Jun 162020
 

Of course, Star Trek has been dead for a while, ever since the last episode of Enterprise. But this… if this is true, close the door, turn out the lights, go home. The franchise is not just dead, it’s been murdered, the corpse desecrated, divided and sold off as cheap trinkets.

CBS May Make Kirk Bisexual In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

The Insultening continues.

 Posted by at 10:16 am
Jun 152020
 

The Amazing Randi uses shreds of styrofoam to demonstrate that a “psychic” is a fraud.

THIS sort of thing should be taught in public schools. Teach kids skepticism, teach them to question and to test and to use their damned brains rather than just believing whatever superstitious rubbish gets tossed at ’em. I had a materials science teach who was also a pretty good magician, and in retrospect a whole lot of engineers – not to mention a *vast* number of poli-sci and libarts students – could have benefited from a whole lot of that sort of thing.

Other ways Randi could have done this:

1: Some sort of tiny candles that produced a relatively large volume of smoke, placed between the “psychic” and the page

2: Streamers made of *really* lightweight paper, fabric or some kind of film

3: Put the book in a plexiglas box

 Posted by at 9:25 pm
Jun 152020
 

Three years ago…

Statues of Washington, Jefferson Aren’t ‘Next,’ But It’s Complicated, Historians Say

Where the author argues – correctly – that the likes of Washington and Jefferson, who owned slaves, were fundamentally different from the likes of Lee and Davis, who defended slavery. The author then goes on to argue that this difference means that people won’t be tearing down statues to Washington and Jefferson, while also quoting someone who wanted to tear down statues of Washington and Jefferson.

And then we come to today:

Thomas Jefferson statue toppled in Portland, Oregon

One side in this culture war is stuffing things down the memory hole. One side is using violence to get their way. One side is ruining random peoples lives for expressing wrongthink opinions. One side is holding businesses and individuals hostage, demanding protection money and ideological purity.

Guess which side is accused of being “fascist.” Hint: it’s *not* the side that would clap to see this happen:

Which, given the context, is especially ironic.

Remember, when you see someone tearing down statues, think “Hey, isn’t that what NAZIS did?”

 Posted by at 2:41 pm
Jun 152020
 

So after a long hiatus while I worked on The Book That Shall Not Yet Be Named, I started off a return to prior form by creating the diagrams for US Fighter Projects #4. That went pretty quickly, with some of the designs taking only a day to create the diagram. I then launched into US VTOL projects #3… and the going has been much slower. A single aircraft has taken the better part of two weeks to piece together the diagrams. This was due to the complexity of the design and the fact that it would undergo some fairly substantial configuration changes between horizontal and vertical flight.

Huzzah:

 Posted by at 1:20 am
Jun 142020
 

Hmmm. One thing any religion needs is “faith.” And when facts run counter to faith, religious people have a history of getting rather upset. So any ideological movement that disdains facts that run counter to the Truth would seem to be rather religious in nature, yes? And thus there are a *lot* of examples of this sort of thing:

Another feature of at least the more zealous side of religion is that the zealot demand that everyone else display an adequate level (as determined by the zealot) of adherence to their religion. And thus we get this:

White silence on social media: Why not saying anything is actually saying a lot

Where we get to witness some self-selected inquisitor say this:

“A friend of mine posted something without posting anything about hashtag blacklivesmatter. And some people might say that’s a first-world problem of some sort but it’s not. I want to tell you the definition of social media. So social means relating to society and media is the means of mass communication, right. That means it is the portal at this time, where we are, y’know, told to stay in our homes, to avoid getting contact with other people because of coronavirus. It is one of the most powerful ways to communicate right now and you’re telling me you have no hesitations posting a selfie of yourself or a shirtless pic of yourself or what you’re eating for dinner and yet you’re telling me you’re afraid to say something because you might hurt other people’s feelings, or you don’t know what to say, or you don’t have an audience to reach. Were you thinking those things when you posted the other photos? I don’t think you were.”

Basically he’s upset that people have interests and lives that don’t revolve around the thing he’s currently obsessed with. I have seen this before: several times over the course of my life I have witnessed – both as distant news and right in my face – the outrage of Christian fundamentalists pissed off about public schools not promoting their religion. These people saw Not Mentioning God as being the same as Denying God Exists. Which, of course, it doesn’t, as anyone with an above-idiot intellect should be able to confirm. How many people two days ago said absolutely nothing about the existence of a Mars-sized planet orbiting the sun some 120 AU out? Probably a whole lot of people. Yet a lot of those same people would hardly deny that such a world is at least possible, and very few people would get upset about “Planet X silence” here. But if Planet X was instead a religion… ayup, people are gonna get their knickers in a twist.

So, go ahead. Be a heretic and don’t be pressured to wave banners and spout slogans that you don’t agree with… or just don’t care that much about. You are allowed to like what you want, and to dislike what you want, and to utterly not care about what you want. Anyone who suggests otherwise is pushing a religion. And if people don’t push back against the apotheosis of a political ideology, what started out as the willing participation of a bunch of submissives may become mandatory.

You want to be religious… hey, great. You do you. If, however, you *demand* that I join along?

ᛈᚢᚲᚲᛖᚱ᛫ᚢᛈ᛫ᚨᚾᛞ᛫ᚲᛁᛋᛋ᛫ᛗᛃ᛫ᚨᛋᛋ᛬ᛒᚢᛏᛏᛖᚱᚲᚢᛈ

 Posted by at 4:38 pm
Jun 142020
 

A piece of Boeing artwork depicting several early jetliner concepts. The B-47 design heritage is obvious. This piece was on ebay a while back, and while it wasn’t one that I won, I snagged a decently-high rez scan from the listing and have made it available to all $4 and up APR Patrons and Monthly Historical Document Subscribers. it has been uplosded into the June 2020 folder at Dropbox for those subscribers.

If this sort of thing is of interest, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.




 Posted by at 2:34 pm
Jun 132020
 

Truck Drivers Say They Won’t Deliver To Cities with Defunded Police Departments

Seventy-seven percent of truck drivers say they will refuse to deliver freight to cities with defunded police departments.

Good, goooooooood………

Cities that tolerate packs of degenerate genetic defectives hijacking their local politics should get to experience the full consequence of their mind-boggling stupidity. Truckers should take note and should avoid these hellholes. That a lack of shipping of food and important supplies to such regions will only accelerate their collapse… well, all to the better.

Bonus round:

Survey says: Truckers love their guns

 

 Posted by at 1:46 pm
Jun 122020
 

Just in from ebay, a vintage black & white cutaway illustration of the Apollo CSM. The original has been scanned at 600 dpi (it’s clear enough for that high of a resolution) and made available to subscribers of the APR Patreon and the Monthly Historical Documents Program at above $10/month as an “extra.”

If this sort of thing is of interest, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

 

 




 Posted by at 2:16 pm