Recommendations of books for fans of H.P. Lovecraft, and for those looking to get into Lovecraft. One glorious little visual joke as well.
May 052022
May 042022
As always, interesting and entertaining and jam-packed with some of the best Anglo-Saxon words.
Apr 292022
Casual Geographic explains succinctly and entertainingly why some species are more important than others. Spoiler warning: humans do a dandy job of wiping out those important species.
Apr 202022
This view of Phobos crossing the face of the sun has been brought to you by western civilization, engineering rigor and a determination to place objective facts over feelings. No other system ever dreamed up by Man could have come anywhere close to letting us see this. or, indeed, even imagining it: Phobos would ahve been forever unknown to mankind if not for western civilization.
The Smithsonian kindly provided a convenient fact sheet to help you make your culture capable of this sort of thing.
Apr 132022
A Finnish YouTuber demonstrates the procedures for towing an abandoned tank with a tractor.
Apr 122022
There are certain things you don’t do. These folks seem to like to do them all.
Company that aims to race SpaceX to Mars plays with fire
They stand RIGHT FREAKIN’ NEXT to a sizable rocket engine as its being tested. With no protective walls, armor or even helmets, gloves or safety glasses. What’s better; the propellants are freakin’ toxic (furfuryl alcohol and nitric acid). They have to flee the cloud of nitric oxides.
The company website has a “Team” page with names and photos of those involved, but no links to their qualifications. This comes across more as a technically aggressive art project than an engineering one. I can appreciate the desire to charge ahead, say damn the safety weenies… but go-fever can get ya killed in some pretty horrifying-yet-entertaining-for-everyone-else ways.
Mar 292022
“Dual” is a forthcoming movie with a simple premise; in the future if you are dying you can get a clone made to replace you (I presume there’s some memory copy-transference thingamabobber involved at some point). But if, after the clone is up and running, you turn out to *not* be dying (personally I’d expect a medical system able to make an adult clone of you with your memories and personalities would be much better at not only wiping out terminal illnesses, but being certain about who is actually terminal), then you and your clone have to fight to the death, because it would be ridiculous to have two of you running around. So, ok, the plot is that a woman gets a clone made, finds out she’s not dying, and now has one year to get ready for arena combat. She gets a trainer. The trainer sez the second smartest thing you’ll read today:
“Always use the gun if it’s an option.”
To which she replies: “I find guns to be boring and overused.”
Which is countered with the smartest thing you’ll read today: “If it’s the difference between life and death it’s ok to be boring.”
Mar 282022
Doomcock goes off about Will Smith’s coarsening of culture and suppression of speech:
There remains doubt over whether the slap was real. Both of those involved are actors, both have had action movie roles; both could doubtless have faked this successfully. But it *looked* real… looked real enough that the intent was to make it seem real. If it had been done as a joke, it would have come off as a joke, but it comes off as exactly what it seems. But real or not, the intent was to show that if you say the wrong thing, it is valid for someone to try to physically harm you. This is a Bad Message, but it’s one that many extremists in society today can get behind. This incident, if Will Smith goes unpunished (as it seems he will), can only lead to more violence against not just standard comedians, but especially those who traffic in political humor.
At least there will be some good jokes to come from this:
— ShoYouMomo (@Shoyoumomo_) March 28, 2022
— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) March 28, 2022
I had alopecia. It absolutely sucks, no doubt. (Cured it through diet, exercise and PRP.)
Am I allowed to slap Will Smith for ‘After Earth’? That movie was absolutely terrible… pic.twitter.com/hYodUvwlBH
— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) March 28, 2022
Mar 152022
Some videos of interest. First: Ukrainian auto mechanics are busy at work converting captured heavy machine guns from Russian armored vehicles into hand-held weapons to turn back onto the Russians:
Second, a video showing trashed Russian vehicles. *Lots* of trashed Russian vehicles. Turns out lining up your vehicles on roads is sometimes a terminally bad idea. And a lot of armored vehicles in a town, destroyed or abandoned.
And a tank battle in an urban environment without infantry support. The tank you see here is close enough to the cameraman that he could’ve just *walked* up to it and poured napalm onto it. If he’d had *any* sort of rocket propelled grenade or LAW he could have shot from the hip and bullseye’d that tank and turned it into a pyre. One wonders if the video cut off when it did because he reached for his handy anti-tank weapon for an *easy* kill.
I know a lot of people think that Putin is playing some 4D chess thing here, leading the Ukrainians into a false sense of hope. Well, maybe… but if so, he’s taking his sweet time on springing the trap and in the mean time he’s squandering a hell of a lot of Russian lives with *stupid* tactics. One would think that if these sort of videos were widely disseminated among the Russian populace, they’d be pissed off enough to actually do something. It would surprise me exactly none at all if the Russian military has lost more soldiers in the last two weeks in Ukraine than the United States military lost in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last twenty years.
Mar 152022
A quote has been floating around for a while, attributed to Voltaire: “Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities Can Make You Commit Atrocities.” Like a lot of pithy quotes attributed to historical figures, it’s close, but not quite right. The original line in French is:
“Certainement qui est en droit de vous rendre absurde, est en droit de vous rendre injuste.”
This was in “Collection des lettres sur les miracles” published in 1767, available to view on Google Books. Google Translate renders the line as:
“Certainly who has the right to make you absurd has the right to make you unjust.”
Close, but not exactly the same. But the meaning is probably pretty much spot-on. A history of the quote and it’s slow mutation is HERE. Why do I bring it up now? Well, seems relevant on a number of fronts:
1) If you as a Russian soldier believe Putins nonsense about Ukraine developing bioweapons to wipe out the Russian people, he can get you to wipe out the nation of Ukraine.
2) If you can be made to believe that a .223 is a “high power rifle” round, or that a standard capacity magazine is “high capacity magazine,” or that rifles in any way pose some terrible threat to society, then you can be made to support laws that empower tyrants, imprison regular folks and embolden violent criminals.
3) If you as a Star trek fan can be made to believe that Michael Burnham is a good character, that Star Trek Discovery is a well-written show, then you can be made to believe that Star Trek is garbage (see also Ghostbusters 2016, Disney Star Wars, and the forthcoming Amazon “Lord of the Rings” fan fiction), and accept garbage shows with garbage messages as quality worth emulating.
4) If you as an English person can be made to believe the England has always been highly multi-ethnic, or if you as a Scandianvian person can be made to believe that the Vikings/Norse were populated with Africans and that Jarl Haakon was a black woman, or if you as an American can be made to believe that Westerns have nothing to teach us but that Americans are awful people, then you can be made to tear your own cultures down and replace them with… what?
The less said about “Drag Queen Story Hour,” the better… and yet, wholly relevant to this quote.