Geeky Bob

I recently saw this old warhorse at the Pima Air and Space Museum outside Tucson, AZ:

The Mi-24D was a formidable enemy in its day, so my first thought was that this once-mighty gunship living out the rest of its years as a rusting museum piece seemed such an ignoble end for this amazing aircraft. And yet - like the empire this beast once served, its days of usefulness have long passed.

With that in mind, this ancient relic seems a fitting epitaph for the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. Its fortuitous demise and relegation to the junk heap of history should serve as a stark reminder of the atrocities committed in the name of Communism during the 20th-century's flirtations with that particular brand of unspeakable evil.

My hope is that future generations will leave this aircraft, and the failed political system that it represents, in the past - where they belong.

Nearly a decade ago, Microsoft cancelled the Courier tablet (see below), which would have been the first dual-screen tablet/laptop on the market, and it would have been competing head-to-head with the single-screen iPad when that tablet was first released:

• Gizmodo: Courier: First Details of Microsoft's Secret Tablet
  
• Wired: Microsoft Cancels Courier Tablet

Now the Courier's untimely death seems especially premature, since the big news coming from Computex 2018 is that several of the big computer manufacturers are coming out with dual-screen tablets/laptops that look all-too-familiar to anyone who saw a Microsoft Courier tablet back in the day:

• Digital Trends: Brace yourself! The age of keyboard-less laptops is upon us
  
• Engadget: ASUS' Project Precog is a dual-screen AI-powered concept PC
  
• CNET: No keyboard, no problem: Welcome to the dual-screen laptop era

It seems that - given enough time - foresight and hindsight can become blurred...

A couple of years ago I wrote a blog titled How The Walking Dead Lost Me As A Fan, wherein I described how AMC's television series The Walking Dead (TWD) lost me forever through their lack of artistic direction and their apathetic and unnecessarily-grotesque methods for killing off major characters. I also pointed out that I was not alone in my opinions: fans and critics alike have lambasted the show, and its ratings have continued to plummet into a near-fatal nosedive. While TWD's average viewership is still garnering numbers that would make some other series proud, the show is at it's lowest point since its second season, and nearly half of what it was at its peak. In short, TWD is driving its fans away for many of the reasons that I wrote about in my blog two years ago - and more.

Having said that, I recently stumbled across the following videos, each of which does a great job of summarizing many of the problems that TWD's production staff has failed to rectify:

• The Day The Walking Dead Died
  https://youtu.be/e9xMqtIWYQE

• Why People Stopped Watching The Walking Dead
  https://youtu.be/x1Pqy2Tytgw

• Top 10 Reasons The Walking Dead is Going Downhill
  https://youtu.be/aX7VMvyh9Ok

If you used to be a fan of TWD, those videos might be worth your time to watch, because they will reinforce your decision to abandon the sinking ship that was once one of television's best series.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, I would try to keep up with the series by reading episode synopses, but I have no intention of actually watching the show again. With that in mind, I discovered that The Telegraph provides great recaps for most of TWD's episodes, with just enough detail to help former TWD fans know what's happening to their favorite characters, without having to waste an hour each week suffering through yet another pointless offering from TWD's misguided creative team.

• The Walking Dead - Season 7
  • Episode 1: Character deaths revealed as fans react in horror
  • Episode 2: Ezekiel and his pet tiger bring hope, but where's Negan?
  • Episode 3: Is Negan the show's best villain yet?
  • Episode 4: What has Negan done to Daryl?
  • Episode 5: Finally some hope for Maggie?
  • Episode 6: Whatever happened to Heath and Tara?
  • Episode 7: Does the show depend too much on Negan?
  • Episode 8: Hearts Still Beating review: Rick finally wakes up and smells the viscera in a bloody mid-season finale
  • Episode 9: Rock In the Road review: is Rick turning into Mad Max?
  • Episode 10: New Best Friends, review: will Daryl regret lying to Carol?
  • Episode 11: Hostiles and Calamities, review: Negan is back to his violent best
  • Episode 12: Say Yes, review: of course Rick isn't dead, silly
  • Episode 13: Bury Me Here, review: an eventful if logic-defying installment
  • Episode 14: The Other Side, review: Rosita and Sasha take on Negan
  • Episode 15: Something They Need, review: the Ricktator is back
  • Episode 16: The First Day of the Rest of Your Life, review: we need to talk about that finale
• The Walking Dead - Season 8
  • Episode 1: Is it the end for Negan?
  • Episode 2: Rick meets a familiar face
  • Episode 3: Monsters: action, laughs and twists
  • Episode 4: King Ezekiel loses his crown
  • Episode 5: The Big Scary U: Negan finally gets a tear-jerking back story
  • Episode 6: The King, The Widow and Rick
  • Episode 7: Time for After
  • Episode 8: How It's Gotta Be: big reveal aside, this mid-season finale lacked bite
  • Episode 9: Honor,: is it really the end for Carl?
  • Episode 10: The Lost and the Plunderers: Rick reduces Negan to tears
  • (Episodes 11 through 15 didn't appear to have recaps)
  • Season Finale: Is there a future for Negan?

So if you're like me, have fun catching up on the show, and enjoy all the time you're saving by not actually watching it.

The following study of 1,256,407 children conclusively shows that there is no link between vaccinations and autism:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X14006367

There is no other way to put this mildly:

• ...if you choose to ignore the overwhelming amount of scientific evidence that supports vaccines...
  - or -
• ...if you choose to listen to some ignorant celebrity's rant against vaccines...
  - or -
• ...if you choose to believe some dim-witted anti-vaxxer's blog...
  - or -
• ...if you think that you somehow have more information than the thousands of disparate scientists and researchers from around the globe who have repeatedly shown that there is no link between vaccinations and autism...

...then you are an idiot.

Today's afternoon cycling adventure through the desert was not the hottest ride that I've been on, but it was the second-most.

I had to force myself to ride slower and constantly douse myself with water from one of my water bottles to keep from overheating. As a result, I added a little over a minute to each mile on my ride, but I managed to keep my heart rate low as I kept saying under my breath, "Don't kill yourself," which was meant both literally and figuratively: I didn't want to push myself too hard and overheat, and I didn't want to make dumb choices that would simply get me killed. (Although it is arguable that riding in that level of extreme heat is a dumb choice by itself.)

Every month or two I decide to transcribe a song; it's a weird hobby, but it's a lot more challenging than Sudoku. Anyway, today's song was "It's the Right Time," which is the only song by Van Halen with Mitch Malloy on vocals. (See https://youtu.be/NBXjQ8FASug for the original song.)

My transcription is pretty faithful to the original - the only artistic license that I took was to add an ending since the original recording fades out.

While I have usually liked EVH's grooves, this song had some particularly interesting parts to it: the main hook for the verses is a four-measure progression, wherein EVH hits the opening chord for each of the first two measures an eighth note before the beat, and he hits the opening chord for the third and fourth measures on the downbeat; this creates a cool groove with a heightened tension, because your ear usually wants to hear the chords hit on the downbeat. When EVH gets to the bridge, he changes accents all over the place; so sometimes he sounds on the beat, while at other times he sounds like he's playing in a different time signature. As a whole, all of EVH's inventiveness on this song results in a really fun piece to listen to; it sometimes sounds like it's not quite right, but in the best possible way.

Note: Mitch Malloy was probably Van Halen's shortest-term vocalist; Van Halen hired him right before the Gary Cherone debacle, although Mitch eventually declined the gig due to a mix-up regarding David Lee Roth. (See https://youtu.be/dxF4WRORQ9s for Mitch's story.)

Nevertheless, back in the 1990s, it seemed like Van Halen was going through a different vocalist every other month. It became kind of a running joke, so Eddie and Alex Van Halen posed for the following milk advertisement:

The text in the advertisement reads:

"Of all the lead singers we've had, most never got enough calcium. Typical. But not for Alex and me. Because every time we change singers, we have an extra glass of milk. That way we're sure to get more than the recommended three glasses a day. As you can see, sometimes all at once."

I just read this article, Pompeii victim crushed by boulder while fleeing eruption, which details a recent archeological discovery in Italy. The unfortunate soul in these photos from that article has to be one of the least-lucky people to have ever walked the face of the planet:

This doomed individual survived the initial eruption of Mount Vesuvius near Pompeii, only to have his head crushed by a rock during the subsequent eruption.

Sometimes, it's just not your day...