Welcome

Welcome to my ever-evolving blog. It started out as a blog on Beachbody workouts and products, mainly when I was a Beachbody coach. I no longer coach, not because I don't believe in Beachbody's programs (I subscribe to Beachbody on Demand and use their workouts every day), I am just not a salesperson and hated that aspect of it. I am more than willing to answer questions about my experiences with their products and the various workouts, and I feel freer to do so without the appearance of giving a biased review of something.

I have also started adding reviews for various things I have purchased like movies, books, CDs, and other products. This was brought about by a fight with Amazon in which all of my reviews were removed over a completely bullshit allegation that I posted a review that violated their terms of service. After going back and forth with the morons in the community-reviews department (even after they admitted that my posts did not violate their guidelines) they restored my account (which took them six months to do), but I have been posting my reviews on my blog to have them preserved in case something like that happens again. And here, I will post uncensored reviews so I will swear from time to time and post reviews that may be longer than Amazon's character limit. Everything I post here on any topic or product is my personal opinion, and I take no compensation for any product reviews I post. I am a member of Amazon's vine program and because I get those products for free, I keep those reviews on Amazon only, but everything I have purchased with my own money, whether from Amazon or some other store/website/outlet, I will post here.  

I also plan to do some longer blog posts on various topics, such as how to learn physics, how to get through calculus, and longer reviews of workout programs as I do them. Basically, whatever strikes me as interesting at the time.  As you can see if you navigate around the blog, I had many years in between postings. During that time I was going back to school to get an engineering degree, and learning material that I avoided my first time through college was a different experience and one that gave me a lot of insight into how to do well in those classes, which I will try to impart here for those who are looking to get a science or engineering degree. 

Showing posts with label Cosmos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cosmos. Show all posts

Friday, August 19, 2022

Blu-Ray/TV Series Review: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

 


Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is a 2014 revival/follow-up to the 1980s Cosmos series created and hosted by Carl Sagan. This series was hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and curator of the Hayden Planetarium in NY, written by Sagan's widow, Ann Druyan, who had collaborated with Sagan on the original series, and produced by the creator of Family Guy, Seth McFarlane. The 13-episode season aired during the spring of 2014 on FOX. 

There are many similarities and many differences between that series and this one. Like the original series, this one covers many different topics in science, focusing on Astronomy but covering chemistry, physics, biology, and more. Each episode deals with a different topic and usually tells the story of one or more scientists that contributed to the field being discussed. The series did not focus on just the "big" names like Newton and Einstein but discussed other scientists and mathematicians like Halley, Hooke, Keppler, etc. In the original series, the stories of the historical figures were told using human actors, but in this series, many of the stories were told using animation and voice actors. I was not a fan of the animations when I first watched the show, but upon a subsequent viewing, they did not really bother me. And, of course, the CGI graphics are orders of magnitude better than what could be accomplished in the original series.

For those who get the Blu-Ray, the A/V quality is fantastic. The visuals are fantastic (both the real and the CGI), and the sound is very good. The extras include an audio commentary on the first episode with Druyan, producer Mitchell Cannold, producer/director Brannon Braga, producer Jason Clark, and animation producer Kara Vallow, a 40-minute comic-con panel discussion, a 41-minute making-of documentary, a 35-minute portion of a dedication to Sagan at the Library of Congress, and interactive cosmic calendar.

Like Sagan before, Tyson can explain complicated topics in simple terms without sounding like he is talking down to the audience. Of course, the audience for this series was much larger than that of the original series airing on Fox versus PBS. Even though the series aired at a time when science was being caught in the middle of the idiotic political divide, the country has been marred in, for the most the show ignored all that and just presented the scientific fact and ignored science deniers. The one exception is the episode on climate change, which distilled the problem and the cause to very simplistic terms without hyperbole and included a clip of an interview from back in the 1960s in which an old guy who is certainly not a part of a "woke" mob and proving that scientists knew that the amount of greenhouse gasses being pumped into the atmosphere back then was a problem. Although, the dipshit politicians and their sheep, if they bothered to watch something educational, would probably accuse the guy of being part of some liberal cabal.  And there were clips from the original Cosmos series in which Sagan described the concerns and what the possible consequences could be (and then showed how many of those consequences have started coming to pass).

One thing I wish the show would have done a bit better is explain the scale of the cosmic calendar (e.g., that 1 month corresponded to approximately 1.2 billion years, 1 day corresponded to approximately 40 million years, and 1 second corresponded to approximately 440 years) so that when Tyson said that something took place at midnight on December 31st, people did not actually think he meant something happened midnight on some random December 31st, but instead meant about 3600 - 4000 years ago. Probably the best moment of the series is when they did a CGI zoom out starting on Earth through the solar system to the galaxy level to the famous "pale blue dot" narrative by Carl Sagan. Overall, the series is wonderful and definitely in my must-watch category.

Monday, November 15, 2021

DVD Review: Cosmos: Possible Worlds

 



"Possible Worlds" is a great end to the Cosmos trilogy of documentaries which started with the original series, hosted by Carl Sagan in 1980, then brought back by Seth McFarlane (the creator of Family Guy) and Sagan's widow, Ann Druyan, and hosted by Niel DeGrasse Tyson. This is a follow-up (really a season two) to the rebooted series "Cosmos: A Spacetime Oddesy" which aired on Fox in 2014. This series aired in 2020, first on The National Geographic Channel, and then on Fox. The release got delayed when Tyson was hit with a bunch of sexual harassment allegations on the heels of the "me too" movement. 

The series kept the same style and tone as the first season, using animations to tell most of the story in the particular episode. Each episode had its own theme/topic, and then various scientists from throughout history would be highlighted or spotlighted in the episodes. The topics were very wide-ranging, from evolution to the Cassini spacecraft that was crashed into Saturn, to climate change. This time, there was not a climate change "specific" episode, it was discussed within the larger topic of human-caused extinction events (or things we have done that have threatened life on Earth). It also touched on the possibility of life on other planets, how humans may one day travel to other solar systems, and the like. 

One thing I like is that in this season, the cosmic calendar was explained a lot better than it was in the first season. I still think in episode 1 they could have done a bit better giving the entire scale. Meaning the entire year is about 14.5 billion years, one month is about 1.2 billion years, 1 week is about 300 million years, 1 day is about 40 million years, 1 hour is about 2 million years, and 1 second is about 440 years. Then repeat that at least once an episode. If you watch every episode and pay attention, the entire scale is given, but not all at one time. I know when season 1 aired people were confused when Tyson would say that something happened on September 15th at 10 PM, or something like that, that he literally meant that an event occurred on September 15th instead of it meaning that it happened about 120 million years ago.

If you want to get the series on DVD, it has only been released internationally. I can only find it as a region 4 (Australia) release. It definitely has not been released in the US, and it does not look like it was released in the UK either. So, if you want the DVD, you will have to hunt for it a bit (I got a copy on eBay for a decent price, and it does look like it is available on Amazon from time to time), and probably pay a bit more because of the fact that it has to be sent from Australia or New Zealand. And, you need a region-free DVD or Blu-Ray player to watch it. There are no extras on the DVD, just the episodes spread across three discs, and there are no captions. 

Overall, the series is very good. While in the very politically charged environment we live in, people will probably see the show as having a political agenda, but it certainly does not. It merely presents scientific facts as we know them today, and makes clear that those facts may change as we learn more. Also, while the science discussed is heavily slanted toward astronomy and physics, it also touches on the other sciences like chemistry, biology, geology, and the like, and explains how they are all interconnected. Plus, there are a couple of very nice tributes/nods to Carl Sagan and his life. It is definitely worth watching even for people with a casual interest in science, and for someone who is a fan of astronomy and/or physics, I would call it a must-watch. 


Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Blu-Ray Review: Carl Sagan's Cosmos: Ultimate Edition

 




This is the Blu-Ray set of the original Cosmos series, also called Cosmos: A Personal Journey, that was hosted by Carl Sagan, and written by Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan at the end of the 1970s and aired on public television in 1980. It has 13 approximately hour-long episodes that touch on all aspects of science. Of course, Astronomy was the heavy focus, but Sagan delved into topics like Chemistry, Biology, and Evolution, along with some Neuroscience. He was able to make each topic understandable and relatable without making it seem like he was dumbing anything down. There are clips in one of the episodes where he is talking to a group of elementary school students and it was amazing to see him make the concepts understandable for them while talking to them as they were peers and not little kids. 


A big focus of the series was the concept of whether humans would end up wiping themselves out, mostly by nuclear war. The series was made at the time when the United States and the Soviet Union had tons of nuclear missiles aimed at each other, ready to launch at a moment's notice, and Sagan was very fearful of what the fallout (literally and figuratively) would do to the planet and the things living on it. Interestingly, while climate change was not a focus of the series, there was an episode on Venus, talking about the effects of greenhouse gasses on its atmosphere in which Sagan touches on the worrying amount of greenhouse gas being put in Earth's atmosphere via the use of fossil fuels. So, for those who, because they listen to idiot politicians trying to score points and taking money from companies whose profit margins would be hurt if active measures to combat climate change are taken on a wide scale, think that the concept of climate change is some kind of liberal agenda that has sprung up in the last fifteen to twenty years, this proves it was a something (even if it did not have a catchy name at the time) that scientists were worried about long before the current political climate. Some of the episodes also get a "science update" made in approximately 1990 where Sagan updates the episode with things that have been learned or discovered in the 10 years since the show originally aired. It is interesting to see how much we have learned since 1980. For example, back in 1980, they did not know what caused the dinosaurs to go extinct. I was very young in 1980 (had not started school yet), but I always remember being taught in school that the dinosaurs were wiped out by something hitting the Earth, so it must have been a few years later that scientists worked out that a massive meteor or comet struck Earth about 65,000,000 years ago. 

For those who have seen the updated series hosted by Neil Degrass Tyson, when you watch this, you will see that they used a similar format to this one, with some differences. For example, in the newer series when they discussed historical figures, many times they used animation, whereas in the original series, they hired actors to play the parts of whatever famous scientist they were talking about. And, of course, the Ship of the Imagination got a serious CGI upgrade in the more recent series. The A/V quality of the Blu-Ray is good, but not outstanding. While they did remaster the audio and video from the original tapes, you can still tell that it was not an extremely high-end remaster like some older movies have received. But, it does look a lot better on Blu-Ray than some of the YouTube versions of the show which were just a straight transfer from the VHS tape.

Overall, it is a wonderful series that should be required viewing in any elementary school science class. As I said above, Sagan makes every topic, even relativity, understandable, and even when discussing issues that pit science against religion, presents the scientific view without disparaging or mocking religious beliefs. While even the science updates are a bit dated now, some 30 years after they were filmed, most of what is taught in the show is as relevant and accurate today as it was back 40-plus years ago.