We could always start talking about Salon's imminent demise again.
http://www.unfogged.com/archives/week_2003_02_23.html#000003
We can talk about them again if you'd like. I don't mind.
I stumbled across the recently refurbished documentary film All American High on Netflix and started watching it last night. It chronicles the 1984 school year in a Southern California public high school, and I started at a Southern California public high school (not the same one) in 1984.
Watching it definitely gives me an odd time-warpy feeling.
It actually is kind of amazing that Salon survived. I guess they realized they could do so with a "don't pay people anything" model.
We could talk about physical insecurities.
And 3 has clarified my plans for this evening.
5: I was a fan of Salon waaaayyyyy back in the late 90s/early00s. Looking at the site now, it's sad to see how abjectly click-baity they've become.
7: We should all watch it and then troll Heebie about how fashion totally hasn't changed significantly since 1984.
That would be supporting my position, which is that people cherrypick the wackiness of 70s and 80s fashion, when plenty of it was basically normal looking.
I was going to make a funny joke in response to 8 but it would have required copying and pasting which I CANT DO from my iPad anymore for reasons I don't understand. When I try to highlight text with my finger, for some reason the little bubble thing inexplicably shows up halfway across the page on some entirely other portion of text. This happened on a didferent site yesterday as well. Why is this happening ?
11: That's weird. Does it happen anywhere but websites? My thought was that it was a calibration issue; I'm pretty sure that they're rare, but do happen once in awhile, and there's a straightforward fix.
I had a very silly post suggestion! I'll just post it here:
I have been thinking more than is fair or reasonable about this viral story about a young Google engineer living in a truck. Discussion questions:
a) How many other people would be regarded positively for living in a truck? I feel the set is pretty small, and it depends on engineering being a high-status, high-wage, low-glamour profession for which asceticism is considered respectable (also the combination of long hours and late-night socializing in party city SF). Asceticism among eccentric millionaires is mildly respectable, but those people are also annoying. I'm not sure it goes straight up with money. It's clear that you'd have to do it by choice for people to respect it. How do you think this breaks down?
b) What would be your ideal combination of habitable vehicle and job? (I have to think about this one.)
I have really enjoyed a movie that somehow seems relevant, maybe because a character that we meet early on trolls his own blog, image link to the guy
It's a Farsi vampire movie, called Girl Who Walks Home Alone.
Some questions: Is it noir?
What else have people enjoyed watching, either Netflix or Amazon Prime or other media?
Is the cat symbolic? Do Iranians like cats the same way people in Turkey like cats?
Has anyone seen the newest Jarmusch movie about vampires ?
I have a bleg, which might make a post?
Let's say someone was working in digital library stuff, and wanted to find out what sort of things scientists or social scientists might find useful, from a library. This is by way of coming up with cool and useful ideas for projects for which that someone might pursue funding for.
I can write it up as a post.
Well Ben Carson is now leading Donald Trump in Iowa so we could all seriously entertain the idea of a Carson presidency.
Asceticism among eccentric millionaires is mildly respectable
True, but I'd add something else.
There's a pervasive stereotype that the people who say, "I'm going to do X until I make a pile of money and then I'll retire early and [fish, philosophize, or whatever else it is that I really] " never actually do that. They end up liking the money and the status and just stay in the industry forever. Living in a truck suggests that he might follow through and actually retire young.
A Trump Presidency is just within my ability to imagine. I can imagine a Carson Presidency about as well I can imagine an alien invasion.
Smithers, hand me that ice-cream scoop.
Ice-cream scoop?
Damn it, Smithers! This isn't rocket science, it's brain surgery
What would be your ideal combination of habitable vehicle and job?
I believe that the commenter formerly known as Halford gave the definitive answer to the first part of that question some time ago: nuclear submarine crewed by female ninjas.
Way cooler than living in a truck.
Houseboat on an estuary + Thames Water Authority.
20 -- fuck yeah. Battle a giant squid in the morning, drinks with the girls in Bora Bora in the evening. That's the life.
What would be your ideal combination of habitable vehicle and job?
Just does not compute.
I have friends who got modestly, but actually rich from a combo of working like crazy in the law+well-timed real estate investments + no kids who really did retire at 40. For about a year they were traveling around in a specially-designed camper and living exclusively in it, now they've sold the camper and have a permanent spot in a foreign country but still travel all the time.
People in Iran like cats, but not in a way you can understand.
Whether having kids is responsible from a climate change perspective is complicated by the fact that childless couples (of means) tend to travel a lot, especially by plane.
15: I would comment on that using a keyboard attached to a computer. But it's not something I've worked on personally.
18
If you need help, you could watch the Finnish movie called something like Dark Side of the Moon. It's about President Sarah Palin fighting off a space Nazi invasion. If I got the title wrong, googling space nazis sarah palin would probably get you to the movie. Once you've seen it, you can pretty much imagine anyone as president.
If you don't answer the question, heebie, you get "Wienermobile" and "multi-level lunch meat marketing scheme salesperson" by default.
On (8), I'm still in a neck brace from straining my neck and shoulders while talking on the phone last Friday. I'm not sure why I have such terrible muscles (overly tight and inflexible and prone to damage). I did two years of daily yoga, which basically got me to everyone else's baseline normal. Now that I've stopped, I'm actively injuring myself through daily activities. I am otherwise reasonably fit and healthy, so I don't know why my muscles have to be such a disaster.
I took a contract position for a couple of weeks and stayed in a friend's nearby vacation cabin in the woods. I've often wondered if a small, refurbished travel trailer wouldn't sustain me for weeks at limited cost, depending on where I could park it. It needed to be small so I could tow it with my car, and there is the problem of where to stash it when not in use. A friend's farm in Wisconsin probably, but it's hundreds of miles away.
I'd probably cook on a small weber grill, under the awning in all but the worst weather.
If I went home on weekends this might work.
Those jobs only occur when there is physical, hard copy storage to go through in some remote location, such as a closed factory or other facility. But they can last for months.
32 -- I've already given the real answer above, but a more practical live-in vehicle+job combo is captain of an Icebreaker ship. You live on a cool ship in the far north and your job is literally to BREAK ICE with your giant ice-breaking ship. Better than sleeping in a parking lot in Mountain View to help web advertisers maximize click-through rates.
American sleeper cabs are pretty livable, aren't they? I mean, living in a truck /= sleeping in a car.
If you need help, you could watch the Finnish movie called something like Dark Side of the Moon. It's about President Sarah Palin fighting off a space Nazi invasion. If I got the title wrong, googling space nazis sarah palin would probably get you to the movie. Once you've seen it, you can pretty much imagine anyone as president.
Iron Sky? If it's not, there are two movies about space Nazi invasions.
I've lived in a van for a while. It was OK. I stayed at a campground with bathroom facilities and cooked over a campfire. It wasn't so bad. Every so often the "chuck it all" impulse takes me and the only thing that keeps me from returning to that lifestyle is my cats. And the need to have a job.
37 even. I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
One of my daughter's favorite picture books has been Sophie Scott Goes South, a fanciful story about the daughter of an icebreaker ship captain who accompanies him from Melbourne (?) to Antarctica. My kid was SO pissed to learn that kids aren't allowed to live in Antarctica. I assured her that they could visit, but the trips are a little on the pricey side, like forgo-a-year-of-college pricey. But in any case I'm sure she'd be game for living on an icebreaker if there were other kids on it.
So "daycare provider on icebreaker" is totally on the table.
Keeping kids holding hands when crossing the street looks intense enough. I wouldn't want to have "make sure children don't go overboard into the icy abyss" on my job description.
44: I could do that for a while, as long as I had a childfree bunk.
I'm guessing after spending weeks of profound isolation in a cramped boat in the middle of nowhere surrounded by children "making sure they don't go overboard into the icy abyss" would feel less intense or significant a job duty.
If I'm allow to descend into madness and murderous negligence, then it actually sounds quite pleasant.
If you want to ask for permission, you aren't understanding the concept.
How many five-year-olds could you take on an icebreaker?
Wildlife photographer on a houseboat. Very unimaginative, I know. I have a friend who lived out of the back of his van for a while after a divorce, but that was self-loathing as much as anything else. Are there planes which are small enough to land in interesting places, but large enough to live on? If you had enough money, such a thing could be built.
Of course the problem with that is that "photographer" is such a bullshit job description when applied to amateurs. By which I mean that there are plenty of very very good amateur photographers, but the discipline necessary to be a professional doesn't go well with frivolous life on a private plane. On the other hand, think of the chatup lines!
There's no way that "Would you like to come to my plane to see my etchings?" wouldn't set off serial-killer alarms in nearly everybody.
50 Probably the same number I could take on land unless we were in some very rough seas.
38: Every so often the "chuck it all" impulse takes me and the only thing that keeps me from returning to that lifestyle is my cats. And the need to have a job.
God yes. I lived out of a van for 2 months once, traveling cross-country and back, and it was marvelous; of course, stuff was stored back at home base. Around that time, I had a rule that I should not own anything I could not, myself, carry/haul/pick up. That meant, e.g. wicker chairs (light weight), a futon bed rather than full-scale bedframe, folding bookshelves, etc. That's long gone by the wayside now. Plus books are heavy.
I miss my van (VW), though.
You could lift a VW van?? Or wasn't it yours?
a) How many other people would be regarded positively for living in a truck?
56: Being able to drive it counts as something I could do by myself. I'm not talking about backpacking here.
A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is a better Jarmusch vampire movie than the vampire movie Jarmusch actually made.
I started to watch A Girl Walks Home but I have such a narrow range of acceptable/fun scariness. I did understand a few words of Farsi so the last year wasn't a complete waste.
I am curious if this new scary movie with the name I can't remember is fun low levels of scary. The movies I think are fun scary are apparently laughably unscary. The Others. Blair Witch.
If y'all need a topic, of course the usual suspects are in a dudgeon about the stifling muzzling censorship of panels at SXSW.
Post title should contain words:"Gam**/gat***"; cowards;basement trolls;pathetic;whatever. Text as inflammatory and confrontational as possible.
Shakezula has gotten front page privileges at LGM (the last non-vile commentariat on the Internet, according to Loomis) and, more in sorrow etc, has provided a model.
Maybe we could argue about whether it's inappropriate that a CNN correspondent asked Lindsey Graham to play "Fuck, Marry, Kill" with names of three female politicians?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/10/27/lindsey-graham-pours-beers-contemplates-marrying-carly-fiorina/
I vote inappropriate. Reporters never ask Hillary to play fuck, marry, kill with Trump, Sanders, and Jeb.
I mostly feel sorry for Dana Bash's political career there. What the fuck were she and her handlers thinking?
I'm sorry, I mean: Dana Bash's journalistic career.
The distinction is only slightly more relevant at CNN than Fox.
Haven't seen it at Slate, but WaPo has a solid paywall in front of me.
From the last non-vile commentariat on the Internet, took twenty minutes
tsam says: October 28, 2015 at 3:39 pmAs someone who has solid demarcation lines with civility (gamerhaters, bullies and fascists being a long way across that line), I find no reason to treat them with the least bit of civility. In fact, were I to find myself sitting across from one, spewing hateful garbage about Sarkeesian/Wu/Quinn, I promise you I would bash his teeth out or die trying.
But chivalrous and safe place for women, so pretty not ugly. And civil.
fuck, marry, kill
It's more like "fuck, marry, krill" the way these whales cows are judging me by my ability as a provider. We're objectified just as much as they are.
Through a commodius recirculation; GeekFeminism Conference Anti-Harassment Policy
Above the expected groping, stalking, and threatening, we have:
"Verbal comments that reinforce social structures of domination [laundry list]
...
Advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above"
...
No problem here, perfectly clear
anonymous reporting of incidents to sympathetic recorders, of course.
Followed by teeth-bashing.
Which of you picked "military blimp"? Fess up.
I saw that. It's really windy here today. My building next to my wife's parents' old business just blew the fuck away.
77: Me, too. Maybe "My building" in 73 should be "The building".
My building isn't the one next to my wife's parents' old business.
Possibly on the topic of drought, we got a ton of rain today.
Please do not answer "next to my wife's parents' old business."
Reporters never ask Hillary to play fuck, marry, kill with Trump, Sanders, and Jeb.
That's because the answer is obvious: marry Sanders, fuck Trump,* kill Jeb.
*What happens at a wedding stays at a wedding, ok?
fuck Trump
Best sex I ever had.
this republican debate is actually worth watching. the mods have basically been calling them on how, in their tax policy, they're using "dynamic effect" when they should be saying "that big number that I pull out of my butt at the end to give us a surplus"
Meanwhile, its 0-0 in the third inning.
McGruff the Crime Dog gets 16 years in drugs, weapons case.
"When police raided his house, they seized 1,000 marijuana plants and 9,000 rounds of ammunition for an assortment of 27 weapons -- including a grenade launcher, because McGruff must have lots of enemies.
....
U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore said, 'Everything I read about you makes you seem like a scary person.'""
I don't understand why its surprising that McGruff the Crime Dog would be a criminal. He's a Crime Dog! "Crime" is right there in his name.
Digging further, it seems he wasn't actually the principal voice actor for McGruff. He just appeared in a McGruff costume at events in Texas.
Reality is lame. It would have been better if, wearing the MdGruff mask, he'd thrown an adversary off of a tall building, saying "Crime takes a bite out of you."
Stupid question: Why wouldn't McGruff just bite said adversary?
In Soviet Russia, Ruslan the Crime Dog upholds glory of socialist revolution.
McGruff versus the Bus Driver.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/10/AR2009031001375.html
I don't want to read your slash fiction.
96: "This is ancient Earth's most foolish legal proceeding. Why does McGruff, clearly the largest of the people in the courtroom, not simply eat the members of the jury?"
Also this is true right it has to be true I want it to be demonstrably true so badly:
@RogerJStoneJr Hypocrisy ? I fired John Kasich from the 1976 Reagan Campaign ... For selling pot to other field men
The 1976 Reagan campaign was run by 24-year-olds?
Couldn't that truck guy just buy a used motorhome?
102: I clicked on that link and it turns out that this Roger Stone has just written a book about Bill Clinton and is linking to a young African-American man who is on Twitter claiming to be Bill Clinton's son. It's all too much.
Off the top of my head I'd say a decent job plus vehicle situation would be forest ranger and a Unicat.
http://www.unicat.com/ua-en/info/TC59family.php
That kind of reminds me of the made-for-TV movie where George Peppard and friends are driving an armored vehicle across a post-nuclear war America.
Damnation Alley! With mutant death-roaches!
I sort of miss the days of seven channels of broadcast TV. Now that there are options, I am literally never going to choose to watch a movie with George Peppard fleeing mutant death roaches in an RV, because I'm a grownup with standards; when it was the best of the seven available options, though, it happened sometimes. And I kind of miss that sort of serendipitous godawful movie experience.
I thought 110 was some sort of A-Team joke.
We only have Netflix and broadcast.
113 Hey, I'm Mr. Art House Cinema guy here and I say that if your standards don't allow you to watch George Peppard fleeing mutant death roaches in a souped up armored RV you need new standards.
113: The self-conscious nudge-nudge tweet-tweet quality of Sharknado and the like, ruins it for you?
No, it's the existence of streaming options, so in theory I could pick something I actually wanted to watch, rather than what's on. In practice, I end up watching much less TV now that I have more options.
119: Because you have more options, you watch less? I could be wrong, but my guess is that there are other factors involved.
It's the Paradox of Choice. It's an actual thing, albeit a thing first read about on Slate.
121: I thought the paradox of choice was that not making a choice is also a choice -- #WisdomfromRushlyrics
The perfect combination of art-house and action entertainment is of course...anime. I am totally serious, Neon Genesis Evangelion is giant robots fighting aliens, pretty girls in tight outfits...and Lacan.
Links from this morning
Kyoani Color Direction comment page
and
8 long interviews with the production crew of
1 page of 8, links at side and bottom to others;Geek fucking heaven
"During my first meeting with the director, he said that he didn't want the backgrounds to feel soft and gentle; he wanted them to feel strong. Wind music has this "feminine" image, so we challenged that by making the entire set of backgrounds feel "masculine" as we drew them. We talked about various other works and how, though we weren't going to try to do too many new things, we wanted to do things like making normal scenes darker and strengthening the contrast to give it a strong and profound feeling. "
"The numerous people [like 50*] and instruments. Though no character by themselves is a minor character, it was difficult to balance everyone so that people wouldn't be too bland or too dazzling above our main girls."
*2 big difference between novels/this novel HE and anime. 1) The novelist didn't have to describe 50 people and backgrounds in detail. The anime does. 2) Anime is a collaborative/collective effort.
||
So I just had a tour of the private museum of one of the richest Fremen in Arrakis. It was unreal. Amazing. The place is huge, several Walmarts huge, and filled with all sorts of things. Wooden doors from various Muslim countries, prayer carpets, many full sized dhows, calligraphy, and weapons of all kinds from maces, swords, daggers, etc, to all kinds of firearms - I saw a lot of cut-down short barreled Berthiers from Yemen, a bunch of old Martini-Henrys, etc, and plenty of flintlocks and percussion cap rifles and pistols.
And cars. Oh the cars. About 500 of them. From the earliest Fords to a Formula 1. And all kinds in between but very heavy on classic American. Packards and Studebakers and DeSotos, and and and. Just amazing. I even counted 3 Corvairs. Also maybe about 100 or so motorcycles (mostly BSA). And military trucks including a Dodge deuce and a half, old Land Rovers, etc, Almost everything looked in really good to mint condition.
I'm just rambling here but man it was a massive crazy jumble. I'm told there was even a Saddam Hussein room that is always kept locked but I had a private tour from one of the head curators and I asked nicely (begged really) so I think next time I'll get a look.
I'm still just in awe thinking about it. The thing about it was that it was at once so incredibly eclectic but at the same time very comprehensive and deep. It wasn't just a few of these things and a few of those. You want a gallery just filled with Filipino chain mail and edged weapons? You got it. Hell, enough to tell a good story with. A gallery filled with chintzy Christian religious art from the medieval to a velvet Jesus? I've seen it. Over an 18th century marble altar, just past the 19th century wooden confessional. There was even a book of Mormon. And a whole room with Jewish artifacts and writings (including something that probably shouldn't be there and it gave me pause to see it but who knows). All kinds of ancient statuary, jewelry, etc. Oh and old televisions and telephones, etc. I'm missing a ton of stuff. You could stock a dozen large museums with the artifacts there. It simply has to be seen to be believed. And I can't wait to go back I think I've only seen a fraction of it, and most of that at far too fast a pace.
It was as if this Sheikh wanted to take in the whole history of the world under one (or rather several interconnected) and very massive roof in order to look at it.
|>
123 Neon Genesis Evangelion is awesome.
I saw a lot of cut-down short barreled Berthiers from Yemen, a bunch of old Martini-Henrys, etc, and plenty of flintlocks and percussion cap rifles and pistols
Berthiers, the standard WWI French carbine, with a 3-round box magazine and hence much more modern than the service rifle with its tube magazine, are pretty short to begin with, how are they cut-down? A common field modification was to heat the bolt to bend the handle into a recess, like on the 98K, so that it wasn't forever catching on things. It stuck straight out to the side as issued.
And a whole room with Jewish artifacts and writings (including something that probably shouldn't be there and it gave me pause to see it but who knows)
I always wondered where the Ark of the Covenant ended up.
125 Huh, didn't know that was a field mod as most of the ones I've seen the bolt handle goes straight down, like so. They were cut very short at both ends, stock and barrel. One of them had some kind of weird flash hider flared end on the barrel. I think I have a pic on my phone somewhere.
126 Ha, the whole place had the kind of feel only as if you'd taken everything out of the crates.
And I should add there was a lot of what looked like still live ammo, intact primers and seated bullets. All very old, so definitely corrosive mercury fulminate. And I very much doubt the bullets had been pulled and the cartridges emptied of powder. I'm wondering what kind of hazard that could present and even mentioned it to the curator. I think a consultant from IWM or a similar institution should be brought in, at least for that.
Also never try to describe to your female co worker how primers and firing pins function so as to tell it was still live using hand gestures.
129. last. Ugh, mangled that last sentence a bit but I think you get the idea so I don't have to draw a picture.
127:
Of the three pictures at the bottom of your Wiki link, the one on the left shows the original short straight bolt.
Staying in use until the 60s makes sense of the muzzle brake/flash suppressor; The SMLE No. 5, "jungle carbine" went the same way. My brother had one of those for a while, which I'm told kicked harshly, which you'd expect from a cut-down barrel firing a full-powered round.
I agree about the ammo storage risk, whatever gestures you'd use. At least the Martini-Henry's were black powder, IIRC.
127 - So basically a Mare's Leg type thing?
131 The flash suppressor was definitely custom made and had an odd look, not quite like the one on the Enfield.
132 Not far off.
Really just so much great stuff just for firearms alone. These great pair of Ottoman flintlock cavalry pistols in these wonderful holsters that looked like they came out of a Shriner's convention.
Inside of a Shriner's Convention it's BLEAAAAARRRGHH!!!
