The Morality Of Mimicry

Perhaps Not Mere Mimicry -
For Lo! we are back to considering how to avoid people being very very naughty with Replicator Technology, in a little more detail than last time.
     For argument's sake, we will assume that the replicators we are dealing with are those made familiar by that obscure cult series "Star Trek: The Next Generation", with the capacity of a medium-sized microwave oven.

Sic

       Perhaps the first time this technology was mooted - apologies in advance for mentioning my filmic fixation again - was in "Forbidden Planet" -
     Here an aside.  Yes yes yes, it's an aside within an aside - get over it and move on!  It really isn't a "Forbidden" planet at all, since Doctor Morbius only "strongly recommends" that the C57D stay away from it.  Were he to shriek "MUCH HORROR AND MADNESS!  Dogs and cats living together! Yog Sothoth! Keep away or face agonising torments and then gruesome death!" - then it'd be forbidden.  Until then, Doctor, you need to work on projecting emotion a bit better.

The Doctor was crushed by the cruel criticism

     Where were we?  Oh - that's right.  Perhaps the first cinematic invocation of a Replicator was the Krell Great Machine, which had the unfortunate capability of being operated by mental commands alone.  Thus were the Id Monsters released.  If only the Krell designers had thought to add in that you needed to speak aloud what you wanted; after all, not many Krell would have said "Please destroy all I hold dear in an orgy of violence conjured up by demons of the ancient past", would they?*
     Right, back to replicators a la STTNG.  Some things are going to be forbidden.  Let us look at them in detail.
Guns:  Not only guns but their component parts must be hard-wired into the "Forbidden" category, in that not only will your replicator not make it, an alarm will sound at the nearest Police Station.  I say component parts, because the crafty might try to replicate the full set of separate bits that make up a handgun, and get around the embargo that way.  Ammunition would also be forbidden, just to be certain.

Not so fast, matey -

Explosives: As with guns, you cannot be allowed to create stuff like TNT or Cordite.  The precursor chemicals would also be on a Watch List, which again notifies the local po-po that someone is up to mischief.
Drugs: Not permitted!  Only licenced pharmacologists or medical staff can over-ride the embargo on these, and even then there will be an audit process to account for the amounts created, used and on hand.

Not going to happen

Fissile Material: No, you cannot replicate isotopes of uranium, plutonium, thorium or radium.  Only university or research labs would be allowed to create any such, and there would be an upper limit of <thinks> two ounces per six months.** As with drugs, there would be an audit process, where you have to account for what you've done with your noxious metals.
Poisons: This would be a very long list, and it would need to be updated every so often as new and nastier toxic crud is discovered.
Pathogens: Bit of a niche one, this.  But, just in case - no, you cannot replicate samples of Baccilus Pestis or anthrax.  Mind you, if you were stupid enough to request them without also replicating an airtight container around them, then the problem would solve itself.

No path to pathogens

Anti-matter: Now we're just being silly.  But, because there's always some idiot who will do it for a dare - no, you cannot create a two-thousand-five-hundredth of an ounce of anti-matter, because it will immediately detonate on being replicated with the force of 924 pounds of TNT, instantly destroying you, the replicator and rendering your domicile an instant fixer-upper.

     I think that just about covers the issues for Replicator Abuse.  Of course, I may be overthinking this ...

BOOJUM! Reviews Films
In our patent way, which is to just look at the title and make shizzle up about them, and we include television in there as well, so sue me if you feel like it.
"X-Men Dark Phoenix": Another X-Men film?  Your Humble Scribe feels that they're churning this stuff out on a production line.  I enjoyed "Logan" because that pretty much wrapped the whole thing up, except I bet they retconned it so that it didn't.  Not interested.  Go far away very quickly.  "Dark Phoenix"?  how about "Dull Turkey"?

Well plucked.

"Toruk - Avatar":  What's this, another gaping plot hole in search of an audience?  (Ooooh, I do seem to be in a bad mood tonight!).
     Recall the first "Avatar" film, which ended with the military and science staff being kicked off Pandora by the natives, and the human traitors - er - sympathisers.  "Pocahontas In Space" as Conrad dubbed it.  
     This forced eviction was a colossal mistake, as those very same leavers would have made excellent hostages, for the retaliatory strike that's going to come from Earth.
     Make no mistake about it, Earth wants the Unobtanium found on Pandora, and now the hostile, violent, criminal natives have wickedly slaughtered and evicted the peaceful research operation (which is the story that's going to go out).
     Let's take stock here:  Pandoran natives' military inventory; big ass bows and arrows (I credit the departing military with having the wit to disable their own weaponry).
Earth: interstellar starships carrying multi-gigaton anti-matter warhead MARV'd missiles by the dozens and dozens.
     I know whom I'd back in a fight.

Let the nuking begin ...

"Gloria Bell": Chick-flick.  Next!

     What's that?  You thought I was incredibly dismissive and <tunes out strident whinging>.  Allow me - "Chick-flick.  No big skirts."  There.  Sorted.***

Finally -
I have just finished watching Season Three of "Justified", which satisfyingly tied up a few loose ends, including the SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT 



















death of Dickie Bennett; it was surpassing quick, though, probably to the disgust of Boyd Crowder and Arlo Givens, who would both have liked to slowly torture him to a grisly end.  Mind you, Boyd did wrap his head in a plastic bag and punch him bloody whilst he suffocated, so Dickie probably appreciated being given a quick exit.

Dickie: the poster boy for Po' White Trash

* Although there's always one ...
**  They went back to Imperial measures in the future.  Trust me on this.
***  If this annoys you, or even makes you cry, then my work here is done.

A Lot Of Trot

For Yes!
We are back to "Four Years On The Western Front", the long and detailed saga of a transport section rider, who studiously neglects to mention anywhere in the text that he was awarded the Military Medal and bar; boasting not the done thing, don't you know.
     Anyway, one thing I was amused to read about was the tendency of horses to take afright at various objects, sometimes well-deserved, often highly baffling.  Art?

An unhappy horse

     Ol' Aubs had one horse named "The Grey" that took violent offence at bicycles, milestones and wheelbarrows and would try to avoid them by dashing off at speed.  Why this was so, Ol' Aubs never discovered.  The Grey was also spooked by tanks, which you can understand, as they were great noisy clanking things that shook the earth when moving. 
     All horses, not just The Grey, were scared by the noise made by artillery firing; I told you yesterday of the transport section moving before having to endure the noise of a nearby battery of heavy guns firing.  At another occasion they were camped out whilst surrounded on three sides by heavy guns, which were all firing as fast as they could; end result, a change of camp as the Transport Officer realised their horses were eventually going to break loose.  

CAUTION!  Can cause hearing loss. And sudden death.

     Ol' Aubs mentions one night-time trip being made in pitch darkness - no street lamps behind the front lines, matey - where he ended up merely twenty yards from a gun similar to the above, just as it fired.  His horses were quivering with fear, and he himself was deaf in one ear for several hours afterwards.
     Horses, it also transpires, can be remarkably greedy critters if given the opportunity.  On several occasions a single horse got loose, found the section's oats and hay for all the beasts of burden (47 I recall) and ate nearly all of it.

Guilty!

     This told on them when they still had to tow a wagon the next day.  Ha!
     Okay, motley, we're going to turn the cement mixer on now.  It's only water in there with you, not concrete.  Oh, and a bunch of stargazer fish, too.
         
                                         Probably quite angry Stargazer fish, too

Back To The Land-Bridge Again!
Who knew that a mundane geographical feature (the England-to-France landbridge) would yield so much scrivel!
     Well, I did, for one, because I made notes about it.
     What would really affect things is the attitude and behaviour of the English come 1793.  This, you see, was when Revolutionary France began the "levee en mass", which we of the Beautiful Language have come to know as "Conscription".

Sic

     Briefly put, with conscription you put a certain percentage of eligible males into uniform, whether they want to be in uniform or not.  This gives you a kind of Hay Pesto! enormous army, even if of rather dubious quality.  Perfidious Albion didn't ever bother with conscription until the middle of the First Unpleasantness, and no politician ever dared mention it, for 'twas certain electoral suicide.
     However, with the Continent a force on the horizon both literally and metaphorically, the fastidious British would be forced to also implement conscription, in order to be able to fend off the French.

So -

     Or, as times goes by, the Teuton hordes.  And here is where the presence of a land-bridge and conscription starts to really affect things.  You see, Wilhemine Germany had barely enough troops when mobilised to tackle both France and Russia.  If you add in a British army two million strong that can be railroaded across to France in a matter of hours, would the Teuton rulers ever dare to actually go to war?  Don't forget, the Dover-to-Over canal means the Royal Navy can concentrate it's ships from overseas and into the North Sea like that <snaps fingers>.
     There you go.  Food for thought!

"Hard To Be A God" By Boris And Arkady Strugatsky
Now about 3/4 of the way through this work and I've noticed a few things that the Brothers Strugatsky threw into the mix.  One is a drug called "Casparamid", which appears to negate the effects of alcohol, for some considerable time.  This means our Earthly hero Don Rumata can drink whole barrels of beer and cellarfuls of wine, whilst staying pretty sober.  Thus he doesn't make any slips of the tongue.

"Don Rumata felt a bit thirsty ..."

     The second is another drug called "Sporamin", which appears to be a general analgesic.  When ingested it instantly clears up hangovers, headaches, the appearance of fatigue, red eyes, etcetera.  Between casparamid and sporamin, that's ninety per cent of all medical needs catered for right there.
     There's another invention, the curiously named "metalstrom", which is spelled that way twice, so it's not a typo.  The BS don't explain about it, but wearing it allows Don Rumata to be hit in the back by a spear which doesn't even break his skin.  Some kind of lightweight armour, similar to kevlar, one suspects.

Summat like.

     I'm afraid I shall have to cut things a bit short of the usual ton, as it's already 15:08 and I want to get to the Co-Op in Royton before 16:00, the journey taking a good 20 minutes on foot.  I know you'll forgive me.