Nov 212019
 

Whenever the subject of some white celebrity, politician or just some random schmoe getting in hot water for using the “N-word” comes up, someone always asks, “well, why do you want to say the word, anyway?” There is a simple reason why there is the urge to say this word, a word which will torpedo careers and ruin lives. It’s the same urge to push that red, candy-like button. That same urge to eat the apple you’ve been told not to eat. The urge every cat has to push everything off of every other thing. The urge to do what you know you’re not supposed to (or at least, what those who hold power over you tell you to not do) is a universal urge. Everyone, to one degree or another, just wants to watch the world burn, to sit back and laugh as chaos unfolds and entropy builds.

And thus, this:

Text Messages Show How Syracuse University Students Are Too Scared To Go To Classes After A Series Of Racist Incidents

Some people received a “white supremacist manifesto” (apparently a copy of the Christchurch Mosque shooter manifesto) on their phones. There was a swastika in the snow, some sort of racist graffiti. As a result, some people have lost their minds to panic, demanding that the university shut down. Numerous students – somehow I suspect not a lot of STEM students, but who knows – are quoted as being afraid for their lives, not sleeping, crying a lot.

Wow.

To people who like to sow chaos – and that’s just about everybody – these sort of reactions are *gold.* Those of you old enough to remember 9-11: remember how people who were afraid of anthrax attacks or terrorists popping up out of the bushes were mocked? Well, these people were panicking as a result of three thousand of their fellows being murdered in a single event. Here, these true snowflakes are exhibiting just as much panic over… snow swastis? Group texts?

I’m sorry (not sorry) but their fear is not worthy of respect. Their panic-mongering is worthy solely of mockery.

 

 Posted by at 2:38 pm
Nov 212019
 

In 1985, Rockwell wondered about whether there was a business case for space-based telepresence. At the time, the technology was relatively new, clunky, primitive; today it would be vastly superior and would only hardly ever attain self awareness and decide to overthrow its human masters. But nearly 40 years ago, the systems would doubtless have been slow, unwieldy and difficult to use effectively and reliably.

Up next: a spaceplane for cargo return! Stay tuned! Tell your friends! Invest now! The APR Monthly Historical Documents Program helps keep this sort of thing coming.

 

 Posted by at 9:14 am
Nov 202019
 

Meh.

Watching Millenials/Gen Zers ripping on Boomers? Meh. We were doing that before you brats were born. Didn’t get us nuthin’.

Foamy here is right: the things that the more militant Millenials are cheesed off at the Boomers for are the things that the Boomers actually shared with the Millenials, and actually got: the friggen’ hippies gained political power and began enacting their utopian policies, and now that the check is coming due for decades of Boomer socialism and nanny statism it’s falling on Millenial socialists to pay it.

 Posted by at 11:40 pm
Nov 202019
 

Utah is a beautiful state, but it’s a bit lacking in the “critters” department. My cats have been dumbfounded and astonished by the change in environment. Here’s Buttons looking down on some fish, a thing he’s never seen before…

That there is a “ho-le-shee-it” look if there ever was one.

 Posted by at 9:06 pm
Nov 202019
 

As I continue the long process of unpacking, I’ve come across a whole lot of stuff that I forgot I had, stuff that I just shoveled into boxes before I left Utah. There are a *lot* of things that, now that I paid a painful sum of money to have shipped, I’ll have to get rid of. Hopefully via selling. A mountain of paperbacks that it turns out I don’t have the space for. A fat box of DVDs that I’ll never watch again. That sort of thing.

There are also things that I have no intention of letting go, including a small stash of vintage sci-fi. Included in that is a very small number of “Science Fiction Plus” magazines. One of them, the October 1953 issue, has cover art by Frank R. Paul. Paul was one of the more important sci-fi artists of all time, with illustrations gracing the covers of many pulps in the 1920’s and 1930’s. By the 1950’s the times had pretty much  passed him and his art style by, but he was still at work.

The cover below shows a  somewhat more graceful spaceship than he typically created. It honestly looks like the midway point between the movie-era Starship Enterprise morphing into the Protector from Galaxy Quest. Angle those pylons up some and greatly increase the diameter of the “bridge module,” and you have something *damned* close to the Enterprise.

As I come across stuff of interest during the unpacking, cleaning (you wouldn’t believe just how dusty things got after 15 years in the Utah desert, even things that had been reasonably effectively sealed) and dealing-with stages, I’ll scan and post.

 Posted by at 6:35 pm
Nov 182019
 

Sure, the idea of putting a helmet on an infant makes sense from time to time. But what do you make the helmet out of? Genius idea! Whack the noggins off other, larger and less popular kids, chop up their skulls, scoop out their brains and plop the skullcaps (with flesh still attached) onto the heads of the infants that you actually do like. Because, sure, that’s not at all morbid and creepifyin’.

2 Infants Were Buried Wearing Helmets Made from Kids’ Skulls. And Archaeologists Are Puzzled.

Normally I would suggest that this is a horrifying idea. But since this was found in Ecuador, it’s therefore a beautiful example of diverse cultures. Stunning and brave and all that.

 Posted by at 11:50 am