Expert is code for Bullshit Artist

Have you ever wished that you could take a big clown hammer to every person who’s stupid in the world. A big ridiculously huge one w/ the “bonk” sound effect and everything. Either that or a shotgun to the face… yeah, I think for this case I’m leaning more towards the shotgun to the face.

:sigh: I’ve just had my fill of stupid people. In particular anybody claiming to be an “Expert” in the field of science.

Kat’s Rules for Detecting Bullshit #3: If they are calling themselves a “Science Expert” and not a “Scientist” then they are full of shit. End of story. I don’t care what the subject is. Only those who couldn’t cut it as a real Scientist call themselves an “Expert.” It’s like the difference between a police detective and the rent-a-cop at the mall. Whose authority are you going to listen to?

Experts talk in sensational definites.
Scientists don’t.
Experts will always pick the most graphic and often apocalyptic scenario to talk about or way of explaining something.
Scientists don’t.

I wish more news organizations would talk to actual Scientists rather than Science Experts.
This anger is an old one but the rant is inspired by an incident this week on CNN. They brought on some hack who worked in a planetarium somewhere as an expert on asteroids. No, not a representative from Jet Propulsion Labs. No. He was a doof from the local planetarium calling himself an “expert.”

Not only was his information 6 months out of date on a particular NEO nicknamed Apophis but he put the most overblown, sensational, Hollywood spin on it. And I know, I go to JPL regularly. I actually KNOW that this guy’s information was inaccurate. I’M MORE UP TO DATE THAN HE IS!!! That’s just not right.

Now if you saw the segment I’m talking about you’ll say “But Kat, that was part of a comedic bit.” I say BULL SHIT. I don’t care what the circumstance is. They are a news channel. They have a responsibility to report things accurately and I don’t care that it was part of a comedy routine, the guy they brought on was speaking seriously… as an “expert” on this particular subject. Is it too much to ask that he have his damn facts correct?

He didn’t even get what Apophis meant correct (people getting ancient Egyptian facts wrong is another pet peeve of mine.) :sigh: why must people suck.

There was another “science expert” incident this week involving a theory not related to the above... I don't want to go into it here. To put it mildly, I want to break this guy’s nose very badly w/ my fist. Make him bleed. Make him cry.
The article he wrote was extremely sensationalistic.. and the paper he was citing as where he got his information from debunked his ENTIRE write up. All of it. Even the parts he got correct were so grossly exaggerated and misleading it might as well have been a fabrication. But, then you find that, hey, he has a book to sell. Well gee, no wonder he wrote it that way. You can’t sell books if you’re going to tell people the truth. Truth does not get you noticed. Big, impressive claims and apocalyptic predictions get your books sold. So what if it’s not true. At least you made a few bucks… and you get people who don’t know any better calling you an “Expert.”

:sigh:

Ok, changing the subject now.. to porn.
I started another piece for my “Joy of Sex: 2150” art book. That’s a working title but you get the idea. The “Techno-Love” piece is the first in the series. I plan on doing an entire book of these two cyborgs. At least 15-20 pieces... possibly more. Depends on how inspired I get… and creative. :evil grin: Toying with the idea of making an overarching story… but I think that might get in the way. We’ll see.

Oh, and I almost forgot, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

-Kat

The King is Dead.

In the realm of video games, my most favorite type of all is not FPSs or RTSs. Nope, it’s Spacial-Puzzle games, and for nearly a decade now Soul Reaver: Legacy of Kain was the king of them all. No mater what other games came out or how advanced the graphics were, Soul Reaver was always the superior and what I used to compare other games to.

I LOVED this game… still do. How you had to flip boxes to make pictures or had to know how to crawl, float, and "bampff" around in order to set off certain things. Things you had to time just right. Things you had to line up and angle just right. How you had to be clever and use your environment to your advantage. And how there were puzzles you didn't need to solve in order to beat the game. They were just there for extra fun (something I always appreciate).

Sure other games have come close. Most notably is Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. But none have ever bumped Soul Reaver from the top spot… That is… until Portal came along… and oh man have I been bit hard by the obsession bug. This game is amazing!!! Especially because it’s all physics so if you have an understanding of physics you can do almost anything. How you have to throw yourself off of extreme heights in order to get the momentum to leap great distances. How the environments take on an almost Escher quality as you fall through a floor in order to pop out of the wall on a ledge somewhere else.

And when I say I’m obsessed w/ this game.. I mean obsessed. It’s only been two days now since I got the game but already I’ve got a paper Weighted Companion Cube sitting on my desk at work, I got the “Still Alive” song from YouTube.

And once I get my paycheck I’m buying the soundtrack. I’m even giving serious consideration to getting the “The Cake is a Lie” shirt from Jinx.com (and I very rarely get shirts that reference things like games.) Honestly, if they started marketing the GLaDOS eyeballs, I’d probably buy one… just to have it. It’d go nicely w/ my HAL 9000 Desktop.

EDIT 10/30: Screw the "The Cake is a Lie" shirt. On Valve's website they have this amazingly awesome GLaDOS shirt!!! AHHH!!! I want it now!! I hate being poor.
They also have their own cake shirt... which I'm considering but GLaDOS takes precedence over pastries.

-Kat

Yeesh!

FINALLY! I finaly got this piece finished. Whoo Hoo!! This piece is to be used later in Titanium Rain... but I don't want to give it away for what (though it's probably not hard to guess.)
Though it is greatly scewed to make it work artistically, she is sitting on a sparrow missile. Really the front fins are more towards the middle, but that wouldn't have worked for the picture. Either she'd be sitting in front of them (so you wouldn't be able to see them) or on them... and amusing as that might be, that's not what I was going for. Initially I had had her sitting on a bomblet dispenser but as I mentioned before I had problems getting the hand right so I changed it to the sparrow. Like it alot better.

A little sad...

I did this cool design for a client the other day. I was really proud of how it came out... but they didn't want it. Said it wasn't what they were looking for. :( It really sucks because I think it's probably one of my best designs ever. :sigh: oh well, if they don't want it, then I'll just have to use it for something else and try again. :)

Hand Update: Well, the problem wasn't the hand... but the surface I was trying to have it rest on. Talked to Josh and his words of logical wisdom were (change the bomb) Well, duh... but I sometimes miss the obvious because I'm so focused on my little problem... so hopefully I'll have something to post here in a day or two.

Random Thoughts: Having a hard time not getting lazy. It's not that I don't want to draw... but I'd gotten in the habbit of being lazy so when I want to do something... the lazy habbit kicks in and I fart around too much because, even though I enjoy it, a part of my brain says "this is work." that's retarded... but true. :sigh: I'll get over it, eventually.

-Kat

I've decided...

...that I hate hands. Not the appendages themselves, but drawing them. I've got one in particular that is driving me up the wall. I spent......oh...... 3+hrs beating my head against the perverbial wall, trying everything I could think of and breaking out all my books to get this one hand to look right. And what did I accomplish? Well, now there is a blank spot where a hand should be while I work on the finishing touches of the rest of the piece until I'm able to approach it again. *sigh*. This sucks. I KNOW I can do this... it's just..... being.... difficult.

Don't you hate it when you KNOW you can do something... but the ability is eluding you all the same. ACK! It's driving me nuts. Well, I'm hoping that keeping away from that part will help me to approach it anew later today. I gotta get this piece done.

More random rants:
So, I finally got off my butt and I'm borrowing audio books from our public library to listen to while I work. Currently I'm listening to Isaac Asimov's I, Robot.

First... though I haven't seen much of the movie they made... it's painfully obvious the book and the movie have nothing to do with each other (as if you didn't already know that.)

Second... what happened with the way people view problems with technology? Now a-days the plot would have been very much like the stupid movie. "We screwed up! We never should have tried to make these things! Why didn't we listen?!" oh...a crappy Johnny 5 rip off message.... and all that other bull shit. I hate all that Luddite rhetoric.... but anyway, that's the mentality today. A robot goes bad... well, we shouldn't have built it in the first place. We created something evil. Or it's a weak ass attempt at a commentary on how we're all really the same and prejudice is bad.

But in Asimov's book, that is not the case at all. Even in a life or death situation there is NEVER a hint of "We shouldn't have meddled". Instead, they viewed it as a problem that needed to be solved... and they solved it. Pure and simple. The robots weren't evil... just different. GOD I MISS THAT MENTALITY. The view that we, as humans, can accomplish any goal and overcome any obstacle. That we are SUPPOSED to push past boundaries and continually strive to better ourselves and continue to grow in every way. We need that back.

This luddite crap we have now is really what is keeping us back. This view that we shouldn't be learning about and testing DNA and how our bodies work, that we shouldn't be researching fusion power plants, that we shouldn't be trying to learn about the universe and how it was created, that we shouldn't be trying to improve every aspect of life, that we should go back to living in caves, being hunter gatherers, being frightened by lightning and dying at the ripe old age of 22. I really want to punch people who say that crap.

ok... had to rant. Just, this book gets me excited for the future... then I turn around and see all the negative crap that is being spouted now. :( get's me depressed.
-Kat

Miramar Air Show

Well, it's October once again and with October comes our annual trip to the Air Show . First, let me start by spazing hardcore over the following image. That is an F-22 Raptor, P-51 Mustang, and an F-16 Viper flying directly over my head! I gotta tell you, the other two planes are cool, but seeing the Raptor fly in person had to have been one of the coolest things I have ever seen in my life. I had heard the Raptor could practically turn on a dime in mid-air... but to actually SEE it... WHOA!!!

And, of course, there was the always awesome Harrier demonstration. This is a picture of it "lifting off" after hovering dead in the air for about a minute or so. Some other planes they demonstrated this year were an F4U Corsair, C130 Hercules (gotta love the rocket-assisted take off), a MiG-17 (which Josh and I unfortunately missed) and the Blue Angels in their F-18s. I hate to say it but... um... as cool as the Blue Angels are (and I have a lot of respect for those guys) the F-18 just can't hold a candle to the F-22 Raptor on the coolness factor.

The tarmac displays seemed kinda skimpy in comparison to previous years, but considering our current military situation, it's understandable. I was hoping to see the mock-up (or a real one) of the Joint Strike Fighter again but it was sadly absent. As well, they usually have an F117 but unless it was in the Consumer Show hanger, it wasn't there this year.

They did have an Osprey though, which was very cool because I had never seen one up close before. As well they had another Harrier, B-17, E3 Sentry, a bunch of Chinook helicopters, A6 Intruder, EA-6B Prowler, AH-64 Apache (always cool), AH-1W and AH-1Z Cobras (awesome seeing the two different versions), F4 Phantom, plently of F-18s, C-17, MH-53 Sea Stallion, A-7 Corsair II, and an MQ - 1 Predator with it's pilot. That was very cool getting to meet the pilot of a Pred. Nice guy. He seemed a little confused why we wanted to talk to him... but he let us take his picture and answered our questions.

I always get a kick out of seeing the Predator. It and it's sister plane, the Reaper will always have a special place in my heart because of my dad. :)

Tonight we tried to go to the Twilight show but unfortunately it started to rain so we left before the famous Wall performance could take place. One of these days I'm going to see that part of the show. Last time we got tickets we left early as well because we'd had a long day and were falling asleep in our chairs.

-Kat

Puppet Rios for Pres.

As this blog is supposed to be for fun I've tried very hard to keep my political views to myself and not spew them upon those who may happen to be reading this. BUT, a new development has arisen in the run for office that I cannot stay silent on.

This new candidate has really stolen my heart. He stance on the important issues (like George Perez) are the same as my own and I encourage all of you to show your support. Vote for Puppet Rios in '08 and show your support by purchasing a button Here. -Kat