The Shuttle Carrier Aircraft had a trio of posts that connected directly to the underside of the Space Shuttle Orbiter. Unsurprisingly, early on someone with a sense of humor stenciled jokes on them; surprisingly, NASA not only allowed those jokes to remain, but touched them up over the years.
Photos courtesy Dennis R. Jenkins, author of “Space Shuttle: Developing an Icon 1972-2013.” Anyone interested in the Shuttle program *really* should invest in this three-volume masterpiece:
A common complaint is that Hollywood has no imagination.
Rebuttal: Ummm… this.
Well… alrighty then.
I know nothing more about this than what’s at the link:
Epik is a domain registrar. I’m seeing a number of commenters here and there suggesting that people bail from GoDaddy (Gab’s prior registrar) and sign up instead with Epik. In principal I agree: but I also suspect that Epik will now become Enemy Number One and will come under fire from every direction. On the one hand it would be great if companies that buck the trend of digital censorship end up raking in additional business (and those who bend the knee to todays cultural thugs suffer for it). On the other hand it would suck if that company scoops up a whole lot of people and websites… and then gets taken down by the mob.
FYI: I fookin’ hate social media, never had a Twitter account or Gab or Instagram. I have a Facebook account because numerous people told me it was a good business decision (several experiments over the years have shown it to be utterly useless, though it might come in handy as a backup communication system if the blog crashes again as it did a few years ago) and a similarly fallow Deviant Art account. So I have no direct stake in the fate of Gab. But I *do* despise the current fad of fascistic authoritarianism among the censorial malefactors of the far left.
So a few days ago a nut shot up a synagogue and killed innocent people. Since that nut had previously posted hate-filled nuttery on the Gab social media platform, the hosting service and payment service that supported Gab took Gab off the air.
Yesterday, a nut shot up a yoga studio and killed a couple women. Turns out that the killer was a misogynist “incel” who *really* didn’t like the fact that women didn’t dig him. And for some years he has apparently been posting videos talking smack about women, and praising the likes of previous newsworthy mass killer Elliot Rodger, and posted a number of misogynist songs on Soundcloud.
So… why are YouTube and Soundcloud still allowed to function?
If I understand correctly, this feller is working on completely re-editing TLJ into something less horrible. How exactly he’d release his version without the House of Mouse and its army of attack lawyers jumping up and down on him I don’t know, but it’ll be interesting to see the final product. Vice Admiral Gender Studies does not appear in the trailer. Since the purpose of the project is to fix, as much as possible, TLJ, getting rid of the character entirely makes sense. Presumably the whole Canto Bight nonsense will be excised. There is some added dialogue; Ackbar sounds ok, but the Mark Hamill stand-in is… well, not quite on the mark. But whatryagonnado.
Note that Luke has his “real” saber back, so presumably in the re-edit he’s not phoning it in during the fight with Kylo.
This is kinda interesting…
Eventually, on November 1, 2018, Committee investigators connected with Ms. Munro-
Leighton by phone and spoke with her about the sexual-assault allegations against Judge
Kavanaugh she had made to the Committee. Under questioning by Committee investigators, Ms.
Munro-Leighton admitted, contrary to her prior claims, that she had not been sexually assaulted
by Judge Kavanaugh and was not the author of the original “Jane Doe” letter. When directly asked
by Committee investigators if she was, as she had claimed, the “Jane Doe” from Oceanside
California who had sent the letter to Senator Harris, she admitted: “No, no, no. I did that as a way
to grab attention. I am not Jane Doe . . . but I did read Jane Doe’s letter. I read the transcript of
the call to your Committee. . . . I saw it online. It was news.”
She further confessed to Committee investigators that (1) she “just wanted to get attention”;
(2) “it was a tactic”; and (3) “that was just a ploy.” She told Committee investigators that she had
called Congress multiple times during the Kavanaugh hearing process – including prior to the time
Dr. Ford’s allegations surfaced – to oppose his nomination. Regarding the false sexual-assault
allegation she made via her email to the Committee, she said: “I was angry, and I sent it out.”
When asked by Committee investigators whether she had ever met Judge Kavanaugh, she said:
“Oh Lord, no.”
In short, during the Committee’s time-sensitive investigation of allegations against Judge
Kavanaugh, Ms. Munro-Leighton submitted a fabricated allegation, which diverted Committee
resources. When questioned by Committee investigators she admitted it was false, a “ploy,” and
a “tactic.” She was opposed to Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
Ummm…
This is not the woman who Avenatti represented, but was a woman who *claimed* to be that woman. So…double secret dumbass, I guess.
I suspect this will get minimal news coverage. It *does* seem to work against the cultural narrative.
Fighting with a bus driver while the bus is in motion? Not such a good idea. While the bus is driving over a bridge? Epically stupid.
Self-driving vehicles will have their problems, rest assured. But the thing is, robotic vehicles *will* get better. Humans? We’re as good as we’re gonna get.
It actually looks like the driver did this on purpose. maybe he was trying to pull over, but if so, he was pulling over in the wrong direction. Instead it looks more like “Whelp, I’ve had about enough of this.”
This is what a manned mission to Mars dating from the late Apollo era would have looked like: a cluster of hydrogen tanks with a small number of NERVA nuclear rockets. The spacecraft would have been relatively gigantic as it leaves Earth orbit; large enough that it would have been assembled in space from at least six Saturn V launches. When it returns to Earth it would have been little more than the mission module; this would blast past Earth and continue in solar orbit while the astronauts and a few trifling hundreds of pounds of Martian souvenirs would have plowed into Earths atmosphere in a compact entry capsule. The mission module itself is described fully and heavily illustrated in US Spacecraft Projects #3.
I’ve uploaded the full rez versions of these renderings to the 2018-11 APR Extras folder on Dropbox, available to all APR Patrons at the $4 level and above. If this sort of thing is of interest, please consider signing up for the APR Patreon.
“NPC” is the meme that keeps on giving…
The NPC meme had been around for a few years, ignored and unused until a woke video game news website published a piece bemoaning the NPC and whining about how it “dehumanizes” people. As a result, the Streisand Effect was put into full force, and now it’s everywhere.
“Dehumanization” is the public face of the outrage about NPC. It’s the excuse that Twitter used to block a whole bunch of NPC-themed accounts, as well as accounts that switched to an NPC avatar. But I don’t think that the SJWs whoa re upset about being compared to NPCs are really primarily upset about the fact that NPCs aren’t human. What I think upsets them is that the fact that the NPCs aren’t the heroes in the story. They are meaningless bit players, interchangeable and ultimately forgettable bit parts in someone else’s story. This plays hell with the self image your average activist (of any kind) tends to have. Political and religious activists tend to see themselves as the Little Guy bravely standing up to The Forces Of Evil, thinking that when their pluck, determination and absolute moral superiority inevitably triumphs, they will be recognized as the Great Person that they feel that they are. Being called an NPC reminds them that, nope, they are just a small cog in a big damn machine, and when they’re off the stage nobody will remember them. For people whose self image revolves solely around their own self importance… being made to consider that they are *not* important is the sort of world-shaking revelation they cannot allow. it’s the sort of realization that every adult had to go through at some point when they were transitioning away from childhood. But a lot of the screeching NPCs seemingly have yet to grow up, and retain their infantile sense of ultimate selfishness.
“The Crow” had a bit of wisdom on that, courtesy Top Dollar, one of the all time great cinematic villains.
A YouTube video discussing number of H.P. Lovecrafts stories in an amusing and entertaining way. As is now required by the SJW Priorities Insertion Into Everything Act of 2015, there is a *lot* of time spent on pointing out Lovecrat’s racism. Additionally the narrator does not have a lot of respect for some of Lovecrafts… “cheesier” storytelling. But hey… Lovecraft cartoons.