The Best Science Fiction Movie You'll See All Year

Here it is, the entire thing, in under 4 minutes: Wanderers.  Zoom it out to full screen, turn up the sound.

Go, watch, then dig around the site and watch a few more times.  There are lots of stills from the film, all kinds of background information sprinkled around.

Hat tip to The Unwanted Blog, both for pointing to this movie and for the discussion of Interstellar.

Boring Person Week

Getting lots of little jobs done, and I CAN TYPE WITH TWO HANDS NOW.  But... it's not my usual active existence.  Wish there was more to say at the moment, but there it is.

Hey, I'm getting lots of little chores knocked out.  And I'm not tempted to put on an orange jersey and go MTBing during deer season anyway and risk getting shot.  Back to the little chores...

Black Friday Special: Eulogy for RadioShack

Here's an inside view of RadioShack and its misdeeds, from a former employee.  Main quote from the article:

This is a consumer technology business that is built to work perfectly in the year 1975.   ....   This company needed to become something radically different a decade ago. I just don't think it knows how to be anything else.

Wow, what a monumental multi-decade screw-up.  Here's a brief history of the corporation and its attempts at restructuring into profitability over at Wikipedia.  Talk about mis-management and buzzword bingo, it's as if they did every business school dance while carefully avoiding the main issue of selling profitable items that customers want.  And while they've often skirted with financial problems, this really is looking like TheEnd for RadioShack.

RadioShack has always had a slightly greezy feel to it, but on the whole it has always been there when I needed a roll of solder or some cable connector. Granted, these days there's a better selection of better quality parts on the internet, but that implies a shipping delay.  When I'm in mid-project, it's been nice to know that the RadioShack around the corner likely would have that one little part I needed to wrap the job up the same day.  I'm going to miss them.

Look on the bright side: maybe a company that knows decent management can pick up the bones of RadioShack for little to nothing, then re-build the company into something useful and profitable again.  The current crop of management sure hasn't done the job.  In the meantime, I'll be watching to scoop up some gear for cheap at the Terminal Sale.  (cue the circling vultures)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Not that I'm tired of Christmas already or any such, but I kind of like this cartoon:

For today, Happy Thanksgiving.  December starts Monday, so start thinking about the rest Come Monday.

A new blog of interest.

Last week I posted a link to a story about a bailed-out bomber pilot potting the Zero that got his plane with a .45.  The blog from whence that story hails, Alert5, is pretty damned impressive!  Addictive too.  The current top post is all about the Genie air-to-air missile, which was an impressive weapons system in its own right.  Recommended!

Bright exhaust plume, but nowhere nearly as bright as the warhead's flash.

Collarbone Update

Two weeks down, four plus to go.  Had a check-up and X-ray on it today, and so far so good, it seems to be healing as expected.  Still have to wear a damned clavicle brace (this one) so that the ends won't overlap too much while it heals, but apart from that minor inconvenience things aren't bad at all.

This'll keep me out of the woods and off that damned bike until the end of deer season.  Probably for the best.  Enough on this topic, back to our regular subjects.

"Live Fearless"?

In yesterday's mail there was an advertising postcard urging me to stay with my current health insurance company.  That's fine, I'm happy with them, little chance of me changing coverage.  But the theme / title / buzzphrase emblazoned all over it urging me to "Live Fearless" made me realize that (a) they don't know me very well, and (b) if they did, their lawyers would be desperately searching for a way to shove me off on another insurance company.

BTW, the collarbone is doing well and I intend to resume damaging my body in new and imaginative ways early in the new year.  Think I may try RF burns next.