Superman: good news/bad news

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Feb 262021
 

First the good news: I watched the pilot episode of “Superman & Lois” and… it was *actually* *good.* It is not the usual Superman storyline; Clark Kent and Lois Lane have been married for near on to two decades at this point and have to teenage sons. The sons are of course non-canonical, but it works and is a perfectly cromulent extrapolation of the characters. The plot, acting and dialog were pretty good; the VFX were top notch. One scene that I thought was particularly well done was when Clark Kent gets a devastating phone call that causes him to dash across the continent in seconds. It was simple, but it worked.

I will continue to watch the show with interest, which is far more than any of the other CW shows can boast.

BUT THEN…

A Superman Solo Film Is on the Way From Ta-Nehisi Coates and J.J. Abrams

Oh, goodie. A race hustler and the guy who almost single-handedly set both Star Wars and Star Trek on the roads to ruin joining forces to turn one of the oldest American sci-fi IP’s into hot garbage.

I have a plot idea. Feel free to run with it. Hollywood: feel free to steal this plot and spend $200 million making it.

So, it turns out that Lex Luthor is the bagrillionaire behind the scenes puppetmastering various nefarious schemes, a process decades old. One of his leading efforts: manipulation of the press. Specifically: whenever a cop is involved in any tenuous way with the death of a black suspect, the press – under Luthors hidden influence – runs inaccurate stories calculated to drive up rage and violence. The BLM/Antifa riots and insurrections are being driven by Luthors schemes; aiming to sow as much chaos as possible in order to destroy faith in the government, police, institutions and America as a whole. Part of this is seeing to it that major political parties nominate senile old kiddie-sniffers and incompetent diversity hires for major offices. Part of it is manipulation of the tax code to make sure that major corporations offshore their operations; this not only unemploys millions of Americans but empowers the Chinese Communist government, further driving down the American publics faith in the government. Part of this is funding crackpots to infiltrate colleges, universities, high schools, middle schools, pre-schools and HR departments, filling them with anti-science, anti-engineering rigor, anti-objectivity nonsense so that STAR Labs and WayneTech and the like are starved of competent talent.

Superman, aided by a dark detective from Gotham City, finds all this out. But what Luthor is doing isn’t strictly illegal. So Superman goes to the public with what he’s learned… and he is promptly cancelled by the woke mob. Twitter and Facebook deplatform Superman for spreading politically incorrect “disinformation.” He is declared a Nazi and a white supremacist after he puts out a fire at a science fiction bookstore at the latest arsonriot.

Movie ends as Superman sadly says “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore” and flies off into the sky to find somewhere less insane and stupid. Post-credit scene: Luthor is now President of the US. The woke mob celebrates… for about five minutes, and then Luthor turns on them.

 Posted by at 8:13 pm

More efforts to debase science

 dumbassery, Forward!, religion, science, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Feb 262021
 

The abuses of Popper

A powerful cadre of scientists and economists sold Karl Popper’s ‘falsification’ idea to the world. They have much to answer for

This long, rambling screed tries to make the argument that “falsification” is bad science.

I defy anyone who actually has done science to explain how science can be done *without* a focus on falsification. Note that the author here is not a scientist, but “is professor of science humanities and honorary professor in history.” Her arguments against falsification in science come from *philosophers,” not actual scientists. She seems to take issue with the whole notion of skepticism in science.

Bah.

 Posted by at 4:34 pm

The goofiest things you’ll read all day

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., politics, spacecraft, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Feb 262021
 

First up: a writer for Gizmodo flips her lid over the terrifying prospect of the Defense Department generating ten whole watts of electrical power in space with a solar panel:

The Pentagon Sent a Pizza Box-Sized Solar Panel Into Space, But I’m Sure Everything Is Fine

This solar panel is officially called the Photovoltaic Radiofrequency Antenna Module (PRAM), and it’s designed to capture the powerful blue light in space that doesn’t pass through the atmosphere. Navy scientists launched it last May using a mysterious drone called the X-37B, and it’s currently circling the Earth every 90 minutes. So right now, as I’m typing, there is a little solar panel looping the planet because the Department of Defense wanted to put it there. Somehow, this is not an episode of the X-Files, it is real life. …

The scientists want to send dozens of these panels to orbit the Earth, and they say if they scale up the project, it could produce enough electricity to fuel a whole city. But as far as I can tell, no one has been clamoring for space power. Myself and the other 99.9% of humanity would be perfectly happy with solar, wind, and other clean energy generated right here on Earth.

If these Defense Department scientists successfully get more of these panels into orbit, there’s no telling what horrors the nation will use them for.

Nobody wants space-based solar power according to this genetic defective.

Huh.

Bonus round, from the color-value reversed version of “Stormfront,” The Root:

‘Be Less White’: Coca-Cola Faces Backlash for Giving Wypipo Wonderful Advice in Diversity Training Program

“Be less white.”

If it were up to me, this would be America’s motto. Instead of the Pledge of Allegiance, children in school should stand up before class, put their hands over their hearts and shout “BE LESS WHITE” at the flag for five minutes before beginning the day’s lessons. (I’m old AF and I have no idea if students even have to say the pledge before school anymore, but still.) “Be less white” should be printed on t-shirts, bumper stickers, white people’s birth certificates, white people’s tombstones and it should replace “In God We Trust” on the back of U.S. currency.

Uh-huh. Read the comments for an extra dose of “my god humans are stupid.”

 Posted by at 2:12 am

This actually looks like Superman

 Hmm..., science fiction, youtube  No Responses »
Feb 252021
 

Given how awful Hollywood has been at creating Star Wars and Star Trek and all the woke superhero shows, one expects that a Superman series these days would be garbage. But it actually looks like the CW, of all places, created a seemingly faithful Superman with some interesting additions.  At least it ain’t Batwoman.

Superman *should* be a “beacon of hope” sort of boy scout figure. Something I read a long time ago that always seemed right was that Clark Kent is the real character, while Superman is the mask… while Batman is the real character who pretends to be Bruce Wayne.

 Posted by at 8:01 am

Math Is Hard

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., news, politics, science, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Feb 242021
 

Unless you simply decide that objectivity and the finding of the correct answer are not needed. Then, math is easy! However, you can make objectivity-less math hard again by turning it from a quest for the objectively correct answer into a  quest for the politically correct answer. Witness, for example, this 80+ page long workbook to brainwash teachers into turning math class into a semester-long struggle session:

Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction

White supremacy culture shows up in math classrooms when…“I do, we do, you do” is the format of class. This structure of direct instruction doesn’t always allow for the full range of ways of thinking—reinforcing objectivity and the idea that there is only one right way—because it potentially dismisses students’ own ways of processing, and it also stifles creativity. It also reinforces paternalism because the way that teachers model becomes the standard for student learning. Solicit student ways of thinking and processing

White supremacy culture shows up in math classrooms when… The focus is on getting the “right” answer. The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false, and teaching it is even much less so. Up-holding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict.

Uh-huh. And what other ways are there to do trigonometry than, say, trigonometry?

Obviously I’ve bitched about this sort of thing before. But as time goes by I’m becoming more and more convinced that this isn’t simply some manifestation of mental illness, but in fact something more ominous. I would suggest that the people pushing this rubbish should be quietly investigated. Find out who’s funding them, who’s directing them, who’s whispering in their ears planting the seeds of the destruction of Americas ability to competently do not just complex leading-edge science but basic engineering. I would be *wholly* unsurprised if it turns out that this is just the latest in a long, long game set in motion by the KGB back in the day, or an earlier phase in an equally long game being run out of Beijing today.

There is no “white supremacy” in math. Math doesn’t care about your race, your religion, your sex. F=MA regardless of who you want to bang or who you voted for. E=MC^2 independently of who your ancestors were, whether they were sold off or sold out or ran away or were deported or stayed put. And 2+2=4 regardless of your ideology; all those who say otherwise are either stupid, massively deluded or are trying to sell you something… something that if you saw it in the cold hard light of day you’d recognize as being cheap flawed garbage.

Math Suffers From White Supremacy, According to a Bill Gates-Funded Course

Bill Gates’ fortune was built on science and engineering, married to salemanship. Without objectivity and seeking the right answer, he’d be living on the dole now. I imagine an interesting time could be had by a good journalist who could corner him and persuade him to answer some questions about this nonsense.

 Posted by at 9:14 pm
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