Not a Team Player

This is something of a GIP, but I figure, hey, if I'm going to grump about my Sims, I may as well have the icon to suit. And yes, I have done this. Except with a buyable fire mod. Heeheehee.

With regard to that, we at least now know what memory my computer runs, thanks to nightskywarlock. Of course, I had a previous version of the thing he suggested, but it's always good to have the upgrade. Anyway, we now know that the Frankenbox runs the same kind of memory that dodgyhoodoo runs in Zim, and we also know that, despite assertions by cholten99, my mobo is not exactly hot shit. Zim runs faster, and dodgyhoodoo keeps bitching about Zim (though that may be software, I dunno). But I've got two free slots for memory and can't really afford to get a mobo bundle right now, so I'll have to make do. As long as it runs my damn Sims, I don't care. Frankly, I'd also like a new case because I hate the beige, but my money would honestly be better spent on a flat screen monitor that doesn't take up pretty much the entire vanity table. I should be able to get away from that experience with less than a £130 expenditure if I buy online (I've seen some pretty good bargains on TFT monitors, and have my eye on this one) or find a good deal on Tottenham Court Road (more likely than you'd think, plus a decided lack of delivery charges). Either way, it'd be nice to have the room. Though of course, my cash would probably be better spent on a few summer clothing odds and sods, but I really can't be arsed.

( Cut for Hollow City rant )

Sorry about that. Needed a rant. And now, I'll go and do something else.

Conspiracy?

So I read on pickwick's journal that they've released the film footage of Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon. Um. Can I just say, right now, that the 'evidence' is crap? I'm not generally a conspiracy theorist, and I hadn't even been aware that there was any conspiracy suspected in the Pentagon bombing; I'd vaguely heard that there were some questions about wing damage, but I didn't think anything of it because I lost people I've known since childhood in the Twin Towers attack. But the very evidence that was supposed to convince me that there was no conspiracy ... well, it's basically made me ask a fuck of a lot of questions.

First of all, I don't know a lot about physics, but I know a lot about airplanes from a passenger point of view. A passenger jet cannot accelerate in a horizontal line that close to the ground at that velocity. Because that was, let's face it, a horizontal line. If it was a distance shot, as it was meant to be, it was covering several hundred yards and you would have seen the angle of descent. If it was a close-up shot showing only a few hundred feet, then that blurred object was too small to be a Boeing passenger jet. Look, when a plane lands, it comes in nose-first until it gets to a certain point, then the flaps come into play. Nose tilts upwards, wind resistance slows things further and you can cruise, descending, for a couple of hundred feet, yes. However, the hole would be bigger and the angle of descent would be visible unless the damn thing was slowing down as it went.

But let's say that somehow, a novice pilot managed to keep a plane going at 524 mph at about 2 feet above ground level without destroying the lawn around it and manages to crash into the building. Nice. Neat. Round. Hole. This when the wingspan on a 757 is about 125 feet. And no debris on the lawn. Now, fine, I could almost accept wings breaking off (except where were they?). My other problem is that the tail height on a 757 is 45 feet, and unlike wings, which I grant you will want to maintain some flexibility and might snap on impact, tails ... not so much. The tail has to be sturdy; it's a design point. And yet somehow, the first story windows just above this nice neat round hole were intact. Best case scenario there is that the tail fell off altogether. And landed on the lawn. However. No wings. No tail. No debris. No bodies. No luggage. These things were not designed to fragment on impact and I don't care how sturdy your building is. Yes, things are meant not to go through the Pentagon, but things can't go through the ground because all there is beyond the ground is more ground. And planes were meant to at least partly survive impact with the ground because hey! You're flying through the air in a tin can. You might want something sturdy around you in case you, I dunno, crash from 50,000 feet up. The plane did not simply ... I dunno, atomise or whatever. There would be large pieces of wreckage if only the main cabin went through that building. So where's the wreckage?

There's other bits, but I'm going from what I can see on the recording and what I got from Google on the plane's specs. And my own experience of air travel, obviously. All I can say at this point is that whoever thought that this mish-mash that Fox News and CNN won't even show frame by frame would put to rest any doubts that Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon? Didn't work. You've got someone who's got about as much time for conspiracy theories as she has for boy band gossip asking questions now, and the conspiracy nuts now have things to point to and say "See? See?" I didn't see a plane in those shots. No questions have been answered as far as I can see. It's still as ambiguous as it ever was. Now, if they ever release the tapes from the nearby petrol station ... or the roof of the nearby hotel ... or the traffic cameras that would have picked up the plane as it flew over a major highway ... then we'll talk.

Oh, baby

What ... the FUCK ... is this shit?!?

'Preconception care'. I know women who do not want to get pregnant ever. I know women who consider the whole thing a fate worse than death, and that's their prerogative. I don't judge any woman who never ever ever wants to have kids. I can relate; I'm not utterly against it, but with some of the genetic shit in my family, I'm aware that it's not a good idea, and becomes less of one the older I get.

However. Americans now seem to want to treat all women, from the moment they start their first period to the point when the menopause kicks in, as baby machines. Don't just tell them to stop smoking, get exercise and get the proper amount of vitamins because of the health benefits to themselves. Oh, no. Tell them to do this for the sake of the children they might not even want. Seriously, they are doing this to ensure that all unplanned pregnancies are as healthy as they possibly can be. Which is fine if you're in a loving caring relationship and it's a happy accident. However ... well, given how they're going about abortion in the US these days, I suppose it's not surprising that they're considering the health of the unborn, however hypothetical, before that of the living, breathing women who incidentally pay the taxes and oh, I don't know, vote.

We. Are. Not. Baby machines. We are independent people who are at least as competent at managing our own destinies as men. And quite frankly, I find it despicable that they're having primary health care practitioners automatically thinking of a woman as 'someone who can carry a child' above all else. Excuse me. NOT A GROW-BAG FOR THE NEXT GENERATION! THANK YOU! And not giving up smoking for a child I don't even, at this point in my life, WANT!

Stupid sexist-pig shortsighted neanderthal fucksticks...