The WTC Twin Towers to be (re)built in the future?

Published here first in reply to a post on IMDB.
I don't really know what the motivation was for the construction of the current One World Trade Center instead of building the new Twin Towers with only the same exterior design as the original.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One World Trade Center#Current_building does suggest a few things in terms of politics. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) and state governor Pataki picked what more-or-less became the current design. I don't know why. Larry Silverstein, who owns the site, also favoured a memorial.

The destruction of the original Twin Towers provided designers That major new real estate had to be built anyway to supplant the lost real estate, the designers thus got a chance to build a one much taller tower, with just the same amount of habitable floors and real estate as in one of the original towers.

I personally don't rule out the possibility, that the Twin Towers with the original exterior design would eventually return, but that they would return only after all the six or seven other major buildings and major minor buildings will have been built. The latter also have several dependencies.

This map gives a clue of the stuff that's going on. Here, the new buildings complement existing buildings to the west. Once complete, they all should more-or-less fully surround the old site.

The sortable table here offers the current construction status of all buildings involved on the site. Sort by date of completion, and you'll see how far along the project is going. So far, 3 Word Trade Center is under construction, and will be done in about 2018 or so. Construction of 2WTC is on hold because of a lack of tenants.

ID4. Aftermath.

Reply to thread post at "Independence Day: Resurgence" IMDb board. The post was interested about how reconstruction worked, and what could have been the changes in society.

My reply:

The POW thing is interesting, because I wouldn't be surprised, if a huge can of worms was not opened.

And also something to deal with how that alien society works. In 20 years, the surviving aliens must have had children, who never experienced living in space.

Omitted:

Sure, war stories must have been aplenty, but then how do you explain your children, that you lost a conflict? One option is, that they never told their offspring. But being all-telepathic, it's hard to imagine, that the kids wouldn't learn in time. Unless the surviving aliens completely isolated their children, or that the amount of offspring was too small to worry too much about what they would think.

OTOH, there's the nowadays' North Korea, where people truly believe, almost as a matter of religion, that they had an upper hand. Or that they're still the best thing ever. Dictatorships often rely on propagandistic belief systems that support such a rule.

The trailers suggest, that the first-wave aliens knew their stay was temporary, so I imagine the offspring might have been taught, that "oh, it's just temporary, we're leaving soon."

Kerr metric and black holes

A different explanation I told someone in a comment to their Google+ post, wherein they mulled how it works.

This is what my tired mind conjured up based on skimming the Wikipedia article on the subject: The Kerr metric suggests two surfaces with singularities: a round one inside an oblate (elliptical one). Imagine putting an empty toilet roll into the hole of another, and then rolling one clockwise, and another counter-clockwise. I imagine, a Kerr wormhole is a hole, where one hole is in another, and leading from a certain point A to a certain point B in the universe.

---

Now, the image at Wikipedia suggests (to prove?) multiple-universe theory, in that unlike the Schwarzschild black whole, where the orbit is confined to a single plane (if wormhole, then travel from point A to point B), then the orbits around a Kerr black whole are filled in a torus-like region around the equator [of the black hole].

In conslusion, the image supports a multiple-universe theory; so not just from point A to point B, but presented with some choice. OR, an unstable, but traversable wormhole.

I don't really have anything else to back this up with, but the musings of my rather vivid imagination.

Herkulapuder ja kaerahelbepuder

Putrude vahe on selles, et herkulapuder on nõukogude igand, roheline ja väkk kokatädide alatu kättemaks järgmisele põlvkonnale (teenimatult); parimal juhul odav maoloputusvahend, millega muudetakse ajutiselt seedetrakti liikluskorraldust, et läbi viia ootamatult erakorraline "kanalisatsioonipuhastus". Nii et haigelt roheline mass, mis korrumpeerib sisikonda.

Seevastu kaerahelbepuder on midagi maitsvat.

Ma tean nüüd küll, et õige kirjapilt pidavat olema herkulopuder, aga lasteaias oli see minu ja teiste kasvandike jaoks alati herkulapuder, ning teist hääldusviisi ma 2016. keskpaigani kunagi ei teadnud. Isegi kui keegi täiskasvanutest ütles herkulopuder, muutus see laste suus sujuvalt herkulapudruks.

Miks Mick Pedaja "Seis" ei saanud Eurovisiooni Lauluvõistlusele

Peale Eurovisiooni Lauluvõistuse finaali ülekannet näitas ETV Mick Pedaja laulu "Seis" "Eesti Laulu" finaalesituses; arvan, et nagu väikseks kättemaksuks nendele, kes valisid Pootsmanni poolt, ning kes peavad nüüd elama teadmisega, et "Seisul" oleks olnud parem minek.

Teisalt on probleem ka selles, et Mick Pedaja pingutas "Eesti Laulus" vaikset laulu esitades üle. Oletades, et kui ta oleks laulnud täpselt nii, nagu originaaltrackil / YouTube'i videos, siis oleks ta ehk saavutanud edu.

Neljas põhjus on selles, et kui mulle meenub, siis oli veel telefonihääletamise ajal küsitud "Eesti Laulu" žüriiliikmetelt, et kelle poolt nemad hääletasid, ning Soome noor ja populaarne laulumees nimetas Pootsmanni. Vahetult enne või keset hääletust, kui õigesti meenub.

Kolmas faktor, mis mulle alles hiljuti pähe torkas, oli ka see, et "Eesti Laulu" finaali kanti üle vist vähemalt tunni-pooleteise võrra varem, mis tähendas, et oma hääle said mobiili kaudu anda ka paljud kooliealised, kes tavapärase ülekande-kellaaja puhul oleksid pidanud hääletamise ajaks juba magama (ca 23:00–00:00). On lapsevanemaid, kes sõltumata laupäevasest õhtust on erinevatel põhjustel laste magamisrežiimi suhtes väga kindlameelsed.

Samas — Läti lugu "Heartbeat" jõudis finaali, kuid sai seal 15. koha 26-st. Hoolimata oma väga kaasaegsest produktsioonist on loo vahekulminatsioon natuke-natuke aegunud või õige pisut vanamoodne, vt positsioon videos @2:00. Siiski on finaali jõudmine ja saadud koht ka hea tulemus. Tuleb veel nentida, et "Heartbeat" on osades veidi sarnane eelmise aasta võitjalooga.

Edit: Kui järele mõelda, siis lapsed valisid hoopis Cartooni laulu (sest multikas), ning tiinekad teismelised plikad ja üks noormees valisid Jüri Pootsmanni.

Sexualisation of Women in Star Trek. Then and Now.

This was originally a reply in Google+ to a comment that complained about Uhura's sexualisation in the new Star Trek movies.

With sexualisation I mean a sexualised depiction of women.

The fact, that Uhura never had a long-term on-screen relationship with anyone until 'Trek 2009, meant, that many viewers felt her character not bound to anyone.

Part of the ploy of any exotic production is to get enough non-fans to catch on to a show.

It's possible, that the sexualisation part might have been the reason why Ms. Nichols almost left the show, had Martin Luther King, Jr. not prevented her from actually doing so.

During the TOS era, Uhura wasn't any less sexualised by those days' mores, but visual stimulation did not appear unusual.

But because how Uhura was positioned, it was: "Wow, a black woman is part of the major cast! Fourth-in-command (MLK told Ms. Nichols how important that was)! She can fix radio equipment! Operate a difficult communications console! Play with frequencies!" All this was so huge, that people forgot, that the dress on Ms. Nichols was per fashion still very skimpy.

Now the progressive part of society is desensitised to the fact, that a black person and a woman is just as capable and even more so; cf. Mae Jemison.

Sexualisation of characters is not unusual now either, but as a (Western) society, we appropriate a different value system to it, because our expectations are higher.

I've been so late to Star Trek memorabilia

This was a reply in Google+ to a comment, which encouraged people not to go to watch any new Star Trek movies.

Well, unfortunately, the first 'Trek movie I saw in a cinema, was Into Darkness.
• My first physical Trek item was a keychain I got from my sister in 1995, who returned from a student trip to Florida. I loved the keychain, but after years of use, the appended Trek Star pendant was unable to hold itself onto the keychain, and is now lost somewhere. I still have the keychain part.
• My first 'Trek DVD is "Star Trek: Nemesis" (a present from a close relative).
• I bought my first and only Trek toy just a couple of years ago, and it was a small JJ-Enterprise by Hot Wheels.

I'm 34, and so late with all that fan stuff, though I've been a Trek fan since I first saw "Q Who?" on Finnish tv at a classmate's house.

And when I was a kid, I first heard of Star Trek in a hospital from an older kid (a teenager). It was the second or fourth time I was in a hospital, because I had had an ear infection (again). I still remember how he drew the outline of Enterprise-D, and said that people lived there and stuff. It was truly fascinating.

I can't exactly remember which year it was, but Estonia had not yet regained independence, and Finnish tv was officially verboten, but change was in the air already.

Not all people could see Finnish commercial tv channel MTV3 (launched in 1986), because their sets didn't have the "Finnish block" or "the Finnish antenna" (probably PAL support), but those that could see, salivated at all the yoghurt ads, and cried the most bitter tears for not having all that yummy goodness :9

Whilst we had the deficit. And there were block-long queues for sugar, for milk, for butter, for meat (any kind), for oranges (rare!),

for tangerines (only during holidays),

for bananas (the nomenklatura and the wives of Soviet officers could have a lot of everything from special shops meant for the nomenklatura, but bananas were on occasion sold to families with lots of children),

for cotton (important for the ladies),

for ciggies, for vodka, and for almost everything else.

Basically, anywhere you saw a queue, you joined it and then information about what people were standing in the queue for, was eventually passed down the grapevine. Like in that children's game of "Telephone" (-: