Almost. It’s more like The Web Is Fucked. I’m not really up or down on swearing so much, but having harsh language in a post title crosses a boundary with me. Anyways, from the linked site: I’m not saying you should avoid all social media – that shit’s pretty much impossible these days and is … The Web Is Flucked
Love, Death + Robots A series of animated science fiction shorts. As usual, most of these stories were more action and horror than science fiction. Some individual reviews: “Zima Blue” – An enigmatic artist reveals his final piece. This wasn’t just the best of the entire series, but one of the greatest actual science-fiction short … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 29
The Cosmic Courtship, written by Julian Hawthorne (the son of Nathaniel, of The Scarlet Letter fame) was serialized in pulp magazines in 1917, and hadn’t seen print since then until Cirsova Publishing came along and offered it in novel format. It’s considered an early science fiction work, though like all good science fiction it was … Book Review: The Cosmic Courtship by Julian Hawthorne
While watching RazörFist’s stream of the new Halo Infinite game, I realized how not-great the subtitle UX (user experience) was. It ranged from serviceable but awkward, to slightly confusing, to unreadable. Good video game dialogue and subtitle UX should (in rough descending order of severity): Have good color contrast, size, and line length The subtitles … How to Create Good Video Game Subtitle UX
From That Hideous Strength: “Why you fool, it’s the educated reader who can be gulled. All our difficulty comes with the others. When did you meet a workman who believes the papers? He takes it for granted that they’re all propaganda and skips the leading articles. He buys his paper for the football results and … C.S. Lewis on Educated Readers
Order of the PenTriagon is the first of two books about the peaceful aftermath of an alien presence on earth, two youngins damaged by the vaccine deployed worldwide to combat the disease the aliens brought with them, and a prophecy of a future warrior to battle said aliens (I think I got all of that … Book Review: Order of the PenTriagon by Jill Domschot
Cowboy Bebop (2021) Let’s get this out of the way, first: this was bad, to no one’s surprise, but I gave it the ol’ three-episode college try. The original 1998 series was storytelling perfection and accepted as such by a wide margin of viewers and critics, so any kind of reboot is not only unnecessary, … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 28
Ingredients 8oz sugar-free dark chocolate 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper 1/2 cup of Stevia or natural sweetener 1 pinch of salt 1/4 tsp ground pepper (optional) cocoa powder for dusting Directions 1. If your chocolate is in bar form, chop it up into tiny pieces. I’d do it if it’s … Recipe: Spicy Grimdark Chocolate Rocks
Here’s Lynnette with a copy of Pale Blue Scratch. Print books are life. Send a photo of you with the book, or just a photo of the book, send it to me, and I will post it here. Here’s the paperback, but you can also send a photo of the free e-book version on your … Lynnette Got Scratched!
These were taken by Jonathan from Hot Metal Studio for a behind-the-scenes type of story run for Noisecreep, for The Devil Wears Prada’s “Assistant to the Regional Manager” track. It was filmed by Danny Yourd (he had an official crew at the time; sorry, forget the name) at 31st Street Studios in the dead of … Photos: Jay at The Devil Wears Prada Video Shoot
In a different timeline, he was standing on a beach of calm tides, looking across at the orange sunset burst. He might’ve been a little bit taller, a little less weird in the face, more extroverted. Outward with his energy, the things people admit to liking when they murmur to each other. There was a … Story: Prior Restraint
Creed 2 Creed fights the son of his father’s killer, Ivan Drago. Rocky IV was a big staple of my childhood, so it was neat to see Dolph Lundgren in the role again, even though he wasn’t a huge part of this particular movie. I also liked that Viktor, Drago’s son, wasn’t as cartoonishly villainous … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 27
I wouldn’t quite call this exposition as much as it is the backstory for Rosalina, but you don’t know the story’s protagonist is actually her until later. The player is also not required to read the book to understand the world of SMG, since all of that is communicated as the game progresses. Still, it’s … Super Mario Galaxy’s Storybook
Kate sent me this photo of Pale Blue Scratch, Juniper, and Juniper’s formidable whiskers.
That title says “Static Index Page” in Spanish, in honor of it being the Day of the Dead, of Jill getting her blog back up, and of me starting to read her new book. She often posts Mexican music and language, and is Catholic, so it seems like all of these things are related. The … Página de Índice Estático
Spoilers ahead. I will also note that I read Dune many years ago, but have since forgotten much of it. Yes, I plan on reading the series again soon. “DUNE?” More like, “DUDE, call a plumber.” Score: 9/10 The Frank Herbert’s literary sci-fi classic was previously adapted for the large hypnosis machine movie screen with … Review: Dune, Part 1 (2021)
Time Bandits A young boy with neglectful parents helps dwarves time travel throughout history, escaping the owner of a map they stole. I watched this a lot when I was a kid, not realizing how non-kid-friendly it was. I mean, his house burns down and his parents combust right in front of him at the … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 26
The old building in which my wife used to work had a display case of old typewriters in the lobby. One of the security guards was nice enough to let me take them out and photograph them (very averagely, it looks like) in the last few weeks before last day there. I didn’t know it … Photos: Underwood Typewriters
It turns out the woman’s iconic face from Converge’s Jane Doe album cover art is a real woman’s face, and that woman found out 20-ish years after the fact and posted on Instagram about it. Converge’s vocalist, Jacob Bannon, who also did the artwork, responded: “Just to be clear: This is definitely one of the … Jane Doe Lives and Has a Face
Some photos I took of the Cathedral of Learning a few years ago. It was inspiration for the de Sales College building from Pale Blue Scratch.
I created what I think is the best workout playlist, using the most anal retentive criteria imaginable. 1. The songs shouldn’t take longer than 5 seconds to get going in some manner, and there shouldn’t be more than 5 seconds of silence, feedback, or any fadeouts at the end. This eliminates a lot of songs, … Behold! The Best Heavy Metal Workout Playlist
The map below is inaccurate, as AllTrails’ UX for recording hikes sucks. There’s no easy way to “stop” the hike recording, and “pausing” the hike recording restarted it after a certain time for some reason, so the app recorded me driving home. Encountering these hiccups in a process annoys me both as a user and … Photos: Deer Lakes Park Blue Trail Hike
From the article “Tech Workers Rebel Against a Lame-Ass Internet by Bringing Back ‘Geocities-Style’ Webrings“: Take Linvega’s LowTech WebRing as an example. A given site connects to two other sites, which connect to two more sites, forming a closed-loop: a ring. Users tout the format as something more like wandering through a neighborhood, reinfusing cyberspace … Decentralize Your Internet
There has to be one millionaire on earth, doing absolutely nothing of worth, who can look into the sorry state of home printer tech. You don’t even have to really get involved—just toss some cash to some engineers and programmers and have them figure it out. They’ll do a Kickstarter or something and pay you … Someone Needs to Do Something About Printers
Expendables 2 A group of for-hire mercenaries race to find a stockpile of Cold War-era refined plutonium before the villain, named Vilain, does. I think every 80’s and 90’s action movie guy was stuffed into this, maybe even more than the first one, so it kind of makes it fun in that regard for middle-aged … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 25
The Minds of Men | Official Documentary by Aaron & Melissa Dykes A rather exhaustive documentary on the MKUltra program. The link leads to a timestamp later in the video that offers a decent summary. It “feels” like all that research went nowhere, but you can be sure there were things discovered about the mind … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 44
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace Say what you want about George Lucas, but the man knows how to world-build. Despite this, lot of folks criticized this movie as unnecessary, because you could start with Attack of the Clones and still get Anakin’s necessary character arc. The prequel Star Wars movies were about … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 24
Why Sexual Morality May be Far More Important than You Ever Thought Kirk (the author) rightly points out the sexual restraint is a sign, not a cause, of civilizational flourishing. We could assume that loosening sexual restraints is also a sign, not a cause, of decline. There’s probably a myriad of causes that contribute to … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 43
My Hero Academia, Season 4 This represented a little bit of a departure from previous seasons, because the big battle came early on, and someone actually died. There’s a decent pop rock song in the filler storyline of the school talent show. But really, the soap opera of MHA continues as soap operas do: you … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 23
It was time to put the 36 year old Functional to rest. Her cassette and chain got rusted out from disuse over the perpetual scamdemic months, as I was working from home all the time. The steel frame was starting to take a beating, too, that she couldn’t really come back from. So I traded … Photo: New Giant Rincon Bike
A ghost tries to scare a visitor away from her decrepit house so he isn’t harmed, but her attempts have a much different effect. I stood on the precipice of a grand philosophical conclusion one afternoon, when a group of boys, stepping over the leaf-drowned border of the estate, bantered back and forth loudly enough … Story: Prisoner Invisible
The Wolverine Wolverine in Japan. This film was in the middle of the cinematic X-Men franchise getting a little more mature, and it shows here, especially in the dialogue. It would appropriately crescendo, perhaps a little too late, with Wolverine’s sendoff in Logan, but this was the solid beginning. X-Men: The Last Stand The third … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 22
Easy-to-understand part of a lecture on the ideas. A little bit too Platonic for me, but it can get one on the path of breaking away from purely material causes for things. If there’s a meta-force, not necessarily supernatural, but an in-between level between pure classical physical space and that supernatural domain, then material methods … How Matter is Formed and Other Consciousnesses
‘It’s too late’: Alabama doctor shares final moments of Covid patients, urges vaccination This is almost as fake as the Jewish doctor treating the Neo-Nazi that I posted about a few months ago. It has all the tells. The only thing that would make it a more obvious ploy is if Antonio Planas (the article’s … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 42
Escape from New York Not sure why I think this, but I consider this a sister film to the original Mad Max. They came out roughly the same time, so there was a similar cultural context, at least when the final rewrites and filing occurred. Also crazy to note that the depiction of vector graphics … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 21
The rewards for the Kickstarter were sent out, so I jumped it to the top of my reading list. Hawthorne’s prose is playful. It seems like a lot of the sci-fi emerging out of the retro-futurist, first stages of the industrialization of electricity (whatever you want to call it) had a bright, optimistic bent. How … Photos: The Cosmic Courtship Hardcover
WE HAD A scheduled day off today, but the medusazoans showed up. Protocol dictates we have to make an effort to contact them whenever this happens, but there’s nothing said about recording or even logging the event when no one is on an active shift, as it is during our working days. Technicalities and such; … Story: The Ezekiel Triptych
Fist of the North Star Post-apocalyptic 80’s kung fu, with a really dated English dub; Full movie here, with a protagonist so badass, he walks through a building as it falls on top of him, and tables randomly explode when he’s ready to fight. There probably wouldn’t have been JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure if this wasn’t … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 20
…because it’s probably not aliens that are involved at all with this—it’s all large-scale electromagnetic stuff. I am not for or opposed either way to aliens being at least covertly mucking around; my beliefs aren’t based on what I can perceive and understand. Aliens would be a good story to come across in reality, but … I’m Not Saying It’s Aliens
No photos this time, since the route we took we nearly the same as the Wetlands-Scouts-Rachel Caron loop I posted. We did see a snake that we thought was dead, a deer with a sneezing fit, and lots of graduation parties in the park pavilions. We took our time hiking, with some potty breaks, food … No Photos: Scouts’ Trail Hike
As if ads were bad enough, we have to deal with online solicitations in the form of dialog box interrupters. Notice that the one screenshot below is a page about stress reduction. You can make matters even worse by paywalling basic, interchangeable content about something—a book, in the National Geographic example—that could easily be found … How To Annoy People
Y2K Music Curse Good article about the realities of signing onto a traditional record label. tl;dr version: artists need to pay everything back. It’s especially hard when you are a metal band trying to nudge your way into the already-limited fanbase, which is what I went through in the bands I was involved with in … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 41
A.I.C.O. Incarnation A schoolgirl learns she’s not who she thinks she is, and it involves a quarantine zone that resulted from a berserk experiment to create artificial organisms. What’s with trained special forces soldiers who look like Teen Vogue models? At least some series’ lore would explain it away as cyborgs or trained-at-birth/crisis situation scenarios, … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 19
Alltrails mapped this nice hike out for us, a combination of three connected trails at Harrison Hills. Here’s the map. No, we didn’t walk 19.8 miles. I was a dum-dum and started tracking our progress from when I left the house. The real trail length was nearly four miles. These first three are some long … Photos: Wetlands-Scout-Rachel Carson Loop Trail
How Giving Up TV For A Month Changed My Brain And My Life “Never watch more television than the amount of time you exercise.” I am in the clear here, since every day I exercise around 45 minutes. Only some days, I’d only watch a standard-length show with my daughter at night, though nowadays with … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 40
It was the only remaining account I had, besides the one at Goodreads, that was vaguely social or collaborative, that I didn’t really use all that much. I had a few small, personal JavaScript and CSS projects on there that I moved to the UX portfolio page. I don’t code all that much any more … I Am Off GitHub
Well, almost a 15k. This wouldn’t be so bad if I had planned and trained for it; I had originally intended to do a 5k. My wife’s gym organized a casual weekend run at the Westmoreland Heritage Trail. You could do any length of a run, from a 5k (I think shorter than 5k, too) … I Accidentally Ran a 15k
A few photos here of Highland Park, which is less trail-like and woodsy than Harrison Hills, and much more developed and urban park-like. Space is a little tighter. It’s also much more trafficked, mostly because of the generous walking and biking paths on the streets that run through it. A good chunk of park real … Photos: Highland Park
This one was 2.3 miles, with lots of wet spots (duh), elevation changes, and overlapping with other trails. We saw a fox run across the trail near the end, and bear poop (more on that). I don’t know anything about flowers, but this one at the start of the trail was very noticeable. Later on, … Photos: Wetlands Trail Hike
I took my son out on a hike at a local park. Here are some photos. We had an off-path companion for a few moments: This tree had a strange, ugly vine wrapped around it: Pit stop: I really like this one. The sun is in the top center, right in the opening of the … Photos: Spicebush Trail Hike
I like Rupert Sheldrake a lot when he stays in his lane (biology and science), but he’s off when he’s talking about baptism here. There’s no reason to think John the Baptist held people under longer than what was normal for full ritual immersion in the Hebrew tradition. John was a rather popular rabble-rouser, and … Near Death by Baptism
Kickstarter Project: The Cosmic Courtship, by Julian Hawthorne Who knew that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s son was an accomplished writer in his own right, and serialized a science-fiction romance story in a pulp publication, before sci-fi really took off as a genre? Not me, but I backed this fundraiser, because: “Mary Faust, a brilliant scientist, has developed … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 39
I never quite liked intelligent design theory completely. It has interesting points but it rationalized things in a vacuum, as we have no other universe to compare statistical notes, or, if we’re feeling actually scientific: no other universe with which we can experiment, observe, conclude, duplicate the results. The theory also implies that God is … In-Meh-lligent Design
Prescience, from Eugenics and Other Evils. Granted, his time, there was no national health experts the way we have them now. They were more local, within striking distance. The scope was smaller but the observations remain the same. It was best presented perhaps by the distinguished doctor who wrote the article on these matters in … G.K. Chesterton on Health Experts
There are unrelated songs that have been brought to my attention as of late, which are unrelated except for similar experiences when I first listened to them. The first is the title theme of Solstice, the buff wizard 3D-ish puzzle game for the original Nintendo. I played this right when it came out, at 12 … The Call of the Solstice
Saker® Profile Gauge with Lock This looks like an ingenious tool that I will I had thought of. This Is How The Way You Read Impacts Your Memory And Productivity For some reason, we read complex information on physical paper slower than digital mediums, but we retain it better. How Instagram influencers can fake their … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 38
Except for browser cache clearing, whenever I come to a storage clearing experience, the results range from lackluster annoyances to infuriating. There’s always something the UI doesn’t provide either during the actual cleansing process, or worse yet, before storage gets filled up, as a preventative measure. And there’s experiences like this that are so openly … Storage Space Woes
A professional economist (I think?) wrote a NodeJS program (I think?) to demonstrate dislike manipulation on current White House YouTube videos: White House YouTube Dislike Manipulation. I’m not so much pointing this out as an attack on Biden (though I’ll say he is a boring stuffed suit), but as a factoid for psycho-epistemology interests. Whether … YouTube Dislike Manipulation on White House Videos
Mob Psycho 100, Season 1 An unassuming middle-schooler, Shigeo Kageyama, has superpowers that go into overdrive when he’s irritated enough to reach 100%. The anti-shonen shonen series: Mob has no interest in using his powers for world peace, or being the best, or other such lofty nonsensical goals. His greatest struggle is probably running to … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 18
Ingredients 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese 1 oz cream cheese (or 2 tablespoons) 1 cup almond flour 1 egg 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp Italian seasoning 1 tsp garlic powder 1 tsp onion powder Directions 1. Pre-heat oven to 450F. 2. If you don’t have almond flour (I didn’t, when I made this), you … Recipe: Keto-Paleo Almond Flour Pizza
“No, do it like this. Damnit, Susan! You’re a woman! You’re supposed to know how to use these things!” Indulge me in something personal here. I grew up near the Golden Triangle, slightly west of Boston, along the Route 9 corridor in the meaty part of Framingham and Natick. It’s one of the largest shopping … In Memory of Shoppers’ World
Note: this is for those of us with an air fryer, obviously. Ingredients 1/2 lb tail-on large shrimp 1 egg, beaten 1/2 cup shredded coconut 1 tsp garlic powder 1/2 tsp paprika 1/4 tsp onion powder 1/4 tsp salt Directions 1. I used thawed and towel-dried shrimp for this, since it’s easier to coat and … Recipe: Keto-Paleo Coconut Shrimp
Well, it looks like I’m going to have to use “retarded” more often. From dictionary.com’s annual post about what words we’re supposed to not use now. Dumb SEE DEFINITION The word dumb is very old and very common. You’ve likely heard it millions of times as a way of talking about a joke or movie … Words to Use More in 2021
Not that I did a whole lot on there. I had a bunch of videos, the most important of which were albums from bands in my former life, and albums from others that weren’t uploaded there. I’m not a prophet but I can read the writing on the wall (archive): We also work to make … I Am Off YouTube
Especially if they are televised “experts”: Every time there’s a national disaster, a gigantic event, a shooting, a breakthrough, really any news at all, you can rely on television news to find an expert. Some of them know quite a lot about what happened, what will happen, and why. But when it comes to a … No One Knows What Will Happen
Celebrity book clubs and reading lists are hokum. They don’t select or read the books they promote; it’s all contracts between agencies and publishing houses. Similar things can be said about politicians when you see a bookshelf behind them, because it’s true (via Vox Day): Books by the Foot, a service run by the Maryland-based … Politicians Don’t Read Books
Sometimes you simply have to say “yes,” without further explanation, and let people conclude things on their own.
Useless recipe story and unappetizing photo at the bottom. Ingredients 8 bacon strips (thick cut, preferably uncured) 4 1/2 c of fresh broccoli (about 3 heads) 1 c Parmesan or Romano cheese 3 c chicken (around 2.5 lbs) 1 c heavy whipping cream 1 tbsp butter Salt and pepper, and any other spices you’d like … Recipe: Jay’s Paleo-Keto Chicken
I’m not on social media so this is the only channel I have to document silly and slightly gross things like this. I nearly always get this sweat pattern at the gym when I wear gray shirts, and I’d regret not ever doing a sh!tpost about it. It’s hard to see the “horn” on the … Photo: Demon Hunter Logo Sweat
The Secret of NIMH Leading with the best, again! But not just the best of the batch, but the best of all time. Don Bluth’s all-hand-drawn masterpiece about a widowed field mouse, her sick son, and her discovery of super smart rats who figured out how to use (steal) electricity, and their Amulet of Concentrated … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 17
Ideas like “informed consent,” “weighing all the options,” “be yourself,” “never hide what you are,” assume an allowable range of opinions and expressions. Some things are just not permitted, culturally; it’s always been that way, universal to human societies. But through our powers of observation and simple logic, and appreciation of a larger cultural context, … Don’t Think Too Much If You’re British
Paper Mario: The Origami King is the sixth Paper Mario installment. Since the series’ games borrow heavily from role-playing conventions, there’s an logical narrative involved, contrasted with the thin “save the princess” plots of Mario’s side-scroller games. While the story for Origami King is good, even great at some points, there are times when it … How Paper Mario: The Origami King’s Story Could Have Been Better
Interesting experiment, where some guy formed a crater and its rim companion using electricity, water, and silica. Reading up on craters, they seem to be formed by explosions of the impact bodies’ immense kinetic energy on the surface of larger bodies (planets), not the mechanical impact of the body itself. That’s the official explanation, anyway, … Electric Crater Experiment
“‘A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories,’” quoted my sparrow, Jordie, perched on my shoulder, the sound of human language underlaid with her natural staccato chirps. “‘Doorless. Windowless.’” Jordie repeated “windowless” a few moments later, perhaps thinking the intense clamor of birds above us, on the perimeter of the building, drowned out the word. … Story: Cardinal Virtues
1. Removing delineations between the Old and New Testaments. A good reason for the removal of the Old and New Testaments as categories or delineations has two parts. The first is superficial: God’s revelation and dealings with men are neither old nor new, but looking at the writings from a high level, those dealings are … Two Ways Christianity Could Be Better
In addition to references I’ve come across online, I’ve had a few folks independently mention the incoming solar minimum to me. It brought to mind this fascinating series of rambles from Eric Dollard. The first part appears to be filmed by a turtle, while the second half was edited by someone with tachypsychia. Everything before … Solar Minimum, 2020 Edition
From a news roundup article at Anonymous Conservative linked in Vox Day’s “The charade of success”: I always thought it bizarre Erik Prince walked into the CIA, fresh out of the Navy SEALs, heir to a billionaire fortune, as comfortable in a high-society soiree at a five star restaurant as he would be hip deep … The Limits of Ability
Pokémon Detective Pikachu Deadpool, but for kids: Ryan Reynolds is Deadpool and does Pikachu’s voice, and has pretty much the same dynamic, but without the penis jokes and wanting to kill Baby Hitler, etc. Otherwise, a forgettable cast, and there was that one scene near the end where somehow the protagonist went from one of … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 16
Anon The video record (people’s eyes record everything and everyone’s basic personal data is visible) of a spate of murder victims is replaced with the murderer’s point of view, so the investigator protag doesn’t know the culprit’s identity. Investigator-protag coincidentally comes across a woman who does not have any data. Hazard a guess as to … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 15
The Great Myths 9: Hypatia of Alexandria Though the topic interested me, I never bothered with Agora, since Hollywood would never get the history right. I don’t mind that when it’s a film based on history, but Agora was way over the line and took itself too seriously as something accurate. I don’t doubt some … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 37
Currently reading After the Long Goodbye, a Ghost in the Shell book. It’s hardcover with a dust jacket, but on the cover itself, Psalm 139 is printed. Rather bizarre, though the first Ghost in the Shell film had some biblical references in the dialogue. I don’t know how Psalm 139 relates to the story yet, … Photo: Ghost in the Shell Hardcover Bible Verse
White Chamber Closed this one out after twenty minutes or so. I didn’t want to endure a full movie of a half-naked woman trapped in a hi-tech cube. Torture sci-fi is the worst. Coherence A dinner party goes awry when a comet passes by and they start meeting replicas of themselves down the street. So … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 14
One of my sister’s recipes. I could just call this cauliflower salad but it doesn’t sound as fun as “fake potato.” I used an avocado-based mayonnaise. It still has canola oil in it, but not as much as normal. There are better avocado-nnaises out there but they can get awfully expensive. Ingredients 2 lbs of … Recipe: Keto-Paleo Fake Potato Salad
2047: Virtual Revolution It felt like this was trying to be one of those litRPG stories in cinematic form. Or Blade Runner with updated tech. Pass on this. The Colony (2013) Paint by numbers zombie smash and grab, in an arctic-weather apocalypse. Also pass on this. Sunshine I watched this while I was high on … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 13
The story below is a work of fiction. Back to work tomorrow, in eight hours. Last minute preparations. What will it be like; we still have to wear masks. What will it look like, work friends that have been disembodied for the last four months, trying to be social. What’s the protocol for stepping into … Story: Quarantine VII
The 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage was earlier this week, but this isn’t directly related. A grant of suffrage privileges implies a claim ownership places on the grantee, by the state appratus. The state enters into an agreement with the voter that he casts his vote free of coercion or accountability, and in turn the … A Quick Thought About Suffrage
Worlds upon worlds in endless succession rise up from the raw material ooze below, and present themselves for consideration. After a length of time, as though they tire of waiting for a decision, many of them ascend to the ceiling to submerge themselves back into the primal-matter plasma, to be broken down and remolded for … Story: A Creative Process
I don’t play video games as much any more, but besides the occasional campaign I will run through, I’ll also indulge in multiplayer if the kids are around. You don’t need a storyline for a party video game, since the “story” is the interaction you have with the people (meatspace or virtual) you’re playing with. … An Actual Story for a Party Game
I stole this from a horrible recipe blog—again, one with so many ads that it crashed both Chrome and Firefox for me. It was actually a fritter recipe, but I had tried it a few times as such, but they end up being too delicate. You really need gluten to make it bind like they … Recipe: Keto-Paleo Stuffing Rice
5 Reasons Trump Is Right to Save Incandescent Light Bulbs I may like LED bulbs a little more, but they are likely to progress as a technology because of Trump’s revoking the standards. If the lower prices of incandescent bulbs aren’t a factor in competition, there’s no incentive for firms to figure out how to … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 36
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets From the same director who did the mostly excellent The Fifth Element, so the setting is envisioned as a colorful whizz-bang future. Being based on a graphic novel series didn’t hurt, either. This was going pretty good until the trashy Rihanna strip tease scene. A-list celebs cameos … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 12
A part of one of Ed’s recent blog posts, and then one of his comments: Don’t be a sucker for the philosophical arguments to support any part of this conflict. Obey what your convictions demand within the context; don’t listen to any other voice. Christ is a Person, not a body of ideas. He lives … God and Ontology
The first omnibus I ever read was a Christmas present from my wife: the More Than Complete Hitchhiker’s Guide collection—the one pictured at the bottom of the pile up there. I had read the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book when I was in high school, but none of the sequels. This factoid is important … On the Perils of Reading an Omnibus
John Carter Very ambitious offering of a story based on the excellent Barsoom book series from Edgar Rice Burroughs. The worldbuilding was nicely executed but the plot wasn’t anything unusual, but I have to give Disney credit (ew) where it’s due for making it what it was: a strange, action-filled pulp adventure. Hitchiker’s Guide to … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 11
The final boss(es) from my favorite game. I had trouble finding a decent-sized version of both the three-tier statue and Kefka, so I cobbled this together from three different images: the statues, the sun and sky background, and the crazed Kefka himself. The images are from the iOS version of the game, so the pixels … Image: Final Fantasy VI Statue of the Gods and Kefka
Investigation finds doping cover-ups in weightlifting If you found some doping and cover-ups going on, that means there’s a ton of it that is still being covered up. It’s probably everywhere at the professional level, but it’s only investigate if someone with a lot of money makes someone else with a lot of money angry. … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 35
The setting doesn’t have to be medieval period, but shouldn’t be technologically advanced. There is a mostly undetectable Functional Magic source that we’ll call tellura, since it comes from all around the earth. A rare number of people, called tellurics, are born with the ability to sense tellura more fully, and utilize it. Think of … Someone Steal This Video Game Idea: High Fantasy Open World Magic Puzzler
We had adjustable desks at the office, and I would stand most of the time. The last few months of working from home has me sitting way too much, and I could tell it started to affect thing snow that I was back at the gym. So I thought making a standing desk would be … Photos: I Made a Standing Table
If you’re a working stiff like me, you will have seen a printout of the moral alignment chart tacked up in the break room somewhere, assuming your co-workers have a base level of humor. The printouts feature characters from a fictional universe (I refuse to use the word “fandom”) and the characters’ perceived alignment. If … What Is God’s Moral Alignment?
My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising MHA has great animation values in the first place, but this movie added to it with some richer scenery and fight dynamics. You know something’s going to happen when a group of superheroes in training are away from their mentors on a remote island, with a “what could go wrong?” … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 10