Nate Cull @natecull@mastodon.social
and we're all gonna shine a light together
Joined Apr 2017
Pinned post
Pinned post
USPOL
<< Some of the presidential records recovered from Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago are so sensitive they may not be able to be described in forthcoming inventory reports in an unclassified way, two people familiar with the matter told the publication. >>
oh no he took the UFO files didn't he
Donald you KNOW we can't let the Galactic Consortium know we're working with the supposedly extinct Venusian Hierarchs
70 years of secrecy since that first landing on the White House lawn, ruined
What makes FBI raids so annoying is that you have to have all elite pvp gear - which only drops from SWAT mobs, which are really tough to solo - just to begin, and even then they're strictly invite-only
USPOL
It's much worse than a pee tape.
"photographs of presidential White House toilet document dumps"
is now a phrase in the American political vocabulary
what did the President flush, and when did he flush it
USPOL
Oh man is it gonna turn out that all this time Donald Trump had a private e-mail server and used BleachBit on it
electron tubas
The most despised ASCII character... vowed that one day, it would terminate every string!
It would start off with Gilbert in the year 2525 (Zager and Evans, "2525") rehearsing for his chance to enter Eurovision, the yearly contest that selects the world's ultra-sane ruling class, the most elite winners of which get to go to the utopia of Venus (Europe, "The Final Countdown")
and it would rapidly spiral downwards from there
Really want to write a Golden Age science fiction musical now about an amnesiac superhero with two brains (the second one compels him to sing) who is an expert in non-diatonic music theory, named Gilbert GoSullivan
Spoilers of Null-A
Anyway, after finishing two whole novels I feel very dissatisfied, because immortal superman with two brains doesn't get the girl he was shipped with with a giant neon sign saying ASSIGNED LOVE INTEREST for an entire novel.
(But in the serial, HE DOES HE DOES THE NOVEL IS A LIE.)
I wonder though if that shock of reading "Players" and going "... what the????" is part of what George Lucas was going for in Empire Strikes Back.
There's a lot of Null-A in Star Wars.
Spoilers of Null-A
"Players" AND the 1948 novel then attempt to retcon this, putting Patricia Hardie and Eldred Crang definitively together but not very well, leaving everything to feel much more rushed and breathless than it would otherwise. Which is still pretty rushed and breathless because - hilariously for a story about "cortical-thalamic pauses" - it's the kind of story that makes no sense at all if anyone stops for a moment and asks "... wait, but why/how" or "... what does this imply?"
Spoilers of Null-A
I think one of the biggest problems with the book as a novel
(I read the 1948 novel, then went back and read the 1945 serial - I haven't read the 1970s re-edit)
is that, for the the sequel ("Players of Null-A") he rewrote a *major* plot point in the 1945 serial, which broke a large chunk of the story.
That plot point being: in the original, Patricia Hardie *is* Gosseyn's wife. Also, she is an amnesiac like him. This ties up the original story much more nicely than "Players".
It turns out the "Null-A" books are not at all deep, but they are extremely pulpy. I think you can draw a line straight from "Lensman" to "The Stars My Destination" and then "Dune" and "Star Wars", straight through Null-A.
Oh yeah and Scientology too, since van Vogt was involved with Dianetics.
I read A E van Vogt's "World of Null-A" and "Players of Null-A" in their original Astounding Science Fiction serialization and survived, ask me anything.
Asimov's Science Fighting
Analog Science Fighting & Fact
Fantasy and Science Fighting
Taiwan, Snickers-related activities
are you now or have you ever engaged in Snickers-related activities
<< “We are aware of reports on Snickers-related activities in certain regions of Asia, take this very seriously and express our deep apologies,” said a Mars Wrigley statement posted on Friday on the company’s Sina Weibo account. >>
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2022/08/07/2003783126
Kerby was promoted to Rear Admiral (upper half) in 2014, but what the US Navy won't tell you is that means his lower half is still striding around the Pentagon, kicking butt, while the upper half chews bubblegum and takes names. The lower half is perpetually out of bubblegum, that's why it's so effective.
<< In the United States uniformed services, rear admiral (lower half) replaced the rank of commodore in 1985. >>
I'm sorry, you've all got to call it the Rear Admiral (lower half) 64 now.
I don't make the rules.
Wikipedia has also introduced me to this delightful US Navy rank:
"In May 2012, Kirby was promoted to rear admiral (lower half)"
Makes sense. They only need his upper half to do TV interviews, after all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear_admiral_(United_States)#Rear_admiral_(lower_half)
This reflection brought to you by seeing this person appear on a talking head and wondering why he was speaking and not, eg, the US President or a Press Secretary, and then wondering what on earth "Coordinator for Strategic Communications for the National Security Council in the White House" is and whether I'd missed something major (turns out yes: this position was established in May 2022).
The NSC is the body that decides who to assassinate, among other things.
But it's interesting just how much "yeah of course the US government straight-up assassinates people" has become an accepted part of pop culture in the last 20 years. Before that, it was considered quite a shocking allegation.
How did the Trump administration run the Disposition Matrix?
How does the Biden administration run it?
Are there differences?
Despite massive political fights, nobody really seems interested in touching this subject these days.
and we're all gonna shine a light together
Joined Apr 2017
Nate Cull's choices:
