I bet the ship’s laundry had to put in some overtime in getting the tightywhities back into shape after this…
Jul 092016
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Jul 092016
This video by Chris Ray Gun is definitely worth a watch. He’s damn funny, and makes *full* use of all the colorful metaphors that our Germanic/Anglo Saxon heritage has gifted us… so if you watch this at work TURN IT UP.
I know a lot of people, including a good fraction of the readers of this blog, take issue with Bill Nye for his constant harping on global warming. Well, even assuming he’s dead wrong (and I don’t), he’s still a tireless advocate for science. A generation ago we had Carl Sagan who would not shut the hell up about nuclear winter, yet the brought a love of science to millions. But for every Nye or Sagan or Tyson, there will be many more in the public sphere working to denigrate science. Such as here, where Nye was on the Nightly Show, outnumbered three to one by left wingers who couldn’t care less about science, and are clearly actively opposed to it because it takes a tiny pittance of money away from their shallow useless pursuits.
Jul 092016
As before, I’ve not much opinion on Brexit. I understand why a lot of Brits might want out of the EU; it’s a bureaucratic nightmare, for starters. And there are economic reasons for staying in, though how many of these are “real” reasons and how many are “EU officials making sure to punish Britain” reasons, I don’t know. But there are some downright silly reasons given by both sides.
Some days back I heard a piece on NPR about one of the supposed down sides to Brexit: it’ll become more difficult for non-British athletes to come and play on British teams. Special reference was given to some English football teams (note: in this context, “football” refers to the specific form of sportsball also known as “soccer,” a crime against humanity that is used as a form of psychological torture against the audience. The game is so mind-snappingly dull that often the observers are driven to psychological breaks that cause them to go on rampages).
The idea seems to be that with travel restrictions in place, it will be difficult for, say, Germans to come play on an English team. While I suppose that’s probably true… it’s also true that so what? Shouldn’t an “English team” be made up of, you know, English people?
This is of course not an issue limited to denizens of the future European Caliphate, nor solely to fans of waterboarding soccer. But it seems like maybe this might be an opportunity for the Brits to actually make British sportsball teams British. Because if you are rooting for your local sporting collective, shouldn’t they actually have something to do with the local area other than drawing their paychecks from local property taxes and local ticket buyers? Imagine if the US Olympic team was composed not of the best mutants the US gene pool has to offer, but from people around the world brought on board for a payday? Would it really then be the *US* team?
Jul 092016
Close up terrible photos of Raedthinn, tongue slightly protruding. Common occurrence since his dental damage. Often it sticks out quite a bit more than this, but getting even *these* crappy shots was sheer luck. He sees a camera come out, he gets mad.
Jul 092016
Hallmark, you magnificent bastards:
Hallmark 2016 Christmas Ornament Alien Queen from Aliens Ornament
Jul 082016
Who would have ever thought it?
My Little Free Library war: How our suburban front-yard lending box made me hate books and fear my neighbors
Short form: A writer for Salon has come to realize that when he put one of those “Little Free Library” things out in his front years that what he *wasn’t* doing was setting up a place for people to exchange books, but a place for people to just pick up free stuff. That his neighbors, a bunch of “Progressive” stereotypes by way of “Graying gardeners and aging hippies; Bernie-or-Bust types; millennial parents, tatted and pierced, shepherding toddlers with names like Arya,” have assumed that anything that can be taken is actually free for the taking.
Welcome to adulthood, pal. People will steal anything that ain’t nailed down, and a lot of things that are. *Especially* if they’ve been misraised to believe that private property rights aren’t sacred, that all property is or should be communal, that they are entitled to free stuff. This is a variant of the Tragedy of the Commons. People see no repercussions if they simply permanently abscond with the books, perhaps even sell them on ebay; so what do they care?
As a lover of books and someone who wishes to share knowledge, when the “Little Free Library” things first started popping up a few years back I contemplated setting one up out front. Then it dawned on me that, without some enforcement mechanism, I’d do just as well to simply pile books atop a garbage can.
Jul 082016
A while ago I was asked by another aerospace historian if I had any artwork of the “Dual Keel” version of the Space Station design from the mid/late 1980s. This was a predecessor to the International Space Station (the “Russians” being the “Soviets” at the time) and was to be used not just as an orbiting shack for some basic research, but also as an assembly area for manned missions to the moon and Mars. Turns out I had a fair amount of Dual Keel art. As is the way of things, a lot of that art is moderately poor… scanned from dusty slides, in many cases. Still, it’s what I had. It dawned on me that others might be interested in it, so I put all the images into the same size and format (standard 8.5X11) and made a PDF out of it, seventy some pages. I have uploaded Part One to the “APR Extras” Dropbox site into the “2016-07 APR Extras” folder. This is accessible to all APR Patreon patrons at the $4 level and above (if you are such a patron and don’t have access, send me a message via Patreon, I’ll get you fixed up).
Jul 072016
Past couple of days have seen some bad PR for police, what with the extremely dubious shootings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philandro Castile in Minnesota. This has been a joyous time for the causehead movementarians, of course, now they have something to protest again. But then this happens:
Multiple officers killed at Dallas protest over police killings
As of right now, eleven police officers have been shot; four have died. The Dallas PD says that there were at least two shooters, using rifles from behind cover, ambushing cops sniper-style. Reportedly two suspects in custody.
So, time for uninformed rampant speculation about the shooters! As always… Republican white supremacist Christian fundamentalists has got to be first on everyone’s list, right?
Jul 072016
This here is a downright interesting weapon:
Jul 062016
While FBI Director Comey recommended no charges against Hillary, he did her no favors with the rest of his presentation. In fact, he laid out a pretty good case for why she *should* have been charged. Why wasn’t she? One of life’s great mysteries, I suppose.
Behold:
Compare and contrast what she said *didn’t* happen with what he said *did.*
So, she gets off scot-free, at least from a criminal law sense. But if Trump and his people have *any* sense (I’ll leave my own opinion on that a blank spot for now), they’ll get all kinds of mileage out of this in the coming months.
Yeesh. I just feel sullied and unusual whenever I realize that Donald Trump is the least awful option this election season. In contrast, this trailer I stumbled across for a video game called “Scorn” almost seems like a normal sort of election campaign ad.
Giger-esque body horror? Meh. I’ve seen Hillary Clinton evade a proper prosecution.