Friday Ephemera

Convenient. // Three’s a crowd. // Breakdancing trio. // Fantastic foursome. // Ragnarok. Or, Marvel goes Flash Gordon. // The glorious outdoors. (h/t, Ben) // This. (h/t, Julia) // That. (h/t, Obo) // Big cat, scary noise. // “NASA says no humans have ever had sex in space.” // Parenting done well. I do like number one. // Labour of love, or maybe just doing things the hard way. // $6000 “luxury performance” smartphone boasts ruby buttons, on-call round-the-clock concierge, dated software. // Always double-knot, I say. // Warning: disco. // Sshh. I hear something. // Archery made simple. // A brief history of the cardboard box. // Clunk, click. // If they learn to make fire, we’re totally screwed. // And finally, heartwarmingly, dads and daughters: the eternal struggle.

Comments

[Daniel Ream]

Marvel goes Flash Gordon.

More accurately, "Marvel realizes they forgot to put the fun in the last few superhero movies and figures that doubling down on the Guardians of the Galaxy motifs will make bank again".

[Joan]

Breakdancing trio.

*applauds*

[Hal]

Three’s a crowd.

This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.

Elementary Googlemancy; dog squirrel cat

[David]

Thanks, Hal. Link fixed.

Also via Obo, this.

[Hal]

Nonstop laughter, as long as you keep tickling.

[David]

More accurately,

Well, arguably. Civil War was a little downbeat for my taste, but Doctor Strange was fun, albeit not quite strange enough.

[David]

as long as you keep tickling.

I think she’s violating that deformed robot burn victim.

[Hal]

Also via Obo, this.

Now do that with a parachute.

[Hal]

Warning: disco.

Meanwhile, in Rome.

[[+]]

dads and daughters: the eternal struggle.

Tormenting teenagers 101.

[Jonathan]

Ragnarok. Or, Marvel goes Flash Gordon.

Will the new Thor movie be good or bad?

[Ray]

I'm pretty much over the Avengers, and the dickishness of Tony Stark is a good part of that. Also I wouldn't be at all surprised if Immigrant Song is not actually in the movie.

Amazing how quickly we went from "Warning: disco" to "behave yourself; the mutaween are watching."

[JuliaM]

I've heard a cheetah make that chirping noise, but never a cougar!

[Jonathan]

Topically: The Worlds Largest Easter Egg

[Jonathan]

That. (h/t, Obo)

Poor Pat could've avoided it if only he'd been to this school:

[David]

Will the new Thor movie be good or bad?

I am rather swayed by Cate Blanchett’s impressive headgear.

Oh, come on. That’s a fighting hat and a half.

[ftumch]

Five star review of note:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dryer-White-Noise-Sounds-Sleep-x/dp/B01LZER201/ref=sr_1_1?s=instant-video&ie=UTF8&qid=1492166242&sr=1-1&keywords=hairdryer

[Sam]

Convenient.

Even Star Trek didn't have one of those.

[ftumch]

Via A K Haart, William Briggs:

https://stream.org/march-science-descending-farce/

Last thing the March for Science needs, say some agitated folks, is Bill Nye the “Science Guy” co-leading the parade. Why?

Their complaint is not that he’s an error–prone non-scientist, though that’s true. See, Nye is white. And a man. And some organizers are concerned that onlookers will notice Nye is white, and a man, and project his male-whiteness onto science itself. That in turn will cause the gullible to figure science is mostly done by white men.

[PiperPaul]

Easter Bunny origin

[David]

Tormenting teenagers 101.

From what I can make out, almost any adult interaction is embarrassing to adolescent girls, and their male counterparts, so I suppose it’s hard to resist a bit of tormenting.

[Trevor]

Warning: disco.

Who would have paid to get into Studio 54 when this was availale for free in Birmingham?

[WTP]

Colorblind Gator sees Orange and Blue for the first time.

[David]

Who would have paid to get into Studio 54 when this was available for free in Birmingham?

“It’s an adventure to shop in this city… Yes my kind of town.”

I fear Mr Savalas may have been flattering the locals.

[PiperPaul]

Jalopnik has been infested.

[David]

Jalopnik has been infested.

It’s as if these sour little clowns have never actually experienced a human relationship and can only comprehend them in simple diagram form.

[WTP]

When I worked at Kennedy Space Center back in the mid-late 80's late one night we operations people back in the control room were perusing a book left behind by staff who worked with people who did checkouts of the pilot and mission commander positions on the space shuttle. This being the ancient days of the 20th century, the book contained pictures of those positions, the switches and lights and various other controls. This was fascinating as we had heard things discussed over the network but actually seeing pictures of the switches and such was pretty cool. Anyway, under the pilot position there was a pedal or two (this was long ago but I'm guessing it was manual fly-by-wire override to control the wing flaps and such). One of the young women that was looking at this asked what it might be. We told her it was the clutch. She actually bought it for a while.

[David]

I detect symbolism.

[Jonathan]

I am rather swayed by Cate Blanchett’s impressive headgear.

I foresee problems with doorways, or , indeed, wearing a hat. They obviously didn't think it through.

[David]

I foresee problems with doorways,

Given the levels of fabulousness, I suspect the doorway would be the first to give.

[Jonathan]

I detect symbolism.

She's jealous that Thor was in Neighbours and she wasn't. I'm right aren't I?

[Sort-of-Mad Max]

Scene at the local drive-thru:

"I'll have two cheeseburgers, and a chunk of grub-infested wood for my new friend, here."

http://www.weaselzippers.us/334201-overnight-open-thread-an-inquisitive-woodpecker-visits-chicago/

[dicentra]

I'm far more impressed by the swallows that have learned to open doors, using the motion sensor: http://sploid.gizmodo.com/these-smart-birds-learned-to-open-automatic-doors-mid-f-1581596550

Look ma! No hands OR mouth!

[Joan]

Scene at the local drive-thru:

I want one.

[Jonathan]

I watched this documentary last night and found it genuinely inspiring. It's available on iPlayer, UK only, but very much worth seeing. (Also on Youtube here, at least for the moment.)

[David]

Something something Jedi.

[Daniel Ream]

Civil War was a little downbeat for my taste

All of their franchises (Iron Man, Thor, Avengers, Captain America) have been getting grimmer as they go on, and it's pretty obvious they've seen how audiences reacted to Deadpool and Guardians of the Galaxy.

I detect symbolism.

I hope not. Emasculating Thor - literally - is one of the missteps the comics made that Marvel is backpedaling furiously from.

[Microbillionaire]

Could someone more closely following the Marvel continuity confirm or deny the allegations I hear that the Mighty Thor has been subject to "jobbing" - repeatedly losing to build up the rep of villains of the week?

[Steve]

Another view on graphics: http://thezman.com/wordpress/

[Chester Draws]

Another view on graphics

Or it could just be that buying picture books, like buying print newspapers, has been overtaken by technological progress. No need to invite "credit money" theories.

There's loads of people making money selling comics today. They are on-line, and mostly they don't work for corporations.

[Daniel Ream]

Yes, there's a lot of unnecessary blather there; superhero comics are an R&D expense producing ideas for the eventual profit-making TV, movie, or merchandise lines. The larger entertainment holding companies don't care that they're not profitable.

This, however:

it does suggest that the appearance of SJW’s is a late-phase phenomenon. It only happens when the end is near for the business, industry or movement.

is absolutely true in my (admittedly limited) personal experience. SJWs have not in and of themselves destroyed superhero comics, tabletop RPGs and AAA video games; they moved in on niche hobbies that were already in decline.

[R. Sherman]

Archery made simple.

Or, "Crécy Explained."

[WTP]

Archery made simple.

You see, that's precisely the problem with women. Making things so unnecessarily complicated.

[JuliaM]

"Oh, come on. That’s a fighting hat and a half."

Can't help wondering what the Boone & Crockett score would be...

[MC]

Re: Thor etc... Chris Hemsworth can deliver humour better than anyone in the creative black hole that is the Marvel Bullshit Universe. And Goth Cate Blanchett in kinky spank leather/pvc, oh yes!

However I think I will continue my superhero nonsense boycott, having been disappointed so often in the past. I don't even have high expectations any more but they* can't even deliver average entertainment with all the stars and money in the world.

* all of them; any of them - Marvel, DC whoever

[Fruitbat44]

Fingers crossed 'Thor: Ragnarok' is fun, but the lady archer; WOW! I can't help feeling they ought to include a part for her in the movie.

[Ten]

I think I will continue my superhero nonsense boycott, having been disappointed so often in the past. I don't even have high expectations any more but they* can't even deliver average entertainment with all the stars and money in the world.

Ditto Star Wars, aka style over substance whatever-it-is because it's not really scifi anymore. And Star Trek? Come on.

Incidentally, whatever happened to scifi when all the films in the genre are worse than moderately engaging serial TV of the type? I'd rather watch Expanse than two hours of sound effects in space on a big screen and it's not that good.

Sucks that nobody ever wrote some screenplays for Niven's universe - there's twenty films in his stuff whose tone would be roughly a mash up of Firefly and Guardians. All the more so when Clarke's stuff somehow made it onto film with half the arc of, say, Contact.

Anyway, comic book films had to eventually suck while the greatest potential backdrop for story-telling has been left fallow pretty much forever. You could cut the average Trek Wars budget by two thirds and easily tell an infinitely better story then any one of them. Instead we get Passengers or whatever it was.

I mean, have no producers seen Cast Away and thought distant planet?

[Ten]

Rereading the thread, maybe the answer to my question is tee shirt concessions.

So no Nivenesque films. As you were.

Sucks, because you could extract all the scope and tech from, for example, Ringworld on the one hand, and join it to as serious a distillation of a human story per Luis Wu and a Teela Brown character as can reasonably be written, ditch all the filler, lay some right proper CGI on top of real physics and genuine scale, and have a compelling film. And that's one author and one segment of one universe.

But it's really all about the tee shirts, as it turns out.

[Hal]

Easter eggs, Stay woke, Oops.

[Jonathan]

So no Nivenesque films. As you were.

I'd love to see it done, but I can't imagine any studios would be interested, they are pretty hard SF stories after all. Plus, even though Larry Niven was reasonably progressive for his day, that just means he's a Nazi in 2017.

[Ten]

Niven was tame enough, but for cringe-level progressive humanistic angst we had ST: TNG. And I'm sure others.

Known Space was touted as hard SF but seemed more like hard space opera with some physics. (Those physics alone would reform scads of dumb SF film tropes and conventions. And really should.)

Niven's real art was the sheer scale of the thing. Protector's timelines, Ringworld's size (and creator class), the Puppeteer rosette.

But while he wasn't writing great drama, great drama could be condensed out of plenty of his stories. We'd have the real scifi plus a strong, escapist plot suitable for 150 minutes of engagement, both more intriguing than the fare today.

Your point holds, however. Such relative subtlety would be in a whole 'nother universe than, for another example, the disaster that was the last Star Trek. (I hope it puts the series out of its misery.

Roddenberry's social OCD ended up in a Mike Bay-level orgy of headachy CGI.)

[Ben]

I mean, have no producers seen Cast Away and thought distant planet?

Ah-hem

(TBF, it took someone writing an excellent book first)

[Ten]

The Martian was too Hollywoodized. Really bad science too. But yeah, like that but epic, and with the big emotional/awe kick a solo Damon act just cannot do. Polar opposites.

IMHO, Cast Away was a perfect film where it mattered. Why space flicks can't even consider that, much less approach it, mystifies me.

[Jonathan]

How to screw up someones childhood memories:

[David]

I trust everyone is having an agreeable Easter holiday.

What?

[Spiny Norman]

Who thought a wererabbit costume would be "cute"? {o_O}

I think Walt Disney knew what he was doing in making his animal characters hyper-juvenile.

[Hal]

I trust everyone is having an agreeable Easter holiday.

[WTP]

But of course...

Stephens, who works a mental health care manager, also wrote that he 'messed up' in postings on social media, and blamed the shooting on a woman, believed to be his ex-partner.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4416996/Cops-hunt-man-shot-killed-man-Facebook-Live.html#ixzz4eVFO3Vj6

[Microbillionaire]

Dare we hope for a post on the Battle of Berkeley?

My vague first impression is that it's looking like escalation towards another iteration of Weimar Germany.

No, not Hitler, not Nazis, those are lazy comparisons that I strive to avoid, but Weimar really does seem to have a resonance. Street violence in the Weimar Republic was so widespread that the centrists there eventually got a paramilitary wing, the Iron Front. (Symbol: three downward-pointing arrows in a circle, sometimes labeled "anti-fascist, anti-socialist, anti-monarchist" or similar parole.)

[Ten]

Theme for a serious space film.

[Hal]

Dare we hope for a post on the Battle of Berkeley?

My vague first impression is that it's looking like escalation towards another iteration of Weimar Germany.

Nah.

Saturday there were a bunch of marches or rallies or such all over, and all that happened was that everyone quite merely went home afterwards.

Berkeley has merely been getting the Jets and the Sharks demanding a rumble, so all the reporters and other camera wielders have been showing up to record the dance-off . . . and having entirely about as much an impact as any other form of random dinner theatre.