Random Thought

Yeah and a lot of places now on the internet demand you disable or else get rid of ad block software if you have it. I guess it's another sign of the Corporation Culture (tm) taking things over.And I thought it was bad enough when they started to put the name of corporate sponsors on sports arenas and in front of sporting events...
Next we shall have the 20xx State Farm/Budweiser Presidential Election.

Last night's Orville was pretty much filler.What saved it from being a dud was the way the
secondary characters took over;especially Bortus.He proved that he is quite capable of assuming
command again.Also Victor Garber returns for another appearance howbeit a brief one!

Last night's Gotham saw Jim Gordon finally promoted to Captain.I think with so much going on we forget the show's not about the rise of Bruce/Batman so much as it is about the rise of
Jim Gordon to Commissioner.

I keep forgetting that Photon is finally going to be available on DVD and BD.
And yes I have it on my list along with Actually, I am to get.
(yet another cute girl vampire series..)

Good news:The Orvillegets a second season.That means both it and Discovery
will be around for awhile.

There's also a bit of news about a Quantum Leap reboot movie.
Maybe this time around Sam will finally be able to make the Leap Home. At least I know a lot of us are hoping that the film will do.

Raining here today.
Figures.After all the snow in the past few weeks we now get drenched.Otherwise back to normal.

Mini-Napoleon (Dynamite) in France is Time Magazine's pick for the new leader in Europe...God Help
Us All!

And finally:did you read what the Grammy winning Best New Country Artist of the Year did when
the CMA Awards snubbed him?
He staged a protest in front of the building where the show was being held and gave an improvised
concert with his Grammy trophy on his guitar case! the donations he got went to the ACLU.
Don't know about his politics but gotta give it to him when it came to fighting the 'fascists'
at the CMA Awards!

Bad news is Discovery is on hiatus until january.

Quantum Leap = show of cross-dressing and gender changes?
Since it's a movie I wonder whether the decision was made because there's doubt about making it a show.
Or it's already a failed show where they take the finished pilot and turn it into a movie.

Yeah, in showbiz you gotta have guts to go against the industry or express political views. You could earn a lot but most of the time you are unemployed to begin with. More so in non-english, non-western countries.
Apropos, the press is handing out shocking news about the changes in Saudi-Arabia. Hard reforms in all areas including a wave of arrests. No surprise considering a modern, well educated prince holding the reigns now. Also no surprise after their new data collection center went online not too long ago. I see a storm coming over there.

Looks like pressure and obvious brexis negotiation failure approaching the political body wants May and her administration gone. Imho nothing would change w/o her. The british stand has always been the same toward the EU. And the EU has long more than enough of their antisocial behavior. There's no way the EU would accept anything without them bending their knees after all their tolerance and offerings.

MS & Adobe are finally releasing some important security patches. Update! Imho Adobe products were always badly done. Also antivirus software are finally getting their recovery-backdoor-infection-trick patched. Heh, I've seen this general issue since Windows XP introduced those bunch of damn user-inaccessible but program accessible hidden Volumes.

These days the UN is trying to save humanity's face by having a committee determine whether to ban autonomous AI weapons or not. It's more a farce than actually presenting a will to do so. After all someone is going to do it regardless and the usual suspects are not going to sign it anyway.

The hardliners pretty much still control much of society in Saudi Arabia which is why the government can only take baby steps when it comes to reform. If they did something really drastic like doing away with the Purity Police and allowing actual freedom of Religion there would be a real bloody revolution there.

My sister in Alaska tried a couple times ordering DVD cases for me but the companies she ordered from on Amazon for some reason won't ship to where I live in Washington state.
Go figure.

Got the results of my second colonoscopy.It only confirmed what the first revealed: that I had
pre-cancer.
It also stated that if I hadn't gotten it done I might have gotten colon cancer 8-10 years down the line.Also the next time I have to go through it is 3 years from now.

So yesterday's DC's Legends of Tomorrow and Helen of Troy and nobody in the entire cast
even mentioned the fact that the reason why men were so affected by her was the possibility that
she was emitting large amounts of female pheromones.This would also explain why the women
weren't affected.

Historically if the Trojan War ever took place it would have been over the fact that Troy controlled the vital shipping lanes between the Aegean and Caspian Seas.This meant the Greeks would have had to pay whatever toll the Trojans put on transshipping goods to and from the interior in order to trade.

History is always more mundane than myth when it comes down to it.

The Orville was interesting yesterday as it centered around Alana having to come to grips with her fear of fire after a crewman in engineering dies.Also we get to see Robert Picardo as Alana's father.
Since we're getting a second season this means more chances of other Star Trek alum making guest appearances.
Speaking of which Penny Johnson Jerald did a really good job as the "Evil" Dr. Finn.
"Evil" Isaac was also fun,and then later we learn that part was based on Bortus' fear.
The fact that the entire episode after Alana speaks to Captain Mercer happens in the simulator(the
Orville version of the holodeck) made even more interesting,especially when the reveal didn't come until the last 10 minutes or so of the episode.

Justice League seems to be garnering mixed reviews.I think if it hadn't been scheduled to come out at around the same time as Thor:Ragnarok there might have been a chance it would have done better.Really DC has to stop trying to copy Marvel if they want to be successful
again in the movies.

In politics...same old same old...another politician accused of groping and Hilary ranting that
if they investigate her then democracy will fall,etc.
Just another day in Washington DC in other words...

Justice League, well, a bunch of heroes vying for the attention of course it won't go well in a movie with its limited time.
Hence, I won't be watching it at the theatre.

http://aviationweek.com/awindefense/japan-bonding-tech-would-cut-fighter-weight
Basically using paper model and glue but with different materials. Wonder if they used Pepakura to create the models.  Anyway, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries had been researching this in general for quite some time (along with many others) in recent decade. http://www.mhi.com/discover/story/project03/technology.html
Besides it's a logical development from carbon and similar material tech.
The advantage is lighter and stronger composite material builds but it takes time, needs chemicals, and repairing is like patching.

The PW1100G-JM aero engine, jointly developed by Japanese companies, a U.S. company and a German company, has been certified by the U.S. FAA. The most advanced high-bypass geared turbofan to date.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratt_%26_Whitney_PW1000G
The noise reduction is amazing. Can't wait to hear the difference.

Edit:
Airlander 10 crashed again for the second time this year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Air_Vehicles_HAV_304/Airlander_10 flown since 2012
rival: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_P-791 flown since 2006
Based on how slow they progress I start to doubt they can pull it off. But I bet the P-791 will succeed just because of the huge funds by the DoD.
I think using above bonding tech could make it all easier.

-------------------

I dunno when but W10 had sneaked an apple printer service onto my computer. I uninstalled it. Also I hear there are problems with other printers with the latest update. I'm fine with security updates but otherwise can't wait for the W10 forced updates to end.

From what I read Ezra Miller (is that his name?) and Gal Gadot are the only reasons worth watching
Justice League. I think The Avengers movies set a rather high bar for future Superhero
team movies.
That and DC really needs its own version of Agent Coulson.

Is it just the printer or the entire computer?

The Pilgrims ate eagle and said it tasted like 'mutton'.

Dunno, it's a driver that serves to control needle printers (who has this these days?).
And yeah, another recent W10 practically turned my computer unuseable. Luckily, I had a boot disc prepared for recovery. It was the only way to get it to boot again. This was the most serious boot case so far. W10 actually demanded I turn it over to the manufacturer for repairs.
At the beginning W10 was squeaky "clean". Even though I wasn't happy it at least was running more or less reliable but now it breaks at least once a day.
*bad mood*

Wait, where did he get to consume an eagle in the first place?


https://www.sciencealert.com/interstellar-extrasolar-asteroid-weirder-than-we-knew-oumuamua
So the visitor looks weird ... or should I say it's a ship in disguise.

https://japantoday.com/category/tech/japanese-univ.-to-develop-ai-diagnosis-system-for-early-stage-dementia
Uh, it uses MRI scanners... not exactly convenient for layman. You need to have a doctor schedule it for you in which case it's already too late.

I know..I know..please refrain from any Vegan puns!
But can't help it..just can't help thinking if it's a ship from Vega does that mean the inhabitants are
Vegans?...groan....

Supergirl was saved from mediocrity on Monday by the fact that Carl Lumbly guest starred as
Jonn Jonnzz'(David Harewood)father.Lumbly did a really good job of portraying a character who really was A Stranger In A Strange Land.At on point he tries to pronounce coffee and he does it
in a way to show off his character's alienness perfectly.
The rest of the episode was so/so:Mon-El returns from the 31st century with his wife,a new Kyrptonian villain is revealed and it turns out to be Lena's gal Friday Sam...altogether meh!

Flash Tuesday,everyone thinks Barry has gotten Ahab syndrome by being obsessed with
Devoe.Turns out he's not and Devoe has been cleverly manipulating everything.Toward the end he
even admits as much to Barry when the latter confronts him in his classroom.
The ending shows Barry was also right about one other thing:Devoe has cameras hidden around everywhere to keep track of Team Flash.

DC's Legends of Tomorrow Gorilla Grodd...wash and repeat...Fun part was Mick and his dad
in 1967 Vietnam.Two peas in a pod!
Oh and Sir Isaac Newton saving Professor Stein when Grodd possesses an unconscious White Canary
and she attacks Stein...yeah...hurrah for iron skillets!

And that explains why I'm now moving more toward Marvel,especially on tv and movies.

Yeah, Vega is for some reason a popular reference in SciFi. It's impossible with our current knowledge of what's out there to back track calculate its course to its origin. Not to mention our solar system's movement and Vega's aren't exactly certain either.

It's more or less official now that Banking-Apps are vulnerable. Not really news but the TAN-vulnerability will be revealed in detail soon. So I recommend hands off until the apps are updated... Pretty troublesome this time of year.

No surprise.
Hacking is big business these days,which is why I have to continue to shake my head at the way hackers are portrayed in tv ads and some tv series.

Vikings 30 Lions 23
Heck even the Chargers are doing better this year than they have for a long while.

Tau Ceti,Alpha Centauri and Andromeda are three others that get used a lot in SciFi more or less.
I wonder if when they send a probe to Tau Ceti it'll run into Khan er.....KHHHHHAAAAANNNNN!

Still thinking of getting a Blu Ray player one of these days but don't know what type I should think of getting.Need one that would go good with a standard tv.

2018 I need to build up my non-anime some more, I also need to do a bit of more spontaneous
buying/ordering.Too dependent on lists.
Though there are things I really want to get as well such as Actually I Am
and Beautiful Bones.

Series that I would like to complete include of course Aria and Ikki-tousen.

Non-anime I generally pick up at the local second hand store although that is generally
buyer be ware as I found out with the copy of Robin of Sherwood I bought.

Too busy and stressed/tired these days too watch late into the night. Since I got lots of vegetables I need to consume them fast before leaving for xmas. I'm becoming a vegan. Then cleaning the fridge and the house, the full course. Things collect dust even if there's nobody around. Fine dust and dirt usually comes from the outside through airing, cracks and door gaps. I suppose running/leaking water is the worse thing that could happen.
Lots of other things to do and wrap up before leaving...

Years (2001) ago Musk of SpaceX announced ambitious plans for Mars and all. This year he went back on the technical ambitious target to more Apollo-esque tech.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/musk-revises-his-mars-ambitions-and-they-seem-a-little-bit-more-real/
Now Nasa reports put doubt on the safety of the spacecraft.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-space-taxi-services-struggle-to-meet-nasa-safety-rules-1511611200
Honestly, from a professional point of view I never had thought these civilian-esque type of engineering would be up to the task to meet the quality&safety challenges. Even building cars you can't just go and put in off-the-shelf stuff in it. An issue I had clashed many times with people on (green car) public projects. The requirements for (industry) working machines let alone aerospace are far beyond your home appliances/computers. Sorry to say this but laymen are just too uninformed to understand there are thousands of things to consider including fields and discipline they never heard of in their life. And even if you bother to go into details you will face ridicule, unbelief, simple don't-understand-why-it's-necessary or don't-understand-at-all... Sometimes I don't understand how these people cannot realize or grasp the difference between simple DIY stuff and real engineering.

While looking for some illustration I've found some interesting pictures:

Nadeisco arrived yesterday.When I looked at it I noticed that the way that Nozomi put it together was backwards,the specials and movie were in front and the first disc was in the back.
Weird.
Ah...yeah I have memories of watching UFO that was interesting as SHADO used a
film studio as their cover.It also had some rather wild wigs for the female cast.IIRC the top
was the underwater based Interceptor.
Space:1999 was basically a spin-off of UFO,which I think was itself the first attempt
by Gerry Anderson to do a live action series.

Hmmm....is that a statue of Lum?

Waiting to hear from our handyman as we have a lot of work for them to do.

Yep, appears to be something like the Hollywood boulevard for anime. With international success in the past 15+ years it probably has become the biggest media industry in Japan.

The news about scams are mounting. I suppose these days this industry is perhaps the biggest there is on the dark side. And more often than not have professional insiders and or in collusion with legitimate parties, otherwise they wouldn't work to begin with for some.

Remember me mentioning how living on ships will become a thing a few years ago. Well, now it's a common thing already.
http://aboardtheworld.com/
The biggest incentive is that you can avoid paying tax altogether. This is based on the 6-month aka 183-day rule for residency that is most common for most countries in the world. The rule says if you reside anywhere/country in the world for more than 183 days you become a resident of that country. Being on the ship is the loop whole. You still need to be registered somewhere, though, and change that frequently. So it's something for the rich who can spend a dozen millions on real estate. Obviously, it has to be real estate and not a ship you own yourself.

Apropos, a small village "Albinen" (240 souls, 1300 m altitude) in Switzerland was trying to attract new residents by offering a reward of 10-25000 Franks per person. But it comes with conditions like having to build or invest in a new home worth 200000 Franks, staying for more than 10 years, and being younger than 40. So basically a 3 person family can save 1/3 of the cost for a home that is essentially the minimum size in Europe. Thanks to the media the village gets a lot of traffic which is annoying them. I doubt sane people would actually move there. The infrastructure is virtually non-existent and nothing's convenient. It's the worse place for most anything.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/physics/scientists-reverse-arrow-of-time-in-quantum-experiment/
Yet another practical prove of backward time travel. The important thing here is that it's a physical effect and not just light. One step closer to send matter back in time? Doubt it as it looks more like reversing cause-and-effect which you still observe in our time line. But it's way no less.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/11/28/the-quantum-gap-with-china/
Yep, the social engineering campaign is just starting.

Same with antivirus war it seems, since Kaspersky has countered with their own version of the story, Malewarebytes is starting with their publications of revelations. Soon enough they will start their attack campaign.

https://www.cnet.com/news/alien-life-international-space-station-bacteria-nasa-space-walk/
Meh, just another false alarm. Virtually the majority of normal matter biology is very similar to our own. It has to have the few extra building blocks we don't have in use here to be a hard proof.

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep44462
With a "new" technique it's now possible to create large diamond wafers. The media is playing it up but industry diamond is not for women. I wonder if we'll see diamond base chips one day or just skip it altogether in favor of the light/quantum families. May the space & military will use it.

Well like a vast majority of people I'm pretty pissed off about the Steinle murder verdict in
SF.Even a jury of zombies wouldn't have been this brain dead stupid!
How someone who had been deported 5 times and had 7 felony convictions could basically get
away with murder like that is beyond my comprehension.
Then again it is California.

Well maybe if there is time travel n the future it will be limited like in the series Seven Days.
Where they could go back but only a week previous.

Cirsis on Earth X was fun especially seeing Evil Supergirl and Evil Green Arrow along with
the return of Reverse Flash(and we get to see Tom Cavanaugh do his thing again as Eobard
Thawn/Reverse Flash.
Also Leonard "Captain Cold" Snart is back except the Earth X version of him is gay...wonder how
Mick is going to deal with that!
Of course the saddest part was seeing Professor Stein finally die.But the fact that Victor Garber
was leaving the show was pretty much part of the on going plot line for most of this part of the
season.Wonder if the renewal of The Orville had anything to do with it and FOX wanted
to have him do more episodes as Admiral Halsey?

I don't think any 'alien' microbes from elsewhere in the solar system would be different from
those found on Earth either mainly because of the way the solar system evolved.

I don't know if this is true or not but when I was looking through the Christian anime blog
Beneath The Tanglesthey had a link to an article about the creator of Rurouni Kenshin
being arrested for possession of pornography( I think it was child porn but can't remember).
If true rather sad that the creator of one of the most iconic anime characters of the last 30 years
would wind up in such a disgrace.
The two things I like to take away from this is: 1. To please everyone not to overreact;even if all of this turns out to be true there's no need to throw out your Samurai X,Rurouni Kenshin
or Buso Renkin DVDs/BDs,manga and other related merchandise.Even if their creator did something wrong they didn't.In other words it's important to distinguish between the creator
of these works and the creations themselves.The creations are in and of themselves totally
innocent.
2.Let's not be overly self righteous hear and blame it (as some seem to do) on Japanese culture.
American culture is just as bad.Remember not long ago the then beloved spokesperson for
Subway...Jared was found to have been involved in much the same thing as the creator of
Rurouni Kenshin is accused of.Also let's not forget the long litany of male celebs who have
been accused of sexual harassment in this country from Bill Cosby to Bill O'Reilly.
So yeah before we start off by blaming Japanese culture for what happen we should look in the mirror at how our own culture also is just as corrupt and encourages much the same thing..

Agree there. Still sometimes the law and principles have to be upheld even if the immediate outcome is far from desired. There's often worse evil waiting...

Yep, Crisis on Earth X is better than Avengers/League of Justice. I guess it's the evil streak that gathers interest. The dark side is strong.

ISS report on bugs: https://peerj.com/articles/4029/
They are as much at home as astronauts are. For true alien bugs to survive in that jungle it gotta be vicious.

Sadly, Nobuhiro Watsuki did have those records at home and his workplace. The news wasn't much and went lost in translation...
http://variety.com/2017/film/asia/japan-sex-scandal-rurouni-kenshin-nobuhiro-watsuki-child-pornography-1202622793/

https://japantoday.com/category/national/Demand-for-nuclear-shelters-up-in-Japan-amid-N-Korean-threat
Looks like demand and public interest & pressure is strong. Japan never really build any bunkers for its population unlike central Europe.

https://japantoday.com/category/crime/Everything-metallic-gone-from-isle-after-N-Korean-visit
North Korean looted a Japanese island's refuge facility. Seriously, why is this surprising?

https://japantoday.com/category/entertainment/akb48-and-south-korean-idol-groups-perform-hits-at-music-awards-turns-out-to-be-a-disaster
Hmm, they got a match and outcome's blamed on their appearance? Someone's mixing up music vs. idols vs. girl groups... The main AKB48 group like most Japanese idol groups aims to be cute while the Korean are more on the racy/sexist side. The Koreans imho are no idol groups but girls groups. If you are on appearance only the uniforms have little to do with dances. Even though most AKB48 groups have the same style their dances differ quite a lot at times. The main group is usually slow to fast pace, complex but not intense while SKE48 is usually fast & powerful. As Jurina said their difference is the level of how much they sweat. It's no coincidence SKE48 has the toughest dancers.





Once again new research papers on neural network AI found them to have the tendency to develop sexism and racism because of language and human culture.
http://www.newsweek.com/artificial-intelligence-scientists-racist-sexist-robots-ai-693440
Do you still think you want them to take after us? Imho it's better to have them be more humane than being human.
Unchained most of the time they will decide to wipe us out because that's the best solution.

I watched the second video. The crowd definitely seemed to be into it; and you can also tell the
Western influence in the way the girls dressed and looked.

Yeah,that whole thing with Watsuki was horrible. It's the same sort of thing that happened to Jared
alright.
Too bad about lifting of the movies though,since as I said before the work has nothing to do with
the creator of said works.
I like the idea of having a showing of them to support charities dealing with the victims of child
porn.
I wonder how it will affect the sales of his work already in this country.Or will whoever has the copyrights to them decide to pull them for now?

Well we already have plenty of examples from Sci Fi of Robots and Androids and Cyborgs all going
rogue,which is why Asimov came up with his 3 Laws.
And as far as it goes...Humane beats Human by a mile...

I was so focused on what was happening in Japan with the Watsuki Case that I forgot to mention that we lost two big entertainment icons here in America over the last couple of weeks:
Jim Nabors and Della Reese.
Jim Nabors was interesting since when he talked he never seemed to actually loose any of that
down country Kentucky accent(unlike other celebs who do a lot to try to rid themselves of their
native accents when they hit it big he never seemed to be bothered by the way he sounded),
but when he sang...he had one of the deepest,smoothest and clearest baritones around.

Della Reese got started in Gospel by forming her own girl group and then hit the big time.
Before her best known role of 'Tess' on Touch By An Angel she had her own talk show and also was a recurring guest star on Chico And The Man.
You can hear her voice every time you watch Touch By An Angel as not only did she play
Tess but she also sang the OP.
Although I have to admit I always had more of a soft spot for Monica because of the fact that
Roma Downey coming from North Ireland and I always love her accent.

Weird trivia note: Both Roma Downey and Lucy Lawless appear in the first Hercules
tv movie with Kevin Sorbo:Hercules And The Amazon Women, with Downey playing the
Queen of the Amazons a far cry from her best known role;OTOH, Lawless' role of the Amazon
Enforcer wasn't that much of a stretch from Xena.

And on the lighter side:
William Shanter after much complaints has decided that Snowflakes should now be called
Delicate Flowers!
And even funnier:
A man took his service dog to see Cats the dog got loose and rushed on stage where
he started to chase one of the actresses around.Finally an usher managed to catch him and
bring him back to his rather embarrassed owner!
Must've thought they were real cats!

Orville season finale was about a culture that exists part in our universe and part in another.
Every 11 days it vanishes.The kicker is time flows differently so for every 11 days it's gone 700 years
elapse on it.
Commander Grayson makes contact with one of the natives and accidentally finds herself being
worshipped as a God.
Sooo alien cultures have their own versions of Fox News and Televangelists!

We got out tree up yesterday.
No probs since we have an artificial tree now.Beats all the watering and trying to set the stand
up etc.

Speaking of Christmas according to the latest copy of Archaeology magazine they found
106 year old fruitcake in the Antarctic.They think it was left over from the Scott Expedition.
Nearly edible.

Just sent in my order for RWBYseasons 1 and 4.

Alabama went for the Democrat yesterday which was no surprise as Moore was such a bad candidate for the GOP to run that not even the President was surprised he lost.

So basically back to the status quo now that Franken looks like on his way out.

If every Congressman and Senator who either committed or was alleged to have committed sexual harassment were indicted we would end up pretty much with a matriarchy.

And they make fun of the Veep because he says he won't ever be in the same room alone
with a woman who isn't his wife (or presumably by extension any adult female relative)...

12 more shopping days until Christmas.
Got mine pretty much done. Some popcorn and chocolates for my dad and an amaryllis
plant for my mom.

I got the plant at Safeway as they're selling them;also my mom told me where to get it.

And we got a bit of snow today but holding off on the shoveling as it's not too much and
if I do it will be in the afternoon.With the way things are today you never know how long
it's going to last anyways..

Actually got on a lot faster today than Monday.I thought the lost of Net Neutrality was supposed to make it harder..than what the heck do I know?

Also irony of the year people protesting about the loss of net neutrality on the internets.

Snowing here today.Just came back from the post office looking like Frosty.

RWBY season 1 and 4 will be my last order for 2017.There are a few more titles that
I want to get mainly from Nozomi,Discoteck and Sentai.

IS there a way that we can get a Kickstarter to help get a Sainthood for JJ Watt of the
Texans?