Althouse: At the Tea Glass Café...

January 23, 2014

At the Tea Glass Café...

... release your inner robot.

45 comments:

Naked Surfer said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/23/14, 7:30 PM
Naked Surfer said...: Sorry about the text flood.

But not too sorry. Almost published that freak show of random association under Obama. But in the nick of time, a café arose.; 1/23/14, 7:34 PM
traditionalguy said...: Betamax3000, is that you?; 1/23/14, 7:35 PM
traditionalguy said...: Nice tea glass. I bought one off Amazon at The Professor's suggestion. But we haven't got around to using it yet.; 1/23/14, 7:38 PM
Naked Surfer said...: So my inner robot today is Marvin the Depressed Computer at the Edge of the Universe Café, so depressed that when he talks to anyone else, they die.; 1/23/14, 7:39 PM
Naked Surfer said...: To hell with it. I deleted the text flood here and posted it instead under Obama. The flood of laser enema that he deserves. That tea glass in the header is just too peaceful to ruin.; 1/23/14, 7:44 PM
pm317 said...: Yay! Cafe post. I wanted to comment on this since yesterday -- I heard the audio of Cuomo talking about extreme republicans, pro-life.. blah, blah.. But what was disturbing was how he sounded. Is this how he talks? Really? How did he get elected to anything?; 1/23/14, 7:50 PM
James Pawlak said...: You need a Zarf.; 1/23/14, 7:53 PM
Rusty said...: Tea Glass = Eats Gals

Sea Cleat Tags; 1/23/14, 7:59 PM
pm317 said...: Gorilla glass!; 1/23/14, 8:02 PM
Henry said...: When is a tea glass just a tumbler?

When is a tumbler just a tea glass?

Who would ask a robot such questions?; 1/23/14, 8:10 PM
Naked Surfer said...: Traditionalguy,

If your question was for me (asking if someone, maybe me, is Betamax), well, I’m not. Took a moment to do a search on this blog for “Betamax” just for fun to see if I could cipher whether the question was an insult or compliment, and the first hit from the search engine went to an F. Scott Fitzgerald series that made me feel like a guy who had two different things simultaneously in his head. The very name of F. Scott Fitzgerald being so powerful that I wondered whether maybe I am both me and Betamax.

It became too complicated to figure out. So, the short, uncomplicated answer is, no. I’m not Betamax. Nor would I wish me on him. Whoever the poor bastard is.; 1/23/14, 8:14 PM
Henry said...: It was a compliment.; 1/23/14, 8:29 PM
Henry said...: Welcome.; 1/23/14, 8:30 PM
Clyde said...: So a supernova appears in the sky just at the same time as Masahiro Tanaka signs with the Yankees. Auspicious or not?; 1/23/14, 8:42 PM
Naked Surfer said...: Henry, I’ll take the compliment and say I came to this party as both myself and the Beta-Mask, “because they are both one and the same beautiful person.”; 1/23/14, 8:46 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: More meth, by method of prescription only, can reduce global warming by reducing caloric intake.

We will start them young.

We will blame the flawed nature of children in that they aren't adults (not until we're done with them at least).

Big Pharma does suck big balls. My gout (fuck you it's genetic you unsympathetic-to-me-hence-evil prick) medication was used safely for many decades and should be cheap. It is because of corporate big Pharma fucks taking by force my health and well-being my medication had to go through fuck/shit law feces-laden grafted corruption and insane greed peer reviewed shit-shows I overpay.

This is a problem caused by government regulation, though I do not hatefuck the mere idea of regulation when pertaining to medications every single time I could.; 1/23/14, 8:51 PM
Naked Surfer said...: Shit, I did find some Betamax stuff. Definitely not me. That guy’s a helluva lot better. I need to shut the fuck up and just read his stuff only. I mean, F. Scott Fitzgerald got it wrong - the sign of intelligence is not really being able to hold two contradictory ideas in your head. The sign of intelligence is getting rid of the dumb fuck ideas and holding onto the single ones that are really worthwhile. That’s why I need to kill myself and quit reading my posts and just stick with reading Betamax’s posts. I’m not sure if he’s really that smart, though. There are sacramental ingredients inhaled from external sources that could make him just look that way.; 1/23/14, 8:57 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: Perhaps as a theater troupe trying to attract a certain crowd wouldn't want those affiliated with antagonists to that crowd in the performance, atheists must shut up and cry when referring to the Reverend or other religious devotees in contexts of supporting the atheists dogma?; 1/23/14, 9:05 PM
Tank said...: SB

20 degrees with snow !; 1/23/14, 9:06 PM
Sorun said...: We don't say "fuck" in these comments. We say "fark" and "frack", but not "fuck".; 1/23/14, 9:06 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: In the past I have derided Apple and Steve Jobs because of the auto correct.

It has helped me out, and I have not acknowledged that.

I was thinking "troop" and when Steve and Apple gave the option "troupe" I felt deeply ashamed to have overlooked all the Ipad goodness.

It was purely reflection of this idiocy, mine, well-earned.; 1/23/14, 9:28 PM
Quaestor said...: James Pawlak wrote:
You need a zarf

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I KNEW that there was a name for those metal filigree tea glass holders that are so popular in Russia and Poland. And I knew that the term began with a zed, but most dictionaries i consulted didn't list it.

BTW, in Russia the zarf is called a podstakannik (Russian: подстака́нник, literally "thing under the glass"). Thing under the glass... yep, that about covers it.; 1/23/14, 9:31 PM
Naked Surfer said...: Thanks for the heads-up on blog appropriate language. I take it all back. I’ll even delete if wanted. I’m hoping that the word ‘beaver’ is okay because I’m having a moment of random humanity and sympathetic feeling for the poor guy on a rant about the costs of prescription meds. Thinking to myself that maybe he needs to get out on the streets more often. Instead of hanging out in pharms. There’s always Beaver Street in San Francisco. All kinds of things there are free. Or cheaper. The language isn’t hall monitored either, not even in the language of measurement in the home labs, so quality controls for fracking meds or anything else out there are another thing. I’m not sure how much sympathy to give congenital-based pleas for socialized medicine because we don’t yet have a full epigenetic map like the genome project to estimate what our drugs are really doing, even if peer review can be purified. Sticking strictly with Darwinian processes at the genetic level, do we really think we can insure against random phenomena? I’ve heard from a few insurance friends that actuarial is increasingly being phased out and underwriting is taking over, so that real cost calculations are going out the window because of the presumption that increases in premiums mixed with "act of God" defenses will cover everything - no matter what. Or government bailouts. I don’t know if this is true. If so, that’s real profanity.; 1/23/14, 9:50 PM
Anonymous said...: Semi-Retired betamax3000 Robot says:

For Althouse the Desk Robot Serves as a Reminder that -- Foremost -- Cruel Neutrality Can Only Truly Happen When We are Without the Distracted Consciousness of Our Softest, Humanized Internal Organs. The Heart, the Brain: Variable Disneyesque Elements with a Variance of Fatty Tissue Sending Disparate Signals -- Rather, it is the Spleen and the Liver That Define the Truth, it is the Spleen and the Liver That Expel Sentimentality and Bile and Trickle Sticky Honesty, it is the Spleen and Liver that Write the Law. The Robot is Not Heart and Brain: the Robot is Liver and Spleen, Keeping the Oil Clean So the Machinery Can Smoothly Function, So That the Truth is Not Mesmerized by Cleverness or Sentimentality. The Robot Also Kills baby Spiders, so there is That.; 1/23/14, 9:51 PM
Naked Surfer said...: No, no, no, humanity is all in the tectum. We’re a lot faster down lower. Where we don’t think. Just feel. Lizards, really. Peace out, Betamax and it's good to sea-an-appearance.; 1/23/14, 10:01 PM
Anonymous said...: I Beat Dead Horses Because Beating Live Horses is Inhumane.; 1/23/14, 10:02 PM
madAsHell said...: Betamax3000 has a blog.
It's a curious mixture of Kafka, and Groucho Marx.; 1/23/14, 10:32 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: If they play, which I've no doubtfully stated I do not think will transpire, the broncos lose by their 6 touchdowns and extra points and two field goals and the Seahawks attaining their 4 touchdowns and three extra points and one field goal win by virtue of Kunstler, William.; 1/23/14, 10:50 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: I do indeed, heh, absolutely hate getting emotional, but at some juncture, and that some has been a juncture for a while now, I got to admit I feel our host, Althouse, is pro what Buckley called the idea some things are better than others and we can know the difference.

Epistemalogical optimism.

Spelled however.; 1/23/14, 11:09 PM
mccullough said...: It would be cool if you could paint a picture on the back of the garage in the background. Something to improve the view. Maybe the fall of Icarus; 1/23/14, 11:16 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: I saw Her with other people. The interesting thing was that the reactions to the romance fell into two distinct categories: (1) this is a horror, a farce that the main character must escape and (2) this is so touching, one can see that the main character is truly in love.; 1/23/14, 11:21 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: If there is ever true AI, I think it would be a good idea for some humans to have romances with some of its various manifestations. Then hopefully it will preserve some tender feeling for us and not kill us in the end.; 1/23/14, 11:22 PM
Naked Surfer said...: Betamax and the Betamax blog – yeah, Kafka, Marx (god - I needed that header), and the reincarnation of William Blake fused to arch-foe-mechanical Newton with anthropology as faux cover for a heart-beating-theology.

The Betamax blog is transforming me into Marvin the Depressed Computer (what I wrote above about Marvin was just a joke - but, this Betamax stuff makes it all too real) because it’ll take 20 more Ph.D’s at minimum for me just to get the allusions. A worthy challenge. A good way to die.

I’m not getting the allusion to beating a dead horse - whether it’s to Dylan’s tune about the “Man in the Long Black Coat,” or to a more ancient eudaemon than Beta’s beloved Cicero, maybe Antigone. I met a retired Marine the other day, who served in Viet Nam, and told me that mescaline there turned his hamburger in the Marine cafeteria into something so beautiful that he couldn’t eat it because the cow was still alive and not dead. He just sat there staring at his hamburger for, like 12 hours. The beauty of it.

One thing seems certain, that Betamax gets right – “Every So Often the Spirit Leaves the Mechanism: it is Then When You Can Hear the Gears Grind at Each Other.” There must be some kinda way outa here, but I don’t really want to leave. I'm in way over my head.; 1/23/14, 11:41 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "I KNEW that there was a name for those metal filigree tea glass holders that are so popular in Russia and Poland."

I'm American, baby, and this is double-wall borosilicate glass like this, so no extra layer of protection from heat is needed. It came with a nice tea-strainer.

Let those Euros and the Americans who emulate them employ metal brackets….

What am I saying? Borosilicate glass was invented by a German, and Bodum (the manufacturer of the glass) is a Danish company.

And I love all kinds of Euro designs, both modern and traditional.; 1/24/14, 4:33 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Thanks for writing, Naked Surfer, and thanks to all who recognize the greatness of one of the all-time best commenters, betamax.; 1/24/14, 4:34 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Am I the only one up at 4 a.m.?; 1/24/14, 4:34 AM
rhhardin said...: A radio Japan news lady always pronounces robot starting with "rob."

Other than that she sounds like a native English speaker in some English-speaking land.

You'd think after ten years somebody would have mentioned it to her. Or maybe she's the expert. That counts for a lot in Japan.; 1/24/14, 4:42 AM
rhhardin said...: A cup holder in a drustore is a zarf.; 1/24/14, 4:43 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Oh, rh is up.

Hi, rh.; 1/24/14, 4:58 AM
viator said...: What's Jeff up to?

Is the departure of Ezra Klein and the advent of the Volokh Conspiracy at the Washington Post a sign of things to come?

Think Progress moans about the impact on the climate change debate.; 1/24/14, 5:35 AM
Laura said...: My inner robot is not a robot at all, but a zygote we affectionately call "Ziggy." However, for Ziggy, we may need to up our budget for small robots, cars...

What shall we call him/her when fetus stage is reached?

No takers for Zoe Doe?; 1/24/14, 6:50 AM
Laura said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/24/14, 6:51 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: Congratulations, Laura; 1/24/14, 7:50 AM
JOB said...: Theogony and Breakfast

Dust moats float like pixies through the shadows
Of our house asleep in first faint blooms of dawn.
Cold air cancels a golden age on the lawn
And holds the conquered gods of the meadows
In ironweed acres of numb grey steel.
Breakfast tea and burnt toast (no nectar and
Ambrosia) leave stains and crumbs on the night stand.
You burrow deep in blankets from the chill.
Imperious Sleep murmurs on. The noon’s
Original pressure dilates earth’s eye,
Heats the hothouse of Hera in Zeus’ sky.
I dig through night to wipe stars and brush moons
From your furrowed brow reflecting as much
As earth will sky in dawn’s roseate touch.; 1/24/14, 4:42 PM

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