May 132022
 

About two years ago I posted about some very deep structures in the Earth near the core; a few years before that, I posted about an “Atlas of the Underworld” showing a bunch of subducted former continents. There is a new theory about those deeper structures: they are remnants of Theia, the Mars-sized planet that plowed into Earth  billions of years ago and shot out the rubble that became the Moon.

Why are there continent-sized ‘blobs’ in the deep Earth?

I suggested the faint possibility that hundreds of millions of years ago some Terrestrial species evolved to intelligence, built themselves a civilization and then got wiped out, their continent then being subducted. A hundred kilometers down there may be the superheated remnants of some ancient civilization. We will almost certainly never be able to go there to pick through the molten or semi-molten rubble… but if they built big enough, and out of the right materials (say, they made *vast* stone pyramids in regular grid patterns) it might just barely be possible that someday advanced tomography of the interior of the planet may detect signs of that civilization. An alien civilization mere kilometers away… and more difficult to get to than the forest world circling Alpha Centauri.

Well… who knows how far things got on Theia before it smacked into Earth. It might have been the seat of a galactic empire. The whole surface of the planet might have been covered with a ten-mile-thick solid city structure and equipped with several levels of orbital rings. And then it hit Earth. A thousand kilometers down, laughably far away, may still reside some of the tougher megastructures built out of heat resistant alloys that mankind hasn’t even come to dream of yet.

Likely? No. Possible? Maybe. An intriguing enough idea that paramount should promptly stop funding STD and STP to instead start work on a series about this ancient civilization? Yes.

 Posted by at 12:08 am
May 122022
 

Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the heart of our galaxy

The structure imaged above is about the size of the orbit of Mercury. That sounds pretty big… but given the distance to the center of the galaxy, it’s about the same apparent size as a donut on the surface of the moon. Take THAT, “other ways of knowing.”

An earlier video showing stars orbiting around the supermassive black hole. I remain impressed that we can watch stars move from this great distance. The James Webb Space telescope should return some even better footage in the years to come.

 Posted by at 9:33 am
May 122022
 

Well, here’s another “this is why we can’t have nice things” -ism that Current Year has gifted us:

In short: Women who think they’re pretty, pretending to be stupid and being stupid as a result and bringing everything else down with them.

Playing up stupidity as a way to get out of responsibility is no better than pretending to be a cripple to get out of responsibility. It’s a a scam.

 Posted by at 8:37 am
May 112022
 

*WOW.* Not a fun day to be a tanker.

 

 Posted by at 2:38 pm
May 112022
 

Before Star Trek, I was a fan of the 1950’s run of “Tom Swift jr.” books back when I was in grade school. Those were some of the first books I read, kicking off a love of science fiction literature that has lasted for more than forty -five years. The whole idea of A Kid Like Me being a scientific/engineering genius appealed, and undoubtedly played some role in my becoming an aerospace engineer. So just imagine how thrilled I was when I saw this trailer for an Extra Special version of Tom Swift soon to premier as a series on the CW:

I *defy* anyone who read the 1950’s run of Tom Swift to suggest with a straight face that this has any resemblance beyond the name and the concept of “genius inventor.”

Is there any intellectual property that modern Hollywood *can’t* or *won’t* turn into crap? The existence of this series does not negate the original books, of course… but the existence of *this* series negates the possibility of the good series that *could* have been made.

 Posted by at 11:21 am
May 112022
 

When you over-use and abuse a derogatory word, it loses it’s sting or outright changes its meaning. Remember when “Nazi” used to mean something inherently bad? Now, thanks to Antifa and Putin, it simply means “anyone who disagrees with my insane rants.” The same will happen with “racist.”

 Posted by at 9:15 am
May 102022
 

It is possible that some writer on “Strange New Worlds” might have slipped in  some non-leftist messaging. Personally I believe that the more likely explanation is that this was meant to smear the right, but due to the current-day Star Trek writers being lazy and none too bright, they screwed it up.

In short: in the premier episode of SNW, Captain Pike uses some January 6 footage to show how Earth walked into World War III, with the protests leading to the Eugenics Wars, and then to WWIII. Buuuuuuuut… Pike referred to the Jan 6 footage as a “fight for freedom.”

Hmmm. Pike’s not wrong there.

Another good point: “That’s why I watch a show set in the future, to watch video from last year.”

 Posted by at 6:54 pm
May 102022
 

This particular form of video meme has been around for a while, but it is sometimes interesting. The song “Little Dark Age” by MGMT, often slowed down somewhat, is played against a series of images all to a particular theme, such as “America” or “Space Exploration.” Often the videos start with images or video clips from the present that show some of the bad aspects of the topic, depressing stuff such as Antifa and Joe Biden and “Hamilton” for the “America” theme, then follow it with uplifting historical images. The point, it seems, to be to contrast the current-day insistence of many to view things only in the worst possible light with a much better view of the topic. A lot of these videos are lame, but the better ones have an evocative mix of despair and hope.

 

Some vary the style up by ditching the Black Pill content at the beginning and just use a vast number of historical images to tell a story. This one, for instance, tells the story of Western Civilization and somehow got itself “age restricted,” even though there’s nothing in there that seems to merit it… looks more like some algorithm decided that “western civilization = bad.”

 Posted by at 5:49 pm