I’ve been watching lots of movies lately, but writing many fewer individual reviews than usual. I do write something short on Letterboxd. I just have a lot of work to do right now, and reviews have to take second place, sadly.
Prepping and running Kickstarters is a lot of work…theoretically. I haven’t actually been doing a lot of promoting my current Kickstarter. I’m using this as a trial run for Kickstarting a new book next, which I will want to push harder, and I’m preparing that project while this one runs.
In order to have the new book come out, though, I have to finish editing it. And this book is markedly over a thousand pages.
Woof.
Reviews are secondary, bummed as that makes me. I love writing movie reviews.
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It sounds like a tornadic waterspout helped the ocean eat a billionaire. Hmm. (Smithsonian Mag) Real hand of god stuff there, yeah?
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This is scary. A town has a mosquito-borne illness that kills 50% of the people who contract it. (Ars Technica)
EEE virus is spread by mosquitoes in certain swampy areas of the country, particularly in Atlantic and Gulf Coast states and the Great Lakes region. Mosquitoes shuttle the virus between wild birds and animals, including horses and humans. In humans, the virus causes very few cases in the US each year—an average of 11, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But given the extreme risk of EEE, health officials take any spread seriously.
It’s rare, but West Nile Virus is not quite so rare, and climate change is helping it spread in America. (Scientific American)
Mpox is also getting around, becoming a global health threat. (AJE)
Unfortunately we’re still dealing with the last mass-disabling event. Numbers of Long COVID in North England are breathtaking. (The Guardian) Luckily, we have a COVID booster coming in the USA quite soon. (Balloon Juice)
I think I might have mentioned previously that slapped cheek virus is also getting around kids this year. (NPR)
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Variety’s review of “Evil” reminds me I need to finish watching it. It feels like another lifetime where I watched the first season, but now the whole thing is done, so I oughta plow through the nuttery.
Besides their own worst instincts — Kristen once killed a guy with an ax! — “Evil” pits its central trio against Leland Townsend (Michael Emerson), a smirking, bespectacled figure who’s far more menacing than some of the show’s traditional terrors. (Though Kristen’s literal sleep paralysis demon wearing her late mother’s wig certainly got the job done.) One of the many theater legends who populate the Kings’ New York-area sets, Emerson could easily toggle between the banality of the eponymous concept and its giggling, hysterical extremes. It was Leland who stole one of Kristen’s eggs to become Timothy’s biological father, and Leland who Kristen nearly strangled to death in the finale when he breaks into her home. Only the intervention of Ben and David, her better angels, keeps Kristen from crossing the line again.
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I keep thinking about this. The USA is working on a protocol for all the vehicles on the road to talk to each other, which will make driving safer. (Engadget)
V2X enables vehicles to stay in touch with each other as well as pedestrians, cyclists, other road users and roadside infrastructure. It lets them share information such as their position and speed, as well as road conditions. They’d be able to do so in situations with poor visibility, such as around corners and in dense fog, NPR notes.
On one hand: good.
On the other hand…we’re really committed to this whole individual vehicles on roads thing, aren’t we? Not gonna have a comprehensive rail system in the next couple lifetimes?
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How are we getting the Boeing astronauts home? There’s been a lot of talk about sending them on Dragon, but their space suits aren’t compatible. (Quartz)
There’s still a chance of coming home on Starliner, but I reeeeaaally hope they don’t do that. (The Guardian)
In much cooler space news, there’s a new theory about the Wow! signal. Nobody ever really thought it was aliens, but they couldn’t figure it out anyway. Now they’re guessing it’s from magnetars (like quasars) passing a cloud of hydrogen that refined it into a sorta laser-tight signal. (Ars Technica)
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I guess it shouldn’t be surprising, but one of the “better” artificial sweeteners (erithrytol) has been linked to thrombosis. (Scientific American) Darnit.
Artificially sweetening things is hard. A lot of our options still impact blood sugar levels or cause digestive upset. Erithrytol was one of the good ones. Thrombosis isn’t worth it, though.
