A bunch of people I read were talking very enthusiastically about this piece by a FT journalist who went to a party for Curtis Yarvin and the "new, new right". It's reasonably insightful, and rather entertaining: https://archive.ph/qgC6d
Thank your lucky stars that Strump hasn't razed the White House and replaced it with a garish casino.
Yet. Gotta save a few big projects for the third term.
I have to admit that everytime these inland forages of oceans come up, I have to struggle whether they are spelled with a u or an o in English (btw, the same with disaster vs. desaster)*.
No excuse for Persion though.
For that matter no one noticed that feasibility got misspelled feasability in the title of my PhD thesis until after it got approved and published (electronically). Well, at least it is easier to find that way.
*in German it is Golf and Desaster
Harmut's typos make me laugh, but I want to extend them, from:
"His Orangeness and his role models round the Persion Golf"
to
"His Orangeness and his role models round the Perversion Golf"
Re: bad taste. Napoleon should be part of the discussion.
It isn't just that the design is tasteless. It's that the execution is so poor. I think "sloppy" is the word I'm looking for.
It's like no competent craftsmen could be found to do it. Although most likely nobody looked, if they had there might have been a derth of people willing to work under any terms except cash in advance. A poor reputation can do that.
As someone who grew up DC/MD and had a government worker dad may I say: this is as bad as anything anyone has done to that city. I took lots of field trips as a kid and nowhere was anything that awful. How fucking dare he.
There was very bad taste in the past too (even by the different aestethic standards of the day). There is a degree of preservation bias but also a "where to look" one.
Where one still can find lots of - in my opinion - aesthetic abominations is in churches with Roman catholic ones being the main culprits (and there churches dedicated to Mary leading the charge).
Orthodox churches also do lots of gilding but imo it's not that 'in your face'.
In the case of His Orangeness and his role models round the Persion Golf the lack of tast is imo to a degree program. The absence of any kind of subtlety is the very point.
It's not the amount of precious materials that makes bad taste but the lack of subtlety.
In the past there existed an art of showing off aimed at experts and equals. Those whose opinion counted would notice and that's what counted.
These days that knowledge is there no more in either the target audience nor the show-off-ers themselves.
About the only thing missing is glaring price tags put everywhere to rub it in.
And then there is of course the cliche of "the kind of shabbiness only the very rich can afford", putting pride in the very expensive stuff looking like crap deliberately while reminding everyone HOW expensive it was.*
Apart from that, the vulgarian ultra-rich seem to have lost the art of decadence with style.
They would not 'get' Trimalchio (or even see him as too intellectual).
* Remembering "The People vs. Larry Flynt" I wonder, whether the vulgarity of his mansion (the real one iirc shown at the end of the film) was him lacking taste or a bold statement of 'I know fully well how vulgar that is and I did it on purpose!'.
Just looked at Michael's handwriting, really has a French feel to it.
It's common knowledge that the French are fascinated by spider webs, like their oatmeal on the thinner side, and shave against the grain of their beards.
Took a guided tour of the NCAR supercomputer facility in Cheyenne, WY yesterday. My son and his SO accompanied me. She runs a climate science group at the U of Wyoming. The computer, named Derecho, appears in the TOP500 list of world's fastest computers twice. The CPU partition is #139. The GPU partition is #256. It's one of the very few of the TOP500 machines where you can actually get into the machine room.
It's been too long since I've done my free-association questions thing, I'm out of practice. Did get a good run after asking about fire suppression in the machine room. (Water, with anti-corrosion additives.) What sort of fire detection? What else do the air sensors check for? Is anything else monitored that closely? How many sensors for all of that together? (120,000.) How does all of the sensor data get collected and sorted out?
The supercomputer resources are provided free of charge to earth science researchers. I was assured by the docent that if I submitted a proposal, it would receive the same consideration as all the others. Except that U of Wyoming proposals get some priority, since the State of Wyoming contributes to the facility. I turned to my son's SO and asked, "Do you need interns?" She paused and then answered "Paid or unpaid?" I never know when people are pulling my leg.
Yes, same size as a plump standard pillow. Traditional Japanese versions are quite a bit smaller and thinner.
I got mediocre marks in cursive penmanship because I insisted right from the beginning on straight up and down strokes instead of slanting it.
Did anyone notice that the toy software actually did a nice job of flattening the notebook pages?
Hmmm, I will take that under advisement in case new pillow number 2 fails. I didn't know about little back-sleeping ones, I assumed normal pillow size. Is your pillow the same size as a regular pillow?
I am now a side sleeper, and I have never worked out exactly what the ideal combination is for that.
I am a side sleeper. My buckwheat pillow is about three times the size of those little back-sleeping ones.
What sort of pillow?
Michael, your story of the buckwheat hull pillow doesn't surprise me. As far as I can work it out, for back sleeping the desired position is to have one's neck fully supported but not raised, and one's head somewhat lower to the point where that is achieved. Those kinds of pillows can achieve that, if you wiggle your head into it just right, as indeed did very over-stuffed goosedown pillows for me for a long time. But I think (after 30 years or so) I am long past that. Now it has to be pillows filled with different kinds and resistances of foam and memory foam, contoured in various ways that are just right for one's particular needs. And it's often, as it has been for me now, a system of trial and error, where you have to try with a particular new pillow for several days to be sure whether or not it's any good.
Unfortunately, I am now a side sleeper, and I have never worked out exactly what the ideal combination is for that. New pillow number 1 professed to be for both back and side sleepers, and was weirdly and alarmingly contoured, but it only seems to be (reasonably) good for back sleeping. The jury is still out on new pillow number 2, but it means I am currently juggling 4 different pillows!
I used to have good handwriting. In my early teens, I read a book on handwriting analysis. I then made a conscious effort to change my handwriting to reflect the characteristics I wished to have as defined by the book. In the process, my handwriting improved. Not so much my character.
It's been so many decades since I've done much handwriting that I now struggle to make my block character writing legible.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “A New Gilded Age”
A bunch of people I read were talking very enthusiastically about this piece by a FT journalist who went to a party for Curtis Yarvin and the "new, new right". It's reasonably insightful, and rather entertaining:
https://archive.ph/qgC6d
"
Napoleon III was more into kitsch art afaik.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_Venus_(Cabanel)
The reproductions I can find on the net all lack the correct (and aesthetically sickening) ivory/pink shade and thus do not give the proper impression of the original.
This https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_as_Mars_the_Peacemaker on the other hand is more on the ridiculous side but not necessarily bad taste or low quality art (like the gilded plastic statue of His Orangeness).
The precedent would be https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Claudius_as_Jupiter_(Pio_Clementino_Museum)#/media/File:Claudius_(Vatikanische_Museen).jpg
Again not low quality art but the discrepancy between the real person and the image (Claudius being widely known for having a walking disability, so the proper deity would have been Hephaistos)
"
The casino is down the street, at will formerly be The Treasury Building.
"
Thank your lucky stars that Strump hasn't razed the White House and replaced it with a garish casino.
Yet. Gotta save a few big projects for the third term.
"
Thank your lucky stars that Strump hasn't razed the White House and replaced it with a garish casino.
"
IIRC Napoleon I was more "over-the-top bad taste", but that may just be he has more stuff to see in Paris, and what I saw.
"
Snarki, Napoleon I or III or both?
"
I have to admit that everytime these inland forages of oceans come up, I have to struggle whether they are spelled with a u or an o in English (btw, the same with disaster vs. desaster)*.
No excuse for Persion though.
For that matter no one noticed that feasibility got misspelled feasability in the title of my PhD thesis until after it got approved and published (electronically). Well, at least it is easier to find that way.
*in German it is Golf and Desaster
"
Harmut's typos make me laugh, but I want to extend them, from:
"His Orangeness and his role models round the Persion Golf"
to
"His Orangeness and his role models round the Perversion Golf"
Re: bad taste. Napoleon should be part of the discussion.
"
It isn't just that the design is tasteless. It's that the execution is so poor. I think "sloppy" is the word I'm looking for.
It's like no competent craftsmen could be found to do it. Although most likely nobody looked, if they had there might have been a derth of people willing to work under any terms except cash in advance. A poor reputation can do that.
"
As someone who grew up DC/MD and had a government worker dad may I say: this is as bad as anything anyone has done to that city. I took lots of field trips as a kid and nowhere was anything that awful. How fucking dare he.
"
"I know fully well how vulgar that is and I did it on purpose!'.
Well, we don't have to consider that. Trump has no clue how vulgar it is.
"
(not to mention the aristocracies of the 1700s)
I was going to say that I get a Versailles-on-the-cheap sort of feeling from it.
"
There was very bad taste in the past too (even by the different aestethic standards of the day). There is a degree of preservation bias but also a "where to look" one.
Where one still can find lots of - in my opinion - aesthetic abominations is in churches with Roman catholic ones being the main culprits (and there churches dedicated to Mary leading the charge).
Orthodox churches also do lots of gilding but imo it's not that 'in your face'.
In the case of His Orangeness and his role models round the Persion Golf the lack of tast is imo to a degree program. The absence of any kind of subtlety is the very point.
It's not the amount of precious materials that makes bad taste but the lack of subtlety.
In the past there existed an art of showing off aimed at experts and equals. Those whose opinion counted would notice and that's what counted.
These days that knowledge is there no more in either the target audience nor the show-off-ers themselves.
About the only thing missing is glaring price tags put everywhere to rub it in.
And then there is of course the cliche of "the kind of shabbiness only the very rich can afford", putting pride in the very expensive stuff looking like crap deliberately while reminding everyone HOW expensive it was.*
Apart from that, the vulgarian ultra-rich seem to have lost the art of decadence with style.
They would not 'get' Trimalchio (or even see him as too intellectual).
* Remembering "The People vs. Larry Flynt" I wonder, whether the vulgarity of his mansion (the real one iirc shown at the end of the film) was him lacking taste or a bold statement of 'I know fully well how vulgar that is and I did it on purpose!'.
On “An open thread”
I suspect pretty much all of us would be the intern from hell, for anyone daft enough to take us on.
"
If you were serious, apply and find out.
I would be the intern from hell on so many different levels :^)
"
Just looked at Michael's handwriting, really has a French feel to it.
It's common knowledge that the French are fascinated by spider webs, like their oatmeal on the thinner side, and shave against the grain of their beards.
"
"Paid or unpaid?" sounds to me like she could make good use of them, but has no budget to pay them. If you were serious, apply and find out.
"
Took a guided tour of the NCAR supercomputer facility in Cheyenne, WY yesterday. My son and his SO accompanied me. She runs a climate science group at the U of Wyoming. The computer, named Derecho, appears in the TOP500 list of world's fastest computers twice. The CPU partition is #139. The GPU partition is #256. It's one of the very few of the TOP500 machines where you can actually get into the machine room.
It's been too long since I've done my free-association questions thing, I'm out of practice. Did get a good run after asking about fire suppression in the machine room. (Water, with anti-corrosion additives.) What sort of fire detection? What else do the air sensors check for? Is anything else monitored that closely? How many sensors for all of that together? (120,000.) How does all of the sensor data get collected and sorted out?
The supercomputer resources are provided free of charge to earth science researchers. I was assured by the docent that if I submitted a proposal, it would receive the same consideration as all the others. Except that U of Wyoming proposals get some priority, since the State of Wyoming contributes to the facility. I turned to my son's SO and asked, "Do you need interns?" She paused and then answered "Paid or unpaid?" I never know when people are pulling my leg.
"
Yes, same size as a plump standard pillow. Traditional Japanese versions are quite a bit smaller and thinner.
I got mediocre marks in cursive penmanship because I insisted right from the beginning on straight up and down strokes instead of slanting it.
Did anyone notice that the toy software actually did a nice job of flattening the notebook pages?
"
Just looked at Michael's handwriting, really has a French feel to it. I remember being confronted with French handwriting when I taught there and was pretty amazed
https://www.frenchliving.co.uk/post/the-serious-matter-of-french-handwriting
"
Hmmm, I will take that under advisement in case new pillow number 2 fails. I didn't know about little back-sleeping ones, I assumed normal pillow size. Is your pillow the same size as a regular pillow?
"
I am now a side sleeper, and I have never worked out exactly what the ideal combination is for that.
I am a side sleeper. My buckwheat pillow is about three times the size of those little back-sleeping ones.
"
What sort of pillow?
Michael, your story of the buckwheat hull pillow doesn't surprise me. As far as I can work it out, for back sleeping the desired position is to have one's neck fully supported but not raised, and one's head somewhat lower to the point where that is achieved. Those kinds of pillows can achieve that, if you wiggle your head into it just right, as indeed did very over-stuffed goosedown pillows for me for a long time. But I think (after 30 years or so) I am long past that. Now it has to be pillows filled with different kinds and resistances of foam and memory foam, contoured in various ways that are just right for one's particular needs. And it's often, as it has been for me now, a system of trial and error, where you have to try with a particular new pillow for several days to be sure whether or not it's any good.
Unfortunately, I am now a side sleeper, and I have never worked out exactly what the ideal combination is for that. New pillow number 1 professed to be for both back and side sleepers, and was weirdly and alarmingly contoured, but it only seems to be (reasonably) good for back sleeping. The jury is still out on new pillow number 2, but it means I am currently juggling 4 different pillows!
"
I used to have good handwriting. In my early teens, I read a book on handwriting analysis. I then made a conscious effort to change my handwriting to reflect the characteristics I wished to have as defined by the book. In the process, my handwriting improved. Not so much my character.
It's been so many decades since I've done much handwriting that I now struggle to make my block character writing legible.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.