Not if you're at all familiar with Conrad and his near-obsessive grasp of logic, order, firmly-based reality and common sense. Of course - obviously! - we may throw all that out of the window if it means more traffic, and often do.
Why, yes, we are trying a different font today. Helvetica, for your information. Just to see if it looks better, worse or just as effective as Verdana. Art!
 |
| Hair-Splitting Pedant Pedants Again! |
Your Humble Scribe has only just become aware that we, the public, can generate AI images by inputting text into a prompt box, whereupon the hamsters will crank out an artpiece in a particular style.
Hence the monstrosity above. I used the Plain Text generator and typed in "Matilda Tank" because TANK and I was curious. It's a peculiar beast, and a sound subject to begin pedanting about. For one thing, the road-wheels are triangular. You can't deny it. Art!
That cannot make for a very smooth ride. For another thing, the muzzle-brake doesn't seem to be very effective, and indeed more closely resembles the inner tube of a kitchen towel roll. Art!
Nor is that all. Look at the upper 'hull'. It looks as if it's made up from an inflatable mattress, and creates a full-circumference shot-trap. Plus, where is the driver sitting? How can he see through a solid metal hull? Where are the squadron or regimental markings? Where is the "T" number? Art!
That's the real deal, for comparison, in Caunter camouflage colours and with the WDF white-red-white identifier.
You know, I think this AI art generator thing has potential. I can see it annoying and irritating Your Humble Scribe beyond all human toleration, which is great, from conflict you get drama, and from drama you get blog content!
By now you ought to have recognised that this above is only a preamble, a mere preface, to the real meat of the matter, which is to say MORE "MACKENNA'S GOLD!" since I have now warmed-up my pedantry on hair-splitting. Hey, if Conrad makes notes about a subject, You The Reader are Dog Buns! well going to get to read it.
Let me set the scene. Colorado and his two surviving desperadoes, with hostages Inga and Mackenna, have escaped the cavalry massacre and are putting distance between themselves and the law. En route, they cross paths with a trio of other survivors, who are now being chased by wrathful Apaches and possibly wishing they'd stayed in Hadleyburg. Art!
Hachita signals to his fellow tribesmen below -
Whom had been looking suspiciously at Colorado's group. Once they see the signal - Art!
Off they trot.
The next day, however - ooooh that word again! - it is proven that the Apaches have very short memories, because they come haring after the gang, a-whoopin' and a-hollerin', loosing off guns and generally giving the impression of intending to see our fleeing protagonists do impressions of kebabs. I dunno - maybe they had a disturbed night's sleep, like the cavalry? Or is this the behaviour of people before they have their morning pot of tea and hot buttered crumpets? Art!
 |
| Chasing the Doner party*. |
The Apaches are only minutes behind their fleeing victims, who can judge exactly how close being kebabbed is thanks to the sheer volume of shouting involved. Our party reach a ferry and move out into mid-river, where - you may be ahead of me here - they are completely exposed. Art!
Notice the three stuntmen doing a bit of poling, trying to keep the ferry on-track. They then overbalance and almost go into the river - Art!
The director liked this shot, even if it was a flub, and left it in.
Then the Apaches arrive on the riverbank, and take a lively interest in things. Art!
What they don't do is stop, dismount and move onto the ferry stage for a nice stable firing platform with palings to rest a rifle on. No! because that would be <shudder> sensible, and also far less cinematic. No, they continue to ride and shoot. Art!
So they're moving, and the raft is moving, and they've been flogging their horses flat out for the past ten minutes, not to mention themselves, and they miss with every shot.
You see how worrisome having a relentlessly logical and analytical mindset it? It's a burden, I tell you, a burden.
Well, time to wrap up this Intro, but console yourself with the thought that we've got yet more to quibble with about this film. O yes indeed!
How's that Helvatica coming along? Finding it a bit petite myself, and I don't want to go around mucking with font sizes. ANYWAY -
Conrad Is Aghast
You don't often come across a title like this. Art!
In case you were wondering, she was on a motorbike. Before you start laughing, she didn't bite the tip of his digit off, she completely severed the victim's thumb above the knuckle. Dog Buns, imagine the amount of force needed to completely bite off a person's thumb! It gets even less amusing when you read that the victim was a plumber - past tense as he's now unemployed.
No happy ending here, I'm afraid, as Deliveroo's legal employment model means they don't actually employ anyone directly, they're all independent contractors. So no compensation for the victim, which is exactly why Deliveroo have this legal employment model.
Cannibal Courier gets sentenced in May.
Conrad - not big on gig.
Wow, that was a downer. Bring on the dancing horses and light frothy items!
For Today's Modern Battlefield!
Roy the Canuckistanian posted an interesting and worrying picture on Twitter, taken from the cover of "Popular Mechanics", a South Canadian publication we have featured many a time here at BOOJUM! in the past. Let me see if I can dig it up. Art!
We will overlook Roy's incorrect spelling of 'armoured' as he is otherwise a plucky and loyal Canuckistanian.
What you see above is a manifestation of civilian perceptions of how trench warfare evolved in the First Unpleasantness. Believe me, there were dafter inventions that actually made it into production; I have a work on the First Unpleasantness somewhere that provides photographs of bizarre ways to survive on the modern battlefield.
I would guess that this illustration dates from mid-to-tate 1915, because the British (and Commonwealth) soldiers pictured are wearing their cloth caps, rather than the Brodie-pattern helmet that came into use during 1916. See? It's a burden, I tell you.
Shall we pick apart the fantasy that PM portrays? O go on then. Art!
This is what a battlefield of the First Unpleasantness looked like. Note the absence of smooth, rolling greensward, and this is in the dry season. Imagine trying your 'land-missile' approach in, say, September, at a location such as, say Passchendaele. Art!
 |
| "Delightful environs suitable for a fixer-upper" |
In terms of practicality, these 'land-torpedoes' don't have room for all the paraphernalia a soldier lugged around the battlefield - backpack, respirator, bayonet, ammunition, rations, entrenching tool, grenades, field dressing, etcetera.
Perhaps the greatest problem is that these simply wouldn't have been bulletproof. If they were made proof against small-arms fire then they would be so heavy no man save Hercules could possibly move them. And there was only one Poirot at the time*.
Hmmmmmm okay the exact opposite of light and frothy. Soz.
"City In The Sky"
As light and frothy as you're going to get here.
Without turning his head, the Doctor caught a peripheral glimpse of
movement at the corner of his eye: a sudden motion amongst the waving grasses,
deliberate and not natural.
Excellent! he mused. My feet are
beginning to ache. A nice pause would
hit the spot.
He trotted onwards, making an ostentatious effort to look about and seek
a suitable arena. If he was going to
entertain an audience, he needed the appropriate setting.
Fifty metres on, he came across a small jumble of boulders in a bare
patch of dark, ruddy moist earth.
‘Good enough!’ he declared to the air, taking a seat on the highest
white rock and removing the kangaroo steaks from his umbrella. Now he had to sit back and be patient.
In fact he lay back and tipped his hat over his eyes, giving the
appearance of a nonchalant traveller taking a brief nap. Counting to five hundred, he then sat up and
removed the hat, and hey presto –
-
a
wary line of a dozen dingoes looked back at him, having come out of cover or
hiding, from
where they had
been watching and trailing him. At the
sight of his awakening several stopped moving slowly forward and raised their
hackles, growling.
What have you gotten yourself into, Doctor?
Finally -
Just to leave you with a pithy picture - Art!
Putinpot must be sweating a little. Their production capacity was already down to 86% of pre-Special Idiotic Operation levels, so they're now down to possibly 72%. Oooops!
* Sorry, couldn't resist.
No comments:
Post a Comment