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Capitalism gave us airplanes.


(images PD; and CC-BY-SA-2.0, Bill Larkins)

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Pat

More and more Russian citizens are beginning to protest against Putin’s ill-gotten wealth, including his opulent mansion.

euractiv.com/section/global-eu

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= A statement that is logically or literally true (or partly true), but seems to imply something that isn’t true or is just plain weird. (for rhetoric, logic or propaganda studies… or just for fun)

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Here's a cat doing the moonwalk on the moon.

He's sad because his wife just got left behind on Earth.

(details: qoto.org/@Pat/1096435140252956 )

from: Dancing on the Moon (1935)

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Pat

Here’s Ben Affleck on CSPAN saying that we should grow the US military and spend more on AI, network IT, and space assets.

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= A statement that is logically or literally true (or partly true), but seems to imply something that isn’t true or is just plain weird. (for rhetoric, logic or propaganda studies… or just for fun)

(fair use video clip from CSPAN)

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Pat

Retro SciFi Film of the Week…

Abre Los Ojos (1997)

When this film was released the plot was still fresh -- there weren’t many other movies like this one. In fact, the specific story told by this film is quite original.

It was very well received by critics and moviegoers. This was Alejandro Amenábar’s second film, the first, Thesis, which was produced the previous year, was also successful proving Amenábar’s talent. In fact, this film was so good that Tom Cruise bought adaptation rights and did a remake a couple of years later. But that Hollywood version was not nearly as good as Abre Los Ojos, even though they stuck closely to the script. They even cast Penélope Cruz (who was in the original) in her same role. But a major problem with that Hollywood remake was a distractingly poor performance by Kurt Russell, whose acting skills were just not up to the task in my opinion. You’re much better off watching Abre Los Ojos.

It helps if you speak Spanish, but if you don’t mind subtitles you should be able to follow this somewhat complex story because there’s plenty of well-written exposition.

Highly recommended.

(fair use movie poster)

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Pat

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Capitalism brought us velcro.

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(pics CC-SA-3.0-Alexander Kink)

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Pat

Here's some sunshine...

(see qoto.org/web/statuses/10967807
for the full thread)

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... I'm sure you've read my previous posts on this, how the CDC hoarded respirators in the Strategic National Stockpile while they lied, telling people there was a shortage; how they told everyone to wear cloth masks (which don't stop the virus).

They knew right from the beginning that respirators are the most effective way to stop the infection and spread of the virus. They even said so. They said (paraphrasing) "N95 masks work better, but there's a shortage so everybody needs to wear cloth masks. (see attached pic of N95 inventories, which show that supplies INCREASED during the pandemic -- that's right, they pulled N95s off of the market during the pandemic and put them on the shelf so people could couldn't wear them.)

Here's a quote from a Harvard Med. study (Aug. 2021),

"Using data from the third wave, we showed that the epidemic could be eliminated in the USA if at least 40% of the population consistently wore respirators in public."

Biden finally called out the Army to distribute the N95 respirators in Dec. 2021 (because the CDC refused to release them). Look up the death rates to see what happened when they were distributed.

Did you hear about any of this in the mainstream media? Did hear any PSAs telling people to wear respirators?

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Pat

Retro SciFi Film of the Week…

Woman in the Moon (1929)

This was Fritz Lang’s last silent film, which was released just three years before the Nazis took power in Germany. Lang, whose mother was Jewish, opposed the Nazis, and the main villain in this film has a remarkable visual resemblance to Hitler.

One of the striking features of this film is the attention to technical detail. Hermann Oberth (one of the founding fathers of rocketry along with Goddard and others) was the technical consultant for the film. There are long segments in the film that go into fine detail about the acceleration, speed and trajectory of the rocket complete with diagrams of orbital mechanics. The passengers in the spaceship are shown experiencing high G-forces during acceleration, followed by zero-G conditions. Many scifi films, even to this day, don’t bother to show zero-G conditions in spacecraft and just show the astronauts walking around; this film was way ahead of it’s time on scientific accuracy.

In science, there was a lot going on when this film was made with the Solvay Conference in 1927 just two years before the making of the film, and the first manned rocket-powered plane demonstrated a couple of months before the film’s release.
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video description:
clips from the film, video only, no sound, all the writing within the images of the film are in German, however the intertitles have been translated to English for this version of the film – video shows the rocket being rolled out to the launch pad and partially submerged in water, because “it is too light to stand freely”. Meanwhile, in the spaceship the astronauts are walking around dressed in ordinary street clothes. One of them explains to the others that “until the necessary speed of 11,200 meters per second is reached… there will be eight critical minutes in the battle with increase in velocity, the pressure of which is fatal for humans when it surpasses forty meters per second.” Closeups of analog dial gauges are shown for speed and acceleration. (the dial for acceleration correctly shows the units as “m./sec.^2”) Intertitle says, “After these eight minutes during which we feel as if tons of weight pull us back to Earth, we will be victorious in the battle with pressure, or...”. Another man (who plays the coward) covers his ears and appears upset. There is a dramatic countdown… “6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, NOW!” Then the rocket takes off at a very quick speed. The leader tells the coward to dump the first rocket stage when it is empty. Other astronauts appear distressed by the high G-forces, their acting style is exaggerated. The cots that they are lying in are suspended by springs, and the springs begin to stretch to show the G-force. It shows the second stage separating from the rocket and the upper stage engine firing. Later it shows the astronauts looking out a window at the Earth with the Sun appearing from behind it. Intertitle says, “On our Earth, the sun is just rising.” Later it shows a woman and a man – the woman is trying to pour out wine from a bottle but it won’t pour out because they are in zero-G. The man shakes out some of the wine and it floats in spherical bubbles, the woman laughs and the man scoops up the droplets into a wine glass and quickly covers the glass to prevent the wine from escaping, then carefully sips some out from the side of the glass while his hand partially covers the glass. Later someone writes in a logbook, “Have entered the gravitational field of the moon. Are within 9000 km of the moon.”

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Pat

Retro SciFi Film of the Week…

Dancing on the Moon (1935)

This is the first animated film I’ve had for the Retro SciFi Film of the Week. It was produced by Max Fleischer, who was a leading animated film producer during the first half of the 20th century. Fleischer created Betty Boop and Popeye the Sailor and was very active at inventing new techniques for animation. He is the inventor of the rotoscope, which was used throughout the 20th century for producing graphic special effects in most live action films as well cartoons.

I’ve mentioned before that there was a lot of innovation during this time, including the development of rockets by Goddard and others, and the idea of using rockets for space travel was beginning to look like a reality.

Also happening at this time was a lot of class conflict and labor unrest. The Ludlow Massacre happened just two decades prior to the making of this film. Right after this film was released animators in Fleischer’s studio, who were working in poor conditions (as many workers at the time were), staged a major strike that crippled the studio.

This short film is about a tour company that specializes in honeymoon vacations on the moon. The technique and artistry of this short film surpasses many cartoons made even today.

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Here's a video of a secret meeting that the GOP had recently about the party's current situation.

It was just leaked to the press...

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Retro SciFi Film of the Week…

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

When this film came out, its depiction of the aliens seemed very realistic, and it has held up pretty well considering it was released nearly a half-century ago. Most of the special effects (by Douglas Trumbull) still seem real, and the dialogue and narrative still seem plausible. The acting performances and score are world class.

This film marked a change in the depiction of aliens in science fiction. Ever since the broadcast of War of the Worlds in 1938, aliens who came to Earth were almost always shown as aggressive and as conquerors or colonizers. This film, released shortly after the Vietnam War had ended, was different.

As with nearly all films of the time, this 1977 film had significant racial bias in the composition of the cast, so you’ll need to keep that in mind as you watch it. I saw only one black character in the film, a flight controller who had just a few lines in one scene. (Nearly all of Spielberg’s films have racial bias, even those produced well into the 21st century.)

In terms of production quality and story, this is one of the best science fiction films ever made and if you haven’t seen it yet, make a point of seeing this one.

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movie spoiler - Things to Come (1936) 

Here’s a pic of the giant ballistic cannon used to shoot people to the moon in the film. Fritz Lang's German scifi pic Woman in the Moon (1929), used multi-stage rockets to send people to the moon, but apparently Wells didn’t know about that film, or he thought people could withstand 20,000 Gs.

This cannon looks exactly like a gun barrel pointing straight up, complete with an iron front sight on the barrel.😂

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Pat

Retro SciFi Film of the Week…

Things to Come (1936)

H. G. Wells wrote The Shape of Things to Come in 1933 when he predicted WWII and many other events and inventions that would come true. He even predicted that men would wear culotte miniskirts and shave their legs. (Actually, predicting WWII wasn’t that extraordinary of a feat, everybody saw it coming.)

This big-budget British-made adaptation is one of the classics of science fiction. The story covers the future from 1940 to 2036. I think it comes across as pompous and bombastic, but apparently audiences at the time liked it.

This film is available for free download and is in the public domain, even though the Supreme Court says it isn't.

I’ll include more in this thread under a spoiler warning…

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(Note: This gif clip is silent, but the film is a talkie.)

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The Senior Center is having a square dance to raise awareness of the COVID-19 pandemic.

(public domain image per wikimedia commons, Mtmusicfestsqdance.png)

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Retro SciFi Film of the Week…

Altered States (1980)

You’ll immediately recognize Chayefsky’s style in this dialogue-heavy story. The characters and dialogue feel very much like Network (1976) or The Hospital (1971). The target audience was well-educated baby-boomers from the 60’s counter culture, sometimes referred to as “yuppies” (young urban professionals, formerly hippies). However, it has a lot of special effects and enough action to appeal to a wider audience.

This period in American popular history marked the transition from the drug culture of the 1960s and the fascination with ESP in the 1970s, to the human potential movement of the 80s and 90s. Drug dealers were looking for more affluent customers for their products and clandestine operators were looking for paths to apply chemical-based mind control and recruitment tactics to more influential targets. This film provided a more intellectual rational for taking drugs, which would attract those who would normally be smart enough to avoid them.

Although there was fierce conflict on the set between Chayefsky and the director, Ken Russell, about the script, Chayefsky maintained creative control (although he pulled his name from the screenplay credit because he was not satisfied with the final product). Despite the script conflicts and Russell’s direction, I think the film turned out great. It has brilliant performances from William Hurt, Blair Brown, Bob Balaban and Charles Haid, all of whom delivered Chayefsky’s difficult dialogue in a convincing manner.

There are no CG effects in this film because they weren’t yet available; everything is done with practical FX and film techniques, reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Also, you’ll notice the use of deep brass horns in the score, borrowed from Close Encounters of a Third Kind (1977) and used ever since in scifi projects such as Epoch (2001), Inception (2010), Arrival (2016) and many others.

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quiz answers 

London, dob 1984 - American actress, TV and film
Jimmy Durante, dob 1893 - American comedian, singer, vaudevillian
Bohr, dob 1885 - developed a model of the atom under the old quantum theory
Arthur, dob 1829 - 21st president of the US

(images: London CC-BY-SA-3.0, Travis Hudgons; Durante, Bohr, Arthur public domain)

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Pat

Retro SciFi Film of the Week…

Inception (2010)

What if M. C. Escher, Timothy Leary and David Duke got together and made a Hollywood tent pole?

This one has amazing computer graphics along with great acting performances, especially by Elliot Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard. Unfortunately, there was extreme racial bias in the composition of the cast with no black characters in this large cast besides bit parts.

In this film everyone had a dream except black people.

There were just two bit parts with black characters. One was a man interfering with the main protagonist and yelling at him in a foreign language, the other one was a stuntman who fought against a protagonist and was killed in an unusual manner, followed by another protagonist who laughed and said, “Did you see that?” (And the producers chose to have an actor of Indian ethnicity, Dileep Rao, deliver that offensive line.) Other than background, those were the only black people I saw in this two and half hour long movie.

Another huge issue I have with the film is the promotion and glorification of drug use. The film was produced right after Obama took office, when there was a massive, subversive campaign to encourage drug use in the US, along with a huge increase in racism, among many other efforts to undermine society during his administration.

Because of the racism in this 21st-century film, I don’t recommend watching it.

(short, fair use clip from the film, no spoiler)

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Pat

In the US, there are currently 8 times as many deaths due to COVID-19 as there are to the flu.

A properly worn respirator, like a N95 mask, prevents infection and spread of disease from all variants of the flu and COVID-19.

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ALOI

This one takes us lightyears away
to a new land, for a bit of a stay.
They say it has a presence of mind,
signs of intelligence, the artificial kind.

Retro rockets, down to the Pale Blue Dot,
search throughout, but intelligence it has not.
Lots of product of artifice we sense
but just artificial lack of intelligence.

So the answer we send back home,
nothing here, no matter how much we comb.
Alrighty then, on to the next shore.
Sounds interesting, let’s hear more...

(fair use image, Marvel, Guardians of the Galaxy 3)

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