WeckUpToThees!

20080520

just the anime

Barbaloot and I catch SciFi network mostly for the anime, though I'd like to get her into BSG. We'd have to start at the very beginning too, cuz I've probably seen fewer whole episodes than I own 10mm pistols. She sees BSG ads and thinks it's just soap opera.

But as we watch SciFi and see what non-anime programs it offers, it reminds me of Aaron Magruder's observations of Black Entertainment Television. Few blacks, very little entertainment. BSG looks like the only real SF that SciFi has to offer. They'll need a hell of a lot more SF to offset the ghost hunting and crossing over and yeti junk they carry.

posted by Fûz 22:56

20080518

Recluse RIP

We regret to note the passing of our oldest cat, Feathers. Renal failure, over the last few months. Only last week was it visible in her behavior. We euthanized her before any indications of pain or suffering.

posted by Fûz 16:19

What we've done with the stimulus rebate, part one

Since Uncle Sugar has borrowed money for all of us bitter God-fearing masses to piss away:

6.5mm Grendel, Wolf Gold, 123gr soft points, 20 rds per carton, 25 cartons. Exactly fifty cents per round delivered. This is about all the money that will go for anything manufactured outside the US.

IJ will be getting some help, as well as some legal funds for folks trying to get or stay out of jail because of ATF abuses.

posted by Fûz 16:08

20080501

If a red giant bursts in gamma rays, and there's no sentient life to observe it, is it a Great Filter event?

Instapundit points to an article whose author hopes, almost wishes, that there's no intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. If there were, it would somehow mean to him that a cataclysmic event, of sufficient scale to eradicate humanity, hasn't happened yet, which for him is a cause for concern.

I apologize for failing to follow the logic. It seems that a man holding the directorship of something called the Future of Humanity Institute should be more optimistic about humanity and its future, but this fellow is a downer:
For example, it might be that any sufficiently advanced civilization discovers some technology--perhaps some very powerful weapons technology--that causes its extinction.
The Universe abounds with so-called Great Filter events that have utterly nothing to do with the inevitable self-destruction of sentience, fashionable though that assertion may be. Gamma-ray bursting stars, asteroid impacts, ice ages for crissakes, any of which would roll back the calendar on our species if not obliterate it outright.

It isn't a Great Filter, it's thousands of calamities, randomly scattered across space and time, and we haven't been whacked by one yet but we still can be. Only microseconds ago in geologic time have we become aware of the potential for these calamities. It will take real geologic time for us to move a significant number of ourselves sufficiently far away to be spared the greatest of these calamities.

It may be that there are hundreds or even thousands of other spacefaring civilizations out there, dead before they got out of reach of the nearest GRB. For each of them, there are millions of other extinct civilizations buried under kilometers of ice, then ground to silt when the glaciers retreated, through a hundred cycles of glaciation and thaw.

I'd be surprised to find there are more than 3 interstellar races anywhere in the Universe at any one time, but then I haven't done the math.

Arguing that we're doomed for, or safely past, some single inevitable culminating point in the development of sentience is itself a form of observation selection effect.

posted by Fûz 19:26

20080424

drycleaning gets the smoke smell off the blazer

There's this:

" . . . the whole game is idiotic. Parties are supposed to pick their own nominees, and the idea ought to be for the guys on the inside who know what they're doing to come up with whoever they think has the best chance of winning the general election . . . "
Is this so far from what I wrote here?

Though he and I use "activist" somewhat differently.

posted by Fûz 22:14

20080421

I'd vote for a black man

it just has to be a black man who identifies himself by his belief in the content of one's character, rather than an accident of birth. Say, Ward Connerly, or Thomas Sowell. Shelby Steele.

Ironic that the charge of bigotry so easily erupts from the mouth of people who cherish the diversity of appearance but insist upon uniformity in, even blind obedience to, dogma.

posted by Fûz 21:12

20080416

greetings, visitors from Snake River Brewpub

Yup, I was just there.

The ribs were a bit too clove-y but overall quite good.

posted by Fûz 19:29

20080413

kick the FMG-9 up a notch

All the hullaballoo over a folding machine pistol in 9mm, we just don't get it. 9mm seems to be the caliber of choice for weird guns you can't find a mission for.

Now if MagPul chose to crank these out with a 7.62x25mm chambering and 8 inches of barrel, I'll dutifully lust for one.
Labels: new and unique blasters

posted by Fûz 19:51