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The newsletter title is a quote from Miller’s remake of Mad Max. A couple other gems: “If you can’t fix what’s broken, you’ll go insane“. and “Hope is a mistake“. I spent a lot of time thinking about the first one during the 2020 pandemic lockdown. It’s not even about powerlessness, it’s about grinding yourself into a nub. So, is the option to keep grinding? Or is it to stop trying to fix what’s broken? Is it both? Because you’ll go insane.

But the latter quote… “Hope” had a lot of blowback after Obama used it prior to being elected. I understood the message and the blowback, but honestly, there’s going to be a point where there is nothing left but hope… so maybe we don’t forsake it just yet. In context of a crumbling society (Mad Max, not us, riiight? Right.), I could see how forsaking hope would keep you nimble, on your toes, and alive. Modern times has me vibing on that sentiment, big time. Ain’t life weird and wild and just so complex?

I swear if this is a simulation, they are winding it down, and just seeing how much insanity and absurdity we’ll take. Well, I’ll muster the stiff upper lip and dust myself off… but we still gotta figure out what to make for dinner tonight.

OOOooooooh I KNOW what’s for dinner!!!!

 

Also, you might need a hit of simple meaning of life stuff, from the one and only Marc Rebillet:

 

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A post shared by Marc Rebillet (@marcrebillet)

 

SPACE

 

  • Saturn at Night: Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Space Science Institute, Mindaugas Macijauskas

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210911.html

 

 

NASA’s Gateway moon-orbiting space station explained in pictures. The slideshow is simple and great. https://www.space.com/nasa-lunar-gateway-moon-space-station-explained-pictures

 

  • ISS isn’t going to be around much longer, it seems. Last week I shared the Flickr account of one of the astronauts… Here is another of his shots. So take in their view while you can: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thom_astro/

 

 

YOU ARE HERE–>

 

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

 

mRNA bound to RNA binding protein

 

 

  • If it’s code that isn’t written with inherent biases, it’s better than a human… but what human wrote the code writing this code?:

A.I. Can Now Write Its Own Computer Code. That’s Good News for Humans. A new technology called Codex generates programs in 12 coding languages and even translates between them. But it is not a threat to professional programmers. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/technology/codex-artificial-intelligence-coding.html

 

  • Practical applications for consumers based on inventions from NASA:

 

  • Anti-Vaxxers are going to lose their goldarned minds. The GOP are about to lose their minds as communists for workers’ rights all of a sudden…. But this could effectively end the pandemic? I’ve got to imagine this is deeply rooted in a lot of scientific data points. This journalist is currently USA Today White House Correspondent, but has worked at BBC, Time.

 

 

 

  • Walking with coffee is a little-understood feat of physics:

“While humans possess a natural, or gifted, ability to interact with complex objects, our understanding of those interactions—especially at a quantitative level, is next to zero,” said ASU Professor Ying-Cheng Lai, an Arizona State University electrical engineering professor. “We have no conscious ability to analyze the influences of external factors, like noise or climate, on our interactions.” https://phys.org/news/2021-09-coffee-little-understood-feat-physics.html

Walking with coffee is a little-understood feat of physics

  • 107 year old Irish farmer, in 1965, talks about change. Let me know what you find out. I CANNOT UNDERSTAND A WORD HE SAYS.

 

MOVIES & TV

  • FREE GUY. Watch it. Anyhoo… Reynolds went from persona not grata to epic super human empathy joy man human person.
@vancityreynoldsLate to the Grace Kelly trend but way early for our movie musical. I ?? duets. (And Mika)? original sound – Ryan Reynolds

 

Some recommendations!

 

John Cena’s madcap bona-fides are on full display in “Vacation Friends” [HULU], a hilarious over-the-top comedy in vein of Wedding Crashers type of absurdity. With L’il Del Rey Howard, someone you know even if you don’t… he is fantastic, and he can play the straight man perfectly, but his acting skills are wild as well.

L’il Rey was a genuine treat in “Free Guy” with Ryan Reynolds, as well. Free Guy is one of the most enjoyable films I’ve seen in years (no, not because of action… because of the existentialism and underlying philosophies discussed in the film… I’ve a whole post coming about it. It feels like an opposite Annihilation in talking about mental health and existence).

Vince Vaughan plays a homicidal lunatic who swaps into the body of a charmingly aloof and weird high school girl in “FREAKY“, a horror comedy take on Freaky Friday. The acting is GREAT, and it’s fun.

 

Some Norm Macdonald as he exits the building.

 

  • SO, in rewatching wargames, it’s unreal what “Russia” was to us, vs how people act now, across the board. Namely, the “USSR map outline” looked like some massive powerhouse of evil, and it’s like “oh the entire population is in a few cities in the west”. The rest is empty or Mongolia. Now, outside of Russia, the people who love Putin are in the same party as the ones that hated the USSR the most. That’s confusing. But it’s a tiny country that’s a house of cards now, and it was like our aliens/nazis in the 80s. With a lot of great synth. But man… WHAT HAPPENED TO US IS THE QUESTION?

 

  • This, from the Rick and Morty finale, was so painful it sorta broke me. The name of the character is Mr. Poopy Butthole, by the way. It’s so painfully honest about the human condition.

 

  • This is so pure… Bridges, Goodman, Buscemi talk Coen Brothers’ Big Lebowski:

 

  • ITYSL vs Matrix crossover memes? HELL YES

r/IThinkYouShouldLeave - Cypher was a real piece of shit

 

I remember someone asking the Coen Brothers why they had a weird and unnecessary shot in between a scene, and they said something like “the efficiency of cinematic vocabulary is so important and vital, if you think the scene wasn’t necessary, you’re not paying attention”. Totally not a quote but sentiment. It’s a great line and changed how I watch film, and interpret it. I’ve also been rewatching and watching so many films lately, and noticed the Milk in Mad Max, and how that was used to show a perverse post-apocalypse vs modern society’s standards and norms, vs using it to relate the general age of someone, ie to show the horrors of the Droogs in Clockwork Orange actually being teenagers.

 

MUSIC

 

  • Ebert is so prolific, this essay on his relationship with Russ Meyer, the Sex Pistols’ Malcolm McLaren, Johnny Rotten, and Sid Vicious is SOMETHING ELSE. Holy cow. And, McLaren’s son he had with Vivienne Westwood opened up Agent Provocateur. Karl Marx, George Eliot, Christina Rossetti, Radcliffe Hall, Douglas Adams, Sir Ralph Richardson also make a cameo… but this history is unreal.

“McLaren & Meyer & Rotten & Vicious & me” https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/mclaren-and-meyer-and-rotten-and-vicious-and-me

 

  • THIS IS HILARIOUS, and slightly true, but the content, sir, is a downer.

r/JamesBlake - James Blake: ‘I genuinely want to make music for sitting by the swimming pool’

 

If you don’t know James:

 

  • OBSESSED. HYPHY 707 Bay Area woman from Vallejo. She’s so fun, adorable, and such a talented writer. Not sure who Coey Redd ghostwrites for, but she was recently signed and is releasing her own stuff soon. REPPIN’ THE BAY. Great lyrics, great flow. Talented ability to write and flow in different rapper styles.
@coeyreddTell me you’re from the bay without tellin’ me! ?????????? #rapper #viral #remix #bayarea #makeyourselfheard @lewitt.audio? original sound – Coey Redd

 

VIDEO GAMEESSssss

 

  • It’s about damned time. I don’t care if it’s a cut scene, they’re a good company and COME ON they’ve screwed up the Xmen in almost all media since Claremont. The game is “full size” with a “mature tone”. If full size means anything but 5’1″ tall, I will not be happy about that right there.

 

As long as the music slaps like this:

 

PEOPLE, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE

 

  • Bye, Norm. The below link leads to clips and articles. He was a under the radar powerhouse, and a legend for other comics. His ability to turn a phrase, or eloquent mastery of simple folksy, direct talk and beat by beat timing is just unreal. Here’s his Netflix special if you’ve not seen it: https://www.netflix.com/title/80134780

He was too real, honest, grating, and accountable to this broken world for some people’s tastes. For me? He’s one of the greatest of all time.

Some Norm Macdonald as he exits the building.

 

  • A 9/11 documentary with an incredible angle on preservation and experience. This was remarkable, and the only documentary I watched. I don’t need to relive it, but to experience how we process and identify with it *now* was far more interesting, as we place meaning onto objects that might be mundane or uninteresting: http://www.objectsandmemory.org/

“In the face of sudden disruption and inexplicable loss, there is a need to bridge the irreplaceable past with a hopeful future. This film follows people driven to preserve meaningful objects in the aftermath of 9/11 and other upheavals. Otherwise ordinary items come to symbolize experiences, aspirations, and identity. Without the objects, the stories would lack vibrancy; without the stories the objects would lack significance. Taken together, the images of the objects and the stories they evoke lead the viewer on a journey where the commonplace is transformed into the remarkable and where the stuff of history is highly personalized.”

 

This is my favorite tweet, possibly ever:

 

  • The Upshot: There’s historically verified accurate descriptions about the real Mona Lisa, and this simply isn’t the same painting. It’s a different painting of his, but it is not how the Mona Lisa is historically described by multiple people:

The Painting Exhibited at the Louvre Is Not the Mona Lisa The true story of the Lady of Lo’bardia https://wsimag.com/art/57726-the-painting-exhibited-at-the-louvre-is-not-the-mona-lisa

 

The reason that matters? Is this: It’s Time to Take Down the Mona Lisa Leonardo’s painting is a security hazard, an educational obstacle and not even a satisfying bucket-list item. It’s time the Louvre moved it out of the way. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/06/arts/design/mona-lisa-louvre-overcrowding.html

 

  • Religion is so batshit insane buck wild. How that madness got a pass is crazier still. Sure, it was all we had to explain meteors, tidal waves, lightning, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and eruptions, etc. But here and now, it’s baffling people walk into a room on a Sunday and believe, in various degrees, they’re drinking a zombies blood and eating his skin. WTAF? The idea some grumpy space pixie is so damned inexcusably moody, inconsistently applying the principles.

Anyway… I hadn’t any idea Lillilth was made from the same dust as Adam, and was a feminist, that… well…

“because Lilith wanted to have sex on top, and she insisted on her right to do so. According to some variants, Adam refused this, divorced her and sent her away, but in other versions she was the one who abandoned him. She pronounced the name of God, flew up out of Paradise into the air, and went off to the Red Sea. God sent angels to capture her and bring her back to Adam, threatening that if she didn’t come along, she would lose a hundred of her demon children daily, but she preferred even that to returning to Adam. Ever since, she has taken her revenge on Eve (her rival) by strangling babies, and swallowing the sperm of men who sleep alone at night….

…in the beginning, God has a sick stomach. He feels so ill that his whole body aches and he begins to throw up. He creates everything from his insides, by vomiting all the plants, trees, animals, and human beings, one after the other onto the earth”.

How do these guys get tax free control of political narratives? SERIOUSLY.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/books/book-excerpt-adam-s-first-wife-wasn-t-eve-but-lilith-here-s-why-they-broke-up/story-xqsev3SSBzd8XMyyXsGJHN.html

 

 

VEHICLES

  • The practical effects of Mad Max are legend:

WELL… those cars are all up for auction: https://www.lloydsonline.com.au/AuctionLots.aspx?smode=0&aid=25652

https://www.letseatcake.com/mad-max-fury-road-cars-auction/

https://www.thedrive.com/news/42323/the-iconic-cars-from-mad-max-fury-road-are-headed-to-auction

The Doof Wagon, amps, guitar, and all, is fully functional for quick runs to the store for butter and diet tonic.

 

 

  • Car colors are far more complex and sophisticated than you might think. The science behind this blue is unreal.

“This paint took years to develop. It contains no actual colored materials in its pigment, instead relying on the interplay and cancellation of certain wavelengths of visible light within its structures instead of the simple absorption method that other paints use. I am talking about a paint only available on certain Lexus LC500s. It is paint code 8Y0. I am talking about Structural Blue”.

 

 

  • When it’s not a street, nor a road… it’s a dangerous and hostile Stroad, and you may recognize when you tense up a bit it’s on these roads. If you like city planning, infrastructure, and arcane but mundane aspects of daily life… THIS IS FOR YOU.

 

  • I mentioned decommissioned planes still operating across the world… and DC-3 aside, this MD-80 is something I remember from my youth, when Alaska was flying them. I think Delta decommissioned the last carrier MD-80 “Mad Dog” in 2017 or 2019, so it’s just the rare freight one you might still see. Uhhh… this has to be empty, and you’re not supposed to take off like that… just wow. Tactical takeoffs are amazing to watch though.

I start it at take off, and there’s two angles. WHOOSH!

 

By Uncle FishbitsCategories: Newsletter