Right but the idea is that the ship is so fast it allows him to skirt closer to a black hole than any other ship. It isn’t the best description ever but it does make logical sense.
I know George goes WAY into his characters and creatures and such
But that extraneous of thinking, in the 70s I think is giving a little TOO much credit.
My ex-WWII-GI scoutmasters taught me the same thing. Wife gets pissed that, whenever there’s a lull in the action, I’m snoring, but who knows when you’ll get another chance?
Bahaha, when I was in tech school, we had to march to and from class as a squadron, which for a squadron as large and ponderously retarded as ours was, took some time. One day, on our way back, we were in front of a squad of Soldiers returning from one of their classes. Every time we’d stop to do our road-crossing procedure, he’d give squad halt, have them left face to be facing out of the sun, and told them to “Go to sleep!”
he did this about three or four times before explaining that they should take every opportunity to grab a few winks for just that reason. I thought it was hilarious, some wet towels from my class took offense. :rolleyes:
Watched Quantum of Bollocks last night, and one thing really leapt out at me*: Bond hears the villain’s name spoken and asks for a full rundown on “Dominic Greene. G-R-E-E-N-E”. But if he’d only heard the name spoken, how did he know there was a “E” on the end?
*Yes, the movie was so boring and confusing that my brain had nothing better to do.
In present day America it might make perfect sense. I’m only a few thousand miles away, and I don’t know why it’s an insult.
During the segregation era in America blacks were forced to sit at the back of the bus instead of riding up front like real people: this led to the famous bus boycott in Alabama - and the dawn of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950’s - which was begun by Rosa Parks after she refused to be thus treated.
I assume it refers to the colour segregation in the US South, where blacks had to sit in the back of the bus, until the Montgomery bus strikestarted by Rosa Parksrefusing to give up her seat to whites and move to the back (where no seat was left free).
But yes, far too many references of the futures are not only Earth-centric, but US-centric. That’s why foreigners have to get online and look up what things were referenced.
I remember how it felt like when I was reading a short story in an international SF omnibus collection, about a group of astronauts in the future finding a mirror Earth with a big board depicting very famous events of Earth history everybody would immediatly recognize on sight. Only the author was Chinese, and all the events were major Chinese history events I had never ever heard of (they “helpfully” included footnotes so it ran like “Look the battle of (someplace) - Footnote: took place in 13… and decided the power struggle between (one dynasty) and other (dynasty)” umm okay… (The astronaust eventually deduced that the aliens who’d lived there had observed them coming, and having watched Earth history all along, decided to show the astronauts only events of their own history to put them more at ease).
But it was odd feeling so completly ill-educated and unable to recognize even one reference when I generally catch at least some stuff and consider myself at least average knowledgeable/ educated.
Blacks sitting in the back of the bus wasn’t something limited just to the South… it’s just where the first protests against that policy arose.
No, no, no. Riddick isn’t all back of the bus an’ shit because of any connection to the civil rights movement. He’s all back of the bus because that’s where you sit if you want to get away with shit you’re not supposed to do. Or, to quote the Simpsons, “The potential for mischief varies inversely to one’s proximity to the authority figure”. It’s like saying, “Oh, you think you’re the shit, huh?” Or, to be more precise, he’s saying Riddick is acting like he’s all back of the bus/a badass, but isn’t really.
Or isn’t paved. See Dr. No. Bond is driving to the girl’s place and gets chased by the bad guys. They veer widely around turns, throwing dust and stones in the air while the tires squeal loudly on the soundtrack.
You’re right. He didn’t say “I made the run.” He said “This is the ship that made the run.” They’re retconning like mad to explain this one, but it’s just a flat-out mistake.
That’s because it’s faster in most cases. Every time you take your hands off the keyboard to grab the mouse, you’re slowing yourself down.
Obviously, this doesn’t apply to drawing and some other types of work, but even if you read Photoshop magazines, their “how-to” articles include the keyboard shortcuts for darned near every operation.
Speaking of keyboards - TV keyboards still use hideously old-school typewriter models that clack and/or beep on every keystroke. But I kind of forgive them, 'cause typing does sound kinda sexy. 
The beeping would annoy me, but from my experience in offices with other people typing, part of how loud/soft the clack-clack of touch-typists is depends on the keyboard; the other part depends on the style of the typist. Some typists (I don’t know if it actually correlates to those who learnt typing in the stone age on mechanical or electric typewriters, which you did have to punch to make them work) simply hit the keys hard to get the letters out, while others do it as soft as possible.
Plus, some women have longer fingernails (personally, that would seriously bug me during typing), which make additional little clack-clack noises striking part of the keyboard.
During season 5 of the TV show “Angel” I was disturbed by the fact that Angel was made CEO of the Los Angeles branch of the evil law firm, Wolfram & Hart.
Only attorneys can be management of a law firm, under California law and the law of every other state. While Angel was a vampire, he was not a lawyer. While lawyers may be blood suckers, like vampires, not all vampires are lawyers.
Yes, but I can guarantee that if anyone showed up demanding to see Angel’s law credentials, W&H would have been able to provide them.
ETA: But speaking of Angel, there was a scene once when they were in a car driving someplace, it was a medium shot (not the standard front window perspective) so you could see everyone in the car, and they ran a red light. I don’t know why it bugged me, but it really did. Angel blatantly ran a red and no one else in the car noticed or said anything.
Nobody in movies does CPR correctly, cuz it hurts.
Not a movie but a TV show: The ambitious but doomed NBC series Kings, which is a retelling of the OT story of King David in a modern “alterniverse” setting, does this whenever they make biblical allusions.
Examples:
—There’s a cross in the church (the cross- symbol of Jesus- from the Bible- a descendant of David)
—There’s a reference to “cutting the living child in half” (a reference to a tale told of Solomon, the son of King David)
—The tanks in the first episode are called Goliaths (this may seem strained but follow me- Goliath is an ominous and menacing name because Goliath was a giant… killed by King David)
If the show is going to be believable then the alterniverse has to be a place that has no biblical allusions, where Jesus/Christianity never existed, where instead of Goliath the super weapon is called something like Gigantic, etc… (Of course the show was a horrible idea anyway; it could have worked brilliantly as a HBO miniseries perhaps, but the story of David has to take place over many years and not a season or two).
There’s a cool video on youtube showing exactly what you’re talking about. It show a map with a dot where the car is. Every once in awhile the car goes around a corner and magically transports to a road a 1/2mile away.
Similarly, when a plane lands, you will always hear the SCREE SCREECH sound of the tires - even on grass or dirt strips.