Well, hell. Vernor Vinge has died.
Some years back he read some of my sci-fi stories (specifically my first novel) and suggested that I could/should get published. Turns out he was wrong on that score (couldn’t get any agent to actually read the damn thing), but for a brief moment a pro gave me hope.
Speedbump died last night.
Buttons has what now seems to be a permanent issue with his innards. As a consequence, from here on out once a week or so I’ll quarantine him in a room in the basement so I can make sure that he eats his food, and poops properly. None of the cats think this arrangement is proper; when the door’s closed he wants out, the other cats want in. When the door opens, the other cats come rushing down the basement stairs to try to get in the room.
Last night I left the room and went up the stairs in the darkness… and found Speedbump laying at the top of the stairs. Billy and Banshee were running around as normal. Speedbump was not breathing, no heartbeat, unresponsive. As I examined him, he started slowly peeing. I rushed him to the emergency vet, but he was truly gone at that point. The vets examined him and found no signs of trauma, choking, infectious illness or poison. Their best guess is that he had a heart attack or threw a clot, both of which cats are apparently distressingly prone to.
The evidence suggests that when he heard the basement door open, he came running and simply fell over dead. It was quick and non-theatrical; he made no sound that I heard, and Billy and Banshee did not seem to pay him much mind. Previous experiences with live cats coming across dead cats has been traumatic, so whatever happened to Speedbump was fast and silent. I suspect I missed him by *seconds,* not that I could have done anything but freak out. Which I kinda ended up doing anyway.
If I had known that one of my cats was going to suddenly die, I would have been quite certain that it would have been Buttons, as he has been unwell for a while. But Speedbump was normal and lively only an hour before, giving no signs of distress.
He went quickly, and, it seems, pretty much painlessly. That, at least, is a relief.
A photo from a month ago: Speedbump watching Billy look out at the snow.
My last photo of Speedbump from a few days ago, sacked out with Buttons. He and Buttons were buddies; I imagine Buttons will soon come to miss him.
All in all… WTF.
Oh, joy:
Iran launched ballistic missiles at Erbil, Iraq, supposedly targeting a Mossad facility (which probably didn’t actually exist), with missiles landing near the US Consulate. Pretty sure Iraq would consider this an act of war. At least four civilians are reported dead, though no Americans, and no damage to the consulate.
Had the missiles actually struck the consulate, that would doubtless have been sufficient cause for the US Navy and/or Air Force to pay the Iranians a visit.
2024 is off to a rollicking start. With an election in November, we can expect domestic terrorism to spike, with the usual assortments of riots and arson and insurrections that are given a pass. And with everyone recognizing how addlepated Biden is, and with worldwide chaos running rampant already, international incidents are doubtless also going to increase.
“U.N. experts argue there has been no evidence to suggest that nitrogen gas would not “result in a painful and humiliating death.””
Oh FFS. Nitrogen asphyxiation has been dangerous in industry specifically *because* it’s painless. If you find yourself in a volume filled with carbon dioxide – a small room, a tank of some kind, whatever – you are *instantly* going to know it. Your lungs will object, you’ll cough, you’ll hold your breath… and you’ll try to get the hell out of there. If you find yourself in a volume filled with *poison* gas, you’ll try to evacuate even faster. But nitrogen? You feel nothing. Your lungs are used to nitrogen… about 80% of every breath you take is nitrogen. You’ll continue to breathe it in, and continue to expel oxygen with each breath, rapidly getting rid of the oxygen in your blood as you continue to respire normally, until you rather quickly slip into a peaceful unconsciousness, and soon *die.*
All evidence points to nitrogen being a peaceful and painless way to go. And consequently one of the less humiliating, unless you find not thrashing about and screaming in pain and terror humiliating. I imagine the actual goal is to simply stop executions, rather than having any legitimate objection to nitrogen. Because if this is carried out and shown to be what history has shown it should be – effective and painless – other governments might adopt it. Given that unlike lethal injection it quires little skill – just strapping on a mask, rather than finding veins and jamming needles into them – and uses cheap and easily available nitrogen gas rather than difficult to obtain chemicals, nitrogen executions should be relatively inexpensive. One argument might be that this will incentivize bad governments to execute more; but bad governments have little trouble with just shooting people they don’t like. The counterpoint is that taxpayers shouldn’t be overly burdened if clearly easier alternatives are available.
Well, *some* of our jobs:
Pink-haired Aitana Lopez is followed by more than 200,000 people on social media. She posts selfies from concerts and her bedroom, while tagging brands such as hair care line Olaplex and lingerie giant Victoria’s Secret.
Brands have paid about $1,000 a post for her to promote their products on social media—despite the fact that she is entirely fictional.
So… do we care?
If we are an influencer, sure. But this is one of the more socially worthless “jobs” out there. They add nothing to society; they learn few skills or trades useful for other more practical forms of employment. If all “influencers” were suddenly unemployed, there’d be tens/hundreds of thousands of talentless hacks suddenly dumped into the job market, competing for burger flipper roles against millions of new migrant voters. Sucks for them, I suppose.
But after the “influencers” will come the TV news anchors, actors, singers. Some have argued that people will prefer actual humans to AI for such things, but evidence is mounting to the contrary. And at some point soon (if not already) it’ll be impossible to tell the difference, and *very* difficult to confirm that an AI isn’t real, especially if those controlling it want people to think said AI is a real person.
Long story short: I’ve been a *casual* watcher of “Dr. Who” for 40+ years. From watching it from time to time on PBS back in the 80s – the Tom Baker era, mostly – to catching the revived version in more recent years, I would generally find it amusing if somewhat baffling. The fact that not only was it stories set over multiple episodes, meaning you’re in the dark if you’ve missed any, but that it was terribly *British* meant that it just didn’t quite hit for me. But still, I liked it well enough, and I respect the IP and the fandom.
But not everyone respects the IP or the fandom. This includes the makers of the show these days.
One thing I could always expect from any iteration of The Doctor would be that he was some flavor of “British Man.” Generally some variant of the Brit known as the “boffin,” a weird eccentric science type. But then came the “insufferably smug British woman” variant of the Doctor. And next up… gay sub-Saharan African Doctor, which seems to be meant specifically to annoy the long-time fans. So, yeah, I haven’t felt the urge to watch Dr. Who in a good long while. Recent events have not changed that. In fact, recent efforts by the makers of the show to gaslight fans of the show make me actively uninterested.
The latest nonsense has been the race swapping of historical figure Isaac Newton. For a British show to *intentionally* replace an important English historical figure with an Indian actor seems at best odd, at worst part of a wider ongoing and undeniable effort to replace the English within their own history. But the people behind this have themselves a new strategy to defend their decisions from those who don’t like it:
Behold: pointing out that Newton was English, or Cleopatra was Greek, or Hannibal was Phoenician, has gone from merely being a racist position to now “villainizing minorities.” If you say that so-and-so wasn’t black or Indian or whatever, you are now equating blacks or Indians or whatever with criminals. It is dishonest, it is unhinged, it doesn’t make sense, but it’s what they’ve got.
That’s their argument against those who point out the folly and malignity of race swapping historical figures. What’s their argument *for* doing this? The Dr. Who casting director says:
“It then becomes even more important to give people a voice and for people to be represented, especially for young people growing up who might be trans or from any minority. If they can see themselves on screen, then that can be a huge lifeline for some people. That can make them feel part of the world, which indeed they are.” … “Growing up as a gay man, I’m as aware as anybody else of how this stuff makes you feel when you see it. “
Uh-huh. So he likes to see his little subset “represented.” But he somehow doesn’t understand – or pretends not to – how a large *majority* of people do not like to watch their “representation” getting not just erased, but culturally appropriated and colonized by outsiders who didn’t earn it, don’t deserve it and don’t fit in it.
Turns out two of the propellant tanks for the fourth stage of the final Vega launch vehicle – a European launcher that first flew in 2012, designed for small payloads – went missing. That’s kinda inexcusable and inexplicable. But at least they found them. That’s good, right? Well…
They had been crushed and were found alongside metal scraps in a landfill.
Whoopsie.
Even better: as this is the *last* flight of a Vega, the production lines are long since shut down. So in order to pull off the planned 2024 launch, either tanks from pre-2012 ground tests will be scrounged – assuming they’re still in good enough shape – or a whole different unqualified-for-Vega upper stage will be used.
Maybe just fly on a Falcon.
The second Starship/Superheavy launched today. Vastly more successful than the first flight, but both stages were still destroyed.
This sort of thing would be unacceptable for a modern NASA launch system… but it was common in early launch vehicle development. Atlas and Titan kerploded with regularity. This sort of thing is not desirable, but it is a natural part of the learning process.
Scott Manley has done an analysis of the video and has some good suggestions about what happened with the booster. There would seem likely to be some serious issues with slosh and propellant hammer effects, caused by the sudden deceleration and flip maneuver. These are resolvable.
But beyond the technical issues and successes… this flight was simply *gorgeous.*
Some beautiful views of the Starship II 🚀,
before the take-off, while take-off, during the Hot-Staging phase and after separation and charting its solo Odyssey. One day a similar machine will carry a human to Mars, beside all the negativity.#Space #SpaceX #StarshipBest… pic.twitter.com/Qm3BxrBIj3
— Masroor H. Bukhari (@MasroorBukhari) November 18, 2023
I LOVE this view of the Raptors shutting down in segments!! 🔥 #SpaceX #Starship@DJSnM @Erdayastronaut pic.twitter.com/UaNdMMUfAx
— Debapratim (@debapratim_) November 18, 2023
So majestic – look at her!!#SpaceX #StarshipLaunch
— This Brown Geek (@thisbrowngeek) November 18, 2023
OMG! No Words!! #SpaceX #Starship #ITF2 #Elonmusk #Liftoff #Starbase #Texas https://t.co/TGuheUrBqZ pic.twitter.com/av5nIGyUVz
— Scott Schilke (@SchilkeScott) November 18, 2023
How wonderful!👍
Congratulations #SpaceX pic.twitter.com/klliKCEvpA— Ri's Kitchen (@TanKitchen91) November 18, 2023
The most awaited lift off of the year. Few more steps towards success 🚀 what a view 😍🫶#SpaceX #StarshipLaunch #Starship pic.twitter.com/tJf9T1kdz7
— cosmichaos (@karmicoder) November 18, 2023
I’ve long counseled American Jews to get armed and trained, because their “friends” on the political left will sooner or later throw them to the wolves. That day seems to be right about here, if not in fact yesterday.
Anyway, this happened today:
One “Ruba Almaghtheh” rammed her car into the Indianapolis school, which had a single adult and four little kids in it. She damaged her car and scored herself attention and felony charges, but didn’t seem to actually injure anyone. Why’d she do it? Because it was the “Israelite School of Universal and Practical Knowledge,” and some people are kinda psycho in their hatred of Jews.
But here’s the kicker: the”Israelite School of Universal and Practical Knowledge” isn’t Jewish… it’s “Black Hebrew Israelites.” These are black supremacists who have culturally appropriated some texts, names, clothes and ideas, but are about as Jewish as the average Fed glowie advocating online for violent rebellion is actually a Trump supporter. In one of those fantastic “make it make sense” moments, they are an offshoot of the “Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ.” They are so whackadoodle that even the Southern Poverty Law Center, which hates to even suggest that there can be such a thing as anti-white racism, has labeled them a hate group.
So… Palestine-supporters vs black supremacists? I want this show to go on for seven seasons and at least three movies.
And in other news, Palestine supporters are now outright murdering Israel supporters on American streets.
BREAKING: A pro-Palestine protester has been arrested after killing a 65 year old Jewish man by hitting him over the head with a megaphone during a verbal altercation in the Thousand Oaks area of LA.
The man suffered from a brain hemorrhage as a result & succumbed to his… pic.twitter.com/sCY4MgraGB— Leftism (@LeftismForU) November 7, 2023
And in other news…
Enemy missiles have been shot down before. Missiles in space have been shot down before. But this is the first time an enemy missile has been shot down in space.
Several models of the Starship Enterprise were built for the original “Star Trek” series. The most famous is the 11-foot model which was used for most of the effects shots, and *amazingly* managed to survive long enough to end up in the hands of the National Air and Space Museum. But before the 11-footer was a 3-footer. This was made early on, and was solid wood with no lighting; still, it was used in a number of shots. This model stayed in the hands of Gene Roddenberry, modified to rest on a mike stand bolted to a wooden base. This model was lent to the first special effects house during the production of the aborted “Star Trek Phase II” series in the mid-70’s… and then it vanished. Whether it was stolen, misplaced or lost has not been clear, but Roddenberry considered it to be stolen. Stuff like this that disappears stands a good chance of never being seen again. Witness many of the models made for “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
But then, the “Aries Ib” model for “2001” was found a few years ago. And as it turns out, that 3-foot Enterprise was recently found. It was in a storage unit, purchased by someone who buys such things at auction. The new owner then put it on ebay with a starting price of a mere $1000. And then Star Trek fandom found out about it and has been going nuts. The Roddenberry estate contacted the seller and the auction has been pulled.
News was revealed here:
https://www.therpf.com/forums/threads/red-alert-lost-3-ft-tos-enterprise-found.354596/
The current seller has broken no laws… it seems he just bought an abandoned storage unit. But the Enterprise remains stolen property and should be returned to the Roddenberry estate. Still… it sure seems like the seller aught to be compensated for finding this thing, even if he didn’t really know quite what he had. It’s in pretty rough shape, as can be expected. With luck it’ll receive some sort of restoration, though arguments can be made for exactly how far that should go. It should definitely be cleaned up. It’s drooping and cracked; that should be fixed. But fixing the paint and decals? I don’t know about that. Perhaps it, unlike the NASM Enterprise, should retain the appearance of years. There are some “errors” that were there from the beginning, those should stay.
It is very unlikely that this will ever see an auction. But if it does, it’ll doubtless go for Lotto-levels of cash.
The photos from the ebay listing:
