Over nine thousand on the cringometer!
The information these yahoos provide about who used to live there, what their current ethnicity and genders are, what they’re wearing? Really only one valid response to that:
Nov 042021
Nov 042021
But… ah… not of who the allegations were aimed at.
Durham charges Steele dossier sub-source with five counts of making false statements to the FBI
Whoopsie.
Bonus: not relevant, but wisdom nonetheless.
Nov 042021
Hidden behind the news of Virginia’s election of governor flipping the office from D to R is an election in New Jersey, where a truck driver defeated the State Senate President. Since the new State Senator Edward Durr has the Wrong Politics, his social media postings have been scrutinized to find all the horrible, horrible things this man said during the years when he was just some blue collar guy that nobody in the media paid the slightest bit of attention to:
Newly elected GOP state senator’s social media accounts contain xenophobic, anti-Muslim posts
The first posting they quote is a tweet from 2019, where he refers to a particular religion as “false” and its founder as a “pedo.” Uh-huh. So… is it wrong to declare *any* religion as “false?” If I am, say, an atheist who believes actively in the actual non-existence of any and all gods, to me *every* religion that teaches that gods exist is false. If I am a theist who believes one specific god exists but others do not, another religion that teaches that *my* god doesn’t exist but theirs does is false. Durr may or may not be factually right or wrong to claim that any particular religion is “false,” but he’s not morally or ethically wrong to do so, no more so than if he had said “my religion is true.” And if the founder of a religion is described in his own official hagiographies as have boinked a 9-year-old… how is he *not* a pedo?
And multiple posts from his Facebook account downplayed the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — one called it “not an insurrection … (but) an unauthorized entry by undocumented federal employers!”
And… hmm. “Undocumented federal employers” is a dandy description of taxpayers.
And speaking of the elections…
Nov 042021
One of the best episodes of any of the Trek series aired 25 years ago today.
AAAAAAARRRRRRRRGH.
On one hand: crap, I’m ooooooold. On the other hand: this episode, which saw Our Heroes from Deep Space Nine sent back in time to the original series “The Trouble with Tribbles” episode and seamlessly slotted in using CGI tricks and well constructed sets, props and costumes, showed that the original series designs worked *perfectly* well in an era of higher resolution. And when Star Trek: Enterprise did it itself some years later, with even higher visual resolution, that cemented the fact that the Nu Trek eras determination to redesign everything was just ridiculous and, let’s face it, ugly.
Nothing STD or STP has produced has improved on this:
As a bonus: in order to produce footage that the new characters could be inserted into, vintage Trek footage was remastered digitally. The end result was so good that it help to assure that a complete remaster of the original series was created and released on Blu Ray.
Nov 042021
The parallels between the seventies and the current era are numerous. A shameful abandonment of allies, allowing them to be over-run by savages. A feckless and wholly incompetent President, in far over his head. A NASA in shambles, promising a New Thing but facing constant technical issues, delays and massive cost over-runs. An economy in deep trouble, with looming inflation. An energy crisis. Deep cultural and racial divisions. New York and other major cities being known more for their crime than anything else. And on and on.
So today, while out and about I stopped in a convenience store to get something to drink. Over the past few months there have been occasional shortages… sometimes they don’t have the syrup to make this or that fountain drink; or they don’t have straws, or they don’t have polypropylene cups, or they don’t have styrofoam cups. Various bits of shelf space bare from time to time. All annoying side effects of the current economic conditions brought about by the pandemic and ridiculous policies that trash the ability of American ports to do their jobs. But nothing quite screamed “the 70’s are back, baby!” to me quite like today: I got my drink, pulled out a paper-wrapped straw, and unwrapped it.. to find a *paper* straw.
I haven’t seen a paper straw in 40 or more years. I didn’t like ’em then, because they turned into a soggy mess well before you were done with them. I don’t like them any better now, because of what they represent: an admission of failure. I don’t know if these straws hold up any better than they did 40+ years ago because as soon as I got to my car I swapped it for a proper plastic straw. But I kept the thing. It’s still there, mocking me, promising to bring on stagflation and a return of lime green polyester leisure suits, wide lapels, bell bottoms, perms.
Get ready for it. it’s coming back, like it or not.
Nov 032021
This is an odd thing:
The Future of Custom Vehicles: Ford Unveils All-Electric F-100 Eluminator Concept With New EV Crate Motor Customers Can Now Buy
The “F-100 Eluminator” is just a concept car at this stage, with two 240 horsepower electric motors in a frame based on the 1978 F100. Ummm… sure. The title is perhaps a bit misleading: it’s the electric motor that customers can buy, not the complete vehicle.
I guess it looks good (except those wheels… the large-diameter hubs married to narrower sidewall tires always seemed like a bad idea for a vehicle designed to actually *work*). Just strange to see a 1970’s pickup turned into a modern electric.
But so long as Ford is going to the bother of making electric-powered concept cars based on decades-old designs, I have a suggestion:
Nov 032021
A few modestly interesting videos, especially if you want to depict rapid depressuization of a high-flying aircraft.
First a test with a jetliner. This seems to be a 7 psi pressurization check carried out on the ground. Rather than being pressurized at somewhat less than sea level pressure and blowing down to very low pressure at high altitude, this started off at *more* than sea level pressure, and blew down to whatever the local air pressure was. The end result is more or less the same; the structure of the aircraft undergoes the exact same stresses (which was probably the point of the test). The visual response is, *I* *think,* more pronounced here than it would be at altitude, because the high pressure ground test likely had more humidity to start with – and thus convert to visible cloud – than a high altitude scenario would have. Bonus: best YouTube comment had to be… “This must be the pilots first day. Putting the clouds on the inside of the plane instead of the outside is a rookie mistake.”
And another depressurization test, this time of a U-2 pilot and his “space suit.” You can see the cabin fill with vapor briefly… and you can see how that carefully fitted suit doesn’t fit worth a damn anymore promptly after depressurization:
And another depressurization of a test chamber (from 8,000 feet altitude to 18,000), showing the insta-cloud:
Nov 022021
Portlan, Oregon, paragon of progressivism and police-defunding, *used* to have a Coast Guard Cutter as a museum ship, the USCGC Alert. Then it got turned into a homeless encampment. Then it sank.
Rather than spending taxpayer funds on police, civic improvement, restoration ans sustainment of history and dealing with abandoned military vessels in their waters, the Portland government decided to be Portland.
Abandoned former Coast Guard vessel sinks off Hayden Island, costing taxpayers
Nov 022021
Ronald Reagan he ain’t. Hell, Bill Clinton he ain’t.
Nov 022021
Some very good points are raised here, with clips comparing comparable scenes between old and new Trek. Due to bad, lazy, immature writing, new Trek has taken a serious beating.