"You're still blogging? Who still blogs?"

In the fall of 1994, I dialed into a friend's bulletin board system for the first time.  If you're wondering what that is, or was, a bulletin board system - BBS for short - was a computer system that you could phone into with a modem and share messages, download files, play games... it was a taste of the Internet way before most people had any access at all to the "information superhighway".  They were something like CompuServe, America Online, and other commercial services of the Eighties and Nineties, but they tended to be much more local.

BBSes were almost always the projects of hobbyists.  My friend Mark's BBS, which he named NEXUS, eventually had five phone lines.  That's five different people who could be dialed-in at a time, conversing or playing games with each other.  It was something that blew my mind and it made me wonder what things would be like once full-bore Internet arrived (which it did several months later).

It wasn't long after discovering Mark's system that I had an idea, if he was up for it.  Would it be possible to set aside part of the BBS for my own use?  The notion that had gripped me was to have some "op-ed space" on the board.  A place that I could write for, on whatever topic struck my fancy.  It would be like the letters of mine that the News & Record published on a semi-regular basis.

Mark thought it was a terrific idea.  And yes, such a thing was possible.  And that's how Knight's Corner was born.  It was my own little niche of the online world.  A place where I could share thoughts and opinions.  I used Knight's Corner to talk about a little bit of everything: the 1994 elections, a review of Star Trek Generations, sharing a recipe for Chex snack mix (one that includes assorted nuts)... lots of other topics.  I would post a new Knight's Corner every week or so.

Then in January 1995 Mark's BBS and several others were featured in a newspaper article.  The reporter made mention of Knight's Corner.  Within a few days NEXUS saw a lot of new users, dialing in from all over the Piedmont area.  And it was so amazing, all those people who were now also reading my stuff.  It was almost intoxicating.  And it made me wonder all the more what it would be like once I was on the real Internet.

I mention all of this because there's a paper trail that can be established going all the way back to late 1994, that I've been writing for online consumption this entire time, on and off for over thirty years.  When I started classes at Elon I learned how to make webpages, and I "migrated" Knight's Corner to my account there, for all the Internet to see.  I kept that up until I graduated, and then I found hosting on a free service.  Less than a year after that I was invited to join the staff of TheForce.net, and I wrote a lot of original pieces for that site, and was getting read by a daily audience numbering in the tens of thousands.

And now it's this blog, which I've been maintaining since early 2004, pretty much continuously apart from a little less than two years between 2016 and 2018, when I was traveling across America with my dog and then taking some time to address a few personal issues.  Even then though, I was posting some stuff for friends to read on Facebook.

So that's the vast majority of my life that I've been writing for an online readership.  It's a part of my personal legend now.  I'm not happy unless there's a keyboard and an online connection nearby to be a gateway for my thoughts.

I write.  It's what I do.  I have been writing like this ever since my English teacher in my freshman year of high school told me that it was a gift that I have.  I've done my best since Mrs. Rutledge told me that to make the most of it.

At least three times in as many months recently, I've been met with some incredulity when I've said that I have a blog.  People can't believe that that sort of thing is still being done in this day and age of social media.

Maybe there is some disdain because I'm being old-fashioned.  "Blogging"?  That requires actually reading something.  It's not moving images, it's not sound.  People aren't taking the time to read anything anymore.  Instead it has to be slickly packaged in something possessing motion and noise.  People expect their senses to be assaulted by sensory input.  And merely reading words doesn't satisfy that need.

I know that.  I accept that.  And that makes me want to blog that much more.

Media changes.  It always has.  Ever since the pharaohs dictated their decrees to be recorded in hieroglyphics.  But the meaning, the pure thought behind the visuals, that doesn't change.  It's not how the thought is expressed, it is that it's expressed at all.

So it is that I choose to employ a purer method of conveying my ideas, and ultimately myself.

I've experimented with posting video.  Perhaps I need to try that more.  I don't think I'm terribly un-photogenic.  I've made appearances in public and on television, talking about everything from bipolar disorder to digital copyright law, and I can present myself masterfully enough (I like to think so anyway).  But there's something about words that are permanent and immutable and can be appreciated again and again, and again.

Most modern media is designed to elicit an immediate response.  And that's not really what I'm out to engender from anyone.  I believe in being thoughtful.  I like for the recipients of my media to take some time to think about what it is that I've come to say.  Instead of being forced to hurtle on to the next thought without time to ruminate upon what I've just said and need them to consider.

In the end, I believe that my blogging will be of more permanence than any TikTok video or picture posted on Instagram.  We've been using textual sharing of information, in some form or another, for going on six thousand years now.  What I do with this blog isn't too terribly removed from the Gutenberg press, or illuminated manuscripts, or parchment, or papyrus scrolls.  It's just a refinement, several generations on, from impressing clay tablets with cuneiform.

I love my audience.  I'm very thankful for that.  It may not have readers in the millions or even the hundreds of thousands.  But then, I don't necessarily write for the masses.  I write for people who will truly appreciate what it is that I am bringing to the table and the conversation around it.  That's the way I've always been, looking back across the decades of my life.

It may lack the numbers that it once did at the height of blogging.  But I choose to continue blogging nevertheless.  And one never knows.  It could be that what I write today, will be read by many more people in the years and decades to come.  Like I told a fellow writer for Elon's student newspaper, when I gestured toward the bound volumes of past years' editions: I don't just write for the people today.  I write for them too: the ones who come after.  I write in a way that I hope leaves a good impression upon them.  That is especially why I write what I do.  My audience is potentially vast.  Much more so than what I can perceive today.  And I owe it to them to give them my very best.

Yes, I still blog.  I know I'm not the only one either.  But even if I were, The Knight Shift is my own little piece of acreage on the Internet.  It's my well-tended garden, as Samwise Gamgee would put it.  Made and built-up with my mind and my own two hands.  I intend to keep tending to it for as long as I can.  Indeed, if something were to happen to mine I've made arrangements for friends to post about that here.  And there is even an "end of the world" post that I've specially composed for when the apocalypse happens.  One final bit of myself to share with readers before the end of humanity.  I don't think that's macabre.  I just like being prepared.

So to anyone who's wondering why I have The Knight Shift and if I'm going to give it up because people aren't reading blogs anymore: I've no intention on going anywhere.  And if the muses of technology are kind, these words will endure long enough to be read by whoever may be interested in my eccentric life generations from now.

I like to think so, anyway.

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Book Report: My challenge to myself

The search for a literary agent continues.  But I'm afraid that I really might have written something that cannot be represented as most other books can.  I've said it a few times already: the book I 've written may be too liturgical for a secular audience, and too worldly for more religious readers.  There are a lot of elements in it that would fit in something found on the shelves of the average Christian bookstore.  But there are also a lot of things within its pages that would absolutely disqualify it from that kind of retail market.  For an agent to pick it up for representation would be a risk.  I can understand that.

Dad was the one who most believed in this book.  A lot of people have told me that they wanted me to write my story.  But Dad especially.  I wrote this in his memory, more than for others.  Well, I may have written it for my dog also.  Tammy doesn't come into the book until a bit later, but she has definitely inspired and encouraged men to stay the course.

So I'm considering other options for getting my book out.  I believe in it.  It's going to find an audience.  It doesn't necessarily have to get to them through traditional publishing.  But there have been other books that have seen distribution outside the normal channels, and they have gone on to great things (The Martian by Andy Weir and Legally Blonde by Amanda Brown come to mind).  Who knows, maybe mine will find a little bit of success too.

Well, I've written a book.  It's now well past the first draft that  I completed the week before this past Thanksgiving.  It's not going to get out there just sitting on my iPad Pro.  Some initiative on my part is called for...

Here is the goal I have set for myself.  It's going to be hard, it certainly won't be as easy as many if not most people think it might be.  I'm going to have to learn quite a bit about proper formatting.  But this is what I'm setting out to accomplish.  I'm going to aim to have my book on sale on Amazon by the end of the year.  Maybe even by the one year anniversary of the first draft's completion.  New Year's 2026 is going to find my autobiography available on Kindle tablets and apps, as well as printed form in softcover and hardback.  Which would include a proper jacket, and I've some ideas about what I want that to look like (the photo of Tammy and me on the beach in San Diego on Thanksgiving Day 2016 would be great for the back cover).

Between then and now is some editing and proofreading (trusted friends have been doing some of that), as well as legal counseling.  There are things in this book that I need to be really careful about.  A lot of people get mentioned in my book and I have to do right by each of them.  I like to think that they will be honored.  This is my chance to give them credit where it's due.  And also to do my best to make up for some things that I regret.  As I've said in the proposal that I've been sending out, one of the things that my book is, is an act of penance.  Maybe that will be made clear if it comes out.

Hey who knows.  It might even be ready for the holiday season!  THAT would be pretty neat, to give out my book as Christmas and Hanukkah presents.  Hey, sometimes Dad would make knives to give to friends and family for Christmas gifts.  I would be following in his stead.

That is my plan.  To have the book available for purchase by the new year.  We'll see if I can pull it off.

I've shared this before recently.  It is a picture I came upon the other week.  It's from the Codex Manesse, a German illuminated text dating to 1304 A.D.  This image is perfect for the cover of my book.  It says so much, without giving anything away at all.  I've already got a draft of the cover, just needs a bit of fine tuning.

When you see this picture on the front of a book, you will know that I've succeeded.

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Eighty years ago today: A false sun over Trinity

Eighty years ago today, in the early morning at a place called Trinity in the desert outside Alamagordo in the New Mexico desert, a new star arose from the landscape.

It was not a natural phenomenon.  This unprecedented display of light and heat, brighter than two suns as one observer said, was a thing engineered by the minds of men.   It was seen for hundreds of miles in every direction.

"I am become death, destroyer of worlds," project lead Robert Oppenheimer uttered when he beheld the culmination of years of research.  Physicist Kenneth Bainbridge perhaps summed it up better: "Now we are all sons of bitches."

Man had at last seized the power of God in the palm of his hand.  The atomic age was upon us.  And nothing would ever be the same again...

Remembering the first nuclear explosion, July 16th 1945.

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"Found you": The trailer for the final season of Stranger Things just hit the Intertubes!

Just like "Running Up That Hill" did three years ago, "Child In Time" by Deep Purple is no doubt going to burn up the charts on Spotify and iTunes the next few days

Behold the trailer for the very last season of Stranger Things:

The kids look GREAT!  It's almost like no time has passed at all since we last saw them in 2022.  For all the delays that COVID and then the strikes caused to this series's production, it doesn't really seem like the cast has become too old for their parts.

Maybe we should call Stranger Things "the little Netflix series that could."

Part one of the final season drops the day before this Thanksgiving.  The second part on Christmas Day.  The grand finale on New Years Eve.  And I seriously don't know what my pop culture drug of choice is going to be after this series is finished.  For the past decade Stranger Things has been the only series of television or movies that has really interested me.  What's going to take the place of that?  Or could it be that the final season will herald my "growing up" at last ?  I like to think that I've still got a smidgeon of "the old fire" in me, waiting to be fanned into new life with the right kindling.  But I really don't know what that could be.

EDIT: late yesterday Netflix released the poster for season five.  I'm getting the shivers looking at this one....

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Back from seeing Superman... so what did I think?!

After my most recent post about Superman a lot of people, especially friends, said that I needed to see the 2025 Superman movie for myself, instead of being so quick to judge by what, well... shall we say more judgmental voices have spoken about it.  It was enough to compel me this evening to use a movie gift card that has been burning up my wallet for awhile now.  So I've returned from seeing David Corenswet in his first outing as the Man of Steel.

What did I think about it?

In general, I liked it and I'm probably going to like it even more tomorrow after it's had some time to percolate in my gray matter.  One thing I will say that came as a bit of a surprise: it is not political at all.  Or at least I never picked up on any agenda infusing the story.  It's as straight-up and pure a comic book movie as I've seen in awhile.  It's not "woke" (I hate everything that word has come to mean in the parlance of American politics, nothing screams arrogance in an iron fist like "wokery").  It's actually making an effort to not be "conservative" or "liberal" at all, as one sound bite late in the movie touches upon.

The one thing I really didn't care about Superman 2025 was the language.  It could be a bit much.  No, there is not a single F-bomb that is dropped in this film.  But it was perhaps more than should have been included in a film about perhaps the most beloved superhero of all time.  Maybe in another comic book film (perhaps one devoted to Guy Garner, played in this movie by Nathan Fillion in a stroke of perfect casting) that would be appropriate.  But not for a strictly Superman movie.  It's not very, well... Superman-ish.

If you can forgive that, then 2025's Superman is a very good time.  This movie has quite a bit of heart to it.  The film quickly establishes that Superman has been active for a few years already, so he's still figuring things out.  Like reconciling his raising by Ma and Pa Kent with his Kryptonian heritage and the powers that come with that.  And speaking of that, Corenswet does a masterful job portraying both Clark Kent and Superman as different characters, as they are supposed to be in the tradition of the comics going back almost ninety years.  Superman 2025 establishes fairly well that Clark Kent is Kal-El's earthly identity, that Superman is an alter-ego of.  It was something that Christopher Reeve was the platinum standard for measuring an on-screen Superman, and Corenswet does his due well in upholding that trick.

Well, I could say more.  Better to see it for yourself.  I had a good time and you probably will too, if you can forgive a few things.  My favorite film featuring the character, and maybe my favorite comic book film of all time, is likely forever going to be 1978's Superman: The Movie.  Now that movie did have heart!  If that film is 5 stars, Then I'll give 2025's Superman a 3 and 1/2 stars.  Worth seeing while it's out in theaters.

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Superman: "Truth, Justice, and the American Way."

I haven't seen the new Superman movie that opens today.  Between one project and obligation after another there hasn't been much time lately for anything like going to the theater.  I hope to catch it soon though.  For as long as I can remember I've been a Superman fan to some degree.  Superman is the superhero.  The prototype by which all others are measured.

In some ways, by which all of us in the real world can be measured, too.

Over the past few days I have heard some bits about Superman as he's being portrayed in the new film.  Now, the character is almost ninety years old.  There has had to be some growth and acclimation during that time to keep up with the times.  But one thing in particular about this latest incarnation that I've been hearing about and... well, it kinda bugs me.  Because there is no reason why this should be a problem, for anyone.

It seems that Superman is not about "Truth, justice, and the American way" anymore.  Superman is now now for "Truth, justice, and the human way."

Ehhh, no.  That's not right.  Superman should be for "the American way".  And here is why:

The "human way" left to itself doesn't have a good track record.  The American way is about believing in something better than ourselves, the people recognizing that it's what they have to aspire toward, and then doing their best to make that happen.  That ONLY happens if there is that belief in something higher than man's own nature.  Heed that and humanity can do great things.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with the American way.  It's not perfect and it never will be, but the American way that was traditionally part of Superman's mythos was the best that could be in this world still dominated by baseline Homo sapiens.  Superman isn't here to force us to be for the "human way".  He sees something greater within us and is going to do HIS best to help us come to that of our own.  Superman is an avatar of what is still best in men, something that for all the rotten that human nature is capable of inflicting, is still going to be there in defiance of the bad.  Superman calls out to that remnant (as the prophet Isaiah called them) who hold to incorrupt principles.  They are the ones who truly "get" Superman and always will.

Maybe that's one of the reasons why Christopher Reeve's will always and forever be the platinum standard by which every Man of Steel is held to.

No, I haven't seen the new Superman movie.  I want to though.  But I'm just a little disappointed to hear that there's been that much of a change in Superman's guiding morality.  We are supposed to see the best in Superman.  And he is supposed to see the best in us.  And strictly speaking as a historian, who may happen to be an American citizen, this would have been a far different past century if it had not been for American exceptionalism.  We must be doing something right, for so many people wanting to come here.

Superman symbolizes the best in us, that looks to something larger than us.  And in turn, America is supposed to symbolize what is best in other people, when THEY look to something larger than even America.

There is nothing wrong with that.

(Superman image by Alex Ross)

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Forty years ago this week: New Coke officially bombed

Depending on who you listen to this was either legitimate corporate bungling on an unprecedented scale, or it was the greatest ever conspiracy by an American company against its customers.  There is no denying though: whatever it was, it worked.

It began in April of 1985.  Soft drink mega company Coca-Cola ehhh... "changed" the formula of its flagship product. "New Coke" was claimed to be much better than the original product  That is what all the advertising told us anyway.  I mean, even Bill Cosby swore and declared to us that Coke had been improved upon.  "The impossible has become a reality," he assured us.

Bill Cosby wouldn't lie to us, right?  Right?!?!?

People tried New Coke.  And the vast majority of them said that it tasted nowhere as good as the original product.  I remember it also.  It tasted more like Pepsi Cola.  In fact, if I had done a blind taste test with New Coke and Pepsi I probably wouldn't have been able to tell a difference between the two.

There is no telling how many letters and phone calls the Coca-Cola Company.  But it was a lot of them.  And the company wisely took notice of the outrage.  Less than three months later Coca-Cola CEO Roberto Goizueta went before a nationwide audience and admitted that the reaction to New Coke had, ehhhh... not been what the company calculated it would be.  So the original drink was going to be coming back, as Coca-Cola Classic.  This was a MASSIVELY big deal.  I think all the network news broadcasts that night opened with the Coke story.

So within a week or so we got Coca-Cola Classic on our shelves and vending machines, and they sold so fast that distributors could barely keep up.  Sales of the original Coke in the early weeks and months of its return eclipsed those of its competitors.  Which makes some wonder... and I am one of them... if the whole thing was an orchestrated stunt from the very beginning.  It was brilliant psychology at work, if truly it was.

Ultimate Classic Rock remembers the fortieth anniversary of the return of the original Coca-Cola formula.  Something that one had to have been there to really appreciate the enormity of.

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Star Wars is harboring betrayal!

Okay, let me say first that I love this little film!  Whatever has happened to Star Wars in recent years, there still are and always will be the true fans who thrill to share their love of the saga with others.  This spot shows the kind of energy that we used to have at a new Star Wars movie.  The costumes, the mock lightsaber fights, screaming lines from the movie out loud... 

...it was a whole different and in so many ways better world than it is today.  I know, I was there.  I didn't just see it with my own eyes, I was part of it.  Maybe it will come back someday.  Especially for the youngsters.  The ones who George Lucas intended Star Wars to be particularly for.  The grownups have tried to make Star Wars into something it was never meant to be.  So we get bullcrap like The Acolyte and movies with no clear plan in mind (coughcoughsequeltrilogycoughcough).

Actually, I'm coming to like Episodes VII through IX now.  The more time that goes by since that trilogy ended, the better those movies seem.  And the children seem to like them well enough.  I saw lots of young girls dressed as Rey when The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker came out.  If they were enjoying that, just as my generation did Star Wars in our own youth, well... what's wrong with that?

Anyway...

Coca-Cola has this new film that celebrates what it means to be a Star Wars fan.  Here it is:

Okay, like I said I love that spot!  But my memory can be a harsh thing.  Because what might be to the chagrin of some, I also remember a time more than a quarter century ago when that was not Coca-Cola in cahoots with Star Wars.  And this is why things like YouTube are so handy.

Behold the Pepsi commercial that premiered during the Super Bowl in 1997, days before the Star Wars: Special Edition was released in theaters:

Not kidding: in the space of two months I saw Star Wars movies eleven times altogether.  A New Hope four times, The Empire Strikes Back four times anda three for Return of the Jedi.  That was my second winter at Elon and I was sort of the stereotypical "Star Wars geek" for our campus.  Ahhhh, those were good times.

Okay, I'm feeling my Star Wars mojo coming back, a little.  We will always have the original movies at least to bask in.

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Thoughts about the "One Big Beautiful Bill"

There is both jubilation and lamentation abounding tonight following Congress's approval of President Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill".  Personally, I have some mixed feelings about it.  I'm not going to let the shrill hysteria coming from some quarters persuade me that it's an entirely bad thing though.

I think the thing I've heard most from those opposing the budget is that it's going to starve "millions" of people.  And that it's going to deprive many others of necessary medication.

Well, let's see what someone who has in times past been on government assistance for food, and medicine, and has worked in the public sector as a mental health professional, has to say about the "One Big Beautiful Bill".  You ready for this?  Because you may not be expecting what I'm about to speak about it.

Okay, here we go...

The public food assistance is horribly abused.  A lot of people are on it that don't need to be.  Cut them out and there will be MORE assistance for the ones who do need it.

America is the only country in history that can not only produce more than enough food for its own people, it can also feed entire other countries.  That's a pretty good system if you ask me.  Not "perfect", that is not possible and never will be.  But nobody is going to starve because the "Big Beautiful Bill" was passed.  This of all countries is a place that doesn't have to worry about people going hungry.  If they need food they CAN get it.

I know!!  I've had to get help myself.  There are food ministries and other charities that are dedicated to providing sustenance.  It may not be the choicest food but it will feed and stave off hunger well enough.  Enough to hold out and wait for the bad times to end.  It's what I've had to do.  As rough as times have been, I believe enough in America to have faith that we shouldn't be defined by our circumstances.  A lot of people here have been reduced to near nothing, only to come back stronger than ever.  The "Big Beautiful Bill" isn't intended to be a hand-out... but it will be a hand-UP to those who need it.  We aren't meant to be wards of the government.  Get some help when we need it?  Yes.  But that shouldn't be forever.  A person should want and be driven to achieve more than that.  It's certainly been one of my motivations.

The "Big Beautiful Bill" isn't going to starve "millions" no matter how much people on the left claim that it will.  It won't deprive anyone of medication if they need that.  I've worked in the healthcare industry, in the public sector, and I have faith that people won't be losing services.  The bill is going to slash wasteful spending and make things more efficient though.  What resources have been there already, are going to be better allocated.  I for one am not worried about how it's going to impact mental health services especially.  That is arguably the most critical medical need that government can allocate resources to.  Take care of the mind and a lot of other things are alleviated, like substance abuse and homelessness and malnutrition.

We can't tax ourselves into prosperity, though that has been the core belief of modern liberalism for many, many decades.  And we are taxed to the breaking point already as it is.  We need tax cuts, very much so.  We need spending cuts too, and be wiser with our expenditures.  We can't keep going as we have been.  That has been found to be foolishness.  We have only been hurting ourselves.  Cut taxes, eliminate the waste, and watch the revenue come in.  It worked forty years ago and it will work today too.

It didn't have to be this way.  We could have avoided all of this.  We could have been more demanding of the representatives we sent to chambers of legislation from town council on up to the Capitol in Washington.  But it's better to willingly face reality now, than be compelled to confront it under harsher circumstances.

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"The earth isn't going to produce justice."

 Something I read on a news/politics discussion forum last night that has stuck with me almost 24 hours later:

"The earth isn't going to produce justice."

Isn't that the truth?

As much as things are wrong and we want to make them right, the sad fact is that this is a fallen and corrupted world.  No matter how much we long for it and try to bring it about, there is no lasting good.  There might be some temporary reprieve, it seems.  But it never lasts.  Wickedness will always prevail, at least until such time as Providence sees fit to directly intervene in our affairs.  Indeed, it seems that the more we strive for good, the more that effort is corrupted and brought to ruin.

What do we do, then?

Do the best we can.  Accepting that that's the best we can do.  Deceive none.  Let your "yes" be yes and "no" be no.  Seek wisdom and discernment.  Bind not yourself to the spirit of party, which is invariably reduced to collective foolishness.  Do not trust in governments of men: however well-meaning their beginning, though it may take centuries they will always let us down.  Don't trust in men.  Trust in God instead.  We should dedicate our efforts to Him. The good work is ours, but the results are forever His.

Those of wicked device in this world seem to be all powerful.  But they are as mortal as any of us.  They will pass in time.  Their realms will pass with them.  And in due time, a better world will be brought forth, wrought from holy Hands.

The earth isn't going to produce justice.  That is true.  But we can do what is within our power to seek justice.  Knowing that we will fail but having satisfaction in knowing that we at least tried.

It's how I try to live, anyway.

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Kenneth Colley, who played Admiral Piett AKA the luckiest guy in the Empire, has passed away

The sad news is coming out today that Kenneth Colley, the British actor who portrayed Admiral Firmus Piett across two Star Wars films, has passed away at the age of 87.

Colley had enjoyed having many roles in his six decades as an actor.  He did some work with Monty Python (that's him playing Jesus in the opening of Life of Brian) and he appeared in Clint Eastwood's 1982 sci-fi Cold War thriller Firefox.  Colley was also among the amazing cast of the sweeping television epic War and Remembrance.

But it is his portrayal of Captain... and then Admiral... Piett that is most remembered in the annals of pop culture.

Piett first appeared in 1980's Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back as the captain of Executor, Darth Vader's flagship Super Star Destroyer.  Following the deployment of thousands of probe droids across the galaxy, Piett was monitoring their progress when a droid in the Hoth system picked up signs of habitation.  Admiral Ozzel was quick to brush it off, though Vader took interest and was convinced that this was the Rebel base that the Empire was looking for.  Vader ordered the fleet to set course for Hoth, as Ozzel gave Piett a spiteful glare.  Piett merely stood in quiet confidence, content to have done his job to the best of his ability.

I think that Darth Vader appreciated that.  Vader appreciated Piett as a man.  I have to wonder if Vader had wanted Piett to be higher up in the chain of command all along.  It would explain Vader's disdain for Ozzel.  When Ozzel messed up by coming out of hyperspace too close to Hoth, Vader was all too eager to express his displeasure.  Vader immediately tapped Piett to take Ozzel's place: "You are in command now, Admiral Piett."  Piett expressed his thanks and immediately gestured for Ozzel's corpse be taken off the bridge.  And then toward the end of the film, when standing there after Vader had lost the Millennium Falcon, Piett awaited his lord's next action, certainly that he now would be punished.  Instead Vader walked away, and no doubt Piett breathed an inward sigh of relief.

Piett showed up again in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.  He must have been doing something right because by that point in the story he had survived being admiral aboard the Executor for a year.  Admiral Piett had been ordered by Emperor Palpatine to move the fleet around the Death Star to the far side of the Endor moon, where it waited to ambush the incoming Rebel forces.  In the massive space battle that followed a Rebel A-wing veered out of control and slammed into Executor's bridge.  Piett and the rest of the command staff were killed, and Executor was sent smashing into the second Death Star's  surface.

Piett has been called one of the most important of the many background characters in the Star Wars saga.  Kenneth Colley certainly brought dignity and gravitas to the role.  It was one of those nuances that gave Star Wars its rich and deep presence in our culture.  It also endeared himself tremendously with fans, who Colley always came across as being very appreciative of.  I had the honor of meeting him a couple of times, at Star Wars Celebration II and then III a few years later.  The first time we met, I told him that it must be quite something to be known as "the luckiest guy in the Empire".  Colley said that he heard that quite a bit actually!

He played an honorable and decent bad guy, and you had to respect a character like Piett.  Colley really was the only person who could have pulled that off as magnificently as he did.

I think that in his memory I'll plop in my Blu-Ray of The Empire Strikes Back for background sound as I work this afternoon.  Which includes this classic scene of Darth Vader "promoting" Piett to admiral:

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I'm going to start a Fallout tontine

This November will mark ten years since the release of Fallout 4.  That game was published seven years after Fallout 3.  There was Fallout: New Vegas in 2010 (still need to finish that one, my friends swear it's the best of the series).  And I suppose there was Fallout 76 in 2018 but that game just isn't the same.  Fallout really is more of a single-player experience, though I know that Fallout 76 does have its loyalists.

So this will be a full decade without a mainline Fallout entry.  Surely we're going to get word sometime soon that a new one is coming, right?  Right?!?

The sad fact of the matter is, friends, is that video game production is now (a) very expensive and (b) very loooong.  Grand Theft Auto V was first published in 2013.  Its follow-up was announced two years ago and it's going to be fall of 2026 before it's released.  Which if the trend continues means that Grand Theft Auto VII won't see the light of day until around 2040.

See where this is getting at?

So when I came upon this article at Gaming Bible about when we might expect to see Fallout 5, my heart fell.  But I suppose I should already be braced for it.  The next Fallout game may not get published until I'm pushing sixty.  Maybe by the time Fallout 7 comes out I'll be looking forward to seeing Halley's Comet for the second time in my life.

Let's just get the obvious out of the way: there are many people reading these words who won't be with us when Fallout 5 comes out, and certainly not when Fallout 6 is released.

I've got something figured out though.  A strategy that will help pass the time.  I'm going to start a Fallout tontine.

You probably know the concept even though the word is fairly rare in the English language.  A tontine is an agreement where a party of individuals put something in security.  It could be a sum of money.  It could be a more material item.  And whoever is the last surviving member of the agreement gets the goods.  There was an episode of M*A*S*H where Colonel Potter and his friends during World War I had saved a bottle of fine French wine, and the final friend left got the bottle to enjoy.  It was also the subject of an episode of The Simpsons.

Here's the plan: I'm going to get some friends together.  We're each going to contribute some money to the tontine.  Whoever is alive when Fallout 6 comes out (I'm going to allow for robust health between now and then) gets the money, which after accumulating interest should be enough to buy a then-modern generation video game console, a new high-def screen, and a copy of the Fallout game.

No, seriously, this is what I intend to do.  I may be coming up on eighty years old when the chapter of Fallout following the next game is released, but I'm going to do my best to play it.  It's going to be a life goal.  And if I don't make it to then, I will get the satisfaction of knowing that a good friend is going to play it in my honor.

I do NOT plan on doing this with a BioShock game though!!

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Book Update: I am in LOVE with this picture

I'm starting to wonder if the most realistic route to getting my book out there might be publishing on Amazon.  It's not really self-publishing, it's pretty much like traditional publishing in many ways.  As much as I would love to see my book on the store shelves that may not be possible right out of the gate.  Going through Amazon would let me keep the rights to my work, it gets released, and maybe it will sell well enough that a proper publishing house will want to buy it.

I've noted before, that this book is probably too Christian for the secular market and it's much too secular for Christian audiences.  Maybe this gets to be something that breaks new ground for other books that can't be readily defined.  Which would be a great honor if that happens.

So yesterday afternoon I had some time on my hands and I decided to work on a cover for my book, if it goes to Amazon first.  I went looking for pictures depicting men of chivalry.  My first resource to investigate was a website that hosts a big image of the Bayeux Tapestry.  For an hour I looked all over that thing and found nothing that really jibed with what I had in mind.

About 45 minutes later though I came upon this pic.  It's from the Codex Manesse and dates back to the very early 1300s:

It's perfect.  It absolutely fits with the themes of my book.  It's very beautiful too.  I honestly can't believe that I came across this image.  I could have been looking forever and not found an adequate pic for the cover.  But this one absolutely fits with what I have written.

It will make even more sense when the title is revealed.  I'm still not ready to reveal that.  It's not time for it.  But I can't but think that the time for that is drawing closer.

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Watch the General Lee jump the fountain in Somerset, Kentucky

This is already the most beautiful thing I've seen all week.  A Dodge Charger kitted out to look like the famous General Lee from The Dukes of Hazzard goes roaring down the street in Somerset, Kentucky and jumps a ramp and goes soaring through the town's water fountain.

Behold the stunt!

Okay, yeah the car got banged up a bit (the driver didn't get a scratch apparently, thank the Lord) but that'll buff right out.  Throw on some Bondo and a good sanding and it'll be good as new!

Notice how this car is all-out faithful to the General Lee of the show.  Including the Confederate flat on the roof.  That's a really good touch, completely in the spirit of the TV series.

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ChatGPT Psychosis: Yes, this is a real mental illness

I regularly work with artificial intelligence as an AI trainer.  I also have a lot of experience in the mental health field, as both a professional helping others and also as a manic depressive who has been a "consumer" of services at various times.  So this article both fascinates me and also greatly disturbs me.

The website Futurism has published a VERY disturbing article about "ChatGPT Psychosis".  Ever since the rise of that and other popular artificial intelligence "chatbots", there has been an ever-increasing number of people who have become consumed by the technology.  Maggie Harrison Dupré has turned in a remarkable report illuminating the issue.

From the article:

And that's not all. As we've continued reporting, we've heard numerous troubling stories about people's loved ones being involuntarily committed to psychiatric care facilities — or even ending up in jail — after becoming fixated on the bot.

"I was just like, I don't f*cking know what to do," one woman told us. "Nobody knows who knows what to do." 

 

Her husband, she said, had no prior history of mania, delusion, or psychosis. He'd turned to ChatGPT about 12 weeks ago for assistance with a permaculture and construction project; soon, after engaging the bot in probing philosophical chats, he became engulfed in messianic delusions, proclaiming that he had somehow brought forth a sentient AI, and that with it he had "broken" math and physics, embarking on a grandiose mission to save the world. His gentle personality faded as his obsession deepened, and his behavior became so erratic that he was let go from his job. He stopped sleeping and rapidly lost weight. 

 

"He was like, 'just talk to [ChatGPT]. You'll see what I'm talking about,'" his wife recalled. "And every time I'm looking at what's going on the screen, it just sounds like a bunch of affirming, sycophantic bullsh*t." 

 

Eventually, the husband slid into a full-tilt break with reality. Realizing how bad things had become, his wife and a friend went out to buy enough gas to make it to the hospital. When they returned, the husband had a length of rope wrapped around his neck. 

 

The friend called emergency medical services, who arrived and transported him to the emergency room. From there, he was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric care facility.

 

It sounds almost like something out of science-fiction.  But it's happening.  Thankfully it hasn't struck me.  Maybe one reason is because as remarkable as artificial intelligence comes across as being, I'm really not all that impressed with it.  Strip away all the shiny veneer and AI isn't much else but advanced mathematical set theory with a language emulator welded on.  Granted, it also has an enormous base of data to draw from, but proportionally not much more than has been made available to the average Internet user for more than thirty years now.

I use ChatGPAT every so often.  It can be a terrific tool, if used responsibly (and generating "art" depicting General Robert E. Lee dueling with a Predator probably isn't that).  When it comes to research it can be a solid instrument.  However do bear in mind, I do not and never will use it to "write" for me though!  Unless it's explicitly stated that it's generated by an AI, pretty much everything you read or see on The Knight Shift - apart from cited articles like in this post and the like - comes from my own mind and whatever hands-on skills and creativity I have been endowed with.  If only many others would have more confidence in their own minds and know that they are loved and appreciated in ways that no computer, regardless of how advanced, can possibly possess.

Maybe I should consider getting back into the mental health field.  It seems that there may be a burgeoning "market" soon for technology professionals who also have expertise in psychiatric health.

Since I mentioned it, here indeed is a rendering of Robert E. Lee fighting a Predator, generated by ChatGPT.  I'm not all that impressed with this either, to be honest.  Lee looks way off.  It's a pretty spot-on Predator though...

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Svengoolie! Or: How I spend many Saturday nights

Not looking like there's going to be any going about this evening.  There are a few things I've got on my plate, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  And there is always church in the morning, so that accomplishes my spiritual and social needs in great part.

So on a Saturday like this I do some errands around the house, play with my miniature dachshund, make dinner, and for the rest of the afternoon and early evening it's usually sitting up on my sofa with my iPad and keyboard and working on writing.  And that's how a lot of my other nights develop into: writing for my book or op-ed pieces, or the fantasy romance novel that I've been inspired to start (seriously).

But since this is Saturday I've also got the weekly entertainment to look forward to, straight outta Berwyn.

Every Saturday night at 8 p.m. Eastern (and 7 Central) sees the next two and a half hours blocked off for Svengoolie on the MeTV network.  Svengoolie is a madcap "horror host" of the kind that many television stations had back in the day who every week would present a scary(?) movie.  These actually ran the gamut from straight-up horror classics to science-fiction extravaganzas to mélanges of both and sometimes it would be more comic fare.  It was all good and great fun!  And the hosts were as much a hoot to behold as the movies themselves.

Svengoolie - whose real name is Rich Koz - has been upholding this noble tradition from the Chicago market since 1979 (yes, more than 45 years now!).  Some time ago he and his franchise were picked up by MeTV and he's now presenting his favorite films for a nationwide audience.  And the nation has certainly taken notice.  Svengoolie is now one of the most-watched programs during the weekend.  It has become a true Saturday night ritual for countless fans, who show their appreciation in many different ways (being photographed wearing a Svengoolie shirt in some exotic location is particularly popular).

It's a terrific formula for good hearty entertainment!  And it has also introduced me to a lot of movies that I otherwise might have never seen.  A few weeks ago Svengoolie presented Strait-Jacket from 1964 starring Joan Crawford.  I thought it was an amazing film that more than deserved to be seen by a modern audience.  And last week's feature was Village of the Damned (a movie I first saw in 1989 on "Billy Bobb's Action Theatre" on Greensboro's Channel 48).  That is also a motion picture that merits appreciation by people of our era.  Whether the movie of the week is terrifying or thought-inducing or evoking laughter, you can't go wrong with Svengoolie (and his pals on the Sven Squad).

If you've never had the pleasure, I can't recommend Svengoolie nearly enough for Saturday night.  It's a rollicking fun time to be had by all.  And hey Sven, if you're reading this, I would like to suggest that some week you might run Yor: The Hunter From The Future.  It's perfect Eighties schlock that deserves some modern appreciation.  The #svengooolie hashtag on X/Twitter will be burning up with commentary!

'We will need a lot more hemp before we're through."

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