Tag Archives: astronomy

The Blackest Burger, The Sun is Trying to Kill Us, Congress Sells Out, and Remembering 9-11

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This entry is part 96 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

Today was a very long day at work.

There are another couple of days like that looming in the near future.

It really didn’t help that there was a lot more on my mind today than work.

I would have rather spent the day reading about politics and how Congress just dropped the ball on real campaign finance reform.

I would have rather had the time to really read and listen to all the personal stories of how lives changed 13 years ago.

I would have much rather gotten a nap at some point.

But, that’s not what was.

So, instead, I read a couple of articles, watched a couple of videos, and did the minimum non-work stuff needed to keep from going absolutely batty today.

Pretty much all of that is in the feed.

So, here you go.

Another weekend, another bunch of stuff to alleviate stress

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This entry is part 93 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

Why, yes, you continue to get a proliferation of fluff in the feed. But it’s good fluff!

At least I think it is.

Creative. Witty. So wrong it’s awesome.

It’s the stuff that helps alleviate the stress that my life has been lately.

But have no fear! There are also some gems of real content in there.

Interesting bits of science. Some very insightful comments on items. Actual world happenings that we should all be aware of.

Check it out, enjoy what you can, maybe jump in and participate in a conversation (even if you’re coming across this months later… don’t hesitate to comment, I’ll see it and it may get things moving on that post again).

Here’s the feed.

Life Imitating Art, Remixing Art, Art Imitating Life, and Remixing Life

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This entry is part 72 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

Aside from the sad (but expected) death of Dick Smith, one of the greatest special effects makeup artists of all time, there’s a lot of creative stuff going on in the feed today. Not all of it is what I’d call “good” creative–that new Sprint plan that kind of steps all over the idea of Net Neutrality is definitely creative–but all of it does show some very different ways of thinking and how much really buying into those patterns can change things.

For better or worse.

On the “better” side are “The Four Agreements.” If you’re not familiar, they’re four relatively simple precepts to live one’s life by. They focus on understanding the power we can let others have over us and just how much autonomy we can assert over ourselves. I first heard about them decades ago, when the book first came out (even though I never bought it or read it).

Good stuff, highly recommended for anyone seeking to feel a bit more fulfilled.

On the “questionable but probably awesome” side, we have a group of fans who’ve taken it upon themselves to remix Akira by redrawing all six volumes of the original manga using Simpsons characters. It’s… odd. Especially since each artist (there are hundreds) is only doing five pages and there’s not a lot of coordination going on–so motorcycles and bicycles keep switching back and forth in the beginning and art style varies wildly. It is, however, utterly creative and wild.

And then, on the “bad” side (other than that Sprint thing) there’s the continued consolidation and homogenization of media outlets. In particular the demise of FearNET as its assets are folded into NBC/Universal (which already has a horror-themed outlet in Chiller). FearNET was a bit of a wild and spunky upstart–a bunch of horror fans who really wanted to give their fandom somewhere to thrive. Through tenacity and a lot of hard work, they built a nice little niche that grew into a cable channel, a website, and some pretty solid original content. I haven’t been anywhere near as impressed with what I’ve seen from Chiller. And it doesn’t look like that’s going to change, as most of the creative staff from FearNET appears to be free to pursue other career options.

Even though it has Chiller and SyFy, NBC/Universal seems determined to make this once vibrant and different channels into the most generic things possible. All the creativity is being applied to figuring out how to appeal to the lowest common denominator so the most money can be pulled in as quickly as possible. This leads to low-quality (but annoyingly popular) fare like Sharknado.

Such is life, I guess.

Thankfully, for now, we still have the wild and brilliant denizens of the Internet to keep things interesting and disruptive.

Here’s hoping that keeps up for a long time.

On with the feed…

Sounds of Space, Questionable Business, Questionable Politics, and Some Movie Stuff

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This entry is part 70 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

With Comic Con passed, there are a lot of movie announcements floating around out there now.

Sequels, reboots, spin offs, and even some original properties that all sound really interesting.

The problem, of course, is that most of them are a year or more away.

I remember the “good old days” when you wouldn’t hear about a movie being made until maybe a few months before it came out. Rarely was something even rumored (let alone hyped) for two years (and, these days, sometimes two years before filming even begins).

The publicity machine is kind of insane.

And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve checked the upcoming releases list and thought, “Wait… didn’t that already come out, like, a year ago?” Nope. I’ve just been hearing about it for so long that it seemed like it had already been here and gone.

That strikes me as a little counter-productive.

But it’s not just movies that do it.

We’ve seen that kind of creep in politics, too.

Now, almost as soon as a Presidential election is over, the “news” outlets start speculating on who’ll be running in the next one–even before the President-elect takes his oath of office. And then the actual race for any given position more or less starts two years before the actual vote will take place.

That’s two years where politicians are doing more campaigning and image building than actual thoughtful governing. (Though these days, I wonder if they ever spend any time doing that.)

Then there’s also the inevitable “Christmas Creep”… where those trees show up earlier and earlier in the stores every year. Last year I saw stuff in regular stores (not craft stores, I understand them getting stuff out there early–people need time to actually make stuff) in early September.

And, back at the beginning of July, everyone was already talking about Back to School shopping. School just got out in mid-June. Has summer break been reduced down to roughly two weeks?

Why are we always pushing so hard to speed up the recognition of these things? Why can’t we enjoy not knowing what’s on the movie schedule two years from now? Why do we have to start pushing Christmas before October even begins? Why can’t we let politicians do something other than just plan their next campaign? And, perhaps most importantly, why can’t our kids get more time to just be kids during a lazy summer?

I don’t know. But I do know I haven’t much cared for that compression and acceleration for a long time now. I think it’s part of a larger problem and the root of a good number of troublesome things…

Anyway, here’s the feed…

Bunches of Comic Con Things, Big Discussions on Israel and the Gaza Strip, Some Levity to Balance that Out, and Musing on the Culture of Fear

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This entry is part 69 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

There are no shortage of fear-inducing, attention-grabbing headlines out there. Most of them turn out to be utter hype, but you don’t discover that until after you’ve clicked through. And if you don’t click through, well, the damage to your peace of mind is already done.

For a long time now I’ve been interested in fear and how it gets used–both by us and on us. Part of that is due to growing up on a steady diet of classic horror films. Another part is from growing up through the tail end of the Cold War and a few not-so-cold-wars.

I’ve seen a growing problem over the years. One that’s not going away and only seems to be getting worse.

The problem is the overall culture of fear and paranoia we’re all soaking in… and have been for our entire lives. That’s the reason we (in general) are even suspicious when anonymous gifts show up.

We assume malicious intent.

That’s… not healthy.

And it’s most certainly not conducive to sensibility.

And, perhaps worst, it leaves us open to all sorts of manipulation. The kind that’s been used again and again and again over the past two decades to make us give up more and more of our freedoms in the name of security. Security from threats that, even when they do exist, are far from immediate, imminent, or actually damaging to the vast majority of the population.

This is the kind of fear that, at worst, expresses itself in events like those riots in France the other day. Or in people getting shot just because they look different from the person holding the gun. Or in war.

So, yeah, there are, indeed, things out there to be afraid of, but there are far more things that strike us as creepy or fear-inducing. We have to be fully aware of *why* it strikes us as such and how problematic that actually is.

That all said, here’s the feed starting from Friday (including the article about dolls that spurred most of the above musing)…