Curiosities and silly stuff – Page 3

The topic of the day

Can schadenfreude be virtuous? Edward Feser considers the question.

Meanwhile, Daniil Simkin heads to work:

A modest luncheon proposal

Some miscellaneous nonsense to get you through the rest of the week. I forget where I found most of these.

Continue reading “A modest luncheon proposal”

I’ve shopped at the grocery store for years …

… yet I still don’t understand how it is organized.

I’m currently dealing with an excess of reality, and I will probably continue to be scarce here. While I’m away, you can listen to about 30 hours of music for piano and orchestra for 10¢ per hour, courtesy of Amazon.com, here, here and here. There’s ragtime here, if you’d prefer that. (The last includes some Louis Moreau Gottschalk, for no obvious reason.)

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Which famous historical figure is this actor portraying?

Hint: here’s a contemporary representation of him. He’s the one seated in the middle.

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The answer is here.

A public [dis]service

Somebody dropped by looking for “rich anime woman laughing.” He presumably was interested in the “noblewoman’s laugh.” Here’s Renge from Ouran High School Host Club to demonstrate:

The noblewoman’s laugh is particularly associated with Slayers‘ Naga. Here’s more of her than anyone needs:

Level 6 dream

I ran one of my photographs through the Deep Dream Generator,¹ over and over again, eventually yielding the above image. Can you identify what the subject was? (Click to enbiggen.)

Here’s an intermediate stage:

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and the original:

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A few more:

Continue reading “Level 6 dream”

Black pawns matter

I’m rather preoccupied at the moment, but I’ll be back eventually. In the meantime, here’s a chess problem to amuse you. There is something wrong with this position. Find the problem, correct it, and then find a mate-in-one for white, no matter how you fix it. You can find solutions in the comments here.

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1,000 times more likely?

I came across some startling numbers in an article on politics and dating while skimming though this morning’s Wichita Eagle.

Those in the Clinton camp are more likely to be female (176 percent) and gay (606 percent), and Trump supporters are more likely to be unemployed (82 percent) or retired (96 percent).

I suppose I ought to track down the original Washington Post story to see if the surprising statistics originated there, but I have better things to do with my lunch hour.

Sunday in the park with Pinkie

There’s been a dearth of Ponies here recently. We’ll have to do something about that.

Other curious works of art can be perused here. (Via Pergelator, who has an eye for girls with guns.)

Fluttershy as a warrior princess. She and her friends can be seen here, and in higher quality here if you do FaceBook.

Timely note

Every January I visit the calendar shop at the regional shopping mall and pick up a few at half-price to provide a variety of art on my walls for the coming year. This year, I struck out. Everything of any interest was gone — no medieval or renaissance art, no pre-Raphaelites, no Edward Gorey, not even Ansel Adams. There were plenty of puppies, of course, but I prefer dogs as friends, not as artistic subjects. Fortunately, I earlier ordered this year’s Girls und Panzer calendar, so I do have a way to keep track of passing time.

Although there are only six pages (seven if you count the cover), they are poster-sized, 24″ tall (including the binding strip at the top) and 16.5″ wide. (Right-click and open the links in new windows to see the images at high resolution.)

Continue reading “Timely note”

Music for banjo, tuba, bagpipes and soprano. And accordion. And kids.

The “Most Wanted Song” is nowhere near as interesting.

Continue reading “Music for banjo, tuba, bagpipes and soprano. And accordion. And kids.”

Bathtime in R’lyeh

Possibly of interest to a certain Duck.

(Via Bayou Renaissance Man.)

Odds and ends

Life is annoyingly busy, and I will have less time than usual for maintaining my websites until the middle of December. Expect even less activity here than usual. There might occasionally be posts of miscellaneous nonsense, such as what follows, but probably not much more.

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Flickr recently introduced a “camera roll” feature that displays thumbnails of your pictures arranged either by the date taken or according to its “magic view,” which sorts them into subject-based categories. The algorithms for the latter need a little refinement.