Hurricane Michael left quite a path of destruction.
Oct 122018
Oct 112018
As an almost immediate followup to the immediately preceding post, I offer this:
Why a Latina-Led ‘Charmed’ Reboot Makes Perfect Sense
Yet another reboot, this time of a TV series I never watched in the first place. So on the one hand I’m torn between absolute apathy born of not caring in the slightest about the original show and a general disdain for reboots. But the author of the piece thinks the reboot is an absolutely fantastic idea for two reasons:
1: “When a reboot is done right, it can provide marginalized groups — women, people of color, the LGBTQ community — an opportunity to get a foot in the door with an established fandom. When there’s a built-in fan base, it’s more likely a project will have longevity. By reusing a familiar idea that a network or production studio knows has worked before, creators allow underrepresented communities to integrate their own vision into an established universe and make their own space.”
And…
2: Hispanics (or “Latinx” as the author calls them for some reason) are all a bunch of superstitious boobs incapable of facing the real world without a satchel full of magical trinkets and practices, and boy howdy that makes them the perfect sources for stories about witches.
Point number one shows the cynical politicization that has corrupted so much of our cultural heritage… the easiest way to get your identity politics into the public view is to hijack (“culturally appropriate”) some other property. Why go to the bother of creating your own unique stories and characters, when you can hijack someone elses *and* claim that any opposition is racism or misogyny? Point number two would seem to be a little bit insulting to anyone of Latin ethnicity and who isn’t a gullible fool. It also points out the cognitive dissonance of many on the left who claim that their side is all about the science and that those on the right are all religious nutjobs. There is no important difference in rationality between faith healing based on prayer, and faith healing based on magic.
Oct 112018
We “refuse to be silent any longer”: magic as self-care after Kavanaugh
A long article talking about “witches” and other deluded goofballs whipping up talismans and rituals and other such nonsense as a way of coping with their failure to get their way in all things. When it comes to nutburgers like these, I’d rather have them believing in and practicing magic than believing in and practicing, say, chemistry.
Not only does the practice of “magic” keep them away from doing actually harmful things, it also makes them look silly to rational people. I would *vastly* prefer it if my opponents were to oppose me with the power of prayer or voodoo dolls or smoking herbs and other such rubbish than with baseball bats or sensible-yet-dishonest TV ads. Additionally, the sheer amount of time, effort and money they waste on this humbuggery keeps them poorer than they would be otherwise.
Oct 112018
No. Just no. Nope. Nuh-uh.
Did I watch the video? Yup.
Once again: a steaming pile of NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE.
Video: 15cm long parasitic worm extracted from patient’s eye
Oct 112018
Soyuz Rocket Launch Failure Forces Emergency Landing for US-Russian Space Station Crew
The Soyuz booster is quite reliable, but space launch is a necessarily sporty endeavor. So it’s unfortunate bu not terribly surprising that something went wrong with todays launch. Fortunately the launch abort and recovery systems worked and the crew were safely landed. The incident occurs at about 2:45 in the video below; not clear what happened, looks like perhaps a strap-on booster underwent a flawed separation. Perhaps it impacted the core.
While I remain a fan of the Space BFR in principle, incidents like this do give me a bit of pause. In the event of a booster failure, a Soyuz/Apollo-type of system (even an SLS/Orion-type system) stands a good chance of safely separating the crew capsule, because the crew capsule is a small, dense, easily-boosted nugget. With the BFR, if something goes unintentionally energetic with the booster, accelerating the whole manned interplanetary transporter stage away fast enough would be… well, damned impressive. The answer, of course, is to make the whole BFR system so reliable that separating the passengers in the event of an emergency would seem as silly as separating the passengers from a jetliner in the event a wing fell off in flight. Given the sheer power and energy involved with space launch, that’s *always* going to be more dangerous than airliners, so the level of acceptable risk for space travelers will always have to be higher than it is for air travelers.
Additional thought: with space launch, no matter how diligent you are, things can just go wrong. But with holes being drilled into capsule and patched up with spackle by either malicious or delinquent workers, the suspicion that someone did something intentional to this booster will be inevitable.
Oct 102018
Well, here’s an odd one…
NY man charged with building 200-lb bomb to allegedly detonate on Election Day
The plan was to set the bomb off on the National Mall in D.C. on election day. Hard to see how the plan wasn’t to kill a whole bunch of people. A 200 pound bomb made from black powder. So… a giant pipe bomb? Pressure cooker bomb? Details are lacking.
Next up: *why?* Typically, it’s either religion or politics. This time, it’s politics. here’s where it gets goofy:
A series of letters and text messages sent during August and September also show Rosenfeld intended to detonate the device as a way to bring attention to a political ideology called “sortition,” according to the news release, which it describes as a “theory that advocates the random selection of government officials.”
The frak? Randomly selecting Senators and Representatives and Presidents… you know, I can see an interesting case to be made for that sort of thing. I’ve no doubt mentioned the basic idea on this blog before (hell, it’s been around more than a decade); government via an expanded jury selection process might not be a bad idea, so long as some basic limits are put in place. But setting off a bomb? How does that possibly make people want to take your political notions seriously?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
Oct 102018
You know, I *try* to be reasonably tolerant. But some people just take “individuality” so far over the edge into the Abyss Of Weird that I just throw up my hands and assume that what I’m looking at is actually a poorly-trained alien infiltrator who has given up on attempting to assimilate into humanity.
Ladies and gentlemen, behold… uh… this:
‘What quantum physics taught me about queer identity’
I got about three seconds in before my “WTF Am I Looking At” reflex kicked in. This is an officially sanctioned and produced BBC video. You know, the British Broadcasting Corporation, often perceived as the high water mark of culture.
See, it’s not the “trans” thing that sets my teeth on edge. I know full well that for a number of people biology played a dirty trick on them and stuck their brain into a body what ain’t quite right for ’em. This in fact covers a *lot* of territory, and there’s no moral complaint against such folk. But what sets off my Nope Node are people who display what can only be described as some kind of madness… then being *celebrated* for it, while at the same time cranking out the sort of bullcrap quantum mysticism you might expect to see out of a crank like Deepak Chopra.
Oct 092018
The Aerojet M-1 rocket engine was to be a beast of an engine. Bigger than the F-1 with almost as much thrust, it differed in being fueled with hydrogen. Its intended role was to power post-Saturn “Nova” type rockets. It got as far as testing major components, but no complete engine was ever test fired. The need for such an engine went hand-in-hand with the development of very large boosters; the M-1 could have been used for either first stage or upper stages, but no booster sizable enough for such an engine survived the mid-sixties, so the M-1 died away.
Oct 082018
So, on Friday (or Thursday evening, whatever), Sony released “Venom” into theaters and to substantial critical scorn. As posted about a few days ago, “Venom” currently has a lowly 31% on Rotten Tomatoes from the critics… but 89% from the public. And as far as how it has done in the theaters… according to Box Office Mojo, as of yesterday it has broken the record for an October opening, making $80 million domestic, $125 million foreign on a budget of $100 million. Yeah, I don’t think the people behind “Venom” are all too concerned about those critics now. The previous October best opening was “Gravity” with $55 million.
And at the same time, the critically praised “A Star Is Born” made $42 million domestic, $14 million foreign. Respectable, but it ain’t “Venom.”
Oct 082018
SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg last night and landed the first stage back there again. The video is on the one hand just more of the same; on the other hand, the launch was at night, so there are some interesting sights with vapor plumes and such at high altitude that you normally can’t see with daytime launches. And while the landing was successful, as you can see from the last seconds of the video (and in the thumbnail image below), it wasn’t *perfect.* Looks like one of the landing legs came this close to buckling. I don’t know if it’s because the stage came in at a harsh angle (hard to see in the dark), or if the oleo struts on one leg were a little weak. In either case the landing was a success, but SpaceX is definitely going to want to take a look at that.