At first I wasn’t sure to make of this poster. “Believe” that we went to the moon? Well, yeah. Then the Powerball motif…

At first I wasn’t sure to make of this poster. “Believe” that we went to the moon? Well, yeah. Then the Powerball motif was pointed out, making it an ad for the state lottery. Shoot for the moon, I guess. But the lottery is all about blind luck, while the moon landings were planned out meticulously, calculated and tested stage by stage over years, *leaving as little to chance as possible*.

At first I wasn’t sure to make of this poster. “Believe” that we went to the moon? Well, yeah. Then the Powerball motif was pointed out, making it an ad for the state lottery. Shoot for the moon, I guess. But the lottery is all about blind luck, while the moon landings were planned out meticulously, calculated and tested stage by stage over years, *leaving as little to chance as possible*.

St. Patrick’s Day Moon & Jupiter

St. Patrick’s Day Moon & Jupiter on Flickr.

Yesterday I looked at the moon and Jupiter and thought, there’s going to be another conjunction tomorrow, isn’t there? Then I forgot, but fortunately I had to make a grocery run.

I took this photo just minutes ago. If you’re in the western half of North America, and the sky is clear, you can walk outside RIGHT NOW and see this.

Parsing the Veronica Mars Kickstarter Issues

The Bird and The Bat: Parsing the Veronica Mars Kickstarter Issues

thebirdandthebat:

Most Kickstarters are, for lack of a better term, exclusive events. If you don’t participate in the 30 days they’re up, you’re out of luck. There are some exceptions to this of course, many comic book Kickstarters now offer retailer incentives so people can actually purchase books in a shop if they’ve missed the end date. But the Veronica Mars film will not be exclusive to backers and that seemingly makes it less special to those who did back it. But that doesn’t seem to be an issue for fans, they just want to see the movie.

Um….what? People have it in their heads that crowd-funded business ventures are supposed to only produce things for their investors and nobody else?

I think they’re missing the point of a platform called Kickstarter.

Edit: I should add that none of the Kickstarter projects I’ve backed have given me the impression that the product was going to be given exclusively to the backers. So whether “most” is true or not in general, it hasn’t been in my (admittedly limited) experience.

Gotta love when someone freaks out over something that’s been CHANGED OMG! when it’s actually normal & they just hadn’t noticed.

Gotta love when someone freaks out over something that’s been CHANGED OMG! when it’s actually normal & they just hadn’t noticed.

For example: “President A skipped out on event B for the first time EVER!” even though presidents C,D, and E skipped it regularly…

Or “What is that light in the sky! OMG!” Um, it’s Venus, it’s been there all month…

The airplane contrail off of the Calif. coast that people mistook for a missile launch a couple of years back…

Every time there’s a major earthquake and suddenly people are watching+reporting every tiny quake so it looks like the frequency is going up

Or those Youtube videos where the narrator was sure something had been done to water because you NEVER saw rainbows in sprinklers before?

“Doctor, will I be able to play the violin after the operation?” “Absolutely.” “Wonderful, I never could before!”

Manhattan Beach at Night

Manhattan Beach at Night on Flickr.

My first attempt to spot Comet Pan-Starrs on Monday evening didn’t work out, but I got to look back at the coast from the end of the pier, which was nice. You can see the Palos Verdes hills/peninsula in the background to the right.

Read about my comet-watching experience.

I’ve never heard of a case where a physical comic store closed because of digital comics.

I’ve never heard of a case where a physical comic store closed because of digital comics. Everyone keeps predicting it based on the way things have gone with bookstores, video rental stores, and music stores, but it either isn’t happening or hasn’t happened yet (as far as I can see).

On Reddit

Looking for comet Pan-STARRS last night. A lot of people had chosen the same hillside park…

Looking for #comet Pan-STARRS last night. A lot of people had chosen the same hillside park and were sharing their telescopes and binoculars as we watched the #sunset over the clouds, then the barely crescent #moon coming into view, and finally the comet itself. More at K2R: Comet Watch

Why Wonder Woman is in the DC Trinity

Interesting historical fact: In the 1940s, DC contracted out to a second publisher, All-American comics, to produce more comics under the DC brand. The top three characters at DC proper were Superman, Batman and Robin (starring in World’s Finest). The top three at All-American were Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern (starring in Comic Cavalcade). In the middle of the decade, DC bought All-American outright.

Those six characters are still the most recognizable from DC, but… Robin is always the second half of “Batman and…” Green Lantern and the Flash disappeared for several years before being completely reinvented in the late 1950s, and have never reached the level of mainstream recognition that Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman have.

That’s what I think matters here: the “trinity” are the three DC characters best known to the American public at large over the last 7 decades, not those who are most popular among today’s comic book readers: Those would be Batman, Batman, and Batman

On Reddit