Recent Reading

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Cinema-related reading (and related media) that has crossed my path in recent months:

Peter Jackson’s Violent Betrayal of Tolkien. Bad enough that they split the story into a triple-segment money-grab, but even worse was altering the Warg/forest chase scene into a trite action movie climax against an archnemesis who was barely even in the book.

Steven Soderbergh on why On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is the best Bond film. I’ve also thought OHMSS and George Lazenby’s James Bond were greatly underappreciated, but the film is constantly at war with itself, vacillating between showing a sensitive Bond in a more realistic setting versus the classic 1960s alpha male Bond battling an outlandish supervillain plot. Lazenby quit the role after one film due to contract disputes and directorial conflict.

Jabootu’s Bad Movie Dimension chronicles the descent of the Jaws franchise, from historic cultural touchstone to mediocre sequel to campy SeaWorld 3-D novelty to just plain bad movie.

“It’s a miracle that Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits even got made.” Featuring a cast of little people alongside various Monty Python alumni, a child star, and Sean Connery, this film bothered me as a child just because of how it ended.

“Something Terrible Has Happened Here”: The Crazy Story Of How Clue Went From Forgotten Flop To Cult Triumph. Flames. On the side of my face.

What Superman III teaches us about computer programming. Apparently the specific command to salami slice a payroll is "CHANNEL HALF CENTS INTO ACCOUNT."

10 remarkable things about Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. The effects on this film were Super Sentai bad, but even worse was Superman suddenly and inexplicably gaining the power of “Instant Great Wall Repair Vision.”

8 Surprising Details About The Hellish Production Of The Super Mario Bros. Movie / Mario’s Film Folly: The True Story Behind Hollywood’s Biggest Gaming Blunder. I haven’t seen the Super Mario Bros. movie yet but some time I’m going to have to try, just to see how bad it was. (Not to be confused with the >Super Mario Brothers Super Show starring “Captain” Lou Albano.) Also see the coloring book.

Superman at 75, Klingon Rickroll, and Low Gravity Chivalry

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To celebrate 75 years since Superman first appeared in Action Comics #1, DC Comics has released an animated short of Superman through the decades. I still mourn the loss of the red underpants.

You all know about Rickrolling, but now theatre group Commedia Beauregard (also known for A Klingon Christmas Carol) takes it into the 23rd Century with Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” translated into Klingon (jIyIntaHvIS not qajegh):

Also here is a game of Chivalry: Medieval Warfare played on a multiplayer server with the gravity set to low. Everyone is screaming all the time.

Cat at Window, Cat on Desk

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Here’s Martha by the window this morning, softly reflected in the glass:

Martha Cat, reflected Martha looks out a window

And here’s Amelia exploring a desk hutch after I had cleared it out for sale on Craigslist:

Amelia explores a desk hutch Amelia explores a desk hutch

Companion Kittens at One

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As of October 1st, our kittens Martha and Amelia are one year old, and are now officially cats. Big cats! Compare the two of them between March and September:

Martha and Amelia Kittens Kittens in bed

And on October 1st:

Amelia and Martha, 1 year old

To celebrate the occasion I have taken every Vine video I’ve recorded of them since their adoption in January, and combined all these six-second clips into a grand chronicle of the Companion Kittens’ First Year. Enjoy.

If you don’t have that much time to watch kittens in six second bursts, here are my personal favorites:

Happy birthday, Martha and Amelia. Now you’re cats, but you’ll always be our Companion Kittens.

Kittens by the window on a snowy morning Kittens by the window
Martha and Amelia on sunny windowsill

(As such, I will continue to tag them as “companion kittens” on Flickr.)

Trapper Keeper!

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Mental Floss: History of the Trapper Keeper. My Trapper Keeper period ran from high school to about sophomore year of college. Back then my taste ran towards the “Designer Series” Trapper Keepers: surrealistic computer-generated 3D landscapes and colorful floating geometric shapes and chrome spheres — a very early 1990s aesthetic. This Guilty People column on Trapper Keepers has a gallery which includes the specific covers I had through high school:

trapperkeeper2 trapperkeeper1

Mead Trapper Keepers are still around today, and you can buy Trapper Keepers on Amazon, but today they come in just plain, solid colors.

There is also a Homestar Runner main screen called “Trapper Keeper!!”

Sunday Cygnus, Falcon, Proton

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Sunday was a big spaceflight day. First, the commercial Cygnus spacecraft (which was launched from Wallops Island, VA on the 18th by an Antares rocket just like the one I watched in April) docked with the space station on a demo resupply mission for NASA. I got up early in the morning to try and photograph the two spacecraft as they orbited over our area but only saw the bright dot of the ISS; Cygnus was too dim to be seen through the light pollution of the DC area.

ISS flyover, 2013-09-29

Continue reading Sunday Cygnus, Falcon, Proton

ISS Tours

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“ISS Tours”, a video playlist of inside tours of the International Space Station by NASA, ESA, and Roscosmos astronauts and cosmonauts through the years, compiled by myself after scouring YouTube. You’ve seen how I see the ISS from the ground, and now you can watch how crew members in orbit see it from inside.

The most complete tours not cut up into multiple parts are the two most recent ones, with NASA’s Sunita Williams and ESA’s André Kuipers.

Also of interest is game developer Richard Garriott’s Man on a Mission, about his private visit to the ISS in 2008, during which he also filmed Apogee of Fear, ostensibly the first science fiction film recorded in space. (It’s really bad.)

And of course, there’s Chris Hadfield’s cover of David Bowie’s Space Oddity:

It’s not strictly a tour of the station, but there’s certainly enough scenery in the video to merit addition to the playlist.

Recent ISS Captures

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The visible part of the International Space Station’s orbit has lately taken it over our area early in the morning, and as we get up at 5AM every day now, I’ve had several opportunities to photograph ISS flyovers from the parking garage roof deck. (The LADEE launch photo was a great encouragement.) First two attempts were a bit cloudy, but the clouds actually served to enhance these long exposures.

ISS (50 sec f/3.5)
ISS through clouds

Another pass from last Monday was stymied by glaring light pollution from the new Metro parking garage across the street, but the ISS is faintly visible along the bottom of the frame.

ISS faint pass NW-NE (114s f/3.5)

So far what’s worked for me is to stick to ISO 200 to minimize grain noise and suburban light glare, keep aperture wide (usually f/3.5), and go for 30-120 second exposures to get a full streak across the field of view of a 16mm lens. Some time I’d like to try this from a much darker place, and see if I can use a higher ISO and even longer exposure time to get more stars — maybe even the Milky Way. As it is, I tried to shoot Orion and the harvest moon, with unimpressive results. (Wind wasn’t helping.)

Orion (30s f/4.5 ISO 200)
Moon

Previous ISS sightings here.