Thoughts on Avatar the Last Airbender final fights

Sokka and Toph's assault on the airships was funny. Was disappointed by Zuko's fight with Azula. He didn't even get to finish it! It was Katara who lowered the final boom on her. I feel like Zuko was robbed. Loved Aang's final solution for dealing with Ozai. He couldn't kill the man, but could definitely kill his bending. 

Next I'll check out Legend of Korra. 

Beach Goer Handcuffed for Thong Bikini

Yahoo Lifestyle: Cops detain beachgoer over her bikini: 'Completely ludicrous'.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/cops-detain-beachgoer-over-her-174129060.html

Seriously? I thought policing women's bathing suits ended after the 1920s. And of course it's in a Southern state. North Carolina. The South is a tumor on this country. 

Odd Radio Circles

Visible only in radio waves, they appear as circles in images from radio telescopes. Nothing else is seen when IR or regular light telescopes are pointed to their location in the night sky. 

Was is space so strange?!

Done With Door Dash

Ordered lunch about $70. DD marked it delivered, bit it was not. Contacted them through the app. Only got a $56 credit for my next DD purchase. As if!

Avoid them at all costs! 😡 

Crackle is a Trash Site

Won't play in any browser on any computer, even with Ublock disabled. Trash site!

Interstellar Noah's Ark

When the time comes for our species to venture other solar systems, either because we fucked Earth up so badly or the sun enters its red giant phase and begins swallowing the rocky planets up, will we take only ourselves and our pets and livestock to a new planet, or shall we take at least some of the beautiful wild creatures we share our planet with? Is it OK for us to leave and doom them while we save ourselves? Can we live with ourselves if we do that?

I'd like to see at least some wild species make the journey with us. It would be difficult. We'd have to create some kind of wild lands, a sanctuary for them to live on as wild creatures while we made the centuries long journey to another star system. Would it be better perhaps to merely harvest semen and eggs from them and restart the species once we reached a new planet? But then, how would the new animals learn to be what they were if they had no parents to raise them and teach them their ways? 

The whole thing is really complicated. I hope we can make an ethical decision when the time comes.

🐘🐅🐫🐺🦁🦓🐎🐒🦇🐟🐳🐬🦜🦏🦛🐖🐄🐑🐐🚀🌎🌌

SETI @ Home

Just joined and downloaded their BOINC program. I'm very excited to be part of the search for extraterrestrial broadcasts, however limited my involvement may be, due to carrier bandwidth caps (45 GB/month). But I guess every small bit helps. Who knows? With all the terrestrial exoplanets we've found, there's bound to be something, or someone, out there. It's just a matter of time till we find them.

Hourly Worker Abuse

In the USA, we seem to have this obsession with making excess demands of hourly workers. Cashiers in grocery stores aren't allowed to sit. In many workplaces, you see a sign on the wall saying, "If you have time to lean, you have time to clean". Even if there's nothing that needs to be done, the hourly wage earner is expected to keep himself busy until the designated break period, or dismissal.

In other countries, workers are protected from such abuse by labor laws. Cashiers are able to sit, workers are able to take a break if there's nothing that actually needs to be done.

Why in the USA, do we deride worker protection laws as socialism? Why is it OK for employers to abuse the workers in this fashion?

Perhaps it's time for hourly workers to unionize and demand an end to the abuse.

Movies

I think movies thrive or suffer depending on the mindset of who made them. Movies that are created to tell a story thrive, while those that are created only to make money suffer.

When James Cameron created the two canon Terminator movies, he did so to tell a story from an image he saw in a fever dream. T3 and beyond were created by Hollywood to milk a profit from the first two.

When Peter Jackson created the original LOTR trilogy, you could tell how much love he had for it by all the work, detail, and heart that went into each movie. The Hobbit trilogy had great special effects, to be sure, but lacked all the heart the first set had had. Jackson simply made it to milk the cash cow of the original. 

The Rurouni Kenshin trilogy had so much love and thought put into it that it made my heart ache. I could tell that Otomo loved what he was doing and really wanted to breathe life into Kenshin. My only hope is that his heart is still in it with the new Jinchuu Arc movies. 

Wuhan Light Show?

Wuhan Celebrates the Lifting of Travel Restrictions With Light Show

All it takes is one infected person returning to China to start a new cycle of this thing. I think restrictions should stay in place until either a cure or a vaccine are developed and everyone who needs them gets them. Let's please put humanity before economy just for once!

Digitus Impudicus

Seems like the single finger salute has been with us since before there was civilization. Aristophanes wrote about it in his play, The Clouds. The Ancient Romans called the middle finger digitus impudicus (indecent finger). Seems like since Man has had the capacity for symbolic thought, people have been flipping each other the Bird.

Sonnet 18

https://twitter.com/SirPatStew/status/1247312842321248257?s=20

Stonehenge and Woodhenge

Stonehenge

Wouldn't it be cool if we could restore Stonehenge to its ancient glory, rebuild Woodhenge, then recreate the winter and summer solstice pilgrimages and ceremonies of the Neolithic Britons?

Space Engine

Space Engine

If I had to recommend any video game, or simulator, it would be Space Engine 0.99 (available on Steam). This thing is good for hours of fun, searching for galaxies, stars, planets, etc. Unlike other sims I've used, you can actually land on the planets and walk around on their surfaces.

It's not perfect. There are no weather effects on the planets, nor does the lava from the volcanoes move, but those are just minor quibbles.

Overall, this sim's a beast!

English Workers in 1901

Watching these videos is so eerie. I've seen posts describing the people in them as ghosts, and that does feel quite accurate. They're no longer living, yet we see them moving. Our grandparents weren't even born yet when this was made, yet we can see them, going about their daily lives. It's almost like peering through the veil of time into a bygone era.

Coronavirus

One thing I'm really hoping will come of all this is a fundamental shift in our society away from cutthroat capitalism more toward social democracy. Maybe we'll all just wake up and see that either a universal income, or universal healthcare, are a necessary safety net for us to maintain a modern lifestyle.

Money Talks

Those who have the most money speak with the loudest voice. Those who have the least speak in barely a whisper.