Well, it’s happening again. People asking what the hell Pluto is, in the light of new evidence. And, yes, “what the hell” was a joke. About Pluto. Not a good joke, necessarily. I guess this subject doesn’t leave me with much of a sense of humor.
Like that boor that nobody wanted to invite to the party, let me reiterate how dumb the IAU’s decision was to (allegedly) demote Pluto out of planethood.
We finally have new leadership at the DC Metro (something I’ve been calling for for some time) but the solution being proposed by this new leadership simply reveals the undeniable flaws in the system. Starving for repairs, the system (and its riders) will have to endure months with entire segments shut down.
If the Metro were optimized per the plan I proposed in 2012—with a loop line following the DC Beltway, as well as a Purple Line and extended Blue Line forming small, inner arcs—the months-long segment closings proposed by the new WMATA leadership wouldn’t be so painful for customers. Commutes might be lengthened by detours, but people wouldn’t have to start over from scratch.
Of course, implementing such an optimization for the DC metro would take years, but it would leave the system much more flexible in the face of needed repairs. And, isn’t that what WMATA ultimately needs?
The other day, I was discussing the concept of synchronicity with my co-workers. As first described by Carl Jung, a synchronicity is a coincidence that has no causal relationship but nevertheless seems to have meaning. Doesn’t really matter how you want to explain it: God, dharma, fairies, or whatever.
And, honestly, for this little post o’ mine, it doesn’t even matter if you believe in synchronicities at all. Let’s just talk.
The reason I was having this discussion is that I’ve been experiencing a lot of (alleged) synchronicities lately. I had a particularly surprising one yesterday, after the co-worker discussion and a coffee shop follow-up with fellow writer and misanthrope John Austin.
The season 6 opener for Game of Thrones reminded us all how critical information is to a story, what’s included and what’s excluded, where a narrative starts and stops, how reliable the information is…
Recently, I’ve been binge-watching Louie. I particularly liked the episode with Dane Cook, because the two of them are comics whom I genuinely admire and they’d been involved in a controversy in which other comics accused Cook of stealing C K’s jokes. I really respect how Louis C K handled the whole thing, because I think the hate Cook has gotten from other comics is completely unwarranted and transparent.
March saw the release of London has Fallen, the sequel to Olympus Has Fallen, which was paired up with the similarly themed White House Down in 2013. White House out-earned Olympus by nearly $50 million.
So, why did Olympus get a sequel while White House hasn’t? Because although both films received similar mixed reviews, Olympus nearly doubled its $70 million budget with $161 million worldwide gross, while White House barely skimmed over its $150 million budget a $205 million global take.
But, I’m not here to talk about the business of film-making, but rather the craft. Continue reading
People who want to destroy ideas burn paper books. But, ironically, the love of paper books can become so zealous that it’s just as bad as burning them.
There’s been a lot of buzz lately about the possibility of another giant planet on the outskirts of our solar system, one that could both explain the orbits of several odd trans-Neptunian objects and provide the hypothetical fifth giant planet necessary for certain theories about the current orbits of the known planets.
I might also note that, with a proposed perihelion of 200 AU (~30 teras) and aphelion of 1200 AU (~180 teras), this new planet is significantly further away than the Voyager I spacecraft at ~134 AU (20 teras) and therefore the bombast a few years ago about Voyager I “leaving the solar system” was utter tripe.
I’m convinced of the likelihood of this new giant planet (its explanatory power is strong) and propose we name it Libera, after the Roman goddess of freedom who shared a temple on Aventine Hill with Ceres (and her own male counterpart, Liber) ~500 BCE.
Previously, I have suggested renaming our third giant planet Minerva, to finally liberate it from an obnoxious name that both violates the Roman standard of planet naming and forces us to utter a homophone obscenity. Since our newest planet may have been freed from the inner solar system through interaction with a “Jumping Jupiter,” a Liberating name is appropriate for it as well.
