Tuesday, February 27, 2018

The Walking Dead - Honor - Recap

The Walking Dead - Honor

Season 8's mid season premiere kicked off with the episode Honor concluding where the last episode left off.

Carl Grimes whose Actor Chandler Riggs leaves the show to be at an university, is dying, after been bitten by a zombie in the previous episode, very slowly. While his father Rick Grimes, played by Andrew Lincoln is crying all over the place. In the other story arc Carol and Morgan follow these taken Ezekiel hostage, taking down many of his man on the way. When they hunted Morgan down they talk about whether to kill him or not, also with tears in their eyes. Luckily instead of carrying the decision over to the next episode young Henry is taking care of it, scoring first blood.

For my taste this episode was much too cheesy. The few action scenes, killing some bad guys and zombies of course, could not make up for being one of the most boring episodes so far. The producers decided to jump back and forth between the two scene, where some scenes lasted several minutes, others less than a minute. Suppose the scenes not even took place at the same time it was very confusing.


© AMC

Then there were the flashbacks again, depicting Rick as an old man, while many other characters seem not to have aged at all. Why is that? But everybody is happy. Even Negan shows up as an older self, smiling to be happy being a part of the "good family". I wonder if this was all just a dream. If probably dreamt by Rick Grimes, slowly fading away. That may be some content we have seen of season 8 never actually took place. I was looking for a Bobby Ewing stepping out of a shower saying "Good morning" to Pam.

Is it just me or does this show losing its edge? Long gone are the days the show was fun to watch. Now episodes are filled with boredom to reach their dedicated 50 minutes (including advertisements) length.

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

SpaceX blasts into space with a Tesla car

Cape Canaveral, Florida - On February 6, 2018 SpaceX owned by Elon Musk blasts the A Falcon 9 SpaceX heavy rocket from the same launch pad used by NASA where about 50 years ago the first men were sent to the moon. It went into a solar orbit reaching as far as Mars. Inside his own a Tesla Roadster. It might travel there for billions of years.

The launch went smoothly although years before several Falcon rockets exploding on the launch pad already. The crowd was excited and cheering like there was a superstar giving a concert on stage. When the countdown started ti me it almost sounded like people in Times Square counting down on News Year's Eve.

Two of the boosters returned in a simultaneous touchdown to be recycled. While the third missed its platform crashing into the Atlantic.

The has catapulted Elon Musk into super stardom. What a show!



Wednesday, February 14, 2018

The X-Files and Ford vehicles

The Ford Motor Company continues its history with The X-Files, when the new series kicked off in 2016. While Ford already provided vehicles like the Taurus in the first episodes since 1993, with Agent Fox Mulder calling it "a good American car".

With the renewal of the series at season 10 in 2016 Mulder and Scully drive a Ford Explorer Platinum. Mulder also own a Ford Mustang, while Dana Scully this time drives a Ford Fusion.

Apparently the tie in with Ford also works well for the new seasons. It makes the series more American, albeit shot in Canada, while adding revenue for Ford. In my opinion something wouldn't feel quite right if they drove Japanese or European cars.

The episodes of season 10 include

  1. My Struggle - January 24, 2016
  2. Founder's Mutation - January 25, 2016
  3. Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster - February 1, 2016
  4. Home Again - February 8, 2016
  5. Babylon - February 15, 2016
  6. My Struggle II - February 22, 2016

The episodes of season 11 include

  1. My Struggle III - January 3, 2018
  2. This - January 10, 2018
  3. Plus One - January 17, 2018
  4. The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat - January 24, 2018
  5. Ghouli - January 31, 2018
  6. Kitten - February 7, 2018
  7. Rm9sbG93ZXJz- February 28, 2018
  8. Familiar - March 7, 2018
  9. Nothing Lasts Forever - March 14, 2018
  10. My Struggle IV March - 21, 2018

Saturday, February 3, 2018

OS-9 - The forgotten operating system

When it comes to operating systems, people usually only recall very few. If they know what an operating system is anyway. Usually it boils down to Windows, older folks might remember its roots, MS-DOS. Some might mention Linux or even UNIX. Some might heard Android is running on their smartphone or tablet. Then there is the Apple (MacOS) party. I want to talk here about OS-9, and do not refer to a version of the Apple OS by a similar name (MAC OS 9).

OS-9 was released in 1979 by Microware. It can run on Motorola 6809, Motorola 680x0 CPUs, ColdFire, SuperH, ARM/XScale, MIPS, PowerPC, Intel x86 processors. And since it is one of the first a multi-user and multitasking operating system I am intrigued. This was long before the Amiga, let alone multitasking capable Windows 95 or Linux.

While OS-9 was general-purpose computing and embedded systems, the Motorola M6809 CPU was built in the popular TRS-80 Color Computer (Coco) and similar Dragon 32/64, although not shipped with, had a potential broad user base among non business users. OS-9 was later ported for use with M68000 systems.

It is considered a "UNIX-like OS", although it is not a clone of UNIX. OS-9 is still supported by Microwave (as of 2018 when this article is written), and can run on x68 and ARM processors. But the dominance of MS-DOS and later Windows is probably the reason it never had the commercial success it deserves in my opinion.

In this video I show the (emulated) Coco running OS-9.

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Star Trek Discovery - Is it Canon?

I love Star Trek. Following it since its first franchise later known as The Original Series (TOS) with Kirk, Spock and Co. in the 60s. Although I have been too young to really understand the idea behind Gene Roddenberry mind.

After that and a few Star Trek movies The Next Generation (TNG), the second franchise, started to air 1987. First I didn't liked it. Picard wasn't Kirk and I expected the old crew when there is something called Star Trek on the screen. It took a few episodes to also like TNG.

1993 the next franchise (Deep Space Nine) DS9 came along, with the first African American captain. I like the first few episodes but soon it became so dull I stopped watching it. Suppose the producers also noticed that and when the 3rd season kicked off they introduced the Dominion and put a lot of action in, which hooked me again.

In 1995 Voyager (VOY) was aired with the first female captain. I fell in love - with the series - right from the beginning. Probably still my favorite part of the franchise.

After the Enterprise (ENT) franchise came out, which played even before Kirk & Co. Loved it from the beginning although I couldn't really agree to make huge story arcs like the one with the Xindi.

It took more than a decade until in 2017 Star Trek Discovery (DIS) launched. Set between what happened between ENT and TOS it seems to play in an alternate reality and is not really Canon. The Federation is in war with the Klingons. They themselves have huge heads, looking much different than any Klingon dipicted in any other franchise. And hold long and boring monologues, trying to bore the others to death I suppose. There is lots of fighting, blood and gore effects all over the place. It was also the first time in the franchise as far as I recall the f-word was said. And the another first showing female breasts, albeit from a Klingon being all over a human.

In my opinion both (f-word and showing breasts) were not necessary for the plot. Call me prudent here, but I do not approve this in Star Trek. Same reason I wouldn't like it in Doctor Who. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind nudity. But please not in long running series starting before the 70s.

But may be Discovery isn't meant to be Canon. Like the Star Trek movies J. J. Abrams, which I think killed the spirit of Star Trek already. Then DIS might be forgiven. But it's not Star Trek for me...

Monday, January 29, 2018

What to buy - iPhone or Android?

What should you buy, an iPhone or iPad, or an Android phone?

In my opinion that is about the same question whether to buy a Cadillac or a Chevrolet, like a Cruze for example. Both will get you to the grocery store, bring your kids to school and can be used to go on holiday. But a Chevrolet of course is cheaper than a Cadillac. As is it usually the case with an Android being cheaper than an iPhone. What's the point then to buy an iPhone then?

Although both might have the same functions like surfing the web, send text and chat, use Facebook, Twitter and other Social Media platforms, play games or hundred other things, an iPhone is made by Apple, and only by Apple - to be precise, the iOS operating system running on them. While Android is more like an umbrella term describing an operating system running on these phones which can be manufactured and hundreds of manufacturers around the world, with the Samsung brand being the most successful at the time of this writing (2018). This competition of many manufacturers might also explain they they are generally cheaper than their Apple counterparts.

So what to purchase? In my opinion, taking that under the hood both Apple and Android devices have very similar functions, the only reason of buying an Apple product is prestige. Buyers might have a good feeling of having an Apple logo on their phones and show it to others. Similar to people driving a Cadillac instead of a Chevrolet.

Of course I might be wrong. Please comment!

Monday, January 8, 2018

Hard Sun

The premise of the BBC TV drama Hard Sun is that Governments know a mass extinction event will happen in five years and everything on earth is going to die. Before that the crime rate will increase, crops fail and a lot more natural disasters happen. But the Government (here) of the UK does everything to keep it under the lid for reasons not explained. The murderers in the investigation part are all psychopaths, and their behavior tied to events predicted to happen because of Black Sun.

DCI Charlie Hicks, played by Jim Sturgess and his new female partner DI Elaine Renko, played by Agyness Deyn, do not get along well and suspect each others to work for the Government. Plus have private problems themselves, like DI Elaine Renko has a son in a funny farm.

The BBC aired all six episodes of the first season on the 6th January 2018 for binge-watching.


© BBC

There are rumors that season 2 is in the making. But how would you have a second season when the last episode of the first season ended with a black hole feasting on our sun?

Hard Sun reminds me on crime investigation series like X-Files or Lucifer, where you have an overall story of some supernatural level, which in almost every episode peeks through. And "ordinary" crime scene investigation. But it's very dark and bloody.


[Update]

Indeed the series has been canceled in August 2018. Not that the black hole nibbling on the sun ended the show. The station canceled the series because of poor ratings and confused viewers. Too bad, I liked it.

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