FuzzyCLIPS 6.31

Updated the FuzzyCLIPS source code to be compatible with CLIPS 6.31 and placed the updates on GitHub.

FuzzyCLIPS 6.24

Updated the FuzzyCLIPS source code to be compatible with CLIPS 6.24 and placed the updates on GitHub.

Star Trek: Discovery

The Good: Clint Howard's cameo is the highlight of season 1.
The Bad: Clint Howard's cameo is the highlight of season 1.
The Ugly: Midichlorians and Jar Jar Binks.

Mutant Homecoming: Disney Acquires Fox

First it was Spider-Man. Now it's the X-Men and Fantastic Four. We really don't need another megacorp, but as a fanboy, this is exciting.

It’s Bigger on the Inside

Click on the photo and see if you can get inside the TARDIS.

He Lives

I’m have come here to chew bubblegum and cut taxes... and I’m all out of bubblegum.

And Yet It Still Wasn't Even Close

In analyzing the Alabama Primary race,FAKE NEWS always fails to mention that the candidate I endorsed went up MANY points after endorsement!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2017

It seems odd to single out one of Trump's tweets as bizarre, but this tweet is just bizarre. Second place is just the polite way to say that you're the winner of the losers. But if that's the way you want to roll, congratulations on losing so successfully.

Lego Captain America 3

Follow-up to Lego Captain America 2.

The Hodor Reveal

I have a bad feeling about this.

During season 6 of Lost, my doubts started growing that the writers could bring the series to a satisfying conclusion. And they didn't.

The show was nonetheless fantastic, but that's part of the reason that the mediocre conclusion in season 7 was all the more disappointing.

We're now in season 6 of Game of Thrones and this weekend's revelation of the origin of Hodor's name has given me that same bad feeling—I seriously doubt the series is going to have a satisfying conclusion.

The problem I've concluded is the series' split personality. On the one hand it's a character driven story in a medieval setting with political intrigue, subterfuge, alliances, and betrayals. On the other hand, it's epic fantasy with magic, dragons, ice zombies, and prophecies. In previous seasons the former has worked much better than the latter, but as season 6 has progressed we're getting more of the latter much to the detriment of the former.

The Hodor reveal is clever and poignant, but I suspect in the end will be completely irrelevant to the overall story.

And it involves time travel.

Seriously. Time travel.

And unless your story is actually about time travel, it's usually a bad idea to casually toss it in.

I hope I'm wrong. I hope at the end of the series I'm writing a blog post about the brilliance of the Hodor reveal and how it laid the groundwork for a satisfying conclusion.

But I have a bad feeling about this.

Superhero Realism

The Rawness on Why I Hated the Dark Knight:

There are two problems with this movie’s “realistic” angle. First, Christopher Nolan seems to think “realistic” is simply another word for “boring.” Almost everything that makes the Batman character fantastic and larger than life is excised, probably because Nolan finds these elements silly and unrealistic. Batman’s fighting style is toned down so that he’s not doing any high-flying gymnastics or flashy martial arts, just a visually dull fight style consisting of extreme, incomprehensible close-ups on repetitive body blows, elbows and arm grabs. And even worse, these fights are all shot in the dark with lots of quick cuts, which I guess is somehow supposed to increase the realism through incoherency.

We have a boring Batmobile with no bat insignias, oversized scallops or anything that indicates it’s supposed to have a Bat-theme. Because driving a cool-looking bat-shaped car would just be too ridiculous. Joker can’t have permawhite skin like the comics because that’s also unrealistic, so he just wears sloppy face paint.

When I bring up how dark, dreary and joylessly boring this movie is, people respond “it’s supposed to be realistic.” Why’s the fighting and action so badly shot and dull? “It’s supposed to be realistic.” Why’s Gotham City so bland and generic now and no longer has a unique character and design like in other Batman adaptations? “Realism.” And so on and so on.

Which leads to my second problem with all this realism: IT’S A MOVIE ABOUT A BILLIONAIRE WHO TRAVELS THE WORLD IN ORDER TO BECOME THE WORLD’S SMARTEST, MOST HIGH-TECH CRIMEFIGHTING NINJA THAT EVER EXISTED, THEN RETURNS TO HIS HOMETOWN TO DRESS AS A GIANT BAT, DRIVE A WEAPONS-LOADED MINITANK, AND CLEAN UP ALL THE CRIME IN THE CITY BY ESSENTIALLY SINGLEHANDEDLY PUNCHING IT IN THE FACE EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. AND NOW HE’S GOING TO FIGHT AN EVIL CLOWN. So please tell me…what type of mental case creates or watches a movie with a premise so clearly meant to be inherently ridiculous and then turns around DEMANDS REALISM?

To Boldly Go Where Everyone Has Gone Before

CBS has announced plans for a new Star Trek TV series that will air in January 2017. The first episode will premiere on the CBS TV network and subsequent episodes will be available on the paid CBS All Access streaming service.

Good luck with that.

If CBS management pulled their collective heads out of their collective rears, they might be able to spot the three mountain size hurdles in their path to success.

First, as I've discussed before, CBS has the most customer hostile streaming policies of any of the major networks.

Missed the last few minutes of your show because the beginning was delayed? Have fun streaming it on demand because there's no way to fast forward. And you're burdened with this streaming restriction even if you're watching it through your cable provider, who presumably you've already paid for the "privilege" of watching CBS.

Looking at the iPhone app reviews for the big three networks shows just how far behind CBS is in customer satisfaction for their streaming service:

People are only going to watch this new Star Trek series if the show is so good that they're willing to endure a horrible viewing experience. And that brings us to the second hurdle.

CBS's recent track record with science fiction is not that good. No one's going to pay for pablum like Extant or Under The Dome. There's plenty of bad science fiction series available for free, but more importantly, there's also plenty of good science fiction series available for free. This new Star Trek series needs to be as good, if not better, than a series like Battlestar Galactica, and that needs to be apparent from the very first episode. Which brings us to the third and final hurdle.

The Star Trek TV franchise is creatively bankrupt. The film franchise reboot achieved success by focusing on the action/adventure aspects of the stories. A weekly TV show is not going to be able to compete with the special effects budget of a film. That means the TV show needs to excel at plot and character development, areas in which each Star Trek TV series in general has been progressively worse than its predecessors.

I've watched every episode of all five live action Star Trek TV series, but the idea of a new series that follows in the creative footsteps of the shows that came before it leaves me completely unexcited. I've had my fill of technobabble and cookie cutter crews.

It would be nice to be pleasantly surprised by the preview episode and watch something that's radically different from what we've seen before while still being familiar as Star Trek, but I'm not holding my breath. And I'm not paying for CBS All Access. If the series ends up being worth watching I'll wait for it on blu-ray.

Two Sentence Horror Story

What is the best horror story you can come up with in two sentences?

I held a pistol in one hand and a Molotov cocktail in the other. If I couldn't kill it with bullets, I needed to prevent it from wearing my skin as a disguise.

Blep

Apparently there's a word for this.

Holy Mathematics Batman!

The Batman equation

Leonard Nimoy Tribute

A selfie mosaic from William Shatner and a bunch of Star Trek fans.

Clinton vs. Trump

Holy Kang vs. Kodos!

Enemies of the State

What Battlestar Galactica Can Teach Us About the Militarization of Police

Sir Christopher Lee 1922-2015

22 Incredible Facts About The Life and Career Of Sir Christopher Lee

One commenter nailed it:

F*** the Dos Equis guy. This is the most interesting man in the world.

Texas Rising

History Channel’s ‘Texas Rising’ goes beyond Alamo siege:

The landscape in “Texas Rising” mostly looks and feels like Texas, but without all the skyscrapers and air conditioning. It’s hot, dusty and scrubby. At one point, though, Sam Houston, elegantly played by Bill Paxton with some killer sideburns, sets up camp on a mountain with a stunning view — even though there would not have been breathtaking vistas where Houston and the Texas Rangers were plotting to defeat the Mexican army.

“Those early episodes were all shot in Durango, Mexico,” said David Marion Wilkinson, a writer and co-producer on the project. “The settings don’t match. San Jacinto was all piney woods and bayous. Gonzales is flat land and farm land. ... But this is entertainment. I don’t think the geography is going to bother too many people.”

It bothered me.

The CLIPS Team 1987

NASA Tech Briefs, Nov/Dec 1987