UPDATE: Well, poop. looks like the video got yoinked. My guess is that it was removed for copyright reasons due to the use of the Jam Hammer music.
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More specifically, the video of a seriously obese orangutan driving a golf cart set to Jan Hammer music from “Miami Vice.” Truly, the 80’s were a magical time.
PS: it would be my guess that the golf cart has secondary controls, especially as you can briefly glimpse a human in the passenger seat.
ST:TMP was a flawed movie, but it’s still quite good. It is often slower than dirt and some of the visual effects were pretty bad (a few of the matte paintings, especially closeups of the upper side of the saucer section near the end of the movie, were criminally incompetent). Fortunately, in 2001 the director was miraculously given the time and money to do a “Directors Special Edition” that recut things a bit and added all-new modern CG effects shots. The result was a movie that was quite a bit of an improvement over the theatrical cut. Over time, though, a serious problem arose: the special edition was shot only at DVD resolution.
Huzzah! They spent the money to create all those new scenes *again,* this time in 4K resolution, for release sometime in early 2022.
New images from the STAR TREK: MOTION PICTURE Director's Edition 4K remastering
Left: 2001 DVD
Right: 2022 4K Remaster(images via @startrek)#StarTrek pic.twitter.com/uGcKEM46Xm
— TrekCore đź–– (@TrekCore) December 14, 2021
New images from the STAR TREK: MOTION PICTURE Director's Edition 4K remastering
Left: 2001 DVD
Right: 2022 4K Remaster(images via @StarTrek)#StarTrek pic.twitter.com/XxrQ3Gmwj4
— TrekCore đź–– (@TrekCore) December 14, 2021
New images from the STAR TREK: MOTION PICTURE Director's Edition 4K remastering
Left: 2001 DVD
Right: 2022 4K Remaster(images via @StarTrek)#StarTrek pic.twitter.com/zSmjnU5mkB
— TrekCore đź–– (@TrekCore) December 14, 2021
The pig was genegineered to have a heart that would not be rejected by a human immune system, so that human blood would not coagulate within it, and so that the pig would not grow too big (at one year old it was 240 pounds, when otherwise it would have been about 450 pounds).
That’s cool and all, but I imagine that the technique that will eventually win in the future will be hearts (and other organs) cloned from the patient themselves, with whatever genetic modifications to prevent whatever the problem was in the first place. At first that will probably mean organs grown in machines (perhaps even 3D printed), but someday I suspect that your new heart might well be grown in place. Exactly *how* that will happen, I don’t know: maybe the new heart grows next to the old one, starting small and gradually taking it’s place, so for a while you have two beating hearts. Or maybe the new cloned heart will grow *in* the old one… a few scattered new, modified cells seeded throughout the old damaged heart, consuming and replacing the old heart like The Thing, so that it looks like the heart is rapidly repairing itself when in fact it’s being repalced. In the end such a therapy will be of no greater drama than getting a shot of antibiotics today, but the years, perhaps decades, spent perfecting it will doubtless have some exciting failures and screwups.
Not quite a cloaking device, but pretty handy for those making an escape: a car that can change colors on command. From this short clip, it seems to have the option of “white” and “gray,” but I’m sure more colors will become available. Eventually I expect that cars will end up covered in wraps that incorporate cephalopod-like chromatophores, giving the ability to not only change into pretty much whatever color, but introduce patterns. A big “Uber” sign, perhaps, that you can turn off.
This color changing @BMWUSA #iX is wild! It’s apparently very temperature sensitive so they have a backup in a trailer in case this one gets too hot / cold pic.twitter.com/lXG1Gw0IKY
— Out of Spec Studios (@Out_of_Spec) January 4, 2022
I have no comment; I’ll let the headline do the talking:
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On a note that is entirely irrelevant and in no way any sort of commentary on AOC, here is a link to a Wikipedia article that may prove generally interesting:
Recently released footage of the Raytheon “Coyote” missile blasting the bejeebers out of a series of unmanned small aircraft. It’s certainly impressive, and certainly very effective, but it seems perhaps a bit excessive for the task. A warhead a fraction of the size would seem able to do the job. If they could scale this thing down to manpad size, so that a launch system with the size and user-friendliness of a Stinger could be employed,that would make this concept dandy for taking out quadcopters and the like. If they were *really* good… rounds launchable from a standard 40 mm grenade launcher, with an ejectable warhead, so the missile itself could be recovered, refurbished and reused.
The Coyote uses small solid rocket motors for initial boost, with a jet engine for a sustainer.
image source: Janes
First headline, a sad story of an accident:
People just fall onto trains tracks, it seems.
But then:
Huh.
To be fair, both *articles* tell much the same story, and both include remarkably clear security camera images showing the numerous individuals wanted by the police in relation to the attempted murder (now felony murder, it would seem). But it’s strange the way the first headline obscures the real story.
Some movies currently streaming for free (well, “free” once you get past paying for the streaming services):
“Real Genius” is now streaming on Hulu and Paramount Plus. For some reason this movie has not been released on Blu Ray, only DVD and VHS. If you haven’t seen it… why the frak not? if you have seen it, and especially if you are in the age group it was meant for (those roughly near college age in the mid 80’s), and especially if you are of a scientific mindset, it’s almost certainly got a special place in your heart. The attention to an attempt at scientific plausibility, the treatment of smart people as diverse, the production designs by Ron Cobb… Jordan. Jordan.
“Starflight One: the Plane That Couldn’t Land” was a *wholly* ridiculous 1983 TV film starring the Six Million Dollar Man as a jetliner pilot in what could have been the ultimate expression of the “Airport” series of aviation disaster movies, had it been branded as such. In short, the maiden flight of a US-to-Australia hypersonic transport goes wrong and the aircraft ends up in *orbit.* The math ain’t right, the ultimate solution is silly beyond belief, and the idea that NASA could turn around the Shuttle Columbia in a *day*? Snerk. Still, it’s a freakin’ *hoot.* The design of the HST, and the actual execution of the miniature, is far better than a movie-of-the-week would suggest. Currently on Paramount Plus.
“SST: Death Flight” is really rather awful. It’s a 1977 TV movie, with Americas first SST suddenly losing control Because Reasons. The SST appears to be a Lockheed L-2000 model, but with the L-2000’s nacelles cut off and 747 nacelles added on. This looks ridiculous; it seems to have been done so that a few external shots could be filmed at the passenger entrance of a 747 looking aft. You can make out the wings and clearly see the turbofans, but you can’t see the fuselage. So I *guess* you can assume that the real aircraft you’re seeing is the SST. Note: it’s a TV movie, so imagine my surprise when beeeewwwwbs suddenly make an appearance, a scene that was added for foreign showings. The production values are everything that “Starflight One” ain’t. It’s worth pointing and laughing at. Currently on Amazon Prime.
“Strategic Air Command” is on Amazon Prime. If you don’t know about this movie… holy frak, what are you doing here? Go get you some SAC and behold the *glorious* B-36 and B-47 footage.
“Blue Thunder” is currently on Amazon Prime. The LAPD gets themselves an Aerospatiale Gazelle that sexually identifies as an attack helicopter.
“Prophesy:” a 1979 eco-horror flick about a skinless bear on a rampage. I haven’t seen this since… well, 1979. So now that it’s on Hulu, I’m going to go take a look when I get a chance. I vaguely recall it as being an effective horror movie; but as I was just a kid at the time, I bet a modern viewing will not stand up well. But hey, why not.
What else we got?
So for some reason YouTube has decided that I have a burning need to seen dashcam videos from Uber/Lyft drivers showing passengers who are behaving poorly… screaming at the driver, drunk, refusing to properly identify themselves, refusing the exit the vehicle even though the trip has been cancelled, etc. The drivers *seem* to be required to just sit there and take it until the passenger chooses to leave, or until the cops show up and drag them away. But why can’t the driver simply head to the nearest police station? That would seem the obvious approach. Or would that be considered kidnapping or some such nonsense?
Regardless of your general opinion of Tucker Carlson, he’s on the money with this monologue about the unfortunate results of the recent explosion in the US population (it has gone up about 65 percent just in my lifetime). The idea of the US reaching a *billion* people, most of whom would almost certainly be third worlders with little interest in truly adopting American ideals, culture, language, etc., is basically horrifying.
And he’s right about where people want to live. As COVID made it sot hat people worked from home, and could thus live wherever the want, people rushed to get away from high population density urban areas and flooded into low population density rural areas. Just a few months before the pandemic hit I did the exact opposite, moving from rural Utah to somewhere far less open and free. Shrug. Had I known then what I know now… dunno. Maybe if I’d waited a couple years I could have sold my place in Utah for a *fortune.*
As an aside: in my Zaneverse stories, space operas set about 500 years from now, the three most populace planets in human space are Mars, Atlantis and Asgard. All have a population of about 50 million. All have had that population for a few hundred years, with little prospect of the populations increasing. Because after The Fall and The Bottleneck, humans necessarily got a lot smarter. Mars, completely terraformed at this point, is seen as horribly overpopulated, while Atlantis and Asgard, roughly Earthly and also completely terraformed, are seen as optimally populated. And yet people have *large* families generally. How is this sustained? By people getting the hell out of Dodge as soon as they can. There is a constant urge to get away from massive population centers and head out for the frontier. Of course the frontier is more often than not a new Habitat, a pair of rotating cylinders miles in diameter and more miles long, floating in the asteroid belt of this or that solar system. With good AI, easy nuclear fusion power and propulsion, and five centuries worth of advancement in manufacturing technology, the resources of asteroids and comets means that *billions* of this state-sized habitats can be built, almost free of charge, in any decent solar system.
A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies, a chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure. But this time, without the cynicism.