Month: December 2020

Movie Review: The Midnight Sky

On By Norbert HauptIn Movies, Two StarsLeave a comment

The story starts in the year 2049, a few weeks after “The Event,” some apocalyptic global disaster that kills pretty much all life on earth. Augustine (George Clooney) is a space scientist stationed in the Arctic. When all his colleagues are flown out, he stays behind. Maybe he realizes that everyone else dies anyway, and the Arctic is one of the last safe places in the world.

He is lonely, and he is ill. As he goes about his daily routine, he discovers that a little girl was left behind. This complicates matters for him. A cantankerous old man is not a good caretaker for a little girl who (for some reason) does not speak.

Parallel to the catastrophe on earth, mankind’s first interplanetary space mission just visited a formerly not discovered moon of Jupiter, called K23. It is, due to internal heating, suitable for human habitation. The crew is now on its way back, approaching earth. Augustine knows that and tries to contact them to warn them about the disaster and encourage them not to come back.

The crew of the ship suffers severe damage from flying through a debris field and barely makes it back to earth. The situation is hopeless for the few people left on earth, and it’s just as hopeless for the space travelers who are weary and homesick after years in space and want nothing more than to go home. But that does not seem possible anymore.

The Midnight Sky is based on the novel Good Morning, Midnight, by Lily Brooks-Dalton. It apparently follows the book very closely (I have not read the book, but gathered this from reading some reviews). It’s an unlikely story, with an open end, or you might call it no end at all.

I enjoyed the depictions of the space ship, the way they generated artificial gravity, and how they moved about the vessel. There were some nice EVA (spacewalk) scenes, too. The damage to the ship by meteorites was done with pretty neat special effects, but the fact that the ship survived a hail of rocks and ice was very unlikely. Also, I understand that it’s not possible to show realistically what it would look like to get hit by pebbles in space traveling 20,000 to 30,000 miles per hour. Just putting that into perspective, a bullet shot from a rifle exits the barrel at 1,200 to 2,800 miles per hour, depending on the type of rifle. Can you see the bullet flying? You obviously could not see the rocks coming at you at more than 10 to 20 times the speed of a bullet. You would just be obliterated from one moment to the next. But that does not make for a good movie.

Overall, I found Midnight Sky to be a good story, but not one you absolutely have to go and see – unless you’re a space buff – then you have to.

Boston Dynamics – The Company I Want to Work For

On By Norbert HauptIn Technology2 Comments

Here is an amazing video of real robots by Boston Dynamics.

If you want to see some of the stunning capabilities of some of their models, look at the video below. The music us missing, but it’s just as impressive.

There are no tricks here, no fancy editing. These are real robots, doing these tasks independently. Obviously, the routines are not trivial, and the programming is complex.

For instance, I don’t know if the dancing in the first video is completely choreographed, or if there was machine learning involved, where the robots are mimicking humans dancing after observing them. Either would be impressive.

I am sure there is a lot of work left to do to make this technology mainstream, but it is coming.

Movie Review: Hillbilly Elegy

On By Norbert HauptIn Four Stars, Movies5 Comments

In 1997, J.D. is a young boy living the Appalachians in Jackson, Kentucky. He is bullied by his peers and emotionally abused by his mother (Amy Adams), who is a druggie. His grandma (Glenn Close) rules the family.

When J.D. grows up he joins the Marines and later goes to law school at Yale on the G.I. Bill. He works very hard on getting his life together and breaking the cycle of poverty and lack of education. He has a supportive girl friend in Boston and is looking forward to his life ahead, freed from the shackles of his hillbilly upbringing.

But things were never right back home, and when his mom is delivered to a hospital after a heroin overdose, he drives back to Southern Ohio to take care of her.

Hillbilly Elegy is a Ron Howard film, based on J.D. Vance’s best-selling memoir of the same name. It was blasted by the critics and received only 26% on the Tomatometer, but surprisingly with an audience score of 86%. The critics call it terrible, trite, enforcing of stereotypes, deceiving with an Oscar-baiting narrative, an episode of Jerry Springer, and one of the worst movies of the year.

I disagree vehemently, I guess I don’t count as a critic, but audience. Glenn Close and Amy Adams are doing a remarkable job. J.D.’s grandma is a character made of real-life, below-middle-class people in rural America. I have known many people like that, and it took me home. J.D. is a smart boy who broke out of the cycle of poverty entirely by himself and the savvy counsel of his grandma. I found the movie educational and inspiring.

If you want to understand the soul and the plight of backwater America, watching Hillbilly Elegy is a treasure trove. It explains things.

Damn the critics. Watch this movie!

Hiking Boulder Loop in Daley Ranch

On By Norbert HauptIn HikesLeave a comment

The Boulder Loop in Daley Ranch is a nice hike with great scenery that you can do in a couple of hours. The elevation change of 666 feet from the parking lot is enough to get the heartrate up, but it does not take too much out of you.

The hike starts at the bottom of the map at the parking lot for Daley Ranch in Escondido at 900 feet elevation. It ascends the paved road toward the ranch for about .68 miles, when the actual loop starts. I walked it in the clockwise direction, which I would recommend. The loop itself is about 2.5 miles long. The whole hike is 3.75 miles. Note on the way back, when I stopped for water and put my backpack on, I accidentally put my GPS on pause until I discovered it back at the parking lot, hence the straight line (red arrow) on my map. The hike peaks out at about 1,500 feet elevation and most of the loop is in a high plateau. The climbing is steep but is over with after the first 30 minutes.

Most of the hike is on well maintained access dirt roads, like this one:

This photo is taken from the plateau at about 1,400 feet, about half way through the loop. It’s a great, short trip for a mountain bike, if you don’t mind the steep climb at the beginning.

The views are tremendous. To the north-east, you can see the broad ridge of Palomar Mountain and, with the digital zoom on my iPhone, you can barely make out the white single-pixel dot of the giant dome of the world-famous Palomar Observatory some thirty miles away as the crow flies.

Looking south-east you can see Cuyamaca Peak, at over 6,000 feet one of the highest peaks in San Diego County. Taking this picture I made a mental note I should go back there for a hike soon – it’s been many years that I have been on the top of Cuyamaca.

Much closer to home, to the east, is Stanley Peak, which I hiked just a few weeks ago and reviewed here.

Of course, the hike is called Boulder Loop for a reason. There are massive boulder fields everywhere.

Here are some more, and you can see some of the ancient dead oak trees that seem to be everywhere in the Southern California highlands.

Here is a view down into the central part of the ranch where the pond reflects the blue sky. In the foreground, you can see the thick, impenetrable brush that covers all the land.

That brings me to another pet peeve of mine – our outgoing president constantly harassing the State of California for not “raking its forests” and thereby inviting more devastating forest fires.

Obviously, he has never hiked the California countryside. The photo above is a typical view on the Boulder Loop plateau, away from the boulders. The shrubbery is as high as a man, as far as the eye can see, impenetrable, and dry as tinder. Remember “It Never Rains in Southern California….”

Vistas like these cover thousands of square miles of the California coastal highlands and could not possibly be “cleared” or “raked” no matter how massive the effort. However, a single careless match, or a powerline downed by winds (which get pretty rough here from time to time), or a lightening strike, could set this land ablaze and there is no access for fire crews other than aircraft. The notion that “cleaning up the forests” would be an option here is ludicrous. This is mountain lion country, and this land will burn, it’s just a matter of time, and then it will grow back over the next decade, as it has done for millennia, long before man was here. It just didn’t have housing developments for thousands of people just a couple of miles away.

Speaking of which, here is a view just zooming in below the Palomar ridge, and you can see several nice, prominent, expensive ranch homes on large properties on neighboring ridges. I am sure they have nice views. But they will also be in the line of fire, should one sweep through here.

I feel fortunate that I can hike to this kind of wilderness literally from my house, on foot, in a couple of hours, and be away from people, traffic and all the trappings of gross-national-product-land. Hiking this loop just before Christmas I literally saw only three people. Of course, most of my readers don’t live in climates like these where you can hike in late December in shorts and T-Shirt, so I feel doubly fortunate and grateful.

And now it’s time to go out again.

Deficit Worries by the GOP – Here We Go Again

On By Norbert HauptIn EconomyLeave a comment

The GOP blocked the current relief bill, since, per McCarthy, it contributes to the ballooning deficit.

I am not one for advocating deficits. However, after eight years of blasting Obama for increasing the deficit, Trump has added more deficit in the last four years than Obama ever did. And Trump did not have to dig out of an economic crisis. No Republicans appeared to even pronounce the word “deficit” during the last four years of profligate spending and tax giveaways to the rich.

But now that Democrats will be in charge again, the deficit is all of a sudden a word again. Obama took over an economy in shambles and rebuilt it. His crime: The recovery was “too slow.” He increased the deficit, and we heard about it every day. Biden now takes over an economy in shambles, as well as a public health catastrophe, all created by the incompetence of Trump, and we’re worried about the deficit again?

Give me a break!

Movie Review: Fisherman’s Friends

On By Norbert HauptIn Movies, Three StarsLeave a comment

A group of four London music executives pile into their BMW and head out to Cornwall, a remote fishing village, for a stag weekend. While out making fools of themselves, they come across ten fisherman singing sea shanties. Danny (Daniel Mays) is a band manager, and his slimy boss pranks him into trying to sign them on for a record deal.

Not knowing it’s a joke, Danny pursues the fishermen, and stays in the village, partly because he gets enchanted by the daughter of one of them. While he works with them on making a record, he slowly learns the way of life in the village, and his fast-living existence back in London loses its luster.

Fisherman’s Friends is based on a true story in England in the 2011 time frame. The plot is a bit predictable, but it’s a feel-good movie, and it really made me want to travel to the English countryside and hang out for a while, have a few pints in the pubs, and soak in some of the salt.

Catholic Sexual Abuse: Cardinal George Pell

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, ReligionLeave a comment

In 2019, Cardinal George Pell, the third most powerful man in the Vatican, was sentenced to jail for six years, with no chance for parole for at least three years and eight months, for the child sex abuse he was convicted of back in December of 2018.

Just recently, the High Court of Australia overturned the conviction, basically stating that nobody but the perpetrator and the victim were in the room where it happened, so it’s their word against his.

It’s very, very rare that there are third-party witnesses in a room where rape is occurring! A jury convicted him after reviewing the evidence in a trial! It shows how powerful church officials get away with rape.

During a broadcast interview in the UK, Pell said that his style was rather direct in the way he defended Christian teachings. He basically said that that people hated him for his conservative views.

No, Cardinal Pell, people don’t hate you for your conservative views. It probably has something to do with the fact that you raped little boys.

You say you “can sleep quite well on most occasions.” Why don’t you try to tell that to those boys you raped, who have now been carrying this baggage with them for two decades, and will not likely forget it for the rest of their lives? We know about two. How many more were there?

The pope of the Catholics continues to allow this to happen.

 

Finally Found a Dead Person Voting

On By Norbert HauptIn PoliticalLeave a comment

Officials finally found a case of voter fraud, where a dead person actually voted. According to Business Insider, Bruce Bartman, a 70-year-old resident of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, registered his dead mother as a voter and voted on her behalf for Donald Trump. Prosecutors say this is the only confirmed voter fraud they found in their county, after looking into hundreds of leads. The penalty, if convicted, could be as much as 19 years in prison.

Voter fraud is found to be rare in the US. A database maintained by the conservative Heritage Foundation identified 193 criminal convictions, civil penalties, diversions, or other official findings for fraudulent use of mail ballots between 2000 and 2020, a time period during which approximately 250 million mail ballots were cast.

Let’s remember this when Republicans claim having to rein in massive voter fraud when they try to make it harder for people, particularly the poor and minorities, to vote.

 

Great Conjunction – Take Four

On By Norbert HauptIn AstronomyLeave a comment

This is the best photograph I caught today – at the time of  the closest proximity of Jupiter and Saturn in our sky since March 4, 1226.

The camera was at 60 times magnification, so they are really close together. If the moon were there, it would be five times bigger than the distance between the two planets.

Since I can’t add a “banana for scale” in this picture, I thought I’d show the view in daylight, with the red frame indicating the approximate view above.

Next time they’ll be this close will be in 2080. My grandson will be 61 years old then.

Great Conjunction – Take Three

On By Norbert HauptIn Astronomy1 Comment

Alignments between Jupiter and Saturn are rather rare, occurring once every 20 years or so. This conjunction is exceptionally rare because of how close the planets will get. The last time they were this close was just before dawn on March 4, 1226. That’s almost 800 years ago.

Unfortunately, this time, as spectacular as it is, the planets are pretty much on the other side of the sun, or rather, the earth is on the wrong side of the sun while it’s happening. Therefore, you can only see it from sunset for about an hour, before the “star” sets. If we were on the other side of the sun right now, we could lie on our backs in the grass, stare up at the night sky for hours and observe. Oh well, we’ll have to wait a few hundred years before the next chance.

Here is a photo I took tonight around 6:00pm Pacific time. If you look carefully, you’ll see the big eucalyptus tree silhouetted in front of the sky. Click to enlarge for better viewing.

Pandemic Gardening

On By Norbert HauptIn Commentaries, Crack-UpsLeave a comment

During the pandemic, we have spent more time in the yard, and one of the fruits of our labor were bell peppers.

To put this in perspective:

The two peppers on the left we bought at the market for 99 cents.

The two peppers on the right we grew ourselves. Given the cost of the plants, the planter, the irrigation, they probably cost 99 dollars, and it took at least 3 months to grow them.

Time and money well-spent.

I won’t talk about our carrots. Not a single one succeeded. I think we planted too late, and we have to start again in the spring. Good thing we’re not dependent on living off the land.

Big Tree Road, Lakewood, NY – 40 Years Later

On By Norbert HauptIn Art5 Comments

On a hot summer day in July 1980, I drove up on Big Tree Road in Lakewood, NY pulled over, set up my easel in the meadow off the side of the road and made a painting of Chautauqua Lake in the background and a lone white house. It took me about two hours and I still feel the heat of the sun on my back, and I hear the insects buzzing around in the meadow while working on it.

This is a photograph of the resulting painting, which was 18 x 24 inches. The painting is long lost. I do not know who might have it today, or if it even still exists. But the photograph has been the lock-screen image on my work computer for many years now.

Big Tree Road, Lakewood, NY – July 1980 [click to enlarge]
On a whim, while browsing Google Maps, I checked out the exact spot from where I parked.
[click to enlarge]
There are trees now on the right where there was just open meadow 40 years ago on the right side of the road from where the painting was made.

But note, the two telephone poles in front of the house are still exactly the same, at the same angle, as they were in 1980. Somebody lived in that house then, somebody else lives there now, and they have no idea that their house the object of a painting, and now a blog post.

Great Conjunction – Take Two

On By Norbert HauptIn Astronomy1 Comment

It turns out, the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn is easily visible from our own backyard. No reason to travel to higher ground. With it being this close to the sun, it’s only optimally visible between 5:00 and 5:45pm, and then it gets too close to the horizon, when it’s darker, but it’s already dimmer due to the closeness of the horizon and the associated flickering of the air and reddening of the sky, which makes our sunsets so beautiful. But that’s not good for viewing of planetary conjunctions.

I took the following pictures right around 5:30pm, when the sky was still somewhat light, and no other stars were visible.

Yesterday, I took out the Lumix camera, put it on a tripod, set it on sky mode with a 15 second exposure, and took this picture:

Great Conjunction – December 18, 2020

Obviously, the 15 seconds are too long. The earth moves much too fast. So tonight, I just set on Intelligent Auto mode, figuring that it knows better how to do this than I, and it did:

Great Conjunction – December 19, 20202

The planets are now closer together again since yesterday. I am much happier with this picture. I am going to try this setting again tomorrow, and, of course, on the big day on Monday.