Don't even worry about the fact that the world is going to hell in a hand basket. Don't give it another thought. There's no need... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Biggie! This video shows the largest city on earth throughout history, and it's absolutely mind-blowing...
Fascinating how the USA doesn't even register until the end.
• Good on NASA! In a day and age when young Black men are getting told left and right that they have to cut off their locs or they can't be in school or can't be in sports... Tyrone Jacobs released his NASA headshot...
If NASA doesn't have a problem with natural hair, why the fuck do schools think they have a right to say a damn thing? Newsflash: THEY DON'T. Same goes for tattoos. Same goes for any outward appearance which doesn't keep you from doing the job.
• Queer Comedy! Hannah Gadsby is headlining a gender-queer Netflix Special and I finally got around to watching it. I was expecting her to not touch on the controversy she had with Netflix because, well, how can you use your platform to criticize your platform? But she just went for it. Nothing held back. And Netflix is obviously airing it, so good on Hannah and good on Netflix, I guess...
It's not a home-run, but a lot of the jokes are very funny. I enjoyed it.
• More Clavell! The new Shōgun series is magical to me. I love that the Japanese is subtitled and not dubbed. The language is taking me back. And bless you, Hulu, for putting some money into this. It looks incredible. Sure they wander from the book a bit, but I think that their choices are interesting ones. And I love the cast...
If only we'd get a 12-part adaptation of Noble House next. Not a gutted version, but complete with the Cold War elements and fascinating look at Hong Kong through its people.
• Just Poor! Am I being punked? I do not in any way understand the acclaim for Poor Things. I fucking hated this movie despite loving the other films from most everybody in it. Yes, it’s gorgeous, the imaginative sets are genius, and the cinematography is incredible (the use of different lenses throughout is just =chef’s kiss=)... but the story is a big departure from the book. And absolutely not in a good way...
The book is a wonderfully layered story of how men view women, and it uses the concept of “unreliable narrator” so that you truly don’t know who or what to believe. And there are multiple conflicting “truths” that are tainted by things like misogyny, perspectives, and even the wishful thinking of different characters. But the movie? Bella is a child’s brain in an adult body as a matter of fact, which makes the entire thing a fucking nightmare. It’s child porn with a loophole. And it lacks the subtlety and complexity that made the book so interesting. In my view, Bella loses a lot of her agency in the movie. Her experience and story is viewed entirely through the lens of men she encounters, even as she is rapidly maturing and coming to understand how the world works for a woman. Movie Bella really doesn’t face adversity to truly understand anything either. It’s all observational, and nothing feels earned as she wanders from place to place. And, good Lord, the music is a horrific assault that made me want to turn on subtitles and view it on mute. Who the fuck wants to listen to this? So many times I am able to dislike popular movies for myself, but appreciate that they exist for others. But this time? Hell no. I regret the precious time I wasted watching this mess. It gutted a wonderfully interesting book and turned it into soft core porn for the male gaze which is contrary to what I took away from the source material.
• Whistle Broken. John Barnett did not shoot himself? Or maybe he did. Regardless, I am putting the 100% entire complete blame on Boeing. The guy dedicated 32 years of his life to this company but had a conscience. So when management decided to ignore his concerns about declining quality and falsify data on serious issues with manufacturing, he reported the cover-up as a "whistleblower." And now he's dead. Right in the middle of the lawsuit against his former employer. Again, this guy devoted 32 YEARS of his life to this company. They then set out to absolutely destroy what life he had left because he wanted passengers to be safe. They finally succeeded. Regardless of whether he ended it himself or somebody did it to him.
• Cancel, Please! Why don't streaming services allow you to block shows and movies? Take HBO Max, for example. I never want to watch Bill Maher. Ever. Never ever. I don't care who he has on. I'd rather light my pubes on fire and jump into a barrel of gasoline than watch that moronic self-righteous piece of shit asshole for even two minutes. But every time I start HBO Max, there he is. There's no way to block the dipshit. No way to get him off my TV. And no amount of ignoring him will get HBO to get the fucking message. On Facebook I can block somebody I don't want any contact with. But with HBO, there's no options at all. Can't even give him a thumbs-down so the algorithm will stop inundating you with his bullshit. It's nearly enough for me to cancel HBO, because having to look at Maher's smug face is tantamount to torture.
Hope the rest of your Sunday is a good one.
I hope you're sitting down... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Ingenuity! The absolutely remarkable longevity of the little Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has been an absolute joy to behold. He was supposed to max out at five flights over 30 days. He completed 72 flights over three years! Way to go!
If you haven't yet, please go to Google and search for "Ingenuity Mars Helicopter" then click on the little animated copter to see what happens.
• Beefalo! I don't know how people cannot love the Kelce brothers...
I'm so glad that I was a fan of them both before Taylor Swift entered the picture. And even before Travis's incredible guest-host spot on Saturday Night Live
• Remote Remote! The question "Who lives in this remote crater in Madagascar" that tags this video is not the question they ask in the actual video. That would be "Why did these people move to such an isolated space?" And the reason they changed it is likely because they realized that the why is obvious. It is painfully clear that it's in a volcano, volcanos have incredibly rich soil, and it looks green so there must be water there... which is backed up by the fact that there's very clearly some agriculture happening at the location. Regardless, this video combines my love of maps, cultures, and travel into a heck of a worthwhile watch...
Satisfying. Right?
• This Country Hates Women, Part 3,257: I Miscarried in Texas. My Doctors Put Abortion Law First. Stories recounting this type of repugnant fucking bullshit enrages me to the point that I can't even see straight. I honest to God marvel on a daily basis that women haven't put a torch to this country.
• Faith! Oh look. Sometimes a “Man of God” is actually a man of God...
The number of hypocritical "Christians" I see on a daily basis who pick-and-choose which of Jesus's teachings they have to follow just blows my mind.
• Resort! I've lived in Washington State for the vast majority of my life. And even though I'm not a skier, you'd think that at some point it would have occurred to me that people simply do not fly here to ski. I can name a dozen "destination" ski resorts around the world, but not one of them are in Washington or Oregon. And here's a look at why...
Makes perfect sense. And yet I never thought about it until I saw this video.
• STORY: NFL fans could do a whole lot worse than singing the Black National Anthem at the Super Bowl. I wonder if all these people losing their minds over Lift Every Voice and Sing (AKA "The Black National Anthem") that will be performed at the Super Bowl have even taken ten seconds to look up the lyrics and the meaning of the song. And has everybody forgotten Sheryl Lee Ralph's stunning performance of the song just last year? The outrage machine fires people up for money. Making people mad and divided gets them paid. And we let them do it. This song is perfectly appropriate to be sung at the Super Bowl, and anybody who knows what it's about should have zero problem with it. And, oh yeah, THEY ARE STILL GOING TO SING THE USA NATIONAL ANTHEM! NOTHING IS BEING TAKEN AWAY OR REPLACED!!
Okay. You can stand up now. See you for more bullets in a week.
A bit of a Summer setback for me today as the weather turned cold as balls, but never fear... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Zipline! Whenever I run across something incredibly cool that has been around a while... but I never heard of... that's gold right there. Take this drone delivery system that's been running for SIX YEARS. And I had no clue. This will be one of the coolest things you see in a bit...
Fantastic. Ingenuity like this gives me hope for the future.
• 1D! I keep running into songs by One Direction that kinda blow my mind. Like this song, which I had never heard before. I was scrambling to Shazam it thinking it was brand new. Nope...
It actually feels like a classic soft rock hit or something.
• Topol! The Flash Gordon movie from 1980 was absolute genius... even if most people didn't see it that way. I've seen it a dozen times or more, and will likely watching it many times more. A big part of what makes the movie work is the over-the-top performances, among them being Chaim Topol's performance of Dr. Hans Markov...
But that's not my favorite role of his. This honor goes to Columbo on the James Bond flick For Your Eyes Only, where he chewed up the scenery unapologetically...
Sadly, Topol passed away a couple weeks ago... but his legacy will live on with his works.
• Hyper-Real! I will never complain about any of my tax dollars going to NASA to explore our solar system and our universe. On the contrary, I wish more of my tax dollars went to NASA. Especially when I see images like this...
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, JPL, SSI, Cassini Imaging Team
You can get a much better view and more information on Saturn's moon Hyperion by going to NASA's website.
• TO INFINITY...! The stuff that you can do with LEGO truly knows no bounds. Take this infinite domino track...
Pretty nifty, isn't it?
• Cunk! Finally got around to watching Cunk on Earth (Netflix)... and it's madness. Absolute madness. Mostly because she sounds like a lot of real-life people...
It's relentless. She doesn't stop unleashing stupid. Ever. It just keeps going. And I am deceased.
• WORF! The first season of Star Trek: Picard was just okay, though the ending was messy. I didn't like the second season because it was a scattered crapfest and tried to shoehorn in characters that should have never been there in the first place. But this THIRD season? Holy crap. Quite probably the best Next Generation show I have ever seen. Cinematic and exciting. It will be very interesting to see if they can wrap it all up in a satisfying manner given that this is the last season we're getting. And ZOMG... WORF! His character has made a radical shift that's absolute genius, and Michael Dorn is playing him with such deft ease...
It makes me wish that this is what we were given from the start. Paramount+... please give Worf his own series ASAP, dammit!
• Flerfer! The thing I will never, ever understand is how there are people thinking that the earth is flat. It makes absolutely zero sense from every possible observable fact. We new about the earth being a sphere thousands of years ago. And yet... ignorance is still here. Which is why I love videos like this....
Of course it makes no difference how many facts you throw at Flerfers. Logic, reason, and common sense has already been thrown right out the window.
And away with you! Begone!
The people on this planet are severely lacking perspective.
Which is why I'm glad that NASA posts photos which vividly illustrate that we're all just clinging to a tiny ball in a vast expanse of nothing. And the only reason we're special is because we think we're special. But in the grand scheme of things? That's a tough call...
The entire human race could disappear and the rest of the universe wouldn't even notice. Or care.
Well, today was the day.
Exactly as planned when it launched last November, the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft slammed into Dimorphos... a moonlet orbiting the asteroid Didymos.
And why would NASA do this?
Because it seems prudent to see what we might can do to knock an asteroid off-course that's headed for earth. This test will give us an idea of what may or may not be possible.
The whole DART mission has me irrationally emotional. I feel sorry for DART, who was ordered to crash and be exploded. I feel sorry for the asteroid who was minding its own business and got exploded into. My life would be easier if I didn't anthropomorphize animals and objects. What even more awful though? DART filmed its own demise...
Am I the only one who thinks that this is sad?
But I guess extinction of all life on earth from an asteroid impact is also sad, so make of it what you will.
My weekend has been spent sick from wildfire smoke, again. But that won't stop me from blogarizing... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• LEGO The Office! I wish that I had more money than I know what to do with. Because one of my immediate purchases would be a pre-order for the LEGO set of The Office. It looks so good! But the fact that you can reinact Kevin's chili accident is the real reason to get this one...
But it's ONE HUNDRED TWENTY DOLLARS!! And, I gotta say, for that kind of money I'd almost rather have the DUPLO animals set, which looks amazing...
=sigh= LEGO has lost none of its charm on me.
• Razor! And do you want to know how I know LEGO has lost none of its charm on me? I want to sell my spleen so I can afford to pay $600 for this amazing LEGO Star Wars Razor Crest...
Complete with Grogu (AKA Baby Yoda)...
TELL ME THAT'S NOT WORTH $600!!!
• Tour! The logistics of major tour planning are fascinating to me...
They should really have a television documentary series that follows huge tours around the country showing stuff like this. And they can start with Pink! And Taylor Swift.
• Signs! I'm certain that I've shared this wonderful short film here at least once. But even though I've seen it a dozen times now, I stop and watch it again every time I think about it, so I'm going to share it again...
The simplicity of the idea married to actors who absolutely know what to do for their characters make this infinity watchable.
• Thrones! I've made no secret of how much a detest the final season of Game of Thrones. If David Benioff and D.B. Weiss wanted to "get it over with" and move on to other projects, they should have turned the show over to other people to finish it. But they love money, so they took the paycheck and just farted out a shitty endgame that completely betrayed every character involved. If you had told me that there was a way to salvage the finale, I'd have said you were nuts. But I was wrong, because somebody actually managed to do it. Is it perfect? Oh hell no. But does it at least provide a satisfactory explanation for how things unfolded? Yes. Yes it does. Maybe one of these decades George R.R. Martin will complete the final two books in the series. But until then? This is better than nothing.
• Crash! Is everybody ready to see DART crash into an asteroid tomorrow? Yeah. Me too. If you want a preview... just Google "NASA DART"
I take my leave of you dreaming for breathable air.
International Labour Day is a global holiday on May 1st which celebrates the contribution of workers to society and advocate for their rights. The United States, ever marching to the beat of our own drum, celebrates our Labor Day today.
I, of course, had to work.
Which is fine. I plan on taking a half-day off on Wednesday.
Somebody else who isn't getting a holiday today either?
Otherwise you have to assign feelings to
Look, I did it again.
NASA released four images from the WEBB Space Telescope, and lo did the people of earth lose their minds. And well they should, because the images are absolutely jaw-droopingly stunning.
The best we could really do prior to this was the images that came out of the Hubble Space Telescope. And, amazing though they were, technology has come a very long way since Hubble was launched in 1990.
A guy released a tool for comparing Hubble to WEBB, and it's impossible to overstate what a drastic difference it is...
But that's just the beginning.
Not only can we see more stuff better, we can see further back in time. 4.6 billion years and counting.
This astounding shot of Stephan's Quintet is mind-boggling. Each of these four massive nebulas contain millions of stars. But each of those little dots scattered around them? Galaxies with hundreds of thousands of millions of stars each. There's billions upon billions upon billions of stars in this image. And many of those could have planets. Many of those could have planets with life. Odds are very good that we are not alone...
The photos we're going to see from WEBB will most certainly continue to astonish for decades to come. And the amount of learning opportunities for all of humanity are likely staggering.
I dunno about you, but I like the idea of tax dollars going to occasional programs like this instead of exclusively fueling a war machine that's already bigger than most other countries on the planet combined. WEBB cost $10 billion. That's a massively-huge amount of money, no doubt. But considering an aircraft carrier costs $14 billion... and the jets that are onboard cost a cool $80 million each... well, if there's money for that, there's money for this.
Winter may have come back, but there's warmth in my heart... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Two No More! I wanted taco salad for dinner. I had the lettuce, tomatoes, avocado, cheese, salsa, sour cream, veggie crumbles, thousand islands dressing, and frozen corn... I just needed tortilla chips. So I stopped at the store on my way back from Home Depot. The "$2 ONLY!" Santinas Brand I've been buying forever are now "$2.29 ONLY!"
I know that prices for all the food I buy is through the roof, but this shook me. "$2 ONLY!" ain't "$2 ONLY!" any more.
• Cumin! The "Martha Stewart and Marley Spoon meal service has been a huge source of culinary happiness for me. So many new recipe ideas and flavors. But they keep raising their prices which, on it's own is not a deal-breaker... but they refuse to do anything to protect their ingredients, even after I've made numerous complaints. Nor do they compensate you any more. It used to be that when something was missing or damaged... they'd at least give you a token credit on your next order. Not any more! Your sour cream packet was smashed open and smeared everywhere because it was placed under ice bricks? OH WELL! Missing your carrot? SORRY! Tomatoes pulped by a can of beans? OOPSIES! And so I canceled. And replaced them with "The Cumin Club," and Indian-based food service that you prepare from little packets...
So far I am quite pleased. Fairly economical, promised authentic flavors, easy to prepare, and tasty (if a little on the spicy side). If you're interested in giving them a try, here's a link that gives us both 15% off.
• What? A director I like with a movie starring a bunch of actors I like is usually guaranteed to grab my attention. It is not, however, guaranteed to please. Enter The Bubble...
A movie about making a movie in the middle of the pandemic... which is supposed to be funny, but is actually about as unfunny as it gets. What a waste of talent all the way around.
• Gooshing! Chipotle Mexican Grill keeps sending me emails telling me how close I am to getting enough points for a free entrée. I always order a rice & black bean burrito with salsa, sour cream, guacamole, and extra cheese. But the last burrito I bought was INEDIBLE. I always have to order double tortilla wrap so it doesn't bust open while I'm attempting to eat it... but this time even a double wrap wasn't enough because (and I am not exaggerating here) the entire first half of the burrito was entirely guacamole, sour cream, and salsa. That's it. And how can even two tortillas compete against THAT? — I was half-way through before I hit cheese and rice, so it was just gooshing liquid the entire time. By the time I hit beans, the tortilla had disintegrated. It was one of the grossest things I've ever eaten and I had to dump a bunch of it back in the bag so my clothes didn't look like a murder scene...
So... yeah... I guess I'll keep ordering until get my free burrito, but then I'm done. It will just be chips and guac from then onwards. The burritos aren't worth the trauma.
• =eyeroll= Real NASA Astronomer Reviews Flat Earth Simulator...
I mean... holt shit. It defies all possible common sense, yet here we are.
• Discovery! When you read this fascinating story... be sure to read the caption under the photo: Woman Discovers She Isn't The Biological Mother Of Her Own Children.
• Brain Hurty! Veritasium is a YouTube channel that I watch because it's interesting and challenging. Even when Derek breaks down items and concepts into something that I can mostly understand... there's always elements that lay just outside my grasp. This video I've watched at least three times over the years. It's actually not overly-difficult to understand... there's a reference point change that explains things quite well... the thing that I have a hard time grasping is how there exists within science concepts which are absolutely horrifying to contemplate. Such as the idea that there were people thinkning that eventually the earth would flip over...
Now, this turns out not the case... science has an explanation as to why that's not going to happen... but for a while there it seemed like a possibility. And this has me wondering about all the horrifying things that haven't got science to explain it away.
And that's all the bullets for today, buckaroo.
There's several government programs that I'm happy to support. One of the best, in my humble opinion, in NASA. The volumes of "stuff" we've learned from it have resulted in all kinds of technological advancements that have made our lives better. Not to mention the cool stuff they are doing.
One of the most current projects that I'm completely obsessed with is the WEBB Telescope. It's going to be able to see further back into the origins of the universe than we've ever been able to before, further understand planets outside our solar system, and all kinds of other amazing things. Every once in a while I drop by NASA's website to see how the project is going and read up on any new information available.
Every time I visit I marvel at how cool the WEBB logo looks. Somebody at NASA got a very good designer to boil the project down to this awesome graphic...
While I was at the site, I spotted the "NASA Eyes" project, which has various interactive toys to play with.
And promptly fell down a rabbit hole of exploration for over a half-hour using their Solar System Viewer...
After the solar system appears, you can click on objects to explore them. Naturally I started close to home with Mars...
Then various asteroids...
Then I started clicking on various man-made objects...
Some of these things are utterly fascinating, and are out there doing things I never knew were even happening...
Still others I knew about, but didn't know what was happening with them. Like OSIRIS-REx, that little probe that landed on an asteroid a while back and is currently heading back to earth with specimens...
After a couple objects I got to DART... Double Asteroid Redirection Test...
This cool-looking thing has the thankless task of crashing into an asteroid to see if it can redirect it. This is the first step in building a defense against an asteroid hurling towards earth. I figured that it must be the size of a frickin tank to have any hope of making a dent, but it's actually quite small. Something you can verify by comparing it to earth objects. As you can see here, it's only about the height of a human scientist...
But slightly wider than a school bus...
Though considerably smaller than the Rose Bowl Stadium...
There's all kinds of information available to say how the mission was set up, what it hopes to accomplish, and how it aims to accomplish it...
The poor thing is on-target to crash into the smaller half of a double-asteroid called Didymos. And if you zoom back a bit, you can see exactly where it's located in relation to DART...
So there he is out there seeing the sights and thinking that he's got some really cool exploring ahead of him... when the entire time his purpose is to crash. Sad.
And because I just couldn't help myself, I started looking for Voyager 1, the first man-made object to leave the solar system. At least that we know of. I had to zoom out quite a bit to see that...
From there I kept poking around the solar system until I had to get back to work.
Fascinating, fascinating stuff. If you've got a little time to kill, there are far worse ways to spend your time than exploring the solar system . Enjoy!
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