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Elysian Visions Blog Spot | LINKS: (More wisdom and / or madness in no particular order.) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Ranting and raving, wisdom and whimsy, from the mind of a madman,
...with links.
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Ah, one of my favorite pseudo holidays! (It's not a real holiday unless I get the day off, dammit.) Halloween, November Eve, Feast of the Dead, Feast of Apples, Samhain, All Hallows Eve! I don't buy into any of it, but a chance to get together with friends and family and dress up in costume, is a chance to dress up in costume and get together with friends and family. This year, with recent arrival of our grandson Matthew, and after the trails and tribulations of the past few very hectic months, we're resigned to taking it easy. We're staying home, passing out candy, and watching some old horror movies. A few folks might stop by to wallow in the evil of pumpkin pie, cider, and candy, but there's no big party planned and that is a relief of sorts. Also unlike many, for some strange reason, I never seem to have any problems with wise guy teenagers and such, maybe it's the sword, maybe it's just my face, but when they come to my door, all the kids queue up quickly and quietly, and it's one piece of candy each, unless I say otherwise, thank you very much!
October
29, 2003 Columbia's
Crew Enshrined
Giant Headlines about Solar Storms Slam into Earth! Eyewitnesses Report; Earth still here! Earth survives! Told-ya-so! There's no shortage this morning of overly sensationalistic nonsense about the sunspots, solar flares, and possible problems with energy and information systems, in orbit and down here on Earth. Don't get me wrong I'm interested in these kinds of events. I'm watching, reading the news, and looking at the images, I think it's fascinating. I just don't like the way the media tries to turn it into something it's not to boost readership and frighten people. One story says "Giant solar flare slams into Earth", uh huh, right. Newsflash folks if a giant solar flare actually slammed into the earth, you wouldn't need to be reading about it. As mentioned in my October 27th entry this is nothing to panic about. The magnetic polarity, or component, of the storm matches the hemisphere it's hitting, so we're fine. Should get a cool light show up north but that's about it. Some of you might be wondering how I knew all this in advance, well kids, what can I say, you've got to know this stuff when you're a Starship Captain. Links here: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solar_flare_031029.html http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994326
Enterprise wind tunnel testing at the University of Queensland. No, I'm not kidding! I got this from Slashdot. The Laser Diagnostics group within the Physics Department at the University of Queensland tested a scale model of the Enterprise A in an wind tunnel. Not surprisingly, it did very well. My question is not why did they do this. My question isn't who allowed them to do this. My question is, of course, what about Galaxy Class vessels? I approve of serious research like this but we need a more thorough job. What about high speed maneuvers? What about minimum aspect combat scenarios? What about the other incarnations like the NX-01? What about the Excelsior Class, or the Reliant Class vessels? I have a thousand questions and ideas for further testing! This is a fine start but we need so much more! Check it out here: http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/lp/lasdiag/enterp.shtml
October
28, 2003 This past Sunday, Gina
and I went out to Allaire State Park for a bit of pre-Halloween fun with some
good friends. Brian (pictured here) made most of his Gandalf costume with some
help from his wife and his mother-in-law. Gina made the hat, and I helped a little
with the staff, which Brian made from a sapling, from his own yard.
October
28, 2003 Huzzah!
October
27, 2003 Read, Learn, Know, Repeat.
October
27, 2003
October
24, 2003 CNN has the full story here: http://edition.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movies/10/24/gibson.passion/ Sorry, I couldn't resist.
October
23, 2003 Solar cars and a lack of future shock! The ESA
site has a good article on the Nuna
II Solar Car that has won the World Solar Challenge in Australia. Very
tricked out stuff! Hats off to the Dutch team. A splendid blending of new technologies
that really shows what we can do with what we already know.
Random Notes on Star Trek: Enterprise and Stargate SG1 Now as anyone who stops here even once in a while will know, I am a huge Star Trek Fan. I am the guy all the jokes are about. My private rule about all things Star Trek is that there is not to be anything in the lore that I don't know all about. From the animated series, to the novels, through Voyager and up into the current season of Enterprise. (Enterprise? Star Trek: Enterprise? Someone at Paramount really needs to make up his or her mind.) You want to discuss the various virtues and foibles of the original series episodes in painful detail, you want to debate the plausibility of the various technical manuals section by section, you want to know the Klingon word for revenge, or what subspace frequency the original Romulan / Federation treaty was negotiated on? I AM THE MAN! It's a vice, I know. All this time and mental energy spent on such nonsense, but as vices go it's a fairly harmless one. No one gets hurt, it won't cause memory loss, lung cancer, or liver damage. To the best of my knowledge there's never been a Next Generation riot. Fans do not, as a rule, go around picking fights with fans of Star Wars or Babylon Five, or turn over and set fire to cars after a bad episode airs, or anything like that. It's all in good wholesome fun, and I am not overly defensive, so leave me alone about it already. . . . Where was I? Enterprise, right! The show has many good points. One is the newfound plausibility the designers have brought to it. Most of the ship, and a good deal of the technology on the show, looks like stuff we could do right now. I like that, I like the way it feels, I also like the actors, and some of the story lines have been pretty good, (Although they should have been sued for that "Enemy Mine" rip off episode.) but something has been missing. Something about the show simply falls short, misses the mark, and otherwise leaves one let down. It's not that flakey theme song, (The new reworked version sounds like Christian rock to me, horrible! While I'm on the topic; what the hell is up with that? I want my French horns back goddamn it!) It's not the penchant the show has of putting the actors in as little clothing as possible, or the gratuitous shots of female characters bending over, or the needlessly long de-con room scenes where they spend all their time greasing each other up, I can get past all of that. This is something deeper; something that until recently, I just couldn't quite put my finger on. It's something in the writing. The reason I was able to figure it out is the recent release of Stargate SG1 on DVD. One of my buddies has lent them to me, telling me that they were worth watching, so I started right at the beginning and have moved on from there. I didn't watch them when they were first on because I didn't have access to the original channel that produced them, Showtime, I think. Thus the gods of Cable TV and Science Fiction conspired to frustrate and mock me. Anyway, here I am watching SG1 right from the beginning on DVD. The first season is a little rocky, but it is a well-written show and it only gets better. This is even more surprising as the movie the entire series is based on was so very, very, lame. By the time I finished the second season I was hooked. I now plan to buy the DVD's myself, eventually. I'll watch a bit more and then maybe I'll write a more complete review on that series too, but let me not digress here. Star Trek is where we started and by dilithium crystals and corbomite, that's where we're going to stay. The interesting thing is that the one element that is missing from the ST: Enterprise isn't missing from SG1; and that is really solid character dialog. Watching them back to back, SG1 and the new season of Enterprise, really makes it obvious. A lot of the dialog on Enterprise is simply filler material. It is what is needed to convey to the audience what is going on, nothing more. Now with respect to the cast, they seem to be doing their best with what they are given, but the dialog itself is just flat. There is not enough thought being given by the writers to who is speaking, and how they would relate the information. The show needs more personality. We need to see different characters expressing the same ideas with clever character related analogies, and turns of phrase, based on who they are, and where they come from. Also while I respect the long story arc they've just started, it seems a little too close to current events to be really enjoyable. So in conclusion, let's hope to see some more sophisticated writing on Enterprise in the future, and in the meantime, there's always SG1.
October
20, 2003
MORE violence in the Gaza strip . . . against Americans! Ugh! Anyone blowing themselves up around other people really pisses me off. I know that this time it was a road side bomb and not a suicide bomber, but still, so what? I mean how is this going to help anything, really? I just don't get it. Going around planting bombs or blowing yourself up at all, let alone for religious reasons, seems completely ludicrous to me. The idea that some cosmic creator and ruler of the universe will reward such an action in some tenuous next plane of existence also seems ludicrous. I mean I'm not really what anyone would call a religious person (deliberate understatement here, you may smirk) but I've looked at a number of different religions and I'm pretty fucking sure it doesn't work like that. However let's not split hairs over the details here. Even if your religion of choice says (or implies) that in this specific case, or given these specific circumstances, walking into a crowd and blowing yourself up is okay, then it is just plain wrong, and should be ignored, along with anyone promoting such ideas. I mean wake-the-fuck-up! Of course, one could argue that basing your morality strictly on a mistranslated, two thousand year old body of text, that other people pass along as the literal word of GOD, shows questionable judgment to begin with, but whatever. You want to restrict your diet, sing old songs, donate a portion of your income, go to some specific building at fixed intervals, and all that; then that's your business. I'm in no position to tell anyone else how to live. However when you get to the point of objecting to the others guy's very existence, when you find yourself celebrating the needless death of other people, when nothing short of killing everyone who disagrees with you will suffice, when you start thinking about killing yourself just for the privilege of taking a few of the less than righteous with you, then you're an asshole of the first order. (By the way no exceptions for people who blow up full abortion clinics, or go around shooting doctors either; you're all in the same boat.) You're not a martyr, you're not justified, you're a murderer and an idiot! A brainless drone that lacks any further ability for independent, rational thought or even the self-preservation instinct that nature bestows on the common dog. With condolences and respect to all those directly affected by this most recent attack and their families; I also find it very annoying that everyone seems to feel the need to single out this attack because it was directed against Americans. As if American lives are somehow more valuable than Israeli or Palestinian lives. People are people folks. When any human being dies like this, anywhere, we are all diminished.
October
14th, 2003
October
13, 2003
October
10, 2003 Space.com has
a great article about the Chinese Shenzhou 5 mission.  October
8, 2003Governor Schwarzenegger!? Okay Californians here is what I want you to do. Go out right now and rent (or buy) the DVD for 'Conan the Barbarian'. Put it in your DVD player and go to options, activate the director's commentary, and then hit play. Listen carefully; this is the guy you just elected to Govern your state! Celebrity does not equal ability! Well anyway, Good Luck! (……you're gonna need it.)  October
7, 2003Abomination! Now I don't like to repeat what the other guys have already pointed out. I mean, I link to some of these sites right over there on the right hand side of the page. However this case is so outrageous, so egregious, I feel it deserves my full attention. This Modern World has a story up about some guy, "Anti-gay preacher Fred Phelps" who allegedly wants to erect a monument that says "MATTHEW SHEPARD, Entered Hell October 12, 1998, in Defiance of God's Warning: 'Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination.' Leviticus 18:22." Here is the link: http://www.thismodernworld.com/weblog/mtarchives/week_2003_10_05.html#001116 . . . So I gotta ask, you're kidding right? Before I go off on this, and I'm going to, let me just say here; that I, myself, am not gay. I'm one of those YYX chromosome guys, with an overly aggressive nature, who happens to prefer the company of women. That being said, (full disclosure having been given, with apologies in advance to our homosexual or bisexual readers if I say anything insensitive) this really makes me sick. I'm not talking about Matthew Shepard; let's leave that alone out of respect and cut to the chase. Let's attack the whole premise here. According to Leviticus it was an "abomination" to eat shellfish for crying out loud. Now speaking as a twenty first century man who enjoys all kinds of seafood, especially shellfish (to say nothing of shaving my face, and / or trimming my beard, activities also forbidden by our old buddy Leviticus) I just want to say; screw Leviticus! Screw him, the beast of burden he rode in on, and all the people who smugly use anything the bible says as an argument to justify their own petty, small minded, homophobic, world view. Leviticus was wrong and so is anyone who is really trying to do this. There I said it. If Leviticus said that it is morally wrong to be homosexual (a point that I find is in some dispute) then he was wrong and that's that. If he said it was an abomination to eat lobster then I, for one, want nothing more to do with this fellow. What's that you say? He's dead? Has been for centuries? Good, so much the better, please pass the melted butter, and shut up about it. I've no patience for dead people getting in the way of my lobster dinner, or going around giving people a hard time about what they do in their own beds for Pete's sake. Let me pose a pragmatic sort of question here, what possible purpose would this stone monument to fear and ignorance really serve? I mean it isn't even built yet, and I'm already aggravated over it, so there's that, but what is it for really? It will make some people (people like me) very angry. Some people will no doubt be hurt by it. What good does it serve? How does it enlighten or ennoble us? Whom does it teach and what is the lesson? Here
is the bottom line on this folks. Whatever happens between, mature, sexually aware,
consenting adults, is their own goddamn business. It's not a sin. It's not an
abomination. A nuclear war, a biological holocaust, human clones without heads,
these are abominations. Someone building a stone memorial to commemorate someone
else's death and alleged condemnation to hell in a park, in his
hometown, is probably an abomination!  October 4,
2003 It's not so bad . . .
Well it's October, my how time flies when you're sleep deprived. |
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