Whoops: Someone told a lie. And keeps telling it.

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., history, Hmm..., Meh., politics, science, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Feb 142022
 

At first…

The claim is made that Henry Sampson invented the cell phone. But then…

Henry Sampson is interviewed and points out that he *didn’t* invent the cell phone. He invented the “gamma electric cell,” which is to gamma rays what a photoelectric cell is to sunlight. That’s certainly not nothing, and is a useful device that is doubtless beyond the ability of the vast majority of people to invent… but despite the fact that it has “cell” in the name, it has nothing to do with cell phones. But the internet is *filled* with sites touting Sampson as the inventor of cell phone technology.

This points out how widely a rather simple misunderstanding can spread to become “truth,” even though the actual facts are *easily* discovered. I don’t  doubt that sometime several years ago someone saw “gamma-electric cell” and mistakenly *assumed* a link to cell phones. But at some point an honest mistake based on ignorance becomes a lie, even if those repeating it actually believe it. That point is when the facts are easily available to anyone who wants to find them… but they refuse to do so. This puts it in the same category as the “wage gap,” “pink tax” and Creationism.

 Posted by at 9:47 am

And then again, it may not

 blather, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., Meh., politics, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Feb 082022
 

So Showtime has decided to excrete a “documentary” series based on the idea that white people are terribly racist and awful and evil (at least, that’s the impression the trailer gives). It starts off with the following in great big letters:

WARNING: THIS TRAILER MAY TRIGGER WHITE PEOPLE

Uh-huh.

Now, I’m sure there are a few white people who will get their knickers in a knot over the nonsense in the trailer and start firing off angry messages. But as a long-time white person, my reaction to it was… “Uhhh, *this* again.” And then I put it out of my mind, because it’s not worth ulcerating over. However, there are some people who watched the trailer, got triggered… and ain’t white. Perhaps their points of view may be of interest.

If you go to YouTube and search for “everything’s gonna be all white,” a total of twelve videos are returned (as of as I’m typing this) as top results. One of those is the actual trailer; the other eleven are reaction videos. Of those eleven, nine seem to be black reactors, two seem to be white… and ten of them think the trailer is racist trash. The eleventh is a white guy speaking foreignese, so I don’t know what his point of view was… but he didn’t freak out jump up and stomp around like the “documentarians” seem to think white people are supposed to do when confronted with racist non-white folks.

After *decades* of race baiters shrieking incessantly, rather than being “triggered,” this seems to be the most likely response:

Now, to go back to my life and continue to not pay for Showtime.

 

 

 Posted by at 10:07 pm

A hilarious struggle session to help lighten your day

 Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Meh., politics  No Responses »
Feb 072022
 

Sit back and laugh, folks:

Awkwafina Addresses ‘Blaccent’ Controversy and Quits Twitter

Few things more hilarious than groveling apologies by Hollywood types for *acting.* Plus, the idiots who screech about “cultural appropriation,” apparently unable to think more than one move ahead, failing to realize that if they got their way and the dominant culture suddenly stopped “appropriating” bits of this or that sub-culture, then soon enough those sub-cultures would, be *wholly* marginalized. Where would “hip-hop” be if only urban black people were interested in it? It would be essentially the modern minstrel show.

 Posted by at 10:57 am

Another woke remake bites the dust

 dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., Meh., news, science fiction, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Dec 092021
 

‘Cowboy Bebop’ Canceled By Netflix After One Season

Like many nerds, I loved the original anime. Nothing I saw in the leadup to the debut of the remake on Netflix inspired me to re-subscribe to the “Cuties” streamer, and once it started airing and bits of it made it to YouTube and such, my lack of interest intensified. Now that it has been cancelled less than three weeks after debuting, my overall response is… “meh.”

Netflix screwed this up. But I gotta hand it to them: unlike the monsters who screwed up Star Trek with Discovery and Picard, Netflix at least had the *decency* to terminate this cultural abortion.

If you are going to remake, reboot or sequelize a beloved property, at least *consider* the possibility of not making a mess of it. Just a thought.

 Posted by at 7:03 pm

Suicide Booths

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Dec 062021
 

There is a market for this. But this… this is too much.

Controversial Assisted Suicide Pod Cleared for Use in Switzerland

So how does this pod work? It fills with nitrogen, displacing the oxygen. The “resident” should then rather calmly, peacefully and painlessly pass out in under thirty seconds or so, and actually expire in five to ten minutes. As a way of executing people, I’ve long suggested nitrogen; it’s cheap, it’s easy, it’s clean, it doesn’t have the ethical issues that hanging, firing squads and lethal injections have. So why do I have a problem with this pod? Because it’s massively over-engineered. You know what you’d need? A scuba tank full of pure nitrogen and a face mask. That’s it. Maybe a heating element/ heat exchanger so you’re not inhaling really cold nitrogen. The suicide pod is supposed to be made transportable so people can do themselves in in the surroundings of their choice, like by a lake or at the mall or wherever… but a simple gas tank and a mask? I see old folks toting those things around all the time (typically filled with oxygen, however).  A very quick google search brings up this oxygen supply system:

It costs $350 and could be just as easily filled with nitrogen. Or helium if the person wants to go out making other people laugh. And it’s profoundly reusable, and easily transportable.

There’s no need to make this sort of thing all that complex.

 Posted by at 5:03 pm

Problems with SpinLaunch

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Gah., Hmm..., Meh., projects, rockets, science, spacecraft, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Nov 242021
 

A few weeks ago SpinLaunch managed to spin up their demonstrator and lob a projectile into the sky. I did not give it a whole lot of thought; it just doesn’t impress me a whole lot. There are easier ways to accelerate a projectile to the speed of sound.

However, Thunderf00t *did* give the concept a lot of thought, and he’s anti-impressed. One detail that I’d noticed was that the projectile emerges from the “muzzle” of the launch tube crooked. One thing I *didn’t* do was closely examine the faint and blurry in-flight footage of the projectile. And I should have, because the projectile is *tumbling.* In retrospect this makes sense: while attached to the rotating arm, the projectile is rotating at about three revolutions per second. Once released, it will retain that angular momentum; since it’s not touching anything – it’s not riding rails, or sliding down a barrel, nor at its fins reacting against air since it’s in a vacuum – there is nothing to arrest that rotation. So it leaves the “barrel” tumbling. This would be *disastrous.* Even if the fins could stabilize the projectile in flight, a massive amount of launch energy would be wasted in the process, the trajectory would be virtually randomized, accelerations would be massive and all over the place.

In short, this thing seems to be a whole lot of nothing as far as being practical.

 Posted by at 10:49 pm

Yeah, no…

 art, Crazy, Hmm..., Meh.  No Responses »
Nov 212021
 

This concept car is certainly… interesting. But the “scales” on the back seem to serve no purpose other than to drive up the manufacturing and maintenance price. The ability to crab-walk seems of dubious practicality; the wheels seem like they would be fabulously easy to damage. It sounds like it’s struggling to turn power into motion. The control system is strange and seems like it’d be twitchy, prone to massive responses to minor control inputs. The doors don’t inspire structural confidence, nor does that headrest… and the back seats in particular look like they’re unergonomic and uncomfortable.

It’s a concept car, so its supposed to push the boundary of goofiness, but this seems like it’s pushing a bit too hard.

 Posted by at 12:20 pm
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