Category: Journal

Flyboys Crashes & Burns

I was really looking forward to Flyboys, since I’m an aviation freak, and as a child I had a much-treasured book of flying stories, many from WWI, starring the Lafayette Escadrille in their SPADs, and Billy Bishop in his trusty SE.5a, and many more.

But if Frank Martin’s review is anything to go by, it’s a renter:

According to the makers of this film, the Imperial German Air Forces were made up entirely of Fokker Triplanes, all of which were painted bright red.

Not just one Red Triplane, but every single one.

Every.Single.Fighter.

Except one of course and that one belongs to “The Black Falcon”

Of course, if the above doesn’t make any sense to you, you might as well go see it…

Open Source Sucks!

It’s been a couple of weeks since I released my parser generator for Parsing Expression Grammars. I haven’t gotten any email about it, even though it’s been downloaded 176 times. Optimist that I am, I’ll assume that’s because I’m such a super duper programmer that everything works perfectly for everyone who downloads it. Of course, I’m a little put out at the lack of fulsome and adulatory fan mail. I thought that releasing something on SourceForge would make me as famous as Linus!

Gobsmacked

I’ve recently discovered Steve Dutch’s pages on “Science, Pseudoscience and Irrationalism“. Full of wonderful stuff — clearly reasoned, scrupulously fair, and whitheringly contemptuous of those who would let fuzzy-headed feelings of goodwill determine their lives.

But . . . the absolute shocker for me was something that I have never heard of in years and years of interest in and study of the Middle East conflict. Allow me to quote from the Noble Qur`an, Surah 17 verse 104:

And We said to the Israelites after him: Dwell in the land: and when the promise of the next life shall come to pass, we will bring you both together in judgment.