Monthly Archives: July 2022

Independence Day director Roland Emmerich is making a gladiatorial epic for Peacock

This is a picture from Independence Day’s sequel, but you get the idea. Roland Emmerich, the director behind disaster movies such as Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, and Moonfall, is making a “gladiatorial epic” series for NBCUniversal’s streaming service Peacock. The show, which will be titled Those About to Die, is based on the…

Big Wednesday #4

When I first decided to launch a Wednesday edition of Situation Normal, Christina thought I might be taking on too much. “Babe, that’s a lot more work,” Christina said. “And it’s not like writing the internet’s 57th most popular humor newsletter is bringing home the turkey bacon. Do you have time for a Wednesday edition?”…

A new law is putting astronomy back in the hands of Native Hawaiians

Native Hawaiians have been protested against the construction of the Thirty Millimeter Telescope on Mauna Kea. Now a new law gives control of the land back to locals. This is an artist’s rendering. TMT International Observatory Earlier this month, Hawaiian Governor David Ige signed legislation that transfers control of Mauna Kea—one of two large mountains…

The Gray Man gives Netflix a huge debut, but it’s not 2022’s biggest opening

The Gray Man, Netflix’s hugely expensive new action-thriller, has scored a huge opening weekend on the streaming service.  The movie, which has cost a reported $200 million to make, is based on Mark Greaney’s book series of the same name. It follows Ryan Gosling’s CIA agent Court Gentry – aka Sierra Six, a highly-skilled, agency-sanctioned…

AWS is upping its security and malware protection

Amazon has announced new security features and malware protection services for its cloud business, Amazon Web Services. At its AWS re:Inforce conference, the company unveiled updates such as Amazon GuardDuty Malware Protection, AWS Wickr and Kubernetes support for Amazon Detective. The headline product, Amazon GuardDuty, is designed to detect malware deployed on an instance or…