No one seems to care that Chewbacca is about to punch it.

I just what to make this clear from the very start, this isn't another rant about star wars, this is in fact an article about faster than light travel. If you got the badly phrased reference, well done you are obviously the pinnacle of human evolution, if not well... better luck next time. So recently I found out that a scientist called Harold White went in front of hundreds of other scientists and said that he was going to prove that his design for a faster then light ship was possible. The interesting thing about all this is that everyone looked at the maths and it seemed to check out. So now he's going to NASA to try and prove himself right. 

So I want  to let that soak in. a scientist, a smart man by all accounts  has in his possession a theoretically sound way to make a ship that can travel to other planets. I know I use this word a lot but this is simply awesome, in the truest sense of the word.

Ok here are the details, he's basing all his theory on what is called the Alcubierre Drive, which sounds so sci fi that had had to check it several sites and even then I'm still a little worried. The very basic jist of it is that this engine would for all intents and purposes shrink the area of space time in front of the ship, and expand it behind. This would do two things: one it would give you forward momentum, and more importantly two, it would create a sort of bubble which would allow the ship to reach faster than light speeds. The engine could get to Alpha Centauri (our closest pit stop in the galaxy) in two weeks. Alpha Centauri is 4.3 light years away. Mr White though has refined one of the main problems with the original design, that is, it uses much less fuel. The original design needed so much energy that the energy would be the size of Jupiter, obviously not practical. White though has made adjustment to the field that allows the ship to only use a fraction of that, less than a tonne in fact. 

There are still problems though, some quite huge, such as where the fuel is going to come from. unlike any other space ship so far made this ship doesn't rely on strapping yourself onto a huge amount of explosive liquid, instead it uses exotic matter, namely exotic matter that has negative mass, and so create negative vacuum energy. On a side note don't you just love scientists and the great names they give things. Honestly if star trek gave the world anything it gave us generations of scientist who had a thirst to discover new ideas, then give badass names to them. this negative vacuum energy though has yet to be proven in a lab, though the theory is apparently sound, and that is the first step in White's plan. 

The second problem then is what happens to all that energy that the ship produces. as i said before the ship warps timespace around it using the field produced by the exotic matter, but what happens to the energy that is used to propel the ship. to push a ship to faster then light speeds means that alot of energy is going to be pushed backwards, enough to destroy whole solar systems according to some estimates. 

the next problem is that once on course there would be no way to steer, the way you started is the way you're going. this to me does not seem a huge problem though i imagine driving into a star would be a bit embarrassing for the captain. Another slightly more serious problem is whether the ship would survive travelling that fast, even colliding with small particle of matter would case huge explosions. Also the heat generated would be huge.

But despite these problems I’m still ecstatic, after all a bunch of real, non crazy people are still looking into this and are cautiously hopeful. its been years since i was able to dream of visiting other planets without the boring rational part of me (the one i try hard to not listen to) telling me that it could never happen. Space travel has become interesting again, because lets face it the whole taking photos of Mars is ok but the fact that we will probably never go there makes it less interesting. This also comes at a perfect time, as there us a real push to find other planets like ours, which has had great success. so now we have destinations, all we need is for White to be proved right.

But what amazed me most about all this though, is how little most people seem to care. I know it won’t affect many people for years to come even if it is successful but even the possibility that we might one day be able to cross our galaxy in just a couple of months should make people even a little interested. But no, almost everyone I talked to about this either didn't care or even more bizarrely wouldn't even want to go to another planet if they could. to me this is mind boggling. How can anyone not want (to steal a phrase) boldly go where no man has gone before? Has space travel become such a non entity for modern day society that this didn't even make any news websites? Back forty years ago the very notion that we might one day be able to actually explore would have been a cause of excitement, not disinterest or dislike. To sum up then modern attitudes to space are stupid. Soon the rest of the astronauts to walk on the moon are going to die walking on another planet will just be a memory.

Why it is weird that you haven't seen star wars

So recently Disney bought lucas film, and unless they want to make a star wars battlefront 3 a reality (which would be amazing) they really want to make a new star wars trilogy. To get this out of the way, I’m all for this. In a huge way. The purists who are crying in despair about the ruining of star wars should shut up and watch avengers again, that was done by Disney. Hell the whole marvel universe that has been built up for the last couple of years has been because of Disney. Also the extended universe is very hit and miss, but some of the hits are pretty damn good. So there are plenty of good story ideas out there, but even if they decide to ignore that all there is still a good chance that it will be awesome. Anyway back to the issue at hand, it really is weird if you haven’t watched star wars.

Star wars has become huge, a cultural cornerstone which has been referenced thousands or even hundreds of thousands of times, in the unlikeliest of places, from serious dramas to light hearted comedy. Think about that for a second, no other film has that much of a reach, or so many of them in one series. If a film is very lucky, and extremely popular then maybe an idea, phrase or motif will start to spread, for example everyone remembers the t rex scene in Jurassic park, or the ending to citizen Kane. It’s incredible that star wars has so many, think about it most people could name five maybe ten concepts or lines that would immediately make anyone think of star wars. If someone says “that’s no moon”, or pretends to have a lightsaber even the philistines who have never seen it will know the reference. There was even a satellite system named after star wars (imaginatively called star wars, but hey that’s what you get when you put a retired actor in the white house).  Star wars then is film that speaks to both the previous generation and the current one, especially with the new movies coming out there seems to be no signs that this will change any time soon. People who saw the first film in the cinema are in their mid forties now, and with the internet taking off at much the same time it isn't too much of a stretch to say that stars wars has changed our world, even if it was in small ways

.

But do you know the real reason why you should watch star wars? because they are great movies. They are included in almost every single greatest movie list. They have won countless awards and been watched millions if not billions of times. It’s been translated into a hundreds of languages and is generally pretty darn good. It is a huge shame that for some reason genre films are looked down upon as films, that their artistic merit is seen as somehow less then serious films. Think about it what other film has had such a huge impact but is so widely trivialised, and for no good reason. It’s not as if they aren’t great movies, they have everything a films needs. The journey is satisfying, the world building is top notch, each films story is pretty great though the overall plot is sometimes a little spotty (the whole sister brother kissing fiasco). The series is filled with more archetypes then Jung could psychoanalyse, the wandering hero, the wise man, Good vs. Evil, the redemptive journey. Plus it has laser pistols!

i love this poster for so many reasons, but the fact that in India a moon that can destroy planets isn't scary enough, it has to have eyes to make it really scary is probably the greatest thing ever.

Star wars then is one of the all time classics, has permeated so far into our society that to not have seen it is to not quite understand current pop culture. You may understand where the references and quotes are from, but if you haven’t watched Darth Vader tell Luke he is his father (and not know beforehand) then whenever someone makes the reference that memory just won’t be there making the joke mediocre at best. Even if you aren't a big fan of sci fi, everyone should watch them, at least once just to understand (also light sabers are the best thing ever).

Wolverine sucks Cyclops rules

So I was having a conversation the other day with fellow geeks and someone made the point that wolverine was the best x man, a thing that my fellow geeks took as a law of the universe. In their minds apples fall down, cupcakes are delicious and wolverine is the best x man. When I said that this was complete balderdash I was promptly shouted down, it got worse when i said that Cyclops is in fact the best. Since this is my website and they physically can't shout me down from here this is my article all about why wolverine sucks and why Cyclops is the best there ever was.

Wolverine’s stupid back story

Ok firstly Wolverine is trying waaay to hard, coolness is not a thing that you have to strive for, you either have it or you don’t and Wolverine definitely doesn't have it. Wolverine in his long life has been a pirate king (kind of), a samurai  a ninja, a soldier (who almost killed Hitler)  plus a bunch of other things. Does this not strike anyone else as trying too hard to hip and down with the kids?  Remember that he is an old man, and this is as embarrassing as one who refuses to act his own age. The writers want him to be cool so desperately that they keep adding more and more to his back story that it becomes a mess. If they had just chosen one back story I could get behind this crazy Canadian, but because of this misguided assumption that everyone loves Wolverine they had to add more and more and so make him ridiculous. Before you hypothetical readers starts complaining that all long running comic book characters have huge and convoluted back stories compare his back story to Cyclops. His dad becomes a space pirate by accident and pushes Cyclops and his brother out of a plane to safety (which gave him brain damage not allow him to control his powers). He wanders around for a few years beats up a few villains, and then Xavier finds him and trains him. This in my mind is a good origin story small, but important. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t know it but it helps you understand Cyclops if you do, not the sprawling mess that Wolverine’s is. Also i feel this is important to say again, his dad is a space pirate!

Cyclops leads the team

Cyclops has to lead the x men and is (mostly) successful, that is the world hasn't be ended in one of the many colourful ways. This is huge any way, after all I'm pretty sure he’s even saved the galaxy a couple of times but to do all that and keep the team together is nothing short of amazing. Look past the awesome powers of the x men for a moment, and you realise that these are a bunch of badly damaged people. Rouge has intimacy problems, Beast has body image problems and gambit has a pesky gambling problem. Honestly Freud would have a field day, imagine how difficult it would be just to keep them all in line let alone get them to do anything more productive then finger painting. But he does and wins as well, even with an annoying screw up you won’t do what he’s told, or to call him by his real name, Wolverine.

Wooden claws

Not really much to say on this, but when he was born for some reason he had wooden claws. This is stupid. Wood is never cool. And how would it even get in there?  Also why would you have a power that hurts you every time you use it? That is a crappy power any way you look at it. At least Cyclops power was meant to work, before he was thrown out of a plane.

Cyclops gets the girls

In the films, comics, and tv shows one plot line is always there, the Jean grey love story (also this is a complete side point by why doesn't Jean get her own code name? everyone else has one. why is it that she has to be taken over by an alien force/ have her full powers awakened and go on a rampage for people to give her a cool code name?). The question is always who will she choose? And the answer is always the same Cyclops. Do you know why, because moody badass is great for attracting the ladies but lets be honest no one wants to wake up next to a moody badass, as I imagine he would never be the one to make the cup of tea in the morning. Also what kind of guy tries to get with another man’s girlfriend (which is bad enough) when he not only a member of your team, but has also saved your life at least a couple of times that day. And nothing ever happens between then, or at least not for long. It is easy to imagine then that on the few days off the x men have form world saving Logan is on facebook looking through Jean’s photos and generally being a creepy (and very much older) dude.

Cyclops also does well after Jean goes dark phoenix and flies off into a star or whatever else she feels likes doing, as he moves on and falls in love with Emma Frost. The comics make no bones about the fact that she is... experienced in all matter of fun things, plus lets be honest even by super hero outfits hers isn't exactly modest.

honestly this well covered for her,, it's like she got half dressed then got bored .

But Cyclops manages to create a relationship which as she is a telepath who can also turn into diamond, which is no mean feat. And what does wolverine have? The best he has done is squirrel girl (if you don’t know who she is and for some reason have an inability to use Wikipedia, don’t worry I’ll be covering her in another article later). Wolverine puts so much time into creating this image of himself as the gruff loner that he always ends up alone. To be honest if you had to choose one of these guys wouldn't you want to be the guy who can actually be happy.

Wolverine has no responsibility

This is just a continuation of the last one but i felt it important enough to make a new title for. What does wolverine do most of the time? When he is called he makes a decent leader but always quickly gives up the role as soon as he can. Cyclops has to make decisions that effect thousands of people every day, and Wolverine has to decide what... which vest makes covers the least amount of his abs?

looking up both him and emma frost above my search history has taken  an odd turn.

Useless against their biggest enemy (magneto)         

HE IS MADE OUT OF METAL! YOUR MAIN ENEMY IS A GUY WHO CAN CONTROL METAL.  WHY ARE YOU A MEMBER OF THIS TEAM! Seriously choose another team the avengers or maybe any other team out there where the main bad guy isn't able to stop you with a thought. This would be like superman going out of his way to find a guy made entirely out of kryptonite and annoying him until he fought him.

why superman!? all i was trying to do was take out the rubbish!

So that's it, I hope this goes some way to stopping this crazy obsession with wolverine the internet and geekdom in general has with him, and instead give a little love to the poor dude who has to look after a bunch of homicidal teenagers with powers.

p.s. A wolverine sounds awesome but is just a badger, and the only badger that is at all scary is the honey badger. No one would think he was so awesome if he was called badger man.