Althouse: Okay, now, take a deep breath.

August 19, 2009

Okay, now, take a deep breath.

Everybody calm down.

51 comments:

bagoh20 said...: Perfection!; 8/19/09, 10:42 AM
chuckR said...: No, that doesn't really exist.

Does it?; 8/19/09, 10:44 AM
Big Mike said...: Everybody calm down.

Why?; 8/19/09, 10:47 AM
Jason (the commenter) said...: Three words that make people freak out.; 8/19/09, 10:57 AM
David said...: I did. But something still stinks and it's coming from Washington.; 8/19/09, 11:00 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: My reply was going to be "No! No! No! No! No!" and I'm glad to see other people kinda beat me to it. Let that hypocritical hippie shit go, Ann:

You get upset when you want to - and now it's all about The Macho Response; 8/19/09, 11:15 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Needs a mushroom cloud for balance.; 8/19/09, 11:19 AM
David said...: Amazing photo. Was it all natural light? Did you use a filter or adjust the tone digitally?; 8/19/09, 11:20 AM
Paddy O said...: aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh .; 8/19/09, 11:30 AM
traditionalguy said...: Some world class artist created a masterpiece there for His own pleasure on the seventh day.; 8/19/09, 11:33 AM
ricpic said...: "Go west young man," implored Horace Greeley,
And did they ever, in search of silver and gold.
Some died of fever, some perished of cold,
And their descendants cash in on the scenery.; 8/19/09, 11:45 AM
Bissage said...: That view is absolutely breathtaking.

And it smells just like hope.; 8/19/09, 11:48 AM
Anonymous said...: Nature pornography.

Peter; 8/19/09, 11:58 AM
campy said...: And it smells just like hope.

Someone please animate the scene with a rising Obama "O" symbol.; 8/19/09, 11:59 AM
ricpic said...: I spent a week in Yellowstone trying to paint the glassy shine on a trout stream and effed it up; Althouse presses her finger down once and voila! There is no justice.; 8/19/09, 12:04 PM
Bissage said...: Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

-- Emily Dickinson; 8/19/09, 12:07 PM
Bissage said...: Politics ain't got nothing to do with it.; 8/19/09, 12:09 PM
Bissage said...: * takes deep cleansing breath *; 8/19/09, 12:11 PM
paul a'barge said...: missing: someone fly fishing in that stream.

wv:hilisl ... a jewish organization?; 8/19/09, 12:16 PM
Dustin said...: That's a perfect picture. I don't know what else to say about it, but I really would like to visit Colorado now. What a cool place to get married!

I'm not surprised that Crack Emcee found other people 'beat him to it'. I went to his blog (with adblock turned on... don't want to pay him for trolling), and found that every single one of his posts was a lazy little rip off of another blog's work. 'Here's that picture I saw on instapundit!... here's that youtube link I saw on althouse!!!!'

Seems like Crack Emcee is the place to go to be reminded of all the stuff you saw yesterday. What's interesting is that he begs for donations in every single post. He'll put up a picture he didn't make, and add nothing at all to the blog post except a donation request. Seems kinda greedy to me.

So I guess that's why he's trolling Althouse's comment section, calling her blog posts "shit" and posting links to his actual shitty blog. I'm guessing he's not the picture of success.; 8/19/09, 12:20 PM
Wince said...: "Brothers and sisters. Everybody just cool out. Stop fighting."

Speaking of the death knell of the 1960s, Altamont 1969.; 8/19/09, 12:22 PM
ricpic said...: Little kid in the back seat: Look at the purple cloud, ma...an' an' the shadows all blue, an' the mountains the mountains, ma...an the water like like glass, ma.

Mother turns to Father in front seat: Little pisher's gonna grow up to be a poet, which means no help at all when the social security goes belly up and we're eating beans.; 8/19/09, 12:24 PM
Automatic_Wing said...: Wonderful job of keeping the detail in the shadows while retaining the colors in the sky.

Graduated ND filter? Photoshop? Just lucky? In any case, great work!; 8/19/09, 12:27 PM
campy said...: Politics ain't got nothing to do with it.

Sorry, but after last year the word 'hope' can no longer be used un-ironically.

Kinda like 'gay'.

VW = cafhem : (n) the sewn edge of a cafeteria; 8/19/09, 12:35 PM
Ann Althouse said...: I used iPhoto and moved the color sliders around. Probably highlights and shadow adjustments too. I'll bet I spent less than 30 seconds tweaking it.

Get a Mac, everybody. Use iPhoto!; 8/19/09, 12:38 PM
Meade said...: Cool to see many of those same colors from nature painted on the old houses and building in Silverton.

wv: imbabrav

And you're curcourageous!; 8/19/09, 12:47 PM
Dustin said...: "Get a Mac, everybody. Use iPhoto!"

I was considering one until I saw that Air with the broken hinge. 50% of the macs I see are broken. My friend's powerbook has a crack where her wrist goes.

I guess I'll stick with Google's Picassa. I can't pretend my pictures look half as good as Althouse's though.

WV: comed (I comed to Colorado for the pictures).; 8/19/09, 12:52 PM
Methadras said...: Wish i was there right now. Colorado is so great to just kick back and relax in. My wife and I were in Colorado Springs last August for a week and stayed at the Pikes Peak Paradise Bed and Breakfast and it was fantastic. The owners Ron and Michael were just phenomenal and they made staying there a pleasure. I'd like to go back there again and do more stuff. So much fun and I adopted Michael as my brother. :D; 8/19/09, 1:11 PM
Penny said...: "Nature pornography."

I like that, Peter! Even without a plot and some dialogue. ;); 8/19/09, 1:39 PM
bearbee said...: I'll bet I spent less than 30 seconds tweaking it.

Lets see it tweakless.

Ice cream: tool of de debil; 8/19/09, 1:58 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: There's trout in them there waters. Shallow as it appears.

Do you know what flat pisses me off, and makes me happy at the same time?

I was up late last night doing a workbook I picked up, deciphering inscriptions on obelisks. I get to the end, an extra section that isn't scored so it's really not at all important, where partial glyphs are presented that are nearly destroyed. Make that thoroughly destroyed. The first one, 1/3 displayed, isn't that bad because the parts that show are distinctive and the possibilities few, although the professor failed to draw an essential element in the portion of the final glyph that displayed that would have distinguished it from other likely and probable possibilities. Even though in the solution he does supply the completed version of the displayed portion that does distinguish it along with the missing portion naturally, of course.

I got the solution right, so I have no righteous complaint here but in my view that carelessness makes the whole thing unfair. All the glyphs are hand-drawn, not photographs.

The second extra test is totally ridiculous. Nothing but a line of faint chicken scratches that frankly could have been anything. I could have completed them any number of ways to say a whole range of likely formulaic things. Why he even bothered or thought that would be a valid test is beyond me. I skipped it and looked at the solution. Then got really pissed off at what was expected to be reconstructed. But here's the thing that makes me want to smack the professor across the head with his own workbook. His translation of the reconstructed text is flatly wrong. Not just in interpretation, he misses entire segments of what the glyphs are actually depicting, and he declares it saying things that are clearly absent.

So there's that.

Here's the thing that makes me disrespect the person: On the solution page he states if your score was below a "C" , I didn't bother scoring because I'm doing this for fun but I would have scored high without even without that ridiculous extra portion, then you might want to consider dropping the course at this point and pick it up again later if it still suits you.

!!!!¡¡¡???¿¿¿!!!!

What a perfectly arrogant bastardly thing to say bright-eyed cheery enthusiastic young person -- to project the onus of his own shortcomings in presentation, careless glyphic handwriting, poor samples, cheap printing and such, onto the student!

* bangs head on table *

The thing that makes me delighted though is he's not my professor and I don't have to put up with that crap, nor suffer suppressed grades because of his ego and shortcomings as teacher.

* does the happy "I'm not at university" dance *; 8/19/09, 2:01 PM
David said...: You tell 'em, Chip. It's the downside of tenure.

Thanks for the photo info, Althouse. Whatever you did, it turned out great.; 8/19/09, 2:11 PM
ricpic said...: Compress that post into three sentences, Chip, and scout's honor I'll read it.

wv - toreputh: Rocky Graziano after the Sugar Ray fight.; 8/19/09, 2:13 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Great pic Althouse. I may "borrow" and use as a screensaver!; 8/19/09, 2:44 PM
knox said...: Needs a mushroom cloud for balance.

LOL; 8/19/09, 2:49 PM
knox said...: I didn't have time to check in much this weekend, so I was just browsing and noticed the post on that "Will Shag for Beer" tee shirt.

I personally sighted just in the last week:

A guy wearing a tee shirt that said "I'm not Mr. Right, but I'll fuck you until he comes along." He was holding hands with a heavyset lady.

And a bumper sticker on a truck that said "I'm shy but I've got a big dick"

What is it with these people.; 8/19/09, 3:11 PM
MamaM said...: Chip A...in what sort of class would such a workbook be used or assigned?

There is a parabolic quality to your story that encourages more disciphering. I enjoyed what was written as story, parable, and description of the personal solution and resolution processes involved with learning.; 8/19/09, 3:15 PM
Richard Dolan said...: Too green and badly lit (to borrow a phrase). Hyperventilating sure to follow.; 8/19/09, 3:17 PM
Penny said...: Knox, you gotta admit, they were funny!

wv: panifack The drunk's version of fannypack.

No hiking on those mountains for YOU, buddy!; 8/19/09, 3:29 PM
Triangle Man said...: Needs a mushroom cloud for balance.

or a rodent popping up saying "O, hai."; 8/19/09, 3:40 PM
john said...: "Okay, now tak a deep breath. Everybody calm down."

CALM DOWN? WHAT!

How in the hell can you say that when this happens????

Ann, you're gonna go apeshit.; 8/19/09, 3:51 PM
G Joubert said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/19/09, 4:42 PM
Michael McNeil said...: Like Glacier Park in Montana.; 8/19/09, 4:55 PM
G Joubert said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/19/09, 5:12 PM
bagoh20 said...: Chip,
I like my obelisks uninscripted for just that reason. I mean you just don't have time to decipher as you drive by em. I can do it at maybe 55 mph, but who wants to drive that slow just to figure out it says "Drink your Ovaltine."; 8/19/09, 5:23 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: MamaM,

what sort of class would such a workbook be used or assigned?

A language class. Dead language, specifically. I'm talking about this workbook, Oddly, widely available online but with no image available that I could find. It is old and out of print, outdated, error-stricken, superseded by better works, brief at just over 50 pages, but it is fun as hell as a puzzle book and totally worth it. The tests inside are sealed so you must break the perforations, and that strikes me as rather cute. Cheaply printed, the glyphs are poorly drawn and poorly reproduced, in short, the workbook is charming.

Ricpic, very well then, three sentences.

1.) Professor produces language workbook cheaply, carelessly, but still worthwhile and fun.

2.) Makes me mad because professor suggests to students that do poorly to consider giving up without questioning their performance might be due to his own obvious errors and poor presentation.

3.) I glee that I'm no longer beholden to that sort of egoistic crap and have learned to learn on my own free of the shackles, the limitations, the expense, and the aggravation of Academialand, and I'm actually grateful such things are available.

~~*~~ ♥ ~~*~~

Apologies to all good professors who perform an important function.; 8/19/09, 6:07 PM
knox said...: you gotta admit, they were funny!

Totally, but the question remains...; 8/19/09, 7:55 PM
Chris Hall said...: I'm a hafta know where kinda guy. So, where? My best guess is Conejos River. If that's not right, I'll have to look more closely later.; 8/19/09, 8:17 PM
AST said...: Hey, you're not that far from me!

I'm in the desert above the canyon lands of southeastern Utah, though, at the foot of the western counterpart of those mountains.; 8/19/09, 8:41 PM
Big Mike said...: @Chip, maybe we can compare strange professors we've known and/or suffered under.

One time I was taking a class on Shannon Information Theory and the professor was copying equations directly out of the textbook onto the board in a droning monotone that would have made Ben Stein sound dynamic. Then he got to a point where he was saying something like "and then it is obvious that ..." as he wrote the next equation. And he stopped short. Staring at the board he asked himself the question "Now why is that obvious"? And he spent the last twenty minutes of class staring at the board and stroking his chin while those of us in the class sat there wishing we were anyplace else.

Next class session he came in and said, "Yes, it's obvious." And on he went from there.; 8/19/09, 8:44 PM
Kirk Parker said...: bagoh2o,

"Perfection!"

Welllll, it's close: but true perfection would require a snow-capped volcano in the background, don't you think? :-)

IOW, the sort of thing that G Joubert was referring to. :-)

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wv: sceping--viewing a photograph with a sceptical eye.; 8/20/09, 1:11 AM