Category Archives: Popular Culture

Popular Culture, Space

Because I Didn’t Have Time

27 Comments

Clark Lindsey has done us all the favor of reviewing The Space Review today. Like him, I was struck by Tayylor Dinerman’s completely ignoring ULA in his discussion of the “burgeoning” commercial space industry. But even more, I agree that Dwayne Day’s broad conclusion about public interest in space and space settlement from a single stupid network program is absurd:

The paradigm that near-term space can only involve a small number of people in a small habitat doing technical and scientific tasks does not lend itself to great story telling. Conflicts are required for compelling stories and lots of different types of conflicts are needed to generate enough stories for a compelling TV series. I think the “nearest” near future space scenario that could generate an interesting diversity of plots with a diversity of characters would involve a couple of thousand people populating multiple LEO space stations and habitats at a Lagrange point and bases on the Moon. Commercial, government, and international activities of various kinds would inevitably lead to all sorts of conflicts.

Let’s ignore the fact that most television shows (and particularly Big (though becoming smaller) Three Network television programs) fail, often epically. Big media, like (apparently) Dwayne, remain stuck in the Apollo paradigm of space being about a few civil servants doing science and exploration, at great government expense. Here’s an idea. Try a show about real space pioneers and see how popular it is. IIRC, “Lost In Space” actually did pretty well back in the sixties, or at least a lot better than the schlock that Dwayne reviewed. It’s not the sixties any more, but let’s give it a try anyway. It’s not like LIS was based on the NASA paradigm, so that wouldn’t explain its sixties success, right?

Popular Culture

Your Own Personal BCS Computer

3 Comments

A non-humorous post from (Hawkeye fan) Iowahawk, heavy on the numbers.

Tomorrow is pretty much do or die for Michigan. Considering that they still have to play Ohio State and Wisconsin, Purdue is probably their best if not only chance to win that sixth game and get bowl eligible. The season that started out so promising, with a 4-0 record, has fallen apart, their having won only one game since that start. They simply have no defense, to first order, and the games they’ve won against serious opponents have only happened because they managed to get more points on the board. In addition, their turnover percentage has been horrendous. They came close to pulling it out against both Michigan State and Iowa, but the last two games, against Penn State and Illinois, turned into blowouts. They can beat Purdue tomorrow, but only with a little help from the Boilermakers. Fortunately for the Wolverines, Purdue’s performance last week offers hope that they’ll give them a lot. It could be a very ugly game from both teams.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture

Ah, Hollywood

29 Comments

Bad news from Lileks:

Over the fire I chatted with a neighbor who’s working on the “Red Dawn” remake. Get this: in the new version, China and Russia invade the US – to put a stop to our greed. There are times you wish you had a mouthful of kerosene so you could do a flaming spit take. If this is how the film turns out, it’ll be hilarious; it’s as if the filmmakers were a bit ambivalent about all the horrible jingoism that such a film might unleash, so they had to temper it with a bit of theoretical altruism that could be true, you know, in a sense. I almost expect the Russians and Chinese to invade to enforce Copenhagen protocols, and the brave Americans fight back for a modified rollout of carbon emission standards that will allow domestic industry to perfect the new HydroWind Energy System, which the Chinese don’t want because they just signed a UN agreement to respect patents of other countries.

Jeebus weeps.

[Afternoon update]

I have a confession to make. Despite accusations by leftist trolls in the past that I’ve worn out the video from watching it so much, I’ve never actually seen Red Dawn.

Humor, Popular Culture

The Saga Continues

1 Comment

Lileks finishes out Frankenstein movie review week in grand style:

This one has Boris Karloff, but he doesn’t play the Monster; he’s a Mad Scientist who’s escaped from jail with his assistant, who naturally has a hunchback. It was the law in those days. (If you weren’t Mad, but merely Peeved or perhaps an Irritable Scientist, you could get someone who stood erect but tended to slouch.)

Enjoy.

Humor, Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Weird

Equal Rights For Illegal Aliens

4 Comments

What we have here is an interplanetary travesty of justice:

…if the plaintiff is not a person in that he is neither a human being nor a corporation, he cannot be a plaintiff as contemplated by the Rules of Civil Procedure. The entire basis of Mr. Joly’s actions is that he is a martian, not a human being. There is certainly no suggestion that he is a corporation. I conclude therefore, that Mr. Joly, on his pleading as drafted, has no status before the Court.

Careful, you’re going to make him very very angry indeed.

Popular Culture, Technology and Society

Thoughts On Improving Baseball

23 Comments

This one is a good idea, but the technology is wrong:

Balls and strikes should be determined by lasers (only those we can spare from volcano-lancing, of course). There’s no excuse for allowing the imprecision of a home-plate umpire in the 21st century.

It’s not just imprecision — it’s subjectivity. But I’m not sure how lasers would work. The strike zone varies from batter to batter (e.g., different knee and shoulder heights, and stance). I think it would be better to put in miniaturized GPS-type transponders in the balls, shoulders and knees of the uniform, and have a computer determine whether it was a ball or strike. The one in the ball would obviously have to be capable of enduring high impact… You could get adequate precision if you put a lot of transmitters in the stadium. It would also be used for ruling fouls, homers, whether the throw beat the slide, etc. It would be nice to get fallible humans out of the loop as much as possible.

The same would apply to football. Put one in each end of the ball, and an array on the players’ uniforms. There would no longer be much dispute as to where to spot, whether or not it is a first down, whether it broke the plane of the end zone, etc.