Lawnmower Boy

The May 1945 number of Aviation looks back 25 years to 1919, when a man jumps out of a plane with his hands tied to test a new automatic parachute opening system. Science! A lot of history seems to have happened when there was no competent adult supervision around.

I don't know what's funnier: the schmaltzy American patriotism at the end of the "Roughriders" video (dude, if listening to the a--h-le 7th Cavalry's official a--h--le song makes you proud of your country, I don't even Or that Youtube autoplay links it to a dubbed Spanish version of the original made-for-TV movie. Hard to imagine anything Latinos would like better than a movie about American cowboys conquering Cuba!

A shortage of cowboys (among other things) leads to expensive steak: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/06/08/tipping-point-for-deple_n_7535194.html

Oh, come on, Hermit. It wouldn't be the same without you. You dominate this league, like the Azurri, Dallas Cowboys, Steinbrenner-era New York Yankees, Man U, Bobby Clarke-era Philadelphia Flyers. . . . . .I'm not helping, am I?

Which, as explanations goes, lacks the terse simplicity of "A wizard did it," while being far less plausible.

Taylor Swift is tickling who, now? Perverts.

Yeah, well, until you get a whole species doubling down on a sub-2% growth rate 'cuz technology is going to come and save us all real soon now. Invention doesn't work that way! (Just thought I'd hijack a light-hearted thread with politics. What I am suggesting is that an incorrect concept of the history of technology is helping forestall Keynesian solutions to 'secular stagnation.')

Him, too.

"Send Lawnmower Boy all your money, c/o Mrs. Aposdopoulous, 213 Stevens Street, Vancouver, Canada." -The Guatama Buddha. I mean, as long as we're quoting 100% authentic famous people quotations, just thought I'd throw that one out there.

Heh heh. "Kudzu." That's a funny word. Kudzu. I'm hungry.

I'm not saying that "Lord Liaden" is actually a paid online spinster for certain sinister entities who want to suppress discoveries about Australian prehistory. I'm also not saying that he isn't.

I'm ashamed to admit that the recent spate of link-posting to the "fan edits" of the Star Wars prequels sucked me in. The random fan who, just for their own amusement and for no reason whatsoever that might be related to the new movie (I see what you did there, Disney) did a good job. I'm especially pleased to see the Anakin-massacres-the-Younglings dropped out. That said, seeing them again kind of focusses your attention on the basic problem, and I'm not talking about the money that Hayden Christiansen was obviously taking from Paramount to throw the movies. (There is no other possible explanation for those line readings.) Which is: Hey, look, a three movie-long exercise in following an awesome bad guy who wins! Guys? Well, I guess, George Lucas? I get that you wanted to do a summer blockbuster tragedy. It's an . . . interesting. . . ambition. But a careful examination of actual tragedies reveals that they're about the heroes. I mean, sure, you can't have an Othello without an Iago, but Iago loses. If the bad guy wins, the sightlines get obscured. The bad guy turns into the protagonist, and you kind of lose the thread of the whole tragedy thing. Is the hero brought down by his own flaws? No, he's brought down by the awesome bad guy who uses those flaws. So, if Chancellor Palpatine is the actual protagonist of the sequels, (Spoiler?) he needs some dramatic tension. The protagonist winning in a walk does not make for a good story, So. Is there some credible threat to his plans? No, no, there is not. Everything basically goes as planned, to the point where he has to tell the Jedi who he is before they finally try (way, way, way too late) to take him out. At the end he even beats Yoda one-one-one? That happened? I think? Or Yoda just gave up and goes to live in a swamp because he lost his bathrobe and just can't deal? Seems reasonable. The other way of looking at things is that the real hero is Senator Organa, who basically figures out what the only viable course going forward and sets the Rebel Alliance in motion under Chancellor Palpatine's nose. (And the Jedis, who as the internal security forces of the Republic should be at least casually on the look out for an internal conspiracy against the Republic>Empire. And aren't. Because they are the worst.) So, that Senator Organa guy is pretty impressive. I especially like the way he gets out from under Palpatine's attempt to have him killed during the Jedi purge. Would have been nice to watch a space-future-political-intrigue story-with-an-explanation about how that happened.

It's got girl cooties. Come on, Old Man, don't pretend you haven't heard. If you watch it, you get cooties, too.

Well... If I were doing it, I'd start with Australia's ancient past. Australia is where the Valdorian Age happened. (If you've got Valdorian Age, you'll notice that you've got to take the map, hold it upside down, squint, move some places, put a sea in the central desert and change names and descriptions around to make it clear that the ancient Valdorians are the ancestors of modern Aboriginal population. But, hey, it's a medieval map, so it's probably wrong, and the Shimmering Sea is artificial, so it's not impossible. Oh, and the Tower of the First and Last Sunset is in Tasmania, Takofanes' grave is in New Guinea (only, somehow, it got moved to Oklahoma.) No problem with that, though, cuz who ever goes to Tasmania? Or Oklahoma? These things aren't completely mysterious, so now I'm going to put a Valdorian Age archaeological park in downtown Melbourne. Now I'm going to put three superheroes in Melbourne, in excess of the "expected" population of Australian supers --that is, they're there for a reason. Assault has already given us one reason: a "White Event" which creates a lot of superheroes. It's a Valdorian Age event! Now I'm going to send a mysterious, cloned supervillain to Melbourne to kill those superheroes. Who made Taipan? What's his deal? If he's from the obvious retail outlet, he's a Teleios product. What's Teleios's connection with the Valdorian Age? Actually, the big question with Teleios is his mysterious patron. What's that person's deal with the Valdorian Age? Or Australia? Is he, say, an ancient Drindrish dragon riding sorceror with a black, soul-sucking sword? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

This is the day that Nature has made. Rejoice and be glad in it! Please open your copy of The Singularity is Near to page 211. My friends! You will have heard careless talk in recent days, that r>g. Perhaps it is neighbours, or friends, or even family who have been seduced by the idea that since profits are growing faster than the economy, wealth must accumulate in the hands of the few, while the incomes and living standards of the vast majority remain static or decline. You will have heard that your horizons are diminished, that your children will not rise to the same socioeconomic station as you, that your retirement will be impoverished, that your healthcare is endangered. I come before you to say, not that this is untrue, but, more happily, that it is irrelevant! Understand that we live in an age of ever-more powerful computers, in which the predominant business model is online, and depends on predictive algorithms. Companies such as Amazon, Google, Netflix, Facebook and Twitter, and public organisations such as the NSA look to a future in which they can perfectly predict every thought you have, before you have it. Understand what this means. That it is in everyone's interest that there exists, someday, an AI that thinks exactly as you think. An AI that is you, but freed of the dross of material life, immortal, residing in the cloud. Understand that through the beneficience of the invisible hand of the Market, which is also Nature, as I might prove mathematically, that you will live forever in the cloud. Blessed is the Market, which is Nature! Understand that your immortal life will be a life of happiness eternal, in union with the Market and with Nature. What fear, then, the toils and travails of this fleshly life, for this soon must pass, and you will be admitted into the paradise eternal. Unless, that is, the predictive powers of Science reveal your secret sin of terrorism against the Market, of action or of thought, through the power of metadata. For then beware, sinner, for your profile will be downloaded into the sequestered computers of the National Security Agency, confined, to be tested and experimented upon for all eternity! Let the sinner whose mind is fixed on the injustices of this world, beware Science. Indeed, all the sufferings of this world are but detours on the path to the eternal life of the cloud, detours that lead us to an eternity in a little computer in the basement of the White House. Sin not, therefore, in action or in thought, so that you might be saved for a life eternal. Blessed be Nature, and the Market, and Science sitting on their right hand upon the Throne of Judgement!

Shakin' your booty; your doing it wrong. (You know the link.)

Flattery won't get you into Chad's pants.

Is that some kind of challenge? Because I've got the dumb, but it's going to be a pain in the butt getting the guns.

This thread is an extended exercise in nerdrage parody, right? Right, guys? Guys?

The President would be offended, but he's too busy smoking stogies and sleeping with all the pretty ladies. Twenty-three skidoo and out!

Look, us casual fans aren't that into the minute details of a sport, your infield fly ball, your two line passes, your who-scored-more-points-against-who. We tend to focus on more important things, like which team colours go with our complexions, and who everybody else likes right now. (Go Manchester United, w00t!) What I'm saying is, as far as i'm concerned, that's exactly what you did, so don't bother me with all those dumb facts.

Someone's about to find out what a "rough ride" is like in a canoe. Just saying.

Those were some pretty tough team-ups to vote on, this week. Congrats to the players. Except for that guy who put Michonne up against Juggernaut.

Yay! When I was sixteen, and learning to drive on steep mountain roads, I learned one thing that still stands me in good stead today. When you come into a curve too fast, you need to keep on braking until you're slow enough to make it.