Same story, two very different headlines

 AARRRGH, Forward!, Hmm..., news, politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 092022
 

First headline, a sad story of an accident:

A good Samaritan died after trying to save a man who fell on the subway tracks in New York City

People just fall onto trains tracks, it seems.

But then:

Man hit, killed by subway train while saving man from gang assault, NYPD says

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.

 Posted by at 8:14 am

Worth watching

 aircraft, art, awesomeness, science fiction  No Responses »
Jan 082022
 

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?

 Posted by at 3:52 pm

Can’t you just drive them to the cops?

 Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., Hmm...  No Responses »
Jan 082022
 

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?

 Posted by at 2:26 pm

Anti-Bigly

 AARRRGH, blather, Hmm..., politics, Worldwreckers, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 082022
 

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.

 Posted by at 2:25 am

Here’s yer January 6 domestic terrorism

 Crazy, Forward!, Hmm..., news, politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 082022
 

After the overly-dramatic crocodile tears about the January 6 “insurrection,” the one where somehow a bunch of wholly uncoordinated chuckleheads were somehow going to violently overthrow the government of the United States armed with placards using a strategy of milling about, a news story emerges of an apparent attempt at *actual* terrorism:

Oldsmar man had explosive device near Jan. 6 anniversary rally in Pinellas, sheriff says

Fella had what appears to be somewhat lazy homemade grenades and pipe bombs. He was either targeting or attending an “Oath Keeper” rally, the article is unclear on the point. However, there’s this:

Sheriff’s deputies found a piece of paper titled “direct action checklist,” where Smith made a list of clothing, armor and gear to bring, including listed items such as a helmet and shaded goggles, a gas mask, duct tape and flammable rags.

In his backpack, they also found a helmet with a logo on it that had been seen at other protests in cities such as Portland, where Smith had spent time, Gualtieri said.

In affidavits, the arresting detective, under the “aggravating/mitigating” section of the report, notes “Antifa” and requests a high bail. In one of the reports, the detective wrote “Antifa/Anti gov/Extrem.” However, Gualtieri said it was too early to say with which group Smith may be affiliated.

Uh-huh.

 Posted by at 12:33 am

I would guess “Burning Man” is involved somehow

 art, youtube  No Responses »
Jan 072022
 

An “art car” on the streets of New York, where I assume it will shortly be stripped for parts or outright stolen.

It looks like a smallish car with thin sheet metal bolted to a framework (possibly screwed to a wooden framework, hard to tell). Looks quite unlikely to provide any ballistic protection, but I bet it jacks up drag something fierce at highway speeds.

 Posted by at 2:56 pm

Webb & Two Asteroids

 awesomeness, Hmm..., news, photography, science, spacecraft, youtube  No Responses »
Jan 072022
 

A video from the University of Hertfordshire’s Bayfordbury Observatory shows the James Webb Space telescope drifting across the starfield. If you look closely you can also make out two asteroids… one that seems almost to be moving along with the telescope, and another, fainter moving dot in the upper right. The sky is *full* of stuff, if you know how to see it.

 Posted by at 11:30 am

So… how’s that “shut down the virus” thing going?

 AARRRGH, Gah., Hmm..., news, politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 062022
 

Let’s check in again:

Oh my.

As the Rice Rabies continues to surge rather spectacularly, actual deaths remain kinda-sorta static at between 1000 to 1500 per day. Once again, this indicates that at least for the moment the Commie Cough is becoming better at infecting people, but is becoming less dangerous at the same time (more infections with no increase in deaths = less deadly, statistically).

So far, according to this some 832,000 Americans have dies of Xi’s Disease. Uncertainty remains over just exactly how many of those people actually died of the disease, how many died of it because they were already dying of something else, and how many died of something else, but had the disease and their deaths were simply chalked up to the China Syndrome. We’ll probably never know with anything remotely resembling certainty.

 

 

 Posted by at 10:33 pm

Awesome headline, letdown article

 Hmm..., news, science  No Responses »
Jan 062022
 

Behold, mortals, the Headline Of Awesomeness:

Giant dying star explodes as scientists watch in real time — a first for astronomy

Watching a red giant go supernova in real time… how could this not be spectacular? Welllllll……

…the star at the heart of this new research, located in the NGC 5731 galaxy about 120 million light-years away from Earth…

 

Ah. Thus explaining the lack of spiffy videos.

 Posted by at 10:05 pm
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