An Xmas idyll.

    “We are kept from our goals not by obstacles, but by a clearer path to a lesser goal.” -Robert Brault

Here’s the recording of last night’s (2018-12-21) KNYO and KMEC Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show ready to enjoy. (Left-click for instant-play. Right-click to download.) And thanks to Hank Sims of Lost Coast Outpost here’s a page with the latest show and also other ones going back about a couple of years. And you can go to Links To Recorded Audio, see above, and nostalgicate till the cows come home.

Besides all that, here are links to further worthwhile educational and evocative items that I set aside for you while gathering last night’s show together, found mostly thanks to the fine websites listed to your right:

Welcome to the future: “saucer-gassed happy victims and dipomats”, drivers with their faux-alligator heels up on the dashboard, smoking cigars, playing canasta and cracking wise. Almost there.
https://designyoutrust.com/2018/12/closer-than-we-think-40-visions-of-the-future-world-according-to-arthur-radebaugh/

The episode of /Jay Leno’s Garage/ about the fabulous Chrysler prototype jet-turbine car of 1964, the /Typhoon/. It was the future of cars, and events conspired to make that future not happen. Also it was kind of polluty, though you could run it on anything liquid that would burn: vodka, fry oil, kerosene. Seriously, anything. Also it ran so smoothly that you could set a glass of water on the running motor and the water wouldn’t even wiggle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2A5ijU3Ivs

Some cool vehicles these people got an idea to make and just made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZORuYKk8Xk

Juno’s data-gathering roller-coaster ride.
https://www.neatorama.com/2018/12/17/Dive-Over-Jupiter-s-Cloud-Tops-with-NASA-s-Juno-Craft/

The year’s most spectacular space photos.
https://newatlas.com/2018-best-space-photos/57697/

We all have something we like very much to look at and think about, maybe a little too much, some of us, with some things, and where’s the harm? I like old microphones, and I think you do too. Come on, you do. And one modeled on a stage mic in Girl Genius that’s wrapped around a vacuum tube!
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/231091024605459205/

Also cats in sinks.
https://tinyurl.com/DDGCatsInSinks

Rudolph, you don’t have put on the red light.
http://misscellania.blogspot.com/2018/12/rudolph-you-dont-have-to-put-on-red.html

My Blue Heaven.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT0ytkCtLK8

My Blue Heaven, with kimono.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc02U9ODJrc

Trick skirt trick. There is no sound to this, but I’m hearing /Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies/ in my head. Another song that would work is /Locomotive Breath/ by Jethro Tull, the part where it’s really chugging along like a choo-choo train.
https://www.futilitycloset.com/2018/12/20/a-surprise-guest/

Bad Lip Reading of Apple product launch event.
https://boingboing.net/2018/12/21/apple-product-launch-a-bad-li.html

The Carol Burnett Show butler and maid routine. Think of this in the context of historical wars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMXEKM8w3ZU

Penny Marshall is dead at 75. She just died. What amazing things she did.
https://boingboing.net/2018/12/18/penny-marshall-rip.html

Nope. Also click the sound on.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SweatyPalms/comments/8cjq8d/quite_the_excursion/

Ice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY0gda12pXg

Chemistry.
https://theawesomer.com/25-chemistry-experiments-in-15-minutes/506356/

Our friend, the atom.
https://www.sparehed.com/2007/05/14/dagwood-splits-the-atom/

Thank you for your service. Your service will no longer be required.
https://www.neatorama.com/2018/12/16/Service-Dog-Training-Failure/

Pub Dog.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w4FJCcZTKU

“Have you recently purchased a bar in Brooklyn, but are completely bereft of original ideas? You can use this handy tool to generate a name and full menu for your fine establishment.”
http://www.brooklynbarmenus.com/

Crunchy crab.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB0at0DBcB8

Surf of unusual size. SOUS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftok14M5p8g

Earthquakes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm4xx6P56H4

You know those safety fences at the edge of things to keep you from /walking over the edge/? Here’s how the edge that’s there now became the edge. There’s a progression of old edges and old fences going back into the mists of time.
https://boingboing.net/2018/12/21/watch-part-of-a-cliff-collapse.html

This sort of behavior was exactly what they put the camera there to stop in the first place. Now when people complain what are they going to do, put /more/ cameras?
http://www.amyoops.com/2018/12/fight-on-camera-1.html

Next Gen/First Contact metal anthem.
http://misscellania.blogspot.com/2018/12/star-trek-next-generationfirst-contact.html

A very useful photographic toy.
https://www.remove.bg/

The hapless thief.
https://boingboing.net/2018/12/21/beer-thief-gets-stuck-on-fence.html

“He maketh my feet like hinds feet: And setteth me upon my high places.”
https://ruralramblings.com/alpine-ibex-on-cingino-dam/

Effect of Cadet Bone-Spurs’ tariff bullshit in a simple graph.
https://boingboing.net/2018/12/21/115-of-trumps-tariff-revenu.html

I like how it sounds so different depending on where the microphone is. Also, the scale. At about 4:30 you see a double-A battery and the single little motor that turns everything. This is a tiny project. The balls are really small; they’re not even normal marbles.
https://theawesomer.com/noisy-marble-machine/413916/

How to build a Dyson sphere.
https://boingboing.net/2018/12/20/explainer-video-on-how-to-buil.html

Some fascinating modern industrial processes. My favorite is the machine that stamps rolls of galvanized steel into electrical junction boxes at a little faster than one per second, or about 4000 an hour. (That’s at about 4:40.) Also, the mill-cut spoked gear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyVokBM-CPk

And some more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukui6ZN6jMo

Yummy boot polish. Delicious spray deodorant, melted crayons, ice cream made of mashed potatoes. “You might complain that your fast food never looks like the ad, but you wouldn’t really want the one in the ad unless you prefer a mouthful of packing materials and sewing pins.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRRUgI_iUXI

Trailer for /The Last Resort/.
http://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/comments/the_last_resort

They always pick the baldheaded one to lead the cult procession anymore. That’s considered hot now.
https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/photo/2018/12/photos-week/w05_1078703538/main_1500.jpg

Cheeng-galabah. Cheeng-galabah. All the way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coLftIkrkXE

Christmas is here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nranUeNkXpM

A Hallmark-bot Xmas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24VKH4HryL8

19-17-zero-zero. Christmas christmas christmas christmas christmas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBPPPEAC_eA

Self-portraits.
https://wewastetime.com/2018/12/03/ryan-burke-self-portraits/

How to be an artist.
https://www.vulture.com/2018/11/jerry-saltz-how-to-be-an-artist.html

Stock images of models sitting on the floor.
https://tinyurl.com/SittingOnTheFloor

Clearly you people aren’t hoping and praying enough. Get up off your lazy ass and start hoping and praying like you mean it. Hope mopes, that’s what yez all are. A buncha lazy hope mopes.
https://www.ajc.com/news/gun-deaths-highest-level-years-cdc-says/vgcdQWPITScDYEdpHrswBP/amp.html

How many guns does a good guy with a gun need to be the good guy with a gun who protects the world from space aliens? Well, apparently it’s a hundred guns, at least, and a flame thrower, and grenades. And a tattooed tear, one for every year he’s away, she said.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/military/tampa-death-metal-rocker-warned-of-rapture-arsenal-found-in-burning-home-20181218/

An Australian photographer’s process.
https://laughingsquid.com/body-surfers-blending-into-ocean-waves/

Vaka Valo’s dream diary, part 3.
http://50watts.com/Vaka-Valo-s-Dream-Diary-3

Root access.
http://50watts.com/When-the-root-children-wake-up

Good idea.
http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2018/12/tis-season.html

Backdraft.
http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2018/12/backdraft.html

Train.
https://www.amusingplanet.com/2018/12/the-biggest-little-railway-in-world.html

They don’t in the picture because it’s not a gif, but in real life, yes, the eyes move.
https://twitter.com/41Strange/status/1074586979566641152

A peaceful smooth quiet electric train ride through Tokyo. (32 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kd6Cgat-bY

Another Tokyo train. This one hangs from overhead wheels. Technically, I suppose this is a kind of monorail. Mmmm, monorail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGLrP5eawdY

1. NZHHHHH. 2. HummenaHummenaHummenaHummena. 3. Vvwodz-Vvwodz-Vvwodz-Vvwods. 4. Shliffff-Shliffff-Shliffff-Shliffff-Shliffff.
https://boingboing.net/2018/12/20/bend-your-spacetime-continuum.html

A serene idyll through an abandoned Abkhazian town overgrown with vines and trees, where wild vampire cows live in the tunnels underneath. How now, brown cow?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuyAqIWFwq4

Restoring a bottom-of-the-lake-condition angle grinder to like-new.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-baZ2q0yXE

Monuments. (Click on them to embiggen.)
http://www.sandowbirk.com/paintings/imaginary-monuments/

Andean poodle-ponies explore a hedgehog.
https://twitter.com/PPricklepants/status/1070531679742255109

Elderly Jack Klugman explains the spit-take, among other things.
https://laughingsquid.com/the-odd-couple-outtakes-compiled-by-jack-klugman/

Hmm.
https://laughingsquid.com/every-time-yoda-says-hmmm-in-star-wars-films/

Things astronaut Alexander Gerst saw from the ISS.
https://theawesomer.com/horizons-mission-time-lapse/506435/

Baby Shark Dance. Over two billion (!) views.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqZsoesa55w

Mouth-beatbox: Nicole Paris. Bass: Elin Sandberg. Drums: Helen De La Rosa. Pure magical happiness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX6PezBQZcg

A musical straw.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_UEPpsCMCA

Rahsaan Roland Kirk – The Inflated Tear.
https://27thstreet.me/2018/12/08/the-inflated-tear/

Size comparison: The Titanic and a modern cruise ship.
http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2018/02/look-how-big-titanic-was.html

And two hardboiled eggs. The Titanic. To move around in. For the short-of-attention-span turn the speed up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNLnXNADMwc