god I'm drunk and tired after writing an entire chapter of a thriller, having TOO MUCH SEX last night, and now watching the enervating tedium of ARRIVAL. I had so much sex I have crocked my knee
Clearly it's too late to save my knee, or my liver, but can someone tell me whether it's worth pursuing ARRIVAL?
It just feels like some Portuguese speaking woman talking in the rain to allegorical migrants, right now. YAWNFEST
No. Tedium continues with boring, predictable 'surprise' ending.
Arrival is a great film. For the thinking viewer. Best watched sober, however.
It really didn't require that much thinking. I like a slower, contemplative movie, I love Amy Adams and Jeremy renner, but it feels like arrival, while of good quality, is a movie gettting elevated praise because it's supposed to be for the 'thinking viewer' more than how clever it truly is.
The classic film for that is Inception: we went to see it and wondered why people were saying they were getting confused by the layers. Drastically over-rated.
If you want a film that is genuinely confusing, then Shane Carrith's Primer is for you. I've seen it many times and still don't clearly know who is when. A brilliant film.
It's also odd to have a film that is so confusing that essentially has only two characters.
Turned out I rather enjoyed ARRIVAL
Not a masterpiece, but deft film-making and some decent ideas. And a poignant coda.
The original short story, The Story of Your Life, by Ted Chiang is mind blowing. The central idea is the difference between a chronological causal interpretation of events and a teleological interpretation.
""It is easier being illegal here when you're white," Shauna, an undocumented Irish immigrant, tells CNN. "It's not easy, of course, you have that paranoia but there isn't the racial element. It's a bit easier to stay under the radar."
@JosiasJessop Another SpaceX first coming up, reused booster to be launched at the start of next month !
Looking forward to it! I watched yesterday's launch, but didn't post it on here because it was an expendable flight with no landing: i.e. boring.
However it looks like we'll need to wait for the block ?5? Falcon 9 due to fly at the end of this year before they see full cost savings from reusability. It looks as though it includes all the lessons learn from their recovered rockets so far.
I'm also interested in Blue Origin's plans: they've just announced their first customers for orbital launches.
Edit: apparently it took SpaceX four months to refurbish the recovered first stage ready for its next flight. They'll have to get that time down a lot to really make money from reusability.
Great to see space technology being pushed hard by Spacex and Blue Origin. The re-usable first stages dramatically cut the launch costs if they can be recycled and used a few times.
In theory. It depends on how much it costs to reuse them. As the Shuttle showed, reusability is not a panacea.
There's a couple of brilliant books by T.A. Happenheimer about the development of the Shuttle. In it, he states (*) the four orbiters were planned to fly about sixty times a year in total (i.e. each one every three or four weeks). Instead, they flew only 135 times in thirty years, or under five times a year.
As an example, the first couple of blocks of the main engines had essentially to be rebuilt after each flight (although the last block was much better), and the solid rocket boosters were also so expensive to refurbish it would have been cheaper to build a non-reusable one each time.
The Shuttle was a monumental and costly failure, albeit a glorious one.
"The BBC’s Amol Rajan reports George Osborne is the new editor of the Evening Standard. He will edit the paper in the morning and do his MP’s duties in the afternoon."
From chancellor to editor of a freebie newspaper in less than a year.
"The BBC’s Amol Rajan reports George Osborne is the new editor of the Evening Standard. He will edit the paper in the morning and do his MP’s duties in the afternoon."
From chancellor to editor of a freebie newspaper in less than a year.
@JosiasJessop Another SpaceX first coming up, reused booster to be launched at the start of next month !
Looking forward to it! I watched yesterday's launch, but didn't post it on here because it was an expendable flight with no landing: i.e. boring.
However it looks like we'll need to wait for the block ?5? Falcon 9 due to fly at the end of this year before they see full cost savings from reusability. It looks as though it includes all the lessons learn from their recovered rockets so far.
I'm also interested in Blue Origin's plans: they've just announced their first customers for orbital launches.
Edit: apparently it took SpaceX four months to refurbish the recovered first stage ready for its next flight. They'll have to get that time down a lot to really make money from reusability.
Great to see space technology being pushed hard by Spacex and Blue Origin. The re-usable first stages dramatically cut the launch costs if they can be recycled and used a few times.
In theory. It depends on how much it costs to reuse them. As the Shuttle showed, reusability is not a panacea.
There's a couple of brilliant books by T.A. Happenheimer about the development of the Shuttle. In it, he states (*) the four orbiters were planned to fly about sixty times a year in total (i.e. each one every three or four weeks). Instead, they flew only 135 times in thirty years, or under five times a year.
As an example, the first couple of blocks of the main engines had essentially to be rebuilt after each flight (although the last block was much better), and the solid rocket boosters were also so expensive to refurbish it would have been cheaper to build a non-reusable one each time.
The Shuttle was a monumental and costly failure, albeit a glorious one.
(*) From memory.
Absolutely. The refurbishment process is the key to reusability. The SSMEs and SRBs were reusable only in name, as you say they might as well have thrown them away for all that they spent on getting them ready for each flight.
Landing the rockets on land or barge, rather than in the salty sea, will certainly help, Musk's objective is that we hose them down, fill them with fuel and put them back out on the pad - that would be an astonishing achievement, but Musk does have a good record so far at getting things done. Good luck to them I say!
@JosiasJessop Another SpaceX first coming up, reused booster to be launched at the start of next month !
Looking forward to it! I watched yesterday's launch, but didn't post it on here because it was an expendable flight with no landing: i.e. boring.
However it looks like we'll need to wait for the block ?5? Falcon 9 due to fly at the end of this year before they see full cost savings from reusability. It looks as though it includes all the lessons learn from their recovered rockets so far.
I'm also interested in Blue Origin's plans: they've just announced their first customers for orbital launches.
Edit: apparently it took SpaceX four months to refurbish the recovered first stage ready for its next flight. They'll have to get that time down a lot to really make money from reusability.
I would imagine they can over time. for the immediate future though they probably want to check the status of every component before letting it go again.
Modern tech and scanners makes that much easier. What they need in particular is data: look at the flight profiles and see how recovered stages have reacted to those flown profiles. Once your models and the real-life data match then they can get much better at predicting reusability.
Apparently von Braun had a plan for a reusabe Saturn V first stage via flyback, but that was cancelled early on. It would have been amazing to do with 1960s tech.
A flyback tank was also the plan for the Shuttle's main tank, before it was made expendable for cost reasons.
The only thing which troubled me about the GCHQ denial is the reference to 'wire tapping' - which would leave an organisation not unaccustomed to casuistry plenty of wiggle room.
On the other hand, in a US context, much of the legislation covering surveillance dates back to when a physical wire tap was how it was conducted, and this has been extended by inference to modern procedures.
Do you really really think we don't spy on the Americans? And they don't spy on us?
*shakes head in despair*
That is not what I said. What is absolutely ridiculous - and would be illegal both here and in the US - is the idea that GCHQ would take instructions from a US president to spy on one of the contenders for his post.
Obama wasn't running for President and he thinks carefully about things. It seems highly unlikely that he asked GCHQ to spy on Trump. Nixon spied on his political rivals, the Russians (friends with Trump) spied on the Democrats. Maybe Trump thinks that attack is the best form of defence?
Political betting markets show where bettors want to put their money, no more no less. Sometimes bettors are insightful and sometimes they aren't. There is always the danger of fighting the last war.
Yup, I expect all the bookies won on this as well, PB punters not withstanding.
On Osborne: there's no way he can continue as an MP/editor for long.
George Osborne new job proving it is who you know, not what you know.
Have always been uncomfortable with how close some of the Tory party are to Lebedev.
Lebedev was born in Moscow, son of Alexander Lebedev and his then wife Natalia. He moved to London at the age of eight, when his father began working for the KGB. Alexander Lebedev was the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, where he worked until 1992.
The only thing which troubled me about the GCHQ denial is the reference to 'wire tapping' - which would leave an organisation not unaccustomed to casuistry plenty of wiggle room.
On the other hand, in a US context, much of the legislation covering surveillance dates back to when a physical wire tap was how it was conducted, and this has been extended by inference to modern procedures.
Do you really really think we don't spy on the Americans? And they don't spy on us?
*shakes head in despair*
It's a different sort of spying. We won't be running huge networks of agents, and covertly stealing lots of documents, because that'd be a misallocation of resources, and have huge political consequences and fallout if discovered. We are allies.
We probably will be collecting political and diplomatic intelligence as to their intentions, reviewing documents shared (and trying to understand what isn't shared) and doing an occasional bit of eavesdropping where we must.
The new editor of the Standard is no doubt going to have the inside track on some very interesting political stories in the coming months. I can't imagine many of them will be helpful to the government.
"Under the draft plans, Tatton would be merged into a new Altrincham and Tatton Park seat which could pit Mr Osborne against Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 backbench committee, who is currently MP for Altrincham and Sale West."
The new editor of the Standard is no doubt going to have the inside track on some very interesting political stories in the coming months. I can't imagine many of them will be helpful to the government.
Good try but I would think Sadiq Khan may have problems
George Osborne new job proving it is who you know, what you know.
Have always been uncomfortable with how close some of the Tory party are to Lebedev.
+1
But this isn't only a Lebedev thing. I don't enjoy the cosiness of politicians of any stripe with Murdoch, nor am I comfortable with how James Purnell seems to be racing to the very top of the BBC tree (making him radio chief, when he has no experience, actually strikes me as similar to what's happening with Osborne - it's a job being created for the man, essentially, as a way up for him).
Having said that, there are certain obvious features of Lebedev that make me particularly uncomfortable.
The new editor of the Standard is no doubt going to have the inside track on some very interesting political stories in the coming months. I can't imagine many of them will be helpful to the government.
So, standard publishes story May doesn't like. Next day Osborne loses the Tory party whip.
I though the Ozzy/Standard story was a spoof. That is bizarre! Does he have any journalistic or editorial credentials? An absolute hoot of an appointment.
The new editor of the Standard is no doubt going to have the inside track on some very interesting political stories in the coming months. I can't imagine many of them will be helpful to the government.
Good try but I would think Sadiq Khan may have problems
I though the Ozzy/Standard story was a spoof. That is bizarre! Does he have any journalistic or editorial credentials? An absolute hoot of an appointment.
I think he once did a bit of freelance journalism, that's it. If I remember correctly after uni he wanted to be one but nobody would have him and he ended up temping for the Tories.
The new editor of the Standard is no doubt going to have the inside track on some very interesting political stories in the coming months. I can't imagine many of them will be helpful to the government.
So, standard publishes story May doesn't like. Next day Osborne loses the Tory party whip.
This is jaw-droppingly bonkers.
I'd say the exact opposite. He was a dangerous enough figure for Theresa May. He's now become one of her very biggest headaches. She's going to have to think very carefully indeed about tents and urination, and how to ensure that the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer is correctly oriented on the correct side of the canvas.
I though the Ozzy/Standard story was a spoof. That is bizarre! Does he have any journalistic or editorial credentials? An absolute hoot of an appointment.
I think he once did a bit of freelance journalism, that's it. If I remember correctly after uni he wanted to be one but nobody would have him and he ended up temping for the Tories.
I have just read the story. He is going to remain as an MP?! WTF?! The paper will become a europhile cell endlessly attacking the government. Surely May will just remove the whip? This is the most bizarre story I have heard for many a year.
I though the Ozzy/Standard story was a spoof. That is bizarre! Does he have any journalistic or editorial credentials? An absolute hoot of an appointment.
Well according to the the Telegraph's chief political correspondent Osborn started out his career as a writer(?) on the the old Peterborough Diary.
I though the Ozzy/Standard story was a spoof. That is bizarre! Does he have any journalistic or editorial credentials? An absolute hoot of an appointment.
Freebie papers are pretty low-rent, like clickbait websites, and the Russian involvement ties in unpleasantly with past shenanigans on superyachts. A real error of judgment. Money must be good.
@JosiasJessop Another SpaceX first coming up, reused booster to be launched at the start of next month !
Looking forward to it! I watched yesterday's launch, but didn't post it on here because it was an expendable flight with no landing: i.e. boring.
However it looks like we'll need to wait for the block ?5? Falcon 9 due to fly at the end of this year before they see full cost savings from reusability. It looks as though it includes all the lessons learn from their recovered rockets so far.
I'm also interested in Blue Origin's plans: they've just announced their first customers for orbital launches.
Edit: apparently it took SpaceX four months to refurbish the recovered first stage ready for its next flight. They'll have to get that time down a lot to really make money from reusability.
I would imagine they can over time. for the immediate future though they probably want to check the status of every component before letting it go again.
Modern tech and scanners makes that much easier. What they need in particular is data: look at the flight profiles and see how recovered stages have reacted to those flown profiles. Once your models and the real-life data match then they can get much better at predicting reusability.
Apparently von Braun had a plan for a reusabe Saturn V first stage via flyback, but that was cancelled early on. It would have been amazing to do with 1960s tech.
A flyback tank was also the plan for the Shuttle's main tank, before it was made expendable for cost reasons.
Now that would have been great to see!
Once they get a few back and can see how they deteriorate with each flight, it should be (relatively) straightforward to improve them over time to deal with the stresses of multiple flights. My guess it that they'll use new ones for all the manned launches and refurbs for all the unmanned ones over time.
Saturn V 1st stage flyback would have been doable, if bloody difficult with the 1960s flight computers they were using. It never went that high (c. 200,000' from memory) but was absolutely enormous compared to anything landed before or since.
SS fuel talk would have been nearly impossible to get back to Earth though, it detached after eight minutes already half way across the Atlantic and with ridiculous forward speed - and no engines!
I though the Ozzy/Standard story was a spoof. That is bizarre! Does he have any journalistic or editorial credentials? An absolute hoot of an appointment.
I think he once did a bit of freelance journalism, that's it. If I remember correctly after uni he wanted to be one but nobody would have him and he ended up temping for the Tories.
I have just read the story. He is going to remain as an MP?! WTF?! The paper will become a europhile cell endlessly attacking the government. Surely May will just remove the whip? This is the most bizarre story I have heard for many a year.
Osborne must have a game plan. Perhaps he sees some way of using it to become the Macron of the UK?
Behind the amusing tweets, you can sense this appointment has boiled Jim Waterson's piss. I expect every journalist who has done the profession for years is similiarly rolling their eyes right now.
I think this gets to the heart of a very key question though
Is the media there to report the news, or is it there to make the news. In the long run it is this type of appointment that weakens trust in the media as a reporting vehicle.
The Brexiteer side of the media is at it too, with their deliberate campaign to undermine Hammond as CoTE. That ain't just REPORTING the news either
Behind the amusing tweets, you can sense this appointment has boiled Jim Waterson's piss. I expect every journalist who has done the profession for years is similiarly rolling their eyes right now.
I think this gets to the heart of a very key question though
Is the media there to report the news, or is it there to make the news. In the long run it is this type of appointment that weakens trust in the media as a reporting vehicle.
The Brexiteer side of the media is at it too, with their deliberate campaign to undermine Hammond as CoTE. That ain't just REPORTING the news either
A sad state of affairs.
I can imagine they are all proppa pissed. Being a journalist is difficult gig to get, market is shrinking in traditional outlets making getting a prime well paid role really hard, then some posho with no experience jumps the queue and gets one of the prime roles because he is mates with the owner.
I though the Ozzy/Standard story was a spoof. That is bizarre! Does he have any journalistic or editorial credentials? An absolute hoot of an appointment.
I think he once did a bit of freelance journalism, that's it. If I remember correctly after uni he wanted to be one but nobody would have him and he ended up temping for the Tories.
I have just read the story. He is going to remain as an MP?! WTF?! The paper will become a europhile cell endlessly attacking the government. Surely May will just remove the whip? This is the most bizarre story I have heard for many a year.
Osborne must have a game plan. Perhaps he sees some way of using it to become the Macron of the UK?
Isn't his game plan. 'How can I make as much dosh as possible whilst I'm still worth something?'
George Osborne editor of the Evening Standard and Rupert Murdoch taking over Sky will have labour in a spin.
No, what it will do is to give legs to Labour claims that the public cannot trust anything they read in the Tory Standard, undermining the credence anything critical of Sadiq Khan whether factually correct or not. Much better for Labour to have Osborne as editor than a dyed-in-the -wool Tory who the public has never heard of.
The new editor of the Standard is no doubt going to have the inside track on some very interesting political stories in the coming months. I can't imagine many of them will be helpful to the government.
So, standard publishes story May doesn't like. Next day Osborne loses the Tory party whip.
This is jaw-droppingly bonkers.
I'd say the exact opposite. He was a dangerous enough figure for Theresa May. He's now become one of her very biggest headaches. She's going to have to think very carefully indeed about tents and urination, and how to ensure that the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer is correctly oriented on the correct side of the canvas.
Osborne seems to have become quite a bit more powerful.
Isn't his game plan. 'How can I make as much dosh as possible whilst I'm still worth something?'
No, it won't be the dosh - he could surely get as much dosh as he wanted for much less effort from gigs in the financial sector and speeches in the US.
Of course Iain Macleod became editor of the Spectator having refused to serve in Douglas-Home's cabinet. He remained an MP and was soon back on the front bench under Heath, becoming Chancellor in 1970.
Of course Iain Macleod became editor of the Spectator having refused to serve in Douglas-Home's cabinet. He remained an MP and was soon back on the front bench under Heath, becoming Chancellor in 1970.
An opinion magazine in the main though, the Standard last time I checked it was definitely a newspaper.
Perhaps the lorra' them are becoming solely opinion print though ? What media can you trust these days ?
Comments
Edit: What's done, has to be done.
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/16/us/white-irish-undocumented-trnd/index.html
There's a couple of brilliant books by T.A. Happenheimer about the development of the Shuttle. In it, he states (*) the four orbiters were planned to fly about sixty times a year in total (i.e. each one every three or four weeks). Instead, they flew only 135 times in thirty years, or under five times a year.
As an example, the first couple of blocks of the main engines had essentially to be rebuilt after each flight (although the last block was much better), and the solid rocket boosters were also so expensive to refurbish it would have been cheaper to build a non-reusable one each time.
The Shuttle was a monumental and costly failure, albeit a glorious one.
(*) From memory.
https://twitter.com/amolrajanBBC/status/842694551995342848
Amol Rajan BBC
1/ EXCLUSIVE: @George_Osborne APPOINTED EDITOR OF THE LONDON EVENING STANDARD (ES). Will continue as MP.
"The BBC’s Amol Rajan reports George Osborne is the new editor of the Evening Standard. He will edit the paper in the morning and do his MP’s duties in the afternoon."
From chancellor to editor of a freebie newspaper in less than a year.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/17/us-makes-formal-apology-britain-white-house-accuses-gchq-wiretapping/
Landing the rockets on land or barge, rather than in the salty sea, will certainly help, Musk's objective is that we hose them down, fill them with fuel and put them back out on the pad - that would be an astonishing achievement, but Musk does have a good record so far at getting things done. Good luck to them I say!
https://order-order.com/2017/03/17/corbynista-gordon-candidate-blasted-armed-forces-day/
Apparently von Braun had a plan for a reusabe Saturn V first stage via flyback, but that was cancelled early on. It would have been amazing to do with 1960s tech.
A flyback tank was also the plan for the Shuttle's main tank, before it was made expendable for cost reasons.
Now that would have been great to see!
He must be preparing to stand down in 2020
Is this 1st April?
Nixon spied on his political rivals, the Russians (friends with Trump) spied on the Democrats. Maybe Trump thinks that attack is the best form of defence?
One wonder what the odds were. If they were even available.
On Osborne: there's no way he can continue as an MP/editor for long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9c8tIAoIBk
Have always been uncomfortable with how close some of the Tory party are to Lebedev.
Lebedev was born in Moscow, son of Alexander Lebedev and his then wife Natalia. He moved to London at the age of eight, when his father began working for the KGB. Alexander Lebedev was the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, where he worked until 1992.
We probably will be collecting political and diplomatic intelligence as to their intentions, reviewing documents shared (and trying to understand what isn't shared) and doing an occasional bit of eavesdropping where we must.
Wait. I'm 15 days early with that announcement.
"Under the draft plans, Tatton would be merged into a new Altrincham and Tatton Park seat which could pit Mr Osborne against Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 backbench committee, who is currently MP for Altrincham and Sale West."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37337175
But this isn't only a Lebedev thing. I don't enjoy the cosiness of politicians of any stripe with Murdoch, nor am I comfortable with how James Purnell seems to be racing to the very top of the BBC tree (making him radio chief, when he has no experience, actually strikes me as similar to what's happening with Osborne - it's a job being created for the man, essentially, as a way up for him).
Having said that, there are certain obvious features of Lebedev that make me particularly uncomfortable.
This is jaw-droppingly bonkers.
I will be doing the job during my lunch hour remotely from my desk in the Midlands of UK.
The CEO of the NYT commented: "There is very little going on in America at the moment, so an editor doing an hour or so a day is all we need."
Perhaps today is April 1 on Russian calendars?
Saturn V 1st stage flyback would have been doable, if bloody difficult with the 1960s flight computers they were using. It never went that high (c. 200,000' from memory) but was absolutely enormous compared to anything landed before or since.
SS fuel talk would have been nearly impossible to get back to Earth though, it detached after eight minutes already half way across the Atlantic and with ridiculous forward speed - and no engines!
I think this gets to the heart of a very key question though
Is the media there to report the news, or is it there to make the news. In the long run it is this type of appointment that weakens trust in the media as a reporting vehicle.
The Brexiteer side of the media is at it too, with their deliberate campaign to undermine Hammond as CoTE. That ain't just REPORTING the news either
A sad state of affairs.
ROFL
Westminster Village gets its idiot
I am literally dumbfounded. Trying to imagine Osbo drumming up page leads. "Don't we need a nib on knife crime in Croydon?"
A cunning plan. Use the Standard to make the case for a new party. It will run (at first) only for London's Mayoralty. Candidate: the editor
eoin @niamhsquared
8m
KEN CLARKE FOR EDITOR OF MEN'S HEALTH
Perhaps the lorra' them are becoming solely opinion print though ? What media can you trust these days ?
Looking forward to his first editorial. I assume (and hope) the word "independence"will feature strongly.