Why Star Wars Episode VII can't be even as good as Episode V

There was some chatter recently at some point about how the next Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens is going to be not just as good as The Empire Strikes Back was.  No, not just as good as - better than.  That's essentially impossible.

Complicating this claim is who it might be it's being made about.     Somebody who saw the original Star Wars in a theater on release year when they were ten?   (Twenty?  Forty?)    The people that made the first movies IV-VI?  (The people that made the last three I-III?  Are making these three VII to IX?)   Perhaps a twelve-year-old who first watched Episodes I-VI  in order, numerical story-chronological order, just last year for the first time.  Maybe an eighty-year-old who first watched IV-VI then I-III in release-chronological order just today for the first time.   Somebody who started in on Episode I as an eighteen-year-old, saw I-III and who has never gone back and watched IV-VI.   Somebody who hasn't ever seen any.  Somebody who watched a random one, hated it, and didn't watch any more.

Instead is the claim not about who will think the newest one is better - but that on some sort of imagined objective basis, VII will just simply be a better movie than V was.  Not how much it makes, as that isn't necessarily (and often isn't) a particularly good gauge of the quality, or what the fans think of it, or anything else.   Such as that out of the existing six movies,  Episode I is  (in an absolute-dollars in-theaters box-office-take sense) the highest-grossing domestically - likely VII will take that over, no matter what, it being the first movie in a number of years.   It's pretty certain this movie will indeed draw huge numbers of people for a while everywhere it's released, and make a lot of money.   So, no, not what it earns.  Better as in on some notional trusted qualified film expert opinion of movie quality, or what officially-sanctioned top-tier fans say about it, or using the sliding scale of motion picture merit system they secretly use at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.  Better in an absolute objective measurable sense that doesn't exist.

As far as better in the actual world to somebody or another though, to and for whom would it be better?  That's a question.   To be better, as in be superior in general overall on most any scale, and regardless of how that superiority is measured.  (Say, gets the most votes on a majority of variables  in random phone sampling of some number of questions of this movie compared to the the other one.   However that would be done.)  Let's say then that the claim is VII is better to those who also saw IV when it came out.  Who has watched all six so far as they were released.  Who has been a fan of (or even disliked or hated one or more of) the six movies that currently exist in public.  Regardless if that person today forty-four (6 in 1977) or one-hundred-fifteen (78 in 1977).

A person that's seen all six movies so far in the order in which they were released around release, they will think Episode VII is better than Episode V.  

Not likely.

Sure, always in motion is the future.  How good or bad this new movie is "in everyone's opinion" and what it's better or worse than on some enjoyment meter, not a fact.   If this newest Star Wars movie is better, after some comparative analysis or another of opinions, that's not a done deal yet at all.    Since the movie isn't even out yet, it's not been established that it is fully without doubt impossible that it can or will be better.   Better, to whatever extent something subjective can be superior or inferior to something else subjective, to somebody somewhere be that from one person to everyone currently in existence on this planet of ours in this galaxy so very near.  Even to somebody that doesn't particularly enjoy science fiction or action or anything but nonfiction.

Here though are some of the reasons that at least highly suggest this claimed improvement can't be accomplished.     Reasons to consider in examining the contentions that VII FA will be better or can't even be as good as V ESB was.

Pyramids

There are pyramids of all shapes and sizes all over the world.    We're going to write about some of them here, the most famous of them (we in the West might say).  

In a country currently known as Egypt (Ararb Republic of Egypt, Gomhoreyyet Maṣr el-ʿArabeyya) there are a number of pyramids, depending on how you count them, some hundred and fifty of them.    The oldest (as far as we know) are in Saqqara, with the Pyramid of Djoser estimated as currently being about 4,600 years old.    We'll focus on the pyramids in Giza though.

The three largest pyramids (The Great Pyramids) in the Giza Necropolis are Khufu's (Great Pyramid of Giza) Khafre's (sometimes Sphinx Temple) and Menkaure's (the smallest of the three).   

Why, well "Cheops Pyramid on Egypt's Giza Plateau" is the last remaining of the Seven Wonders of the World, after all, and the three making up The Great Pyramids rather go together.

Miley Cyrus??

Just recently, well recently enough, Miley Cyrus has been creating quite a stir with her racy and outrageous behavior, some might say.    Really.     Is that right.   Is that so.   Ha!    Maybe.

All you never wanted to know about vaping

I'm somewhat an earlyish adopter here.  That is, beginning back in 2010 before everything found its way into grocery and convenience stores.  That is, before there were physical stores specializing in vaping supplies, back when only a few Internet companies were actually located in the US.  The time when users often had to get everything from the source areas of China. (Even though the original concept was created in the US, the recent methods were pioneered in China.)

Certainly, as far as anyone knows, none of this history and experience necessarily means anything, in the sense of how qualified I am to discuss vaping.   However, in my defense, I'd say there's enough experience there to be at least somewhat qualified to offer some information and opinion on the subject.   Information derived at least partially from those experiences and other experiences like them.  Thus I have at least some first-hand idea of what I'm writing about. 

At the simplest, vaping is just inhaling some sort of atomized/vaporized/heated material or liquid.  In our sense of vaping, vaporizing a particular liquid mix.  There is a heater (a coil made of resistive wire that electrically is put through) and a carrier liquid that is flavored and that much of the time also contains nicotine.   The entire device doing the heating is often called an electronic cigarette.  Many times it is not electronic (just electrical) and is not a cigarette (because nobody is lighting dried vegetable matter on fire).   Yes, if  the process is controlled by circuitry other than just the heater that's pretty much electronic, and often the device itself on purpose resembles a cigarette, and performs much the same function.  An airplane is still not a bird.   Either way though, quibbling about these recently invented terms of e-this and e-that (terms that are perhaps not quite always correct) might not be quibbling worth carrying out.   So we'll just  point out that the terms might not be exactly explanatorily descriptive per definition specifically.

One might believe that as somebody who'd been vaping for a number of years, I'd be claiming that vaping is factually all sorts of things compared to smoking.  Proven to be not as  inconvenient and damaging to self and others, less expensive, and safer.   Not at all.   I'm saying maybe yes, sometimes.   True, in some cases with certain qualifiers.  Depending.

Anyone telling you that vaping is cheaper, better, faster, smarter, safer, healthier?  Either they don't vape and don't know, or they're just making things up.   Yet the same goes for anyone telling you that vaping is more expensive, worse, slower, dumber, more dangerous, unhealthy.  By and large, none of these things are facts and you should be wary of anyone suggesting they are.

That's racist!!!

Just to be clear about this, it's not really about anything in particular, other than an observation about some language-related matters.   That is the misuse and abuse of words.

What is racism?  In the sense of being a noun, it means

A belief that members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race - especially so as to distinguish that race  as being inferior or superior to another race or races.

Which brings up another question, what is race?

A social concept, where a group of people share similar distinct physical characteristics.

Which leaves us pretty much nowhere, because how can one set of similar distinct physical characteristics be inferior or superior to some other set of similar distinct physical characteristics?   If some group has longer legs and another larger lungs.  If some group has curly hair and another straight.   Why would being of some color or shade (yellow, brown, white, black, red, pink, dark, light) or from some area (continent, section, place; Caucasian, Asian, African, Scandinavian, Pacific Island, Atlantic Ocean, Antarctica) make one of those better or worse than another.    No, some grouping of arbitrary criteria isn't any more or less superior or inferior to another grouping of arbitrary criteria.

If we take some endeavor (say, NASCAR driving) and then look at who is doing the bulk of it to create a group with a name describing in some way its members (say, Rednecks) we might be able to then suggest the reason rednecks are NASCAR drivers is because they're superior at it, and other groups with less people doing that endeavor are inferior at it.      Yet there are other types of competitive sports involving vehicles, so how about F1 drivers, we can make the same sort of statement, suggesting  that Europeans are superior at that because numbers of participants.   But then we're down  whining about which sort of driving is better or worse, and if there are other endeavors where the two groups are equally good or bad and not superior or inferior comparatively to each other.   Or even asking if being able to "drive cars fast" is important to argue about.   The whole idea is as stupid as this paragraph.

Race is an entirely ridiculous concept to begin with.  Your skin color or the size of your face or the length of your nose or the shape of your brain doesn't do anything except perhaps at best make you personally (in that trait) better or worse at doing something.   Say, if you live where the air is thin, and your lungs are bigger, you probably have an advantage at running that somebody who is from where the air is thick and has smaller lungs; unless they are better practiced at running, or have stronger legs, or more endurance just because they do.   Or they have an affinity at building tables made of wood and you don't.

In common usage though, what we might refer to as a race is actually more to the point an ethnicity or a nationality.

But by the heading of race, and being superior to another race (say, by shade, that  as a whole,  brown people are better than pink people)   it's quite possible people (who are brown) living on the US side of a town are superior to people (who are pink) living on the Canadian side of a town   Again, ridiculous even in concept.

Now, let's say that some people live in New Mexico on the southern border of that state. Say also that some people (who some are otherwise exactly the same and who some are instead vastly different) live in Chihuahua on the northern border of that state.    If the people in Chihuahua are against the people in New Mexico immigrating (either legally or illegally) then how can that be racist, or even racially motivated?   It might be nationalistic, or it might be ethnic, or it could be political.   But racist?

Yes, of course, some of the people could have racial reasons for not wanting anyone from the other side of the border coming over.  In the end result though, the social matters between the two groups is about location, and about residency, not about anything else when it comes to the big picture.

It's like suggesting that the two sides of Punjab (state versus province) are racially separated, when it's far more likely the differences are at best religious and political.

But you know what, I hate people who are older than I am.  

How racist is that!

Powerful thoughts

While nuclear power should never be a first choice, due to the many dangers (in operation, the costs involved, and the waste material produced) it can be a viable alternative. That is, nuclear power is not something to 'direct away from' a priori, but an option.  Another topic of discussion in producing the energy that more than seven billion fellow travelers on this planet require now and will require in the future.   

Take for example France, the largest exporter of power derived from nuclear sources. The country has some 58 nuclear power plants, which produce about 70-80% of the electrical power in that country, or put in another way, about 40% or so of its total power consumption, versus about 10% in the United States.

The population density in France is more than 300% of that in the US (2004, that was 110 people versus 31 people, per square kilometer) so France's solutions would not be the  solutions for the United States, especially given the existing natural resources in each respective country based upon the area of the nation. But still, dismissing one particular solution over another out of hand (without a through investigation of the pros and cons, costs and benefits, and risks and rewards) is not necessarily a logical manner of determining the best choices overall. Life is full of dangers regardless of their source, either way.   Even if not planning on using such, one must understand all the factors relating to the issues in specific circumstances, so as to come to a reasonable conclusion based upon those specific factors.

As far as conventional fuel sources go, there are a number of issues involved, bypassing even the question of nuclear energy.   With conventional sources, hopefully (perhaps expectedly) research and development (as well as economic pressures and the like) will result in cleaner coal-fired power plants, although that still does leave the question of mining the coal, and its availability. Sources of methane give the impression that there is basically a limitless supply, although some debate still exists on the subject. New discoveries of oil, and the quantities of it available from shale (and the economic pressures and advances in technology) make it also a resource that should far exceed the expectations of its continued availability. So on multiple fronts, the use of conventional fuels does not seem to be going away any time soon, regardless of what using them means on an environmental front one way or the other. We must deal with what is, not what we want it to be.

So to get to the "alternative renewable sources" other than nuclear.

Hydro-based power is currently responsible for much of both the base and peak contribution to non-fossil fuel energy sources, but there is a limit to how much energy water can produce, which depends upon the location and the systems to produce it more so than we can directly control the water itself upon demand.

Wind-based power may contribute more and more, but there is a limit to both the efficiency and costs of wind turbines, as well as a limit to where we can put them and how many we can put there. There are also other ramifications such as aesthetic and wildlife concerns.

Solar-based power is also promising, with recent thin film and clear cell technologies that will spread out emplacement and efficiency. After taking into consideration life cycle and maintenance considerations of course. This seems the most promising of the alternative fuels.

Hydrogen-based power can also be an answer. Creating hydrogen fuel and stations in various areas with the population density or pollution concerns to make it practically or economically viable can be part of the answer.

Biofuels are also a possibility, but they have their own trip-wires, such as over the cycle, it seems that adding and removing the vegetation would lower the amount of greenhouse gases they can sink far more than the benefits of replacing petroleum provide. Although there is some indication that food sources may be impacted by using agriculture to produced fuel instead, this is probably a red-herring, perhaps; the source versus sink issue is a far larger concern.

In most of the above cases, the issue is also of storage. What battery technologies are here now, and what are on the horizon, to store the created energy that can't be fed back into the grid?

This all leads to the question. In the face of scarce resources, how do we best manage them for both the planet and humanity? What possible unintended consequences do we face now and in the future? Is humanity actually able to control what the weather and climate do? Are the same technological advances that allowed over seven billion of us to be alive able to reduce or remove whatever affect we have upon the planet, given the uncertainties that exist?

Regardless, when it comes down to the end of the trail on this subject, humans and their actions producing energy by the use of fuels and the way we shape the surface of our habitat is an issue that needs to be wisely managed and planned for in the future, and only by an honest assessment of all possibilities and their consequences can we reach a reasonable answer that will not cause other problems that we didn't expect.

SCOTUS opens door for federal recognition of same-sex marriages

The federal definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman appears to be unconstitutional, with the expected sort of 5-4 split that essentially says it's an issue with no clear answer.

Not unexpected, given the number of states that provide for same-sex marriage, the military no longer excluding people based upon their sexual identification, and the general acceptance in popular culture of gay (male homosexual) and lesbian (female homosexual) characters in most forms of media and entertainment.

There's a set of train tracks, and the train isn't levitating or going off the rails or suddenly stopping against its own inertia.

So now the legal doors are open to recognizing same-sex marriages at the federal level.    Is anyone really surprised?     The times, they are a-changin'.