Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

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Memic dummies at home

November 14, 2021

Today’s Bizarro shows a domestic scene with car crash dummies:


(#1) Yes! An instance of the Car Crash Dummy meme, one of many instances (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are, wow, 10 in this strip — see this Page.)

Yet another meme turning on a specific pop culture character: Potato Head, King Kong, Waldo, Godzilla, Batman (to mention some that have already appeared on this blog). Well, the crash test dummies are pop culture characters, but they’re also significant technological figures.

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Posted in Comic conventions, Linguistics in the comics, Technology | 5 Comments »

Bearing the face for our era

October 30, 2021

In every era, in every milieu, there arises one man with the Face of Humane Wisdom.

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Posted in Art, Faces, Technology | Leave a Comment »

The whale and the smartphone

February 10, 2021

The Dale Coverly Speed Bump cartoon of 4/25/18, yet another instance of the cartoon meme of Ahab and the whale, this time showing only the whale —  but the whale in communication with  Ahab via their smartphones:

v

(See the Page on this blog on comic conventions, including the cartoon meme of Ahab and the whale.)

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Posted in Books, Comic conventions, Linguistics in the comics, Technology | Leave a Comment »

Out of the water and back again

September 19, 2020

In the 9/21 issue of the New Yorker, this Lila Ash cartoon “Evolution of Man”:


(#1) New Yorker description of the cartoon: The evolution of man from a fish to a human throwing their phone in the water, and swimming in to retrieve it.

Yet another variation on the Ascent of Man theme; there have been so many of these on this blog that there’s a Page cataloguing them, here.

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Posted in Cartoon conventions, Evolution, Facial expression, Linguistics in the comics, Technology, These modern times | 1 Comment »

Reading faces

March 28, 2020

(There will be mansex, talked about in blunt language and with racy (though not actually X-rated) images; not suitable for kids or the sexually modest.)

From The Economist‘s 2/20/20 issue on-line, in the Science and Technology section, “Do not rely on facial expressions for how people are feeling: A smile does not always mean someone is happy” (in print on 2/22, as “Face blind: Facial expressions are not usually a reliable guide to how people feel”):


(#1) Michael Haddad illustration for the piece; interpret this!

(I have a long-standing interest in facial expressions in two contexts: during mansex, and in cruising for sex beween men. In both, I’ve noted how difficult it is to interpret the emotional content of facial expressions — whether as emotional state of the source or as emotional state perceived by an audience. Meanwhile, the expression itself just is; it’s a gesture, and that’s all. It’s just stuff, as I’m fond of saying.)

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Posted in Facial expressions, Gay porn, Gender and sexuality, It's Just Stuff, Technology | 2 Comments »

Tall Tree TeleSwissies

July 15, 2019

Swissies are everywhere (AMZ posting of 5/19/17, “Marco, Marco, Marco”). Even in Palo Alto, Tall Tree City, where the Swiss flag flies proudly — Einer für alle, alle für einen; Un pour tous, tous pour un; Uno per tutti, tutti per uno; In per tuts, tuts per in — a mere five blocks from the Swiss Mammoth Center on Ramona Street:


(#1) The Swissies are coming, the Swissies are coming! 675 Forest Ave. in Palo Alto, the long arm of Swiss telecom in Santa Clara County

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Posted in Palo Alto, Switzerland and Swiss things, Technology, Zwickys | Leave a Comment »

Easter egg quotations

April 13, 2019

[The body of this posting vanished from WordPress on 4/23/19. Below is a summary of its content, without most of the original bells and whistles; when I finished the 4/13/19 posting, I deleted the files of background material for it, and I no longer have the heart to reconstruct it all. (By some software freak, the comments from the original posting were preserved.)

If you’re looking for my posting about Louis Flint Ceci and Magrittean disavowals, that’s “A Ceci disavowal” at:

https://arnoldzwicky.org/2019/04/24/a-ceci-disavowal/ ]

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Posted in Art, Books, Formulaic language, Gaming, Language play, Metaphor, Quotation, Snowclones, Technology, Writers | 5 Comments »

Revisiting 20: X Places

November 1, 2018

The Scenes From a Multiverse of 10/9, entitled #NOTALLPLACES:

A riff on Michael Schur’s sitcom The Good Place, with Kristen Bell (as Eleanor, apparently sent wrongly to the place after her deathGood Plae modality is harsh.) and Ted Danson (as Michael, the designer of the place). Also a comment on social media (Twitter vs. Facebook).  And of course on the nature of reality and our perceptions of it.

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Posted in Euphemism, Language and religion, Linguistics in the comics, Modality, Movies and tv, Philosophy, Semantics, Taboo language and slurs, Technology | Leave a Comment »

A reading

October 31, 2018

Posted on Facebook, this Peter Steiner cartoon from 2016:


(#1) From a 1/28/16 posting on Steiner’s blog

The humor turns on an ambiguity of the verb read, and also on a specialization of the derived nominal reading to a very culture-specific event.

(Then some words on the artist, who now has a Page on this blog.)

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Posted in Abbreviation, Ambiguity, Books, Collages, Linguistics in the comics, Technology | 1 Comment »

Three exercises in cartoon understanding

October 24, 2018

In this morning’s comics feed: a Zippy with the slogan “Kindness, Acceptance, Inclusion”; a Bizarro with a Discomfort Control mechanism; and a Rhymes With Orange about the facial recognition of a Mr. Banner. The first two can be understood at some level even if you don’t get the cultural references involved (though they’re much more entertaining if you do), but the third is probably just incomprehensible if you don’t recognize Mr. Banner.

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Posted in Acronyms, Holidays, Language and religion, Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv, Science, Technology | 1 Comment »

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