how I make a 4, I bet you all can't wait.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

She writes about gender politics and has a PhD in rom-coms.

The beautiful, diverse, inclusive baby we built from scratch is gone.

Meanwhile, let us meet the beautiful diverse editorial board.

Here is Miss Angyal's thesis. A "doctorate" based on three chick flick reviews. Who says Usless studies are not serious contributions to mankind's fund of knowledge ?

[WTP]

For those of you itching to know, the universe is expanding at a rate of 70km per second per megaparsec, or thereabouts.

Expanding into what?

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

In other ephemeral news,

1) You too can buy boxed of used tissues for the low, low price of only 80 frogskins !

On the one hand, Yay Capitalism, and PT Barnum smiles, on the other, if they actually believe this nonsense, there should be a padded cell waiting for them.

2) The husband of Sweden's new Minister of Culture does art ! If you have time the whole video is worth watching to see what a minestrone hoagy Sweden is becoming.

3) TWOTWAWKI du jour Everyone who thinks the average depth of the ocean basins can be measured to the tune of 0.004 inches per year, please raise your hand.

As a change of pace:

1) Church symmetry.

2) Kids trying expensive food.

[Xas7wcrg9e]

I'm not sure about this reinterpretation of the last supper...

[Farnsorth M Muldoon]

Iowahawk's take on the media layoffs.

[David]

You too can buy boxed of used tissues for the low, low price of only 80 frogskins!

Presumably, you could also bolster your immune system by licking the hands of random children. It would be cheaper.

Until you were arrested, I mean.

[David]

Expanding into what?

To quote Futurama, “Inconceivable dimensions not shown.”

[pst314]

Presumably, you could also bolster your immune system by licking the hands of random children.

And then there was the gay American sex columnist who licked doorknobs....

[WTP]

“Inconceivable dimensions not shown.”

Oh. I was hoping there’d be bacon.

[David]

I was hoping there’d be bacon.

Well, it’s above my pay-grade and the actual science starts getting difficult to distinguish from wild speculation. The prevailing view is that the universe isn’t necessarily expanding into anything. The idea being that the universe is, in effect, creating new space, rather than occupying more of some, as it were, pre-existing volume.

If you want a more satisfying answer, we’ll need a passing cosmologist.

[Sam]

Libertarian gun nut super nerd sci-fi/fantasy author Larry Correia mercilessly annihilates a soyboy's pathetic take on modern manly skills. A beautiful fisking.

[Spiny Norman]

Farnsworth,

let us meet the beautiful diverse editorial board

Diverse? They have their Safety Asians in the back on the left side. They are (or were) Diverse.

[Spiny Norman]

Iowahawk's take on the media layoffs.

Damn, I miss his long-form blog posts.

=^(

(He abandoned it because real life became too fucking ridiculous to satirize.)

[Farnswoth M Muldoon]

They are (or were) Diverse.

I have to disagree, nothing is Diverse unless there are Brown Bodies™ and Black Bodies™ as well. I am willing to concede that at least one of that herd is heterosexual and they otherwise have the LBJWTF angle covered.

[Jonathan]

Tragedy in two parts.

via Battle Beagle

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Tragedy in two parts.

"Tragedy" is an odd way to spell "comedy".

[Steve E]

She writes about gender politics and has a PhD in rom-coms.

Correction. She has a literal PhD in rom-coms. Had she had a figurative PhD she'd still be working today.

[Jonathan]

"Tragedy" is an odd way to spell "comedy".

There was me trying to be all Shakespearean.

[Jonathan]

Newly unemployed journos don't care for it when helpful souls advise them to 'Learn to Code'.

Seems they can't take a joke.

via Battle Beagle

[Darleen]

Tragedy in two parts.

I look at that "assuming the argument" crap - but of course MAGA hats are RAYSIS! - so anyone wearing one should expect being treated badly, even violently.

Yet for decades Che, Marx, Mao, et al, t-shirts have been worn unironically with no, AFAIK, resultant violence upon the wearer.

I should be getting my official MAGA hat next week.

[David]

Today’s word is décor. Do click through the photos.

Via Julia.

[WTP]

the actual science starts getting difficult to distinguish from wild speculation. The prevailing view is that the universe isn’t necessarily expanding into anything. The idea being that the universe is, in effect, creating new space, rather than occupying more of some, as it were, pre-existing volume.

So you’re saying it’s still a possibility. I mean, with enough government funding and “research” that no one funding it will bother to understand. Cool.

[WTP]

She has a literal PhD in rom-coms. Had she had a figurative PhD she'd still be working today.

There you go! Props!

[Squires]

Correction. She has a literal PhD in rom-coms.<\i>

https://m.imgur.com/r/gaming/FXkwRc7

[Squires]

Shit.

[jabrwok]

Today’s word is décor.

So *that's* what our host's place looks like. I was wondering what all the bar tips were financing (sure isn't the janitorial staff!).

[Sam]

Today’s word is décor.

Honestly I quite liked it until I saw the wall-sized portraits.

[jabrwok]

"Tragedy" is an odd way to spell "comedy".

Singing goats *are* pretty funny!

[Fred the Fourth]

If I recall correctly (for which read I'm too lazy to look it up) Edwin Hubble's first calculation of the universal expansion was about 50 kps/megaparsec.
Not bad.
Fact of the day: the 100 inch Mr Wilson telescope he used was the last major scope whose mirror was annealed in the time honored Saint-Gobain way. After the glass was cast from the melt, it was buried for 9 months. In manure.

[Steve E]

Today’s word is décor.

Tapestries and taxidermy to be followed by downers and daquiries in the Balmoral Suite.

[Captain Nemo]

Today’s word is décor.

That's, um, special. The fox shagging the pheasant (pic 7) is a particularly nice touch.

[Sam]

The fox shagging the pheasant (pic 7) is a particularly nice touch.

Hmm, I saw that as the fox teabagging a pwnd noob. Must be a generational thing.

[Captain Nemo]

Either way, given the preponderance of questionable taxidermy and animal murals, that's a house only a furry with a penchant for reproduction antique furniture of dubious quality would like. Failing that, Barbara Cartland looking for a holiday home.

[Adam]

That is a diverse board. They range from PolPot to Trotsky in ideology. One of them has parents who thought about voting for Trump. Two are vegans and they are very tolerant of those who are vegetarian. They are all spiritual and believe in a higher power...Nancy Pelosi.

[Steve E]

Do click through the photos.

It that's what the beds look like, one can only imagine the despair of breakfast.

[Baceseras]

"The 100 inch Mr Wilson telescope . . . buried in manure"

Denis! 

[Steve E]

*If* not *It*

[Jugra]

please watch to the end

https://twitter.com/USUprising/status/1088844824327933953

[WTP]

Sharing for any techies here. This is f’n HILLLLLARIOUS!...Learn To Code...from 2013, no less...titled Should Journalism Schools Require Reporters To Learn Code - No

There’s no reason I shouldn’t have been good at programming: I’m good at math, I can be really methodical, and I tend to enjoy figuring things out.

But coding, for me, was confusing, tedious, and profoundly frustrating, more so than even the most complicated story with the most reticent of sources.

Entire projects hinged on small, context-free details that were impossible for me to catch. Sure, there were moments of euphoria where I would test a new interactive graphic and it worked, but they were exponentially outnumbered by the number of times I would find the entire thing broke because I had used the wrong bracket on line 20, or something similarly tiny.

(Once, while styling a web site, I got it almost perfect, except it said the word “Array” in small text at the upper-right corner. After tinkering with the code for hours, I managed to make the entire upper half of the site disappear. Except for the “Array.”)

To make matters worse, my boyfriend is a programmer, so after a long night of coding attempts, I would usually find myself moping over to him, laptop in hand, and he would diagnose and fix my mistake in three seconds.

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/should-journalism-schools-require-reporters-to-learn-code-no/280711/

Seriously. I have tears in my eyes. Better than bacon. Via Ace, BTW.

[WTP]

Damn, if only Jane Austin were alive today, she could have a best selling novel with The Ignorance And The Arrogance . We’d have to supply Wi-Fi to her crypt, of course.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

It that's what the beds look like, one can only imagine the despair of breakfast.

With this as a starting point, how could it get worse, except served with chilled goat head ?

I think the threat of this was almost as effective as the RAF from keeping the Germans from invading.

[lotocoti]

Today’s word is décor.

Lightweights.

(Goes back to veneering a wall of doors with Toona ciliata.)

[Squires]

1) ...I can be really methodical...

Yet: ...they were exponentially outnumbered by the number of times I would find the entire thing broke because I had used the wrong bracket on line 20, or something similarly tiny.

2) ...I tend to enjoy figuring things out.

Yet: ...I would usually find myself moping over to him, laptop in hand, and he would diagnose and fix my mistake in three seconds.

Still, the real jewel: But coding, for me, was confusing, tedious, and profoundly frustrating, more so than even the most complicated story with the most reticent of sources.

As if Woke journalism demanded anything more than obedience to the ideologically approved assumptions and an ability to write in a semblance of some human language.

On that note, the intended image that I broke on my last post:

https://i.redd.it/3w6h9cjpqdp11.jpg

[WTP]

It is quite the reveal, isn’t it Squires? But I, and presumably many here, have known it for quite some time. The failure of many of these know-it-all professions to be held to an objective standard (looking at you lawyers) yet they sit in judgement of those who are is quite the tell.

As for that breakfast, it has me pining for a certain B&B in Bath. Nothing like an English Breakfast.

[Killer Marmot]

Plaid socks with sandals became all the rage among Roman aristocrats soon after the conquest of Northern Britannia around 80 AD.

Historians believe this greatly accelerated the decline and fall of the empire.

[Fred the Fourth]

Fired journos coding? F*ck no. There's way too much awful software in the world already.
My brother in law (tall gingery Texan, surely you've met?) is a certified Professional Engineer, and works on things like house-size electric motors, and 250 KVA switching systems. When we chat, I never refer to myself as a software engineer, because it makes him chortle. Loudly.
Even though I was a good one, for 20 years.
But now everybody and their monkey thinks they can learn to "code" in a month. Feh.
The poor journos should get useful jobs where, when they F up, and they will, the rest of won't suffer. Like maybe mucking out stables. Or picking up litter.

[a different James]

I think the threat of this was almost as effective as the RAF from keeping the Germans from invading.

I agree.

Baked beans for breakfast are an abomination.

And there should be black and white pudding.

[WTP]

When we chat, I never refer to myself as a software engineer, because it makes him chortle. Loudly.

Yes. Yet another of my pet peeves. I agree. I was always much more comfortable with the term “developer”. Anyone who thinks software is engineered is someone unworthy of trust. But it seems like that term has caught on in the last ten years. I’m somewhat of two minds on this. Fundamentally I agree with your Texan friend, but OTOH. Software developers can’t just throw a +30% factor, or whatever civil and other engineers use, onto the problem and call it done. As our journalist subject I referenced above learned, it won’t work until you get it exactly right. Though to some degree with the increasing ability to break the problems up into digestible pieces and then throw resources at it, we are moving more in that direction. Or at least a splinter of the profession is.

[Fred the Fourth]

Yup.
I Engineered systems, which involved Designing, Implementing, and Testing software as part of the system.
Concepts like tolerance, safety margin, MTBF, DFM, and on and on don't really apply to software (except where the software touches the physical world or there are real-time constraints).
I found them to be distinct mindsets, with little overlap.

[RTW]

#7. I wonder if the choice between #7 and #8 correlates with left-handedness or right-handed ness.

[Daniel Ream]

I transferred over from chemical engineering to computer science in third year; today I'm a DevOps "engineer" (and I share your distaste for the misuse of that term). That said, software engineering is absolutely a thing, but the real difference between a software engineer and a treu engineer is that a software engineer can't be personally sued when his code fails. Once that is the consequence of calling yourself a software engineer, you'll see a much different approach to software development.

[Lancastrian Oik]

I think the threat of this was almost as effective as the RAF from keeping the Germans from invading.

And if you'd kept the nation's entire supply of hominy grits warehoused in Honolulu, maybe Pearl Harbour wouldn't have happened.

[David]

And if you’d kept the nation’s entire supply of hominy grits warehoused in Honolulu, maybe Pearl Harbour wouldn’t have happened.

Ooh. It’s all kicking off now.

[ Hides breakables. ]

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

And if you'd kept the nation's entire supply of hominy grits warehoused in Honolulu, maybe Pearl Harbour wouldn't have happened.

Completely wrong, notice that the Spam and grits warehouses were completely and deliberately spared in the attack because the Japanese wanted to capture Hawaii to get them and the grits intact.

Meanwhile, in America's Hat, not unlike the Covington kids, teen hockey players mock "indigenous" culture. Watch the video for the surprise ending.

Over in the land of breakfast bean eaters, a clickbait headline of note: Groundbreaking discovery: Who may have built Stonehenge finally revealed.

A team from University of Oxford analysed the 25 skull bones, discovering that ten of those cremated originated from western Britain. Five of the ten were potentially from southwest Wales...The other 15 people appear to be local to the Wiltshire and Stonehenge area.

Ancient Britons, built Stonehenge ? Shocking and completely mind blowing.

[WTP]

Once that is the consequence of calling yourself a software engineer, you'll see a much different approach to software development.

Yes. Let’s bring the lawyers into it. Once that happens nothing will ever get done. See, unlike products in meat space, the idea of what software should do, the degree/quality to which it should do it, reside entirely in people’s heads. This is why requirements gathering and design churn are such a problem. That and the fact that for the most part, a software developer has to be an expert on two jobs. First, the software business and second, whatever business he’s developing software for.

[Clothilde Ellingboe]

teen hockey players mock "indigenous" culture ... "One player was pounding on the lid of a garbage can like a drum."

I suppose Pass that Peace Pipe is too offensive to play these days, with its imagery of white people not giving a shit.

And when will the Bangles be called out for Walk Like an Egyptian - "foreign types with the hookah pipes say wayoh wayoh" ... problematic on so many levels, I can't even.

[WTP]

teen hockey players mock "indigenous" culture ... "One player was pounding on the lid of a garbage can like a drum."

So just watched this. Well this and Biil Maher ripping the Covington Kids, even after all that has transpired. I think I’m done. Anyone here have suggestions for coping with watching the greatest civilization the world has ever seen, the civilization that has freed the most people, created the greatest prosperity, brought the most people out of poverty, and done all this on scales unimaginable just 200 years ago, commit suicide? I mean, if I was on the outside of said civilization I suppose I could have a good laugh but it ain’t funny from here.

[Darleen]

Families made estates possible but don't you dare talk about it, haters.

I.can't.even.

[Darleen]

teen hockey players mock "indigenous" culture .

Turns out the kids were "indigenous" themselves, inside a locker room NOT IN PUBLIC -- However,

I clicked through one of the links and ...

Indigenous relations consultant Jed Johns went on to say that their ethnicity was not the point.

“I don’t think it matters if they’re Indigenous or not,” said Johns. “It definitely stirs an emotional response.”

[David]

I.can’t.even.

On the rare occasions I’ve visited a stately home, the oppressive, crushing weight of “hetero-normative emphasis” has always been foremost on my mind. I was often found weeping inconsolably behind the drapes.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

I.can’t.even.

Rachael Lennon, the Trust’s national public programmes curator, said that “inherited and partial” narratives about family estates meant that “same-sex desire and gender diversity have generally been given little space”.

After translating that into English, as Wokefield Park already has the right name, I propose that anyone there gets kicked to the curb and it turns into Wokefield People's LGTДӔҖBLT+ Commune and Gender Factory No. 1 "Derrida's Own".

[Steve E]

I.can't.even.

As if that cottage doesn't demonstrate some sort of closeted zeitgeist run amok.

[Hopp Singg]

I was often found weeping inconsolably behind the drapes.

You was lucky to 'ave drapes, then. There wasn't none in our shoebox, I c'n tell ya that.

[Steve E]

I clicked through one of the links and ...

Indigenous relations consultant Jed Johns went on to say that their ethnicity was not the point.

“I don’t think it matters if they’re Indigenous or not,” said Johns. “It definitely stirs an emotional response.”

The "guilty" boys are Metis which is probably why they were mis-identified as white. The Metis are a mixed race people of European and Native heritage. The Metis have not always been recognized as indigenous by both cultures. I suspect Jed Johns' statement would have been different if the boys were full blood Cree or Mohawk etc.

[Hopp Singg]

If they're playing hockey instead of lacrosse, they've already chosen their culture, amiright?

[Waits for Bus]

teen hockey players mock "indigenous" culture

And the plot twist is that the participants were card-carrying aborigines. Even the blond boy who you thought was a Hitler Youth, or who reminded you of the popular kids who ignored you in middle school, turned out to be an authentic Ungabunga who'd dyed his hair to support a friend with cancer. An own goal for the SJWs, but an own goal by the SJWs' own rules, rules which are implicitly accepted and reinforced during Rebel Media's gloating.

The unquestioned premise is that indigenous people should be exempt from mockery. Not only exempt from mockery, but seemingly exempt from conventional shorthand representations like a whooping warrior with a feather, in contexts where a Frenchman would be represented as a nasal-vowel-using, beret-wearing skirt chaser.

Conservatives on principle may grant some respect to a warrior culture that put up a good fight back in the day and wants to hold on to some of their traditions, and that certainly doesn't mean rolling over and conceding every time one of the warriors claims his feelings are hurt.

But from first principles, I'd expect liberals to be skeptical and irreverent towards claims that pre-fight chants and banging-sticks-together music are cultural traditions be cherished, and towards the extraordinarily grandiose demand that insufficient deference for the twee, kitschy displays of this culture, any sniggering at the back or imitations, should be treated as crime against humanity.

[jabrwok]

Anyone here have suggestions

I think you've made the apposite suggestion yourself once or twice.

[WTP]

Yeah...I don’t think we have enough of them. Plus I don’t know how to fly one and given the low level of trust I’m feeling, I’m not getting in one with anyone I haven’t known for a long, long time. Don’t think those bastards aren’t planning the same thing. And my trust in our military is sinking fast.

[Boatswain's Mate]

The sheer, wholly intolerant and soul-crushing Oppression of the wheelchair-bound and paraplegic community.

I. Can't. Even. I'm literally shaking.

https://youtu.be/ZHwVBirqD2s

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Yeah...I don’t think we have enough of them.

Think big.

[Killer Marmot]

I was relieved that "How to make thin hamster" did not involve a pasta roller.