So I tried to log it to make another post, and was met with not a login page, but a string of error messages. Yet another call to tech support… and it seemed to clear up, kinda randomly.
Joy.
So, as always, if the blog vanishes *again,* I ain’t dead, it’s just technomages screwing with the machine spirit. If the blog vanishes for more than a short time in the future, check my (gah) Twitter for any updates or complaints or whines.
@UnwantedBlog
A Douglas concept from 1963 for a large space booster that was to use both chemical and nuclear engines. The first stage was to have chemical engines; when the booster reached sufficient altitude, it would stage off and a purely nuclear stage would deliver a one million pound payload to low Earth orbit (in this case, a million pounds of liquid hydrogen for a large interplanetary spacecraft). both stages would be recovered for re-use.
*Somewhere* I have a paper that describes this at least a little bit, with a minimal diagram…
The bot-upvotes seem to still be coming in, but now they’re getting neutralized. They are now “Guest” upvotes that do not link to anything. Still a nuisance, but a minor one; it seems that Disqus was able to reverse engineer them, but not truly nuke them.
Was:
Is:
It’s rare that I look at a standup comics schtick and am actually kinda shocked. But this guy pulled it off. It’s… ummm…
Ummmmmmmm……………….
Wow. That’s not what I would expect to see these days. I bet the audience was uncomfortable as hell, just as they were laughing themselves fuzzy.
Ever since the Commie Cough hit, I’ve noticed a lot of quality control issues in common products. Today I broke open a box with a new tube of toothpaste (purchased some months ago; expiration date is sometime in 2023) to find that something ain’t quite right with the tube.
I’m uncertain if the tube was *ever* actually sealed. The toothpaste itself has dried to a largely solid state. I’ve never actually wondered about what happens to toothpaste if allowed to dry out, but I’ve had that nugget of knowledge kinda thrust upon me. Woo.
A few days ago Amazon plopped one of the most cringe-worthy videos I’ve ever seen onto YouTube. It *claimed* to be a video of four “superfans” of The Lord of the Rings reacting to the new trailer for “The Rings of Power,” and it was just astonishingly painful to watch. Basically they are everything wrong with modern woke corporate “fandom,” demonstrating a lack of understanding just what the frak Tolkein was on about in favor of unhinged “influencer” nonsense. These four Brits exemplify the soy-boy, alphabet-people hipster cliches, with one “guy” hoping that Sauron will appear in the series and be “hot” so he can dream about “fixing him.” You can *smell* their parents disappointment through the screen.
If you *must* watch it, here is:
Lest you think that Amazon UK just happened to randomly stumble across the four least credible, least serious fans of Tolkein, it turns out that Amazon did the same nonsense for several other countries. The *same* nonsense.
Despite the scripted, woke nature of this “round table” of genetic defectives, some important truths slipped out. The four UK “superfans” consist of one seemingly ethnically British person and three non-ethnic-Brits; a seemingly unlikely ratio in the land of JRR Tolkein. But the point is raised that they are *thrilled* to finally be “represented” in the Tolkein universe. And yet… they claim to have been fans *before* this series. Thus they were fans of white dwarves and white elves and white hobbit, as Tolkein described them. They didn’t actually need “representation” to be fans. They were fans (if they really were fans, and not just paid actors) of the story, characters and world that Tolkein created. They weren’t fans of the story, characters and world created by an Amazon algorithm.
Given the scripted nature of this atrocity, this is how Amazon wants to portray their little project. It’s not an accident. This is what Amazon thinks of Tolkein, his works and those who have actually been fans of them for years and decades.
If Amazon really wanted to produce a quality product that respected Tolkein and the fandom, they’d have a “roundtable” with acknowledged scholars and long-term fans. This group of people would, theoretically, be able to say “why, yes, it looks like it really respects Tolkein and I approve.” The fact that Amazon has no such offering tells you a lot.
Shrug.
Maybe in fifteen, twenty years, Elon Musk will have bought the rights to LotR and the Silmarillion, and will produce a *proper* multi-year projects covering the First and Second Ages. We can only hope, cuz this thing fills me with STD-levels of basement-level expectations.
A sad story out of Philadelphia with the least-bad outcome imaginable. In short: some dogs decide to maul a child; a licensed concealed carrier steps in and puts one of the dogs down, saving the child. Dogs look like Rottweilers. Those are fine animals… but as with pit bulls, Dachshunds, Pomeranians or humans, if they are raised badly they can become thugs. Unlike Pomeranians, though, a thuggish Rottweiler is a *serious* threat. Would a good man wade into a pair of Rottweilers to save a child with his bare hands? Possibly. Would that be a good idea if a pistol was available? No. A Rottweiler can relieve you of important bits of your anatomy.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Donetsk and Luhansk, two territories in Ukraine on which Russia has laid claim for years. He did so under the guise of “peacekeeping,” even as he made clear that he did not accept the basic premise of Ukrainian sovereignty.
Spectacular.
“Ukraine is not just a neighboring country, they are a part of our culture,” the Russian leader said in a Monday night speech.
Basically Putin has annexed the Sudetenland. Yeah, that worked out great the last time…
Time to stock up on food, toilet paper and ammo.
The one where it is claimed that Sonequa Martin-Green’s character of Michael Burnham is loudly touted as the first black female captain in the Star Trek franchise…
And yet…
Star Trek IV gave us the Captain of the Yorktown:
Star Trek: the Next Generation gave us Captain Tryla Scott:
Star Trek: The Next Generation gave us Captain Silva La Forge:
Star Trek: The Next generation gave us Fleet Admiral Taela Shanthi. OK, not a Captain, but I imagine “Captain” is in her bio somewhere unless she skipped a few steps:
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine gave us Kassidy Yates. Sure, she wasn’t a Starfleet Captain… but she OWNED HER OWN SHIP:
I guess it should not be surprising that major figures in the worst of the Star Trek series cannot be bothered to remember Star Trek canon and precedent… the writers of STD cannot remember their *own* continuity.
Bonus round: you don’t need to be the “leader” of a nation to be a power-mad little tyrant. School boards across the country are full of people who think that it is their place to dictate and not be argued with and by howdy do they get in a snit when someone calls them out: