Everything is better with lightsabers

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Morning laugh

I found this in my bookmarks. It was shown at a conference I attended in Boston in late 2007 as an example of how international signage can be funny:

One-legged woman petting a duck that pooped

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Daft Punk – Technologic

Hutch! make embedded media work!

Took me an hour to post a ten minute dealy and it will not work.

embedding youtube is supposed to be elementary!

(if the video doesn’t show, Hutch must fix it)

Talk about nightmare fuel!!!

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Goodbye Trillian

I’ve used Trillian for years. It allows me to sign in to AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo, MSN and ICQ. If you have multiple instant messaging systems, it’s better to run one piece of software instead of many of them simultaneously.

Now I’ve discovered Pidgin. Pidgin does those four…and many more, including MySpace IM. (However, I don’t know a single person who USES MySpaceIM.)

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Those Three Kings of America Are….

Military historian Victor Davis Hanson was watching Three Kings (starring George Clooney) recently.

Three Kings, by my reckoning was made in the nineties, but more relevantly the movie was made before the 9/11 terrorist attacks and reflects a different ethos that popular culture had towards Iraq and our country’s prior invasion and occupation. Nowadays the idea is that we did too much by deposing Saddam Hussein from power. President George Walker Bush, Bush 43, is wrong.  Three Kings presents everything as if President George Herbert Walker Bush, Bush 41, was/is wrong.

The idea is clearly presented that we did too little by leaving Saddam Hussein in power.The only common denominator between not doing enough in Three Kings and doing too much in Redacted, Syriana, Rendition, etc. …seems to have been that whatever the U.S. did was always wrong — whether too little or too much.

I think it is a fair question whether Dr. Hanson is onto something or not.

The better question I want to ask is whether Three Kings was persuasive.

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Bud Day the movie??

The Truth Product does a very rough overview of John McCain’s time in, around, and for the Vietnam conflict. My favorite part is the encounter of Bud Day.

McCain shared a cell with Medal of Honor winner Col. Bud Day, a man who escaped the Viet Cong with a sprang knee, lived in the jungle on berries and uncooked frogs, swam across a river with an arm that was broken in three places and was captured AGAIN by the Viet Cong… where he met none other than John McCain (why is this not a movie?)

Indeed why is it not a movie? It sounds like a very epic story to me, however dark and even sad at times. Very few see the life and experiences of prisoners of war as adventures, let alone really exciting stories. I am among those. With very few exceptions I find the accounts depressing rather than greatly entertaining.

If John McCain was not a Presidential candidate, and at this point a politician among politicians, his young life as a soldier and hero is a good story.

MInd you, Bud Day’s is more exciting.

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warping space for travel may be possible

Warp drive in Star Trek essentially works by harnessing massive amounts of energy through matter/anti-matter reactions regulated by Dilithium crystals and using that energy to create a “warp bubble” around the starship allowing the vessel’s mass to remain constant or even decrease instead of decrease allowing the ship to travel as superluminal speeds without the accompanying increase of mass which is what makes faster-than-light travel prohibitive in the real world. Obviously in the fiction that is not all there is to it, but I figured awhile ago that said “Warp Drive” did not involve literally warping space. The result, of course, is the same however you define the technobabble, treknobabble, or describe it at all: the Starship Enterprise manages to travel from one Adventure Planet to another.

In some stories space battles are even viable events between the relatively static settings.

In real life a deliberate purposeful control of an object’s physical mass is a less viable option. As far as I know, and I am not a scientist, it is impossible.

Scientists actually declare that “Star Trek warp drive” is a possibility, according to the UK Telegaph. By which those scientists mean that the effects are the same. They obviously do not mean that their warp bubble is an element or tool for mass-shifting effects and there is no method with the prerequisite of synthesizing or discovering anti-matter elements in substantially massive quantities. This is fortunate. Fortunately the idea of warp drive involves literally warping space, and relying upon past scientific discoveries and ideas. In other words the science fiction idea reminds me of what used to be science fictional concepts which were just variations, deviations, and expansions of existing technologies. Unfortunately the use of string theory concepts in technology is not as far along as I would like it, but who can complain. The theories and ideas are dark energy, responsible for the expansion of the universe, and the 10th dimension involved in string theory.

Now Dr Gerald Cleaver, associate professor of physics at Baylor, and Richard Obousy have come up with a new twist on an existing idea to produce a warp drive that they believe can travel faster than the speed of light, without breaking the laws of physics.

In their scheme, in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, a starship could “warp” space so that it shrinks ahead of the vessel and expands behind it.

By pushing the departure point many light years backwards while simultaneously bringing distant stars and other destinations closer, the warp drive effectively transports the starship from place to place at faster-than-light speeds.

The theories of the speed of light are only effective speed limits at “unwarped ‘flat’ space.” Space itself has no speed limit and if a “spaceship can sit “at rest in its small [warp] bubble of space” it can skim and coast along the flow of space as the universe expands.

In the scheme outlined by Dr Cleaver dark energy would be used to create the bubble: if dark energy can be made negative in front of the ship, then that patch of space would contract in response.

I’m oversimplifying but the scheme cannot be put in practice yet anyway. I might also be muddling whether the ship is in the bubble or on the bubble. The bubble is a metaphor anyway. As it is the key to warping space in this manner is putting stuff that was in front of the ship behind the ship; it is changing the size of spatial dimension 10 that alters the energy that would “propel the ship faster than the speed of light.” Does anyone have an engine or mechanism to alter the 10th spatial dimension described in string theory?

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Isaac Hayes dies

Most know Isaac Hayes as a singer, or as the creator of the Shaft theme. Probably slightly more will know him as Chef until Scientology finally invaded the humor centers of his mind.

I recall him from Truck Turner and as a fan of and character in Stargate SG-1.

Issac Hayes died yesterday, quite young, and I shall miss him.

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Bernie Mac passed away

Bernie Mac, the least annoying actor in Transformers and Charlie’s Angels, and more importantly, and on a serious note, the actor and stand-up comedian who starred in Ocean’s 11, Ocean’s 13, and in his own television sitcom, passed away August 9th from complications of pneumonia.

My father passed away from similar illness.

My proper obituary will be forthcoming in a few weeks.

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Rest in Peace Charlton Heston

He died yesterday. I just found out.

There can be no better tribute than this:

At last we can retire his rifle. This is best.

Life and liberty.

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Little person (you know…a dwarf) posing as gnome

UPDATE: This may be a HOAX.

This guy is in so much trouble. A dude dressed as a pointy-hatted lawn gnome is terrifying a town.

Dude! Do you know how long the stature-challenged persons community has been fighting for respectability? They’ve been struggling against the whole culture of little people being leprechauns and elves for centuries, and then you go and terrify everyone by doing a gnome impression. You’re driving back the cause of little people’s rights! You’re embarrassing…

I’m sorry, I can’t keep a straight face anymore. I tried. But this story is too dang funny.

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William F. Buckley has passed

I know it’s not totally topically appropriate but Monitor Duty is more than comic books and WFB was, is, about more than politics. I was e-mailed this by Fox News, stamped at 11:22 AM

CONSERVATIVE WRITER, COMMENTATOR WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR. DEAD AT 82

ABC Radio News informed me between 11:30 and noon. I found a post at National Review Online’s The Corner announcing it and currently on the online representation of the man’s legacy there is an ongoing series of tributes and wonder posts. If you have any thoughts or well wishes about it for the family or the magazine, send them here.

Expect a proper send-up, as proper as can be formulated by a relative untermensch such as myself, late by evening. I probably will not post a copy here but I might.

Obviously I am not worthy. Obviously I know not nearly enough to write a tribute or obituary. I would have to lie to say that WFB did not affect me.

It is morbidly funny and appropriately sad that my heroes tend to die from diseases of old age before I can meet and thank them.

I will also point out that “Pinky! Act like William F. Buckley!” is still one of my favorite lines from the Pinky and The Brain Animaniacs shorts. There! It’s relevant now!

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Behold the nerd test

All should be required to take this test.

Which image suits best?

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American Idol betrays its raison d’être?

American Idol has insisted since its premiere that it is all about making stars of regular old street folk.

Radar is publishing a report, or rather a cursory overview that more than suggests that rather than sweeping up gaggles of promising and practicing amateur singers in various cities, that the program American Idol, like NBC’s Last Comic Standing, is picking up (in some cases deliberately so) some low-key non-celebrity professionals, many of whom had large, expensive failed attempts to be high-powered successes in the music field already, including dropped contracts.

American Idol has been exposed by a longtime nemesis and the mainstream media as being nothing but a “boring hash of recycled pseudo-celebrities who weren’t good enough to make it the first time around.”

I don’t watch AI enough to really care what sort of performer the contest gives chances to, and I can only care who wins when I visit people who are watching the program. That any program is not what it claims to be is usually a shame. especially when (even though a talent show) it is a glorified GAME SHOW.

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the Writer’s Strike is over

I was watching the Late Late Show, which stars Craig Ferguson, whom I admire and enjoy watching.

Jon Favreau, director of Iron Man(!!!!), which is a movie that I am practically shaking myself apart with anticipation, was on the talk program discussing taking his son to the Super Bowl in a private box (in part because he directed Iron Man and there was that Iron Man advertisement in the Super Bowl commercials) and in part because if I recall correctly Vince Vaughn was the one hosting the party.

Jon Favreau mentioned offhand that the Writer’s Strike was over, and the conflict has been resolved.

Then he thanked Craig Ferguson on the grounds that the Late Late Show’s strike suspension in part put pressure on the other parties involved to resolve their tender issues.

I really don’t care except that Jon Favreau lost 80 pounds while creating the awesome movie, which is exceptional for a human being working alongside craft services.

Oh, and various blue collar workers’ jobs will be saved by the resumption of work. I don’t enjoy the prospect of starving white-collar workers, starving writers, either, but I have no empathy for frustrated writers. I should but I do not .

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Don’t turn your back or the gazebo will eat you!

I was flipping through a particular category of the weblog of my new idol Shamus Young and came to the RPG story of the Gazebo.

Apparently it is an old one. I am not an RPG guy so it’s new to me.

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Brad Renfro R.I.P.

Found dead in his apartment.

It’s amazing how quickly Wikipedia entries get rewritten in the past tense once the obituary hits.

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My New Year’s Resolutions for Monitor Duty 2008

• I will become more adept at scanning and editing images from my comic books and text from my books for articles
• I will update my Image Archives and create a system for their sufficient and efficient use
• I will improve the Chris Arndt homepage and make Apologies Demanded more accessible to new readers; I will actually make my Star Trek and Lost blogs viable reads
• Convince enough Monitor Duty readers to charitably purchase comics from my get-rid-of-it box for more than they are worth so I can resolve my tax problem with the government
• More product reviews
• I will find ways to make the other Monitor Duty contributors redundant
• I will do my multi-part takedown of “Legends”
• I will do the same with “Star Trek Enterprise” and Michael Bay’s “Transformers”,
• along with finishing that one article predicting why the new Superman movie would be bad (it was written and almost completed several months before the movie was released); it turned out to be ABSOLUTELY CORRECT ON ALL COUNTS.

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is this an allegory?

Ah well, regardless of the questionable notion, Irregular Webcomic is still a hilarious webcomic.

So I ask you, the reader, is David Morgan-Mar funnier than Scott Kurtz? If he isn’t you must admit that the strip is damned awesome. It also comes in promptly every day.

Now what could be an interesting conversation, but won’t be, is whether the government efforts should be made to counter a possible threat if not a definite threat. This is topical scientifically not militarily or geopolitically. Now you can see the specific threat in the fiction, but if one were looking at it the way I look at it…. well my views on asteroid threats involve shooting stuff at the space rocks.

However, if planetary climate effects are threatening humanity but it can’t be confirmed, perhaps acting to prevent something that might not happen anyway may create something worse.

Perhaps the point really is that DMM (David Morgan-Mar) has killed a character here. Maybe that is the only point.

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a mildly amusing and effective “Snakes on a Plane” spoof…

is Spiders on a Glider.

Of course, an observant one on the Irregular Webcomic Forum has noted that “Spiders” obviously rhymes with “Glider,” matching with the naming theme of so many SOAP spoofs, while it is equally obvious that the word “Snake” does not rhyme with “Plane”.

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