Not *much* of a tornado from the looks of it, but I remain surprised that the balsa wood and fiberglass blades didn’t fold up like a wet newspaper.
This is kinda what I expected:
May 072022
May 062022
There is a distinct sudden silence here.
May 052022
The headline should come as no surprise, since it follows the events of Star Trek Discovery. However, there was always the possibility that the producers would make some effort to rectify the many, many mistakes and oversights of STD, but… nope. While it is too early to judge whether or not the show is any good, given the people behind it are largely those responsible for STD and STP, skepticism about it emerging as anything but lamentable trash is warranted. That said, several details about the show make it perfectly clear that it is not set in the same continuity as “Star Trek:”
1: The Gorn are discussed. Given that this show is set more than a decade before TOS, and the Gorn weren’t known to the Federation until Kirk & Co. ran into them…
2: Some history of Earth was dropped: the January 6 2021 Capitol hijinks are shown, and described as a prelude to “the second Civil War,” which led to the Eugenics Wars, which led to World War III. Since the Eugenics wars occurred in the 1990s, it would be tricky for events from 2021 to cause them.
3: A star chart lists the planet “Sarpeidon,” a world that won’t be encountered until Kirk & Co. get there more than a decade later. Given that the planet has a fully functional time machine program that winds up sending the *entire* planetary population elsewhen, the existence of Sarpeidon would have been either one of the biggest military centers of the Federation, or one of the biggest secrets; all the time travel monekymotions of STD Season 2 could have been dispensed with.
On more subjective fronts, none of the characters that carry through from TOS seem to be at all the same characters, just people with the same names. Nurse Chapel, in particular, seems a completely different person. Spock and T’Pring are shown together… and T’Pring proposing marriage to Spock is shown, an odd thing given that theirs was a marriage arranged by their families when they were children, and then they didn’t really have much to do with each other. T’Pring seems quite un-Vulcan as well. The Enterprise itself is an entirely different ship, far more generic sci-fi-flashy and far less character-filled than the classic. The bridge is unrecognizable… much bigger, with a *huge* window up front rather than the somewhat dinky viewscreen from the original.
All in all… unsurprising.
May 052022
Boeing *used* to have their headquarters where they actually made stuff. Then they moved to Chicago (far, far away from their manufacturing capabilities), and since then their ability to make stuff has been… kind of a joke.Now they’re moving to the region of D.C. Their ability to make stuff can be assumed to be at an end.
Boeing will move its headquarters to DC area from Chicago
Maybe Elon Musk could buy Boeings factories? It’s not like Boeing will have much further need for them, now that they will be a full-time Lobbying Corporation.
May 052022
The most American vehicles for going to the most American of fast food joints.
Those of you who sneer and mock… we can all see that you’re actually jealous.
May 052022
This area of Illinois is nowhere near as photogenic as Utah. The night sky, for example, is essentially non-existent, and the local mountains are… kinda non-existent. Shrug. Still, there is the occasional shot worth taking.
May 052022
In a just world, the level of trauma exhibited by my cats in the photo below would be the worst any of their species would ever experience. The “donut” on banshee is due to some environmental factor causing her to start chewing pretty enthusiastically on herself; she freaked out when a Cone Of Shame was put on her, but tolerated the soft donut pretty well and it does the job. Curiously, it also reduced her antipathy towards Buttons. This is the closest I’ve ever seen her allow him to come without complaint.
May 052022
There are people who suck just about everywhere. And these people seem to love to exercise their vileness on cats… most likely because cats are not only weak and vulnerable compared to humans, they also have distinct personalities, and probably most importantly because they are loved by other humans. This means that harming the cat also harms some humans. Often, *many* humans. Somebody is getting off on this. Somebody who should be found, tried, convicted and then shoved through the nearest convenient stargate.
The news story (which took place distressing close to where I live) is beyond the “Continue Reading,” because even the headline might be a bit disturbing for those who don’t want to read about such things. Included within the body of the linked news article is a news story from a dozen years ago that set me off watching it.
There is a GoFundMe that has been set up to raise funds for a reward to find whoever’s responsible. Hopefully local security cameras caught something.
This is one of the reasons why my cats are indoor cats. The world is dangerous enough for cats without throwing in actual monsters.
May 052022
Recommendations of books for fans of H.P. Lovecraft, and for those looking to get into Lovecraft. One glorious little visual joke as well.
May 052022
The Roddenberry Archive recreates Star Trek’s 1964 Pilot episode as a life-size holodeck simulation
A project is underway to digitally recreate the *entire* USS Enterprise, inside and out. What’s more, it’s not one static version, but shows how the sets evolved from the first pilot through the series, and includes the “refit” version from the Motion Picture and seemingly on up to Undiscovered Country (as well as the other Enterprises from NX-01 up to the J-model, the Shuttle, the aircraft carrier, the “ringship,” the Robert McCall version designed for the unmade “Planet of the titans” TV movie, the Phase II design… but *not* shown is the mutant horrible version from Woketrek, or the JJPrise). The results look pretty fricken’ awesome. Shows what can be accomplished if you actually care about the source materials (take note, hacks behind STD and STP).
How exactly regular schmoes like us will make use of the final products is not explained very well. It nevertheless looks damn impressive.I doubt that the computer models will be made accessible to the public, but if they were… you’d be able to 3D print every single version of the Enterprise bridge in whatever scale you like. You’d be able to print off each and every prop.
The actress they scanned to recreate Yeoman Colt from “The Cage” is not an exact duplicate, but she’s impressively close and immediately recognizable. Contrast with what Star Trek Discovery did to poor Colt:
Remember, the Talosians brought Colt to Pike and suggested that he mate with her because, in short, she was young and attractive. Ummmmm… Maybe that spike-faced Jem Hadar-lookin’ dame is a hottie among her kind, but that is *not* a face to attract a human male.
Sadly, actress Laurel Goodwin, who portrayed yeoman colt, died just a few months ago.