Name the Star Trek Actor

Spoiler: It's Iggy Pop, (highlight to find out) who is looking more respectable than I had previously thought possible for him.

My mind is officially blown.

Also, he just turned 79, so I feel old.

Interesting Analysis

So,I came across this video about 80s SF movies that were considered duds when they came out and are now considered classics, or prophetic, or are at least cult classics.

They are Blade Runner, The Thing, Tron, Dune, Brazil, Big Trouble in Little China, RoboCop, They Live, Buckaroo Banzai, Videodrome, and Miracle Mile.

Notice anything interesting about this list?

I'll give you a hint, one director put out 3 of these 11 films, John Carpenter. (The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, and They Live.) 

The Thing, which was largely panned upon its release, is now considered a masterpiece of the genre, and They Live is not viewed as prescient social commentary. 

Big Trouble in Little China, would probably make no one's list of great movies, but it's fun as hell and has a great following.

There a number of John Carpenter films that do nothing for me, Prince of Darkness and Christine come to mind, but his oeuvre figures predominantly in my top films list.

BTW, I'm pretty sure that the vid is AI slop, but the point stands.

Damn.

Terence Stamp had died at the age of 87.

I remember him for his role as William Harcourt in the IMHO underrated movie Alien Nation, along with James Caan and Mandy Patinkin. 

He also chewed the scenery with the best of cinematic villains in the first two Christopher Reed Superman movies.

Always fun to watch. 

We Are Unbelievably Screwed

It appears that anthropogenic climate cghange driven temperatures in the Pacific Ocean that may create a permanent draught in the US Southwest

You know, the sort of things that decimated Anasazi society in pre-Columbian times.

Waters in the northern Pacific Ocean naturally cycle between patterns of cool and warm temperatures every few decades. But hundreds of simulations from climate models suggest human-caused warming may have locked this cycle into a pattern that is driving a megadrought in the western US – and could extend this dynamic for decades.

“We expect that as long as greenhouse gas forcing continues to increase, there will be continued meteorological drought in the western United States,” says Jeremy Klavans at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Since the 1850s, sea surface temperatures in the northern Pacific Ocean have regularly cycled between a positive phase, with temperatures above average in key parts of the ocean, and a negative one, characterised by cooler-than-average temperatures there. This slow cycle, which takes place over the course of decades, is called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO).

However, since the late 1980s, this cycle has undergone an extended negative trend. The ocean’s surface has maintained a horseshoe shape of cooler-than-average water surrounding a warmer interior. Last month, this negative phase saw its cooler-than-average temperature anomaly hit a new record. 

………

The finding also suggests climate models could have a bias towards underestimating human influence on major temperature cycles in the ocean and atmosphere, says [Syracuse University climate scientist Tripti] Bhattacharya. “We know that the Earth system models have persistent biases in certain regions, and the north Pacific is one of them.”

So, things are going to hell in a handbasket, and existing models are almost certainly underestimate the severity of the climate change. 

Today in Academe

Doctor Who, the Traveling Time Lord

—JSTOR Daily

JSTOR is a non-profit academic library.

And they do a deep dive into Dr. Who.

I think that this is kind of nea.

Comic Strip of the Day

Link.

It is funny because it is true.

Why Terry Pratchett Dumped His German Publisher

By all accounts, the author best known for his Diskworld series was not particularly difficult to work with from a publisher perspective, so when he dropped his German publisher, Hayne, for another.

There was in issue with the accuracy of the translations of the German version.

Perhaps, "Issues with translation," is not a strong enough term.

What Pratchett objected to was that his publisher was splicing advertisements for Maggi soup into the text.

No, we are not talking about something on the back cover, or something on the inside back cover, nor was it in the frontispiece.

It was placed in the body of the book, inline with the text:

Back in the 90s (starting with Moving Pictures) Terry Pratchett (yet to be knighted) changed his German publisher. A rather radical move in the market for someone who had been published by Heyne for a dozen books to raising sales. I remember reading it in the Jahrbuch der Science Fiction and Fantasy 1994 (Annual of Science Fiction and Fantasy): It stated in a rather laconic tone that his books would now be published by Goldmann instead of Heyne. The brisk tone of the notice (where most others would have had a small quip with amazing insider info on different deals) might have been connected with the fact that the editor of the Jahrbuch was also the chief editor of Heyne, and he was reporting about himself losing a bestselling author.

The reason for the change was… well… the Heyne publishing house put in a soup advert in one of his books without asking, and would not promise to not do it again. As Pterry said himself:

There were a number of reasons for switching to Goldmann, but a deeply personal one for me was the way Heyne (in Sourcery, I think, although it may have been in other books) inserted a soup advert in the text … a few black lines and then something like ‘Around about now our heroes must be pretty hungry and what better than a nourishing bowl’… etc, etc. My editor was pretty sick about it, but the company wouldn’t promise not to do it again, so that made it very easy to leave them. They did it to Iain Banks, too, and apparently at a con he tore out the offending page and ate it. Without croutons.

Apart from the obvious question for Mr. Banks, does publisher rat-fuckery go with a red or a white wine, this appears to be to be a very good reason to fire your publisher ……… Out of a cannon ……… And into the sun.

An ad for cuppa soup?  Really.

I Am the Worst Person in the World, and I Blame Star Trek

As you probably know, former President Jimmy Carter is in home hospice care, and his wife Rosalynn died last week, and he was at the funeral.

While I have had my differences with the 39th President, I do not diminish the life long commitment that he and Rosalynn had through their 77 year (!) year marriage.

There are a number of pictures of Carter in a wheelchair looking wizened in a wheel chair with his mouth open, which is common for people who are in his condition.

I saw the picture, which I will not post here, but I did on Imgur, and my first though was the Star Trek episode Menagerie, and actor Sean Kenney's portrayal of the grievously injured Caption Christopher Pike:

There is sometning seriously wrong with me.

If people actually heard my internal monologues, they would want to lock me up for ever, or hang me from the highest yardarm, or both.

Watching Farscape

The Airbnb that we are at has access to a number of streaming service.

One of the streams is 24/7 Farscape, in order, including the Peacekeeper Wars finale.

While the finale was a bit of a letdown, it was the canceled final season packed into a 3-hour miniseries, it was a damn good show. 

(Update)

Here is the link.  It has ads, but it's free.

Damn

Bernard Cribbins has died. he was 93. If the name does not ring a bell, perhaps these pictures will.

He did a lot, but on this side of the pond, he is best remembered as the only actor who played multiple companions for the Doctor in Doctor Who, first as Tom Campbell in the theatrical release Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. in 1966, and later Wilfred Mott with both David Tennant's and Matt Smith's Doctor.

He had a storied career in the UK over 75 years.

I'm sad, and I have the urge to go and blow up a Dalek in his honour.

I Got a Bad Feeling about This

My brother, Stephen, the Bear who Swims, posted this on Facebook.

Too good not to share, even if it is, as one wag put it, an intergalactic fleshlight.

Tweet of the Day

In honour of Peter Davison's birthday I'd like to let you know that his dad Claude was Afro-Guyanese. So when Doctor Who inevitably casts a visibly non-white Dr, and the usual suspects get pissy you can tell them there was a biracial Dr in the 80s and they never fucking noticed. pic.twitter.com/yPa9ZYfQX0

— Diamanda Hagan (@Diamandahagan) April 13, 2022

All the butthurt over the announdement that we will be seeing a black Doctor is stupid, and this tweet was prescient.

Good News Everyone?

It appears that after weeks of negotiations,John DiMaggio, the voice of Bender, has signed up on the Futurama reboot.

Bender is back! Voice actor John DiMaggio will be joining Billy West, Katey Sagal, Tress MacNeille, Maurice LaMarche, Lauren Tom, Phil LaMarr, and David Herman on Hulu, David X. Cohen & Matt Groening's 20-episode Futurama revival. "I'M BACK, BABY! So damn grateful for the love and support of fans and colleagues alike during this whole time (especially my wife, Kate), and I cannot wait to get back to work with my 'Futurama' family," DiMaggio said in a statement. "#Bendergate is officially over, so put it on the back of a shelf behind Xmas decorations, or maybe in that kitchen drawer with all of the other crap you put in there like old unusable crazy glue, or maybe even put it in a jar you save farts in. Whatever floats your boat, I don't care, you get the picture. I'M BACK, BABY! BITE MY SHINY METAL ASS!" The decision comes after a stand-off between the voice actor, the streaming service & the studio (more on that below). "From the moment John DiMaggio auditioned last century, we knew we had our Bender," said Groening. "So congrats to everyone at 'Futurama.' We're all back, baby!" Cohen added, "John DiMaggio may be a great robot, but he's also a great human being. Not many people or machines can say that. For the fourth time, it's a once-in-a-lifetime thrill to be back with our entire original cast and the phenomenal animators of Rough Draft Studios!"

Woot!  It's now complete.

Tweet of the Day

So, I set up my new Alexa to respond to "Computer..."

I didn't think about it until I turned on Star Trek, and - halfway through the episode - my house fired a spread of photon torpedoes into our neighbors' garage.

This note is to say sorry again about your truck, Kevin.

— Jeph the Giant Ginge (@ASG_Jeph) January 1, 2021

I know that this tweet is over a year old, but I only found it today.

Tweet of the Day

Damnit, Jim. I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer! @StMontsaroff @40_Years pic.twitter.com/sZ0AXYfiRB

— Daniel Saroff (@dsaroff) December 30, 2021

Yes, this is my brother, Daniel, and yes, this is a real museum.

Tweet of the Day

This is the gingerbread you're looking for... pic.twitter.com/zMgfIi7vwt

— Book of Boba Fett News (@BobaFettNews) December 20, 2021

Win.

Holy F%$#ing Sh%$ Covid-19 is the Andromeda Strain!

I came across a story from a very overworked embalmer in Texas, and this quote stood out:

He goes on to describe in graphic detail how the bodies of COVID victims are "tremendously swollen" with "huge lesions" on their cheeks that have "gone gangrene" and blood clots "the size of pancakes." Despite specializing in post-mortem reconstruction of trauma victims, Huey says there's little he can do in these cases.

If you have not read the Michael Crichton book The Andromeda Strain, nor seen the criminally underrated 1971 movie, this sort of bizarre clotting phenomenon, albeit in a far more aggressive and alarming manner, figures rather prominently.

Truer than Taxes

This may be the best definition of privilege that I have ever seen.

You Have Not Experienced "The Wizard of Oz"

Until you have heard it in the original Klingon:


H/t Boing Boing.

May the 4th be With You

Psyche!!!!

44 years ago, Star Wars opened in theaters.

In honor of this day, and the plethora of changes foisted on us by George Lucas, each worse than the last, have some Star Trek related trolling trolling.

The William Shatner narration makes this trolling perfect.