BLUFF CITY, Tenn. — A man who opposes police use of cameras to send speeding tickets snatched a bully pulpit when the Bluff City Police Department allowed its website to expire.Computer network designer Brian McCrary of Gray discovered the police site was up for grabs, so he paid domain provider Go Daddy for the rights and is the proud new owner of http://www.bluffcitypd.com.
McCrary, who told the Bristol Herald Courier he received a $90 speeding citation, took over the site May 22.
The parody site McCrary put up shows a smiling cartoon police badge clutching green currency. It also posts gripes from other people who’ve been cited.
Bluff City Police Chief David Nelson said the officer who managed the site had been on medical leave and the expiration slipped up on the department.
I grok all that refined sugar ain’t the best thing for you, but is this really an appropriate response? My morning plans were minorly disrupted due to the post office’s inaccessibility, besides which, presuming the pastries were perfectly fucking good (as an anonymous expert who examined the debris maintains), someone who otherwise might have eaten them was pointlessly deprived of freebies.
“If you want to undermine popular cop stereotypes, there are less destructive ways to go about it,” a blob of cream filling burbled as it died.
“I guess,” a crumb opined before falling silent forever, “they hate us for our frosting.”
I’m'a just go semi-chronologically through some stuff I’d have posted here (& that I didn’t post over at the We are the Dead site) had this site not been in limbo (due, according to the HostGator support guy, to “the database” having “a hiccup” [or to "the powers that be" having "it in for me", if you're not into the whole Ockham's Razor heuristic]).
First, from way back on April 10, Annalee Newitz yakked with Peter Watts about his research background, current science in current science fiction (and in Blindsight specifically), the moving target of “timelessness”, unrepentant criminality, and other fun stuff.
On a related note, via Deanna, some space intrigue I missed from late last month.
THE aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact.
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He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.”
He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is “a little too risky”. He said: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”
Sounds like Hawking has also been reading Blindsight (and maybe Tiptree’s “Mama Come Home” and “Help” and Reynolds’ Revelation Space and Banks’ Matter and… well, the list goes on).
Somewhere above earth is America’s latest spaceship, a 30ft craft so classified that the Pentagon will not divulge its mission nor how much it cost to build.
The mysterious X37B, launched successfully by the US Air Force from Cape Canaveral on Thursday, using an Atlas V rocket, looks like a mini-Space Shuttle — but its mission is top secret.
It is officially described as an orbital test vehicle. However, one of its potential uses appears to be to launch a surge of small satellites during periods of high international tension. This would enable America to have eyes and ears orbiting above any potential troublespot in the world.
The X37B can stay in orbit for up to 270 days, whereas the Shuttle can last only 16 days. This will provide the US with the ability to carry out experiments for long periods, including the testing of new laser weapon systems. This would bring accusations that the launch of X37B, and a second vehicle planned for later this year, could lead to the militarisation of space.
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With all the focus on the launch of the secret X37B, another space launch by a Minotaur IV rocket from Vandenberg Air Force base in California received less attention.
It was carrying the prototype of a new weapon that can hit any target around the world in less than an hour.
The Prompt Global Strike is designed as the conventional weapon of the future. It could hit Osama bin Laden’s cave, an Iranian nuclear site or a North Korean missile with a huge conventional warhead.
Aside from a few episodes of The Ray Bradbury Theater I remember from my childhood, this PBS/Wonderworks joint from the year I was born has to be the the finest adaptation of a Bradbury story I’ve ever seen. Cinematography by Robert Elswit (who went on to relative greatness), music by David Frank (who went on to relative obscurity, but who was apparently working on some kind of symphonic collab with Michael Jackson at the time of Jackson’s death).
A few months back, John Allen clued me in to another Ray, whose track “Triangle Walks” put me in mind of Bradbury’s “Tomorrow’s Child”, in which a woman gives birth, kinda, to a small blue pyramid.
Via Margaret Killjoy, here’s Fever Ray’s cover of Nick Cave’s “Stranger Than Kindness”.
Bit with the lamps reminded me, inevitably, of this.
Also via John Allen, now they‘ve gone and done it.
According to India’s DARPA-type deal, Prahlad Jani also did some things you’re not supposed to be able to do (live without food & water for 70 years, be nourished instead by amrit), but Indian spook scientists, shockingly, have yet to present the study data.
In other old news, editorial standards at The Telegraph are just as abysmally low as those at any other major pape you’d care to name.
India’s Defence Research Development Organisation, whose scientists develop drone aircraft, intercontinental ballistic missiles and new types of bombs. They believe Mr Prahlad could teach them to help soldiers survive longer without food, or disaster victims to hang on until help arrives.
So, Pittsburgh Alpha to Omega experienced eleven days of missing time and is pretty freaked out that it’s not still when it was. For me, though, it was, if not, like Plato said Socrates said Sophocles said, as if I had escaped from some cruel and crazy taskmaster, at least a blessed respite from all the topical puns and tirades, autopilot pattern-matching and so forth – a chance to take a crack at some real serious writing, yo.
Course, lacking hard evidence, I’m forced to call screen memory, or just memory, fictionalized account, or just account.
Not that that lets anybody off the hook or anything.
To say that J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek is the coolest Trek film since Undiscovered Country ain’t saying much, but there it is. Spoilers.
3/5 stars
Star Trek XI is an “origin” story (see any number of post-9-11 blockbusters ending in “[-]man” or “[-]men”) built around a sweeping preemptive rebuttal to foul-calling continuity geeks: universe-hopping, yo! Using a Rambaldi ballred matter to open a one-way stargate, revenge-mad Romulan (Romulus having been destroyed by a supernova Spock tried and failed to stop, in the future) Nero and Old Spock/Leonard Nimoy travel back to our alternate pre-TOS worldline and proceed to perplex, manipulate, enable the rise to power of – and give the filmmakers an excuse to (re)introduce us to – the original Enterprise crew Kirk and Spock. True to form for this type of story, we first meet the dynamic duo as kids (Kirk being all rebellious [Nero killed his dad, he's troubled], getting pulled over by a flying motorcycle cop [actually a pretty rad scene], Spock getting razzed by Vulcan brats for being a half-breed freak) and have it spelled out how childhood trauma has shaped them before their adult versions work through their respective hangups and beat the Bad Guy, becoming pals in the process. Abrams’ most successful tale (and my personal favorite), Lost,also revolves around retrocausality/retroactive magick and synchronicity, but for this particular Trek story it’s a bit of an awkward fit. As Abrams described a deleted scene to Wired,
“In the scene, Spock explains that (the encounter of Kirk and Spock Prime) is a result of the universe trying to restore balance after the time line is changed,” Abrams said. “They acknowledged the coincidence as a function of the universe to heal itself.”
That’s nice and all, but that this scene wound up on the cutting room floor shows how far actually engaging with these concepts was from the filmmakers’ Prime Directive (for a time-travel movie that gets the job done, dig Primer).
For the positive, as my pal Jason told me when handing me the DVD, “It’s no Cloverfield, but the guy knows how to build tension,” and it’s indeed remarkable how much tension is built within individual scenes, despite the audience knowing (It’s-another-worldline-so-all-bets-are-off reminders notwithstanding) that it’s all gon’ be okay – a feat for which, perhaps, as much credit should go to the actors as to the scenarists or director. Aside from all that, stuff generally looks neat (Nero’s ship the Narada is gorgeous [though we don't get to see nearly enough of the interior], the Federation ships are, at least externally, fashionably old-school [interiors resemble Apple stores/SD-6 HQ from Alias; the super-advanced Federation building the Enterprise planetside is also hard to forgive], and, yes, the costumes are pretty spiffy) and there are enough killer set-pieces (opening scene w/ the Narada, space-drop to the drilling platform, planets destroyed from within [see David Brin's Earth/the Jackson-Ryan Tunguska hypothesis]) to make this thing, for all its faults, a rewarding watch.
In the end, we are treated to the grotesque spectacle of everybody standing around clapping at Kirk’s promotion (’cause, not despite but due to his disobedience and independent thinkin’, the day was saved [see Alias]), which, perhaps in and of itself, caused me to look less kindly on this thing than I otherwise would have and to dock it a star. I mean, yeah, though I dig Trek (TNG in particular) the Federation has always creeped me out, and what did I expect? But seriously, this A New Hope shit again?
From that Wired piece, “Abrams said the planned Star Trek sequel will offer more freedom to him and his writers.” I doubt they’ll take advantage of it by having the Federation pull some horrific, covert shit, Kirk & co. swashbuckle while trying to expose the conspiracy, fail, finally question that galactic Leviathan’s legitimacy, and then go all outlaw with the Enterprise, but that’s okay. I just watched this film in my mind, for free, and I tell you it rules.
