Technically this is an awful photo, but I like it anyway…
Jul 242016
Jul 242016
At this point, news that the current Olympics is a disaster for someone or other is less a “revelation” and more a “well, duh.” When Chicago lost their bid a few years ago, it was one of the best things that coudl have happened to that blighted burg; being saddled with the infrastructure that, after the games, nobody wants to use or maintain would be just another nightmare. And the Rio games continue to just pile on.
So, how to fix this? A few ideas occur. The first: cancel the Olympics. Let’s face it: the idea of athleticism seems to have had its day. Doping, genetic manipulation and cybernetics, never mind outright pure robotics, make a joke of the idea of human physical excellence through nothing but grit and will. Maybe replace track and field with a “Call of Duty” contest?
But assuming we want to continue the Olympics… pick a spot. Stay there. The idea of roving Olympics was cool for a while, but it is now clear that it’s a disaster. So… let’s say we go back to the Athens Olympic arenas. Fix them up. Make them the *permanent* home of the Olympics. We have this thing called “television” now, so the games can be broadcast to the entire world in 4K resolution.
This would save untold billions in wasted construction costs around the world. By having a single fixed emplacement, maintenance over time would be made much more efficient. By having a single site, the local economy would actually get a regular boost, and shouldn’t suffer the collapse that seems to inevitably follow the games packing up and leaving. I suspect the money currently being spent by cities around the world just in lobbying and bribery in order to get the Olympics to come to town would pay for the maintenance of a permanent Athens Olympic site.
Jul 242016
So yesterday I was on the road at about 9 AM when I noticed that the power lines were smoking or steaming or something. I didn’t have a good camera with me, just my phone, and it did a miserable job of taking pictures of the phenomenon, but you can kinda see it. It wasn’t a brief event, but lasted for at least several minutes, and was occurring along several miles of lines. I assume it is the result of some interplay of sunlight, humidity and the power going through the lines, causing water vapor in the air to condense around the lines… or something.
Jul 232016
A new trailer has been released for “Doctor Strange.” I know nothing of the property other than he’s… a Doctor who can do magic, I guess. Since this is all part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, at some point in the future we’ll probably see Doctor Strange encounter Bruce Banner and/or Tony Stark; with luck, the Science Bros will be able to figure out Strange’s magic and turn it into an iPhone app.
But durned if the trailer doesn’t have some freaky weird visuals. Somewhere between the strange alien geometries of the Great Old Ones and an acid trip, I imagine.
Jul 232016
First teaser for the new Star Trek TV series that you won’t be able to see next year because it’s being “aired” on “CBS All Access,” an online streaming service you have to pay six bucks a month for. The ship is the USS Discovery, NCC-1031… clearly set between “Enterprise” (NCC-01) and “TOS” (NCC-1701). And yes, the ship design is influenced by Ralph McQuarrie concept art pre-The Motion Picture.
And if you think the CGI here looks a little… well, lame, you’re not alone. Presumably they’re still working on it. Though maybe they know that given the lameass way it’s going to be shown to the public (i.e. only to a very small number of die-hard fans who either pony up the cash or download pirated versions), there’s no point in going all-out.
This is not the nuclear submarine you were looking for.
blather, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., Hmm..., news, religion, ships, ಠ_ಠ
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Jul 232016
Move along, this ain’t it.
Chatsworth church builds submarine for vacation bible school
The claim: while the submarine doesn’t have an onboard nuclear reactor, the church itself *does,* and they’re working on hooking up the reactor to recharge the batteries on the sub. As to the engineering of the submarine itself:
The submarine is made of wood and covered with a fiberglass coating.
*Maybe* they’re being cute and the nuclear reactor they’re talking about is the sun, and they’re working on setting up solar panels to recharge the batteries. But the way it’s worded doesn’t really indicate that. And there’s not a chance in hell I’d put a kid on that “sub” and try to submerge it even half an inch. It looks like an ill-constructed *boat.*
So, they call it a sub, when it (apparently) is not a sub.
They say they have a small nuclear reactor, which is almost certainly untrue.
Hmm. They’re a Christian church. I’m neither a Bibleologist nor Bibleonomist, but isn’t there *something* or other in that book that speaks unfavorably about telling untruths?
Jul 222016
On the whole it was pretty enjoyable. It was a *lot* funnier than “Ghostbusters;” how can it not be when Spock learns and properly applies the term “horsesh!t” in reference to something McCoy says, or using The Beastie Boys as a weapon of mass destruction. I laughed my ass off at that bit.
As with all of the NuTrek movies, there are some logic problems. The Enterprise is now three years into it’s 5-year mission, hell and gone away from home. And yet they easily find themselves near the Yorktown, which is a new starbase. Which would be ok, except that this Starbase is much more impressive than Spacedock. It’s more like something the Galactic Empire would build. If the Enterprise is Way Out There, should they be, you know… Way The Hell Out There BEYOND Every Damned Body, rather than right next to a massive Federation engineering project?
About the Yorktown: it is a *funky* design for a space station. It is, to be blunt, roughly the sort of thing that I would have thrown into *my* sci-fi as the sort of project built by a bunch of rich artsy types who are trying to show off. It makes substantial use of the apparent ease with which the Federation can manipulate gravity.
The movie dealt with the fact that Nimoy died in a good, logical and appropriate manner. McCoy and Scottie seemed to get more screen time than before; Karl Urban continues to kick substantial ass in getting McCoy just right. Especially his little freakout after being transported by a 100-year-old transporter. Snerk. And giving Spock hell for… well, a gift that Spock gave Uhura that McCoy points out has some questionable connotations. That one scene made me laugh more than the entirety of “Ghostbusters.”
At one point there is a throwaway reference to a “glowing green space hand” having snatched a starship. If you stick around during the credits, there is, as with the previous two NuTrek flicks, a “tour” through some bizarre planetary systems, and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it view of a Glowing Green Space Hand.
Not perfect, but much better than “Into Darkness.”
Jul 222016
Russia Bombed a U.S. Base in Syria
Oh, neato.
A Russian aircraft last month bombed a base in southeast Syria secretly used by American and British forces in order to pressure the Obama administration to better cooperate in the stricken country, U.S. Defense officials told The Wall Street Journal.
Huzzah. And guess what: it worked.
Jul 222016
So a few days ago somebody went a little silly on a train near Wurzburg, Germany… took an axe and knife and went after the passengers, injuring five before getting shot. Today in Munich someone (potentially up to three someones) opened fire in a shopping mall in Munich, Germany, killing at least 8. The motive for the latest attack has not yet been determined. It is far, far to early to begin even guessing what might have caused this. Disgruntled Tea Partiers? Self-hating closeted homosexuals? Trump voters? We may never know:
A witness who will only be identified as Lauretta told CNN her son was in a bathroom with a shooter at the McDonald’s. “That’s where he loaded his weapon,” she said. “I hear like an alarm and boom, boom, boom… And he’s still killing the children. The children were sitting to eat. They can’t run.” Lauretta said she heard the gunman say, “Allahu Akbar,” or God is great. “I know this because I’m Muslim. I hear this and I only cry.”
Nope. Got nuthin’. Maybe it was some kid who was driven to kill because he played too much Call Of Duty or Grand Theft Auto or Pong or some such vile murder simulator. Perhaps he was a fan of heavy metal and backwards-masked exhortations by Satan to shoot up a McD’s twisted his fragile little mind. We may never know.
So yet again another terrorist attack in the west, with many, many people making expressions of sadness and horror. But in even the darkest times, there are those who find such things to be the cause of levity:
Jul 222016
The irony is that at the same time I bemoan the loss of stores that sell interesting stuff, more and more interesting stuff is being made. When I was a kid, a “dinosaur toy” was a cheap, stiff hunk of plastic. Nothing moved; it was merely an immobile statue… and not a very accurate one. Half my lifetime ago, the movie Jurassic Park came out and the marketing juggernaut that came with it produced a vast pile of new dinosaur toys… these were more accurate, had more moving bits. And now with the combination of rapid prototyping and the rise of nerd culture (specifically the rise of people willing to spend a whole lot of money for “toys” that are incredibly detailed and complex, filled with features, that will probably not leave the box but instead will be put on a shelf and never played with), there seem to be some damn fine dinosaur toys out there. Behold:
Beasts of the Mesozoic: Raptor Series Action Figures
Twenty years ago, I thought it was pretty neat to find a toy of *one* type of raptor, in no particular scale, certainly not in scale with anything else. Now… a whole range of 1/6 scale raptors are in development.
