Ten Forward Lounge - Miscellaneous General Chat & Welcome Thread

Just found that The Outer Limits is on Amazon Prime. I'm a happy geek.

 

I'm binge watching Alias again--you know, that tv show about psychopathic globalist elites using terrorist fronts to fund their research into luciferian occult attempts at immortality?

Haha, science fiction is funny.

 

I just reread that. Thought you said Aliens. Only thing that threw me off: TV show.

 

from the pov of a biologist the Alien movies had their funny side: the poor critter has the mandibles of a human plus a chironomid larva and a dinosaur's teeth plus those of a dog. IRL the unfortunate creature would starve to death as the muscles necessary to work all of these would cross and block each other and wouldn't fit the skull either.

When with a horde of fellow biologist I saw Red Planet in the cinema, we were almost thrown out because we got a laughing fit from the carnivore Martian insects: body of a cicada with a grasshopper's feelers, an LED under its wings, the general shape and colour taken from a Quality Street hazelnut-chocolate (you know, the ones with the triangular cross-section, wrapped in purple foil), head shield borrowed from a scarab and above all they call it a Nematode (which is in fact a sort of small semi-transparent worm). Imagine someone building a monster truck from parts of 3 cars, illuminating it with a string of Christmas lights and selling it as a Venusian aeroplane. That'd be pretty similar (and similarly ludicrous).

But then, Trek isn't free of any guilt in this respect either: remember Worf's pet Targh (a partly shaven wild boar with horns) or TOS' and TNG's infamous in-ear parasites (green lacewing larvae). Tribbles sound and look like long-haired guinea pigs.

If only the'd ask a biologist before they build their alien creatures!
In Bavaria, we have a special name for such patchwork-creatures: Wolpertinger

 

I thought “Doppelgänger” was the correct German word for, “Badly designed alien prop?”

 

That's the term for your duplicate on the other side of the world.

@rhubarbodendron, you've got me curious. You're tasked with designing a truly scary movie prop. What do you design?

 

Scariest thing I can think of:

 

Taxes scare us all @Michael Two Wolves. Well except my Tax Accounting professor in college.

Huh. "Someone Likes Me" trophy, awarded. And there it is.

 

Yes, and with that award comes responsibility...now, it's your responsibility to get those taxes done. Wait, do I deduct LLC expenses on the 1040 form, or the 1086? And do I need to file a 1080 miscellaneous for my LLC if I haven't conducted any taxable business?

 

Yeah, I have that effect on people...

 

I'm a finance guy, but even I have a CPA to deal with that stuff.

 

My CFA said he's never seen the market this broken. That is an unsettling prospect when one considers he's been at this since the early 80s.

 

Which version?

 

1995 version.

 

I mean, that would be nice, yes. But biologists tend to get stuck in the minutia of things

 

Which is why I asked him to design a beast. Would you care to take a crack at it?

 

I am not a biologist and won't claim to be. Most of my alien creatures are usually very humanoid and similar to my reference points.

 

I mean, I like realism. But that Alien Queen, despite the faults, is so good. The above description of the problems is one thing. But I've never really gotten past "two sets of jaws." What would the evolutionary need be for that one thing. Still, badass.

 

Wooohooo! Made it to full status! Time to change my avatar.