Category Archives: Popular Culture

Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture

Hail Hillary!

7 Comments

Get ready for the disgusting biopics:

What did surprise me was that the series will cover none of her life before the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which took place five years into her husband’s second term as president and when Hillary was already 51 years old. It’s as if her first half-century will be airbrushed away, along with the many scandals that dogged her in those decades.

Oh, John, didn’t you hear? That’s old news.

And Hillary Clinton is no Diane Lane.

As Glenn says, maybe we should take a page from the Left’s playbook, and do a sponsor boycott.

[Update a while later]

Suggestions for the mini-series title.

Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Space, Technology and Society

Extrasolar Space Law

9 Comments

Transterrestrial reader (and occasional commenter) Laura Montgomery has what appears to be an interesting new SF book out on Kindle.

She writes:

I noticed that you’ve mentioned an independent author from time to time at Transterrestrial, and thought I’d let you know about my own attempts along those lines. I’ve published on Kindle and other ereaders The Sky Suspended.

It’s bourgeois, legal science fiction with a hearty helping of space policy wonkery.

The short version of the blurb is:

A generation has passed since asteroid scares led the United States to launch its first and only interstellar starship. The ship returns and announces the discovery of another Earth. People are star-struck, crowds form in Washington, DC, and a boy from Alaska and two lawyers grapple with issues surrounding the question of whether ordinary people will be able to emigrate to the stars.

I haven’t read it, but the few reviews are positive. You might want to check it out and add your own.

Education, Media Criticism, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Hyphens

10 Comments

Is the Internet killing them? This is the problem:

“People are not confident about using hyphens anymore, they’re not really sure what they are for,” Shorter OED editor Angus Stevenson told Reuters at the time.

It’s part of the continuing breakdown of the educational system. Hyphens are important, primarily for disambiguation of modifiers. There is a difference between a light brown suitcase and a light-brown suitcase. The former is a brown suitcase that doesn’t weigh much, and the latter is a suitcase (of unknown weight) that is light brown. It’s that simple.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Stand-Your-Ground Laws

2 Comments

As Glenn says, Hollywood dumbasses.

In addition to his points, a) there’s nothing wrong with stand-your-ground laws and b) the Zimmerman case had nothing to do with stand your ground.

These morons just can’t stand the notion that people should be able to defend themselves.

[Update a few minuts later]

Hey, remember when Barack Obama supported stand-your-ground laws? Well, neither does he. To repeat: dumbasses.

[Update a while later]

OK, you’ll be as unsurprised as I am to learn that John McCain has decided to become one of the dumbasses.

Administrative, Popular Culture, Technology and Society

Light And Scattered Posting

5 Comments

I have a niece and nephew visiting from Michigan. We went out whale watching today from Dana Point (saw at least two blue whales and a mother and calf fin whale, and hundreds of common long-nose dolphin). Then Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Tomorrow, it’s California Adventure in Anaheim (where I’ve never been).

[Tuesday-morning update]

It was a long day, but we had a good time. Advice in the comments about getting there early for the Cars Racers is right — they were sold out of Fast Pass, and the wait was in the two-hour range for the bulk of the day. But we saw everything else (that we wanted to Bugs — the insects, not the Bunny, which is a different cartoon franchise– World was worth a miss unless you had little kids), and toward the end of the day, we went in the singles line, and only waited twenty-five minutes. Since the car seating is three and three, it’s not that big a deal to split up the party anyway, and it actually gave the kids an opportunity to race each other instead of being in the same car.

My overall verdict: like an alternate-universe Disneyland, with more California flavor (the restaurant we ate at had vineyards leading up to it), and with more modern, as opposed to classic characters. Disneyland has Cinderella’s Castle, CA has the Mermaid. Disneyland has Thunder Mountain, CA has Grizzly Rapids. Disneyland has Frontierland and Tom Sawyer’s Island, CA has the Redwood hiking/rope trail. I’m not a roller coaster connoisseur, but California Screamin’ seemed to pull some good gees, particularly backward at the launch. And I have to say that the World of Color light/water/flaming-gas-jets show was pretty spectacular. I was impressed by the power of the pumps that could generate eighty feet of head, and the precision and control over the valves. I’d never seen lasers painting on mist before. No one, including Disney, could have done this twenty years ago, I think, without modern computer technology. And we got a bonus of watching the early fireworks display across the way at Disneyland. So definitely worth a do once.

Media Criticism, Popular Culture, Science And Society, Space

Superman

14 Comments

Could he punch someone into space?

My answer is no, without even reading the link. I think that he could throw someone there (though they’d get cooked from the air friction on the way up), and they’d come back down unless they had escape velocity when they got to the top of the atmosphere, because there wouldn’t be an orbital insertion impulse. But if he punched them hard enough to do so, his fist would probably just take their head off. If he did it through their solar plexus, it would probably just go right through. People don’t consider the structural issues associated with superheroes and normal-human interactions with them.

Now Ralph Kramden, on the other hand… But then, he never carried out the threat.