Rant Posting: Being the 1st

I happened to glance at an article this morning about the first ever all female spacewalk. To be honest, I was underwhelmed. Do I think it is important? No. Do I really care? No. Is it because I am a man? No.

How significant is the “first” at anything? The first man, the first woman, the first ape, the first asian seriously…who cares?

I believe it undersells the accomplishment itself. Accomplishing a goal should be the most important thing. If the goal is to be the first at something, I think that is a sad goal. Ok, you made it. You are the first at whatever. So. What.

It is almost as ridiculous as video game accomplishments. Who gives a rip if you have half a million xBox gamer points? I guess you do but what difference does it make? You can’t do anything meaningful with them. Before you start to say “Well, I can use them to upgrade a skin or get a better weapon” let me stop you right there. Again, in the real world that doesn’t matter. Those points are as meaningless as the hours you spend in front of your gaming console.

It may be sad that this is coming from a gamer but I can distinguish the difference between reality and fantasy. I’m all for the the escapism that movies, video games, and other mindless entertainment provide. I feel that society concentrates on the wrong things. We watch other people live their lives from the comfort of our living rooms and that in and of itself, is sad. Because we do so much of it, the folks who participate in sports, actors in movies, and even the folks who create reality TV are raking in the money.

All because we are too lazy to do anything meaningful with our lives. Except perhaps, be the first woman to spacewalk. If she was the first person to ever spacewalk I think you’d have something. We’ve already conquered spacewalking and whether a woman, man, ape, Asian, Chinese, Italian, Spaniard, or my kitty cat does it now it is still just a spacewalk that has been done before.

So in conclusion. I do not care about a stupid spacewalk that has been done by many other people time and time again.

ASMR and What it Means for Writing

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. That is what it stands for. Check out the article over at inkygirl.com.

Writing against a nice background is always soothing for me. I can’t say that I use this technique pertaining to the YouTube channels but my office overlooks a busy intersection in the middle of farm country, USA.

If you write and need some extra help staying focused, this might help.

MIT has created “Blackist” material known so far

From Engadget

Good news for goths — black somehow just got even blacker. MIT engineers have cooked up a material that’s 10 times blacker than anything else previously reported. Capturing more than 99.96 percent of any incoming light, the material is made of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) grown on chlorine-etched aluminium foil. And it was discovered by accident.

Engadget. Link above.

Broken Promises

Picture from Windows Central

I have been looking forward to the Minecraft 4k upgrade on xBox One X for about 2 years. That was already problematic for me. I’m used to Apple making an announcement and then delivering on it shortly thereafter. Mojang doesn’t follow that example and chooses to announce things that don’t really exist for consumers, promise that they’ll have it by a certain date, and then simply not deliver it. From Engadget…

Minecraft‘s big Super Duper Graphics Pack is no more after two years of delays. Mojang has cancelled the visual overhaul after deciding that it was “too technically demanding” to implement. The developers “aren’t happy” with the upgrade’s performance across platforms, and chose to axe the project rather than offer inconsistent quality.

Engadget

Pretty sure it wasn’t the developers that chose to axe the project.

Guess I should start learning how to mod the game.

School Begins Near Castle Nerda

image from Patch.com

It makes absolutely “NO” sense to me to start school right before the Labor Day holiday. Why bring students back just to give them days off? Why not just start the year uninterrupted? Warwick is the only local school district that understands that idea year after year. They are at the bottom of the list below.

SCHOOL START DATES (via Lancaster Online – No link – paid service)


Monday
• Columbia Borough
Tuesday
• Cocalico
• Lancaster Mennonite
• Pequea Valley
Wednesday
• Donegal
• Conestoga Valley
• Lampeter-Strasburg
• Lancaster Country Day School
• Penn Manor
Thursday
• Hempfield
Aug. 26
• Eastern Lancaster County
• Elizabethtown Area (first through 12th)
• Ephrata Area
• Lancaster (ninth districtwide and K-8 at Martin)
• Manheim Central
• Manheim Township (first through 12th)
• Octorara Area
• Solanco
Aug. 27
• Lancaster (10th through 12th districtwide and seventh and eighth at Hand, Lincoln, Reynolds and Wheatland middle schools)
• Lancaster Catholic High School
• Manheim Township (kindergarten)
Aug. 28
• Elizabethtown Area (kindergarten)
Sept. 4
• Warwick (first through
12th)
Sept. 5
• Warwick (kindergarten)

The Great Bear Thing of 2019

via LNP

Update 10:15 a.m. — The elusive black bear of Lancaster city has finally been caught. 
The bear, which had climbed up a tree in the backyard of a residential property on West Chestnut Street near North Mary Street Thursday morning, was tranquilized by the Pennsylvania Game Commission. 
Shortly thereafter, the subdued bear fell out of the tree. 

Lancaster Online