A great little video showing the C-5/Minuteman drop tests carried out in 1974. Two things in particular stand out: how quickly the project proceeded, and how spectacular some of the failures look. A third thing stands out: that there were spectacular failures and yet they quickly fixed their issues and move on to the next test.
“Close Encounters” is wrapping up its one week back in the theaters, and according to Box Office Mojo it’s only made about $2.5 million. I bet they spent more than that just on ads. It’s a pity… had it done well, perhaps it would have spurred more re-releases. Let’s face it, we’d probably all rather see “Jaws” back in the theater than a remake of “Jaws.”
Anyway, at least I finally got to see “Close Encounters” on a big screen. I was going to write “the way it was meant to be seen,” but I suspect it was meant to be seen on a drive-in screen…
And the hits just keep coming…
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck at 11:49 p.m. Thursday local time and its epicenter was 102 miles west of Tapachula in southern Chiapas state not far from Guatemala. … The U.S. Tsunami Warning System said hazardous tsunami waves were possible on the Pacific coasts of several Central American countries, including Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama and Honduras, within three hours. There was no tsunami threat for the U.S. West Coast, but the warning system said waves could reach Mexico and as far as Ecuador.
This looks interesting… General Zod vs. Sherlock Holmes vs. Spiderman vs. Nux. I imagine the facts of the story will get turned into a hash, but that’s Hollywood for you…
Processed images from the Juno probe orbiting Jupiter. This Flickr account has some damn fine images at some damn fine resolution.
And then there’s this video composited from various images… with the ABSOLUTELY PERFECT music to go with it.
A little while ago I posted about some “2001” bluray screenshots and someone suggested that the movie needed to be redone with all-new visual effects; i argued that the only bits in the movie that could really benefit might be replacing the rather bland matte paintings of Earth. After seeing this, I can see how updating Jupiter could be *spectacular.*
Starts off like nostalgia. Goes, really, really wrong. Should be everything I hate, yet I larfed.
I’ve not paid any attention to the previous seasons of “American Horror Story.” Just didn’t look like they’d do it for me. But this next season… I dunno, there’s something about it…
This season begins on election night, when Ally (Sarah Paulson) becomes completely undone once Trump wins. She’s an archetypical left-winger: a married lesbian with a child, an eco-friendly Prius and oddly specific phobias that’ll make her lose control when she’s triggered. Ally becomes hysterical once the results come in, howling and bawling like a nuclear blast had already hit or Mike Pence himself was outside her door to personally break up her marriage and take away her son.
“Go to hell Huffington Post!,” she wails. “F–k you Nate Silver! How could they have been so wrong about this?!” Her partner Ivy (Alison Pill) comes in to soothe her with something called ‘Cookie Breathing’ and, no matter who you voted for, this absurd portrait of a liberal hissy fit is something South Park could not have done better.
…
This is certainly the funniest iteration yet, mostly because of the dead-on parodies of the left. Ally and Ivy are wooed by an evil nanny, Winter (Billie Lourd), who tells them she worked for the Hillary campaign and was excited that Lena Dunham engaged with her on Twitter. Billy Eichner is half of a post-millennial, super-PC couple with an untraditional lifestyle, and eventually tries to destroy Ally with accusations of white privilege and racism.
Yikes:
Irma continues to exhibit a remarkably impressive satellite
presentation. The intensity was increased to 160 kt on the 1800
UTC intermediate public advisory based on a couple of SFMR winds of
160 kt measured in the northeastern eyewall by the Air Force
aircraft just prior to that time. The minimum pressure measured
by a dropsonde in the eye was 926 mb. Irma becomes only the fifth
Atlantic basin hurricane with a peak wind speed of 160 kt or
higher. The others are Allen (1980), the Labor Day Hurricane
of 1935, Gilbert (1988), and Wilma (2005).
…
Irma is a potentially catastrophic category 5 hurricane and will
bring life-threatening wind, storm surge, and rainfall hazards to
portions of the northeastern Leeward Islands tonight and tomorrow.
These hazards will spread into the Virgin Islands and Puerto
Rico tomorrow.
The reviews are starting to come in and… ummm….
And…
and…
Well, crap.
“The Orville” as shown in the trailers looked like a funny Star Trek parody, but it sounds like what they actually produced was a Star Trek-like *drama* with a few jokes. The reviews cover the first three episodes, and it really doesn’t sound very good. A lot of shows start off as stinkers and soon find their way, so maybe the rest of the season will be better. But then some series start off as stinkers and stay that way.
And on the other hand, this review gives it a 9 out of 10:
This is the sort of story that can only be met with an AAAAARRRRRRGH….
So, I’ve put a “read more” split here in case ya want to maintain that happy feeling and give this one a pass.
Still, if you want to prove your stone-heartedness, or you want to do the exact opposite, give it a read… and take a good look at the photos.