Random thoughts

[BronzeOracle]

And since most of the flamiest posters have left, I'm now the poster most likely to start arguments.

I agree with Svrtnsse - I don't think you are particularly flamey - I haven't seen you attack people, its more trying to understand the matter being discussed, which is a good thing. I've only seen a few bust ups here since I joined and I can't remember you getting involved in either.

 

[ArenRax]

I think my teacher effectively made half my class depressed. He showed what would happen(on a map)if a Russian Tsar Bomba
(50 megaton version) was dropped on my high school.
everything from bellingham to Portland would be in the blast radius as well as the coast to I think the mountains.
Frickin mushroom cloud is huge though and its Nuclear fallout is low.
Theoretically the Nuclear bomb can have a 100 megaton load but to test it the soviets kept it to 50-55 megaton.

 

[Reaver]

I think my teacher effectively made half my class depressed. He showed what would happen(on a map)if a Russian Tsar Bomba
(50 megaton version) was dropped on my high school.
everything from bellingham to Portland would be in the blast radius as well as the coast to I think the mountains.
Frickin mushroom cloud is huge though and its Nuclear fallout is low.
Theoretically the Nuclear bomb can have a 100 megaton load but to test it the soviets kept it to 50-55 megaton.

When I was stationed at Ft. Lewis, I was more worried about Mt. Rainier wiping out Tacoma (which it will because the city is right at its base). Then you have the Cascadia Subduction Zone which when it quakes is going to cause at least a magnitude 9 earthquake followed by a massive tsunami.

These events are long overdue from a geologic standpoint and they are going to happen, so perhaps your teacher should focus on this looming disaster.

Ask your teacher if he knows what mutually assured destruction is and if he truly understands that concept. It's this reason that the likelihood of being bombed by the Russians are so infinitesimal it's absurd.

 

[TheCatholicCrow]

I think my teacher effectively made half my class depressed. He showed what would happen(on a map)if a Russian Tsar Bomba
(50 megaton version) was dropped on my high school.
everything from bellingham to Portland would be in the blast radius as well as the coast to I think the mountains.
Frickin mushroom cloud is huge though and its Nuclear fallout is low.
Theoretically the Nuclear bomb can have a 100 megaton load but to test it the soviets kept it to 50-55 megaton.

This is nonsense. Everybody knows that all you have to do is Duck and Cover. :wink:

 

[Tom]

I had a professor who scared everyone stiff by announcing that in ten years, the Great Lakes would be so polluted that all the fish would die and all of Western New York would be rendered inhabitable by acid rainfall (we get most of our rain from the west, off Lake Erie). Man, he scared us bad. I guess what he meant was "it'll happen if we keep dumping toxins in the Lakes at the current rate we're doing it", but it kind of came off as "it's gonna happen, no doubts about it. Break out your acid-proof ponchos!"

 

[ArenRax]

When I was stationed at Ft. Lewis, I was more worried about Mt. Rainier wiping out Tacoma (which it will because the city is right at its base). Then you have the Cascadia Subduction Zone which when it quakes is going to cause at least a magnitude 9 earthquake followed by a massive tsunami.

These events are long overdue from a geologic standpoint and they are going to happen, so perhaps your teacher should focus on this looming disaster.

Ask your teacher if he knows what mutually assured destruction is and if he truly understands that concept. It's this reason that the likelihood of being bombed by the Russians are so infinitesimal it's absurd.

He knows and he taught us it since were learning about the cold war.
he just showed us on a thing called nuke maps what would happen if the bomb was dropped on my high school

This is nonsense. Everybody knows that all you have to do is Duck and Cover. :wink:

lol. we saw the duck and cover video that they showed kids in elementary.

I had a professor who scared everyone stiff by announcing that in ten years, the Great Lakes would be so polluted that all the fish would die and all of Western New York would be rendered inhabitable by acid rainfall (we get most of our rain from the west, off Lake Erie). Man, he scared us bad. I guess what he meant was "it'll happen if we keep dumping toxins in the Lakes at the current rate we're doing it", but it kind of came off as "it's gonna happen, no doubts about it. Break out your acid-proof ponchos!"

lol.

 

[Tom]

You know what? I was just thinking--if elves were real, we'd probably be freaked out by them.

I mean, in most fantasy stories, they're inhumanly beautiful, with smooth skin and flawless features (e.i., none of the asymmetry we see in normal human facial features). They also have superhuman speed and move more gracefully and quickly than we do.

Hm. Let's see.

1) Looks almost human, but not quite.
2) Perfect bilateral facial symmetry.
3) Moves in an inhuman manner.

Hello, Uncanny Valley.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Hello, Uncanny Valley.

Your link doesn't work.

 

[Tom]

Weird. It should. I'll see if I can fix it.

EDIT: All good. The entry box for the link code already has the http// in it, so the link had two of them.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

I had a professor who scared everyone stiff by announcing that in ten years, the Great Lakes would be so polluted that all the fish would die and all of Western New York would be rendered inhabitable by acid rainfall (we get most of our rain from the west, off Lake Erie). Man, he scared us bad. I guess what he meant was "it'll happen if we keep dumping toxins in the Lakes at the current rate we're doing it", but it kind of came off as "it's gonna happen, no doubts about it. Break out your acid-proof ponchos!"

When I read this, I thought of my favorite comic strip as a kid:

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

Speaking of acid things, to keep myself sane while my wife and I shop I make sarcastic comments about various items of clothing that, in my opinion are just ugly. None of these items are on people so no need to worry about me insulting a person. It all started when I was at a local Ross and saw a pair of sandals that had spikes on the various straps. I asked my wife if she was planning on being a gladiator (although I should say gladiatrix but I didn't know that term then) because those shoes were awesome for it. Fast-forward to today and I saw shoes that could only be described as leather print hooker shoes. I said, "These shoes scream, 'I make terrible life choices.'" And I heard her and a couple of other people who saw me point those shoes out laughing.

So to all those that hate shopping and people make you go. Find ugly clothes make funny quips and it becomes slightly more bearable.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

For me, it's the reactions to my kids, especially my two-year-old. I shamelessly flaunt their cuteness in public and I listen for the reactions. Even last week, when Hannah fell on her face at Wrentham Village, I just brushed her off and she said "I'm okay!" It was all oohs and ahs and fun until Hannah had a meltdown on the way to the car.

 

[Addison]

Little girls are cute. Little boys are obnoxious. For example, my kid sister's second Christmas she got to open this jumbo box from our grandpa that held the gifts for all of us. She couldn't find her gift so she's on her tip toes, half-in the box and she tumbled inside. There's a "poof" of packing peanuts and all we see are her Christmas shoes. Then those disappear. The box tips over, pacing peanuts spill like an avalanche and she rides it out. Didn't find her gifts (she was sitting on it) but it didn't matter. She dove right back in and played. Wouldn't let her little brother play in it though.

Which leads to obnoxious little boys. Anyone with a little brother, or older brother but mostly little brothers are pains in the @$$. Sometimes hilarious, when it's not happening to you. Like the story about my kid sister. A similar thing happened when she was almost six and he was five. This time she was reaching into a party-sized ball pit at our cousin's house, she's off the ground, holding the edge and reaching for her hat. I see him see her and I can see the same dark spark in his eyes that tells me he is becoming a brother. He sets down his cake, gets up, walks over to her -she doesn't see him coming- grabs her legs and throws her into the pit! She screams at the "booger head" who did that. He hurries to the table and sits down, eats his cake and she storms around the pit looking for the culprit while he is laughing like Woody the Woodpecker in his cake.

That was six years ago and the antics have just grown like Jack's beanstalk. He will now hide rubber bands so he can use against us. Oh yeah, not just my sister, all of us. He's learned fast not to mess with me unless he has either an exit plan or a Hershey bar. Thanks to me, and his idea of writing his own page into my WIP, he knows what an atomic wedgie is. But one time he found a tub of licorice for movie night but the top wasn't sealed so it went stale. At that point he was upset so he slapped it against my dad's arm. Stale licorice is apparently hard, so now he looks forward to stale licorice as much as fresh licorice so he can have sword fights. He will jump onto dad and start wrestling just because he's bored. He will stand on one side of dad as he's resting on the ground and call the dogs all so they'll step and jump on him. He will stand on the stairs with someone behind him until he gets the fart out.

My kid sister? The most obnoxious thing she's done in all twelve years of her life is draw on her brother, while he's asleep, with a sharpie. Seconded only to painting my dad's nails while he was asleep.

So yeah, little girls are cute. Little boys, obnoxious.

 

[Ireth]

My youngest brother and sister are the opposite. Little bro is as sweet as can be most of the time. I can hardly get a kind word out of littlest sis. :/

 

[Incanus]

Tortured myself with Battle of the Five Armies last night. I think I've finally gotten over my disappointment of the ruination of this story because I was able to laugh out loud at some of the silliness. That's progress, of a sort. Two years ago, it would have been nothing but groans and head-shaking.

I acknowledge that I am in the vast minority here, but I'm still not sure why PJ gets handled with kid gloves by so many. Oh well.

 

[Tom]

I was frustrated with Battle of Five Armies as well, though it was certainly not as facepalm-inducing as Desolation of Smaug. I could barely sit through that one; I actually enjoyed Battle of Five Armies for the most part. The depiction of Thorin succumbing to dragon sickness, and subsequent recovery from it, was particularly well-handled, I thought.

However, I hated the Dol Guldur sequences. The CGI, new camera tracking, and lack of music combine to make it look like watching a video game! I've got no problem with video game graphics, but I shouldn't be reminded of a video game when I'm watching what I'm expecting to be (and should be) high-quality cinematography. I vastly prefer LotR's cinematograpy to The Hobbit's.

(Most of my complaints about movies are related to stylistic elements, as you might have noticed.)

 

[Incanus]

Yeah, very video-game-ish.

And I just can't help notice the irony with the greed theme. It's curious that they didn't downplay it. With the stretching and padding necessary to make this into three films, it appears the 'dragon-sickness' is not something limited to Middle-Earth--

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

I haven't seen the Hobbit films, but I don't have to see it to tell you that comparing a movie to a video game is a harsh criticism, which is…

…uh… holy crap. Yeah. Wow. Very much deserved.

 

[Ireth]

Not sure where else to post this, but my mom linked me to this and I really really want to go for it. Anyone else?

Short Story Anthology: Call for Submissions | Sorin Suciu

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

A sci-fi writer went from blog to movie rights.

Read about it for mixed feelings of hope and envy.