Jul 182022
 

First up, a guy does a “social experiment” where he goes to a public place and just sticks out his hand to see who will shake it. The video is obviously edited, and the audio is replaced with a rather irritating song, so a lot of the context is lost. But what appears to happen is that men will shake his hand, and women won’t. What the *actual* ratios are is of course unknowable without the full video, but undoubtedly there is a distinct difference.

@thenotoriousalvin

Man vs woman

♬ Ke$ha – Die Young – 辰歌

Had my first experience of this particular video been the video itself, my reaction would have been a kinda bland “huh,” then I would have gone back to CAD drafting and forgotten it. But I first learned of it after having been randomly directed to this “think piece” reacting to the video:

What Men Don’t Get About Street Harassment

Where we learned that it is good and proper for all women to fear and distrust all men, and it is stupid of men to not automatically agree with the rightness of that position. But more telling – or at least more directly to the point – was one of the comments on the original TikTok video:

Women know that a handshake is never just a handshake when it comes to strange men. Don’t give ‘em anything. Don’t engage.

Don’t engage with men you do not know. Greeeeeaaaat. That will do wonders for the future of the species. But what do you want to bet that that same person might well be all about hookup culture, and is seriously upset that overturning Roe might cause her to have to change her behavioral plans?

Nobody is obligated to shake hands with anybody, certainly not strangers. It’s just a little odd that men are more trusting than women, and that this difference in trust is used as an excuse to cut off the possibility of human interaction. Far more often than seems good for the species I’ve heard or read someone tell a man who has asked about how to approach a woman he finds interesting: “leave her alone.”

And thus we end up with this…

… and wonder why some guys go buggo and shoot up schools.

Who benefits from a culture where women are told to distrust and fear men, and men are conditioned to avoid interacting with women? The makers of video games, I suppose. Whoever ends up creating the first truly successful fembot will make a mint. The leaders of nations, cultures or subcultures that see the West as an impediment or an enemy and who don’t engage in this sort of thing will see this as an absolute win.

Another point: does this finally, at long last, provide an objective, scientific definition of “what is a woman?” “A woman is someone who will avoid a handshake with a stranger.” Unless we find that a woman will shake hands with a woman. Then we’re sucked back into the philosophical quandary. What if the original creator of the video goes and does it again, but this time identifies as a woman?

 Posted by at 9:45 pm
Jul 182022
 

Elishjah Dicken is a *man.* He shot a murderer 40 yards away with a pistol. Well done sir.

EDIT: Video below is a local news interview with the grandmother of Dicken’s girlfriend. It’s worth a watch; nothing NSFW, just news. Dunno why they’ve blocked playback on other sites.

When seconds count, the police are only… what, like, 45 minutes away?

Elisjsha Dicken: Good Samaritan Named in Greenwood Mall Shooting

This news story has basically two characters of note. With luck, Elisjsha will be the one who is remembered.

 Posted by at 6:35 pm
Jul 172022
 

Hey, Britain. Get yer crazies under control. This sort of insanity is supposed to be *our* job.

Woke dance school drops ballet from auditions as it is ‘white’ and ‘elitist’

Archived copy of article.

Ballet has been dropped from auditions at leading dance schools as staff say it is rooted in “white European ideas”.

The Northern School of Contemporary Dance (NSCD), which aims to be a “progressive institution”, has reviewed the “elitist” art form as part of a diversity drive that has seen the introduction of new policies relating to gender and race.

Say, that’s neat. The school has a problem with ballet because:

1) You have to take classes to get good at it (what art form *doesn’t* require buttloads of practice???)

2) It has problematic ideas of body forms (imagine someone morbidly obese as a ballerina. Outside of “Fantasia,” it ain’t happenin’)

3) It has distinct gender roles. Because I guess it makes all kinds of sense for a petite ballerina to pick up a… ummm… ballerdude, whatever they’re called, and spin ’em around overhead.

4) Perhaps most importantly, it’s “European.” I guess that’s a problem in FRIGGEN’ BRITAIN.

So what they’re after is a form of dance where you can’t tell who’s a guy and who’s a gal, where someone extremely out of shape can perform as well as an athlete, and where you can pick it up without any sort of professional training.

This should be an endless source of amusement.

 

 Posted by at 3:44 pm
Jul 162022
 

It looks pretty doom-laden for the Tomy 1/350 scale die-cast Enterprise… with one week to go, they’re still at only 63% of their funding goal. If, as seems likely, this doesn’t come to pass, a bunch of potential buyers will be disappointed… but they won’t be too likely to be *angry*. This is not the case for *all* buyers of large scale Enterprises, however.

In December 2020 Eaglemoss announced their 27-inch long Enterprise D model. I posted about it HERE. This is a large and complex model kit, not a finished product. And Eaglemoss has an unusual way of releasing these things… instead of one big box with all the parts, you get a packet every two weeks with *some* parts. It’s a subscription service, you pay as you go. And the cost of the model stacks up… looks like over the length of time it takes to get all the packets, you’ll end up spending over $1700. Youch. But I’ve been watching some YouTubers as they’ve been getting the bits and gradually assembling the thing, and it looked promising (with some issues here and there).

*Looked.* Past tense.

Part Works publisher Eaglemoss goes out of business

It seems Eaglemoss is in a bad way. Due to Covid lockdowns in merry old England, their ability to do business was massacred and they are in a deep, deep hole… one it looks like they might not climb out of. They seem to be already out of business.

That’s bad.

It’s especially bad not only for their employees and stockholders, but those working away on the Enterprise D (and other subscription kits of similar scale and cost). Because the Enterprise D is distributed over *30* *months.* Which means if you started in January of 2021, you’d currently be about 18  months along… with 12 months to go on your kit. Twelve months worth of parts it seems unlikely you’ll get. You won’t be charged for those parts, of course… but you will have spent over a grand for sixty percent of an Enterprise, plus however much time you spent on a model you’re now unlikely to ever finish, display or sell.

This looks to be about the current state of the Enterprise. It’s… sad.

 

I’ve never liked getting big, expensive things via subscriptions spread out over years. This only reinforces that.

 Posted by at 10:23 pm
Jul 152022
 

Last few days I’ve seen a number of references to “Technoblade,” which struck no chords with me. Apparently a “Minecraft” YouTube streamer… not my area of interest. Nevertheless, the references came often enough that I looked this up. It’s… something. It’s kind of “Iron Giant says ‘Superman'” in its impact.

You’re welcome.

 Posted by at 8:38 pm
Jul 142022
 

Sure, it’s just a “college project,” but you know that this, or something even more uncomfortable, is coming.

Here’s what it might be like to travel on a double decker airplane seat

I don’t know who I feel more sorry for: those olds like myself who remember pre-9/11 flying, when it was a bit inconvenient and often a bit uncomfortable, but overall a decent enough experience, or those who have only known post-9/11 security theater and steerage-class accommodation.

 

 Posted by at 1:18 am
Jul 132022
 

I posted a link to this vid nearly two weeks ago, but this guy has a good time laughing at it. Some amusing and interesting discussion.

 

BTW, “the beautiful ones” is likely a reference to “Universe 25 ” or  an experiment with mice that showed that excess population density leads to disaster. A “rodent utopia” led to, among other horrors:

Consequently, the next generation of mice, having never experienced healthy mouse behaviour, had no concept of mating or parenting, or even territorialism. Some – dubbed the “beautiful ones” – spent their time eating, drinking, and grooming themselves in seclusion. Elsewhere, mice formed gangs of cannibalistic, raping plunderers.

Tell me that doesn’t sound a lot like modern cities. Go on. Tell me.

I wonder what would happen to the TikToker shown above if, on one of her drinking and partying binges after yet another empty, meaningless day of snacking, drinking and goofing off, she encountered some of the people that I’ve posted *other* kinds of videos about. Assuming she survived the experience with her brain still capable of rational thought, would she look at the world differently? Would she maybe reflect on her life spent accomplishing nothing and decide to maybe consider actually *doing* something?

I also wonder if she looks at young men whose greatest ambition is to spend all day playing online video games and thinks that *they* are losers.

 Posted by at 2:39 pm
Jul 122022
 

I think a decent case can be made that we might see the collapse of civilization within a generation or two… and possibly sooner. The end of the Soviet Union over thirty years ago seemed like the dawning of a glorious new age… but we’ve squandered that opportunity. We’ve ignored the barbarians gathering outside the gates… and gathering *within* the gates. You can see it in many of the videos and news stories I’ve posted. Not just a coarsening of discourse, but a collapse of the family and an increasing feralness among fatherless “children.”

The piece below is depressing, and very likely right. I don’t agree with all of it… but you don’t need 100% agreement to agree that things are in a bad way, that something must be done, and the general direction of what that something is.

How To Recognize Civilization When You See It

 Posted by at 6:53 pm