“Star Trek” and “Star Wars” get fan films galore. “2001: A Space odyssey?” Not so much. This one is worth the watch; it’s simple, well-made, and ignores the events of “2010.”
Oct 112019
Oct 112019
Whoa. Not so long ago the DoD woulda *killed* to have the sort of capability now available to skilled amateurs.
Amazing the pictures you can take from your own backyard – like Alberto did in Italy. Just need skill & a telescope! pic.twitter.com/5o5R9Emvia
— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) October 10, 2019
Oct 112019
As previously mentioned, I have a *lot* of National Geographics. I’d once hoped to have a complete collection, but now it is time for them to go. My collection is pretty complete back into the 1960’s, with scattered issues back to the 40’s. Since 2010 or so the collection is pretty scattered.
Rather than trying to sell the issues individually, I’m boxing them into lots by year. On ebay, issues from the seventies seem to be priced anywhere from a buck each to five or even more bucks each… so… call it a$12 for a years worth of Nat Geos, plus postage. A years worth of these magazines weighs about 10.5 pounds. Media mail would run $8, so $20 for a single year. Four years would fit in a larger box for $24 postage… call it $70 total for four years.
If interested in a year or more’s National Geographics, send me an email letting me know which. 
Oct 112019
As mentioned a few days ago, “Primal” is a new animated series on Adult Swim depicting the adventures of a “cave man” and his Allosaurus-like dinosaur compadre. AS is running a new episode every night this week. I’m not certain if more episodes have been made (only five seem to be acknowledged), but they damn well better make enough episodes of this to rival “The Simpsons.”
Anyway, as previously mentioned Primal stomps on scientific accuracy by having dinosaurs from all eras alongside humans (or near-humans) and mammoths and whatnot. Given that it’s a good show, I can just shrug it off and enjoy the show for what it is. But tonights episode, “Terror Under the Blood Moon,” was different. It introduced bats substantially more massive than humans and a spider the size of a sauropod that shoots web-silk from its mouth. These are creatures that not only never existed, they never *could* have existed. So… the nerd-module activated and came to a conclusion: this isn’t Earth. This isn’t the past. And it’s not just the future… it’s a specific one. It’s George R.R. Martin’s “Thousand Worlds” universe. More specifically, it’s a world that has been terraformed by Haviland Tuf and his “seedship,” the planet given genetically created critters and monsters. The seedship had, in Martins “Tuf Voyaging,” demonstrated a capability to create a range of monsters including Tyrannosaurs, along with critters from many alien worlds and beasts of wholly new designs. It would be simplicity itself for Tuf to populate a world with critters like those in “Primal.”
Will it be revealed in some future episode that the adventures of Spear and Fang are being observed from deep space by a bald fat Aspergery guy surrounded by an army of cats? Doubtful. But it’d be a hoot if it was.
Oct 102019
Pointing a finger gun lands 12-year-old Johnson County student in handcuffs
Don’t you feel safer already?
Oct 092019
A number of people have told me to try self-publishing my books on Amazon. Stories like this one just add to the pile of “why bother” reasons:
Amazon Bans ‘A Shifting Alliance’ Ad for Featuring “Inappropriate Display of a Weapon”
According to section 7.13 of Amazon’s Creative Acceptance Policies, which was updated in the wake of the Dayton and El Paso terror attacks, ads featuring weapons are prohibited in order “to protect our customers from uncomfortable or shocking experiences.”
Curiously, while Amazon explicitly prohibits “images of firearms demonstrated as firing or having been recently used (for example, bullets visibly exiting the weapon, smoke or other residue shown around the barrel),” it allows for “non-violent depictions of non-realistic firearms that are fantasy weapons, including fantasy/sci-fi firearms such as ray-guns and phasers.”
Of course, a more immediate road block for me self publishing is that I have absolutely zero talent or skill in the areas of graphic design or painting or anything relevant to the task of creating a good book cover. Shootin’ irons going kerblam wouldn’t really fit on a “Zaneverse” cover, but they’d be all kinds of appropriate for “War With The Deep Ones,” what with it being a war and all…
But then some power mad SJW scoldmonster would find – or invent – some rule that takes a giant ump on my work. Feh.
Oct 092019
Answer: yes. Razorfist explains, for those who still don’t get it:
Oct 082019
The first episode of “Primal” aired on Cartoon network/Adult Swim last night. On one level, it’s grade-A ridiculousness: an animated caveman’s adventures with dinosaurs.. The science is therefore just *awful.* And yet… the show is so damn good that my willing suspension of disbelief happily expanded to fit.
Even though it’s an animated show, it’s not a kids show. It’s filled with violence and gore and blood and death… and surprising pathos among what would be on a normal show shocking brutality. The main character, dubbed “Spear,” is a caveman in the mold of Conan the barbarian… a giant chunk of muscle with apparently no ability to speak; instead, he just roars and kills things, no dialogue or narration to help the story along. He is, bluntly, *not* the Woke Man. I’m looking forward to reading the complaints about how there’s insufficient LGBTQ representation, how the show celebrates toxic masculinity
Here’s a measure of how entertaining the first episode was: when it ended, I went, “Huh, it’s only a fifteen-minute show.” And then I realized that it was in fact a 30-minute show. One explanation for this is likely contained in this interview with Genndy Tartakovsky, the shows creator. With the lack of dialogue, the viewer is kinda forced to pay attention to the screen. No checking the phone or the laptop.
“I never realized how much we don’t watch and we just listen,” Tartakovsky told The Times in a recent interview. With “Primal,” “You kind of just get drawn in and you forget. And if you turn away, you’re going to miss a whole bunch.
“With everybody used to multitasking on their phones and everything, it’ll be interesting to see the effect,” he added.
Interestingly, I vaguely recall reading – probably more than 20 years ago – J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5, explain why a lot of really important scenes went on without dialogue. As memory serves, it went something like this: “If you can leave the room and still follow along with the plot, it’s radio, not television.”
Imagine this feller in a Pinky Puᛋᛋy Hat, or ordering a soy latte. Can’t do it, can ya.
Oct 082019
Continuing…
In 1985 Rockwell considered the business possibilities of a range of Orbital Transfer Vehicles. The OTV, in its various forms, was a reusable upper stage designed to move sizable payloads from LEO to higher orbits such s geosynchronous. To facilitate reusability, some designs included aerobrakes to reduce the need to burn fuel when returning from high orbit to low. Some OTVs included manned options. The men were not needed for piloting the OTVs, but to perform missions such as satellite servicing in GEO.
Oct 072019
If you *ever* watch television, chances are real good you’ve seen commercials for those “Shen Yun” live dancing performances. From time to time the advertisements seem to be all over the place… according to Google they hit Salt Lake city in 2018 and 2019, and are due back in early 2020, before which there will be a wall-to-wall local advertising blitz. Beyond noting the excessive advertising, I’ve not really paid much attention to Shen Yun because… well, why would I? I can think of a few “entertainment options” more painful than “traditional Chinese dancing” (“A Night with Yoko Ono” springs to mind), but not a *lot* of them. I’ve no interest in *western* dancing shows or even western Opera, so I sure as hell don’t want to subject myself to weirder, lower-quality imports. So, I’ve never given Shen Yun any further thought.
Turns out it’s worth paying attention to. Not because it’s necessarily any good, but because it is a part of the propaganda arm of the Falun Gung cult. It’s not even “Chinese” as such, since the head office is (of course) in New York City, and the “traditional Chinese dancing” is about as authentically traditional as Disney’s Mulan. As such, Americans should avoid it. Sure, it’s great doing things that annoy the communist Chinese government, but a cult is a cult, whether it’s Falun Gong or Scientology or the Klan or the Hare Krishnas or the Transcendental Meditation weirdos or the Discovery Institute or PETA or some flying saucer religion or the Democratic Socialists. Such things are just plain unhealthy.
For all I know, the cultish nature of these Leapin’ Chinese Shows is common knowledge that I’ve some how missed (looking up “Shen Yun” and “cult” on google, there’s certainly a whole lot out there). But if not… here ya go. If your significant other starts harping on you to go to one of these things, state that as a proud American you’ll have nothing to do with this nonsensical nonsense.
Here’s an interesting write-up about it:
Stepping Into the Uncanny, Unsettling World of Shen Yun
At some point in the show, which sounds like the sort of flashy, noisy pap that art snobs would wet themselves over in order to earn themselves a few Diversity Points, the narrator or whatever comes out and says:
“We follow Dafa, the Great Way,” he began, singing about a Creator who saved mankind and made the world anew. “Atheism and evolution are deadly ideas. Modern trends destroy what makes us human,” he sang.
ᛖᚪᛏ ᛗᚤ ᚪᛋᛋ, Shen Yun.
Falun Gon vs. ChiComs, LaRouchies vs. Democratic Socialists, Nazis vs. Commies: Let Them Fight. Just stay out of the middle of it.