Mar 102021
Mar 092021
It’s an act, alright. It’s essentially an attempt to cement a permanent Democrat coup d’etat by setting up the voting system for rampant fraud.
Mar 092021
Kurzgesagt finally answers the age-old question: what happens if Midas turns the Earth to gold? There are three answers, and none of them are good.
Yes, Midas is mythology, based on magic. And magic, much as some people argue otherwise, doesn’t seem to exist, so hypotheticals based on magic are pointless. And yet… not. Thinking through magical scenarios by applying known physics can be a good way to teach physics… AND it makes for much better storytelling than just saying “and then magic happens” and not figuring out the ramifications.
Mar 082021
To compare with QAnon:
blue anon
A loosely organized network of Democrat voters, politicians and media personalities who spread left-wing conspiracy theories such as the Russia Hoax, Jussie Smollett hoax, Ukraine hoax, Covington Kids hoax, and Bret Kavanaugh hoax. Blue Anon adherents fervently believe that right-wing extremists are going to storm Capitol Hill any day now and “remove” lawmakers from office, hence the need for the deployment of thousands of National Guard stationed at the US Capitol.
I would include in the list of conspiracy theories that Blue Anon adherents tend to glom onto:
- The Wage Gap
- The Pink Tax
- “Assault weapons” and “high capacity magazines” as things to actually worry about
- Anti-nuclear activism/beliefs
- Those were “mostly peaceful protests”
- “Socialism works in Scandinavia. Or anywhere.”
- White Privilege
Mar 082021
Behold the modern American institute of higher learning:
Mar 082021
Lovecraft Country faces colorism scandal as extra details having her skin darkened on set
Short form: a young black actress was hired as an extra to play a younger version of a character portrayed by an older black actress. When she went in for her makeup, the makeup department was tasked with making sure the younger actress looked like a younger version of the older actress, so they matched the skin tone. This has been determined to be Problematic.
If you read the article *and* the comments, the answer is quite simple: HBO should not have hired this young actress, but instead another one who looked like the older actress, both structurally and skin tone, so no makeup change would have been required. Since skin tones can vary *wildly* from one person to another, this would have slashed the pool of potential hires drastically.
HBO, of course, has already started cranking out the grovelling apologies for using makeup to make an actress look like the character she was hired to portray. Hopefully they will learn from this lesson and never again apply makeup to an acting unit that changes their skin tone. Instead, they should do the only fair and honest thing: completely computer generated characters. When there is the slightest worry of woke outrage, replace all Actrons Of Outrage with an off-the-street hire in a mocap suit.
Behold your new Black Panther:
One of the numerous advantages of doing it this way is that actors will gradually cease to be recognizable by the public. Characters in movies might be based on scans of real people, but those people would be just random acting-talentless schmoes who sold their image rights. No longer will there be actrons demanding vast sums for the sequels, or shows getting their legs cut out from under them because one of the stars got MeTooed or arrested or died or some other nuisance. And characters, being computer generated, can be not only made to look however the movie/show makers want, they can have little slider bars in the setup screen to let the viewers select how the characters look. This is done commonly enough in video games, where you can select just about every conceivable feature for the character you portray; doing this with movies is just a matter of time. Imagine how much less the JJVerse Star Trek movies woulda sucked if you could adjust a littler slider that allowed you to set the “how different from actual Star Trek” appearance… not just the actors, but the ship designs, aliens, uniforms, etc. (a slider that allows you to select “how much does the plot and writing suck” would be nice too, but that’s probably a little further out)
Mar 072021
For some reason YouTube’s algorithm decided I needed to see this. So, guess what, you get to see it too: a British school girl undergoing one dire Tourette’s tic attack. Comes complete with NSFW language and some seriously self-destructive actions. This is clearly a heck of an issue for her. But imagine what her life would have been like a few centuries ago when the only explanation for this would have been demonic possession or some such.
We live in some crazy damned times. There are a *lot* of people out there with a large range of emotional/mental/psychological/neurological issues… and a lot more people who tell them that they should feel proud for it. That they should revel in it. That children should be indoctrinated to actually desire such things. That society should tell these people that their delusions are *real.* That rather than seeking a cure, they should be rolling around in their troubles like a glue-covered pig rolling in glitter. But I have the sneaking suspicion that if this girl was given the opportunity to take a single pill that would end her Tourettes side effect free, she’d leap at it.
In a Star Trek future, Doctor McCoy would run a tricorder over her, diagnose her problem and zap her with Space Magic Healing Ray (TM), and she’d be fine from then on. Someone with cancer or schizophrenia or clinical depression… same thing. But if someone came along who claimed to be a pandemifurrytwospirittransGorn… why, gotta *celebrate* that and lock up anyone who says “maybe they’re just nuts.”
Mar 072021
Once again, this time with feeling:
The media has used the term “armed insurrection” 2,339 times to describe the Capitol riot despite no evidence of anyone having a gun on them. Why is that?
Sen. Johnson: “How many firearms were confiscated in the Capitol or on Capitol grounds during that day?”
FBIAssistant Director Sanborn: “To my knowledge, we have not recovered any on that day from any other arrests at the scene at this point. But I don’t want to speak on behalf of Metro and Capitol Police. But to my knowledge, none.”
Johnson: “So nobody has been charged with an actual firearm weapon in the Capitol or on Capitol grounds?”
Sanborn: “Correct. The closest we came was the vehicle that had the Molotov cocktails in it. And when we did a search of that vehicle later on, there was a weapon.”
Johnson: “How many shots were fired that we know of?”
Sanborn: “I believe the only shots that were fired were the ones that results in the death of the one lady” [The woman killed by the Capitol Police].
The fear-mongering bootlickers claim that the “armed insurrectionists” had things like stun guns and – GASP HORROR – crutches.
Mar 072021
… but *this* I just don’t get:
Want to buy this tweet?
The highest offer is $2500000 by @sinaEstavi
What are the terms of this transaction and what does it mean to own a tweet?
The tweet itself will continue to live on Twitter. What you are purchasing is a digital certificate of the tweet, unique because it has been signed and verified by the creator.
This autographed digital certificate will only be issued once on Valuables. It is signed using cryptography, and includes metadata of the original tweet like: when the tweet was posted, what the text contents are of the tweet, the timestamp of the tweet, and the digital signature from the creator’s crypto wallet address.
Why would I pay to own a tweet?
Owning any digital content can be a financial investment, hold sentimental value, and create a relationship between collector and creator. Like an autograph on a baseball card, the NFT itself is the creator’s autograph on the content, making it scarce, unique, and valuable.
Why would someone buy a single tweet for $2.5 million when they can buy US Bomber Projects #1 for a mere $4.25?
Mar 072021
A video (made with a few contributions from yours truly, and, yes, attributed as such within the video) describing the 1970s Boeing design for an ICBM-carrying airliner, the MC-747. This is described and illustrated in US Bomber Projects issue 21, AVAILABLE HERE.
An interesting idea to be sure, but an unsafe one. Were one of these aircraft to go down for whatever reason, the results would be No Damned Good. Almost certainly the warheads would not go nuclear, but it’s always possible that the combo of the crash, the burning jet fuel and the solid rocket propellant merrily burning away might cause the chemical explosives in the warheads to go off, potentially scattering plutonium all over hither and yon. Worse still would be if the plutonium got sprinkled with the solid propellant and the plutonium combusted, scattering not just chunks and bits of plutonium, which would be bad enough, but clouds of plutonium oxide or plutonium chloride.
Perhaps more dangerous would be the Soviet reaction. They’d be in a constant state of freaking out every time one of these took to the sky, and they probably would have difficulty telling an MC-747 from an E-4 or a civilian 747. And, of course, they’d have to have their own. the AN-124 would be the logical choice for an ICBM carrier, and chances are good they’d do as good of a job with it as they did with Chernobyl, the Kursk or the Polyus.