Wednesday, April 22, 2015

22 April 2015

Birthdays
Amber Heard b. 1986 (Zombieland)
Michelle Ryan b. 1984 (Metal Hurlant Chronicles, Cockneys vs Zombies, Doctor Who, Merlin, Bionic Woman, Jekyll, The Worst Witch)
Cassidy Freeman b. 1982 (The Vampire Diaries, Smallville)
Sarah French b. 1982 (Zombie Dolls, Insectula!, Lazarus: Day of the Living Dead, Shriek of the Sasquatch!, Tales of the Dead)
Gemma Whelan b. 1981 (Game of Thrones, The Day They Came to Suck Out Our Brains!, Gulliver’s Travels, The Wolfman)
Michael William Freeman b. 1981 (In Time)
Anna Falchi b. 1972 (Cemetery Man)
Sarah Patterson b. 1972 (Snow White, The Company of Wolves)
Eric Mabius b. 1971 (Outcasts, Resident Evil, The Crow: Salvation, Millennium)
Alix Koromzay b. 1969 (The Haunting, Mimic, Ghost in the Machine)
Sheryl Lee b. 1967 (Vampires)
Dana Barron b. 1966 (Babylon 5)
Jeffrey Dean Morgan b. 1966 (Extant, Watchmen, Jonah Hex, Supernatural, Star Trek: Enterprise, Angel, The Burning Zone, Sliders)
Chris Makepeace b. 1964 (Deadly Nightmares, Vamp, Mazes and Monsters)
Brooke McCarter b. 1963 (The Lost Boys, The Twilight Zone [1987])
Catherine Mary Stewart b. 1959 (Ghoul, Reaper, Nightflyers, The Witches of Eastwick [TV], Knight Rider, Night of the Comet, The Last Starfighter, Mr. Merlin)
Ryan Stiles b. 1959 (Weird Science [TV], L.A.X. 2194, Deadly Nightmares)
Ken Olandt b. 1958 (Total Reality, Digital Man, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Leprechaun, Super Force, V)
Bruce A. Young b. 1956 (Star Trek: Renegades, Jurassic Park III, Highlander [TV], The X Files, Quantum Leap)
Joseph Bottoms b. 1954 (Wishman, The Black Hole)
Carol Drinkwater b. 1948 (Queen Kong, A Clockwork Orange)
Madison Mason b. 1943 (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers, 3rd Rock from the Sun, The X Files, Dark Skies, Omen IV: The Awakening, Dreamscape, Knight Rider, The Day After)
Denis Lill b. 1942 (Highlander [TV], Red Dwarf, Bernard and the Genie, Batman, Blackadder’s Christmas Carol, Doctor Who)
Jason Miller b. 1939 died 13 May 2001 (The Henderson Monster, Vampire [1979], The Exorcist)
Richard Marquand b. 1938 died 4 September 1987 (director, Return of the Jedi)
Jack Nicholson b. 1937 (Mars Attacks!, Wolf, Batman, The Witches of Eastwick, The Shining, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Terror, The Raven, Little Shop of Horrors)
Mario Machado b. 1935 died 4 May 2013 (RoboCop 1, 2, & 3, Wonder Woman)
Peter Ronson b. 1934 died 16 January 2007 (Journey to the Center of the Earth)
Charlotte Rae b. 1926 (The Worst Witch, ‘Way Out)
Eddie Albert b. 1906 died 26 May 2005 (Time Trax, The Girl from Mars, The Twilight Zone [1986], Dreamscape, Beyond Witch Mountain, The Devil’s Rain, Escape to Witch Mountain, The Borrowers, The Outer Limits [1964], Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea)
Byron Haskin b. 1899 died 16 April 1984 (director, The Outer Limits[1964], Robinson Crusoe on Mars, From the Earth to the Moon, Conquest of Space, The War of the Worlds [1953])
Rondo Hatton b. 1894 died 2 February 1946 (The Brute Man, House of Horrors, The Spider Woman Strikes Back)

Notes from the birthday list.
1. The Picture Slot. In 2013, the birthday list had only two names, Richard Marquand and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and I chose Morgan in Watchmen. Last year, I made a long argument why I should include a picture of Michelle Ryan instead of Jack Nicholson. This year, it has to be Jack's turn. While there are a lot of well-known faces on today's list, mainly from TV, Jack Nicholson is the only A-List movie star here and he has iconic genre roles, most notably Batman and The Shining.

2. Not much nepotism. Joseph Bottoms is the brother of Timothy Bottoms. Neither one is vastly more famous than the other, so I'm not going to give this the Nepotism FTW label.

3. The Canadians. Just two today, Catherine Mary Stewart and Chris Makepeace, neither of them making that many appearances in the Canadian genre TV shows.

4. Wait... he's dead? I met Mario Machado when I was a kid. He was a newscaster and the voice of soccer for CBS when the American soccer leagues first started. In movies, he almost always played a TV reporter, as he did in all three RoboCop films. I was not aware he was dead.

5. Wait... she's alive? I didn't know Charlotte Rae was still around and more than that, she's still working, not crazy amounts like Betty White but still about a credit a year.  Good for her!

Many happy returns to all the living on the list and to the dead, thanks for all the memories.
 
Predictor: George Sutherland in his 1901 book Twentieth Century Inventions

Prediction: Almost every seaport town within the tropics--where residents in their houses swelter nightly in the greatest discomfort from the heat--is in close proximity to deep ocean water, in which, at all seasons of the year, the regular temperature is only about thirty-four degrees Fahrenheit. The cost of steel piping strong enough to withstand the pressure of the water in places which possess absolutely the coolest temperature of the ocean would be very heavy; but, on the other hand, the actual reduction of heat demanded for the satisfactory cooling of the air in a dwelling-room is not by any means great, and at quite shallow depths the heat of the air can be satisfactorily abstracted by the sea water surrounding coils of pipes.

Reality: This is a clever idea, but no one ever did it as far as I know. As a prediction I'd say it's a failure, but Sutherland has many ideas no one ever tried that are actually very practical.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

We dip once more into that fountain of bad predictions, the Experts Speak. 

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

2 comments:

  1. Actually, In know that something similar to this has been tried, but more often as a heat sink in shallow river water. there are concerns about raising the temperature of the water.

    From a a pragmatic standpoint, though, it is easier to do it as a heat pump arrangement, and those are quite common, albeit usually ground source rather than water source. The ground is much less mobile....

    Interestingly, I did a rehab project once that had immense windows, on the order of 10' x 16'. The building stretched north to south, so the primary exposures were east and west. We did a building wide boiler/cooling tower system, each unit had a heat pump that either extracted heat or dumped it into the building loop, which the boiler and cooling tower kept at a constant 56 degrees. The surprising outcome is that for most of the year, one side of the building would be facing heat gain and needing cooling, while the opposite would be needing heat. Since these tended to offset somewhat, the overall building energy usage was less than 40% of what was predicted using standard equations.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you ZRMcD. I like your informative posts about architecture, as well as your other stuff, of course.

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