Random Babbling Thread 119

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A week not socializing, that seems like a normal week to me.

August in the Netherlands. 16-18 degrees, rain. Feels more like autumn. Not that I'm complaining, I prefer these temperatures over 25+ degrees.

 

I don't know, maybe it's my old job or my inner hermit, but I quite enjoy being cut off from the world, with some peace and quiet, for long stretches of time.

I get more than enough socializing online to be grateful that I don't have to deal with that on a regular basis.

 

Finally back from vacation =) long live loving quiet solitaire home.
Btw how many beers does it take to not notice the plotholes in terminator salvation?

 

At least as many as it took to write that script.

 

Never watched it.

Would it not be something when they throw money, good actors and a good plot into the same bowl.

 

Speaking of plotholes, I was watching an episode of Space: Above and Beyond earlier this week, one where they get stranded in one of their shuttles / troop transports. The lack of physics in this episode was pretty jarring.

They seem to have some kind of gravity generators in even their smallest spacecraft, which is never mentioned or explained, the Chigs apparently have discovered how to have their spacecraft transmit sound through vacuum, they apparently can easily get into orbit around a comet that with its rather small size really shouldn't have enough of a gravitational pull that anything would be able to settle into orbit around it.

I can sort of forgive the lack of action = re-action when one of them goes EVA due to low budgets and such. But overall the writers seem to have taken either a rather large amount of creative leeway around physics or have a rather lacking understanding thereof.

 

Speaking of plot holes how is it believable in ANY WAY that Sylvester Stallone is still hot enough to get a hot female lead in any of those silly Expendables movies?!?

 

I'm back, and hopefully done with weddings for a year or ten. Being around 30+ people all day, most of whom I don't know, is not my idea of a good time.

Sadly, that's all too common in science fiction. I can understand bending the rules for the sake of entertainment (like audible explosions in space), but writers often don't seem to have a grasp on even the most basic principles.

Are you saying that you at one time considered him hot enough to get any of his female leads?

 

Well, to be fair, there are women who are attracted to older men (and younger men who are attracted to older women), so it's not completely outlandish. Certainly, he's no uglier now than when he was when he was still fairly young.

That being said, I thought it was a bit overdone in the second movie (or did he have a girlfriend in the first movie too?), with the young hot chick with old guy shtick. Just the young hot chick to have the young hot chick, or something.

I can understand that too - sure, make the explosion impressive enough to give my subwoofer something to do - but having people react to sounds that shouldn't be there is crushing my suspension of disbelieve.

Faster than light travel, sure, artificial gravity, sure, (practically) infinite energy source, sure. But at least get the basics right.

The most horrible example of this 'artistic freedom' I saw lately (aside from S:AaB) was that movie where Sandra Bullock was leading a trail of destroyed space stations. Quite aside from the continuous - and highly annoying - shrieking, crying and moaning, the total disregard for the laws of physics just made me quit watching after 20 minutes or so. Good grief, man, the hubble space telescope and the ISS aren't even in the same orbital plane. How do they ever think to expect me to believe they can make that kind of adjustment, especially with nothing but their EVA reaction packs?

I also love how in sci-fi in general they only ever need fuel for accelerating, never for decelerating. Or how they need continuous thrust to go forward instead of just the initial thrust.

/rant
But anyway, I never played Bioshock Infinite (and I don't think I ever will), but these comments make me somewhat glad of that fact.

 

Ok well to me he was never overly attractive however youth still made him more appealing.

That is completely true Henkie, however often those older women and men are still hot

 

Yeah, that whole "engine's dead, we're stuck and running out of oxygen" is pretty common. It should really be something more like "engine's dead, and we're on a collision course with an asteroid field unless we fix it".

To be fair, space is only mostly empty, and the mechanics of FTL travel vary, so continuous thrust might be justified in some cases.

 

Only sometimes. Other times it's just someone looking for something else in the other that they believe their counterparts in their own age bracket do not have. And that seems to have little to do with looks, more often than not.

On the other hand, what do I know. I can barely tell if a woman is handsome, and even then, it feels more like I'm applying someone elses yard stick - one that has little importance to me.

To be fair, the "engine's dead, we're running out of oxygen" is fairly plausible. After all, normally you'd need to decelerate before returning to orbit, or you might bounce off the atmosphere. Or crash onto the planet, in which case oxygen is no longer of much importance. But if you miss your goal, the chances of finding another is fairly slim in space.

Continuous thrust with FTL might be justified, but as far as I can tell, the shuttle from Space: Above and Beyond do not have FTL capability (although the series is pretty vague about the FTL travel mechanic - it seems like they use some kind of wormholes or something for FTL travel)

 

Ladies and gentlemen! I feel like I've already done my annual check-in, but I'd just like to let it be known that I have just finished two years of teaching in a rural mountain village in Japan, and now I'm travelling around the country. Currently in Kyoto. It's excellent.

Till next time, old friends.

 

Good to hear from you, DM. Japan is still on my wishlist of countries to visit, though I'm not sure I'd like to visit for 2 whole years

 

Been there, done that. I just wish more of it had stuck with me. My once respectable knowledge of kanji has shrunk to fewer than a hundred.

Not that it's my fault, logograms are a ridiculous way of writing.

 

Ok so I gave up on giving up on men but I have a new problem. I actually met someone I like. I like his personality and it suits me. The only problem is that he has horrible horrible teeth. Whhyyyyy . I'm not talking crooked either, from what I can see they appear to be a dark color.

 

Darker colour as in what? Like rotten brown or even black? Rotten teeth?

Or yellowish? Which, as my dentist informed me, is apparently a more healthy colour for teeth than the blinding white as you might be used to seeing in adds and movies.

Or does he have the habit of chewing tobacco?

 

Your dentist would be correct. Bleached teeth are not necessarily healthy. Darker yellow shades can be a sign of caffeine or tobacco abuse though.

If they're brown or black, then he's got a more serious problem and should probably see a dentist. Confronting someone about such things at the start of the relationship can be daunting, but these things are gonna be eating at you if you don't.