Category Archives: Popular Culture
Neil DeGrasse Tyson
…flaunts his ignorance (again) of both the history of exploration and the economics of spaceflight.
I do agree with him about the Apollo delusion, though.
The Transatlantic Accent
How it was created, and why it essentially died.
Interesting. I’d always wondered why Cary Grant talked like that, and where his accent was from. Boarding schools, apparently.
A Car Of Memories
This is a nice story.
I had MGs when I was young, but my younger brother had a couple Healeys. One of them was wrecked when a woman made a left turn in front of us at an intersection. I was in the jump seat, and got tossed out the back, suffering nothing but a pulled shoulder from breaking my fall. He injured his lip and broke a tooth on the wheel. His friend went into the windshield and had to have reconstructive surgery. As the story notes, no standard seat belts back then (though I installed them in my cars after market).
The Hobbit Movies
Wonder why they were a mess? Now you know.
I only watched the first one.
A Rose By Any Other Name
You have to feel bad for this guy:
Bich wrote in part, “I find it highly irritating that nobody seems to believe me when I say that my full legal name is how you see it. I’ve been accused of using a false and misleading name of which I find very offensive.”
Given his residence, maybe he should think about a name change.
Cats And Cukes
This is truly bizarre. I don’t think I’ll try it with Rerun, though, even though I happened to buy a cucumber the other day. She gets enough abuse.
Space Settlement And Starships
Kim Stanley Robinson says they’re impossible.
I call Clarke’s Law about distinguished scientists, even though he’s just a fiction writer.
Bill Nye
I’m completely unsurprised that he is clueless about the purpose of NASCAR. Does he really think that people would come to watch Prius’s toottling around the track?
The Martian As A Comedy
I didn’t think of the movie as one, but I did almost laugh out loud at parts of the book.