Reviews of movies, anime, and the occasional TV show mixed with warnings on Blogger spam. Also to be found are musings on whatever I am thinking about - all from the point of view of being left to watch everything from the sidelines of life.
For some time now I’ve been dealing with my evolving view of the Web and in particular its benefit to mankind. What began as a wonderful way to freely put out and find information, it looked like one of humanity’s greatest inventions, perhaps even something that would bring the world together.
Alas, it has turned out to do the opposite more often than not.
Lately I’ve been seeing people flip out on others online to a degree worse than usual. Being a target of it out of the blue a couple of times myself, it has been an exercise in Christian forgiveness followed by deliberate avoidance since the attackers persist no matter how much you explain yourself patiently. This is nothing new on the Net for I remember the flame wars on Usenet decades ago.
The first post of the year 2015 is something I actually started awhile back and forgot about. Lately I’ve been pondering how people deal with life’s challenges along with how much behavior is influenced by external pressures. Stress fractures in society are increasing in size and quantity while people seem less equipped to deal with them. That’s the backdrop for what I began writing last year and updated for this post…
Russia slowly undermines and takes away chunks of Ukraine, China bullies its neighbors and lays claim to vast swathes of sea, Islamists are wreaking havoc in France and Africa, illegal alien minors including gang members are flooding over the border with Mexico, Iraq lost territory to terrorists and Iran sent troops in, and the United States has the most corrupt and incompetent leadership in its history. Yep, it is business as usual -- if you are a student of history. Unfortunately, most people are not.
…At least it is where engineering is involved. NASA has successfully tested the privately built Orion capsule with parachutes rigged to fail. While we live in a risk and failure averse society (no lose soccer matches anyone?), science requires failures to advance knowledge and nowhere is that more true than in mechanical engineering. Failures expose weaknesses so that they can be addressed so that tragedies can be avoided as much as possible.
There is a life lesson in that, I think. My failures have taught me more than my successes, so I appreciate the necessity of screwing up from time to time. Maybe not immediately, but once cooled off things can be assessed objectively.
Oddly enough, the anime Space Brothers is going through an arc involving parachute failures right now, so this article leapt out at me even more than the usual aerospace report. Lives will depend on getting this right, so it is good to see the test went very well.
Massive swarms of shoppers bustling about like yellow jackets on the prowl for meat or sugar is not my idea of fun to deal with. It has been many years since I braved a store during the Black Friday weekend and so far I’ve succeeded at avoiding the perilous locations. For those of us (mainly of the male persuasion) who consider shopping boring and/or painful, the Web has given us a way to safely survive Black Friday.
Online sales.
In my case, there usually isn’t anything I’m even interested in the big store sales, but there is gold to be found at online vendors. Yesterday, I snared Iron Man 2 on Blu-ray at Amazon.com for under $4 along with a couple more heavily discounted BDs. My little Christmas present to myself, now that I have taken care of required gifts to others.
Not once while browsing did I get crowded away from a display, though a cat did jump on me. Spending long minutes if not hours standing in line to get in and also to check out? Did not happen. Only a few mouse clicks were required, which is not terribly taxing. It was bitterly windy and I did not feel it at all.
I have come to the conclusion this is the manly way to shop. You can be as under dressed as you want while lounging around with food and drink, yet still score a decent deal. This isn’t just surviving Black Friday – it is surviving it in total comfort without any stress.
You should try it.
Early reports of three to four dead near the Empire State Building in New York City with the gunman dead. Like I have written before, I expect to see a lot more of this as society slowly comes apart at the seams. Too many economic and social pressures are causing marginally stable people to crack.
Meanwhile, Anders Breivik gets twenty one years for killing seventy seven people in Norway. He is eligible for early release in a mere decade. Way to protect your public, Norway!
The other big story is that Lance Armstrong quit defending himself and has been found guilty of doping. All seven Tour de France titles have been stripped from him. It puzzles me that people did not believe he was doping when that sport is completely dishonest. Frankly, all sports are populated by cheaters and dopers now and are not worth following. Certainly, the athletes should not be made heroes at this point, but the masses are desperate for secular gods.
