For a while, this was a movie you could stream on Netflix and laugh at, as was intended. Not only are these sheep mutant and cannibal, but being bitten by one turns you into a mutant cannibal were-sheep. Fearsome.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
MOVIE: (bad) Black Sheep
Back in 2006, a crew of Kiwis (New Zealanders) made a goofy comedy called Black Sheep, which is about genetically mutated cannibal sheep that eat people. As you might not be aware, sheep actually evolved from predators that ate things made out of meat, but eventually ate so many other species they had to learn how to eat grass and eventually became what they are now: fearful, stupid, and source of nice clothing if you have the money. Ironic, really.
For a while, this was a movie you could stream on Netflix and laugh at, as was intended. Not only are these sheep mutant and cannibal, but being bitten by one turns you into a mutant cannibal were-sheep. Fearsome.
I'm glad this was made. The world needs more silliness in it.
For a while, this was a movie you could stream on Netflix and laugh at, as was intended. Not only are these sheep mutant and cannibal, but being bitten by one turns you into a mutant cannibal were-sheep. Fearsome.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
BOOK REVIEW: Use Of Weapons
Iain Menzies Banks was a scifi writer before dying from cancer a year ago. As a serious post-modern space opera novelist, he showed the real ugliness of post-economic communism for a space-faring version of humans in the far future. A multi-galactic space faring version of us, with nearly unlimited knowledge, super intelligent AIs, and free energy. They build space ships the size of continents, with full societies on board and millions of people who don't feel the need to leave since the ships travel. They have everything. They get bored. They can afford to be patient, to be utterly condescending. Banks was himself a member of Scottish nobility, complete with a family castle.
His books would make really good movies, but we don't have the technology to do them yet. Despite the efforts of one studio in rural Marin country being responsible for the majority of special effects in the last 35 years, they don't have the skills for this. They're too in bed with Hollywood to animate unclicheed styles. The intelligent floating suitcase sized Culture "drones" which act as body guards, valets, and information terminals for the human operatives have no faces to emote, using color and motions instead. The drones also carry a few very small antigravity steered microdrones, the size of a knife, called a knife missile, which does what it sounds like. They require a great deal of vocal and visual finesse to provide emotional context to their communications, which are frequently sarcastic. ILM isn't up for that. They're great at faces, like Pixar, but not boxes. Most animators can only emote boxes with menace, and only using dubstep or BWAAAWM.
Context is the advantage that books hold over movies. Gifted directors can trick the view into that 1000 words of comprehension with the right images, but gifted directors are rare, even with the world population of nearly 7 billion. I suppose someone will get around to turning one or more of his Culture novels into a proper movie in 5 or 10 years. Considering we got the second realistic space opera in 40 years just last summer (Gravity), our modern civilization isn't quite ready for The Culture. The Communists are vicious, power hungry, murderers who only care about controlling everybody else. They would be terrified of the level of condescension the Culture would hold over them. It would make them boycott every movie house showing it. They would pretend superiority rather than admitting how little they've advanced from bloodletting and dominance.
Banks' prose is exceedingly well written. My favorite of his novels are Player of Games, Use of Weapons, Excession. Not everything he writes is good, but a fair bit is.
Someone posted this on YouTube. I have been listening to it through my library loan. It was written 20 years ago, so I guess I'm not surprised it is largely unprotected at this point. The voice acting is excellent, and the writing is his very best. Like Gibson's Neuromancer, level of quality. Have a listen if you want. It's really very good.
His books would make really good movies, but we don't have the technology to do them yet. Despite the efforts of one studio in rural Marin country being responsible for the majority of special effects in the last 35 years, they don't have the skills for this. They're too in bed with Hollywood to animate unclicheed styles. The intelligent floating suitcase sized Culture "drones" which act as body guards, valets, and information terminals for the human operatives have no faces to emote, using color and motions instead. The drones also carry a few very small antigravity steered microdrones, the size of a knife, called a knife missile, which does what it sounds like. They require a great deal of vocal and visual finesse to provide emotional context to their communications, which are frequently sarcastic. ILM isn't up for that. They're great at faces, like Pixar, but not boxes. Most animators can only emote boxes with menace, and only using dubstep or BWAAAWM.
Context is the advantage that books hold over movies. Gifted directors can trick the view into that 1000 words of comprehension with the right images, but gifted directors are rare, even with the world population of nearly 7 billion. I suppose someone will get around to turning one or more of his Culture novels into a proper movie in 5 or 10 years. Considering we got the second realistic space opera in 40 years just last summer (Gravity), our modern civilization isn't quite ready for The Culture. The Communists are vicious, power hungry, murderers who only care about controlling everybody else. They would be terrified of the level of condescension the Culture would hold over them. It would make them boycott every movie house showing it. They would pretend superiority rather than admitting how little they've advanced from bloodletting and dominance.
Banks' prose is exceedingly well written. My favorite of his novels are Player of Games, Use of Weapons, Excession. Not everything he writes is good, but a fair bit is.
Monday, April 21, 2014
The Size Of Rhode Island
When idiot Easterners call something the size of Rhode Island, its a bit of an insult. Rhode Island is the size of the shoreline around a bay. An estuary. Point Reyes Seashore is the size of Rhode Island. Big deal. That's a big naked grassland peninsula west of where I grew up, north of San Francisco. It has deceptively low speed limits which everyone with two brain cells to rub together ignores after about 10 minutes of suffering them. Then they crest a hill and find a sharp LEFT turn which tries to kill you. Its VERY EXCITING. I know about it, and its nearly killed ME a few times. The rest of the road is so dull, you see. It sneaks up on you.
What is the point of Rhode Island? My home county was twice the size of Rhode Island, and had something like 10x the revenue, thanks to the wine industry. Why does a pissant little nothing state deserve two senators when all I got was on aging hippie biznitch House Representative high on pot and suffering serious brain damage from all the acid she dropped in the 1960's. So why couldn't I have a couple non-biznitch Senators, from wine families. We had Sebastiani, for C's sake! Sonoma is a real place, not just the name of a small truck.
Rhode Island is a joke here. Most counties in California are bigger than any two New England states. The one I live in now is better than Rhode Island and Connecticut and Massachusetts. And so what? Those states are full of nothing, barely even people. They're just drones. They want to be European Communists. They are shifting all politics that way. Eventually people from Europe won't visit because its like home with worse weather. They'll keep coming to California, because we let people like that die, and Europeans appreciate our insincerity and viciousness. They like that we're mean.
Rhode Island? Nobody likes you.
What is the point of Rhode Island? My home county was twice the size of Rhode Island, and had something like 10x the revenue, thanks to the wine industry. Why does a pissant little nothing state deserve two senators when all I got was on aging hippie biznitch House Representative high on pot and suffering serious brain damage from all the acid she dropped in the 1960's. So why couldn't I have a couple non-biznitch Senators, from wine families. We had Sebastiani, for C's sake! Sonoma is a real place, not just the name of a small truck.
Rhode Island is a joke here. Most counties in California are bigger than any two New England states. The one I live in now is better than Rhode Island and Connecticut and Massachusetts. And so what? Those states are full of nothing, barely even people. They're just drones. They want to be European Communists. They are shifting all politics that way. Eventually people from Europe won't visit because its like home with worse weather. They'll keep coming to California, because we let people like that die, and Europeans appreciate our insincerity and viciousness. They like that we're mean.
Rhode Island? Nobody likes you.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Bears In The Post-Oil World
So Noah Axon posted a funny picture with a charging black bear with the caption: Not a runner? You are now. This lead to a debate on the merits and limitations of self defense from bears. I will clarify that I have had bear encounters, with black bears nosing at my tent in Yosemite, trying to get in. Did not sleep well that night. Also had a momma grizzly whose cubs were elsewhere run away from me after waiting till I was unsuspectingly within about 4 feet in heavy brush in Montana. I think it smelled my Visin (predator pheromone byproduct from digesting meat emitted as scent) and thought I was armed. I was lucky. I have seen pictures of bears walking down my street. I have heard stories from friends and family of bears they've encountered inside and outside their homes. They act like it's kinda funny. It isn't.
In a car, a bear in the road is a fuzzy photo opportunity. People in cars might not realize that a bear can run 40 mph, and is perfectly strong enough to rip the car door into tin-foil given a chance. Bears are STRONG. They are omnivores, and always hungry. They raise their young to eat the things they eat. Bears train their cubs.
Bears also come down into where I live. Not often, but they are spotted around rural homes, flipping over garbage cans, climbing onto people's decks or into their garage for a nap. Ignorance of the dangers, and years of cute bear cartoons, means people don't understand that bears are moody, which means that they are unreliable in their responses. What yesterday wasn't bothering them means today they could charge and break your neck and eat you after you die. Or worse, before you do. Bears are genuinely dangerous. Not cute.
And bears are having more encounters with people. Thanks to rising numbers, drought in California, and govt policies of relocation rather than shooting problem bears, bears that aren't afraid of people are raising cubs that aren't afraid of people and people and bears are having more interactions where the bear does NOT learn to run away. Eventually bears will realize that human children are delicious and they'll start eating our kids. And the Sierra Club will tell us it's our own fault. Kinda like they did with mountain lions hunting children and joggers. Ahem.
In the future, with oil going overseas to economies with viable currency, unlike the USA and its declining dollar, eventually most travelers will be riding bicycles, slowly, up and down mountain roads where bears realize people are food. And most cyclists are pretty slow uphill. Not fast enough to outrun a bear, for example, if it decided to ambush in an uphill charge at its usual speed. Bicycles might be found on the roadside with a lot of ants and blood smeared around and the bicyclist mostly missing, having been eaten. Normally, this would be fully absurd to even consider... but in the post-oil world, with expensive real estate in the cities made worse by power blackouts and no cars to scare off the bears, eventually they will descend the mountains into the lowlands, following the food supply. Locals around here will likely burn their trash so there's little for the bears to go after but their livestock, pets, and kids, and parents that want to keep their children will actually watch them with a rifle close in hand. The suburbs leading into Sacramento, 100 years ago, had bears drift down into the Sacramento Valley. The bears were also found in the orchards near Marysville, though farmers would shoot them. Such things are illegal now. And politicians in limousines will just drive on past, ignoring the beasts and the people being eaten by them. Even post oil, and post pavement, it isn't that hard to turn a 4WD Suburban into a limousine on the inside. Relatively speaking. You just need the fuel.
So a bear in a road? Yeah, that happens here. A bear attacking a person to eat them? Not often. Not yet. But give it time. When we get poor enough, and the bears get hungry enough, and we become helpless enough, bear encounters will end with dead people and fat bears. And some govt leader will say it is our fault, that we just have to UNDERSTAND the bears. Because understanding fixes everything.
This is a good argument for a dune buggy or an Enduro motorcycle. It can go faster than the bear. While it is true that the engine noise tells the bear food is coming, the same way that jingle bells are a good way to identify bear shit, from the last hiker with jingle bells that they ate, being faster than 40 mph could end up the lifesaving advantage. The fuel could cost, but $10/gal. is cheap compared to your life. And motorcyclists wear armor. You won't taste like food, at least not at first. That might be long enough.
Naturally, the worry about bears returning to their normal predation on people as food is some years away. So this is probably something you'll have long forgotten before it matters. It's just something to keep in mind. After all, it's not like predators eat children, right?
In a car, a bear in the road is a fuzzy photo opportunity. People in cars might not realize that a bear can run 40 mph, and is perfectly strong enough to rip the car door into tin-foil given a chance. Bears are STRONG. They are omnivores, and always hungry. They raise their young to eat the things they eat. Bears train their cubs.
Bears also come down into where I live. Not often, but they are spotted around rural homes, flipping over garbage cans, climbing onto people's decks or into their garage for a nap. Ignorance of the dangers, and years of cute bear cartoons, means people don't understand that bears are moody, which means that they are unreliable in their responses. What yesterday wasn't bothering them means today they could charge and break your neck and eat you after you die. Or worse, before you do. Bears are genuinely dangerous. Not cute.
And bears are having more encounters with people. Thanks to rising numbers, drought in California, and govt policies of relocation rather than shooting problem bears, bears that aren't afraid of people are raising cubs that aren't afraid of people and people and bears are having more interactions where the bear does NOT learn to run away. Eventually bears will realize that human children are delicious and they'll start eating our kids. And the Sierra Club will tell us it's our own fault. Kinda like they did with mountain lions hunting children and joggers. Ahem.
In the future, with oil going overseas to economies with viable currency, unlike the USA and its declining dollar, eventually most travelers will be riding bicycles, slowly, up and down mountain roads where bears realize people are food. And most cyclists are pretty slow uphill. Not fast enough to outrun a bear, for example, if it decided to ambush in an uphill charge at its usual speed. Bicycles might be found on the roadside with a lot of ants and blood smeared around and the bicyclist mostly missing, having been eaten. Normally, this would be fully absurd to even consider... but in the post-oil world, with expensive real estate in the cities made worse by power blackouts and no cars to scare off the bears, eventually they will descend the mountains into the lowlands, following the food supply. Locals around here will likely burn their trash so there's little for the bears to go after but their livestock, pets, and kids, and parents that want to keep their children will actually watch them with a rifle close in hand. The suburbs leading into Sacramento, 100 years ago, had bears drift down into the Sacramento Valley. The bears were also found in the orchards near Marysville, though farmers would shoot them. Such things are illegal now. And politicians in limousines will just drive on past, ignoring the beasts and the people being eaten by them. Even post oil, and post pavement, it isn't that hard to turn a 4WD Suburban into a limousine on the inside. Relatively speaking. You just need the fuel.
So a bear in a road? Yeah, that happens here. A bear attacking a person to eat them? Not often. Not yet. But give it time. When we get poor enough, and the bears get hungry enough, and we become helpless enough, bear encounters will end with dead people and fat bears. And some govt leader will say it is our fault, that we just have to UNDERSTAND the bears. Because understanding fixes everything.
This is a good argument for a dune buggy or an Enduro motorcycle. It can go faster than the bear. While it is true that the engine noise tells the bear food is coming, the same way that jingle bells are a good way to identify bear shit, from the last hiker with jingle bells that they ate, being faster than 40 mph could end up the lifesaving advantage. The fuel could cost, but $10/gal. is cheap compared to your life. And motorcyclists wear armor. You won't taste like food, at least not at first. That might be long enough.
Naturally, the worry about bears returning to their normal predation on people as food is some years away. So this is probably something you'll have long forgotten before it matters. It's just something to keep in mind. After all, it's not like predators eat children, right?
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Japanese Biker Gangs
For sheer menace, on a scale of 1-10, they are a two, right above a cute blonde coed on a Vespa scooter.
See them drift into oncoming lanes with no traffic coming close to them at nearly 32 mph! See their menacing grey sweatshirts and cleanly polished and properly worn helmets. See their brave slogans: highway safety! Hear them rev their powerful 49cc 2-stroke engines in the least menacing way possible. Being surrounded by a gang of these motorcycle outlaws must be almost as scary as stepping foot inside a gas station minimart!
Yeah, outlaw means something different in Japan.
Yeah, outlaw means something different in Japan.
Friday, April 18, 2014
Keystone XL Delays Help China
Canada says they will build a competing pipeline to a port on the West Coast, near Vancouver, to fill oil tankers bound for China if the USA doesn't approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Not buying the oil from Canada also opens the door to raising the price. This will cost the average American another $1.25/gal over what they're paying now. That is what the rise in crude prices will do.
The Senator from California, one of the two, is in favor of this denial, despite the XL going nowhere near California. China is anxious to buy California crude oil, mined via fracking using water normally put to drinking water and agriculture in my state. This is the drinking water of around 4 million people, so those need to get kicked out of California to make Fracking go ahead. Considering that drinking water is run through about 6 sets of kidneys before escaping to the sea, that's more like 24 million people who need to get out of California. Don't let the door hit you on the backside.
Between CARB banning vehicles, and electric vehicles costing $65K and up, who lives in California, exactly? Oh, rich people. Best not to live in the places where drinking water is going to Fracking for oil, which is going straight to China via tanker, not here, Not for you.
Keystone XL would have processed oil into gasoline, for profit, and then shipped that to the EU, which would have provided relief for the EU against Russian attacks and "shutdowns" on the pipeline going through the Ukraine, which they invaded to "protect".
The whole thing isn't very nice, but at least the roads are still paved, despite the costs, and we still have gasoline to buy, today, despite the cost. Someday we won't. But don't worry about that. Everybody will suffer together. Except rich people who can afford to buy fuel.
Unless you're REALLY RICH in which case 350K Pounds Sterling will buy you a supercar with 16 miles of range. That's all. 16 miles. The Tesla Roadster was discontinued, but the model S is only $65K, price rising with demand and availability of Lithium, which is a rare earth element. Thank you. Have fun with that. The rest of us will be riding scooters or bicycles or murdered so we aren't wasting water. But that's okay, right? After all, as long as China keeps giving money to USA's politicians so they keep being re-elected, we're all just fine with that. Since we can't do anything about it.
As Cmdr. Vimes said: "What sort of person puts a criminal in a position of power? Aside from your average voter."
I have said before that the Keystone XL pipeline is complicated, but we had more to gain but sending the energy to the EU than to China, which wants to kill us all. The EU just wants to feel superior. They have no particular reason to murder us. China does.
The Senator from California, one of the two, is in favor of this denial, despite the XL going nowhere near California. China is anxious to buy California crude oil, mined via fracking using water normally put to drinking water and agriculture in my state. This is the drinking water of around 4 million people, so those need to get kicked out of California to make Fracking go ahead. Considering that drinking water is run through about 6 sets of kidneys before escaping to the sea, that's more like 24 million people who need to get out of California. Don't let the door hit you on the backside.
Between CARB banning vehicles, and electric vehicles costing $65K and up, who lives in California, exactly? Oh, rich people. Best not to live in the places where drinking water is going to Fracking for oil, which is going straight to China via tanker, not here, Not for you.
Keystone XL would have processed oil into gasoline, for profit, and then shipped that to the EU, which would have provided relief for the EU against Russian attacks and "shutdowns" on the pipeline going through the Ukraine, which they invaded to "protect".
The whole thing isn't very nice, but at least the roads are still paved, despite the costs, and we still have gasoline to buy, today, despite the cost. Someday we won't. But don't worry about that. Everybody will suffer together. Except rich people who can afford to buy fuel.
As Cmdr. Vimes said: "What sort of person puts a criminal in a position of power? Aside from your average voter."
I have said before that the Keystone XL pipeline is complicated, but we had more to gain but sending the energy to the EU than to China, which wants to kill us all. The EU just wants to feel superior. They have no particular reason to murder us. China does.
Book: Going Postal (Discworld #33)
I watched Going Postal miniseries from Sky1 TV, in the UK. Someone kindly loaded it online, since Netflix no longer has it for streaming. It is good, as a made for TV movie. It's funny, and charming, and the acting is amusing. Miss Adora Belle Dearheart is rather hilarious.
She's much funnier in the book, however. Pratchett describes her smoking cigarettes like she had a vendetta against them, and that kissing her was like licking an ashtray. I used to be married to a smoker, and yes, that's an accurate description of kissing one. In the books she's got an Irish accent. The voice acting for the book on tape is best possible. And the writing is very best. I can see why it was made into a miniseries, right after Hogfather.
In Discworld, light is NOT the fastest thing in the universe. This is because no matter where light goes, the Dark has already got there first. This sort of logic works on Discworld. Heavy objects fall faster than light ones, too. Newton would throw a fit.
Listening to the novel being read, while polishing audiobooks, makes the work bearable. Polishing discs is machine operation. Machine operation is being the cheapest part of the machine, the part that moves things, the part that inspects. Managers do NOT understand this. Managers have people skills. Machine operators do not. We are technically the same species, but in critical aspects may as well not be. How people are DOES matter, after all. I am sad that librarians are expected to have people skills. It would have been nicer to just do the "SHHH!" thing instead.
Done. Pratchett really does the very best endings. This is part of the reason there's so little fanfiction. Most fans DON'T think they can do better. Fanfiction is always the "I could do better" folks at work. And that's usually true, and about 1% of it really IS better. 500,000 pieces of Harry Potter fanfiction. 5,000 of them really are better than JK Rowling wrote. Those have better quality writing, better character development, more plausible plotlines, more consistent magic, and more satisfying endings. JK Rowling loves to wag her finger and say: "INTERESTING! But not canon!" And with those words, she spawned a million competitors. The market is saturated with young adult fantasy novels. I shelve the books so I know. It is quite impressive.
Pratchett's work satisfies, and he must think about his endings a very long time. They are right. They fit. His story telling deserves the praise, and Going Postal is one of his best works, up there with The Hogfather and Guards!Guards!. It is a condemnation of price fixing in both telegraphs AND cellular phones, and praise of the entire mail system, referencing its primitive mail-coach and pony express routes and to the modern Victorian 4 times a day delivery (at its height 120 years ago). Great authors reference multiple times, and at her best, Rowling would pull that off. Alas, I think her last 3 books were written by ghost writers, which is why the prose has several different "hands" in it. It is painfully obvious in her last book. The only part I think she wrote herself was the bit at the cemetery in Godric's Hollow. Of course, I can't prove that. But that's how it reads.
Pratchett's work is always his own, and you can really see it clearly. Consistency in the prose, in the word choices and pacing, from early works to later. This is "a tell", in writing. I look forward to reading Making Steam when it is my turn.
In Discworld, light is NOT the fastest thing in the universe. This is because no matter where light goes, the Dark has already got there first. This sort of logic works on Discworld. Heavy objects fall faster than light ones, too. Newton would throw a fit.
Listening to the novel being read, while polishing audiobooks, makes the work bearable. Polishing discs is machine operation. Machine operation is being the cheapest part of the machine, the part that moves things, the part that inspects. Managers do NOT understand this. Managers have people skills. Machine operators do not. We are technically the same species, but in critical aspects may as well not be. How people are DOES matter, after all. I am sad that librarians are expected to have people skills. It would have been nicer to just do the "SHHH!" thing instead.
Done. Pratchett really does the very best endings. This is part of the reason there's so little fanfiction. Most fans DON'T think they can do better. Fanfiction is always the "I could do better" folks at work. And that's usually true, and about 1% of it really IS better. 500,000 pieces of Harry Potter fanfiction. 5,000 of them really are better than JK Rowling wrote. Those have better quality writing, better character development, more plausible plotlines, more consistent magic, and more satisfying endings. JK Rowling loves to wag her finger and say: "INTERESTING! But not canon!" And with those words, she spawned a million competitors. The market is saturated with young adult fantasy novels. I shelve the books so I know. It is quite impressive.
Pratchett's work satisfies, and he must think about his endings a very long time. They are right. They fit. His story telling deserves the praise, and Going Postal is one of his best works, up there with The Hogfather and Guards!Guards!. It is a condemnation of price fixing in both telegraphs AND cellular phones, and praise of the entire mail system, referencing its primitive mail-coach and pony express routes and to the modern Victorian 4 times a day delivery (at its height 120 years ago). Great authors reference multiple times, and at her best, Rowling would pull that off. Alas, I think her last 3 books were written by ghost writers, which is why the prose has several different "hands" in it. It is painfully obvious in her last book. The only part I think she wrote herself was the bit at the cemetery in Godric's Hollow. Of course, I can't prove that. But that's how it reads.
Pratchett's work is always his own, and you can really see it clearly. Consistency in the prose, in the word choices and pacing, from early works to later. This is "a tell", in writing. I look forward to reading Making Steam when it is my turn.
More Counties Join Jefferson State Movement
Recently, federal agents with tanks, military assault rifles and crew served weapons attacked a cattle ranch in Nevada, attempting to rustle range cattle to pay taxes the BLM imposed arbitrarily to pay for tanks, crew served weapons, and protect tortoises the BLM were killing off because they are endangered species and don't make good pets. None of that makes sense, but BLM is the Federal Govt so not making sense is kinda their thing.
Many people support the Rancher who refused to pay funding for tanks and crew served machineguns pointed at him, a lowly cattle rancher. A lot of people think the Federal govt is out of control. He should have paid the fees, and the BLM will end up having to pay for the water tanks they destroyed that he put in place, used by cattle and the tortoises to drink. There will eventually be arrests.
Here in California, those feelings that govt is out of control are helping the Jefferson State movement gain new members. We can't fix the Federal govt, and we can't fix California as-is, but we can divide from the state and fix local problems once the state isn't able to interfere. Or more importantly, steal our taxes and give them to LA.
California is spending billions on trains to nowhere and tunnels under the delta when it should be cutting spending on social services that only people with the correct political associations can benefit from. And often, correct language or skin color. Ahem. Many people in the other parts of the state pay taxes that never come back. Their roads are falling apart. Their parks are closing. Their schools are shutting down, and turn out students who can't read, write, or do arithmetic. The system isn't working. Something has to change. And boards of supervisors are voting to join Jefferson state. California can't be saved. Time to bail out.
Yuba County, to my West, just voted to join Jefferson state. Placer County, to my South, has too. I suspect that this county won't, mostly because folks here are rich enough not to want the added tax burden of legally assuming a large share of California's tax debt and trying to pay it off in the poorest counties, as if sharing the equal burden is even remotely fair. And really, Jefferson State is a plea for help rather than a viable plan. The divide into 6 plan makes more sense, and I think it is divided wrong anyway. The central valley shouldn't be sliced East West like that. The map was created by someone who doesn't understand geography. Still, dividing California has its good points and eventually they will outweigh the costs. Dividing California also makes it easier for Fracking, so Oil Money will get involved, and DC too. The Lobbyists would be hugely in favor of shedding debt-taxes while keeping the essential lands with all the oil under them in the smallest area, with the lowest population, and the least ability to object. That is how corruption works. Divide and conquer.
Most California counties are physically larger, and have bigger populations, than Rhode Island. And Rhode Island gets two senators. I'd love to be represented by someone other than Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi, all three of which have issued statements which if they were Republicans would have gotten them burned in effigy, but since they are Democrats are ignored by Liberal-Fascist media.
Dividing California will have some real costs, but the upsides will be opportunities to correct some historical wrongs, like water rights, taxation, and poor representation at the national level, as well as state. If Los Angeles has to really PAY for its water, the North will be able to afford better roads and have more people working for a living. Of course, the North wants to grow pot for a living because there's no legitimate industry there since the mines are empty, and the trees are still growing back after being clearcut.
Other than firefighting, California is doing pretty badly at managing its resources. Our reservoirs are full of silt instead of water. Our flood control levees are about to fail, destroying farmland and towns. Only people in LA are actually happy. We're in drought. There aren't nearly enough jobs to go around, so the racial finger pointing is rampant. Crime is down, but spree killings are up as people snap. We are likely to have another bad year for fires. And the price of food was announced as double or triple for most things we eat. Meat, grains, vegetables, citrus. It will all cost more. Dad and I are planning to put in Tomato plants just so we can have some. Using drippers in the brightest patch of soil the water cost will be low, and it is fenced so deer can't get in.
So things are less than perfect. But dividing the state will help the locals focus on their own local problems and ignore the foreign mess in LA and SF which really has nothing to do with Northern Agriculture issues. Having driven across that last weekend, and seeing land in use, and more land barren due to the drought, and the inability of the state to actually solve the mess in Lake Davis, well, clearly there's connections between where the funding is going and the available solutions. A proper examination of the deal would be important, and who is funding which side, too. If oil companies are in favor of division, you can be sure they'll be pouring poison in the ears of current lawmakers to insure that the debt in SF becomes the responsibility of Modoc.
I'm reasonably sure that the Jefferson state will declare bankruptcy right away regarding the California debt, just refuse to pay it outright since it was all caused down South and Spent down South anyway, and never was their responsibility in the first place. So to hell with them. I wonder what the trade consequences would be if they did that? Would the Feds refuse to fund Interstate 5? And if they insist that the locals pay for its upkeep, will the locals at Jefferson State laugh and let it fall apart? I would. The other option is tax all traffic going through, or turn it into a toll road and viciously enforce speed limits, since that would be most of the state's revenue. You have to understand, things are really tough there. Jefferson state could get wild in 3-5 years. That is very short, but that's how fast manzanita bushes grow. And if we get the usual flooding after this drought ends, and that IS normal according to centuries of records, I-5 will wash out, the Shasta Reservoir will overtop the dam and flood downstream, and the levees will fail because there is no money in Jefferson state to pay for repairs on any of those things. The powerhouse will probably die too. While Jefferson state physically contains most of the state's hydropower dams, and most of the watershed, they are poor. The only money is agriculture.
The Europeans won't like it much, since most of their almond paste comes from there. Almond Paste is a favorite ingredient in European cookies and pastries. I don't much see the point, but they like it so we grow it here and sell for big profits. But that only works if there's water for the orchards.
If California had any desire to stay together, it would have been dredging the reservoirs all last fall, winter and spring. Instead, it wasted money on garbage like trains to nowhere, and more LA freeways while the roads up here were left to fall apart. Except for Stockton, which hasn't finished a road project in 25 years. The state road agency, Cal Trans, is doing work on Hwy 50 in Sacramento, and is making a huge mess of the freeways for repairs. People have died. The state is still mismanaged. New High School graduates cannot spell or do basic arithmetic. College graduates today are barely at the level of high school graduates from my day. I keep running into those, proud of their personal debt and the worthless certificate when they cannot find the right place for the apostrophe. Businesses which insist that the talent and brains are in California are businesses to sell stocks from, not invest in. California is stupid. It is turtles, all the way down. It has nice weather, but no jobs.
I don't know if Jefferson state will be any better. Its population are also from the same crappy California schools, and they have little income to finance things. They are likely to turn into a disaster zone rather quickly, and make New Mexico or Oregon look well run and financed, but if they stay in California, they'll end up the same way. Possibly slower, but still, the same. California only cares about LA and San Francisco, the sucking ticks that drain blood and brains from the rest of the state. The rest of the state is merely blood supply for the parasites.
So when it comes time to vote, I will support the division. Even if it turns out to be worse, at least it will be different. They'll have a CHANCE to avoid the inevitable destroying the rest of the state in its foul septic corruption.
Many people support the Rancher who refused to pay funding for tanks and crew served machineguns pointed at him, a lowly cattle rancher. A lot of people think the Federal govt is out of control. He should have paid the fees, and the BLM will end up having to pay for the water tanks they destroyed that he put in place, used by cattle and the tortoises to drink. There will eventually be arrests.
Here in California, those feelings that govt is out of control are helping the Jefferson State movement gain new members. We can't fix the Federal govt, and we can't fix California as-is, but we can divide from the state and fix local problems once the state isn't able to interfere. Or more importantly, steal our taxes and give them to LA.
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting what to have for lunch.
California is spending billions on trains to nowhere and tunnels under the delta when it should be cutting spending on social services that only people with the correct political associations can benefit from. And often, correct language or skin color. Ahem. Many people in the other parts of the state pay taxes that never come back. Their roads are falling apart. Their parks are closing. Their schools are shutting down, and turn out students who can't read, write, or do arithmetic. The system isn't working. Something has to change. And boards of supervisors are voting to join Jefferson state. California can't be saved. Time to bail out.
Yuba County, to my West, just voted to join Jefferson state. Placer County, to my South, has too. I suspect that this county won't, mostly because folks here are rich enough not to want the added tax burden of legally assuming a large share of California's tax debt and trying to pay it off in the poorest counties, as if sharing the equal burden is even remotely fair. And really, Jefferson State is a plea for help rather than a viable plan. The divide into 6 plan makes more sense, and I think it is divided wrong anyway. The central valley shouldn't be sliced East West like that. The map was created by someone who doesn't understand geography. Still, dividing California has its good points and eventually they will outweigh the costs. Dividing California also makes it easier for Fracking, so Oil Money will get involved, and DC too. The Lobbyists would be hugely in favor of shedding debt-taxes while keeping the essential lands with all the oil under them in the smallest area, with the lowest population, and the least ability to object. That is how corruption works. Divide and conquer.
Most California counties are physically larger, and have bigger populations, than Rhode Island. And Rhode Island gets two senators. I'd love to be represented by someone other than Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi, all three of which have issued statements which if they were Republicans would have gotten them burned in effigy, but since they are Democrats are ignored by Liberal-Fascist media.
Dividing California will have some real costs, but the upsides will be opportunities to correct some historical wrongs, like water rights, taxation, and poor representation at the national level, as well as state. If Los Angeles has to really PAY for its water, the North will be able to afford better roads and have more people working for a living. Of course, the North wants to grow pot for a living because there's no legitimate industry there since the mines are empty, and the trees are still growing back after being clearcut.
Other than firefighting, California is doing pretty badly at managing its resources. Our reservoirs are full of silt instead of water. Our flood control levees are about to fail, destroying farmland and towns. Only people in LA are actually happy. We're in drought. There aren't nearly enough jobs to go around, so the racial finger pointing is rampant. Crime is down, but spree killings are up as people snap. We are likely to have another bad year for fires. And the price of food was announced as double or triple for most things we eat. Meat, grains, vegetables, citrus. It will all cost more. Dad and I are planning to put in Tomato plants just so we can have some. Using drippers in the brightest patch of soil the water cost will be low, and it is fenced so deer can't get in.
So things are less than perfect. But dividing the state will help the locals focus on their own local problems and ignore the foreign mess in LA and SF which really has nothing to do with Northern Agriculture issues. Having driven across that last weekend, and seeing land in use, and more land barren due to the drought, and the inability of the state to actually solve the mess in Lake Davis, well, clearly there's connections between where the funding is going and the available solutions. A proper examination of the deal would be important, and who is funding which side, too. If oil companies are in favor of division, you can be sure they'll be pouring poison in the ears of current lawmakers to insure that the debt in SF becomes the responsibility of Modoc.
I'm reasonably sure that the Jefferson state will declare bankruptcy right away regarding the California debt, just refuse to pay it outright since it was all caused down South and Spent down South anyway, and never was their responsibility in the first place. So to hell with them. I wonder what the trade consequences would be if they did that? Would the Feds refuse to fund Interstate 5? And if they insist that the locals pay for its upkeep, will the locals at Jefferson State laugh and let it fall apart? I would. The other option is tax all traffic going through, or turn it into a toll road and viciously enforce speed limits, since that would be most of the state's revenue. You have to understand, things are really tough there. Jefferson state could get wild in 3-5 years. That is very short, but that's how fast manzanita bushes grow. And if we get the usual flooding after this drought ends, and that IS normal according to centuries of records, I-5 will wash out, the Shasta Reservoir will overtop the dam and flood downstream, and the levees will fail because there is no money in Jefferson state to pay for repairs on any of those things. The powerhouse will probably die too. While Jefferson state physically contains most of the state's hydropower dams, and most of the watershed, they are poor. The only money is agriculture.
The Europeans won't like it much, since most of their almond paste comes from there. Almond Paste is a favorite ingredient in European cookies and pastries. I don't much see the point, but they like it so we grow it here and sell for big profits. But that only works if there's water for the orchards.
If California had any desire to stay together, it would have been dredging the reservoirs all last fall, winter and spring. Instead, it wasted money on garbage like trains to nowhere, and more LA freeways while the roads up here were left to fall apart. Except for Stockton, which hasn't finished a road project in 25 years. The state road agency, Cal Trans, is doing work on Hwy 50 in Sacramento, and is making a huge mess of the freeways for repairs. People have died. The state is still mismanaged. New High School graduates cannot spell or do basic arithmetic. College graduates today are barely at the level of high school graduates from my day. I keep running into those, proud of their personal debt and the worthless certificate when they cannot find the right place for the apostrophe. Businesses which insist that the talent and brains are in California are businesses to sell stocks from, not invest in. California is stupid. It is turtles, all the way down. It has nice weather, but no jobs.
I don't know if Jefferson state will be any better. Its population are also from the same crappy California schools, and they have little income to finance things. They are likely to turn into a disaster zone rather quickly, and make New Mexico or Oregon look well run and financed, but if they stay in California, they'll end up the same way. Possibly slower, but still, the same. California only cares about LA and San Francisco, the sucking ticks that drain blood and brains from the rest of the state. The rest of the state is merely blood supply for the parasites.
So when it comes time to vote, I will support the division. Even if it turns out to be worse, at least it will be different. They'll have a CHANCE to avoid the inevitable destroying the rest of the state in its foul septic corruption.
ANIME: Disaster Zone Women Teachers
In anime, there is a trope, a kind of repeating theme, of single women teachers being disaster zones of self destruction, anger, and inability to cope with reality. In these stories, they often boss teenagers around, or show themselves off as a bad example while insisting they have the moral right to tell others what to do. This sort of ethical hypocrisy is great comedy, but its repeated use begs the question: is this actually common?
Teaching is a poor paying profession in both Japan and America. You sacrifice your future for a life of poverty if you become one, and self sacrifice in America leads to resentment. That leads to more bad things.
So anyway, these female disaster zones, these anime women teachers, are probably based on real people. Lots of people. Everybody can relate, knows people like this in schools. Most anime are aimed at junior high school kids. The smarter ones about life are more for high school kids. Some are aimed at college students. Everybody recognizes the patterns and nods their heads in recognition: "Oh, her. Yes."
We are meant to think that their lives have been ruined, and we're left to guess why, but they often come to work exhausted, hung over, wearing the same clothes as the day before. And sometimes with a demented expression but more often showing signs of permanent frustration which fuels their self destruction. We all know people like that. In America, those women get fat so the outside matches the inside: ugly. In Anime, nobody wants to look at fat ugly single women and food is much more expensive there so instead they turn into bottle fairies and (probably) sluts. The inappropriate clothes are a huge giveaway.
The dorm manager in Pet Girl of Sakurasou is actively chasing the single fathers at the opening ceremony, but not finding any hot dates, gets numbers from the married ones instead. That's the kind of woman she is, and why the dorm is in trouble of being closed.
There are a lot of anime women who are ostensibly in charge of the kids they're supposed to teach and guide, but instead are drunk or sleeping. Is there any future in Japan? In a couple generations the Japanese will be a minority in a country that will be owned by China, who hates them. There's few jobs, so you can't buy a house or raise a family in anything but poverty. So you can't bother dating and risk pregnancy. Japan has the highest rate of abortion on earth, of any country period. Most of the women politicians of America in the last 150 years would call this a victory. Those same women are crazy. Is this anime promoting family values by showing off what happens to Christmas Cake?
Teaching is a poor paying profession in both Japan and America. You sacrifice your future for a life of poverty if you become one, and self sacrifice in America leads to resentment. That leads to more bad things.
So anyway, these female disaster zones, these anime women teachers, are probably based on real people. Lots of people. Everybody can relate, knows people like this in schools. Most anime are aimed at junior high school kids. The smarter ones about life are more for high school kids. Some are aimed at college students. Everybody recognizes the patterns and nods their heads in recognition: "Oh, her. Yes."
There are a lot of anime women who are ostensibly in charge of the kids they're supposed to teach and guide, but instead are drunk or sleeping. Is there any future in Japan? In a couple generations the Japanese will be a minority in a country that will be owned by China, who hates them. There's few jobs, so you can't buy a house or raise a family in anything but poverty. So you can't bother dating and risk pregnancy. Japan has the highest rate of abortion on earth, of any country period. Most of the women politicians of America in the last 150 years would call this a victory. Those same women are crazy. Is this anime promoting family values by showing off what happens to Christmas Cake?
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Putin, Ukraine, Nazis, and Ethnic Cleansing
So Putin controlled Eastern Ukraine, which is currently under "disputed control" despite being evenly divided between Russian Immigrants and native Ukrainian survivors of Stalin's genocidal purges a few decades ago have announced that Jews must register to ease their rounding up in camps for disposal. Can we get a show of hands for those who think this is the next step towards a new Holocaust? What was the statement Israel made? Never again? Are they shipping arms or helping Jews escape? Nope. Too busy building new housing in the West Bank and pissing off local Palestinians. I imagine every Jew in Donetsk, where this story arose first, is packing a bag, setting fire to their house, and fleeing. That is what I would do. Burn down your house. And maybe the houses of people who smirked when this was announced. The Ukraine has now banned entry to anyone with a Russian passport. Too little, too late.
It is really interesting how little the world cares about genocide anymore. Terrible things happening in foreign countries just aren't that interesting, I guess. The European nations are having to decide whether they can survive objecting to the Russian actions in Ukraine, and just how many atrocities, and where they occur, before their economies suffer too much of a blow for their own weak political parties are ousted from power. And really, it is that economic tie to political weakness that keeps them silent. How close does the USSR have to get? Your own borders perhaps? Will they let Putin sweep through Poland like Hitler did?
I suspect any smart Ukrainians are either hoping that there's a God so when they die from the slaughtering hordes of ethnic cleansing butchers they'll find some kind of afterlife. The Russians have studied up from the events in Yugoslavia 20 years ago and properly equipped for house to house murder. Die in Place or packing their stuff and burning the rest. Burning because scorched earth is better than leaving yourNazi Putin enemies with comfortable homes to pass on to Nazi Putin friendly Russian families moving into the area. I figure most of the Ukraine will be killed off. Probably 90% that isn't Russian will be killed. Streets will run with blood. You think that won't happen in modern times? Yugoslavia really wasn't that long ago.
Once Ukraine is cut down to size and the population slaughtered, as it inevitably will be, the EU will excuse Russian actions once more and keep funding their arms build up in exchange for oil and natural gas shipments that the EU can't do without. And while some of the EU will pray for USA tyo invade and solve their problems, the smarter ones, in charge, will know better. As the Onion explained, the USA is destroying itself. We are in no position to rescue anybody. The EU will quietly, and furiously, try to come up with some Green and sustainable alternative energy method that works to keep their economies afloat while simultaneously building as many nuclear power plants as they can so their grids won't crash when Putin shuts off the gas again, to jack up prices. I wonder if the EU remember how to make anti-tank weapons? And keep them out of the hands of Muslims who'd use them to blow up school buses and power stations, yet have them available to fight off Russian tanks when they show up. What about building missile defense grids? I don't think the EU can afford those. Though it would be really stupid for Russia to nuke people upwind, since the fallout would drift right back over Russia again.
Then again, attacking Ukraine is really stupid as well because it shows the West that investing in Russia is extra stupid, that Russia is run by crazy violent people, and the "you're next" implication is on the wall, written in blood. Russia is being really stupid.
War with Russia is both inevitable and necessary. Putin needs to distract the Russian population from his own leadership failures, kinda like the current president's invasion of Nevada. What made the current US president think attacking poor American ranchers would go over well? It has done wonders for gun sales and general anger at the govt at tax time.
Really, Russia is doing wonders for its international image as someone to fear and pre-taliate against. May as well. They're going to kill everybody in your country sooner or later. This is what you get when your country was founded by Vikings and Tatar raiders, both famous for Raping and Pillaging.
It is really interesting how little the world cares about genocide anymore. Terrible things happening in foreign countries just aren't that interesting, I guess. The European nations are having to decide whether they can survive objecting to the Russian actions in Ukraine, and just how many atrocities, and where they occur, before their economies suffer too much of a blow for their own weak political parties are ousted from power. And really, it is that economic tie to political weakness that keeps them silent. How close does the USSR have to get? Your own borders perhaps? Will they let Putin sweep through Poland like Hitler did?
I suspect any smart Ukrainians are either hoping that there's a God so when they die from the slaughtering hordes of ethnic cleansing butchers they'll find some kind of afterlife. The Russians have studied up from the events in Yugoslavia 20 years ago and properly equipped for house to house murder. Die in Place or packing their stuff and burning the rest. Burning because scorched earth is better than leaving your
Once Ukraine is cut down to size and the population slaughtered, as it inevitably will be, the EU will excuse Russian actions once more and keep funding their arms build up in exchange for oil and natural gas shipments that the EU can't do without. And while some of the EU will pray for USA tyo invade and solve their problems, the smarter ones, in charge, will know better. As the Onion explained, the USA is destroying itself. We are in no position to rescue anybody. The EU will quietly, and furiously, try to come up with some Green and sustainable alternative energy method that works to keep their economies afloat while simultaneously building as many nuclear power plants as they can so their grids won't crash when Putin shuts off the gas again, to jack up prices. I wonder if the EU remember how to make anti-tank weapons? And keep them out of the hands of Muslims who'd use them to blow up school buses and power stations, yet have them available to fight off Russian tanks when they show up. What about building missile defense grids? I don't think the EU can afford those. Though it would be really stupid for Russia to nuke people upwind, since the fallout would drift right back over Russia again.
Then again, attacking Ukraine is really stupid as well because it shows the West that investing in Russia is extra stupid, that Russia is run by crazy violent people, and the "you're next" implication is on the wall, written in blood. Russia is being really stupid.
War with Russia is both inevitable and necessary. Putin needs to distract the Russian population from his own leadership failures, kinda like the current president's invasion of Nevada. What made the current US president think attacking poor American ranchers would go over well? It has done wonders for gun sales and general anger at the govt at tax time.
Really, Russia is doing wonders for its international image as someone to fear and pre-taliate against. May as well. They're going to kill everybody in your country sooner or later. This is what you get when your country was founded by Vikings and Tatar raiders, both famous for Raping and Pillaging.
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Not Talented Enough
As I age, I find that the things I learned in prior years, which I considered skills and made me money then, aren't valuable anymore. I am slipping back into mediocrity and middle age with little to recommend me other than showing up on time and knowing where the apostrophe goes in I-t-s. The nicest thing I can do for society is stay in my hole, out of the way.
So when I watch an anime like the Pet Girl of Sakurasou (Cherry Blossom Hall), which is about being the normal untalented person surrounded by genius level talent (and quirks), I feel his pain. I honestly want to cry on his behalf, and know that his decision to leave the dorm, to move away from the talent that outshines everybody else, is the only sane thing to do. I had talented friends in junior high and high school, and nothing I did mattered at all. They got the attention. They were special. I wasn't. That is a life defining experience. The show makes itself out to be cheerful dullness, but its actually serious subject matter all the way through. It is a drama, not a comedy.
Now that I'm older, and I've wasted twenty years on useless dreams, like a career and a wife, and it has come to nothing, seeing a kid at the start of his career getting stomped carelessly because the market is saturated with more talented and able people, and his ambition exceeds his ability, and even his ambition is modest in comparison to their talents. He's a dim bulb. He won't get anywhere. The best he can hope for is talent management, because he has no talent himself. And being constantly reminded of this is one of the painful bits in the anime, and an extremely pointed bit they keep hammering home. Like a nail.
Of course, he is manipulated into staying, because his distractions from achievement are convenient for others. It frees them up to achieve more. And it tears him up, worse as he tries to talk himself into accepting it. I think this is why book editors are such bastards. They aren't writers themselves, and the resent those who can create, and attack those they can while claiming its to make those surviving authors better. Its really just endless violence driven by jealousy. The kid is more of a janitor than a talent manager. He doesn't have the subtlety to manipulate the best out of talent. That's for others, with talents in manipulation. They even show you that. This kid really is going nowhere, but he's next to people who are, temporarily next to them. They'll graduate and move on into careers and he'll end up wiping down tables and dreaming of very modest achievements he doesn't have the talent for. And that's really harsh, but the art world in Japan is industrialized, like everything else. If you can't produce highest quality on demand, and take direction as required to meet the market, you are wasting everyone's time and will end up ignored.
Kinda like my useless degree, and my not really skills. It's all very depressing. I keep cutting the fat off my ambitions and dreams and everything just gets smaller and smaller, like a hamster wheel. Going nowhere. This economy no longer has use for me. I have sufficient scruples not to break the law, and not to take jobs that deliberately and specifically try to actually kill you, like welding for example. But in the end, like the kid in the show, we end up doing what we're able, and that ends up not being very much at all.
So when I watch an anime like the Pet Girl of Sakurasou (Cherry Blossom Hall), which is about being the normal untalented person surrounded by genius level talent (and quirks), I feel his pain. I honestly want to cry on his behalf, and know that his decision to leave the dorm, to move away from the talent that outshines everybody else, is the only sane thing to do. I had talented friends in junior high and high school, and nothing I did mattered at all. They got the attention. They were special. I wasn't. That is a life defining experience. The show makes itself out to be cheerful dullness, but its actually serious subject matter all the way through. It is a drama, not a comedy.
Now that I'm older, and I've wasted twenty years on useless dreams, like a career and a wife, and it has come to nothing, seeing a kid at the start of his career getting stomped carelessly because the market is saturated with more talented and able people, and his ambition exceeds his ability, and even his ambition is modest in comparison to their talents. He's a dim bulb. He won't get anywhere. The best he can hope for is talent management, because he has no talent himself. And being constantly reminded of this is one of the painful bits in the anime, and an extremely pointed bit they keep hammering home. Like a nail.
Of course, he is manipulated into staying, because his distractions from achievement are convenient for others. It frees them up to achieve more. And it tears him up, worse as he tries to talk himself into accepting it. I think this is why book editors are such bastards. They aren't writers themselves, and the resent those who can create, and attack those they can while claiming its to make those surviving authors better. Its really just endless violence driven by jealousy. The kid is more of a janitor than a talent manager. He doesn't have the subtlety to manipulate the best out of talent. That's for others, with talents in manipulation. They even show you that. This kid really is going nowhere, but he's next to people who are, temporarily next to them. They'll graduate and move on into careers and he'll end up wiping down tables and dreaming of very modest achievements he doesn't have the talent for. And that's really harsh, but the art world in Japan is industrialized, like everything else. If you can't produce highest quality on demand, and take direction as required to meet the market, you are wasting everyone's time and will end up ignored.
Kinda like my useless degree, and my not really skills. It's all very depressing. I keep cutting the fat off my ambitions and dreams and everything just gets smaller and smaller, like a hamster wheel. Going nowhere. This economy no longer has use for me. I have sufficient scruples not to break the law, and not to take jobs that deliberately and specifically try to actually kill you, like welding for example. But in the end, like the kid in the show, we end up doing what we're able, and that ends up not being very much at all.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
MadAss Off The List
Turns out the new MadAss 125 is no longer California legal. Only CARB (California Air Resources Board) can be so methodically evil as destroy the future of transportation, bike by bike. They banned the Suzuki TU-250X, which is fuel injected and clean burning, because they changed the COLOR of the fenders and tank from red to black. So suddenly it isn't a clean burning motorcycle with the identical engine and emissions system. This is the kind of crazy that suggests arrest, incarceration beside Charlie Manson, and lots of Thorazine.
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Roads and Landslides
Road maintenance may end up a community thing, or even something locals do in front of their own homes. Mostly to keep down the dust that blows in through the windows since the grid will probably be down too, meaning there's no Air Conditioning and the windows are open. If where you live is unbearable without air conditioning, get tougher. The day will come when it is shut off.
A key to good road maintenance is drainage. Getting the water away from the road, so it doesn't erode the surface and turn the road into canyon or pond with indeterminate bottom. I'd like to laugh and say I'm joking, but I live in the mountains so I'm really not. I have seen, personally, roads disappear in less than 3 years. Even without much water, lupins can cover a surface with soil from their nitrogen fixing efforts, that soil hosts scotch broom, a 7 foot tall shrub, which allows for both trees and manzanita which gets into the soil and even fire only delays its return a year. Nature is relentless. All those scifi movies covered in ashes and dust are created by ignorant Hollywood morons. Nature covers abandoned human stuff in green most of the time, far quicker than you'd think.
The Europeans have done well building Roman roads of big boulders covered with smaller ones and smaller ones, then gravel covered with cobblestone pavers. Those roads are 2000 years old. Many are still in use. They last far better than gravel skinned with asphalt. When the asphalt evaporates and cracks, plants get into very quickly, and the cracks allow the pavement, now brittle, to break out into potholes by passing trucks and expose the gravel that swirls away downslope in a decent rainstorm. Then where's your road? Riding over these disasters will require much lower speed and very limber suspension, thus the Enduro.
Turn off the sound for the first few minutes unless you're a fan of Railgun, the anime. This is what roads are already turning into in rural places where I live, and places that lost funding because people moved away. This road was abandoned due to the Tsunami because poor people can't pay for road repairs and no people pay even less.
If you stay in town, keeping up the pavement is far more affordable and scooters are all over Europe for good reason. They even work on narrow pathways and alleys. And the economy in Europe is much worse than here. When you're poor and actually NEED something to work, you have to buy quality so it will work when you need it. If you buy crap, it will fail at the worst possible time making you unemployed and possibly kill you. This is one of the better reasons to buy quality and avoid Chinese stuff. Only buy Chinese when there's nothing else.
The current drought in California will likely be followed by floods next year. They usually are. I've lived through two droughts and several floods. Serious flood years are bad for road repair, and missing a drain clearage makes for serious messes and sometimes landslides.
Landslides are caused by water removing the friction in existing fractures allowing them to slip. The only way to stop them is to deny the water entrance, which rarely works, or to physically dig out the land on top of the slip until the curved cup of land is balanced front to back and side to side. And once the land comes down, if there's enough air frothed into the water, it can allow the slide to go quite a long distance until the air comes out, where it stops. The lovely alluvial fans at the base of the mountains in Los Angeles, where people built entire neighborhoods, are at the bottom of canyons scraped clear by big landslides, usually started in severe rains, and continue to happen because the fault (San Andreas etc) is raising the mountains, physically, exposing more rock to stress and fractures which can fill with water and move. Building roads across that makes for pretty views, and paving them with asphalt is probably best since those roads aren't going to last either way.
The area of Big Sur on Highway 1 between Carmel and San Luis Obispo is going to be fracked too. There is oil beneath it. Local wells have accidentally drawn salt water from the ocean inland, poisoning wells. You have to push a lot of fresh water into those wells to push the salt back to sea again. And live on what exactly? It is illegal in California to cache rainwater. Rain barrels are against the law. This is one of those absurdly ridiculous laws we've got.
Fracking will fill the aquifer with benzene contamination, which is bad. The benzene dissolves the tar-oil from the shale and helps it flow out as heavy crude oil. 80% of the benzene is recovered with the oil, but the other 20% isn't. It stays down there.
The rock containing the oil is often deeper than landslides, but might not always be the case. I have personally smelled tar-oil in many sandstones and shales at beaches here in California. Fracking is going to take everyone's water, and everyone's salads and jam, and convert Eastern Debt into more debt for Eastern snobs to tell us how much better they are than the rest of us, and why they deserve to ignore our constitutional laws because they are right and we are just dirty smelly peasants because our drinking water is going into oil wells being shipped to China. I do not like them, Sam I Am.
Seeing roads destroyed by El Nino floods, which are probably coming this October since historically El Nino floods follow multiyear droughts and El Nino is clearly forming in the Pacific right now.
These are easily detectible because they are based on data, not models or "fund raising" religious cults. El Nino is a thing. A climate thing. It shifts air pressures, directing storms off their usual path. Its been going on for tens of thousands of years, that we know about. El Nino drought is what destroyed the first Kingdom of Egypt. Drought is what wrecked the Mayans. El Nino tends to cause Atmospheric River events, which can extend for weeks, and hit California following droughts that often contain severe wildfires. The lack of surface cover makes for really bad landslides, and fills in reservoirs, meaning the reservoirs can't work properly for flood control, making for worse floods and more silt entering the rivers and filling in the levies, meaning that nature has more power to break rivers out of levees and flood the farms and orchards in the lowlands around Stockton and Sacramento and down into the Delta, which has been below sea level since 1900 when overfarming dissolved (and evaporated) the peat-bogs which had been around 30 feet high and barely above the high tide mark. Basic math tells you where the ground is now. Big levees were constructed starting in 1880 and just got taller to keep using the cheap farmland whose produce went to the gold miners, in exchange for gold. Clever right? So now this farmland is under serious flood threat, the levees are ready to break, and El Nino's come pretty often. Forget climate "change" cultists. Those idiots don't understand at all. They're all about MONEY. I'm talking about flood control, drought, wildfires, and serious flooding events.
These events produce landslides that take out roads. They produce flooding that destroys levees, which takes out roads and farmland. We don't have the money to fix them, or the money to prevent them, or the money to do the maintenance to delay them either. We just have to live with the consequences. Jeep claims they are the car of California. This is untrue. Subaru is the car of California. Closely followed by Honda. I have a Honda. Most of my neighbors have both a Honda AND a Subaru. Around here owning a 4WD/AWD is sensible because it snows. It also allows them to go hiking up in remote locations, not all of which have paved trailhead parking lots. I hope to go hiking and such at Sardine Lakes this summer. That place held glaciers, and most of the lakes are what's left behind. They freeze every winter and the trout like it. It is good fishing. People up there take personal responsibility to use the right vehicle for the available pavement. I think that responsibility will climb down the mountains to the lowlands, where eventually only the interstates and wealthy towns will have pavement, and all country roads will be gravel, which will wash out during the winters. Or overgrow rapidly until the road disappears if they aren't used often enough. Home invaders will have a field day following these roads to pot farms, which will be able to afford to mow those roads to keep them open. Real farmers will try to avoid growing pot just to stay safe. Nearly ALL home invasions are drug related. They rarely say that in the news, because the detectives won't share anything about an ongoing investigation, but that's how it is. This is why I'm often baffled by the home invasion fears of most preppers. If they aren't in the drug trade, what are they afraid of? Invaders have nearly always bought drugs at that location before. Only rarely do they try a new place after scouting, because there is a lot of risk going into an occupied home. They might hit a meth cooker, and those are heavily armed and trigger happy, which is why DEA sends tactical units after them. Meth cookers are the reason I got out of firearms design as a potential career. I don't want one of my creations making some poor widow cry. Better to make engines.
I really do need to get my motorcycle license and my scooter or underbone. I am really curious about owning the MadAss 125. I think it is the most cost effective option and while it has gears to shift, I suspect I can handle it. If the job I'm interviewing for works out, I will soon have the money to buy it. And there really is something amusing about getting your bike shipped by crate to your driveway. Since the local DMV has a notoriously short 8 minute wait (rather than the 90 minutes of most urban areas), registering it will be amusingly easy. And with this lovely sunny weather, the ideal local transportation.
See, even with the roads going to crap, and jobs paying far less, and health insurance turning into pure rip-off that violates our Constitutional rights (it is against the law to require people to buy things, and the supreme court needs to be jailed over ignoring this very basic right), and all the other crap we're having to deal with, you may as well be happy despite this. Adapt and overcome, the Marine Corps motto. I agree with this. Reality requires it, and the Pioneering Spirit, which Easterners know NOTHING about because my ancestors were pioneers and theirs aren't, is all about adaptation. The East is even more corrupt than California. California is more aggressively Darwinist. The East is stagnating, and has turned to economic cannibalism. It is eating the poor, eating the middle class, and eventually the rich will be eating each other, trying to stay on top of a smaller and smaller pile of what comes from eating the weaker ones. It smells bad. The West would like to not be associated with Wendigoes. Thank you. We've got enough trouble trying to keep our roads from washing away, and keeping our machines working to cross what remains of the road.
Yes, I'm sure you live somewhere the roads are mostly paved, and the tar snacks over the cracked pavement are good enough to keep it from fragmenting completely, and the county road crews fill the pot holes if you get enough neighbors to call about them, and for now, you can still get around with a front wheel drive and its fine. And for now, temporarily, it will do. But how will it be in 5 years? How about ten? Will the road still have asphalt pavement in 10 years when oil will be cutoff from Russia, and Saudi is regrettably empty, the Iranians will have the entire Persian Gulf and the Arab states embroiled in a nuclear war, and China is getting all the oil the USA can produce to stave off full collapse of The Fed and the Dollar itself. How good will your roads be then? No, I'm sure you never think about that. That far into the future, like you'll even be alive in 10 years, I'm sure it feels like a ridiculous question. Twenty years ago, gasoline was $1.24/gal. And it would never go up, right? And ten years ago, gasoline was $2.90/gal. And it would never go up, right? But 8 years ago, it rose to $5.00/gal. And that shouldn't have happened, yet it did. Economic disasters are reliably common, and the globalist world means economies aren't really insulated from each other like the good old days, so a disaster far away means consequences everywhere. So half of Eastern Ukraine "voting" to join Russia with troops on the border with tanks and planes, ready to invade and start ethnic cleansing, and if the vote goes their way doing exactly the same thing, and scaring the Ukrainians into running for central Ukraine which is also ethnic cleansing, only cleaner. I hope that the Ukrainians burn their houses and barns when they flee so the Russians can't just walk in and take over easily. Because that is their goal. Thank the United Nations for this disaster. Its very much their fault for setting the precedent in Kosovo. Sigh.
Americans don't have the money for pavement. We can't spare resources for saving Ukraine from Russia. We will be able to sell our oil for more, except the Chinese are going to take oil off the open market, end the fungible oil market entirely, and shift oil into a tradable good, sold and delivered under contract. They want to do this with Canada, Venezuela, Mexico, Nigeria, Iran, everywhere that still has oil to sell. And some of that oil would have gone to paving our roads.
It is in your best interest to look hard at your local roads and imagine them eroded, partially missing, overgrown. That eventually even 4WD won't work on what is left because the surface is too narrow, and too many washouts and fallen trees. It becomes Singletrack, passable by motorcycles, mountain bike, or on foot. The road in Japan wouldn't be passable with a jeep without a lot of stopping and breaking out the chainsaw, and probably a shovel. It's going to need a lot more maintenance. And when the maintenance is more than people care to do, because only the fool further up the road uses it? Screw them. Let them do it. And that's how our roads will fall apart.
Someday in the future, when we're riding electric scooters or simple mountain bikes through the brush and hoping not to startle a black bear or rattlesnake or take a bad spill, those old enough to remember roads with smooth pavement will feel the most regret. Those who grow up without it will sensibly live in town instead of cling to the notion of independence we have. They will know it is not romantic, merely inconvenient.
A key to good road maintenance is drainage. Getting the water away from the road, so it doesn't erode the surface and turn the road into canyon or pond with indeterminate bottom. I'd like to laugh and say I'm joking, but I live in the mountains so I'm really not. I have seen, personally, roads disappear in less than 3 years. Even without much water, lupins can cover a surface with soil from their nitrogen fixing efforts, that soil hosts scotch broom, a 7 foot tall shrub, which allows for both trees and manzanita which gets into the soil and even fire only delays its return a year. Nature is relentless. All those scifi movies covered in ashes and dust are created by ignorant Hollywood morons. Nature covers abandoned human stuff in green most of the time, far quicker than you'd think.
The Europeans have done well building Roman roads of big boulders covered with smaller ones and smaller ones, then gravel covered with cobblestone pavers. Those roads are 2000 years old. Many are still in use. They last far better than gravel skinned with asphalt. When the asphalt evaporates and cracks, plants get into very quickly, and the cracks allow the pavement, now brittle, to break out into potholes by passing trucks and expose the gravel that swirls away downslope in a decent rainstorm. Then where's your road? Riding over these disasters will require much lower speed and very limber suspension, thus the Enduro.
If you stay in town, keeping up the pavement is far more affordable and scooters are all over Europe for good reason. They even work on narrow pathways and alleys. And the economy in Europe is much worse than here. When you're poor and actually NEED something to work, you have to buy quality so it will work when you need it. If you buy crap, it will fail at the worst possible time making you unemployed and possibly kill you. This is one of the better reasons to buy quality and avoid Chinese stuff. Only buy Chinese when there's nothing else.
The current drought in California will likely be followed by floods next year. They usually are. I've lived through two droughts and several floods. Serious flood years are bad for road repair, and missing a drain clearage makes for serious messes and sometimes landslides.
Landslides are caused by water removing the friction in existing fractures allowing them to slip. The only way to stop them is to deny the water entrance, which rarely works, or to physically dig out the land on top of the slip until the curved cup of land is balanced front to back and side to side. And once the land comes down, if there's enough air frothed into the water, it can allow the slide to go quite a long distance until the air comes out, where it stops. The lovely alluvial fans at the base of the mountains in Los Angeles, where people built entire neighborhoods, are at the bottom of canyons scraped clear by big landslides, usually started in severe rains, and continue to happen because the fault (San Andreas etc) is raising the mountains, physically, exposing more rock to stress and fractures which can fill with water and move. Building roads across that makes for pretty views, and paving them with asphalt is probably best since those roads aren't going to last either way.
The area of Big Sur on Highway 1 between Carmel and San Luis Obispo is going to be fracked too. There is oil beneath it. Local wells have accidentally drawn salt water from the ocean inland, poisoning wells. You have to push a lot of fresh water into those wells to push the salt back to sea again. And live on what exactly? It is illegal in California to cache rainwater. Rain barrels are against the law. This is one of those absurdly ridiculous laws we've got.
Fracking will fill the aquifer with benzene contamination, which is bad. The benzene dissolves the tar-oil from the shale and helps it flow out as heavy crude oil. 80% of the benzene is recovered with the oil, but the other 20% isn't. It stays down there.
The rock containing the oil is often deeper than landslides, but might not always be the case. I have personally smelled tar-oil in many sandstones and shales at beaches here in California. Fracking is going to take everyone's water, and everyone's salads and jam, and convert Eastern Debt into more debt for Eastern snobs to tell us how much better they are than the rest of us, and why they deserve to ignore our constitutional laws because they are right and we are just dirty smelly peasants because our drinking water is going into oil wells being shipped to China. I do not like them, Sam I Am.
Seeing roads destroyed by El Nino floods, which are probably coming this October since historically El Nino floods follow multiyear droughts and El Nino is clearly forming in the Pacific right now.
These events produce landslides that take out roads. They produce flooding that destroys levees, which takes out roads and farmland. We don't have the money to fix them, or the money to prevent them, or the money to do the maintenance to delay them either. We just have to live with the consequences. Jeep claims they are the car of California. This is untrue. Subaru is the car of California. Closely followed by Honda. I have a Honda. Most of my neighbors have both a Honda AND a Subaru. Around here owning a 4WD/AWD is sensible because it snows. It also allows them to go hiking up in remote locations, not all of which have paved trailhead parking lots. I hope to go hiking and such at Sardine Lakes this summer. That place held glaciers, and most of the lakes are what's left behind. They freeze every winter and the trout like it. It is good fishing. People up there take personal responsibility to use the right vehicle for the available pavement. I think that responsibility will climb down the mountains to the lowlands, where eventually only the interstates and wealthy towns will have pavement, and all country roads will be gravel, which will wash out during the winters. Or overgrow rapidly until the road disappears if they aren't used often enough. Home invaders will have a field day following these roads to pot farms, which will be able to afford to mow those roads to keep them open. Real farmers will try to avoid growing pot just to stay safe. Nearly ALL home invasions are drug related. They rarely say that in the news, because the detectives won't share anything about an ongoing investigation, but that's how it is. This is why I'm often baffled by the home invasion fears of most preppers. If they aren't in the drug trade, what are they afraid of? Invaders have nearly always bought drugs at that location before. Only rarely do they try a new place after scouting, because there is a lot of risk going into an occupied home. They might hit a meth cooker, and those are heavily armed and trigger happy, which is why DEA sends tactical units after them. Meth cookers are the reason I got out of firearms design as a potential career. I don't want one of my creations making some poor widow cry. Better to make engines.
I really do need to get my motorcycle license and my scooter or underbone. I am really curious about owning the MadAss 125. I think it is the most cost effective option and while it has gears to shift, I suspect I can handle it. If the job I'm interviewing for works out, I will soon have the money to buy it. And there really is something amusing about getting your bike shipped by crate to your driveway. Since the local DMV has a notoriously short 8 minute wait (rather than the 90 minutes of most urban areas), registering it will be amusingly easy. And with this lovely sunny weather, the ideal local transportation.
See, even with the roads going to crap, and jobs paying far less, and health insurance turning into pure rip-off that violates our Constitutional rights (it is against the law to require people to buy things, and the supreme court needs to be jailed over ignoring this very basic right), and all the other crap we're having to deal with, you may as well be happy despite this. Adapt and overcome, the Marine Corps motto. I agree with this. Reality requires it, and the Pioneering Spirit, which Easterners know NOTHING about because my ancestors were pioneers and theirs aren't, is all about adaptation. The East is even more corrupt than California. California is more aggressively Darwinist. The East is stagnating, and has turned to economic cannibalism. It is eating the poor, eating the middle class, and eventually the rich will be eating each other, trying to stay on top of a smaller and smaller pile of what comes from eating the weaker ones. It smells bad. The West would like to not be associated with Wendigoes. Thank you. We've got enough trouble trying to keep our roads from washing away, and keeping our machines working to cross what remains of the road.
Yes, I'm sure you live somewhere the roads are mostly paved, and the tar snacks over the cracked pavement are good enough to keep it from fragmenting completely, and the county road crews fill the pot holes if you get enough neighbors to call about them, and for now, you can still get around with a front wheel drive and its fine. And for now, temporarily, it will do. But how will it be in 5 years? How about ten? Will the road still have asphalt pavement in 10 years when oil will be cutoff from Russia, and Saudi is regrettably empty, the Iranians will have the entire Persian Gulf and the Arab states embroiled in a nuclear war, and China is getting all the oil the USA can produce to stave off full collapse of The Fed and the Dollar itself. How good will your roads be then? No, I'm sure you never think about that. That far into the future, like you'll even be alive in 10 years, I'm sure it feels like a ridiculous question. Twenty years ago, gasoline was $1.24/gal. And it would never go up, right? And ten years ago, gasoline was $2.90/gal. And it would never go up, right? But 8 years ago, it rose to $5.00/gal. And that shouldn't have happened, yet it did. Economic disasters are reliably common, and the globalist world means economies aren't really insulated from each other like the good old days, so a disaster far away means consequences everywhere. So half of Eastern Ukraine "voting" to join Russia with troops on the border with tanks and planes, ready to invade and start ethnic cleansing, and if the vote goes their way doing exactly the same thing, and scaring the Ukrainians into running for central Ukraine which is also ethnic cleansing, only cleaner. I hope that the Ukrainians burn their houses and barns when they flee so the Russians can't just walk in and take over easily. Because that is their goal. Thank the United Nations for this disaster. Its very much their fault for setting the precedent in Kosovo. Sigh.
Americans don't have the money for pavement. We can't spare resources for saving Ukraine from Russia. We will be able to sell our oil for more, except the Chinese are going to take oil off the open market, end the fungible oil market entirely, and shift oil into a tradable good, sold and delivered under contract. They want to do this with Canada, Venezuela, Mexico, Nigeria, Iran, everywhere that still has oil to sell. And some of that oil would have gone to paving our roads.
It is in your best interest to look hard at your local roads and imagine them eroded, partially missing, overgrown. That eventually even 4WD won't work on what is left because the surface is too narrow, and too many washouts and fallen trees. It becomes Singletrack, passable by motorcycles, mountain bike, or on foot. The road in Japan wouldn't be passable with a jeep without a lot of stopping and breaking out the chainsaw, and probably a shovel. It's going to need a lot more maintenance. And when the maintenance is more than people care to do, because only the fool further up the road uses it? Screw them. Let them do it. And that's how our roads will fall apart.
Someday in the future, when we're riding electric scooters or simple mountain bikes through the brush and hoping not to startle a black bear or rattlesnake or take a bad spill, those old enough to remember roads with smooth pavement will feel the most regret. Those who grow up without it will sensibly live in town instead of cling to the notion of independence we have. They will know it is not romantic, merely inconvenient.
Monday, April 7, 2014
Transport Equanimity
I'm reasonably sure that eventually we'll all be riding scooters. They might be electric, but they'll probably be running liquid fuel (alcohol, diesel or gasoline) or natural gas. They are very efficient, if uncomfortable, and the best power to weight ratio for carrying a single person a reasonable distance to work and back. Best being least power, least weight. This is so efficient it is inevitable for personal transportation with expensive oil slowing the economy even more. It is going to happen. So why hasn't it?
We will use scooters unless the roads get too nasty, at which stage the point and twist simplicity of a scooter gets replaced with more limber and effective Enduro motorcycle, probably a 250cc, which requires you to operate a clutch and gearshift and probably wear armor instead of merely bluejeans. Not terribly fashionable, but considerably safer going through brush.
Our roads aren't that bad yet, which is why few people ride scooters. But I think more will, in time. The time is what's holding things back. And if the roads get really nasty, people may skip the scooter and go straight to the Enduro. But we won't do anything until our situation gets worse. Unluckily for us, that appears to be happening.
- The roads aren't quite bad enough.
- The price of gasoline, around $3.80/gal., isn't high enough.
- The need to give up 4 wheels isn't there yet.
- Wages aren't low enough.
- Long commutes still exist, for now.
- Crappy weather makes it really bad for your health too much of the year.
- Trailing Delta (MP3) scooters are absurdly expensive.
- Scooters and motorcycles are considered "toys" not "Transportation".
- Cars are too cheap to buy used, cheap enough to ignore the poor fuel economy.
- Speeds are too high on roads.
- Scooters don't have stereos. We're still obsessed with the personal concert hall.
We will use scooters unless the roads get too nasty, at which stage the point and twist simplicity of a scooter gets replaced with more limber and effective Enduro motorcycle, probably a 250cc, which requires you to operate a clutch and gearshift and probably wear armor instead of merely bluejeans. Not terribly fashionable, but considerably safer going through brush.
Our roads aren't that bad yet, which is why few people ride scooters. But I think more will, in time. The time is what's holding things back. And if the roads get really nasty, people may skip the scooter and go straight to the Enduro. But we won't do anything until our situation gets worse. Unluckily for us, that appears to be happening.
Sunday, April 6, 2014
A Slight Frost
My aunt passed away in her sleep a few days ago. She was found yesterday, after neighbors noticed she hadn't gotten her newspaper. Sigh. She was a tough old bird, survived a stroke and fully recovered, to the point she could drive again and remained snarky to the very end. There's a lot of things that need to happen now, which Dad is handling since that's his job.
I went to my volunteer job knowing this was the probable outcome. I'm glad she passed in her sleep. I suspect that's how I'll go. In my sleep. Its a beautiful day, perfect weather, flowers blooming. Sorta like when Mom died a year ago.
I went to my volunteer job knowing this was the probable outcome. I'm glad she passed in her sleep. I suspect that's how I'll go. In my sleep. Its a beautiful day, perfect weather, flowers blooming. Sorta like when Mom died a year ago.
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Movie: Man Of Steel
Just watched Man of Steel. Sigh. It is the Katamari Damacy of superhero films. It starts off okay, is visually interesting but then it just starts accumulating errors and before you know it, Superman is ignoring the deaths of 20,000 people so he can punch the guy who killed the father he never met, then does the unthinkable: actually kills someone himself, on purpose. Did these people never see or read any Superman stories EVER??
Giant robotic steam powered mechanical spiders! They're natures killing machines. Turns out this script goes back to that lecture.
This is a movie that would have been improved by the film breaking about half an hour before the end.
Giant robotic steam powered mechanical spiders! They're natures killing machines. Turns out this script goes back to that lecture.
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Thud!
Spent Wednesday polishing scratched CDs and DVDs at the Library. It was somewhat dull, but it is necessary work. You wouldn't believe just how grateful all the lady librarians are NOT to do that themselves. Every one of them said thank you. Its very precise, a craft requiring a lot of attention to detail. And the polishing wheel really does remove the scratches, but then you have to clean off the polishing compound before it hardens into spots on the disc.
At the end of the shift, I borrowed the Discworld novel audiobook "Thud!", one of the ones I hadn't polished. I really should have. When I got it home I found quite a few scratches and spent hours fixing them well enough to record to my hardrive so I can put it onto my MP3 player for my hikes and disc polishing, since listening to audiobooks is the sanest way to pass the time while you deal with the details and steam and removing bits of polishing compound from the CDs. It took me 5 hours to get all 9 discs ripped. I didn't want to miss any chapters. The writing and the voice acting are 5 star.
You know, I really like audio books. My first experience with them was The Hobbit from 1974. Famously good, so famous that most of my generation has heard it, and that's really saying something. My next audiobook was Neuromancer, read by the author William Gibson in full Faulknerian accent, southern drawl enhanced. Fantastic reading. I've got that one of cassette tape, which I liked enough to buy a high end cassette tape player to record it to PC for MP3. Probably not my best plan. But I do have it.
Recently I've been listening to the autobiography of Isabella Bird, which is read by various volunteers and is really quite interesting because they show the America or Japan of 150 years ago, as seen by a person who considered herself educated and modern the same way we consider ourselves educated and modern and the differences between then and now are startling. It is highly convenient to listen to the letters, since that lets you imagine what's described.
A surprising number of actors get work as a voice actor reading novels, and their quality is very high because they can do the voices and record it just so, for a tiny fraction of the cost of film. Audiobooks tend to be expensive, due to low sales, but I think the market for those is growing. The actor who played Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer got a great amount of work doing readings for audiobooks. He's from Chico, which is about 90 miles away, or 60 as a crow flies to the northwest. He's gotten a lot of work and a lot of good reviews for his audio book work. And he doesn't have to bleach his hair anymore. Apparently, he also runs a lot of local plays, assuming that information is correct.
The voice actor for Thud! is Stephen Briggs and his work is excellent. Considering this is unabridged and over 9 hours long, it probably took him a few weeks to record. The list of things he's worked on or voiced on Amazon is quite long. Considering the high quality of his work, I think I'm a fan.
I really hope that more of Discworld gets made into movies and BBC miniseries'. Get the quality to the same level as the Harry Potter series, only the writing is better, the jokes are actually funny like the Hitchikers Guide. It takes some effort to imagine Discworld because Pratchett largely refuses to make maps of it citing: "There is no map for humor".
Of course, there IS a map. There's also video games, cartoons, and I can see the point of a Discworld themed event at the library where I volunteer. We need a stuffed Orangutan to place on top of the shelves, perhaps with a motion sensor activated "Ook." He doesn't like being called a Monkey after all. He's a great ape.
Thud! is an amusing story of a grudge match between Dwarves and Trolls over a battle that neither side is clear on. Allegedly, both sides ambushed each other, and the other side was guilty.
At the end of the shift, I borrowed the Discworld novel audiobook "Thud!", one of the ones I hadn't polished. I really should have. When I got it home I found quite a few scratches and spent hours fixing them well enough to record to my hardrive so I can put it onto my MP3 player for my hikes and disc polishing, since listening to audiobooks is the sanest way to pass the time while you deal with the details and steam and removing bits of polishing compound from the CDs. It took me 5 hours to get all 9 discs ripped. I didn't want to miss any chapters. The writing and the voice acting are 5 star.
You know, I really like audio books. My first experience with them was The Hobbit from 1974. Famously good, so famous that most of my generation has heard it, and that's really saying something. My next audiobook was Neuromancer, read by the author William Gibson in full Faulknerian accent, southern drawl enhanced. Fantastic reading. I've got that one of cassette tape, which I liked enough to buy a high end cassette tape player to record it to PC for MP3. Probably not my best plan. But I do have it.
Recently I've been listening to the autobiography of Isabella Bird, which is read by various volunteers and is really quite interesting because they show the America or Japan of 150 years ago, as seen by a person who considered herself educated and modern the same way we consider ourselves educated and modern and the differences between then and now are startling. It is highly convenient to listen to the letters, since that lets you imagine what's described.
A surprising number of actors get work as a voice actor reading novels, and their quality is very high because they can do the voices and record it just so, for a tiny fraction of the cost of film. Audiobooks tend to be expensive, due to low sales, but I think the market for those is growing. The actor who played Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer got a great amount of work doing readings for audiobooks. He's from Chico, which is about 90 miles away, or 60 as a crow flies to the northwest. He's gotten a lot of work and a lot of good reviews for his audio book work. And he doesn't have to bleach his hair anymore. Apparently, he also runs a lot of local plays, assuming that information is correct.
The voice actor for Thud! is Stephen Briggs and his work is excellent. Considering this is unabridged and over 9 hours long, it probably took him a few weeks to record. The list of things he's worked on or voiced on Amazon is quite long. Considering the high quality of his work, I think I'm a fan.
I really hope that more of Discworld gets made into movies and BBC miniseries'. Get the quality to the same level as the Harry Potter series, only the writing is better, the jokes are actually funny like the Hitchikers Guide. It takes some effort to imagine Discworld because Pratchett largely refuses to make maps of it citing: "There is no map for humor".
Thud! is an amusing story of a grudge match between Dwarves and Trolls over a battle that neither side is clear on. Allegedly, both sides ambushed each other, and the other side was guilty.
Bicycles: Ascari Royale
Another nice looking bicycle. Exceedingly pretty, actually.
The Ascari Royale. Thank you, Cycle Exif. Beautiful machine. Note the generator on the front hub for the headlight, and the brass plating on the aluminum (probably) hammered fenders, which are hopefully coated in lacquer so they stay shiny.
I really like the copper plating on the rims and the cream tires. Really nice looking. This bike would be stolen in the heartbeat anywhere it was parked outside of your own garage around here, but its very pretty for the brief hours you would still own it.
Details, shine, finish. This is a luxury item.
Look at the saddle spring. Look at the wrapping on the cables. The leather on the handlebars. This is fitted to one person, not meant to be adjustable to someone else. One has to respect that kind of craftsmanship.
The Ascari Royale. Thank you, Cycle Exif. Beautiful machine. Note the generator on the front hub for the headlight, and the brass plating on the aluminum (probably) hammered fenders, which are hopefully coated in lacquer so they stay shiny.
I really like the copper plating on the rims and the cream tires. Really nice looking. This bike would be stolen in the heartbeat anywhere it was parked outside of your own garage around here, but its very pretty for the brief hours you would still own it.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
NEWS: Russian Invasion of Crimea
VICE news is oddly good coverage despite the name. Sort of like CBS before they became an Enquirer clone. The war correspondent is multiligual and seems together. Finds people to interview, no obvious bias.
Its odd that little hobby journals are better in every way than the big govt propaganda machine agencies with all their lights and shouting and bias. How weird is this?
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