John Scalzi felt some sympathy for the poor lads and lasses who wear the Redshirt … the ones who only show up for the first few minutes of the show and die gruesomely, leaving the heroes to carry on. His latest novel is a bit of payback for all the members of the “away teams” who never came back.
Click the image to see the first five chapters at the Tor.com website
No, really:
What exactly is an F-35?
It’s a new fighter jet being manufactured by Lockheed Martin. Its full name is the Joint Strike Fighter F-35 Lightning II. We probably shouldn’t be at all concerned that this sounds like something a little boy would name his tricycle.
What’s this got to do with Canada?
All the cool countries are getting F-35s, so we’re buying some too. In fact, our Department of National Defence wanted this hip new toy so badly that it structured the procurement process to ensure no other jet could win. In 2010, the Conservative government dutifully announced plans to purchase 65 F-35 fighters, at a cost of $9 billion. On one hand, that sounds like a lot of money, but on the other hand, why do you hate our troops, first hand?
[. . .]
Doesn’t $9 billion seem like a reasonable price for basically a whole new air force?
Did the government say $9 billion? It meant $15 billion, by which it actually meant $25 billion.
Wait — why have the numbers changed?
That meddling Auditor General of ours happened to notice that National Defence low-balled the total cost of the F-35 program by the teeny-tiny amount of ten thousand million dollars.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay said this was “a matter of accounting.” What he meant was that he and his cabinet colleagues were “a-counting” on Canadians not catching on to the fact they were concealing some $10,000,000,000 in costs.
That’s a lot of zeroes.
I’ll thank you not to refer to members of the federal cabinet that way.
The story of Ensign Chuck Hord’s memorial portrait in the Pentagon, with both British and Canadian military angles:
In a Pentagon hallway hung an austere portrait of a Navy man lost at sea in 1908, with his brass buttons, blue-knit uniform and what looks like meticulously blow-dried hair.
Wait. Blow-dried hair?
The portrait of “Ensign Chuck Hord,” framed in the heavy gilt typical of government offices, may be the greatest — or perhaps only — prank in Pentagon art history. “Chuck Hord” can’t be found in Navy records of the day. It isn’t even a real painting. The textured, 30-year-old photo is actually of Capt. Eldridge Hord III, 53 years old, known to friends as “Tuck,” a military retiree with a beer belly and graying hair who lives in Burke, Va.
[. . .]
Capt. Hord at the time was director of the Multinational Interagency division, a new Pentagon office designed to coordinate military logistics between the U.S. and its closest allies.
Office colleagues say Capt. Hord developed close bonds with his British, Canadian and Australian counterparts. Their office boasted its own beer fridge.
Several of Capt. Hord’s work colleagues attended the 2004 party, including a British captain who smuggled the portrait into his car and put it on display at the office. Capt. Hord, amused, called it an act of “buffoonery.”
[. . .]
Back on the wall in the office, visitors often asked who it depicted. “They all looked at it and said, ‘Man, what year was that? It looks like the 1800s,'” said Canadian Lt. Col. Brook Bangsboll.
That was the light-bulb moment. On one of his last days at the Pentagon, Lt. Col. Bangsboll went to a jewelry shop to have a brass plaque engraved, egged on by colleagues and co-conspirators. “We didn’t know what to do so we said, ‘Let’s just lose him at sea,'” Lt. Col. Bangsboll said. “It makes it interesting and kind of mysterious.”
He kept the circumstances of the ensign’s death vague because he thought some nosy Navy historian would spot the ruse if the plaque cited a specific battle.
Every now and again, someone asks me what it takes to be a successful blogger. If I knew all those secrets, I’d be a much bigger internet presence than I currently am, let me tell you. However, aside from updating frequently (daily or better), the best advice I can give you is to not be this guy:
See the whole thing at The Oatmeal.
Watch the full second season of The Guild! No credits! No opening intros!
Picking up where season 1 left off, Codex finds herself evicted at the hands of Zaboo’s jilted mother…and Zaboo shows no signs of giving up on their perceived romance. As Codex tries to deal with her own issues while simultaneously advising her Guild-mates on their own lives, a mysterious neighbor begins to show interest in Codex, further sending her life into turmoil. And this is all before the game’s server is unexpectedly shut down…
Music by Jed Whedon, lyrics by Jed Whedon and Felicia Day.
I’m quite impressed with our crack GuildMag editorial team for being the first to break this big story:
This just in!
We have just received word from a reliable source within ArenaNet that a console version of Guild Wars 2 has been CONFIRMED!
That’s right, folks! You heard it here first! There is no confirmed release date as of yet, but it has been confirmed that Guild Wars 2 will be on the Xbox Kinect, the Wii U and the PS3 Move, and we’ve got all the details!
Unfortunately, as the controllers for the different platforms are not directly compatible, there are a few differences between the various versions:
Xbox 360 (controller)
Healing skill — To use this skill, press B repeatedly in Morse code to spell the word ‘heal’ (which is dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dash, dot, dash, dot, dot). We recommend beginning this sequence before you take damage otherwise you may not cast it in time to save yourself. If you forget the sequence and delay pressing B a second time, you will activate the ‘/wave’ emote
Xbox 360 (Kinect)
Dodge — To dodge in the computer version, you use V. To dodge in the Xbox 360 version, you simply scream as loudly as you can whilst running away from your television, preferably hiding behind a sofa for a maximum chance to dodge. The game will detect that you’re no longer present and assume you intend to dodge. We think there’s a massive bonus to this — whenever you leave the room whilst playing for whatever reason, you don’t have to worry about pausing the game for fearing of dying!
[. . .]
PS3 Move & Wii U
Dancing Dagger (thief weapon skill) — All weapon skills have been given their own unique movement action. One we particularly enjoyed was this thief skill, where the thief throws a dagger at the target. To perform this skill, the player simply throws their controller at a supplied target ring, which will bounce the controller back if it lands successfully. If not — well, let’s just say you need to improve your aim!
For those of you who don’t follow Canadian politics, Thomas Mulcair is the new leader of the Official Opposition, the NDP (New Democratic Party). His performance at the convention inspired Scott Feschuk:
Most New Democrats who’d be choosing the party’s next leader had voted before the convention even began. Thomas Mulcair could have used his 20 minutes of stage time before the first ballot to repeatedly punch a cat in the face — and still he would have won the leadership. As a bonus, smacking around a kitty would have earned him less hostility and criticism than he took for his speeches.
Mulcair’s performance during the candidates’ showcase began with a line of drummers snaking its way through the hall. This was meant to go on for three minutes. It went on for 10 because, hey, who doesn’t love an interminable drum solo, right? Suddenly up against the clock, Mulcair could have chosen to pare his remarks — but clearly the man didn’t want to deprive us of a single syllable of genius. And so out came the words, fast and then faster. Sweat formed along his brow and down his nose. By the end, Mulcair sounded like a guy reciting a legal disclaimer at the end of a radio commercial. No one remembered a word of it.
After the vote, the winner’s speech to the party faithful:
The first five minutes of Mulcair’s acceptance speech were devoted to thank yous. In any campaign, many are owed a debt — and public gestures of appreciation are a key currency of politics. But even here, the address had its odd moments. Mulcair gently ridiculed the labour-inspired NDP tradition of referring to one another as “brothers and sisters.” He carefully followed a written text in issuing words of thanks to his relatives. And then came this line, delivered in French but translated on TV: “To my mother — my Mom, who with her brothers and sisters is up north watching us: Hello.”
Should Mulcair fail over the course of his leadership to develop a common touch and connect with Canadians, these four words may serve as his political epitaph: “To my Mom: Hello.”
Mulcair then got to the meat of his speech. It made for tough chewing. He said things like “Young people are active in their community groups.” He said things like “Leadership comes in many forms.” Mulcair spoke with all the dynamism and charm of an economics professor, his face buried in his text. Voters of Canada, the NDP would like to introduce you to its new leader: the top of this guy’s head!
I do not doubt that conservatives are, in their heart of hearts, jugheaded buffoons who simply want to will away inconvenient truths by plugging their ears and covering their eyes when faced with cognitive dissonance. I’m confident that they argue from authority when it serves their purpose and then are muy skeptical when confronted with authority they don’t like. I’m metaphysically certain that many are repllent and repulsive and altogether awful and that they tend to love dogs and cats in the abstract more than their fellow human beings. In all this, I suspect, they are incredibly similar to liberals and, alas, libertarians and everyone else.
Nick Gillespie, “Why Don’t Conservatives Trust Scientists Like They Used To? Are They Just Anti-Evolutionary, Anti-Global Warming Jag-Offs or Could There Be Other Explanations?”, Hit and Run, 2012-03-30
We’re talking about the return of Yes, Prime Minister:
The great satire of British bureaucracy, Yes, Prime Minister, is to return after 24 years away from our TV screens. The original scriptwriting duo of Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn has already turned in their first plot, says UKTV, which has has commissioned the show to be broadcast on UK Gold. The BBC originals, Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister ran from 1980 to 1988.
[. . .]
The original series was spookily prescient about today’s mandarinate. Last year The Spectator‘s political editor estimated that only four out of 22 elected ministers are actually in charge of their departments — the rest are run by the permanent government of the bureaucracy. Four may actually be on the high side.
The Thick of It portrays a world in which spads (special advisors) and spin doctors are in charge of policy-making — a view promoted by Westminster journalists, who are flattered by the depiction. But the news cycle actually has little do do with long-term policy-making.
Now, more than ever, the bureaucracy marches to its own internal rhythm, and quietly determines policy on issues as diverse as Europe, the environment, and criminal justice.
Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers is still one of my all-time favourite science fiction books. For that reason alone, I avoided going to see Verhoeven’s film “adaptation”. To more than make up for that, here’s a great review of the film … by that, I mean the review is great, not the film:
We start off with a news report from the surface of the planet Klendathu, the bugs’ home world, where you will instantaneously flash on that Korean-war era song,
“Hear the sound of runnin’ feet
It’s the old First Cav in full retreat
They’re haulin’ ass,
Not savin’ gas,
They’ll soon be gone.”Things are bad and getting worse, as a mob of Mobile Infantry types mill about, getting in each others’ lines of fire, screaming things like “Run for your life!” or words to that effect. It isn’t until later in the film that you discover that milling about is the only formation they practice regularly, and aimless running is their chief tactical mode.
[. . .]
Our heroes head to the surface, where they mill about some more. The concepts of formation, organization, and command and control appear to have been lost. They top a rise and stand in dumb amazement, one thumb in their mouth and one in their ass playing switch, as they see giant bugs expand with gas, then lift tail toward the sky and blast a blue-white fart of anti-spaceship gas up to where the fleet is in orbit.
Our guys stand shoulder to shoulder, firing at the mass of bugs, using a set of tactics that hasn’t worked well since Gettysburg. Actually, the guys at Gettysburg were a bit better better equipped for what they were doing, since they had artillery (a concept that has been lost, apparently) and weapons with an accurate range of over eight feet. Other lost concepts that would have proved Really Helpful here include close air support, mortars, air-dropped mines, barbed wire, fire, maneuver, cover, concealment, objectives, and useful orders. (I mean, “Kill everything that has more than two legs” is really neat, but “Go to coordinates XXYY, and set up a perimeter. Your covered arc runs from AA through CC. You’ll be linking up with Unit Name on your left and Other Unit Name on your right. Hold the position until you’re relieved by Unit Name. At that time go to YYZZ and await further orders” would have actually been helpful.) Nor, for that matter, do we have armored fighting vehicles, heavy machineguns, shoulder-launched missiles, or other stuff (a spray can of Raid?) that might have come in handy.
[. . .]
We go bug hunting again. And after an engagement that proves that a British Square from Waterloo would have done better than the MI at fighting bugs, we win anyway. We have a party! Dizzy and Johnny finally get it on. (I have to comment that I really liked the Special Effects in this film. Especially Dizzy’s left special effect and her right special effect. Carmen has even bigger special effects, but she never whips her shirt off so it’s hard to be sure.)
“When I come into a house with buyers, I start picking it apart,” says San Diego’s Jim Klinge, known on the internet as ‘Jim the Realtor,’ a wise-cracking real estate agent who posts his honest, painful, and sometimes hilarious assessment of bank-owned properties on his Youtube channel: youtube.com/jimtherealtor.
While both the Bush and Obama administration have advocated programs aimed at keeping people in their homes, Klinge argues that this is the exact wrong approach and is only prolonging the agony in the housing market.
Powered by WordPress
