1
From the creator blurb on The Org:
OK this is the infamous Dirty Pair: Girls with guns video that I made a LONG time ago. I transferred the footage form old VHS to 1" video. I edited it on 1" video, Transferred to Betacam, later I transferred to DVCPRO, Digitized to Quicktime MOV, Compressed to MP4 and now uploading.
The remake doesn't seem to be available on The Org, so... oh well!
Posted by: Wonderduck at Tue Mar 19 00:36:31 2019 (PzbzM)
Well, Evil Has Come to ChristChurch
This is is developing, but it appears that an unclear number of people-shaped colostomy bags stormed into New Zealand holy places and slaughtered people until they ran out of ammo, or in one case, were repelled by an armed citizen.
Like with the Charleston shooting some years ago and the recent atrocity in Pittsburgh, these servants of Moloch butchered a room full of innocents whose only crime was that they had shown up to render alms and pray.
Before engaging in this obscenity, one of these fiends published a manifesto in which he praised environmentalism, Trump, the white race, and....Candace Owens. He denounced capitalism, individuality, global warming, immigrants, overpopulation, and pop culture.
The repugnant ghoul has thus very helpfully provided everybody in our highly polarized society with some issue they can use to pin this obscenity on their political opponents.
And everyone seems to be taking the bait.
I sit in dread of where this will lead, but I am numb, and too sickened to express my foreboding in words. Here, instead, is an excerpt from Yeats.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity....
UPDATE: Very good thoughts on this that you should read or view in full are here, here and here, and Sargon of all people has the wisest and, sadly, least popular take in this short video.
At About 16:30 Today on YouTube (Updated)
We have, from top to bottom:
A: A stoic, calm, and reasoned You-Tube commentator.
B: A Brexiteer and, well, a bit of a troll.
C: A mellow, and yet delightfully wackadoodle libertarian loon from Vermont.
D: A generally left leaning journalist whose reporting has been quite wide ranging.
A: Matt Christensen
B: Sargon
C: Styxhexxenhammer D: Tim Pool
All have been focusing on threats to free speech of late and most, if not all have been targeted over the last week or so by doxxings and calls for deplatforming.
Meanwhile, as this is being typed, other Youtube channels seem to be fine.
It's probably nothing. Just an odd coincidence.
UPDATE: As of 19:00, all 4 sites are back up, but they were down for over an hour.
Since That Last Post Was Depressing (UPDATED)
Here's something to give existential threat assessors hives, and the rest of us hope.
It's Ryan Weed, the CEO of Positron Dynamics who claims to have solved antimatter's production and containment issues. He's getting around the storage problem by the elegant method of avoiding it totally. They're generating positrons on the spot (using Krypton79 decaying to Kr78 ) and firing them into deuterium to catalyze fusion. The neutrons from the reaction transmutes the Kr78 back to Kr79 and the associated 'splody travels out the tailpipe and goes "woosh". Research is looking promising, but there are already some interesting spinoffs, which include a nuclear battery with a yield of as much as 100 watts a kilogram.
UPDATE:
Here's an animation of how their system is supposed to work.
1
Gah, I read the YouTube comments. All doubters. One might have even had a valid criticism.
Posted by: Mauser at Sun Mar 10 20:21:00 2019 (Ix1l6)
2
I'm deeply suspicious of any group promoting a breakthrough technology whose website is that slick.
Posted by: Directrix Gazer at Sun Mar 10 21:30:53 2019 (vckNJ)
3
The company has been around since 2012. I understand they got shut down a few years ago when the local government discovered they were working with antimatter. It took a while to get their tests back on track but those tests were apparently promising since NASA just gave them a grant. They have mentioned that they want to get a cubesat to test one of their engines before the decade is out.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Mon Mar 11 08:41:20 2019 (xOgT9)
Well, There's a Bad Side to Everything *UPDATE: Welcome Dustbury readers!*
One of the Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Science Babes reports on the evolving opinions among the intelligentsia regarding the merits of distributing our metaphorical 'eggs' among interplanetary baskets, as well as freedom and individuality in general.
"Gimme a minute. I need more coffee and a couple of BCs after watching that."
Well, while she's composing herself, let's check her open tabs and hop right into this interview of Phil Torres, by the Publisher of Universe Today, astronomy podcaster Fraiser Cain.
OK. Now MY head hurts.
PhilTorres is an expert in 'existential risk assessment' (which sounds like a potentially depressing job) and in the interview, he and Mr. Cain discuss and speculate upon various, mostly man made total catastrophe scenarios until about 35 minutes in when Cain brings up the importance of human space settlement as a potential hedge against omnicical unpleasantness.
Torres is strongly opposed to this. He believes that space settlement greatly increases the possibility of the total extinction of all life. Among his reasons is the notion that low probabilities given enough time eventually approach a value of 1. Many omnicidal scenarios involving a disgruntled knave or careless researcher with access to a lot of technology unleashing something unpleasant (like a super-flu or grey goo). Thus increasing the technology level as well as number of people exponentially (as is likely with a Dyson Swarm) will increase the odds that someone will somehow kill everyone and everything. Furthermore, he postulates that in an age of extremely powerful technologies, game theory dictates that these societies would have to kill each other at the first opportunity.
...
...
He goes a bit further and states that the biggest problem is the impracticality of having an effective system wide government with light hour, minute, day, year lags. There will be so many different groups that they won't be controllable, thus chaos will reign and, again, game theory will dictate that they all have to kill each other, for some reason.
While this odd conclusion serves on the one hand to reinforce my preconceived misgivings about certain strict secularists who seek to use game theory as a stand in for moralitya , as someone who doesn't pretend to be particularly expert on the topic, I strongly suspect that torres doesn't quite grok Game Theory, (you know, the thought processes that got us through the Cold War without a human extinction event).
Torres does offer some solutions to his postulated problem, between 49:50 and 52:08. They mainly involve not letting people colonize space and being ruled by what sure sounds like a global totalitarian surveillance state. But it's OK because Professor Existential Risk Assessor suggests that it be run by an A.I. (!) He also suggests modifying people through drugs and gene therapy to be more compliant, peaceful and docile.
"Golly! That doesn't seem dystopian at all; She says with bitter sarcasm before getting more coffee."
This is the kind of stuff that you hear from some tipsy caller on late night AM radio right before they cut to an interview with Richard C. Hoaglandb.
But this isn't some secondhand report of what some shadowy figure at a conference allegedly said. This is a fellow who seems to be at least respectable. And he is openly advocating crazy horrible stuff.
Alright, so a professor at a think tank is strong with the Cray-Cray. Honestly, this wouldn't warrant so many keystrokes were it not for the fact that this fellow is getting a lot of coverage right now, with this article being reprinted in a number of places.
And he's not actually alone in this view.
Daniel Deudney, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins has, for several years, been making the rounds with a similar message that space travel beyond LEO for earth observation is a waste, potentially dangerous to humanity as a whole and, indeed, immoral.
As I tend to avoid the sorts of totalitarians that to my dismay apparently inhabit college philosophy departments, encountering this anti-humanist claptrap was disheartening. However it was not as surprising as it might be in a sane, well adjusted world. You see, similar opinions albeit with different rationale have been percolating with increasing frequency for some years as the possibility of space settlement has become more plausible.
Some of this criticism is based on pessimistic (albeit science based) assessments of the practicality of, say, a Mars colony, but there's a certain 'crab bucket' dynamic in some of the pieces expressing skepticism of the whole enterprise. Now, the proper response to these notions has been that if one doesn't approve or think it's safe, then one is free not to go.
However, the fatuous ivory tower arguments noted at the beginning are particularly troubling as they give those opposed to the expansion of humanity beyond this pale blue dot an argument based not upon bitter resentments, but upon the notion that men of letters say other people going forth to settle the void are a threat to Earth .
The arguments by Torres and Deudeny seem to me to be dubious at best. Even assuming that their notion that existence of people are a threat to peoples existence(!) and that more people represent a bigger threat, then you still have the the fact that the threat will never be zero until people don't exist. Presumably one wants to keep that variable at a nonzero value. As Torres himself points out, the probability of a catastrophe increases with time, so you're probably best advised to disperse targets, since something bad is going to happen eventually.
The notion that game theory requires a polity to destroy its enemies preemptively says rather more about the character of America's university philosophy departments than it does any prospective espatiers. Space is big enough that if two groups are culturally incompatible, they ought to be able to live apartc.
Of course the merits of the theory are beside the point. This is indicated by the ear to ear grin Professor Torres has on his face as he explains how "sub-optimal" it is that we need to restrict people's freedom, but that it's OK because the brilliant minds proposing this are "progressives'. Once again, we have a problem, a crisis, an existential threat, and like all such solutions for every other crisis real or imagined, the academy have decided
that the solution is reduced personal autonomy, increased government
power and re-education. And above all, this crisis requires that those who dare to dream and have the courage to try and wrest a living from a hostiled frontier never be allowed to escape.
Be aware as well, that those who demand we put all our metaphorical eggs in one basket, have a poor record of egg stewardship. For they have a tendency to embezzle those eggs to make omelets that never materialize.
a:The crazy, evil ones mostly
b:Seriously! Can you people please come up with a plan that does not sound like two dimensional villain in a grim-dark young adult novel. This would strain credulity as a parody. Hell, Prof. Deudney is literally advocating in one of the linked papers for one world government ASAP. Giving Alex Jones credibility helps no one except those who build water purifiers.
c:OTOH if the Westborro Church and Gay Aryan Thrust set up their O'Neal
Cylinders next to each other, well that's their problem and if they kill each other then it's to our benefit
aside from any need to clean up the debris field.
d:A lot of space enthusiasts do underestimate just HOW hostile space is. It's dry, radioactive, has no food and ventilation is charitably described as "poor".This doesn't mean that it's unlikely to be settled or undesireable to do so. Just that some paint too rosy a picture.
1
Imagine if this fellow's thinking had dominated at the cusp of the Neolithic Revolution? The Industrial Revolution? Surely neither would have occurred.
Also, for someone in a field with even just the pretension of being scientific, he seems awfully ignorant of any actual game theory. And history. His theorizing, taken seriously would seem to more or less preclude the existence of human civilization as it already exists.
Of course, the biggest idiocy is taking into account only the number of people without also considering the social "surface area," if you will, of their potential interactions. To give a basic example, two people are not twice as dangerous as one if they are unable to harm each other (for instance, by being spaced apart).
It seems amazing to me that he would be smart enough to get halfway there (more people = more innovation = more existential danger) but not see that mutual proximity might have some role to play, even when tackling the topic of space colonization head on. Indeed, as the speed of light is increasingly the only serious limitation to human interaction spreading our species out across a significant region of space (say, the span of the solar system) such that we're not all able to synchronize in one disastrous civilizational collapse seems like the only possible route out of the thicket.
I'm not usually one to propose malice over mere stupidity as an explanation for behavior I don't like, but I, like you, also got the distinct impression that this fellow's palm itches for the handle of a whip, and that his theories are no more than rationalizations intended to put one there.
Posted by: Directrix Gazer at Sun Mar 10 21:42:53 2019 (vckNJ)
2
Sometimes people aren't experts but merely highly-educated idiots.
And these days "sometimes" approaches "usually".
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sun Mar 10 21:53:32 2019 (PiXy!)
3
"He also suggests modifying people through drugs and gene therapy to be more compliant, peaceful and docile."
That was literally the plot of Serenity.
Posted by: Rick C at Mon Mar 11 14:27:52 2019 (Iwkd4)
4
Way back before modern communication and travel, the British Empire sure found it difficult to control the colonists in the Americas - and look at what a disaster that turned out to be (rolls eyes).
Posted by: Frank at Mon Mar 11 20:56:34 2019 (rglbH)
5"When a place gets crowded enough to required ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere." -RAH
This bastard is trying to cut off our escape route. Use USArmy doctrine: Drive into the ambush and destroy it. Also by RAH:
"If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion."
Posted by: ubu at Wed Mar 13 10:36:16 2019 (SlLGE)
Not particularly odd or sad, but Patrick Stewart agrees with these fellows that humans going into space = BAD.
I like Stewart...But I think I would like him better if he was not so damn obnoxious whenever he opened his mouth.
These nuts sound even crazier than the paper NASA issued saying that aliens would find CO2 as a reason to be hostile to the human race because higher levels of CO2 indicates a high-tech, industrial civilization on the planet. Never mind the fact that the UV and radio waves, and the sheer amount of visible LIGHT being generated on the planet (And detectable at longer ranges.) might be an even better indication of a high-tech, industrial civilization...
Posted by: cxt217 at Wed Mar 13 14:09:24 2019 (LMsTt)
So, the Other Day....
...I was sitting at one of the deceptively spartan tables in one of Norfolk's best Chinese takeout places eating a dish called Marinated Boneless Crispy Chicken (With Vegetables) and noting that unlike Dragon and Phoenix, this one is exactly what it says on the tin. As I did so I became aware of an elderly woman going on and ON about something with the store's delivery driver and who seemed to be quite agitated about something when one sentence fragment caught my ear.
...it was like Wolf 359, or the Battle of the Line but it wasn't off screen. It got so good!
The delivery driver seemed to be in complete agreement.
This is the third time in a week that I've encountered random instances of people holding forth about The Orville.
I may have to start watching this again. What I saw first season ranged from cringeworthy to surprisingly well done and even poignant.
1
While Wolf 359 is ambiguous, the Battle of the Line is a centerpiece of B5 lore.
Which, in *my* mind anyway, only enhances the cool factor of the overheard discussion.
Posted by: Doug O. at Thu Mar 7 22:52:01 2019 (NoaSY)
2
"cringeworthy to surprisingly well done"
Steven den Beste talked--I think it was in his Divergence Eve review--about a theory he had that some animes put in a lot of big boobs to get the show on the air, and then tell the story they want. (I'm simplifying a bit.)
I suspect Seth MacFarlane was doing something like that, that he wanted to do a fairly serious show, but he felt he needed to pretend it was a comedy. The series gradually got more serious over the first season, even while it put up a smokescreen of whoopee-cushion jokes.
Posted by: Rick C at Fri Mar 8 02:42:36 2019 (Iwkd4)
3
And I kinda think early episodes like 1.3 and 1.4 (which reminded me a lot of For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky) drive that home.
Posted by: Rick C at Fri Mar 8 02:45:26 2019 (Iwkd4)
New Moon Observations
All in all, I'm liking it. It's basically Firefox streamlined and with better privacy, though not as good in that regard as Epic. Like in Epic, I note that suspiciously relevant ads tend not to show up. It's less clunky and faster, but as a trade-off is not as comprehensive with its ad blocker as Epic. It doesn't update "trackers blocked" in the sidebar, but New Moon has a better search engine, and on the blog allows certain formatting options Epic didn't as noted in the previous post. All in all, it seems to be a pretty decent browser and I'm pleased.
I've nevertheless been very happy with Epic and will still use it fairly often. For instance, thanks to Epic's very aggressive ad and tracker blocking, (which sometimes causes issues) I'd forgotten what it was like to to be constantly assaulted by You Tube ads. Well, Pale/New Moon runs them just fine.
Still, privacy issues aside, It's been a while since I forswore Firefox and I'd forgotten how pleasant that a browser based on its engine can be.
Oh fabrijous day! Minx's superscripts and subscripts work in New Moon. (They don't in Epic, Safari or Opera. At least not on my Mac. And Vivaldi's got...issues.)
Lets see. How about videos? That ought not to be an issue, but it is with Vivaldi. Let's go with something that's stripped of enough context to be SFW and forgotten enough that it doesn't incriminate me in any way.
How about formatting quotes and running animated .gifs? Let's try a reaction shot.
I’m not going to discuss the relative merits of astrology, but I’m going
to say when an entire civilization formed on the enlightenment
principles chases after it, things have gone seriously wrong.
2
I have a solution to the automatic content generation. I can't promise it will be good content. In fact, I can promise it will be bad content. But it will be content, dammit.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Mon Mar 4 22:13:45 2019 (PiXy!)
3
When I was migrating my blog from MovableType to Hugo, I used Wikipedia's randomizer to generate test content.
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Mon Mar 4 23:25:20 2019 (tgyIO)
4
I'm not seeing that last thing, unless it's supposed to be whitespace. Windows firefox, Noscript and AdBlockPlus running. Hmmm, says two items blocked. Let's see with that off.
Posted by: Mauser at Tue Mar 5 23:34:18 2019 (Ix1l6)
...to our surprise, came not from barbarian hoards attacking, economic collapse, rival powers, who, sensing weakness, suddenly made their move or associated nuclear hellfire.
The Dark Times came when those in power not only decided that those who disagreed with them should be silenced, but when they realized that having everything from banking to banter dependent upon electronic processes controlled, by them, their friends or those they had power over, made it possible to do the silencing.
The Dark Times came when speech became so policed and polite it could no longer express any but the most anodyne thoughts and when people could not make a living without keeping a false facade firmly in place. The Dark Times came when mere words were so feared that conversations became impossible. When conversations could no longer happen the only way to address grievances was through violence. When violence became the medium of communication, the wisest of the fools found that they longed for the days when they had been called "c**t" or "cuck" or"xian" or "facist". You see, mere words turned out to hurt far less than rocks, bullets, molotov cocktails, and all the other things unleashed in the moments that we fell upon ourselves, and, surprisingly, those hurt less than the soul crushing terror that we might say something honest when we did not.
The Dark Times were when we were forced to stop talking, because a bunch of self appointed aristocrats fancied themselves to be gods.
All that other stuff was just facilitated by the chaos unleashed by the actions of the speech police.
1
Yeah, the financial industry is just begging to be regulated and/or sued here.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sun Mar 3 03:33:28 2019 (PiXy!)
2
Yeah, apparently Project Veritas just came out with another video from a former Facebook insider (disclosure: she was fired after talking to O'Keefe and ultimately went to work for Project Veritas) who sheds some light on alleged activity reminiscent of Twitter's shadow banning that, surprise, surprise, is targeting conservatives. You can find the video here: Project Veritas Video
Posted by: StargazerA5 at Sun Mar 3 21:52:11 2019 (bz2EX)
This situation has not gotten anywhere near the attention it deserves here.
Note though, that there has been a glimmer of coverage today as there are signs that after almost 4 months, the French public are growing tired of the protestors and Pétain Macron is recovering in the pols.
As to what the go to what our favorite English language Parisian blogs have been saying...
Dissident Frogman's site has burned down, fallen over and is awash in the swamp. The site is, as of yesterday, being rebuilt as per a note in the sidebar, though the most recent post on the site is from 2017.
There hasn't been a post on ¡No Parasan! in over two weeks as I type this.
1
This is pollution-based, right? But the "green" enviroweenies don't complain about pollution in Russia, China, India, etc: just the West. Stupid.
(I happen not to have speakers on the computer I'm on at the moment so I can't hear the audio.)
Posted by: Rick C at Sun Feb 24 18:39:41 2019 (Iwkd4)
Hobby Space News of the commercial space industry A Babe In The Universe Rather Eclectic Cosmology Encyclopedia Astronautica Superb spacecraft resource The Unwanted Blog Scott Lowther blogs about forgotten aerospace projects and sells amazingly informative articles on the same. Also, there are cats. Transterrestrial Musings Commentary on Infinity...and beyond! Colony WorldsSpace colonization news! The Alternate Energy Blog It's a blog about alternate energy (DUH!) Next Big Future Brian Wang: Tracking our progress to the FUTURE. Nuclear Green Charles Barton, who seems to be either a cool curmudgeon, or a rational hippy, talks about energy policy and the terrible environmental consequences of not going nuclear Energy From Thorium Focuses on the merits of thorium cycle nuclear reactors WizBang Current events commentary...with a wiz and a bang The Gates of Vienna Tenaciously studying a very old war The Anchoress insightful blogging, presumably from the catacombs Murdoc Online"Howling Mad Murdoc" has a millblog...golly! EaglespeakMaritime security matters Commander Salamander Fullbore blackshoe blogging! Belmont Club Richard Fernandez blogs on current events BaldilocksUnderstated and interesting blog on current events The Dissident Frogman French bi-lingual current events blog The "Moderate" VoiceI don't think that word means what they think it does....but this lefty blog is a worthy read nonetheless. Meryl Yourish News, Jews and Meryls' Views Classical Values Eric Scheie blogs about the culture war and its incompatibility with our republic. Jerry Pournell: Chaos ManorOne of Science fictions greats blogs on futurism, current events, technology and wisdom A Distant Soil The website of Colleen Dorans' superb fantasy comic, includes a blog focused on the comic industry, creator issues and human rights. John C. Wright The Sci-Fi/ Fantasy writer muses on a wide range of topics. Now Read This! The founder of the UK Comics Creators Guild blogs on comics past and present. The Rambling Rebuilder Charity, relief work, roleplaying games Rats NestThe Art and rantings of Vince Riley Gorilla Daze Allan Harvey, UK based cartoonist and comics historian has a comicophillic blog! Pulpjunkie Tim Driscoll reviews old movies, silents and talkies, classics and clunkers. Suburban Banshee Just like a suburban Leprechaun....but taller, more dangerous and a certified genius. Satharn's Musings Through TimeThe Crazy Catlady of The Barony of Tir Ysgithr アニ・ノート(Ani-Nouto) Thoughtful, curmudgeonly, otakuism that pulls no punches and suffers no fools. Chizumatic Stephen Den Beste analyzes anime...with a microscope, a slide rule and a tricorder. Wonderduck Anime, Formula One Racing, Sad Girls in Snow...Duck Triumphalism Beta Waffle What will likely be the most thoroughly tested waffle evah! Zoopraxiscope Too In this thrilling sequel to Zoopraxiscope, Don, Middle American Man of Mystery, keeps tabs on anime, orchids, and absurdities. Mahou Meido MeganekkoUbu blogs on Anime, computer games and other non-vital interests Twentysided More geekery than you can shake a stick at Shoplifting in the Marketplace of Ideas Sounds like Plaigarism...but isn't Ambient IronyAll Meenuvians Praise the lathe of the maker! Hail Pixy!!