Tag: science

Star Wars, Mandalorian & Grogu, and My Fake War with Kessel Junkie #StarWars #StarTrek #Mandalorian #Grogu @kesseljunkie

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I saw Mandalorian and Grogu last night. I liked it. I thought it was fun in general, but I tend to like subversions of my expectations even if not particularly surprising, such as with Rotta the Hut. I won’t say anymore about that because, I don’t know, spoilers maybe?

Anyway, I have a fake war with my cousin, Kessel Junkie (kessel junkie?) over which is better, Star Trek or Star Wars. Of course, Star Trek is better, but watching the movie last night, I think Star Wars does something that, if not “better,” is “neater,” than Star Trek. I think they do a much cooler job of providing a wider variety of life forms. It’s still a human-dominated, and certainly humanoid-dominated, universe, but not nearly as much as Star Trek is. Even where Star Trek dealt with a crazy difference in environment (e.g., Excalbians) or fundamental chemical structure (e.g., Hortas), Star Trek was limited by budgets, but they’re willingly bound by pseudo-science as well.

If planets are roughly Class M (i.e., Earthlike), then even with independent evolution, it’s not unreasonable to assume most life will take on certain common characteristics as a matter of logic. This idea is called physical or biological convergent evolution, so while I haven’t done any deep dives into the subject matter, I’m not just pulling it out of my ass. For example, the best elements on which life should be based are carbon, silicon, or germanium. On a very fundamental level, we would be similar to most life forms because it would be far too difficult for a planet to be expected to have more silicon or (especially) germanium than carbon. Evolution would simply favor carbon based life. But, for example, basic eye structure exist for a reason, so there’s a possible practical limitation to just how different other life can be. Of course, it’s a big universe, so there have got to be exceptions, but the point is that aliens may be more like us than we think.

But that’s the difference between science fiction and science fantasy. (Fun) Star Trek fans thrive on pointing out then resolving inconsistencies, and even with nu-Trek, the writers have traditionally tried to remain consistent and logical across series with not only science but also with stories and history, including real world history. Sometimes, that very idea is what the episode’s story is about (e.g., Return to Tomorrow, The Chase, or Distant Origin). This doesn’t mean that Star Trek fans don’t like some occasional weirdness, but limits on that weirdness are sort of baked into the Star Trek community, and I like that. Star Wars has no such limits. As science fantasy, they can simply do what’s cool, and no one will even question it. Parsecs, smarsecs. I want a space slug, so I’m getting a space slug. I also like that.

Will Star Wars ever dethrone Star Trek for me? Of course not, but fortunately none of us need to choose between the two.

But Star Trek >> Star Wars.

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Your Next Pluto Time @NASA @tweetsauce #science #astronomy #NASA #Pluto

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Last week, I learned about Pluto Time care of VSauce. This is the time of day at which the brightness of the Sun is the brightest it ever appears on Pluto, and that equates to around sunrise and sunset. While the Sun is about 1000x dimmer on Pluto than on Earth, the Sun still brightens Pluto at noon (Pluto time) about 300x more than our Moon brightens Earth.

Do you have nothing better to do than learn your Pluto Time? Then go here: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/dwarf-planets/pluto/plutotime/. My next Pluto Time is at 8:01 pm tonight.

And there it is. You can certainly read a book in this light.

I bet it gets really dark on Pluto.

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Another Random Memory from Late Night TV: A Late Show with Joan Rivers Interview #TV #DavidLeeRoth #VanHalen #music @VanHalen

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Last week, I shared a random memory of a Tonight Show interview. Today is an interview from Joan Rivers’ Late Show. The link should take you to the relevant part, which is at 5:35. Here, Dave discusses the split with Van Halen and the fallout from it.

Side note: The fact that Rivers took this gig created a personal rift with Johnny Carson.

What I remember about this is that Van Halen — Eddie in particular — was deeply critical of Dave in the press, and Dave always took the high ground. For a while anyway. A couple months after this interview, I heard a snippet from another interview on the radio. Paraphrasing to the best of my recollection (which, based on these posts, is pretty good), Dave’s response to Van Halen was, “Well, I’m out here forging the future, and Van Halen is still living in the pasture.”

Still, I took Dave’s side in the mess because he didn’t fight back until Van Halen pushed him over the edge. Of course, I don’t know any of these guys, so I never really cared about their personal battles. I just knew that they were both producing music I loved, so the breakup worked out great for me.

As a reminder, one of only 14 concerts I’ve ever seen was Hagar and Roth’s joint tour.

Memory can be funny thing.

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Random Memory: A Tonight Show Interview #TV #Stallone #Travolta #TonightShow #science @TheSlyStallone

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Everyone insists they have a good memory, but our brains form fake memories all the time. I’ve used YouTube to test my memory quite often and found that my long-term memory is pretty accurate. The weird thing about my memory is that I sometimes remember things as a mirror image of the way they were. That is, if I remember footage from a TV show where person A is on the left and person B is on the right, their positions are swapped. However, I remember incredible detail about everything else in the footage. Here was a random memory that popped into my head when my cousin shared some footage from Saturday Night Fever. It’s an interview on the Tonight Show with Sylvester Stallone and John Travolta promoting the sequel to Saturday Night Fever, Staying Alive.

And part II.

I remembered almost every minute detail of this interview, and because it’s the Tonight Show, I didn’t reverse the image in my head. The host is always on the right side of the screen, and it’s impossible for a healthy brain to forget that.

Unfortunately, my short-term memory is beginning to suffer, and I sometimes have trouble getting words out when speaking. I also have some difficulty forming new memories. As Kareem Said said on Oz, “Life is balance.” I guess I had this coming, but you can imagine how frustrating that is for someone who historically forgets nothing. While I could stand to lose a lot of childhood and young-adulthood memories, I hope the cognitive decline remains slow.

Memory can be funny thing.

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Cat Memory #Caturday #memory

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Tomorrow, I’m discussing memory, so for Caturday, here’s a video on feline memory.

By the way, with all my talk about cats, I don’t own one. However, I bought a house this year, so my tax withholdings were wrong. I’m getting about $2,300 back between federal and state. Hence, I’m buying some cat stuff and getting a cat. Maybe I’ll get two. My understanding is that if they have a playmate when they’re young, they learn the limits of violent behavior. Of course, I’ve always enjoyed “fighting” with the cats I’ve owned, so that’s not too much of a concern.

Meowmery?

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Dwindling Watch: Scorpion @paramountplus #ParamountPlus #GoodWatch #television #science #math #computer #scorpion

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Welcome to post #1,001!

I have a really annoying habit. Actually, I have several, but this one annoys me. I have to finish what I start. In the context of this post, it means that, once I’ve set my mind to binging the entire run of a television show, I can’t stop until I’m finished no matter how bad the show is. That’s what happened with Scorpion.

Scorpion aired on CBS from 2014-2017, and now you can watch it on demand on Paramount Plus. It centered on a team of underachieving, supra-geniuses who finally get their big break when the Department of Homeland Security designates them a contractor. It started off well enough, and the ratings were some of the best CBS enjoyed during its run. One executive referred to it as “our Big Bang Theory, but as a drama.” However, by season four, the ratings were terrible, and despite a cult following and a tense cliffhanger to end season four, the show was cancelled.

Good riddance.

The show was wildly unrealistic. As anyone with a physics degree, a first career in software engineering, and a current career as an attorney can tell you, most shows are. I have no problem with that. You have to enter into any television show or movie with a certain suspension of disbelief, and I’m happy to do so for the sake of drama. After all, despite not being a comics reader, I’m a huge fan of the MCU and DCEU. What could be less realistic?

I called a fair game today.

But this show dives into many different branches of science, and it gets them all terribly wrong. Moreover, while each episode presents a preexisting peril to be solved, while addressing the peril, the Scorpion team members always make things worse, and usually in the most ridiculous or unrealistic of ways. It’s terrible writing that eventually grates on the viewer. Sharks don’t act that way. Computers don’t act that way. Gravity doesn’t act that way. How is it that you’re always getting your jacket caught right before you have to make a getaway? You’ve been on a deserted island for three weeks; how are you all so clean, and why is Cabe still wearing a suit and tie?

As the charm of the show tends to wane, there’s little left to keep the viewer interested. But I have to say, if there were a season five, I’d have watched it.

Sometimes I hate myself.

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Hippocrates #science #medicine #philosophy #history #Hippocrates @WrongHands1

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Sundays now are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, I’m pointing out that we all know the Hippocratic oath. But did you know . . . ?

That’s right. He’s just a damn hippo-box hybrid. This calls the entire medical profession into question. Okay, boys! It’s back to bloodletting and leaches! Now go buy Wrong Hands a coffee.

Everyone takes Hippocrates so damn seriously.

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Random Memory: The “Bionic” Shows #TV #science #engineering #bionic @mslindsaywagner

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I had a random memory pop in my head last week. During the early part of its run, my favorite show was the Six Million Dollar Man (1973-1978). Lee Majors played the titular Steve Austin. I also loved its spinoff, The Bionic Woman (1976-1978). The origin of the latter was a sad and frustrating one. The bionics screwed with Jaime Sommers’s body and seemingly killed her. The premise of the show was that she was somehow saved but lost all memory of her romantic relationship with Steve Austin.

Like most of society, I lost interest in the shows as I grew up, but when they announced an upcoming made-for-TV movie bringing back the characters, I was moderately intrigued. It was a huge part of my childhood that wasn’t that far removed from (what was then) the present day. I don’t remember watching the first one, The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1987), but I do remember seeing the second one, Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1989) with an unknown Sandra Bullock playing the next generation of bionic human.

Proof!

What stood out in my memory of that show was that Jaime Sommers’s memories had returned, and at the end of the second movie, she interrupted his proposal of marriage to propose to him. Even though I remember not liking the movie, I remember being happy with the resolution. Why? I don’t know. They’re make-believe characters, and they’re not part of a series I was currently watching, so their relationship meant nothing the second the final credits rolled. But humans are weird like that, and their failure to connect even upon her resurrection for the Bionic Woman was disappointing.

There was a third movie, Bionic Ever After?, but I’m sure I never saw it. By 1994, I had more important things to do.

As of this writing, Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner are still going strong at 83 and 73 years old respectively.

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A Friendly Reminder #science #internet #scam

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Just a friendly reminder that, in 2022, shouldn’t have to be given, but does.

What can I say? I’m generous.

Another streak of 100 days in a row!

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Bodine’s Law of the Internet #science #internet

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My annoyance with the legal department at Wizards of the Coast led me to create a new law of the internet. You all know Godwin’s Law:

As an online discussion grows longer (regardless of topic or scope), the probability of a comparison to Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches 1.

Put another way, if an internet argument goes long enough, someone’s going to call someone else a Nazi. Then, there’s Poe’s Law:

Without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, every parody of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the views being parodied.

In other words, you can’t tell the difference between an idiot and a comedian unless they’re a comedian and they ruin their joke by explaining it. Well, Poe’s Law inspired the text of my own law, which unsurprisingly I call Bodine’s Law:

Without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, an arrogant author’s exploitation of another’s ignorance can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere, ignorant/incompetent expression of the views being expressed.

In other words, arrogant authors, thinking their dishonesty will never be exposed, tend to take advantage of the ignorance of others by knowingly making ignorant or incompetent statements, but if you understand the topic, you won’t know if the authors are actually ignorant themselves. The arrogant authors generally rely on an argument from authority, but not necessarily, so I think this rule is useful to keep in mind.

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got.

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