The Darkest Building on Earth: An Olympic Pavilion Coated in Vantablack | Urbanist
The Crank
“Another way in which I tried to define the crank was that he always begins at the wrong end. He never knows the right way to take hold of anything, as one takes hold of a cat by the scruff of the neck. He always tries to catch his cat by the tail; especially if it is a Manx cat. The thing he begins with is always the thing that is last — and least. Thus, if he is talking about the ancient and lawful bond between man and woman, he will talk about votes before he talks about vows. Thus, if he is talking about children, he will be genuinely interested in the children’s schools; it will never so much as cross his mind that children, as a class, generally belong to families. If he is interested in Shakespeare, he will not be interested in Shakespeare’s poetry; he will be interested in the extraordinary question of who wrote it. If he is interested in one of the Gospels or in one of the Epistles, he will not be interested in what is written there; he will be interested in some bottomless bosh about when it was written.” — Chesterton
If people really lived their lives like there was no tomorrow we’d be living in ‘The Purge‘. With an absolute absence of long-term consequence (‘long term’ being no more than 25 hours from when you commit your act of non-tomorrowness) you know what you get? People settling old scores, killing people they dislike, shotgunning their annoying neighbors, looting everything in sight, and generally going completely off the chain. Thats what a world full of people who live like there’s no tomorrow looks like.
I was reading an article about an airport in Sri Lanka that was built to handle a million passengers a year, but serves only 50,000. Who backed the construction of the airport? China. Why? Well, ostensibly its a development project for Third World countries. Mind you, its a development project that conveniently creates a large airport with runways capable of handling military transport. Interesting, that. And as you read about China’s other endeavours, you see more ‘long game’ maneuvering… long-term leases on huge swathes of African farmland spring to mind. And, again, those infrastructure improvements that look pretty noble and generous but are easily converted to military use. Notes From The Bunker
HT: Forever MOTUS
Get PDF first. Owner manuals and installation guides contain far more information about a product than either the sales brochure, the online descriptions, or even Amazon reviews. The manual will have exact dimensions, all the parts, and caveats about what it can’t do. So my rule of thumb these days is to always download the product’s manual before I purchase the item. Impossible in the old pre-internet days, it’s a no-brainer today. It has saved me many times. Regrettably, not 100% of product have manuals PDFs that are findable, but the better products do. —
On Cucking And Doxing: if we analyze them enough, that is what cuckservatives resemble. They are actors, sort of like the people who are tour guides in Disneyland. To them, a conservative means someone who talks about “adult” and “real world” issues like earning money and escaping to a house in the suburbs; forget about worrying if your kids will inherit a third world wasteland or a thriving civilization, all that matters is you-you-you!
Binary Stoplights there was a time when stoplights were binary — only red and green lenses were mounted. I remember seeing them here in Seattle when I was very young. Don’t believe me? Then take a look at this:
Door. Woz. Bang. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says he’s leaving Facebook
London’s Mayor Declares Intense New ‘Knife Control’ Policies To Stop Epidemic Of Stabbings
California is a bankrupt failed state that is essentially Illinois with palm trees and better weather. Outside the coastal urban enclaves where Jack and his pals mingle, drinking kombucha and apologizing for their white privilege to their baffled servants, itâs a crowded, decaying disaster. Bums wander the streets, littering the sidewalks with human waste. Crime is rising. Illegal aliens abound, more welcome in the Golden State than actual Americans. California is an example all right, but a cautionary one.
That Alexander von Humboldt was not dead by the age of thirty-five was a minor miracle. In 1794 he nearly suffocated while testing his miner’s lamp in a subterranean tunnel. The next year he subjected his body to such an extreme series of galvanic experiments that his doctor felt compelled to intervene. In 1800, among the ceiba trees beside the Apure River in Venezuela, he disturbed a resting jaguar (‘never had a tiger appeared to me so enormous’). On that occasion, Humboldt tiptoed to safety, but weeks later he almost paralysed himself while pulling on a sock contaminated with curare, the lethal arrow poison.
On Being a Giant Not everyone my height plays basketball. Maybe we should. But maybe we were born with the hand-eye coordination of sleepy toddlers. Maybe we have grotesquely thin and skeletal builds and we didn’t even hit 200 pounds until we were well into adulthood. Maybe we just didn’t try that hard in high school. Maybe we were embarrassed at the prospect of being our high school team’s versions of Shawn Bradley. Maybe all of the above! But if you insist on getting us out onto a court, we will still take great delight in swatting your shot out of the air and making you look stupid.
Global Brain Drain: Are we drifting gently downwards? Charles Murray was absolutely right, in describing human accomplishment, to stop the clock 50 years back. We are too bound up by present enthusiasms. For example, the movie we saw last week comes to mind easily, whereas only the best of those watched a decade ago stand out in memory.
Incredible Ancient Archaeological Sites in the U.S. | Established as early as the year 600, Cahokia may have been the first great city of the U.S. At its height between 1050 and 1200, the city covered six square miles and was home to as many as 20,000 people! Residents took part in organized markets, religious ceremonies, and public sporting events with thousands of spectators. Cahokia was the de facto capital of the Mississippian culture, which extended across much of the central and southeastern U.S. between roughly 900 and 1400. Megafloods likely doomed the settlement, swamping the grounds and destroying the many earthen mound structures. By 1300, Cahokia was abandoned.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer tranny: Transgender Female Loses Weightlifting Championship in Freak Accident
Gerard Van der Leun
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When I worked as a telephone installer I always had a Buck 110 folding knife on my belt, always. Opening, cutting even putting holes in plasterboard when I was running wire. It was my tool of choice for many things.
That photo above, they’re all tools. How do the rulers expect the working class to work, to earn the money that they will then take away from them so they can give it to the underclass? Is this a joke?
I dunno John. The ice pick, scissors, needle nose and Phillips head could do about as much street damage as a Buck 110 in the right hands. tBut it is hard to imagine how the file or lineman pliers would be much of a weapon.
@BillH, a file is case hardened steel, and very brittle because of it, and when broken will have a very sharp and nasty edge.
@John, I’ve carried a Buck 112 Ranger in my back/right pocket for more than 4 decades. It fits my hand like no other. My first was purchased in the army in 1975. My most recent was purchased about 10 years ago and last year I chipped the point while digging a nail out of a board. Stupid me. I sent it to Buck and for a total of $10 they disassembled it and entirely rebuilt the whole thing. When I got it back 6 weeks later it looked like a brand new knife. (it may indeed have been a new knife for I had no identifying marks on the old one to compare) I paid the shipping to them but they paid the shipping back to me. Considering a new 112 costs upwards of $50 I thought it was an excellent deal.
I gave my son a Buck 112 Ranger and a Smith’s sharpener for Christmas last year.