Pat @Pat@qoto.org

#science #fiction #ScienceFiction #SciFi #FTW #SFFTW #film #movie #spaceflight #future #rocket #MaxFleischer #BettyBoop #Popeye #moon #cartoon #animation

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.

#MastoPrompt #smallpoems #poerty #poem #jan6

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Who can blame you for being upset,
disappointed, let down, tossed around.

Our promise was so grand, so sound,
but now it’s trampled to the ground.

You were open for a change,
from a prince so very strange,
but he’s betrayed you as well.

Now you’re willing to dump it all,
even if it stumbles a great fall,
even if it creates a fiery hell.

Look back, learn from your past,
ask your grandma before she she passed.

When is a relationship worth keeping,
when is it best to keep sleeping?

Haven't worked out all the details yet, but I'm sure this idea will make me a billionaire.

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#GOP #Republican #House #Speaker #FreedomCaucus #McCarthy #USPol

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...

China President Xi Jinping's New Year's Eve Address:

Greetings to you all. The year 2023 is approaching. From Beijing, I extend my best New Year wishes to all of you.

In 2022, we successfully convened the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC). An ambitious blueprint has been drawn for building a modern socialist country in all respects and advancing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts through a Chinese path to modernization, sounding a clarion call of the times for us forging ahead on a new journey.

The Chinese economy has remained the second largest in the world and enjoyed sound development. GDP for the whole year is expected to exceed 120 trillion yuan. Despite a global food crisis, we have secured a bumper harvest for the 19th year in a row, putting us in a stronger position to ensure the food supply of the Chinese people. We have consolidated our gains in poverty elimination and advanced rural revitalization across the board. We have introduced tax and fee cuts and other measures to ease the burden on businesses, and made active efforts to solve the most pressing difficulties of high concern to the people.

Since COVID-19 struck, we have put the people first and put life first all along. Following a science-based and targeted approach, we have adapted our COVID response in light of the evolving situation to protect the life and health of the people to the greatest extent possible. Officials and the general public, particularly medical professionals and community workers, have bravely stuck to their posts through it all. With extraordinary efforts, we have prevailed over unprecedented difficulties and challenges, and it has not been an easy journey for anyone. We have now entered a new phase of COVID response where tough challenges remain. Everyone is holding on with great fortitude, and the light of hope is right in front of us. Let's make an extra effort to pull through, as perseverance and solidarity mean victory.

Comrade Jiang Zemin passed away in 2022. We pay high tribute to his towering achievements and noble demeanor, and cherish the great legacy he left behind. We will honor his last wishes and advance the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era.

Wave upon wave, the mighty river of history surges forward. With the persistent efforts of one generation after another, we have taken China to where it is today.

Today's China is a country where dreams become reality. The Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games concluded with a resounding success. Chinese winter sports athletes gave their all and achieved extraordinary results. Shenzhou-13, Shenzhou-14 and Shenzhou-15 soared into the heavens. China's space station was fully completed and our "home in space" is roving in the deep-blue sky. The people's armed forces marked the 95th birthday and all service members are marching confidently on the great journey of building a strong military. China's third aircraft carrier Fujian was launched. C919, China's first large passenger aircraft, was delivered. And the Baihetan hydropower station went into full operation... None of these achievements would have been possible without the sweat and toil of the numerous Chinese people. Sparks of talent are coming together, and they are the strength of China!

Today's China is a country brimming with vigor and vitality. Various pilot free trade zones and the Hainan Free Trade Port are booming, innovations are gushing out in the coastal areas, development is picking up pace in the central and western regions, the momentum for revitalization is building in the northeast, and there is greater development and affluence in the border regions. The Chinese economy enjoys strong resilience, tremendous potential and great vitality. The fundamentals sustaining its long-term growth have remained strong. As long as we stay confident and strive for progress while maintaining stability, we will realize the goals we have set. On my visit to Hong Kong earlier this year, I was deeply glad to see that Hong Kong has restored order and is set to thrive again. With determined implementation of One Country, Two Systems, Hong Kong and Macao will surely enjoy long-term prosperity and stability.

Today's China is a country that keeps to its national character. In the course of 2022, we encountered various natural disasters including earthquakes, floods, droughts and wildfires, and experienced some workplace accidents. Amid those disconcerting and heartbreaking scenes, there have emerged numerous touching stories of people sticking together in face of adversity or even sacrificing their lives to help others in distress. Those heroic deeds will be forever etched in our memories. At every turn of the year, we always think of the great character of resilience that the Chinese nation has carried forward through millennia. It gives us still greater confidence as we continue our way forward.

Today's China is a country closely linked with the world. Over the past year, I have hosted quite a few friends, both old and new, in Beijing; I have also traveled abroad to communicate China's propositions to the world. Changes unseen in a century are unfolding at a faster pace, and the world is not yet a tranquil place. We cherish peace and development and value friends and partners as we have always done. We stand firm on the right side of history and on the side of human civilization and progress. We work hard to contribute China's wisdom and solutions to the cause of peace and development for all humanity.

After the 20th CPC National Congress, my colleagues and I visited Yan'an. We were there to relive the inspiring episode in which the Party's central leadership overcame extraordinary difficulties in the 1930s and 1940s, and to draw on the spiritual strength of the older generation of CPC members. I often say, "Just as polishing makes jade finer, adversity makes one stronger." Over the past 100 years, the CPC has braved wind and rain, and forged ahead against all odds. That is a most difficult yet great journey. Today, we must press on courageously to make tomorrow's China a better place.

Going forward, China will be a country that performs miracles through hard work. Here I want to quote Su Shi, a renowned Chinese poet, "Charge at the toughest and aim at the farthest." It means to take on the biggest challenges and go after the most ambitious goals. Long as the journey is, we will reach our destination if we stay the course; difficult as the task is, we will get the job done if we keep working at it. As long as we have the resolve to move mountains and the perseverance to plod on, as long as we keep our feet on the ground and forge ahead with our journey by making steady progress, we will turn our grand goals into reality.

Going forward, China will be a country that draws its strength from unity. Ours is a big country. It is only natural for different people to have different concerns or hold different views on the same issue. What matters is that we build consensus through communication and consultation. When the 1.4 billion Chinese work with one heart and one mind, and stand in unity with a strong will, no task will be impossible and no difficulty insurmountable. The people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are members of one and the same family. I sincerely hope that our compatriots on both sides of the Strait will work together with a unity of purpose to jointly foster lasting prosperity of the Chinese nation.

Going forward, China will be a country that has great expectations of its younger generation. A nation will prosper only when its young people thrive. For China to develop further, our young people must step forward and take on their responsibilities. Youth is full of vigor and is a source of hope. Youngsters should keep their country in mind, cultivate keen enterprise, and live youth to the fullest with great drive, to prove worthy of the times and the splendor of youth.

To the many people who are still busy working at this very moment, I salute you all! We are about to ring in the New Year. Let us welcome the first ray of sunshine of 2023 with the best wishes for a brighter future.

May our country enjoy prosperity and our people live in harmony. May the world enjoy peace and people of all countries live in happiness. I wish you all a happy New Year and may all your wishes come true.

Thank you.

#science #fiction #ScienceFiction #SciFi #FTW #film #movie #FirstContact #contact #alien #aliens #future #space #SpaceShip #EZ4 #PeaceGas #Garr #Dillon #Truffaut #Dreyfuss #Spielberg

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.

#transparency #fedi #meta

I just cleaned up my timeline and muted a bunch accounts for a variety of reasons:

- spamming a bunch of links to twitter content
- tooting excessive, irrelevant, auto-biographical episodic content
- non-interaction, non-responsive (probably bots)
- accounts with 90%+ toots that are just boosts (bots?)
- a bunch of toots of food without CWs
- other bot cues (very high following/followers on new accounts, etc.)
- certain non-English accounts that Google's translator can't handle
- inaccurate/misleading COVID-19 info

To really appreciate what this film is about, you need to understand the explosive technical innovation that was happening at the time. Most of the contemporary audience for this film had seen the following in their lifetimes…

- rapid transition from horse-drawn carriages to automobiles

- moving pictures - the first movie theaters were built, silent films and then talkies

- invention and commercialization of the airplane

- beginning of the installation of refrigerators in homes (prior to this people relied on ice delivery or just used canning techniques to preserve food)

- electrification of most homes happened during this time

- introduction of the disk phonograph and widespread availability of gramophone players

- rapid adoption of radio – the first broadcast station went on the air in 1919, by the early thirties most homes had a radio

- rapid adoption of the telephone – at the turn of the century only about one percent of households had phones, by the time this film was released most homes had them.

- the first liquid-fueled rocket was launched

Most of these inventions were highly disruptive and even though people enjoyed these new devices, society had a difficult time absorbing the change, which was likely a major contributor to the two world wars. (The main antagonist in this film is a neoluddite.)

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.😂

Besides the war, Wells’ story predicted biological warfare, a zombie apocalypse, sleeping gas used for crowd control (deadly gas was used in WWII, but harmless “Peace Gas” as he called it was not yet a thing), very large aircraft, spaceflight to the moon (Ok, Jules Verne did that story 65 years earlier and Georges Méliès did a film on that when Wells wrote The First Men In the Moon in 1901), men and women wearing the same clothing, sky trams, people movers, glass elevators, a long twenty-year war (Afghanistan) ...

#science #fiction #ScienceFiction #SciFi #FTW #film #movie #warlords #aeroplane #spaceflight #WWII #future #culottes #kulaks #War #moon #PeaceGas #BiologicalWarfare #pompous

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…

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

Let’s make more people sick
so we can sell more medicine.

Let’s start another war
so we can sell more weapons.

Let’s cause more crime
so we can hire more lawyers
and build more prisons.

Let’s cut ourselves
because the bandage is pretty.

Let’s kill ourselves
to feed the worms.

#SmallPoems #Poetry #MastoPrompt #bandage
#sardonic

Fallacy (informal) -

Appeal to authority (argument from authority, argumentum ad verecundiam) - an assertion is incorrectly assumed true because of the position or authority of the person asserting it.*

* Per Walton, Douglas (2008). Informal Logic: A Pragmatic Approach (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN .

#satire #dry #humor #irony

#EchoChamber #words #ignorance #BigIgnorantMicrophones

In case you’ve been stuck in an echo chamber, here’s a vocabulary lesson…

woke (adj.) - aware of racism and other injustices; anti-racist

anti-woke (adj.) - racist

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Hope this clears things up.

#people #puppies #kittens #revolution #populism #DogsOfMastodon

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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)

#revolution

I support the revolution.

(Please boost)

#particle #matter #quantum #physics
#ThisIsWhatDemocracyLooksLike
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Which is your favorite lepton?

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Don't forget to get your bivalent booster vaccine before the holidays. And remember, it works better if you take it in the ass.

(no hashtags this time)

#johnmastodon

Is John Mastodon related to Galt Mastodon?

#shrug
#ItsPronouncedAyn