Cyanotypes: one step forward…

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Apr 052023

As I’ve previously mentioned, something holding back my return to cyanotyping is a sudden lack of availability of the transparent film required. Without that I can’t print off new negatives. Early on in this protracted process I managed to get a few prints from a local print shop; these prints were made at a distant affiliate and shipped in. But later efforts to get more printed not only failed, the local print shop *lied* to me about what was going on. This pissed me off, of course and now they are on my Do Not Do Business With list.

Another local print ship has been attempting for some months to procure a roll of the stuff. I will have to buy the whole roll, hundreds of dollars of it, because there are not other customers. Well, yesterday, just before the storm came in and took out electricity and communications, I received and email letting me know that, at long last, the roll had arrived. Woo! This morning, with the return of electricity and comms, I sent them a followup email asking if they were ready to proceed with printing new cyanotype-transparencies.

Answer: the storm took *them* out, they are still without power, and there were hints that equipment might have been damaged.

Sigh.

Well, at least there’s some measure of forward progress.

HPL was a freakin’ prophet

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Mar 282023

More and more I’m suspecting that Lovecraft was right about at least some of his creations. Nyarlathotep, for example. Of all his Old Ones that posed a threat to mankind, the “Crawling Chaos” was one of the few that actually *cared* about humanity. Most were vast cosmic entities that didn’t even really notice us, or noticed us only as bugs to be trod upon, or not, without much thought. Malevolent entities to be sure, but they barely gave a damn one way or the other. Nyarlathotep, on the other hand, actively walked among humanity, often taking on human form, and worked to bring down and drive mad civilization. He didn’t do this by using brute force, but by whispering in ears, showing people visions, hell, giving lectures. Those who witnessed often went bugnuts and tore civilization down around them in their insanity.

Sound familiar?

From his “prose poem” Nyarlathotep:

I recall that the people went about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard. A sense of monstrous guilt was upon the land, and out of the abysses between the stars swept chill currents that made men shiver in dark and lonely places. There was a daemoniac alteration in the sequence of the seasons—the autumn heat lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from the control of known gods or forces to that of gods or forces which were unknown.

After decades of race relations getting better, everything is worse now: mobs of racists are beating the tar out of random targets in shopping malls and on streets. Criminals are not only not being arrested, they’re being undercharged, or not charged at all, when they do get arrested. People with acknowledged violent streaks are being unleashed on the public to offend again and again. People who are so delusional that they mutilate their bodies to fit what they think they are supposed to be are *celebrated,* not given treatment; this form of madness is exploding in popularity, becoming statistically significant… and is now not only threatening the lives of those who don’t celebrate them, they are celebrating those who actually take the lives of children. The threat of nuclear annihilation disappeared thirty years ago… and now it’s fricken’ back. The Chinese look like they might replace the American dollar as the default world currency. Perverts and deviants are demanding – and gaining – access to children on an almost industrial scale; anyone who complains risks the wrath of not just the mob but the law. The upper echelons of political leadership are filled with the senile, the stupid, the brain damaged. How does this *not* seem like Nyarlathotep is standing in the shadows, whispering vast numbers into madness?

What I find especially bothersome is that we are on the precipice of *hope.* SpaceX, for example, is perhaps weeks away from a test launch of a rocket that could begin the process of freeing mankind from dependence on this one rock. Hell, we’ve finally got good Star Trek for the first time in decades… and it could all be flushed.

Test for USVP03

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Mar 252023

After a delay of several years, I’m back to working on my own little publications. Since the delay was caused by working on actual published *books,* I like to think that I’ve gotten a bit better. Thus the next issue of US VTOL projects has about twice the text of the prior issue, and the diagrams are a bit better. To get best use of the diagrams, I’m reviewing how they are being incorporated into the final text. The link below is a test PDF with four pages… each page has the same illustration, but with variations in resolution, line weight, etc. I’m interested in what looks “best.” So take a look and let me know which page – if any – looks best on screen, and if possible printed out.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jy8tbvrgje464v7/test.pdf?dl=0

I’m of a couple minds here

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Mar 252023

The story:

North Carolina English teacher resigns after ‘covering mouth of boy, 11, with heavy duty TAPE to stop him talking in class’

First up, the flaw in the headline: the tape isn’t “heavy duty.” It’s not Gorilla Tape… it’s blue painters tape. Which means it’s not especially sticky. It’s masking tape with less tack, really easy to pull off.

But as to the issue: taping a talkative kids mouth shut. On the one hand, kids are supposed to shut he hell up in class. Constantly yammering on is not only bad for class discipline, it damages the other kids in class by impairing their ability to concentrate on the lesson. On the other hand, boys this age are full of energy (or at least they should be). This is not a “problem,” this is not “wrong,” this is basic biology. So physical punishment for something as relatively inoffensive as talking – as opposed to throwing things, fighting, stealing, assaults, etc. – may seem excessive.

What say y’all?

I do know one thing: teacher was a moron. How do I know this? She was a foreigner, here on a visa. She lost her job *and* her visa over this. Whatever plans she may have had for the future have been shot to hell. And this was an unforced error on her part. You don’t go to another land and screw with their kids if you want a better life. Unless you go to Britain. They seem to be cool with foreigners screwing with their kids. But the US/ We still, in general, care for our offspring. For the most part.

– – – – –

Meme unrelated. But I just wanted to share it.

“Picard” rejects “Discovery”

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Mar 242023

Season three of “Star Trek Picard” has been an astonishing breath of fresh “Star Trek.” After four dismal years of “Discovery” insulting the fandom and crapping on the legacy, and two hideous seasons of “Picard” that took a steamer on the character of “Picard,” season three, under new management, has really turned things around. And the latest episode goes so far as to wipe out the Discovery production design aesthetic.

There is a visit to the Star fleet Museum, showing a number of of ships on display. These include the Defiant from Deep Space Nine, Janeway’s Voyager, the NCC-1701-A Enterprise, the HMS Bounty whale hauler… and the USS New Jersey. This is a never before seen, probably never before mentioned ship. Which makes sense; doubtless Star Fleet has lots of ships worthy of keeping that never showed up in any prior episode or movie. But what makes the scene really special: all of these ships are, so far as I can tell, *exactly* what they should be in terms of design. The Bounty looks like a Klingon vessel from Star trek III and IV, not one of those gibberish ships from Discovery. The Enterprise, Voyager, Defiant are all quite correct. And the New Jersey? Take a look:

That’s a *proper* TOS-era Connie-class. Not like the sad spectacle of “Pikes” Enterprise from STD/SNW.

And there’s the fact that Worf looks like a Trek Klingon, not a nuTrek Klingork.

So, yeah. Picard ends with this season. But the powers that be will be *really* missing out if they don’t follow this up with a series that spins off of Picard Season Three… same production crew, same production aesthetic, same writers, same producers. They finally found people to work on Trek who actually *like* Trek.

OK, so how do you game the system on this one?

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Mar 212023

OSU requires DEI statements from mechanical, aerospace engineer job applicants

Scholars seeking a job in Ohio State University’s College of Engineering must pledge their allegiance to diversity, equity and inclusion as part of the process.

University officials ask applicants to provide a statement that describes their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, along with “specific examples such as teaching and/or mentoring students from underrepresented backgrounds, outreach activities to underrepresented groups, or conducting research that address social inequities,” according to a copy of the application rubric recently tweeted by John Sailer with the National Association of Scholars.

One suggestion I have: use the current terminology against them. What, exactly, is an “underrepresented” group? That’s nicely vague. One could simply assume that it means “minority.” Okey doke. Well, what is one of the “progressives” most favoritist descriptions these days? “The Global Majority.”

“Global majority” is a collective term for ethnic groups which constitute approximately 85 percent of the global population. It has been used as an alternative to terms which are seen as racialized like “ethnic minority” and “person of color” (POC), or more regional terms like “visible minority” in Canada and “Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic” (BAME) in the United Kingdom.

OK. Cool. Then that means “The Global Minority” is anyone not described by that 85%. You know… white people. So… say “why yes, I’m committed to mentoring minorities.” By doing so, and keeping it vague, it means you’re committed to mentoring EVERY TYPE OF HUMAN IMAGINABLE. Because by one definition or another, everyone is a minority.

Also:

High scores are given to candidates who have a “sophisticated understanding of differences stemming from ethnic, socioeconomic, racial, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and cultural backgrounds and the obstacles people from these backgrounds face in higher education.”

This can also go pretty much any way you want it to. “Yes, I fully understand the importance of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs. (Because I understand how they cause a general reduction in competence and quality.) I understand how all these different factors can play into the difficulties people face. (Because I’ve seen how Asians and The Global Minority are shut out of educational opportunities due to quotas.)” And so on.

There is a way to game any system, no matter how devious and malicious. However, better still would be to toss out this nonsense. *Especially* in stem fields of education and endeavor, where competence and merit are the only metrics by which someone should advance. otherwise buildings burn, bridges collapse, planes crash and people die. But in the mean time, people have to decide to either stand up to the bullies and risk it all, or undermine the bastards.

“Gladiator” sequel

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Mar 192023

Denzel Washington Is Poised to Sign On for Gladiator Sequel

There are as yet few details. Ridley Scott is on board as director, and the character “Lucius,” a child in the first movie, is returning as an adult.

But here’s the thing: “Gladiator” ended as something of an alternate history movie. Maximum killed the emperor Commodus in the Colosseum (unlike in reality where he was assassinated by a wrestler). It was implied fairly strongly that Maximus’s desire to see Rome restored to an emperor-less republic would be adhered to. I suspect that the sequel will simply gloss over those details and restore something like Roman history, emperors and all. Commodus died in 192AD; if the sequel takes place 25 years later in 217 AD, that would mean Marcus Opellius Macrinus would be emperor. That said… it would be interesting if they decided to run with the alternate history idea, Rome restored to a Republic. Twenty five years might be too few to make major changes in Rome… but maybe not. The possibilities are endless.

As unconventional as that approach might be, it’s nothing on the “Gladiator 2” that was originally pitched. That one saw Russel Crowe’s Maximus return as the main character… a neat trick given as he’s dead and all, but the script ran with it, throwing in the Roman gods sending dead Maximus on a mission to hunt down Jehovah. I highly doubt any studio would have *ever* approved such a wacky movie, but, hey, given the rapid advanced in AI, perhaps soon it will be made anyway.

And it only took me four decades

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Mar 162023

At last, my collection of “Tom Swift Jr.” novels is complete. Since I’m a miser/dirt poor, I was only willing to spend a pittance for each book, but if you wait long enough pretty much everything shows up on ebay.

Woo.

And because why not, here’s the next shelf over:

On a related note: turns out that last year a bit of good news slipped by me un-noticed. The CW a few years ago decided to make a TV series about Tom Swift Jr… it could have been good (I mean, it’s not beyond the bounds of the physically possible), but CW decided instead to make an abomination. The series began airing on May 31, 2022. It was promptly cancelled on June 30, 2022, due to low ratings. And of course: Tom Swift had been turned from a no-nonsense STEM-focused blond blue-eyed teenager with a girlfriend into a flamboyant gay black adult. Thus assuring that the existing fanbase would be uninterested. And who among that fraction of the population for whom “flamboyant gay black man” is a draw would be interested in a crappy sci-fantasy show?

From the Wikipedia article on the series:

Lead actor Richards said of the adaptation, “The original Tom Swift was great for his time and what he represented. At the time, that was the face of young boys, All-American kids full of possibilities. But in 2021, that can look so different. It can look like someone like me—a Black guy who is chocolate, who is queer, who is all those things that we’re told aren’t the normal or the status quo.” He added, “We’re going to dive into so many sectors of identity. We’re going to talk about Blackness—and a different kind of Blackness than we’re used to seeing, which is the Black elite, the 1 percent, the billionaires. We’re also going to talk about a queer boy’s journey into becoming a queer man. Not only self-acceptance, but acceptance as a whole, having the community and people around you.”

Gosh. I wonder why it failed to grab ratings.

“The Russian Grab”

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Mar 162023

This video from at least 7 years ago lays out some of the reasons why the Russians may well have gotten rather adventurous of late: they are running out of Russians, but they’re not running out of routes to invade Russia. So rather than cultivate good relations with the surrounding nations or get on about the task of making more Russians, they seem to have gone the other route of trying to seize all the invasion routes while they still have a military with which to do it. As the last year of their little two-week “military operation” has shown, that hasn’t gone so well.

Note the “demographic pyramid” he shows here. It lays out the population of Russia by age; a growing population has a wide base of young people, but back when this video was made (circa 2015) Russias base was looking kinda weak. However, it did seem to be growing somewhat:

So how is it looking today?

Oh, dear. It looks like baby-making fell off a cliff right after this guy made his video, so instead of things maybe getting better they’ve gotten much worse.

“Population pyramids” are interesting things to consider. Nations like this with shrinking young uns are in serious trouble; the pyramid for South Korea looks especially dire:

China’s not looking so good:

Nor is Japan:

Iceland, in contrast, looks kinda ok:

but if you really want to see where the population of the future is coming from, you need pyramids that look like this:

Or this:

The nations with wide bases will have greatly increased populations, with greatly increased pressures for those populations to leave and colonize low-population regions. The dying nations will, like Russia, likely try to defend themselves with constantly diminishing human resources, or they will, like much of Europe is currently doing, simply allow themselves to be colonized and replaced, culturally, religiously, ethnically.

Gonna be an interesting century.

Say goodbye to South Korea

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Mar 152023

Apparently life is bad for women in South Korea, with a heavily patriarchal society that treats ’em like garbage. So, perhaps not surprisingly, a lot of South Korean women are doing what they can to avoid the worst of it. And for some number of them, that means avoiding men entirely:

A World Without Men

The women of South Korea’s 4B movement aren’t fighting the patriarchy — they’re leaving it behind entirely.

The “4B” movement is essentially the “Men Going Their Own Way” movement of South Korean women, separating themselves from any relationships with men, including family and male friends. They’re cutting their hair short (or bald) and avoiding makeup in order to be less attractive, and are either living alone or shacking up with other women. And according to the article, a lot of these women seem satisfied with this arrangement. There is, of course, the inevitable result:

In December of that year (2016), as Korea’s fertility rate hovered at 1.2 births per woman (it has since slid to 0.78, the lowest in the world)

The birth rate has plummeted from 1.2 to 0.78 in well under a decade. And 1.2 was *well* under replacement rate. South Korea will soon begin to run low on young people, though likely not on old people. This will mean that the burden of caring for an elderly population will fall more and more on fewer and fewer younger Koreans, likely driving some kind of an exodus… And quite possibly driving an *influx* of cheap, low-paid “migrants.” This will lead to South Korean culture being gradually replaced with some other culture. And the question will be… what is this other culture’s views on such things as women’s rights? Just as Europe celebrates gay and trans while not making their own babies and importing *vast* numbers of people from cultures that not only like to make babies but also like to throw gay people off rooftops, there will be an inevitable clash. A South Korea filled with elderly Koreans and young non-Koreans seems like a poor force to stack up against an invasion of young, armed North Koreans. All the Norks needs to do is wait and keep making babies, and the peninsula is theirs.

If you won;t make the next generation, someone else will. That might well suck… but there it is regardless.

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