Happy St Patrick’s Day!
I didn’t think I had any Irish forebears at all, but during my free two weeks of Ancestry.com I did discover some of my people left from Irish ports. Who knows?
Also, I didn’t find any evidence my mother’s mother was French, as per legend, except for the French-sounding last name. I traced her line all the way back to a Texas home for imbeciles and decided that was enough genealogy for me.
Have a good weekend!
March 17, 2023 — 6:55 pm
Comments: 5
Paging Dr Pepper
Huh. I didn’t know New Scientist came up with the term. They certainly didn’t come up with the concept. I read a whole book about it, years before 1994. The author phoned people up whose names lined up with their professions.
Some people were like, “how dare you, sir! I chose my profession for the most serious of grownup reasons!” And some were like, “why yes, being born Lester Buttpeep did influence my decision to become a proctologist.”
My favorite personal example was the kitten I rescued on 6/6/06. Naturally, I named him Damian. The vet was like “lady, are you sure you want to do that?”
I’m confident Damian would have grown up to be a hellcat even if I named him Princess Pinkie Fluffybunny, but he was every inch a Damian.
Today, I ran across a real corker of an example in, of all places, New Scientist:
A few months ago, Dr Organ – Dr Jason Organ – was named the new editor-in-chief of the journal Anatomical Sciences Education. This added flesh to the nominative determinism tradition that is occasionally evident in body-parts-centric medical journals, starting (as far as Feedback is aware) with the publication Brain. Henry Head and Russell Brain were each its editor, at different times, Head from 1905 to 1923, Brain from 1954 to 1967.
Those heads of Brain achieved a sort of medico-literary ecstasy in the December 1961 issue of Brain. Readers could savour an article there titled “Henry Head: The man and his ideas”, authored by Russell Brain. It was Brain head Brain on Brain head Head, in Brain.
I almost had to draw a sentence diagram.
March 16, 2023 — 6:50 pm
Comments: 12
Trap streets, easter eggs and Mountweazels
Speaking of maps without copyright, when I were a young corporate art drudge, it was beaten into me that I must never, ever steal art. Not for any moral principle, you understand, but because I worked for a big company with a lot of money and my boss would nail my ass to the wall if I got sued for copyright infringement.
To this day, I experience whole-body cringe when someone hands me a book and says, “here, you can use this picture.” Which has happened to me, I swear, hundreds of times.
Maps were always a particular problem, because we always needed good maps and who the hell can develop a map from scratch? Oh, the lengths I went to to steal maps without stealing maps.
I was schooled in the fear of trap streets. They’re fake roads put on maps so the copyright holder can spot when someone has traced their map. Here’s an article about trap streets in London. I pinched the picture at the top from that article, because I thought that would be meta.
Sometimes, the solution would be to put trap streets and easter eggs into a bit of traced topography. Or remove bits. Or stretch or shrink it along an axis. The point being, when one bit of art is overlaid on another, they shouldn’t match.
I have written about trap streets before. See also Mountweazel.
March 15, 2023 — 8:03 pm
Comments: 1
Oh no! It’s retarded!
People have started using AI for clip art, because (as of this writing, anyway) nobody can copyright the stuff AIs generate. You can often tell when this has been done (count the fingers), but it does a pretty passable job at generic illustration.
Well, I need a map of the South coast of England with no copyright. I thought this would be *perfect* for AI. In theory, if I tell it specifically I want a map of Kent, it out to assemble a map out of nothing but other maps of Kent and come up with a generic map of Kent.
In theory.
In practice, this is the best I’ve gotten so far. I mean, it looks more like Kent than it looks like Rhode Island, but that ain’t saying much.
I’m willing to believe that it’s a weakness in the free online tools I’m using. Surely a more sophisticated AI, you could tell it to limit its input to other maps of Kent and not get this output.
I love the fact maps have text on them, so AI has drawn random gibberish squiggles all over it.
March 14, 2023 — 8:26 pm
Comments: 8
First!
Over the weekend. March 11 – about right.
I know, I know – it’s a lousy picture. You have to cut me some slack: I started my day carrying two filing cabinets up a flight of stairs and it just got more delightful from there.
Okay, a man took the weight and I mostly steered, but I got to bring all eight drawers up by myself.
People have no idea what a handicap it is being lazy.
March 13, 2023 — 7:06 pm
Comments: 6
Dead Pool 164: baby lamb edition
LavenderGirl takes it with Tom Sizemore. The article notes “doctors determined that he had suffered a brain aneurysm as the result of a stroke” – but surely he suffered a stroke as the result of a brain aneurysm.
Stupid journalists.
I have never seen Sizemore in anything, ever, so my only observation is…I hate it when someone younger than me dies, and everyone’s like, “well, he had a good run.”
Are we ready? Then let’s begin.
0. Rule Zero (AKA Steve’s Rule): your pick has to be living when picked. Also, nobody whose execution date is circled on the calendar. Also, please don’t kill anybody. Plus (Pupster’s Rule) no picking someone who’s only famous for being the oldest person alive.
1. Pick a celebrity. Any celebrity — though I reserve the right to nix picks I never heard of (I don’t generally follow the Dead Pool threads carefully, so if you’re unsure of your pick, call it to my attention).
2. We start from scratch every time. No matter who you had last time, or who you may have called between rounds, you have to turn up on this very thread and stake your claim.
3. Poaching and other dirty tricks positively encouraged.
4. Your first choice sticks. Don’t just blurt something out, m’kay? Also, make sure you have a correct spelling of your choice somewhere in your comment. These threads get longish and I use search to figure out if we have a winner.
5. It’s up to you to search the thread and make sure your choice is unique. I’m waayyyy too lazy to catch the dupes. Popular picks go fast.
6. The pool stays open until somebody on the list dies. Feel free to jump in any time. Noobs, strangers, drive-bys and one-comment-wonders — all are welcome.
7. If you want your fabulous prize, you have to entrust me with a mailing address. If you’ve won before, send me your address again. I don’t keep good records.
8. The new DeadPool will begin 6pm WBT (Weasel’s Blog Time) the Friday after the last round is concluded.
The winner, if the winner chooses to entrust me with a mailing address, will receive an Official Certificate of Dick Winning and a small original drawing on paper suffused with elephant shit particles. Because I’m fresh out of fairy shit particles.
March 10, 2023 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 65
It’s snowing in Yorkshire
Robert Fuller is a wildlife artist. Periodically, some thoughtful person sends me a link to his YouTube channel because he raised and rewilded two adorable baby stoats in 2021.
I’m linking because he also is running a couple of live streams, one from Fotherdale:
Welcome to ‘Live from Fotherdale’, a selection of bird cams streamed from inside barn owl and kestrel nests, a buzzard feeding post and a stoat habitat. This livestream also picks up passing foxes, hares, weasels and even badgers – offering the very best of British wildlife for you to enjoy.
And one from Ash Wood:
Welcome to ‘Live from Ash Wood’ where bird cams are streamed from a woodland habitat teeming with British wildlife. See inside tawny owl and kestrel nests, spot deer and badgers drinking at the pond and look out for the occasional sparrowhawk or buzzard flying through. There is a friendly live chat, offering a supportive and informative community of wildlife lovers for you to interact with as you watch the bird cams.
I was watching a little while ago and it was snowing like unto a bastard. This storm has missed us this year – well, it arrived as drizzle – meaning we won’t see any of the white stuff. I miss it. England is purty in the snow.
His streams don’t run 24/7, so I don’t know if those URLs will always work. If not, go to the Home tab on his channel and his livestreams, if any, will be there.
March 9, 2023 — 3:46 pm
Comments: 4
Corn pone accent
This video is making the rounds (sorry to link to Twitter, but it’s natively TikTok and I don’t even have that). It’s a woman doing a variety of Southern accents by way of explaining the Southern accent.
I’m not sure I agree with her thesis that a Southern accent is a English accent slowed down (also, she does a bad English accent). Though I have always been told the Appalachian mountain accent is an Elizabethan accent frozen in aspic. It’s strange and contains a lot of very old-fashioned sounding linguistic constructions.
She does a pretty good job shifting the accent westward. My stepmother’s accent was near the beginning – old Nashville. She sounds like Scarlet O’Hara. Hey, she called me the other day. Eighty-seven and still driving herself to the liquor store to buy wine.
Somewhere toward the end, I heard my original accent, which I have lost (to Uncle B’s disgust). I would describe my current accent as American neutral with a Southern vocabulary and a hint of Rhode Island. The Southern comes back when I am drunk, angry or talking to my cousin on the phone.
She’s absolutely right about Louisiana weirdnesses. My grandfather from Baton Rouge apparently had a Cajun accent (he wasn’t Cajun, but he had the accent). And my mother, who went to boarding school in New Orleans, said they sounded like Brooklyn. We can blame the Mississippi River for that.
I can think dozens of Southern accent variants, but thinking about it…that must be true for all accents everywhere. There’s certainly a difference between New York, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. And between Suffolk, Sussex and Yokshire. Though the old accents are all vanishing now, thanks to TV.
The illustration is what happens when you feed AI the start phrase “corn pone accent” – I suspect we have ourselves a corn pony here. I tried “Southern accent” at first and all it gave me was a picture of a porch. I was oddly offended.
March 8, 2023 — 8:29 pm
Comments: 12
Obviously, a cheese platter
Actually, no. I have no idea what this is. It’s called the Schist Disk or the Disc of Sabu.
It was found in in 1936 by Egyptologist Brian Walter Emery in the tomb of Prince Sabu, son of Adjuib Pharaoh, governor of the First Dynasty. That was, like, 5,000 years ago. It’s made of schist, a metamorphic rock that’s shaped over time in linear layers (it can be split along those lines, hence the name).
Schist is described as hard but brittle, so probably not a wheel. This thing is about two feet wide, and nobody can work out how the hell they made it. It’s not an unusual material and not absolutely unique in shape, but it would have been extremely difficult to work with this precision with the tools they had.
To give you an idea of the era we’re talking, there were also flint knives in the tomb.
I think it was made in some kind of grinding or sanding action, but it’s awfully precise. I wondered if it made a sound when spun around. This guy thinks it was an incense burner. This is the original link, gived my by Uncle B.
And yes, Lavendergirl takes it with Tom Sizemore. See you back here Friday! Or before. You can come before, you just can’t pick anyone in the Dead Pool.
March 7, 2023 — 8:24 pm
Comments: 11
Another soothing YouTube channel
Well, yes, the video above is particularly amusing. It made the rounds on Twitter yesterday He cuts a copy of Spare into little strips and uses them to make a beautiful…no, go see it for yourself.
The channel is David’s Woodturning and it’s really interesting. Glad I found it. He uses a lot of epoxy resins (and dyes and glitter) so that he can make gnarly chunks of driftwood and burl into something he can work on a lathe.
The resin appears to be pressure-cured somehow – he puts the unfinished bits in some kind of steel vessel with a pressure gauge for several days.
If you’re interested in his methods, he does talk through his project. If, however, you want a soothing meditative experience, I recommend you turn the sound off and play his videos at 2X speed.
March 6, 2023 — 7:41 pm
Comments: 14