Alien Jesus Collective

To this little nugget

You can talk to him right now in the Alien Jesus Forums. Don’t leave anything at the door. Alternatively you can leave him a comment and I am sure he’ll get back you…

If TV is to be left to its own devices offering the demanding public what it wants, it’d certain implode. TV has never been as stupid as it is now.

Last night Derren Brown on British Channel 4, was yet again on TV, showing us just what it means to be stupid. He was performing live Russian Roulette (as if). Poster plastered across London proclaimed that now Magic is Dead (Jesus Motherfucking Christ, who revived it in the first place?). According to some press release the program was shown with a 15 second delay in case “something would go wrong”. So much for LIVE tv.

Anyway, the program was set in some dumbshit studio in the corner of nowhere, or at least so it seemed. We were thankful only to catch the last minute of the program. It was at that point that he picked up his loaded gun, pulled the trigger … and it went blank … nothing. What a surprise. Now it would have been absolute fantastic, we mean, a dream, if he’d actually gone ahead and shot himself. That truly would have been “magic”. The program was of such poor quality that you could hardly make out the audible difference between a blank chamber and bullet being fired. It was not even amusing or funny, just a fucking waste of everyone time. Master Moron Derren Brown even hugged the idiot who’d loaded his gun at the end of the program, as if he’d just achieved something great.

If only more people would truly shot themselves on TV, that would really spice up our lives. We can think of at least a dozen names.

A lot has been written and said recently whether or not Flight Simulation Games can be used to train terrorist. This particularly aspect of simulation software is extremely boring if not outright uninteresting. I seriously doubt you’ll ever be able to fully simulate the feeling of moving around a 100 tons of perfectly shaped aluminium on a narrow road. “Yes sir, but I am not interested in landing or take-offs, but only cruising.” Nor will one ever be able to completely simulate the conditions of a wind shear. The whole thing is mentally retarded, the bad kind of retarded. Let us instead look at completely different aspect of the simulation business, one very different I tell you.

I have friends who travel the world every once a while. The fly out from Airports across the globe, cross time zones and touch down in different climates. Whenever anyone of them fly somewhere I make it my duty to simulate their flight prior to their ‘real world’ departure. A simulated flight which has to be perfect with no room for error or a 4x time acceleration just because I feel ‘bored’. It has to be technically correct, the best kind of correctness. Or as close as one can get. I don’t have the uniform, nor do I eat something different than my co-pilot and my flight attendants must be on strike. My aircraft is modelled in Decreet GMAX, it bends but when it burns rubber upon touch down it doesn’t smell. If I look right I see not tarmac, but my shelf. But never mind those details.

If I don’t do it, something ‘could’ go wrong. It’s a bit like a technological man’s catholic church. Instead of praying I take them to the virtual sky, enjoying the carefully simulated retraction of the flap mechanism. Correct, Jesus isn’t there, and he isn’t needed, but the assurance within my own head that if I can do, so can somebody who’s actually educated to do the real thing. I can watch my simulated airspeed and my fuel consumption and make sure that the fasten seat bell sign is off even though I at 38.000 feet and enjoying my fourth beer. I might be slightly intoxicated, but it doesn’t touch my dedication, which is making sure that my friends arrive safely, ignoring publicly accessible security records. I’ve got my own records, buddy, and they don’t look good, so I better make sure I do this good.

Investing in new computer gadgets has always been a mixed blessing. Half the time they never work as intended and most of the time you need to download some goddamn patch of das internet for it work properly. For a change things worked out nicely when NOTAW Enterprises recently purchased an Apple Ipod. Our very first Apple item, it’s a beauty in terms of design and user friendliness. It’s small, but not too small, it’s light but not too light. It just about has the right proportions for you believe that your money was well spent.

And miraculously it works beautifully on both MAC and PC, almost without any hassle. The only Ipod compatible PC program is Musicmatch (though Winamp plug-ins do exist). Installing it requires a multitude of reboots, ensuring that your Ipod is plugged in properly and charged. First of we thought that Musicmatch was a lousy program, but it actually turned out to be a very good package, ripping CD’s to MP3’s in no time (even on our old faithful Pentium II), and transferring them unto the Ipod using USB took less time than we had expected, even though Apple clearly warns that it takes a good deal longer than through firewire. All in all very good. We’ve even replaced Winamp with Musicmatch as our mp3 player of choice. On the MAC platform (both OS 9 and X) it works without any problems (almost obviously), it automatically recharges through the complimentary firewire cable, and iTunes connects to it without any hassle.

Using it is a breeze, with its tiny designed remote control. The bigger versions (15 and 30Gb) come with a docking station, also . Before venturing out choose your album or playlist of choice, plug those tiny headphones into the chamber of your ears and enjoy hassle free music.

One recommendation though: In order to avoid somebody beating you down (ie. feeling more safe, cheaper), buy yourself a pair of black headphones, the white one’s that come with it are easily identifiable as iPod plugs, and the pod is an easy item to steal.

Oh, did I mention that the iPod doubles as a harddrive—and plenty of it. Another great thing, a choice which many will perhaps disagree with, is the fact that the battery is built in. You cannot take it out and plug in another, leaving it with fewer areas where it can easily be damaged. Fully re-charged it lasts 8 hours, enough for a nice cross Atlantic flight. To sum it up, we’re are pretty damn happy.

This article on Airdisaster points out, that according to Israeli sources a new kind of plastic explosive might be on the market, one which cannot be so easily detected. Obviously this is an easy way to further increase security and anti-terrorist counter measures.

Also, the US maintains 12 different terrorist watchlists.

The MoD will soon have decide on whom to choose for their new Refuelling Aircrafts. The same ‘competition’ ran in the US recently where Boeing’s already proven 767 were chosen over Airbus’ A330s, which have yet to be used as Tanker Aircrafts. I mean, this was after it was stopped. Originally it wasn’t a competition, the US had ‘already’ chosen Boeing. Then EADS protested (Airbus’ owners) and it was opened up. Boeing won anyway. EADS might as well have saved them that paperwork.

One major difference is that Boeing will supply used 767 that will be converted to Tanker Aircrafts, whereas Airbus will supply the A330s straight of the production line in Toulouse. We’re talking about a 27 year contract worth approximately £13 billion pounds sterling (US $20 billion). Technically if Airbus were able to build a Tanker version of their very popular A330 model, it would be able to carry a lot more fuel than Boeing’s conversion due to its bigger fuselage size.

One issue that news reports covering this area fail to see, is the fact that this is by no means a choice to be made entirely from technological point of view. By choosing an American product over a European the UK deepens its dependence on the US Military Industrial Complex (Sounds good eh?), whereas an Airbus choice would keep the money and the work in Europe, without depending on the US.

Unfortunately that’s not exactly true, since many parts (MANY) in Airbus’ Aircrafts are produced in the US. Airbus and Lochheed have even talked about opening up a production line of single aisle aircrafts in the US to attract more US customers.

The same discussion is as valid when it comes to the F35 in competition with the Eurofigther, or the US controlled GPS system which is being challenged by European Equivalent.

In other but very closely related news, Boeing is about to challenge EADS on the fact that they have received Government support (Especially from France and Germany), which is said to have helped them in gaining customers. The same could of course be said about the US Defence System choosing Boeing over Airbus, as a way of helping Boeing out of a steep decline in Aircraft orders.