Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Microreviews of the last 6 movies I've Seen
Hangover 2 - Hilarious, innapropriate, recycled
Thor - flashy but rings as hollow as thor's hammer looked
Waiting for Superman - engaging, heart breaking, and a must see documentary
Your Highness - Like pineapple express? Then stick this in your pipe and smoke it
Tales from the Hood - Velveeta cheese acting but creepily underrated horror anthology from Spike Lee
The Toxic Avenger - Troma at its finest
"The Toxic Avenger: You fat slob. Let's see if you've got any guts.
[Toxie then punches the mayor in the stomach and rips out his guts]
The Toxic Avenger: Officer O'Clancy, take care of this toxic waste."
The final frontier
I am an enormous space nerd. As a kid, I loved to look up at the sky at night, and I would want to know everything about how the Universe worked and the way it could make you feel so small. I'm no expert, but what I would call an armchair astronomer. I've read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, could tell you about string theory, love me some Neil Degrasse Tyson, and can (mostly) find the big dipper and orion's belt.
With the success of the Mars Rover and recent headlines of asteroids, I got to thinking about our countries space program. A guy I know at work was telling me about how he and his wife got into an argument because he couldn't understand why [NASA] kept going to the moon. He thought that if we're going to go, why not go big and go beyond the Moon and Mars. He wanted big results and mostly all NASA comes back with is important but boring data. I know about the dangers of space and the enormous time effort and calculations that have to go into each launch, but I think when we will see the big leap forward in space travel is when the technology becomes cheap enough for large companies to start producing their own rockets. Think about it, when have you ever trusted the government to be creative and innovative or bold with their choices? They're reliable and mostly stable, the way governments are supposed to be run. Healthy competition urges innovation and takes the big risks that allow for those big results.
A British billionaire has already sold tickets for his first commercial flight and among the ticket holders is Paris Hilton. If the shuttle doesn't crash, yet seven of our best and brightest engineers and scientists do then I claim it as evidence for an uncaring universe. If the launch is successful, then this could prove a start for what could become the new space race but among private corporations and interests instead of global superpowers. I realize I will probably never see this happen in my lifetime, but its exciting to see the first steps being taken to make this come true.
We are going to have to move off this planet one day if we want our species to survive, we're overcrowded and we left the gas on on the stove of Earth and its only a matter of time before ourselves, a, match, or nature does it for us. There is something humbling about the thought of space that it makes distinctions such as country and race seem very small by comparison. When Neil Armstrong took that historic first step on the moon he didn't say "This is one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for AMERICA baby!", he said for mankind.
We already have the International Space Station as proof of this idea. Just look at who all worked together building it, the most interesting being the US and Russia, once bitter enemies in the very project they are now collaborating on. More importantly than superpowers teaming up however, is the connection between the increasingly disparate developed and developing nations. You need only watch a Vice documentary or turn on the TV to see civil wars, human rights abuses, and exploitation of humans across the planet. Only some 500 people have ever gazed down at earth from any great distance.
With the success of the Mars Rover and recent headlines of asteroids, I got to thinking about our countries space program. A guy I know at work was telling me about how he and his wife got into an argument because he couldn't understand why [NASA] kept going to the moon. He thought that if we're going to go, why not go big and go beyond the Moon and Mars. He wanted big results and mostly all NASA comes back with is important but boring data. I know about the dangers of space and the enormous time effort and calculations that have to go into each launch, but I think when we will see the big leap forward in space travel is when the technology becomes cheap enough for large companies to start producing their own rockets. Think about it, when have you ever trusted the government to be creative and innovative or bold with their choices? They're reliable and mostly stable, the way governments are supposed to be run. Healthy competition urges innovation and takes the big risks that allow for those big results.
A British billionaire has already sold tickets for his first commercial flight and among the ticket holders is Paris Hilton. If the shuttle doesn't crash, yet seven of our best and brightest engineers and scientists do then I claim it as evidence for an uncaring universe. If the launch is successful, then this could prove a start for what could become the new space race but among private corporations and interests instead of global superpowers. I realize I will probably never see this happen in my lifetime, but its exciting to see the first steps being taken to make this come true.
We are going to have to move off this planet one day if we want our species to survive, we're overcrowded and we left the gas on on the stove of Earth and its only a matter of time before ourselves, a, match, or nature does it for us. There is something humbling about the thought of space that it makes distinctions such as country and race seem very small by comparison. When Neil Armstrong took that historic first step on the moon he didn't say "This is one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for AMERICA baby!", he said for mankind.
We already have the International Space Station as proof of this idea. Just look at who all worked together building it, the most interesting being the US and Russia, once bitter enemies in the very project they are now collaborating on. More importantly than superpowers teaming up however, is the connection between the increasingly disparate developed and developing nations. You need only watch a Vice documentary or turn on the TV to see civil wars, human rights abuses, and exploitation of humans across the planet. Only some 500 people have ever gazed down at earth from any great distance.
This video features one of my favorite quotes of all time, in this clip from the immortal Carl Sagan's 'Pale Blue Dot', which was written after viewing an image taken from the ship Explorer 1.
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