First Of All, NO!
This Intro is nothing to do with Cinderella, of any ilk or iteration. In what mad universe would Conrad blithely talk-up a children's folk tale that involved the most dangerous footwear imaginable? I mean, glass slippers are unlikely to prov -
Cinderella - stickin' it to the Male Patriarchy!
ANYWAY of course - obviously! - that's not what this Intro is about, because that would be both horribly confusing and horrible. Plus, what kind of witless feeb tries to identify a woman thanks to her shoe size? A general description with hair and eye colour, height, build, last-seen-wearing, identifying features such as moles, freckles, or scars would be far more effective. Art!
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| ART! |
<sounds of Elephant Tazer being used>
Okayyyy, I think that's sorted now. Where were we?
O yes. Well, this Intro isn't about the kind of cones you're thinking of, thanks to the season and everything. Art! O stop whinging it'll fade with time.
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| Nope |
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| Still nope |
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| Deffo nope-nope |
For, you see, this Intro is about VOLCANOES, specifically Mount Marapi, the Indonesian volcano that erupted recently to tragic effect; 23 people were killed on the volcano when it erupted. I did warn you this was coming so you've got no excuse. Art!
This, gentle reader, is the appropriate distance to be viewing this volcano from. The name means "Mountain Of Fire" in the local language, which indicates that i) It's been active for ages and ii) Best keep your distance.
Marapi is occasionally confused with another Indonesian volcano; Mount Merapi. Such confusion is understandable as the lucky lucky Indonesians have 125 other volcanoes to choose from, a total so high because this nation sits squarely on the Pacific "Ring Of Fire", where tectonic plates converge and subduct. Art!
Officially - a word not meaning much here - Marapi has been at Level 2 (of 4) since 2011, thanks to it's history of activity. There is a government-funded organisation that monitors this and other problematic volcanoes, to wit: Pusat Vulkanologi dan Mitigosi Bencana Geologi, or PVMBG, which translates into English as "Centre for Vulcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation" (CVGHM). O noble intent. Art!
Hence today's title
Marapi has erupted over sixty times since records began being kept in 1770, thus an average of once every four years. The eruptions are typically from small to medium in size with no lava flows, and the 1,400 villagers who live and farm locally probably see this as a worthy trade-off in cost/benefit analysis. Once again, living on a volcano has benefits thanks to the high mineral content of the soils and consequent increased fertility. You can't get complacent in such circumstances, not ever, because 60 people were killed in the 1979 eruption. Art!
This, gentle reader, is classified as MUCH TOO CLOSE
Survivors of the recent eruption were on the slopes of the volcano itself when it began erupting, and complained about the lack of signage about the dangers inherent in hiking up an active volcano. Wait, what? Let me just type that out again " - the dangers inherent in hiking up an active volcano". Marapi erupted in 2017 and in 2018, so it was overdue to go bang again; would you really want to roll the dice on it not erupting whilst you're clambering over the shelterless slopes?
Officially - that word again - there is a 2-mile exclusion zone around the volcano. This seems to have absolutely no impact on hikers, as the website "Roam Indonesia" gives detailed instructions on exactly how to reach the summit, on a route that includes retail kiosks and sites to pitch your tent. Conrad is not going to link as he disapproves of websites that encourage self-removal. This latest disaster may encourage a more forceful attitude from local authorities and a less dangerous one from hikers. Art!
A song of rice and fire
Let Us Now Lead With An Item Less Serious
You may not be aware of this, but Elong Tusk is a hero, of sorts, to a particular niche of people on teh Interwebz. Here is a Twitter tweet from a person one can only suppose still lives in their parent's basement, wears a tinfoil beanie and won't eat MacDonalds because of the mind-control chips they - sorry, "They" - put in it. Art!
O Lord aloft, where do you start with this? To begin with, that ought to read "should HAVE stayed in the kitchen", and there's a comma missing. You know how sloppy grammar annoys Conrad. "This will ..... make women obsolete". Why yes it will, it will indeed! And then Hom. Sap. will rapidly die off as no new children are born. You didn't think that one through, did you AFA? " - the dating crisis for men in the west" that should be "West" CAPITALISE DOG BUNS! CAPITALISE. Yeah, strike a blow for the pasty overweight unwashed socially inept legions of Western men!
You can tell a South Canadian wrote this, as they use that last word as a substitute for "Very annoyed".
Conrad, because he is horrid, pointed out on this thread that in the film "Ex Machina" the 'robot wife' kills her creator and 'husband', then entombs her swooning admirer and leaves both bodies behind as she embraces freedom. Art!
Okay, okay, so this item was probably just as serious as the Intro.
Whilst Going On About A.I. -
It may have come to your attention that Chipmunk Cheeks recently held a four-hour self-love session in front of television cameras, the first in two years. NOT THAT KIND OF SESSION you disgusting perverts. No, he took questions from quote ordinary Ruffians unquote, which were all carefully screened and analysed so his scripted replies with an earpiece could look O-so-spontaneous. Art!
Then this came up. Heaven only knows how the university student behind this got it through the censoring and screening process. The Pretend Putin did a very good job of asking a question about AI and intelligent software systems. Peter The Average was, indeed, speechless for a short while. He seemed to be surprised, puzzled and probably a bit frightened, because if he can be simulated this convincingly, what need is there for the real thing?
"City In The Sky"
Alex having arrived in the nick of time, the Doctor is now working out who is what and why, now that he's not being strangled with a belt.
.
For his piece de resistance,
Alex put one foot firmly on the object’s shoulder, grasped the upper bicep and
pulled whilst twisting in both directions at once. With a nasty metallic scrunch, the whole arm
came loose, trailing lubricating carbon gel, copper wiring, hydraulic cables
and a plastic universal joint. Then he
took a powered handsaw and cut directly into the android’s “face”, down the
length of the nose. Fumes and screeching
sounds came as he severed metal and plastic, cutting the whole head in two,
revealing masses of compact electronic wafers and circuitry but no bone or
brain.
‘Ben was a robot?’
‘Where’s the real Ben?’
‘What was inside it?’
Straightening himself, the Doctor cleared his throat in best
attention-getting manner.
‘Ahem! An android, actually, by
definition. And there never was a “real”
Ben. This construct existed so that an
alien could walk around amidst human communities without detection.’
‘What’s up with your chest?’ mumbled
‘Nothing. ‘s my Mayoral badge,’
he muttered.
‘Not it’s not. I can see that
chain in your pocket,’ said Lenny, keen eyes picking out the elaborately worked
silver links.
Dirty work afoot. hmmm?
Conrad Quotes Cron
Here's an interesting question that came up on Twitter*.
A bit of background here. The term "Beutepanzer" translates as 'Booty tank', NOT THAT KIND OF BOOTY you slobbering perverts. These were tanks that the Teutons had captured from the British in their counter-offensive at Cambrai, to the number of several dozen.
"Cron" refers to the work "Imperial German Army 1914 - 1918" by Hermann Cron. Art!
It is, most emphatically, a reference work that you'd only sit down to read if feeling the need to fall asleep.
The section on "Armoured Vehicles" explained that, for the Kaiserschlacht, the Teutons had three 5-vehicle sections of their A7 monstrosity - the one designed and operated by a committee - and two sections of captured British beutepanzers, each also of 5 vehicles. Two Male and three Female, which means gun-armed or machine-gun armed respectively. Art!
A7 Female to port, male to starboard
Ooops. This item was only supposed to be a couple of lines long.
Finally -
Better post this and make tracks to Lesser Sodom whilst the rains hold off.
Pip pip!
* No, I shall NOT call it the other title
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