Good lord, this is funnier than hell, and very well done:
I particularly like the fangs.
Jim Downey
Via TR.
Filed under: Government, movies, Nuclear weapons, Paleo-Future, Predictions, Science Fiction, Terrorism, YouTube
About a year before I was born, the Strategic Air Command had a little movie made for training purposes. Here’s a nice clip from it:
And here’s a bit explaining the story behind the movie:
Washington, D.C., February 19, 2011 – “The Power of Decision” may be the first (and perhaps the only) U.S. government film depicting the Cold War nightmare of a U.S.-Soviet nuclear conflict. The U.S. Air Force produced it during 1956-1957 at the request of the Strategic Air Command. Unseen for years and made public for the first time by the National Security Archive, the film depicts the U.S. Air Force’s implementation of war plan “Quick Strike” in response to a Soviet surprise attack against the United States and European and East Asian allies. By the end of the film, after the Air Force launches a massive bomber-missile “double-punch,” millions of Americans, Russians, Europeans, and Japanese are dead.
60 million American casualties, actually, when all was said and done. And that was the “winning” scenario.
Is it any wonder that much of the popular culture (and the science fiction) of the time was concerned with dystopian futures, frequently involving apocalyptic nuclear war? It truly was a form of MADness.
And we came a lot closer to that actually happening on several occasions that most people realize. I’m not going to bother to dig up all the references, but in addition to the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Yom Kippur War there were multiple instances of false alerts due to mechanical and communications failures which came to light following the end of the Cold War.
Is it any wonder that I have a hard time getting too worked up about the threat of ‘terrorism’? When you grew up expecting a nuclear holocaust, the prospect of random bombings doesn’t seem that big a deal.
Jim Downey
since I first posted about Iron Sky, but it seems like they’re continuing to make progress. From their website two weeks ago:
The news just arrived from Downunder: principal photography finished, all filmed material is in the can (or on portable hard drives in this case), and everyone is washing away the Australian dust with a hefty soaking of assorted beverages!
Additional info indicates that they have three months or more of editing and special effects, and I’m sure that there will be delays along the way – but I’m impressed that they’ve come this far.
Just for giggles, here’s the second teaser which was out a while ago (but which I had managed to miss):
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Augmented Reality, Bipolar, Blade Runner, Comics, Health, Humor, movies, Science Fiction, Writing stuff, YouTube
You know, this whole thing made a lot more sense at 3:43 this morning.
To quote from a favorite character*: “Let me ‘splain. [pause] No, there is too much. Let me sum up.”
I recently gave an example of the . . . creative froth, let’s call it . . . that I always live with. I think particularly when I am in the middle of a creative endeavor this stuff is a lot closer to the surface, as I am now with working out all the characters, setting, plot, et cetera for the prequel to Communion of Dreams. It’s like the barrier between the conscious and subconscious parts of my brain becomes . . . thinner. Connections become easier.
Here’s an example of what I mean:
A number of my friends are or were cops. Last week I was amused by the video going around which was a fan-made movie of an oddball webcomic called “Axe Cop.” Here it is:
Bizarre, eh? Most of my friends thought so. I thought it was hilarious.
Anyway, at about 3:42 this morning I woke up from a dream. Just *Boom* – wide awake. It’s the damned Prednisone (I’m taking another course of it for ongoing efforts with my rib/lung pain) – a common side effect, and one which seems to be hitting me harder this time around than previously.
I had been dreaming. About an “accidental cop.” Someone who had been a cop previously, but then had moved on. The situation developed that he was drafted back into being a cop. Think Rick Deckard being convinced to resume detective work in Blade Runner.
Well, upon waking, in just a few short moments, I developed a whole backstory to the dream, ideas on characters, plot for future development, et cetera. I toyed for a moment with the idea of pitching it as a screenplay, perhaps TV pilot.
Madness, of course. And I realized that when I woke up more completely. But thinking it through, I came to the conclusion that what happened was something of this kind of progression:
- Cop.
- Ex-cop.
- Axe Cop.
- Accidental Cop.
I blame the Prednisone. And a strong manic swing.
Jim Downey
*Inigo, of course, whom I have discussed previously in relation to my own history.
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Art, Babylon 5, Ballistics, Bipolar, Failure, Harry Potter, Hospice, Humor, John Lennon, movies, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Society
“Vir, do you believe in fate?”
“Well, actually, I believe there are currents in the universe, eddies and tides that pull us one away or the other. Some we have to fight, and some we have to embrace. Unfortunately, the currents we have to fight look exactly like the currents we have to embrace.”
Recently, I came up with an audacious idea. This is something which happens to me now and again. Most of the time, I chuckle over it, consider the possibilities, then let it slide back into the creative froth. But every now and again I get an idea I take somewhat seriously, and consider practically – not so much on whether I think it will work, but on whether I think I can convince enough other people that it will work.
Through the last couple of decades I’ve done better at this than you might think, batting about .500. Here’s a list of the big ones, along with a synopsis:
- Opening an art gallery. This *almost* worked, but remains my most expensive failure to date. It’s very sobering to lose money that belongs to family and friends who trust your judgment, not to mention all the work of yourself, your partner, spouses and employees.
- Writing a novel, and getting it published. Looks like this one will actually work.
- Paint the Moon. My biggest artistic success to date.
- Glass Canopy. This caught the imagination of a number of people, and generated a lot of discussion locally. Now such structures are used elsewhere for exactly this purpose. A failure, but not a total one.
- Nobel Prize for JK Rowling. A debacle, in that so many people hated the idea. But perhaps I was just premature.
- Ballistics By The Inch. A huge success. This was in no way just my idea, and I only did part of the work, but I think the vision I had for how the project would be received was largely mine.
- Co-authoring a care-giving memoir. Still early in the evaluation period on this, so can’t say whether it is a success or not.
And looking over that list, thinking about it, one of the clear things I see which helps make something a success is the amount of work I (and others) put into it. When presented with a zany idea, most people will be amused, say why they think it is crazy, and then more or less forget about it. But if confronted with the fact of an idea made manifest, a lot of that skepticism disappears (or never occurs to people in the first place.)
This isn’t very profound, of course, and certainly isn’t at all new. But I am still somewhat surprised to see how much it actually operates in the real world. It’s like imagination is so difficult for people that they just can’t get past their initial dismissal. I asked for comments on my latest idea, and so far have only heard from one person, who pointed out potential problems with it (this was actually a very helpful response). I can only guess that most other people consider it too nutty an idea to even bother with – but in my gut I’m pretty certain that if this resource existed it would be hugely popular and widely used.
But who knows? Was the voice a ghost or just hallucination? Do you embrace the current or fight it? Failure is real – both due to risk as well as inaction.
Jim Downey
This is clever. And I mean that in a positive way:
“They’re made out of data.”
“Data?”
“Data. They’re made out of data.”
“Data?”
“No doubt about it. We picked them up as holonomic extrusions, sent in an amnesiant isomorphic scout party, and checked them out up close. They are completely data.”
“That’s impossible. What about that page?”
It’s a riff on the classic short story by Terry Bisson, of course. And speaking of that, I’ve always loved this version:
Jim Downey
Filed under: Apollo program, Arthur C. Clarke, Astronomy, Humor, movies, Neil Armstrong, NPR, Science, Science Fiction, Space, Writing stuff
What topic could possibly warrant being the subject of post #1,000?
None.
I have no big announcements to share, no news, not even a scrap of intelligent musing on something obscure. Things are pretty much just what passes for routine here currently: getting conservation work done, waiting to hear from the publishers/agents, going through the day-to-day of life.
So, I’ll just break the tension (well, *I’ve* been feeling tension over it) and share this amusing item:
Neil Armstrong Talks About The First Moon Walk
Well, this doesn’t happen every day.
In yesterday’s post, I talked about Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s walk across the lunar surface back in 1969 and wondered, how come they walked such a modest distance? Less than a hundred yards from their lander?
Today Neil Armstrong wrote in to say, here are the reasons:
He also posts the entirety of Armstrong’s email. It’s not often that you get to read history from one of the men who actually made it – it’s worth a look.
So, on to 1,001: A Blog Odyssey.
Jim Downey
So, last night I was in the mood for a little classic science fiction, and decided to watch Alien.
It’s a movie which has aged remarkably well, and as a friend mentioned to me this morning doesn’t seem just silly or cartoonish. The design elements are still widely emulated in science fiction film and television. The special effects are solid and hold up to our modern standards. The cinematographics are perfect for the horror storyline, except for some 70’s lens-flare which seems a bit dated. The anti-corporation subtext is still relevant. And the saga of survival timeless. It’s a great movie.
But one thing about it bugged me while I watched it last night. And thinking more about it this morning, it still bugs me.
It’s the “self destruct” mechanism.
Yeah, I know, this isn’t the first film which had something like that in it. And it certainly wasn’t the last – seems like there isn’t a SF movie or TV show out there which manages to completely avoid using this trope (or at least playing with it).
But think about it: why would you actually build that kind of mechanism into a commercial vehicle? We don’t do that today. The Nostromo was a space tug, hauling an ore-processing facility and some 20,000,000 tons of minerals. You’re talking a huge capital investment – no corporation would want to destroy such an asset, I don’t care how many people were killed on the thing or what sort of horrors happened there. They’d want to be able to salvage as much of the ship, facility, and cargo as possible, no matter what.
And designing the mechanism to act the way it does in the movie doesn’t make sense, either – shutting off the coolant for the nuclear reactor which powers the ship? That’s building a weakness into a system which you would rather want to make as safe and redundant as possible. That’s just asking for trouble.
OK, yeah, I’m being picky. But it really is this sort of thing which I try to pay attention to in my own writing – looking at what makes sense in terms of human motivation and practical engineering, whatever the story or tech that you’re playing with.
But it is still a great movie. I’d hope that Communion of Dreams ages half as well in say, 30 years.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Astronomy, Bad Astronomy, Brave New World, Buzz Aldrin, Carl Zimmer, Comics, Government, io9, movies, NASA, Neil Armstrong, Phil Plait, PZ Myers, Science, Science Fiction, SETI, Space
Today’s xkcd sums things up pretty well, I think: the actual discovery was cool, but the hype made it feel anticlimatic.
Above and beyond what this says about our press being driven by ASTOUNDING!! news and the failure to get even basic science stories right (with some very obvious and excellent exceptions), consider just what was behind the hype: excitement at the prospect of non-terrestrial life of any sort being discovered.
The initial speculation that NASA had proof of life on Titan swept like electronic fire around the world. It wasn’t just science fiction geeks. Or actual biologists. Or space buffs. It was pretty much the whole world, though some had more fun with it than others.
Why did this capture the imaginations of so many people? Easy: we’re hungry for this news, and have been for decades. It’s not just the countless science fiction books and movies which have fed this hunger (mine included) – it is also the very real science behind the search for extra-terrestrial life (or intelligence). Proof of the existence of life beyond our planet would likely be considered one of the most important discoveries in the history of mankind, and the announcement of such a discovery would be a turning point bigger than even the first time that humans walked on the Moon.
It is easy in a time of recession, when money is tight for most people and the government is trying to figure out ways to cut expenditures, to under-value NASA or basic science research. And I am not arguing for this or that ‘big science’ program, per se. But all you have to do is look at what happened this week, to note the wonder and excitement which was launched by the merest possibility of the discovery of life elsewhere, to realize that this kind of knowledge is something that people around the world are waiting for with eager, almost palpable, anticipation. I think it is one of the very best things about humans that this is the case, and it should be encouraged and used.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 