Yet another Nope Dope:

Prowler licks California home’s doorbell for hours with kids inside, video shows

I figure this would turn out to be a clickbaity headline and the “intruder” would turn out to be a deer or a dog or something. Well… nope:

A security video shows a stranger approach the front door of a Salinas, California, home early Friday, then look directly into the camera before proceeding to lick the doorbell — for hours, KION reports.

The video from the movement-activated Ring doorbell camera also shows the intruder interrupted his lascivious licking “to relieve himself in the front lawn” and steal extension cords used for holiday lights, KION reported.

WTF. WTF, I say.

Bah.

The Orville Slips to Series Low

But the show’s Thursday timeslot debut was more concerning. It slipped to only a 0.6 rating with 2.8 million total viewers which is a series low and would rank it among FOX’s lowest rated shows. There was not much competition on the night with ABC running a JFK special and CBS airing repeats in the hour, so the show doesn’t get to opt out with a mulligan. The Orville did perform well in delayed viewing last season, so we will have to see how those numbers play out.

With luck, millions of people simply recorded it for later viewing. Without luck, it’ll get Firefly‘d.

Bell has unveiled their idea of what an electric intra-city VTOL “taxi” would be, in the form of the “Nexus” AirTaxi. one wonders if it’s more human than human?

Bell reveals the ‘Nexus’ VTOL

On one hand, it bears more than a passing resemblance to the Bell X-22. On the other hand, there are some design choices there that make me scratch my head. The thrust from forward ducts would be bisected by the main wings at forward tflight and then blast right into the rear fans. During transition, the forward thrust would be disrupted by the main wings, which would seem to lead to some fantastic turbulence.

There has finally been snow worth noticing. Some of the local critters went tromping through it and left their tracks.

Hmmm.

The Lost Art of the Manly Weep

The author uses old texts such as “The Iliad” to claim, perhaps correctly, perhaps not, that men used to cry publicly a whole lot more than they do today. Unsurprisingly, the claim is also made that it is somehow a bad thing that men don’t lose their sh1t on a more regular basis and over more trivial matters. Most of the examples given are of warriors weeping over the loss of leaders or fellow warriors, but also presented is Lancelot breaking down and opening up the waterworks because he missed out on a competition.

I suppose there’s something to be said for being more “honest” with your feelings. On the other hand, there seems to me to be a whole lot more to be said for being in control of yourself, not in letting yourself give in to your feelings. Toddlers throwing tantrums hardly seem to be role models. And nor does every example of public weeping over the death of a leader really seem like all the good – or even honest – of a thing:

Earlier in 2018, when Raedthinn died I expressed my feelings on the subject openly and loudly in the vets office, in the car home, at home. I felt no shame in doing so at the time, nor in admitting to it now. But what I *didn’t* do was make any sort of public display of it. My general point of view on it was not only would it be unnecessarily bothersome to strangers to see some guy breaking down in the soda section at WalMart, but that as far as I was concerned, when it comes to random strangers my feelings are Nunyodambidness. I found a simple mantra, “keep it together,” to be remarkably effective at the task of reigning in such things in public.

My problem has always been that I am too emotional and far too demonstrative, something that caused no end of trouble in my childhood. So I’ve gained a small measure of control. I fail to see how self-control is a bad thing. it is a common feature of almost all people that they want to be in control, or at the very least not be dominated by others. Being a “sheep” is a widely used insult. But the first step in not being dominated by outside forces is not being dominated by *inside* forces.

Somewhat ironically, the author includes a counter-example to her thesis that I think makes my point pretty well:

There’s one glaring exception to this worldwide sobfest. As the medievalist Sif Rikhardsdottir of the University of Iceland notes, Scandinavians maintained a dry-eyed composure through these sobbing centuries. In her Medieval Translations and Cultural Discourse (2012), Rikhardsdottir illustrates this point by citing two versions of a medieval epic in which a boy hero is lost in the woods. The French hero dissolves in self-pitying tears; his Icelandic counterpart stoically admires the scenery and contemplates his next move.

The description in the Icelandic text is positively buoyant: ‘There it was very lovely to sit and delightful. He jumped from his horse there and looked out at the sea and intended to sit there until he got some revelation.’

This makes sense to me. Weeping over the loss of a loved one makes sense… it is indeed a loss, something gone forever never to be regained. But being lost in the woods? Weeping makes no sense. Yes, you’re lost… but all that *need* be lost is time. You will need to undergo some trouble and effort to return home, but this is also an *opportunity.* Weeping about it would be unproductive.

The author unintentionally makes another, separate case:

However, human beings weren’t designed to swallow their emotions, and there’s reason to believe that suppressing tears can be hazardous to your wellbeing.

Indeed, we were not evolved to suppress emotional outbursts. But that includes not just weeping, but also beating the tar out of your rivals for mates and resources. We rightly view with disgust those people, male or female, who cannot control their emotional need to take other peoples stuff, or who cannot control their stomachs or their lusts. Screaming at someone who looked at you funny or taking a dump on the subway or rubbing one out at the sight of a pretty girl might all be examples of “not swallowing your emotions,” but we can all agree, I hope, that these are at all times unwise and basically insane. At the same time, laughter is an emotional outburst that is generally *not* considered inappropriate. So there is obviously a spectrum of emotions that are appropriate or not. And those that are inappropriate share the feature of making others who are uninvolved uncomfortable. And someone weeping in public makes strangers nearby uncomfortable.

So, cry if ya gotta. But don’t make some sort of habit of doing it in public, ya filthy animals.

Soldier ‘to quit Army’ after his face is used in snowflake advert

Short form: the British Army has recently crapped out an ad campaign of dubious value and appropriateness. Instead of something that would make sense like “Join the Army and Defend Britain” or “Join the Army and Be a Badass” or “Join the Army and Chicks Will dig You,” or at least “Join the Army and Go Kill People,” instead they decided to try to make the Army appealing to some of the worst personality cliches of Generation Z:

Along with the posters, they are also producing TV ads, such as the one below that makes the rather remarkable leap of assuming that someone who is such a slow worker in a grocery store that her co-workers are seriously annoyed with her, will somehow make the perfect soldier:

But where things are most interesting is that the solider whose photo is shown on the “Snowflake” poster turns out to be a real solider. A real soldier who was peeved at being used as the posterboy for “Snowflakes,” so he’s quitting.

He said he was bombarded with sarcastic messages from colleagues and has accused the army of leaving him open to ridicule by placing his face alongside the derogatory term snowflake which is used to describe someone being over-emotional, easily offended or unable to deal with opposing opinions.

Mr McWhirter, who joined the Army in 2016 and has protected the Queen at Buckingham Palace, said he will resign at the ‘earliest opportunity’.

So… obviously, being labelled across the entire planet as a “snowflake” is a pretty substantial insult. But ditching your career in a tantrum over it? Does that make one a snowflake by definition?

By most objective measures, my illness (some enthusiastic form of the common cold, I think) is on the mend, but it has left me in a pretty powered-down state, devoid of energy and enthusiasm. So both work and blogging have dropped off a tad. So to tide you over, here’s this:

As was pointed out quite a while ago, when The Orville came out there was a substantial gap between the audience reaction and the professional critic reaction. Behold:

The Orville now has two episodes of season two under its belt. They are effectively indistinguishable from season one episodes; one of them was, in fact, a holdover from season one. So the reactions *should* be the same… audience loves, it, critics hate it. But instead we see this:

Baaa-bwuuuuhhh?

Note that the audience score is *exactly* the same, but the critics have utterly changed their tunes. As I noted, the show is essentially unchanged… same cast, same characters, same writing, VFX, everything. No time jumps or mirror universes. So what gives? What could *possibly* have caused critics to suddenly decide that thy like this show and that they want to curry favor the shows higher-ups by writing glowing reviews?