RPL Johnson

We lost one of the greats of stage and screen today. And, in my book, a tremendous friend and man. I learned so much from him. I will miss you, Patrick Stewart, all of my days. @mang0ld

Chad Stahelski, the director of the John Wick franchise, was the stunt and body double for Brandon Lee in the 1994 film The Crow. After Brandon Lee tragically died from a prop gun accident during filming, Stahelski (who was also Lee's friend and martial arts training partner) stepped in to help complete Lee's remaining scenes using body doubles and digital special effects. Stahelski later transitioned into stunt coordination and made his directorial debut co-directing the first John Wick alongside David Leitch before directing John Wick: Chapter 2, John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum, and John Wick: Chapter 4.

PROJECT HAIL MARY author Andy Weir has an idea for a STAR WARS and STAR TREK crossover. “In my mind, I call it 'Star Star’…The idea is that the Genesis device going off at the end of 'The Wrath of Khan' rips a hole in the fabric of reality. And so did, too, the Death Star exploding in 'A New Hope.' It becomes the Yavin/Mutara wormhole. Then I imagine the Enterprise goes there, and so from that point forward, the stories diverge from canon…When the Enterprise goes to the 'Star Wars' universe, Spock [Leonard Nimoy] is dead, because it's the end of 'The Wrath of Khan,' but then Spock becomes a Force ghost. And Sulu [George Takei] has inherent Jedi abilities which manifest once he goes there."  (Source: inverse.com/entertainment/an…)

Thank you to everyone who made THE TERMINAL LIST Season 2 the #1 show on Prime Video less than 24 hours after its release 🙏 If you’ve seen it, what did you think? If not, do your weekend plans include a binge? Will SAVAGE SON be next…?

In 1991 eight people were sealed inside three acres of glass in the Arizona desert to prove that a carefully designed farm could feed humans without the outside world, and the design had almost no room in it for animals. Two years later the only thing inside that had reliably fed them was a handful of goats. Biosphere 2 cost a hundred and fifty million dollars. A rainforest, an ocean, a savannah and a farm under one roof, with the door welded shut for two years and nothing allowed in or out. The farm was the heart of it, and the farm was built on the modern idea: crops first, grown intensively, with livestock as an afterthought at the edges. A few African pygmy goats for milk, a flock of chickens, and four small feral pigs chosen because they could live on scraps. The pigs did not last the year. In a sealed box short of calories a pig is a competitor, and the crew killed and ate them. The chickens barely laid, because the glass cut the light and there was nothing to feed them that would make an egg. That left the goats, and for two years the goats were the only source of fat in a world designed around vegetables. The accounts the crew wrote afterwards return to them again and again. The half glass of milk a day was the thing people lived for. When a kid was born it was eaten and the meal was written up like a feast. The men lost nearly a fifth of their body weight, the women a tenth, and the food they dreamed of was never the sweet potatoes they had in abundance. It was the animal they had been given too few of. The plants were also taking the air. To make the crops grow the soil had been enriched with compost, and the microbes in that soil breathed oxygen faster than anyone had calculated. The level fell from twenty-one per cent to fourteen, the air of a high mountain, until the crew could not climb a staircase without resting and oxygen had to be trucked in from outside. The design that put plants first had removed the thing everyone needed most. Nobody has ever run the experiment the other way, with a herd at the centre and the crops at the edge. It would not have needed a doctor to explain the results. They were given three acres and told to feed themselves on plants. They ate the pigs, worshipped the goats, and suffocated.

Irish people swear Guinness tastes better in Ireland. So four scientists spent a year drinking 103 pints across 14 countries to check if that's actually true. Ireland won in a landslide. Pints there averaged 74 out of 100. Everywhere else averaged 57. The difference held up even after they adjusted for pub atmosphere, how the pint looked, mouthfeel, and which researcher was drinking. Real 2011 paper in the Journal of Food Science, titled "Does Guinness Travel Well?" So you can see why Zuck hauled a keg over from Dublin. Here's what makes it funnier. The draught Guinness already on tap in San Francisco gets brewed at St. James's Gate in Dublin, the exact brewery that fills the kegs for Temple Bar. One recipe, one source, barrels on a boat either way. The researchers figured the real culprit was the tubing. Irish pubs pour so much Guinness that beer never sits in the line between barrel and tap. At a slow bar in America, your stout has been aging in warm plastic hose for days before it reaches the glass. The barrel makes the trip fine and then gets wrecked in the last three feet. So the one thing that actually makes a pint taste like Dublin is a packed pub drinking fast enough to keep the lines fresh. Good luck fitting that in cargo.

Amateur rocket launch triggers lightning strike