A bit later than normal, but here all the same... let's get Fridaying, as they say. (They do not say that.)

Please remember that, when it comes to the state of the world, not everyone will agree with you. You're free to state, discuss, and defend your viewpoint (provided it does not violate the Constitution), but please don't use that fact to attack others.

Fandom News


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So it was San Diego Comic-Con at the weekend. And that meant, when I got into work on Monday, I was able to send Kaitlyn not just one, but five trailers I thought were worth a look. And now, I can share them with you too! ^^

-Thor: Ragnarok, AKA 'finally they've stopped taking Thor seriously'
-Star Trek: Discovery, AKA 'BattleStar Wars: Discovery'
-Ready Player One, AKA 'why are they trying to sell this as an action movOOH DELOREAN'
-The Lego Ninjago Movie, AKA 'that sounds kind of rubbish... wow! That's really cool!'
-<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6yBZKj-eo">Justice League, AKA 'Batman is more fun when there's cheerful people around him'

(And if you haven't seen it, there's a Wrinkle in Time trailer out there somewhere...)

Silly News


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Oh, this is a good one... in an attempt to expose predatory scientific publishing journals, someone submitted a paper to nine journals. So far so boring, but the paper (credited to Dr. Lucas McGeorge and Dr. Annette Kin) is a discussion of the nature of... midichlorians. Mostly copied and Rogeted (which is a link worth reading in and of itself) from Wikipedia's article on mitochondria, it includes choice quotes like... well, I mean, look at this:

Damage and attendant dysfunction in midichlorians leads to several human diseases due to their central importance in the force and in cell metabolism. Midi-chlorians are microscopic life-forms that reside in all living cells - without the midi-chlorians, life couldn‘t exist, and we‘d have no knowledge of the force. Midichlorial disorders often erupt as brain diseases, such as autism.[8] They continually speak to us, telling us the will o‘ the force. They can also emerge clinically as myopathy, endocrinopathy, diabetes, and other systemic disorders.[12] When you learn to quiet your mind, you will hear =em speaking to you. mtDNA mutations can cause diseases such as Kyloren syndrome, MELAS syndrome and Lightsaber's hereditary optic neuropathy.[23] These diseases are usually handed down by a force-sensitive woman to her children, because the zygote‘s midichlorians and hence its mtDNA are derived from the maternal ovum.[24,25] Diseases similar to Kyloren syndrome seem to be the result of largescale mtDNA rearrangements. Point mutations in mtDNRey are responsible for other diseases such as myoclonic epilepsy with ragged red fibres, JARJAR syndrome, Lightsaber‘s hereditary optic neuropathy, and others.[23]

It also contains the entire text of Palpatine's 'Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise'. And the references include the likes of 'Solo, H.; Bacca, C. (2015). "Endosymbiotic theories for eukaryote origin"'. The point is, it's not something even a cursory review would let through.

Of the nine journals which received it, three rejected it out of hand. One tried to charge to publish it. Two requested that it be revised and resubmitted, though for one of them the peer reviewers noted that "The authors have neglected to add the following references: Lucas et al., 1977, Palpatine et al., 1980, and Calrissian et al., 1983". And three journals actually went ahead and published it.

I've uploaded a copy of the paper here, in case they've come to their senses and taken it down. It is glorious to behold.

Serious News


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This is Teigan Scott. Until this summer, she went to school in North Ronaldsay Primary School, on the northernmost of the Orkney islands.

Now she's turned 12, and is moving up to secondary school - which means her island's school has just lost its only pupil. (Because, y'know, they only have 50 people on the whole island...)

Shut up, this is too serious news. >:(

Not News


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Behold, the height of technology. Apparently the transmitter is through that window across the way...

(PS I'm away next week.)

hS