I am now interested in “The Tomorrow War”

 Hmm..., politics, science fiction  No Responses »
Jul 022021
 

I was previously only kinda “I’ll probably get around to it eventually” interested in the new Amazon movie “The Tomorrow War.” But I have now been convinced to see it sooner than later… by people who hate it.

The Tomorrow War is Chris Pratt’s ultimate salute to working-class heroism (plus aliens)

BackBack in 2017, fresh off the continued success of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise and gearing up for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Chris Pratt gave a cover-story interview to Men’s Fitness magazine, and bemoaned the state of cinema about white men. “I don’t see personal stories that necessarily resonate with me, because they’re not my stories […] The voice of the average, blue-collar American isn’t necessarily represented in Hollywood,” Pratt said. That was a willfully ignorant statement back then, and it still is now.

Sold!

 Posted by at 9:58 am

White Monkey Jobs

 Crazy, Hmm..., politics, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jul 012021
 

Apparently, in China a “white monkey” is an ethnically non-Chinese foreigner (any ethnicity, any skin color, any nationality) who does a job that requires no skill other than being a foreigner. A lot of advertisements… and a lot of propaganda. Some supremely bizarre stuff here (the Hiddleston ad for vitamins is slack-jawed cringeworthy), and some downright racist stuff. Africans who are welcoming Chinese industries to come in and stripmine their countries should probably take note.

The rates of pay described seem to generally be pretty awful, making me wonder why foreigners would sign on. And there’s one guy (at 8:17) who pretended – let’s hope he’s pretending – to be a US military guy who is turning on the US in favor of China. That’s the sort of thing that cancel culture would be better aimed at rather than some edgelord 15 year old playing video games.

 Posted by at 8:08 pm

Signed copies of “SR-71?”

 aircraft, art, Book X, books, Hmm..., Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird Origins and Evolution, projects  No Responses »
Jul 012021
 

The idea has been floated of selling signed copies of “SR-71.” I’m currently checking into what I could get a box of issues for to see if it would make sense to try to sell a few copies my own self. Given that they’re coming from Europe, postage might be a concept-killer for this. If it’s close, what I might do is charge a bit more… and add a bit more. 11X17 or 18X24 prints of a few of the snazzier diagrams, perhaps.

Who would be interested? I’m not taking orders, just trying to judge interest. If interested at (handwave) $13-$15 plus postage, send me an email:

 

By the way: Amazon now says that this will be released on July 28, moved up substantially from September.

 

 Posted by at 3:51 am

“Large Amphibian”

 aircraft, art, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, projects, science fiction  No Responses »
Jun 302021
 

A 1980’s Boeing concept art depicting a passenger transport of 100 or so years in the future. It has a number of… interesting features including a front that opens up like an Arakeen Sandworm. The cockpit and a fair amount of space behind it hinge upwards to provide access to the sizable interior of the aircraft. The gigantic transparent canopies are certainly a remarkable feature. Even the passenger windows on the side are vast compared to the tiny human figures. The engines look somewhat small for the design, but at least they exhaust almost directly onto the vast canopy over the tail “lounge” area. Surely that’ll not pose any problems…

The full rez scan of the artwork has been made available at 300 DPI to all $4/month patrons/subscribers in the 2021-06 APR Extras folder at Dropbox. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, along with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.



 Posted by at 12:15 am

I think I saw that in “The War of the Worlds”

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Hmm..., news, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jun 292021
 

Photos show bodies of COVID victims floating along Ganges River in India

The bodies aren’t, apparently, being dumped straight into the river. They’re being buried in *shallow* graves in the sand on the shore of the river, Which… is essentially the same thing, just with a time delay. I remain astounded that the same nation with hundreds of millions of people who think it’s good and proper to bathe and drink in the same “sacred” river they dump bodies and sewage directly into has homemade nukes and ballistic missiles and missions to the Moon and Mars.

 Posted by at 11:04 pm

And in this corner…

 awesomeness, news, science  No Responses »
Jun 292021
 

When a black hole encounters a neutron star, who wins?

Well, clearly not the neutron star. Duh.

LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Finds Elusive Mergers of Black Holes with Neutron Stars

LIGO continues to astound. In my lifetime gravitational astronomy has gone from “it’s maybe kinda scientifically plausible but so far beyond our technology as to be effectively impossible” to “oh, look here’s another collision of black holes a bagrillion light years away.”

 Posted by at 5:50 pm

Athletes who aren’t national disgraces

 awesomeness, blather, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., Meh., news, politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jun 292021
 

I’ve never understood the adulation and exorbitant wealth that gets lavished upon some people who serve as entertainers. In particular, their thoughts on political or scientific matters; people who are professionals in running or beating the tar out of other people or picking up heavy objects seem unlikely sources of wisdom on more intellectual matters. But… this is the world we live in, so one must accept the reality of it.

Still, there are some athletes who are really quite awful people when it comes to their opinions and politics. There are athletes who want to burn the US flag on the Olympic podium; others who get pissy and stamp their feet when their own national anthem is played.

But then…

On the far left is the loser in the  Women’s Hammer Throw of the 2020 U.S. Olympic Track & Field Team Trials. She came in third and is annoyed that the anthem is being played, so she turned her back on the anthem, her team and her nation. But in the middle and the right are the first and second place winners, DeAnna Price and Brooke Andersen. Compare the losers petulant annoyance with DeAnna Price (from 2019):

Someone here seems like a happier person, less likely to be an insufferably fanatical wokescold, permanently angry about crap that happened centuries ago or because people believe differently than her.

Also, from the world of non-US athletes, showing US athletes how it should be done:

 Posted by at 4:50 pm
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