Month: November 2007

In the Grim Darkness of the Future, There is Only Really Insane Logistics

By Evan — — SF

Sam: One of my favorites is that space marine battle barges are on the order of 10km long. However they are listed as only being able to transport 4 companies of marines, which is 400 guys and their gear.

Evan: that’s just sheer size for sheer size’s sake.

Sam: Well they do have some pretty big guns.
Sam: And fire 200ft long torpedoes
Sam: I mentioned it on the boards once that Aircraft carriers are around 900ft long and manage to hold 5000 people, 100 or so aircraft and everything needed to run all that for years at a time.

Evan: and what did the people on the boards say?

Sam: well, there were a few reasonable folks that basically said try not to overthink it and enjoy the fluff.
Sam: Then there was the much larger contingent that came up with all manner of justifications for that foolishness and saw nothing amiss.
Sam: This is why I think the designers of the 40k MMO are really getting in over their heads. Its a whole new world of crazy dealing with those guys.

Evan: well to be fair the marines are like EIGHT FEET TALL
Evan: and they consume more food
Evan: more energy
Evan: and of course they need EIGHT FOOT TALL CAMP FOLLOWERS

Sam: yea, and decked in power armor that makes even those giants look like pinheads

Evan: and said EIGHT FOOT TALL CAMP FOLLOWERS need makeup, prophylactics, …
Evan: all that really starts to add up.

Sam: still, you’d think 10km would do it.

Posted in SF

Cain’s World! Cain’s World! Party Time! Excellent!

By Evan — — SF

Dave asks for a review of Battlestar Galactica: Razor and presto! We deliver the very next day. By this site’s standards, that’s practically blogging in real time.

But before I talk about the movie, it seems worth mentioning that I ended up going with the OpenSolaris T-shirt because it was a little thicker and warmer than the others. Also, worth noting is that we were first in line. When the group behind us got confused about The Menagerie vs. The Cage, who were the alpha geeks that set ’em straight? That’s right, us.

Oh yeah, the review. Two thumbs up! The feel-good movie of the winter!

Actually, this being a story about Pegasus, there honestly isn’t a whole lot of feel-good stuff (other than a couple of clever quips and a humorous scene with some old-style Cylons.) There’s a framing story set in the “present”, set when Lee Adama first takes over Pegasus, and a flashback story set ten months earlier, covering Admiral Cain and the first few weeks of Pegasus’s flight from the Scorpion shipyards.

The writers did a fine job balancing the frame story and the flashback story, and I think I can see why they structured it this way. If it had been a 100% Cain/Pegasus story, it just would have been a “oh, I guess it’s nice that they filled in some backstory” movie. Also, while I love Michelle Forbes and seeing her world, spending the full 1.5 hours there would have been a lot to take. Splitting the movie enabled them to tie it all back to the current story line, while still managing to pack in all of major historical high points (read: low points) that we already knew about Pegasus.

As a special bonus, we get to see how the Cylon hybridization project started. I had always wondered about how the Cylons went from pure “metallic” to their modern day state. Where did they get this biological material? I wonder if it was really gross? The answers are A) from captured humans of course, and B) yes, very.

Anyway, some fine acting all around, a couple of key additions to the mythos, and a well-structured story. Those of you in the VPX crowd should watch the movie carefully to see:

  • how Eick and Moore get us back up to speed on the Pegasus’s history (answer: very quickly)
  • how much time they spend on the “canonical” Pegasus history
  • how much additional backstory they generate in order to give the canonical events more punch

Oh, and if you were complaining about not enough pew-pew-pew-LAZER action in Season 3, rest assured you will not be disappointed by BSG: Razor. In short, this movie bodes well for Season 4.

Nerd Fashion Emergency

By Evan — — SF

Tonight I’m off with my cousin to go see an advance screening of the Battlestar Galactica: Razor movie. This raises a serious dilemma… what to wear?

Sadly, I don’t own any actual BSG clothing, so it’s down to the OpenSolaris T-shirt or the Log4Perl T-shirt. The OpenSolaris T-shirt is a cool black number with a snippet of actual Solaris kernel code on the front. But the Log4Perl T-shirt is a limited edition given to me by the actual creator of Log4Perl, who sits several rows over from me. Come to think of it, I could also go with the extremely limited edition Viable Paradise X T-shirt, on the theory that this puts me very near the top of the Geek Hierarchy. But I’m guessing not too many folks will understand what “Viable Paradise” refers to. I mean these are grubby media SF fans, after all.

Man, where are the Queer Eye guys when you really need them?

November is Starting to Look Up

By Evan — — Miscellany

This journal has turned six years old. Yes, now we are six. Huzzah! I’d like to give thanks to my blogmother M’ris, as well as the AMD Corporation, without whom I wouldn’t have had anything to write about during those dark early days.

And I am turning thirty-three tomorrow. Thirty-three means you are seriously into your thirties. When you’re thirty or thirty-one, you can still think of yourself as a late twenty-something. But thirty-three? You are pot-committed. There’s just no going back.

In other news, one of the Lawyers, Guns, and Money guys is giving a lecture at the University of Alaska Southeast about how November really is the cruelest month:

The night will include an examination of the birth of Chilean dictator Augusto
Pinochet (Nov. 25, 1915); the mass murder/suicide in Jonestown (Nov. 18, 1978);
and the bloody St. Brice’s Day Massacre (Nov. 13, 1002).

“There’s a lot about nuclear weapons and aerial warfare,” Noon said. “There’s also
a number of things that have to do with the French Revolution…

Pretty grim stuff. But wait — who’s that cape-clad figure swooping in through the window — !

That’s right, it’s Mighty Mur, serving up a heaping dish of truth, justice, and free podcasted superhero novel! Mur was kind enough to hand me a draft copy of Playing For Keeps a while back, and so I can assure you that this novel is, in fact, made of awesome and win. But check it out for yourself.

I’m feeling better about this month already.