An interesting CGI video depicting three sizes of folding rotor tiltrotor High Speed VTOL from Bell. The concept is not new; actually building and flying one, though, would be. The designs shown are also not new; Bell has been floating them for a few years at least since late 2021.
https://view.ceros.com/bell-helicopter/hsvtol/p/1
Bell's High-Speed Vertical Takeoff and Landing (HSVTOL) https://t.co/4X6kFr38Sg pic.twitter.com/AdGoUTeaup
— 笑脸男人 (@lfx160219) March 6, 2023
I’m not a fan of Dungeons & Dragons. Some friends tried to get me to play it going on 40 years ago, and I just didn’t get it (the FASA Star Trek Starship Combat game, though? I was all about that). So I don’t know the lore, settings, characters, etc. But I *do* know that the majority of fans appear to be males. D&D seems to share a lot of the *feel* of Lord of the Rings, which is also popular more among males. And while the males may tend towards the nerdy, the appreciation is for traditional masculine roles… heroes, barbarians, warriors, wizards. Weaklings are not well appreciated in that sort of world view. Even the supposedly week Hobbits turned out to have endless wells of strength and courage and, when called for, badassery.
And thus my confoundment upon reading:
The male characters, once again, apparently take a back seat to the females, and are depicted as weak and ineffectual. D&D is a role playing game. The players adopt roles… roles that they *want* to play. Characters they’d probably like to *be.* How many D&D players – the presumed base for the movie – want to see themselves as incompetent, weak, lazy, cowardly, useless? So… who is this movie supposed to appeal to?
I was unlikely to see this movie before reading this. “Unlikely” has transitioned to “statistically insignificant chance.”
I’ve never gotten into RC aircraft. Partly because I know that I am fated to spend thousands of hours building something only to have it promptly flop over two seconds after I launch the thing. But static display models? All about that. So this electric RC B-1B bomber looks intriguing. At $800, it’s out of my price range and I *certainly* don’t have a place to display it (seems to be about 1/23 scale)… but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s just neato.
There is one “Blockbuster” video rental store surviving, in Bend, Oregon. Given that Blockbuster went bankrupt in 2010, it’s a bit surprising that one exists at all. The surviving store appears to exist on nostalgia; tourists taking in the novelty of The Last Blockbuster. Well, whatever works.
Kids these days will never know the thrill of getting to go to a mid-1980’s video rental store and perusing the aisles of VHS tapes. Seeing fantastic box art for movies that in your heart of hearts you know is going to be utter trash… some low-budget “Star Wars” or “Conan” knockoff, starring who’s-that spouting garbage dialog and wearing laughable costumes. It was friggen’ fantastic… at the time. Now, a bunch of these movies that back then you’d have to go out of your way to find are now instantly streamable; the ease of access makes their crappiness stand out all the brighter, with none of the fun. Bleah.
Rarity makes things seem more valuable. This is not an amazing revelation, of course. And now movies at home aren’t rare, aren’t difficult to access. There’s little to no social aspect to picking out a movie; instead of driving to the store and communing with strangers about what might or might not be worth renting, you just click on something and up it pops. I imagine that in not so many years you’ll be able to think of a movie and it will promptly start playing directly into your head, courtesy your government mandated Neural Chip. And soon enough after that, AI will make that Brain Streamable movie be anything you like: that “Jaws 2” meets “Debbie Does Dallas” crossover you always wanted? Here ya go. And shortly after that the Brain Streaming Content will be fully interactive; you’ll be able to live out the adventure yourself inside your own head; no holodeck needed. The entire accessible universe of time and space and imagination will be instantly and nearly freely available. And after a few weeks, everyone will be bored of it.
At least for now that last Blockuster is operating, and has a sense of humor.
So there’s this forthcoming movie, “Space Oddity.” The premise is that a guy is selected for a one-way mission to Mars. This is not an unrealistic idea… for every colonization mission throughout history there have been people – lots of people – who went on a one-way trip. That’s how we colonized the entire planet, and that’s how we’ll colonize the entire universe. But instead of the movie being about the boldness of the mission, the braveness of the guy, the vision for the future… it seems to be about the people dragging him down, refusing to let him have his dream. Fark the future of mankind, stay down here with us in the dirt (rather literally in this case).
It’s not entirely clear how the movie will end, but the trailer seems to be one of those that lays out the entire plot. And it indicates that, gosh, love conquers all, including the urge to explore. To that I say: bah. And to my satisfaction, so do a lot of the commenters on the video.
I have a *pile* of books to sell; the first of them are now on ebay. More will be added as I get around to it…
Man made horrors beyond your conception brought to you by AI:
I’m selling the blueprints I’ve recently made. I can sign ’em if the buyer wants, front or back…
It’s time to post my first batch of cyanotypes to ebay. But I ran into a conundrum… how should I categorize them? I started entering the first one, the Sat Ib, as “collectible-historical memorabilia-astronauts & space travel-etc” but then I realized that these were made by me over the last few weeks. The *sources* for the blueprints are of course historical, but the actual items themselves are brand new, hand made “art” items. Suggestions?
Sometimes you just can’t win.
And don’t forget *this* classic:
@joefelice5062
5 days ago