1983 aviation/space, dir. Philip Kaufman, Ed Harris, Scott Glenn; IMDb / AllMovie. As the cutting edge of aviation shifts from transonic flight to spaceflight, NASA needs a new sort of hero.
I went over to a friend's place for boardgames.
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved GCDs, powers of two, and an unusual numeric sequence. (Note that this is open until 31 October 2021.)
More boardgames played from home.
1938 science fiction novella. A group of Antarctic researchers finds a spaceship in the ice, wrecked millions of years ago. But something of its crew/cargo seems still to be alive, and able to take over humans…
2021 science fiction comedy, 10 episodes. The Cerritos continues to do all of Starfleet's trivial and boring jobs (and they continue to be surprisingly dangerous).
2020 supernatural mystery in modern Edinburgh, tenth in Oswald's Inspector McLean series. A police administrative assistant doesn't turn up for work, just as a major cross-jurisdictional investigation is kicking off. Did she tip off the targets and vanish, or is something more sinister going on?
2010 audio adaptation of Christie's 1944 mystery, in four half-hour episodes. Lady Tressilian invites her former ward for a summer visit; he insists on bringing both his ex-wife and his current one. And then people start to die.
1982 drama, dir. Barry Levinson, Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon; IMDb / allmovie. In 1959, young men contemplate growing up, and decide that it's too much like hard work.
2000 mystery, fourth and last of Caudwell's Hilary Tamar series. Julia's aunt Regina has an annoying new fortune-telling neighbour, with an even more annoying droopy niece. Julia's colleague Selena has a client who wants to know which of the underlings at his bank is abusing his position with insider dealing. Which would all be just a series of nuisances, until people start to drop dead.
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved digit substrings and securities validation. (Note that this is open until 24 October 2021.)
The torrent client rtorrent is the best I've found that runs on Unix systems, but its built-in logic is somewhat lacking. Fortunately one can extend this.
rtorrent
2020 science fiction comedy, 10 episodes. On the USS Cerritos, the bridge crew think they're the stars of the show, but we follow the ensigns as they go about their daily grind (plus adventure).
2018 young adult SF, first of its series. Darrow is a Red, lowest of the colour-coded castes, mining helium-3 on Mars to power the terraforming project. One day the work will end and everyone will live on the surface… but it's all a lie.
1981 adventure, dir. Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, Karen Allen; IMDb / AllMovie. In 1936, the treasure-hunting "archaeologist" Indiana Jones tries to beat the Nazis to the lost Ark of the Covenant.
1934 romance. The Winwoods are a good family, but impoverished; the rich Earl of Rule needs a wife. He offers for the oldest sister, as is proper, but Elizabeth already has a beau (though a sadly poor one), so young Horatia suggests that she might do just as well. A marriage of convenience seems like a good idea to both of them, but…
1981 war, dir. Wolfgang Peterson, Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer; IMDb / AllMovie. In late 1941, U-96 goes out hunting Allied ships…
2011 fantasy, last of its trilogy. The Shadowborn are attacking, and even if Lightborn and Darkborn work together that may not be enough to stop them…
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved pandigital numbers and multiplication tables. (Note that this is open until 17 October 2021.)
2016 SF, last of its trilogy. Jak needs to get back to her homeworld of Haefen for specialised medical attention, and to hunt down the sniper who killed her brother; Torrin needs to go there because her sister and business partner has been kidnapped.
1980 air disaster spoof, dir. Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker, Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty: IMDb / allmovie. It's Zero Hour! all over again, with jokes. vt Flying High!
1877 polemic, the autobiography of a horse.
Tenth in this series of one-day conventions, and my first in-person RPGs for quite some time.
1974 air disaster film, dir. Jack Smight, Charlton Heston, Karen Black: IMDb / allmovie. Midair collision over Salt Lake… vt Airport '75.
Since I was in Leeds, I went to the Royal Armouries Museum.
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved Smith numbers and square roots. (Note that this is open until 10 October 2021.)
1970 air disaster film, dir. George Seaton, Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin: IMDb / allmovie. Everything's happening at Chicago Airport tonight…
2021 SF/mystery; 53rd novel of J. D. Robb's In Death series (SF police procedurals). A woman is found dumped on a demolition site; while Eve Dallas is investigating that, another body turns up nearby, but it's been walled up for forty years.
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved date calculations and inner joins. (Note that this is open until 3 October 2021.)
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Since I started doing a film review podcast I hate slightly less of everything, but I hate generic film with nothing to say if anything more than before.)