Youngest son is a fan and he played me one episode. It's bad TV. The camera man is into the very very dark look. No lights on anywhere. All the characters appear as black silhouettes, no light on their faces, and I could not tell one from another. Lotta hand to hand slugging matches, where none of the characters were recognizable. Lotta fast cuts from one story line to another, and back again, with no point except confusing the viewers. Nobody ever addresses anyone else by name. At least the dialog was audible, but the camera work was so bad as to make the show painful to watch.
Sunday, April 3, 2016
New villain, "Fossil Fuel Companies"
We used to call 'em oil companies, or "Big Oil" and they have been a punching bag since John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil. But we got a new name for 'em now.
Saturday, April 2, 2016
Is the MOM airliner single aisle or twin aisle?
Boeing is arguing this out internally right now. MOM is Middle of the Market in case you had not heard. Single aisle is a smaller jet liner say 180 to 200 seats. Twin aisle is a substantially bigger plane, say 250 - 300 seats. Right now, 2015, the airlines like smaller planes, and more frequent schedules to capture as many passengers as possible. If they offer 3 or 4 departures a day of a smaller airliner, they are more more likely to all the passengers to be had on that city-pair. If they only offer one departure a day of a bigger airliner, the passengers that want to depart earlier or later, are more likely to book with a competing carrier.
On the other hand, should over loaded airports like La Guardia impose departure limits (you airline so-and-so only get so many departures from here) then the airlines are likely to fall in love with bigger planes.
Boeing is doing bet-the-company forecasting right now.
On the other hand, should over loaded airports like La Guardia impose departure limits (you airline so-and-so only get so many departures from here) then the airlines are likely to fall in love with bigger planes.
Boeing is doing bet-the-company forecasting right now.
Batman vs Superman the movie
All the critics panned it. But, raised as I was on Batman and Superman comics, I had to see it, just for old times sake. And, turned out, the critics were right, it was a terrible movie. Scene after scene, each one full of fighting rolled by, but they didn't connect with each other. Only in the last half of the movie with the grudge match between the lead characters, followed by a just as big fight against a monster conjured up by Lex Luther, was there some continuity. Basically this flick suffers for giant plot holes and lack of any continuity from scene to scene. I got lost following a comic book movie. The only character with good lines was Lex Luther, and who cares if the bad guy sounds witty?
Costumes were meh. Superman's red and blue outfit was dulled down to dark blue gray and an odd shade of red for his cape. Batman's costume was all black plate armor that made his look like an overweight gorilla. Wonder Woman was not wearing her bright red white and blue bikini, she was in some kinda one piece bathing suit in neutral brown.
Poor Wonder Woman, she doesn't get any lines, she just turns up in the last reel and does some whacking on Lex Luther's monster. She has a human secret identity but you don't know it, and the scenes in which she appears have little meaning, she is just another tall chick with no real reason for existence.
And a few anachronisms. Lois Lane gets captured by terrorists, who proceed to pop open her 35mm camera and pull the film out of the cartridge, exposing it to sunlight. I gave up using my 35mm five years ago, Lois is a real reporter, you'd think she would have gone over to a DSLR years ago. The hoods who knock off Bruce Wayne's parents use a Government model .45 automatic. That kind of hood ought to be using a .38 revolver.
Anyhow, you can save your money and not go see this one.
Costumes were meh. Superman's red and blue outfit was dulled down to dark blue gray and an odd shade of red for his cape. Batman's costume was all black plate armor that made his look like an overweight gorilla. Wonder Woman was not wearing her bright red white and blue bikini, she was in some kinda one piece bathing suit in neutral brown.
Poor Wonder Woman, she doesn't get any lines, she just turns up in the last reel and does some whacking on Lex Luther's monster. She has a human secret identity but you don't know it, and the scenes in which she appears have little meaning, she is just another tall chick with no real reason for existence.
And a few anachronisms. Lois Lane gets captured by terrorists, who proceed to pop open her 35mm camera and pull the film out of the cartridge, exposing it to sunlight. I gave up using my 35mm five years ago, Lois is a real reporter, you'd think she would have gone over to a DSLR years ago. The hoods who knock off Bruce Wayne's parents use a Government model .45 automatic. That kind of hood ought to be using a .38 revolver.
Anyhow, you can save your money and not go see this one.
Friday, April 1, 2016
It's the economy, Stupid
Looking at polls, and just talking around, the economy and the chances of keeping your job, are the top concerns among US voters, going into this election. Incumbent politicians tend to say the economy is better or getting better. Insurgent politicians harp on how bad things are. Who's right?
Who knows? The two numbers the guvmint sends out are bogus. The unemployment rate the newsies report is actually the number of workers drawing unemployment benefits. When unemployment runs out, that worker is no longer unemployed. He may not, probably does not, have a job, but since he ain't drawing unemployment any more, he ain't unemployed. At the depths of Great Depression 2.0, back in 2008, unemployment got up to 9 or 10 percent. Since then it has dropped back to 5% nationwide, 2.7% in New Hampshire. Much of this "improvement" represents people's unemployment benefits running out.
Then we have "New Jobs Created". This number represents new hires in companies big enough to have to report such things to Washington. But the number doesn't take layoffs into account. A company could layoff 1000 senior employees and hire 1000 new high school grads at minimum wage in the same year, but it counts as 1000 jobs "grown".
With statistics this flaky, politicians can say the economy is getting better, or getting worse and have statistics to prove it either way.
"Lies, damn lies, and statistics" was Mark Twain's slam at this sort of thing.
Who knows? The two numbers the guvmint sends out are bogus. The unemployment rate the newsies report is actually the number of workers drawing unemployment benefits. When unemployment runs out, that worker is no longer unemployed. He may not, probably does not, have a job, but since he ain't drawing unemployment any more, he ain't unemployed. At the depths of Great Depression 2.0, back in 2008, unemployment got up to 9 or 10 percent. Since then it has dropped back to 5% nationwide, 2.7% in New Hampshire. Much of this "improvement" represents people's unemployment benefits running out.
Then we have "New Jobs Created". This number represents new hires in companies big enough to have to report such things to Washington. But the number doesn't take layoffs into account. A company could layoff 1000 senior employees and hire 1000 new high school grads at minimum wage in the same year, but it counts as 1000 jobs "grown".
With statistics this flaky, politicians can say the economy is getting better, or getting worse and have statistics to prove it either way.
"Lies, damn lies, and statistics" was Mark Twain's slam at this sort of thing.
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Why the Allies Won (WWII) by Richard Overy
Good read. Richard Overy is a Brit, who has previously written and published ten books on WWII subjects, so he knows something about it. He picks six campaigns that he calls the war winners, as opposed to plenty of campaigns which simply consumed lives and resources without ever doing anything to win the war. I find Overy's views quite reasonable.
Overy starts out explaining how touch and go Allied victory was. In 1939,1940,and 1941 the Axis swept all before it. Their armies fought better and beat the Allied armies every time. Hitler overran all of Western Europe save Britain. Had the Germans been able to get the mines and farms and factories of this humongous area organized and producing, and the young men to enlist in the German army, he would have had an empire to match his enemies.
Overy's first crucial campaign was in the North Atlantic, where the U-boats had to be defeated. D-Day would not have been possible if the U-boats sank half the troops before they reached England. He attributes this victory to a handful of Consolidated B24 Liberator four engine bombers that had the range to run air patrols clean across the Atlantic. Prior to the Liberators, the shorter range patrol planes flying from Britain and Canada left a 1000 mile gap, "the black pit" seamen called it, where the U-boats ranged freely and sank thousands of merchantmen. Too get the Liberators onto the North Atlantic patrol took direct orders from Churchill. The RAF wanted to use them for bombing Germany and resisted putting them on a navy mission.
Overy's second key campaign is the bombing campaign against German industry. Right after the war, we ran some surveys concluding that strategic bombing had not been very effective. Overy disagrees, he cites the decline in German oil production, and the destruction of the German Air Force by the Allied long range fighters escorting the bombers. By the end of the war, the Germans didn't have enough gasoline to fill a Zippo lighter. As an old Air Force veteran, I agree with Overy on this one.
For a third key campaign, Overy chooses the eastern front. In 1941, the German Army completely out classed the Red Army and beat them every time. The Germans got to the outskirts of Moscow, had they been able to take the city, Russian resistance might well have collapsed. Somehow, the Russians stayed the course, rebuilt their armies, produced thousands of T-34 tanks, better than anything the Germans had, and inflicted the crushing defeat at Stalingrad in 1942. Before Stalingrad the Germans had beaten the Russians every time. After Stalingrad, the Russians beat the Germans every time.
The last key campaign was D-Day, where the Allies put a huge army ashore, in the teeth of German resistance and succeeded. The Allies then encircled and destroyed the German army in France. For the rest of the war, the German's fought with newly raised formations, or units pulled away from the eastern front.
Anyhow, if you are a WWII buff, you want to read this book.
Overy starts out explaining how touch and go Allied victory was. In 1939,1940,and 1941 the Axis swept all before it. Their armies fought better and beat the Allied armies every time. Hitler overran all of Western Europe save Britain. Had the Germans been able to get the mines and farms and factories of this humongous area organized and producing, and the young men to enlist in the German army, he would have had an empire to match his enemies.
Overy's first crucial campaign was in the North Atlantic, where the U-boats had to be defeated. D-Day would not have been possible if the U-boats sank half the troops before they reached England. He attributes this victory to a handful of Consolidated B24 Liberator four engine bombers that had the range to run air patrols clean across the Atlantic. Prior to the Liberators, the shorter range patrol planes flying from Britain and Canada left a 1000 mile gap, "the black pit" seamen called it, where the U-boats ranged freely and sank thousands of merchantmen. Too get the Liberators onto the North Atlantic patrol took direct orders from Churchill. The RAF wanted to use them for bombing Germany and resisted putting them on a navy mission.
Overy's second key campaign is the bombing campaign against German industry. Right after the war, we ran some surveys concluding that strategic bombing had not been very effective. Overy disagrees, he cites the decline in German oil production, and the destruction of the German Air Force by the Allied long range fighters escorting the bombers. By the end of the war, the Germans didn't have enough gasoline to fill a Zippo lighter. As an old Air Force veteran, I agree with Overy on this one.
For a third key campaign, Overy chooses the eastern front. In 1941, the German Army completely out classed the Red Army and beat them every time. The Germans got to the outskirts of Moscow, had they been able to take the city, Russian resistance might well have collapsed. Somehow, the Russians stayed the course, rebuilt their armies, produced thousands of T-34 tanks, better than anything the Germans had, and inflicted the crushing defeat at Stalingrad in 1942. Before Stalingrad the Germans had beaten the Russians every time. After Stalingrad, the Russians beat the Germans every time.
The last key campaign was D-Day, where the Allies put a huge army ashore, in the teeth of German resistance and succeeded. The Allies then encircled and destroyed the German army in France. For the rest of the war, the German's fought with newly raised formations, or units pulled away from the eastern front.
Anyhow, if you are a WWII buff, you want to read this book.
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Rant about the IRS
Dear IRS,
Next time you invent one of those damn forms try this. Give each box on the form a number, or a letter. Pick one (numbers or letters) and stick with it. Either give each box a number, or give each box a letter. Don't put numbers on some boxes and letters on other boxes. That's childish. And don't put a number and a letter on the same box.
Sincerely,
An Average Turbo Tax using Taxpayer.
Next time you invent one of those damn forms try this. Give each box on the form a number, or a letter. Pick one (numbers or letters) and stick with it. Either give each box a number, or give each box a letter. Don't put numbers on some boxes and letters on other boxes. That's childish. And don't put a number and a letter on the same box.
Sincerely,
An Average Turbo Tax using Taxpayer.
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