It seems Russian attack subs are greatly increasing their patrols near Scandinavia and Scotland.
“We are not quite back in a Cold War,” said James G. Stavridis, a retired admiral and the former supreme allied commander of NATO, who is now dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. “But I sure can see one from where we are standing.”
Hmmm…
When CBS first started airing “Person of Interest” some years back, I didn’y pay it much attention. It was just another “rogue cop doing justice behind the scenes” show, with the mior tweak thay said cop was given heads-up on crimes by some smart coputer. Meh. But then I started hearing that the show slowly became more than that. Rather than staying a one-dimensional Macguffin, “The Machine” turned into something really important… and the show slid into full-up science fiction. It began to deal with the what-if of artificial intelligence that has access to the complete surveillance apparatus of the US, what it could do with that, and whether or not that was a really good idea. And then it got even better: “The Machine” had been “raised” to be ethical. But there was a *second* artificial intelligence that *wasn’t* raised to be ethical. And the two AIs… don’t like each other. Season Four had it’s finale more than a year ago; season five will, at long last, finally return May 3.
The season 4 finale was a damn fine finale. It would have been frustrating had it been the series finale, which it looked like it might be for a good long while; and had it been… it would have still been a really good one. Person of Interest always did a good job of incorporating songs into the show, and the last few minutes of the finale *finally* had the one song that was most appropriate: “Welcome to the Machine” by Pink Floyd. That song, coupled with the fact that the Machine’s creator is under fire (by the enemy AI’s agents) while trying to back up The Machine, and the Machine finally speaks to its creator… it’s kind of a tear jerker. Almost up there with Babylon 5’s finale, “Sleeping in Light.” There’s just something about some depictions of AI that make you sympathetic to the little synthetic buggers.
Here is Part Two of the story of Sarah, Zane, Loff and George transporting a shipload of rich folk to Gimli, a place where regular folk just don’t get to go. If you want to catch up in advance, Part One is available HERE, and the previous story, “Mass Disappearance,” is available HERE. A couple story fragments starring this crew are available HERE and HERE.
If you like it, feel free to tell your friends, family, co-workers, random strangers, whoever. Like it, hate it or meh it, I’m interested in your thoughts via comments. In particular: do you read it in EPUB pr PDF??
I recently finished Part 4 and started in on Part 5. Part 5 will be the final portion of this yarn, and will probably be shorter than the others.
A lot of people will be annoyed by this. Me… meh. One thing I do appreciate is that a politician is being replaced by a non-politician.
In my view, the faces on our money should be chosen from two groups:
1: The Founding Fathers
2: American citizens who have made important and valuable and historic contributions. *Actual* contributions. This would almost by default exclude politicians, celebrities and the like.
So, who might be in group 2? A whole lot of people. The Wright brothers. Einstein. Von Braun. Robert Goddard. Mark Twain. Norman Borlaug. Edison. Ford. Kelly Johnson. Patton. John Moses Browning. Crew of Apollo 11. Martin Luther King. Alexander Graham Bell. George Washington Carver. Ted Taylor. William Sherman. Eugene Stoner. Poe. Oppenheimer. Tesla. Noah Webster. Asimov. Heinlein. Milton Friedman. Carl Sagan.
Possibly noticeable here is a dearth of women. It’s not “discrimination” in the negative sense, but the fact that there do not seem to have been as many famous women contributors as men. Apply what excuse you will for that… anything from “women have been socially suppressed when most of the Big Important Stuff was happening” to whatever you like. But the fact remains that there just don’t seem to be as many famous women to rank next to Edison or Einstein. Still, a list of women might include:
Sally Ride, Stephanie Kwolek, McNulty/Jennings/Snyder/Wescoff/Bilas/Lichterman, Grace Hopper, Annie Jump Cannon, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, Annie Oakley, Clara Barton, Nelly Bly.
Go ahead and make yer own suggestions.
Buttons and Speedbump love to fight. I’m assuming it’s playful sibling-tussling, rather than actual beatdowns, but it’s certainly energetic. I’m always amused by the posturing that goes on just before the combat starts, such as Buttons here giving Speedbump the stink-eye.
And here’s how interested Raedthinn is in the younger cats’ shenanigans:
Behold: wherein a 5’9″ college age white guy does some vox pops interviews with college students and finds that at least some of them would be willing to go along with the belief that he’s actually a seven-year-old 6’5″ Chinese woman. Say or think what you will about the beginning subject matter – that of bathroom usage for people of unconventional gender – but when people are so beaten down by political correctness that they won’t tell you you’re clearly wrong on such simple matters of fact as the difference between 5’9″ and 6’5″, their future ability to make reasonable decisions on financial or STEM matters seems in serious doubt.
It would of course be interesting to see the full unedited vids. How many students told him he was nuts right off the bat? Or just refused to be interviewed n the first place?
Two hours and forty minutes of a computer generated Titanic sinking. This was created in support of a forthcoming video game. Kinda interesting (in places, anyway… I skipped ahead several times). The animators went the less spendy route of not including any panicky animated humans, so it’s just the ship.
This sounds… interesting:
Director David Lee Fisher (“The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”) is creating a remix of the original film with a mixture of live-action combined with colorized digital backgrounds recreated from the original film.
“Nosferatu” from 1922 was not only one of the first vampire movies, it has one of the all-time best vampires in the form of Max Schrek’s “Count Orlock.” It was a blatant ripoff of “Dracula” with the names changed, because the film studio couldn’t get the rights to the book; changing the names didn’t stop Bram Stoker’s estate from suing the studio silly, almost resulting in all copies of the film being destroyed. Interestingly, “Nosferatu” introduced the “vampires go ‘pooof’ in sunlight” trope.
Now available: two new US Aerospace Projects titles.
US Bomber Projects #18 is now available (see HERE for the entire series). Issue #18 includes:
USBP #18 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4:
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US Transport Projects #06 is now available (see HERE for the entire series). Issue #06 includes:
USTP #06 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4:
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And don’t forget…
US Fighter Projects #1 and US VTOL Projects #1 are still new and still available!
Roger Bilham, seismologist of University of Colorado, said: “The current conditions might trigger at least four earthquakes greater than 8.0 in magnitude.
“And if they delay, the strain accumulated during the centuries provokes more catastrophic mega earthquakes.”
I’m just glad I don’t live anywhere near an earthquake zone.
Oh, wait…