They’ve actually gone and done it

 art, awesomeness, models, science fiction  2 Responses »
Mar 312018
 

A month and a half ago, Hasbro said “if enough people – 5000 – sign on to our crowdfunding effort, we’ll make a ginormous high-end ‘Jabba’s Sail Barge’ toy for $500 a pop.” It seemed like a  bit of a long shot.

They’ve exceeded that number, and have announced that they’re going ahead.

https://www.hasbrolab.com/

They are currently sitting at 5687 funders out of 5000, each at $499.99 plus tax. It’s not clear that Hasbro will actually manufacture this beyond the requirements of  the crowdfunders, so if you want one, you only have a few days left (they stop taking funders on April 3).

With luck this will give rise to a proper Falcon. I shudder to guess what *that* would cost…

 Posted by at 2:21 am

You be the judge

 Hmm..., news, youtube  4 Responses »
Mar 302018
 

The latest Cause Du Jour is that of Stephon Clark, a black man in Sacramento shot dead by the police in his grandmothers back yard. News today broke that an autopsy showed that he was shot eight times… seven times in the *back.* That sounds… not good for the case of the cops who claimed that Clark was advancing on them. But then there’s police helicopter footage of the incident, and things get a little muddier. To me, it *looks* like he was advancing on them at a slow walk when he was shot once, he fell down onto his front, and the cops continued to plink away at him. It *seems* to be less bad, in that now it looks like “shot in the back” doesn’t mean “shot while running away,” but it does mean they were shooting at a guy who was prone on the ground.

 

 Posted by at 9:26 pm

Oh FFS, NOAA…

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Forward!, I'm from the government, news, politics, rockets, spacecraft, ಠ_ಠ  13 Responses »
Mar 302018
 

Sigh. Now the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency is using it’s power to help ruin the promising future of spaceflight that SpaceX is trying to usher in.

NOAA statement on today’s broadcast of the SpaceX Iridium-5 launch

The National and Commercial Space Program Act requires a commercial remote sensing license for companies having the capacity to take an image of Earth while on orbit.

Now that launch companies are putting video cameras on stage 2 rockets that reach an on-orbit status, all such launches will be held to the requirements of the law and its conditions.

The NOAA thinks that you need a special license to take a photo of THE EARTH. Apparently this new development is a result of the Starman videos.

Expect this sort of thing to become a *real* problem if someone looks likely to make a real go of orbital tourism. Imagine if you need a special license to take your Nikon with you… or even your cell phone.

If one was of a conspiratorial bent, one might conclude that the government is doing a “death by a thousand cuts” thing, using a mountain of seemingly small regulatory headaches to keep the private companies from getting too uppity. Just imagine what new and innovative laws will be interpreted if the BFR actually looks likely to start sending private citizens to Mars.

 Posted by at 8:43 pm

“Ready Player One”

 art, blather, politics, science fiction  5 Responses »
Mar 302018
 

I had not planned on seeing “RP1” anytime soon. Looked ok, but it really wasn’t blowing my skirts up. And then… the vitriol came out about how the movie didn’t adhere to SJW values. How it has a straight white male as a main character, and thus it’s bad and wrong that it sees the world through a straight white male characters eyes. How it doesn’t have enough Queer Representation. How nostalgia and a nerds OCD-like tendency to delve deeply into trivia are BAD.

The kind of people who seem to revel in being wrong are telling the world that this movie is wrong? Ok, I’m in.

It didn’t hurt that I had a ticket to see the movie for one buck. So, I went. And you know what? It was pretty darned good.

Is it a great movie? Naw, probably not. It doesn’t really have a Plot For The Ages, nor any great depth. The visual effects are good, but these days – and especially given that the movie is largely set within a virtual world – that’s not really so groundbreaking. But you know what it is? It’s ENTERTAINING. Hell, it’s a blast. And that is what a movie *should* be. Sure, there are a lot of damn fine movies that aren’t. Steven Spielberg directed “RP1″… and he also directed “Schindler’s List.” “Schindler” is a textbook example of High Quality Cinema. It’s a great movie, and that’s “great” in the “will go down in history” and “culturally important” sense. But what it most definitely is *not* is “a blast.” I’ve seen “Schindler,” and have very little interest in seeing it again. Just as I’ve seen “Citizen Kane,” and now I’m done with it. But I’m pretty sure I’ll wind up watching “RP1″ numerous times in the future. Because it’s fun.

Yes, it’s loaded with pop cultural references. it *bombards* you with them, drowns you in nostalgia. But that’s what the movie *is.* That’s pretty much the point. Getting to watch a Gundam and the Iron Giant taking on Mechagodzilla, or an Orcish cyborg running down a hallway of the Overlook Hotel while said hallway fills with a tsunami of blood gushing from an elevator and making the mistake of going into room 237, or seeing a dead rich guys funeral where his casket is the casing of a photon torpedo, or watching the DeLorean time machine racing the Mach 5 and Adam Wests Batmobile, or going into a workshop and seeing Lone Star’s”Eagle 5” in the back being worked on… that’s what this movie is for. Complaining that this movie is filled with that sort of thing is like going to “Cats”and complaining that there are way too many singing cats.

So, if’n yer in the mood for some entertaining eye candy, “Ready Player One” will do the job. Any movie where the female lead is dancing in zero gravity while wearing a slinky, unrealistically form-fitting dress and she suddenly whips out a US Colonial Marines M41A Pulse Rifle… I’m there.

 Posted by at 5:19 pm

A feature, not a bug

 awesomeness, news, politics  9 Responses »
Mar 302018
 

24 million could skip Census because of citizenship question: Report

The next census will dare to ask residents of America if they are *citizens* of America. Since lying on the census is a crime, it seems that a number of political experts think that a whole lot of illegal aliens are simply going to not take part in the census.

Well, that would be just a shame. If you don’t count the illegals, you can’t apportion Congressional districts based on them. This means that a lot of political power currently being wielded by fraudulently claiming a sizable population of illegals as being people who have the right to vote and reside in a district could evaporate, along with federal funding for areas with high populations of people in desperate need of deportation. It would thus become in the best interest of illegal-heavy states to do away with “sanctuary cities” and the like, and go about the process of aiding – or at least stop hindering – immigration services in their task of getting rid of foreign criminals.

 Posted by at 10:39 am

Pop goes the Sarmat

 awesomeness, nukes, rockets, russian empire, weapons, youtube  4 Responses »
Mar 302018
 

Tell me this ain’t impressive lookin’:

This is a test of the launch system of the Russian RS-28 Sarmat superheavy ICBM, capable of hurling 10 heavy MIRVs or 15 standard ones or up to 24 light warheads. Keep in ind that the American Minuteman III ICBM carries a grand total of *one* warhead. It’s likely a fractional orbital system, meaning that it could actually put its warheads into low orbit, where they’d rather suddenly drop from the sky as required. Additionally, it could launch over the *south* pole, bypassing whatever remains of the North American early warning system.

Note the tuna-can-shaped little booster used to shove the ICBM up out of the silo before main engine ignition.

 Posted by at 2:51 am

He’s colonized their minds

 Crazy, Forward!, humor, politics  5 Responses »
Mar 302018
 

Say what you will about Trump, but the man has successfully come to dominate the thought process of many a rabid progressive. Take, for example, the recent premiere of the new season of the sitcom “Roseanne.” Roseanne Arnold/Barr/Whatever has, in recent years, come out as a Trump supporter, and this is unforgivable in Hollywood circles. And in the new “Roseanne,” the character herself is also a Trump supporter. I watched the first two episodes; they’re good, there’s mention of politics, some jokes about politics, but no effort to beat anyone over the head with a political message (though there is a very definite effort to check every possible Diversity Quota in the rather large cast of characters).  But even though the politics is minor, some proglodytes just can’t get over the fact that Roseanne, actress and character, isn’t on board with their political agenda.

Gentlemen, behold:

The ‘Roseanne’ Reboot Is Funny. I’m Not Going to Keep Watching.

Half the review tells you that the show is really good. The other half tells you that it doesn’t matter that the show is good, the reviewer is going the refuse to watch because she can’t stand being exposed to other points of view. But somehow I suspect she just might watch anyway, peeking from underneath her sheets with the sound turned down real low lest her trendy neighbors hear and begin to gossip.

 Posted by at 1:43 am

One of those really bad ideas I’d kinda like to see ’em try

 blather, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Hmm..., politics, weapons, wisdom, ಠ_ಠ  5 Responses »
Mar 302018
 

John Paul Stevens: Repeal the Second Amendment

Former (fortunately) Supreme Court Justice Stevens wants to repeal the Second Amendment. The chances of this happening are slim, to say the least. Two thirds of the House *AND* the Senate would need to ratify an amendment; then three-fourths of the *states* would need to buy off on it. This would seem to be an unreachable goal for the purposes of reducing civil liberties, but it’s never a great idea to tempt fate. Who knows what hijinks might be afoot to help push such an idea forward. Still, it would be interesting and constructive to see just such an effort hit the House and Senate, to see who would actually vote in favor of such a thing.

There are forever people yammering on about a new civil war (which would be just about the worst thing imaginable… an actual American civil war would probably result in the US losing Alaska to the Russians, Hawaii and the west coast to the Chinese, the south west to the Mexicans, and the battered remains forever impoverished and reduced to the status of just another failed state, at the whim of greater powers who don’t now and never did give a rats ass about the high falutin’ ideals that the Americans were up in arms over). And while for the most part I think the great majority of these people are just bloviating, if somehow the Second Amendment was repealed – or the First, for that matter – my estimation of the chances of an actual civil war would go up *substantially.*

Consequently: anyone voting to repeal the Second would be essentially voting to initiate another civil war. They’d be voting to destroy the United States. They’d be voting to end the great experiment in democracy and freedom. With Europe soon to fall into a new dark age, Russia turning inward and dumb, China becoming a giant national socialist nightmare… anyone voting to repeal the Second would be voting to end western civilization, to preclude western values from making it to Mars and beyond, to turn the dream of the future over to monsters.  If history remembers anything, it would remember these Senators and Congressmen alongside Vidkun Quisling, Ephialtes, Klaus Fuchs and Benedict Arnold.

 Posted by at 1:28 am

They sure don’t like “Ready Player One”

 Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., Hmm..., Meh., news, politics, science fiction, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  3 Responses »
Mar 292018
 

A few years ago the cultural gatekeepers were all kinds of giddy over the book “Ready Player One.” Now it seems they are ready to hate the movie with the passion they imagine that straight white males hated Ghostbusters 2016. For example:

The Ready Player One backlash, explained

I haven’t read the book, but I’ve been bombarded with the summary: it’ the future, everything sucks, people spend their lives in virtual reality. Control over that reality will pass to whoever can win some big game; to win the player needs to be ridiculously well-versed in 1980’s nostalgia and video game nerd-dom. Seems like exactly the sort of thing for a Steven Spielberg movie. But now our cultural betters have decided that the whole premise of politically incorrect… because “Gamergate” has made gaming culture toxic.

If you’re like me, you’ve heard of Gamergate, but never really understood just WTF it was all about. As with many things these days, there seems to not be a universally agreed-upon definition. However, I recently saw this video that explains Gamergate:

Basically, Gamergate was the opening salvo in the fight back against the SJWs, though the SJW’s seem to have the upper hand in the propaganda. And consequently, if the SJWs hate “Ready Player One” for the same reason they’re bonkers about Gamergate, I think it just might be worth seeing.

 

 

 Posted by at 5:16 pm
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