Yeah, but it’s fake

 AARRRGH, aircraft, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., Hmm..., politics, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Aug 142023
 

A video started making the rounds online a day or two ago. It shows an airline passenger nightmare: the little kid behind you not only kicking your seat, but the lil’ monsters mother not only doing nothing to stop that behavior, she’s aggressive in preventing anyone else from stopping it.

A number of commenters are using the video to discuss this or that: race relations, the lack of fathers, the lack of discipline, the power and arrogance of the matriarchy, etc. All valid issues to discuss, but there’s one little issue: that ain’t an airplane. Jetliners don’t have slab-sided walls, nor do they have support columns. It’s a set, and they’re actors.

 

It’s a “comedy” video, though nothing about it seemed all that funny; it just doesn’t seem to be played for laughs, but for realism. The “Beverly Hills Comedy Team” has a number of airliner-based vids using the same set. The full length vid is on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/beverlyhillscomedyteam/videos/261172053373780/

 

 

 

 Posted by at 2:39 pm

I’d vote for him…

 awesomeness, Hmm..., news, politics, weapons, youtube  No Responses »
Aug 122023
 

Since I live in the horribly, hilariously politically corrupt state of Illinois, “voting” is something that on one hand, doesn’t really count, and on the other hand, you can do as often as you like. So voting for a guy running for Congress in Texas, for the equivalent seat from Illinois? Sure, why not. Perhaps some of the people who facilitated Gropey Joe’s “win” in 2020 can be persuaded to use their talents to convert votes for Herrera in Texas into votes for Herrera in Illinois. Heck, maybe they can install him not only as an Illinois Congressman, but an Illinois State Supreme Court Justice and also Governor.

 

 Posted by at 4:45 pm

National Socialism = Socialism

 Forward!, history, Hmm..., politics, youtube  No Responses »
Aug 102023
 

There is an ongoing spat between two YouTubers. The details don’t really matter; the YouTubers don’t really matter. Like a lot of these things, their spat is boooring. However, sometimes these sad little moments result in other people trying to explain the situation, and making something interesting and useful out of it. Below is a video from yet another YouTuber; in the process of explaining why one of the combatants is wrong, he devotes the majority of his video to explaining how 1930’s/40’s German National Socialism is indeed far leftist ideology, and actual *socialist* ideology. This is not a new concept, but some people persist in believing that Funny Mustache Man was actually a right winger, and it’s always important to correct them.

 

 

 Posted by at 8:07 pm

So I’ve been locked out of Twitter…

 AARRRGH, blather, Crazy, Forward!, Gah., Hmm..., news, politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Aug 102023
 

I posted a reply and was *instantly* locked out for twelve hours. Why? Because I pointed out that in Star Trek, society is post-scarcity (not socialist, as was claimed by the guy I was replying to) and that mental illness is largely a thing of the past (as evidenced by “Dagger of the Mind” and “Whom Gods Destroy”) and the whole gender madness we’re currently experiencing is long past (see “Enterprise” episode “Cogenitor” where it is made repeatedly and abundantly clear that humans have a grand total of two genders, and that a third is weird and alien and really kinda disturbing to a lot of folks). The vague Twitter message said something about violating the rules on advocating violence or some such nonsense.

 

So either the sensitive little soul I replied to was lightning fast on his “my feelings are hurt, make the bad man and his opposing viewpoint go away” button, or Twitter has a bot that does it automatically. In either case, the “Twitter is a free speech zone” claim looks a little dubious to me at the moment.

 

Update: Now Twitter says it could take more than a week for my account to be restored to functionality.

 Posted by at 12:53 am

English history up in smoke

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Gah., history, Hmm..., news, politics, Worldwreckers, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Aug 082023
 

People who have lived in a place for centuries often hold eccentric, old, downright obsolete facilities in higher regard than people who hav4e just moved in and have no links to the place. Example: a centuries-old pub was sold to a developer. It was signed up for historic protection, but before the paperwork could go through a pile of rubble was mysteriously dumped into the road leading to it. And then it mysteriously caught fire, with the pile of rubble blocking the fire department. The brick structure remained standing, opening up the possibility of being restored; it was then very quickly razed to the ground mechanically. Gosh, I guess it’s gone, nothing left for it but to built cheap housing on the very valuable plot of land…

 

Police ‘reviewing all evidence’ on cause of Crooked House pub fire

Mayor calls for Crooked House pub gutted by fire to be rebuilt ‘brick by brick’

 

 

Huh. It’s a mystery.

 

 Posted by at 3:45 pm

I’m not saying it’s “The Hunter Biden Story,” but…

 art, blather, Forward!, Hmm..., politics, youtube  No Responses »
Aug 032023
 

A Sam Jackson-starring movie about money laundering via crappy paintings. Hmmm…

 

This is, of course, not a new idea. It’s actually a pretty obvious one; the value of art is about the most subjective form of monetary valuation you could dream up. Even more than a dollar bill, a painting is objectively nearly worthless, with it’s “value” being almost purely determined by what people *believe* it’s worth. A painting that was slapped together in ten minutes could sell for a million dollars if you can persuade someone that it’s worth it. Or it could sell for a million dollars if, say, you want the Chinese government to give you a million dollars without being clearly seen as taking bribes.

 

Hmmm. Can I interest anyone in a million-dollar cyanotype?

 Posted by at 10:23 pm

The best of all possible worlds

 awesomeness, blather, Hmm..., news, rockets, science, spacecraft  No Responses »
Aug 022023
 

If LK-99 pans out as a true room temperature superconductor, it really does seem like it’ll be world changing. That’ll be great: no more need to cryo-cool electromagnets, making maglevs practical and making CAT scanners and the like a hell of a lot cheaper. And making the nightmare scenario of running out of helium much less nightmarish. They’ll make electric motors run cooler and more efficiently and, so I’m led to understand, rings of superconductors can be fed vast amounts of electricity which will losslessy just zip around the ring until called upon. More complex than a battery, but with the potential for *vast* energy densities. At last electric cars might be truly practical: an energy storage system allowing for a thousand miles range and the ability to be recharged in minutes rather than hours, using storage systems based on *lead* rather than rare earths. What’s not to like?

Some preliminary studies by independent labs suggest that at least some aspect of LK-99 are panning out, though nobody is ready to declare victory just yet. And even if the stuff works as advertised, to become truly useful it’ll need to be manufactured at high quality on an industrial scale.We don;t know squadoo about doing that just now. It might turn out to be easy enough for laymen to whip up batches of the stuff. it might turn out to be very difficult.

Here is what I think would be the absolutely best scenario: it’s possible to make the stuff to *adequate* quality on industrial scales, but it’s difficult and expensive. Unless… manufacturing takes place in microgravity. Then the stuff comes in with glorious quality and reliability. This would not only make the world better for all the reasons that the superconductor would, it would kick off space industrialization. Woo.

I would, however, be satisfied with the stuff working and being ground-manufacturable. Decades ago the Shuttle was supposed to kick off space industrialization via microgravity manufacturing of crystals and pharmaceuticals, but people figured out how to make that stuff on the ground.

 Posted by at 10:52 pm

Starship from high altitude

 aircraft, awesomeness, history, Hmm..., news, photography, rockets, spacecraft, youtube  No Responses »
Jul 282023
 

Starships first not-exactly-successful launch was filmed not only from the ground, but from the NASA WB-57 flying at altitude. Apparently at least five cameras were trained on the launcher; video from two have been released, while three remain classified. i would *assume* that the classified three display some combination of:

1) better tracking

2) Better image quality – better sensor and/or telescope

3) Different spectra… IR and the like

Even with the somewhat dodgy tracking and potato-quality images, these are interesting. You really get a sense of how Starship flopped around the sky at the end there. Which was both sad and incredibly impressive… no other rocket would have survived as long flying *sideways.*

 

 Posted by at 4:16 pm

Vocal Fry

 blather, Hmm..., politics, science, youtube  No Responses »
Jul 282023
 

A description of the phenomenon, the physics and history. Includes a discussion of the politics of it, how it’s supposedly misogynistic. But included in the video are a number of old movie clips showing how vocal fry (at least used to) feature a lot in depictions of High Upper Class British Dudes… who are every bit as annoying as a Kardashian. Remember: we fought two wars to keep those inbred aristocrats from ruling over us.

Also includes some clips of native Finnish speakers deploying the vocal fry that they seem to have developed to a high art. A high, brain-erasingly irritating art. I think I’d lose my mind listening to that all day. Gah.

Most of this is informative, but there is some virtue signalling. Part of that is self-evidently and unironically dumb. The narrator claims that part of the reason why a lot of people don’t like vocal fry in young American women is because it makes them sound like they’re trying too hard to display excessive confidence. And part of the reason why a lot of people dislike the polar opposite of vocal fry, “uptalk” (where the speaker ends sentences with higher tone, making it sound like they’re asking a question), is because it makes them sound like they have an excess of 8uncertainty* about the statements of fact they’re making. Narrator says something like “Make up your minds, misogynists.” The here’s the thing: “vocal fry = excess confidence” and “uptalk = excess uncertainty” are not mutually exclusive concepts, and thus you don’t need to choose… both can be entirely true and valid simultaneously, since they cover very different things. Kinda like how you can dislike both being doused in liquid nitrogen *AND* dislike being torched with napalm. But other than that sort of thing, it’s an interesting video.

 Posted by at 3:43 pm
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