December 13, 2015
And That Was My Reaction Too
From episode 3-6 of RWBY which is entitled Fall...a title that can be taken a number of different ways.
This answered several important questions and put a couple of characters in really bad situations for utterly different reasons.
Boy.
Howdy.
The next 166 hours are going to be like forever.
RWBY's been uneven but on balance quite enjoyable. This season they have REALLY hit their stride though.
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December 12, 2015
Have There Been Any Ubu Sightings ?
Bridgebunnies.com has been offline for a week now.
I'd figured it was a temporary thing as there has been a good bit of net wonkieness of late. However it was still down Thursday and is down as I type this.
Has anyone heard anything about Ubu Roi?
An actual picture of Ubu Roi
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December 10, 2015
15 More Days
...till, posting returns to normal. Here is a compensatory Yuletide dreadnought.
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A Non-Comprehensive List of Contemporary Happenings
Moe Lane brings our attention to an intriguing development. It seems that the head of the ruthless Sinola drug cartel in Mexico has sent a letter to the head of ISIS. Here's an excerpt.
Moe Lane takes the understandable "Pass the popcorn!" position on this development. We here at Brickmuppet Blog however, have seen the video in the previous post and thus are bitter old cranks. What jumps out at us is the fact that the band of bastards having trouble with ISIS is....in Mexico.
UPDATE: Nope.
HT-WD
Speaking of ISIS, via RFERL here is an overview of where their oil is going.
Nearby there is this interesting tidbit of information.
U.S. officials tell me they are seeing significant numbers of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps troops retreat from the Syrian combat zone in recent weeks, following the deaths and wounding of some of top officers in a campaign to retake Idlib Province and other areas lost this year to opposition forces supported by the West and Gulf Arab States. As a result, the Russian-initiated offensive that was launched in September seems to be losing an important ally.
Russia, however, seems to be doubling down. If it means peeling Syria away from Iran, it would seem an acceptable trade-off to let Russia retain their base and make Syria a fully Russian client, rather than a Mediterranean staging area for Iran and Hezbollah. Russia, after all , is not trying to bring about the apocalypse.
The implications for this are troubling to say the least. A nation of aristocrats and paupers is not likely to be stable or free.
The most dangerous muslim extremists are the most educated. This may seem counter-intuitive, but it shouldn't be.
The DRPK sub that fired a ballistic missile the other day suffered extensive damage in the process. Note that while this is a setback, it does mean they are actually doing live fire tests from actual submarines rather than a test rig.
North Korea also claims to have a hydrogen bomb....people are understandably skeptical but the North Koreans appear to be getting ready to test something that is atomic and explosive.
Someone tampered with a Boston commuter train and it ran wild through 4 stations (with 50 people on board) before authorities cut the power.
In some good news, India and Pakistan are resuming, comprehensive multi lateral peace talks. This is particularly welcome since the two nuclear powers have been to war multiple times and in 1999 Pakistan came astonishingly close to nuking India.
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There is a School of Thought
...that we, as a society, are on a cultural death-spiral, spinning faster and faster as we are swept by a maelstrom of decadence, ever closer to a civilizational event horizon that will deposit those it does not drown in the cesspit of a dark age.
There is another school of though that holds that the aforementioned premise is a load of bollocks and only believed by bitter old cranks. This other school's adherents consist mainly of people who have not seen this....
[INSERT BRONY JOKE HERE]
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December 08, 2015
Christmas Cardboard Chaos Continues
As atonement for the limited posting, here is some more seasonally themed cheesecake.
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December 07, 2015
Unknown Sailors of U.S.S. Oaklahoma
An interesting story from the Miami Herald details the obstacles facing current efforts to identify the remains of the unidentified dead of U.S.S. Oklahoma which was sunk by 9 torpedoes 74 years ago today.
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An Unlikely Outcome, 74 Years Ago Today
December 7, 1941: Two SOC Seagulls from U.S.S. Northhampton were patrolling near the island of Ni'ihau, (westernmost of the permanently inhabited Hawai'ian Islands) when they began to receive reports that all was not well at their home port of Pearl Harbor 150 miles to the east . What had been a peacetime training and observation mission was suddenly a war patrol.
After some time, they noted a a plane with a big red meatball on it trailing black smoke and approaching from the east. As it turned out, it was a Zero from IJNS Hiryuu. The little biplanes were completely obsolete and had no hope of besting a modern fighter in a dogfight, but this one was obviously damaged and might be easy pickings...or lead them to the Japanese task force...and in any event, the odds were two against one. Of course, they had no idea what the Mitsubishi plane was capable of....and even less of an idea about the undamaged Zero from IJNS Akagi that was escorting its companion far above them all....
Yeah...things got very interesting for the floatplane crews, very quickly. The odds were now one and a half of the most formidable fighters then in the Pacific verses two planes that were frequently used as target tugs. The dogfight lasted about twenty minutes, with the two biplanes dropping to just above the water, jinking wildly and covering each other with the flexible rifle caliber machine guns in their rear cockpits. All the while the pilots tried to present their observers with a good broadside shot. The little planes were so slow that it was hard for the Zeroes to get them in their sights and their lack of any armor, an extra set of wings and rapidly emptying fuel tanks made them sufficiently maneuverable that Radioman First Class Robert Baxter was able to get a bead on the undamaged Zero and pump it full of enough .30-06 that its status changed from "undamaged" to "little Japanese flag on side of utility floatplane"*. The already damaged Zero was beginning to come apart and its pilot made a desperate bid to reach the nearby island. The two shot up Seagulls limped back home having achieved a small victory against great odds on one of the darkest days in U.S. Navy history.
There is an odd postscript to this story: The damaged zero made it to Ni'ihau, which was (and still is) a cattle ranch. The cowboys took in the pilot, one Shigenori Nishikaichi and threw a luau for him until they got access to a news report and realized the situation. They then held him in the house of a ranch hand of Japanese origin named Harada (to facilitate communication) until the authorities could arrive. While they waited, Harada armed the pilot, helped him escape and assisted him in taking over most of the ranch and holding the island hostage, threatening to begin killing people if they could not account for everyone on the island, the names of whom Harada had given him. Since one guy had gone to get help the killing was set to commence starting with the wife of a cowboy named Ben Kanahele. This proved to be a poor choice for victims as Mr. Kanahele tackled the pilot, getting shot 3 times in the process, but while Nishikaichi was shooting him Mrs. Kanahele jumped on the pilot and bit him until the perfidious Harada pulled her off, by which point the profusely bleeding cattleman was able to get to his feet and slit the pilots throat. Yoshio Harada fled and committed suicide. ben Kanahele was hailed as a hero and the traitorous actions of Mr. Harada during this incident may well have contributed to the awful Japanese internment that started the next year.
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December 06, 2015
This Week's Chapter of RWBY Seems to Have No Title
I Propose Retro Funk!
As has generally been the case in this tournament cour, most of this episode's important stuff takes place outside of the fights. But the main fight went in an entirely unexpected direction and was gloriously worthy.
The pacing and voicework were fantastic, Meg Turney in particular did a stellar job as Neon Catt.
UPDATE: Wait..Of course!
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December 03, 2015
In Lieu of Content: Here's Something Seasonal and Surely Problematic
Art by Tob
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December 02, 2015
18th Century Tacti-Cool
It's a flintlock with a taclight!
Do Want!
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Oops! I Joined a Cult!
It sounds like a pre-Jonestown 70s sitcom, but it is both scarier and stupider.Someone named Jared Burrell (via) reflects upon the recently arrived at realization that his game development networking group had become a cult.
It sounds like a pre-Jonestown 70s sitcom, but it is both scarier and stupider.Someone named Jared Burrell (via) reflects upon the recently arrived at realization that his game development networking group had become a cult.
Do read the whole thing.
Trigger Warning for those who have been involved in fandom to any great extent...this will bring back memories; annoying and perhaps creepy ones, but be aware that these pathologies are far more mainstream now and in some fields it is nigh impossible to just walk away.
Certainly this still rings true...
You know what’s really condescending? Anointing yourself the Tone Police for the betterment of mankind. Let’s call a spade a spade. There’s no metal detector and this is no "safe space.†It’s a bourgeois space, with bourgeois conventions, and bourgeois sensibilities. All this talk about protecting "marginalized groups†is cover for making sure upper middle class kids – who can always call themselves nonspecifically "queer†to gain victim status – receive the same physiological coddling as adults they received growing up. We’re looking at an entire generation of helicopter children entering chronological adulthood. They can’t handle the world as it is so they want to turn everyone around them into their own personal helicopter. And "social justice†is their vehicle for that.
That certainly jives with my observations of some of the individuals I interact with at college. But there is more to it than intellectual indolence. These little exercises are an effete' and passive aggressive way of proclaiming and protecting one's social status...
The entire language of social justice – the up talking, the indirect phrasing, usage of words like "problematic†and "uncomfortable†– functions in such a way that rich kids can identify one another and enforce their sensibilities on everyone else. If you’re from a working class background and want to fit in, you had better learn to speak that language. So every gamedev networking situation is a contest to demonstrate that you belong to the correct tribe. That’s how you make friends. The only thing a Safe Space Policy does is formalize what’s already going on, and give an organizer explicit permission to bully and ostracize someone who fails to conform to a certain bourgeois sensibility.
I'm sure most of us have met this guy...
For a thoroughly self-hating, emasculated man like MyCult, this his only opportunity to feel like a tough guy. He’s not physically imposing or rich, and these days one can expect women to be financially independent, so the traditional role of protector and provider is closed to him. Grasping for some remnant of masculine identity, he’s taken the mantle of Chief of Tone Policing, which he can do without guilt because it’s easy for him to believe that other men are as misogynistic as he is.
I urge you again to read the whole thing. It does a very good job of conveying what a chilling effect this sort of thing can have and what a perniciously effective gatekeeping tool this is.
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December 01, 2015
A Programing Note
There may be a considerable reduction in posting frequency.
more...
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November 29, 2015
Heh. Coco has groupies...
From episode 4 of this season's RWBY, which seems to have really hit its stride. This episode's fight was still not up to the spectacular choreography that Oum was known for, but the pacing was superb and the tension was as intense as anything we've seen.
The last 9 of the 14 and a half minutes was spent with people sitting and talking while either drinking tea or playing video games. Those 9 minutes however, were very well paced and developed characters, moved the plot along, clarified plot points and answered questions.
While no explicit reference was made, we now probably have a very good idea of just what was going on in the "White" trailer and yes, it looks like that incongruously expressionist installment of the original 4 teasers is indeed canon. Even more surprisingly, it likely happened pretty much as presented (though some of it is a flashback).
Also: From this point forward, the heiress is on a budget.
One observation. One of the things the success of this series has made possible besides increasing the crew by 50% is that they have been able to hire additional professional voice actors (some with impressive resumes) to supplement the shows writers and animators, cosplayers and internet personalities that has made up most of the main cast. Interestingly this has resulted in the relative novices in the main cast being backed up by serious pros playing bit parts. The original cast has actually held their own pretty well and even those who started out a bit awkward have grown into their roles nicely. The additional money, however, is still well spent. Elizabeth Maxwell has hit it out of the park as Winter Schnee who, it turns out, is absolutely vital to understanding Weiss.
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An Important Product Safety Announcement
When one observes one's plamos start doing this....
...it does not actually mean that one has been blessed with a Lilliputian moe' waifu, but is, instead, a rather strong indication that one really needs to get out more.
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Some Quick Links
While there is considerable concern being expressed about the Syrian refugee situation, Dustbury finds someone raising the alarm about a less appreciated invasion. He also helpfully points out that all of my problems stem from a parking fee. In retrospect, it's probably a decent trade-off.
Borepatch says all that needs to be said about Black Friday. He also manages to offend on multiple levels with only 9 words.
Tangentially related to that; while Wonderduck has been putting up a brave face yesterday and today, one should not underestimate the stress he will have to deal with until January 25th.
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November 27, 2015
That is Some Truly Epic Sunblock
A vampire and her maid go to San Francisco.
Clip by Perry Street.
I linked to the unfinished version of this before, but the animator finished it yesterday and thoroughly succeeded in producing a cute and technically interesting little skit.
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Adventures in Cardboard
Work related banality lurks below the fold, so here is a Christmas Catgirl to tide you over.
more...
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November 26, 2015
Enjoy the Day
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November 24, 2015
A Welcome Respite From...Stuff.
That I blundered into this gem is entirely Wonderduck's fault.
Lilly Satou, the early years.
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