Kidney Stone of a Commute Today

A car accident on the Beltway, a truck fire on I-95, and as a result an hour and a half commute to travel 26 miles.

That's an average speed of around 18 mph.

The only time I smiled on the way to work, was when I saw this bumper sticker:



I did smile at that.

Death Wears Fuzzy Bunny Slippers

It turns out that while waiting for the literal end of the world, nuclear crews spend a lot of time waiting ……… and waiting ……… and waiting ……… and waiting ……… and waiting.

Two guys a hundred feet underground for 24+ hours waiting for the call that they hope never comes.

One is watching the dials, and the other one gets comfortable and relaxed so that they will be sharp when his turn comes to watch the dials.

Snuggies and fuzzy bunny slippers are a not infrequent part of the latter regime, hence the most awesome unit patch ever.

Midvale School for the Gifted

I was going to Maariv^* at the local Kollel^†, so that I could say Kaddish^‡ for her.

Charlie came with me, because we studied some Gemara^€ before services.

Charlie walked into the study area, and pushed the door open (it swings both ways) despite the large signs taped to it marked "Pull."

I said, "Midvale School for the Gifted," and Charlie gave me a blank look.

I had to remind him that it was a Gary Larson cartoon.

^*Evening services.
^†Community religious study center.
^‡A memorial prayer, it is the 41st anniversary of her death.
^€A companion work of the Mishna, together they constitute the Talmud.

Tweet of the Day

If @MADmagazine's political cartoonists and art department don't win a Pulitzer this year then we, as a society, have failed. pic.twitter.com/TBDZY2z8Zj

— Ian Brown (@igb) September 17, 2017

This is really some remarkably astute political satire, which is not something that I would expect from Mad.

It appears that Trump is good for political commentary.

I particularly like the Norman Rockwell sendup.

I Really Don't Have an Opinion about the New iPhone, but………

Randall Munroe's unintentionally disturbing cartoon is a pretty good description what one typically sees:

Tweet if the Day

a good statue:
a bronze shoe statue built for Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi, who threw his shoes at Bush pic.twitter.com/oGg0fuZpR0

— SubMedina (@SubMedina) August 22, 2017

H/t naked capitalism for finding this engaging bit of history.

These days, we have a surfeit of targets for such a protest.

Tweet of the Day

Photo of the Day [via @marshalljulius] pic.twitter.com/3V1ZHV5zcF

— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) August 6, 2017

Banksey would look at this graffiti, and be profoundly impressed.

1000 Words on the Internet of Things

Link

Deep Thought

I wish I had the opportunity to do this:



Seen on Facebook.

Bitcoin in a nutshell:

Over at the reliably amusing Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal web comic, they just put up a new cartoon titled, "Dadbucks."

It details the results of creating a household currency to encourage the performance of chores.

I think that this is a wonderful metaphor for Bitcoin, and I think that someone should hire him as a financial regulator because he gets it.

Cartoon after the break.

Your Awesome Fact of the Day

In a development that should surprise no one, this is a fact about the Gary Larson Cartoon The Far Side:

Stegosaurus is world-famous for its lime-sized brain and the quartet of nasty-looking spikes on its tail. A 1982 "Far Side" strip decided to have a little fun with the latter attribute. In that cartoon, we find an early human anachronistically lecturing his fellow cavemen about dinosaur-related hazards. Pointing at the rear end of a Stegosaurus diagram, he says “Now this end is called the thagomizer … after the late Thag Simmons.” Without meaning to, Larson’s strip plugged a gap in the scientific lexicon. Previously, nobody had ever given a name to the unique arrangement of tail spikes found on Stegosaurus and its relatives. But today, many paleontologists use the word “thagomizer” when describing this apparatus, even in scientific journals.

This is so full of awesome that there is a risk of injury.

Who Says that Irony is Dead?

Walmart is selling a canvas of Banksy's "Destroy Capitalism":

Banksy, the favorite socially-conscious graffiti artist of 15-year old redditors everywhere, does not hold a copyright to his work. That’s the unfortunate reality of working anonymously on street corners. His style is one of the most recognizable in the world, but anyone can reproduce his murals on shirts, mugs, hoodies, prints, and everything else offered at all your favorite CafePress stores. I guess you could consider that a micro-commentary on consumerist culture—if you were being particularly annoying.

………

So, Walmart is selling Banksy prints. Not one of those nice, pretty, abstract Banksy prints, either. We’re talking a straight-up DESTROY CAPITALISM joint. Also, in Banky’s usual, irritatingly straightforward symbolism, it’s clear that this piece parodies the marketability of chic socialist values.

That sound you hear is Karl Marx spinning in his grave with sufficient speed to exhibit relativistic effects.

Our IP Regime Has Gotten Out of Hand

An artist has now gotten an exclusive license to a color:

Anish Kapoor, the famed sculptor, who created the ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture for the 2012 Olympics, has provoked the fury of fellow artists this week by acquiring the exclusive rights to use the blackest shade of black in the world. Vantablack, as the hue is known, derives its name from the terms Vertically Aligned NanoTube Arrays. Created in 2014 by scientists at UK-based company, Surrey NanoSystems Limited, for the purpose of disguising satellites, it is the blackest substance known to man, absorbing a maximum of 99.965% of radiation in the visible spectrum. With its light-absorbing properties, it has also been used to hide Stealth fighter jets from enemy eyes.

While aerospace companies will continue to be able to use the shade, in the art world, its use will be limited to Anish, as confirmed by a NanoSystems spokesman on Tuesday. Sir Anish did not respond to requests for comment. He did, however, speak about Vantablack last year, saying: "The material is astonishing, so deeply black that your eyes can’t really see it at all. It is like staring into the kind of black hole found in outer space." According to reports, it seems as though a license-type of relationship exists between Anish and NanoSystems. There has been no word, however, on how much Anish paid in exchange for the exclusive right to use the Vantablack substance.

Portraitist Christian Furr is one of the artists that has spoken out about the limited availability of the color, telling the Daily Mail: “We should be able to use it. It isn’t right that it belongs to one man.” Furr, who had planned to use Vantablack in a series of paintings called Animals, elaborated, saying: "I've never heard of an artist monopolizing a material. Using pure black in an artwork grounds it."

This is f%$#ed up and sh%$.

The classic Scorsese movie is Taxi Driver, not Uber Driver.

I dunno, maybe it's a 20-teens thing that a wannabee Travis Bickle is now driving Uber:

The man accused of killing six people and injuring two more in a Saturday evening shooting rampage in Kalamazoo, Michigan, was an Uber driver who picked up and dropped off passengers between shootings, a source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN.

The source, who is not authorized to speak to media, said investigators believe Jason Brian Dalton was even looking for fares after the final shooting of a nearly seven-hour killing rampage.

It could be that this guy is just nuts.

It could be that Uber's abuse of its drivers drove him mad.

It could be that a he has a history of issues that would not have allowed him to get a hack license.

I'm not sure, but I saw the Scorsese reference.

Very Funny, New Yorker

The associated art with this article on populism in the presidential campaign.

If you do not see it, then you haven't seen the internet meme "Goatse".

If you haven't seen the internet meme "Goatse", for the love of God, do not Google it!

That which is seen cannot be unseen.

Deep Thought

H/t JR at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

My Thoughts Following David Bowie's Death

Live Version

I never bought any of his albums or singles, but my favorite song of his is Putting out a Fire from the 1982 movie Cat People.

I saw it, but was not particularly impressed. I preferred the original 1942 movie, which is widely viewed as a classic.

Most of my experiences with Bowie as an artist were as an actor.

I saw him in the 1976 film, The Man Who Fell to Earth, which was a his cinematic debut, and quite literally the worst cinematic experience in my life.

It was boring, pretentious, confusing, ponderous, and dull.

Looking back, I am left the question, "How the f%$# can you cast David Bowie as an alien, and completely f%$# it up?"

By the same token he was also in one of my favorite films, the Tony Scott's criminally unappreciated The Hunger, a stylish film starring Bowie, Susan Sarandon, and Catherine Deneuve.

It is a stylish vampire film that eschews many of the cliches, and it is unbelievably hot. (Watch it)

Of Labyrinth, one of Jim Henson's few fizzles, the less said the better.

I do see a parallel between his music career and his theatrical career, in that he never seemed to settle on a personae.

Both in music and in film, he was a sort of character actor, where he reveled in changing who he was in public.

Any of the music and cinema buffs out there, feel free to tell me that I am full of it.

How the U.S. goes to war. Every. Single. Time

Political Cartoonist Tom Toles completely nails it:



I got nothing to add but the phrase, "Rinse, lather, repeat."

It's perfect.

But it is Art?

Some wag has made a mosaic of Donald Trump out of dick pics. (click for larger pic)

I have been told that no penises were harmed in the making of this picture.

It is an appropriate homage to the patron saint of the bad comb-over.

Normally, I Avoid Super Hero Racial Casting Issues, But………

In the new Fantastic Four movie, Sue Storm (later Storm-Richards), the Invisible Girl, and Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, are being played by Kate Mara and Michael B. Jordan respectively.

Ms. Mara and Mr. Jordan are both talented actors with impressive CVs, but she is white, and he is black, and Sue and Johnny Storm are brother and sister.

I went to the Wiki page, and Papa Storm is played by Reg E. Cathey, a black character actor, so I am assuming that Sue is adopted, (well, duh!) and that there will be which means that there will almost certainly be 10 minutes of back story to explain this in the film.

If not, you are going to have a lot of stupid people demanding back story anyway.

My problem is that when one reintroduces a series, this is the sort of sh%$ that you don't need.

There is a going to be a Lot of back-storying in this film anyway (The first Thor movie was pretty much just backstory, for example, which left me unimpressed), and I think this adds thing that don't need to be there.

As I noted in my comparison of Captain America and Thor, (link) backstory cannot take precedence over plot and character, and this choice by the director and/or producer points that they have not learned this lesson.

So I think that this points to bad cinematic decision.

And don't get me started on the fact that Ben Grimm is not wearing pants. The Thing wears pants.