Raithe

Well, there was a reason so many issues were raised up about Concorde being allowed to land in the US... Those tender hurt feelings because it got developed on this side of the pond first...

It's also a lot more cost effective for the Chinese to put a small amount of money into stealing the tech from the US than it is to research it themselves. In a sense, the USA is funding China's research game.. 😄

Not give away, but actually act like they cared about people and make some try at engaging with solutions, rather than blame everybody else, run the hate, while focusing on not letting anyone else do stuff in case they win points. 😄

On other random news elements of it: https://www.wotseries.com/2021/12/26/season-two-cast-melissa-james-jessica-boone-more/

Enjoy your season's best folks.

Watched the new Matrix. Mildly entertaining, hugely meta. Is a sequel while snarking on sequels. Makes a few interesting points on 'what happens after the hero wins and goes off into the sunset'. Has a few poignant moments. No really clear standout action sequences. Most of them are messy hordes of people ones where the detail and focus gets lost. Somehow slides into that enjoyable but sort of forgettable popcorn variety of film, while still being sort of intelligent story. But, mostly well done for all that.

‘The Wheel of Time’ Season 1 Ending Explained: Showrunner Rafe Judkins Breaks Down All the Big Changes from Robert Jordan’s Books | Decider Amazon Confirms ‘The Wheel Of Time’ Season 2 Has A Bigger Budget (forbes.com)

What the Republicans used to be (kind of)

He did a live reaction watch party with the guy from the Dusty Wheel as they both saw it.

Hm, I was trying to dig up some facts on it, and figuring out where numbers might come from... In 1816 the UK reformed its currency. The gold sovereign, worth 1 GBP was introduced. It contained 7.322 grams of gold. The Feb 2020 price of 1 gram gold is $50.44 USD, so $369.32. There were 20 shillings in the pre-decimal pound sterling. So 1 shilling is $18.47. So 15 shillings would have equalled around $277 for the week. If you want to go by that basis...

Amazon Justifies ‘Lord of the Rings’ Series’ $465 Million Budget | IndieWire