NASA’s Apollo 13 Mission Report

How does one weigh pounds of water in Zero G?

The main thing that caught my attention was the many references to various weights of onboard liquids such as water, fuel and non liquids such as oxygen while in space. The measurement is in pounds.  While the other mission reports document various weights it is usually regarding how many moon rocks were collected or how much weight the astronauts lost during the  mission.  With Apollo 13, this is the recording of liquids—in a weightless environment!

Full post at my Substack:

https://open.substack.com/pub/georgebailey/p/nasas-apollo-13-mission-report

The Mystery of Apollo 13

Will We Ever Know the True Story On Apollo 13?

Jim Lovell’s book reads like an account of the movie Apollo 13 rather than a story of the actual event he participated in.   Some of the science in the book is flawed and some of it ranks as absurd.  In other areas the documenting of dialogue exchanges between the Apollo 13 astronauts and Mission Control are provably false.  I am at a loss to explain why this was done since Lovell and co-writer Jeffrey Kluger are supposed to be telling us the truth.  There are enough voices crying “fake” regarding the moon landings as-is and this book’s flaws just adds more reasons for their theories.

Center of gravity in no gravity…

Shortly after the fuel cells blew the Command Service Module (CSM) and Lunar Landing Module (LM) were thrown out of wrack.  The attitude control was thrown off and Jim Lovell’s job was to get the trajectory to conform to the flight path, which he accomplished after some difficulty.  

On page 148 in Lovell’s book it is stated that the added “weight” of the command module, coming in at 63,400 pounds, was causing the problem. It was actually stated that the attached CSM's weight which was throwing off “the center of gravity” of the ships.  Is there a center of gravity in no gravity?  Of course not!  Everything weighs nothing.  And how did the CSM suddenly gain weight in zero G?  Please note this is not an issue on a normal mission when the CSM is in control and LM is docked and not being used to transit to the moon.  

All of this is patently absurd.  Co-author Jeffrey Kluger, an otherwise good science writer obsoletely failed the readers with this nonsense.  It should also be noted in NASA’s Apollo 13 Mission Report, that none of this was ever mentioned regarding weight throwing off the guidance system.  I am surprised Jim Lovell let this go through, or anything such as this, is written in a serious book on this near fatal disaster.  After all, this book is a reprint of Lost Moon, originally published in the 1994, and this flaw, with a host of others, is in that book as well.  There clearly was enough time to correct this.

And to go even further, it is stated on page 225 that the added weight of the CSM was checked out in the flight simulator by two astronauts to see if it would effect the guidance system.  No problems found.  Of course not!  The very idea that they would be doing a test in a simulator when they have to know the CSM weighs nothing in zero gravity, is astonishing.  

(Also, the LM’s weight is never noted.  It was still weightless?  Of course it was as the CSM had to be.)

(None of this reported CSM weight issue is mentioned in NASA technical reports such as the Apollo 13 Guidance, Navigation, and Control Challenges report,  Apollo 13 Mission Report, and the Apollo 13 Flight Journal transcripts.  Links below.)

Pulling the bio-med sensors

Jim Lovell’s irritation with his biomed sensors and the removal of them made for a fine dramatic effect in the Apollo 13 movie, when actor Tom Hanks in the role of Lovell, ripped his off.  

However, it made for the worst part the book because the incident is falsely presented with an invented conversation between Lovell and mission control that never happened.  As the book describes, after Lovell removed the biomeds he was concerned that he would get a lecture by flight controller Vance Brand who supposedly knew he had done this.  He was not reprimanded but was told to turn off his biomedical transmission switch.  The fact is, this conversation is not recorded in Apollo Flight Journal transcript.  According to the transcript, Lovell was told by flight controller Joseph Kerwin to turn off the biomed switch in the LM to conserve power.   Nothing more.  Also, The Apollo 13 Flight Journal, states that once the CM was powered down, all biomed data from the astronauts was no longer being transmitted to NASA.  Brand, if he had actually talked to Lovell would have known this and would not have been able to detect that Lovell’s sensors had been removed.  Besides, at that point, the astronauts were not plugged in to any ports to upload the data.  However, they might have had wireless data transmission since the sensors were connect to the biomes belt the astronauts wore.  But this is unclear in any NASA documentation available. It is clear that to communicate with ground control, they had to be plugged in via a comm cable.

So, the incident as reported by Lovell and Kruger is false, according to NASA’s official transcript.  It is unknown why they would bear a false witness regarding this incident.  

Even the official report features odd flaws

Just as Lowell’s book features constant references to measurements based on pounds, so does the Apollo 13 Mission Report.  For example, it is stated on page 5-11, that 55 pounds of propellent was used for third stage buster separation. On page 5-13, before the command module was shut down, 14 pounds of water were transferred from the CM to the LM.  Overall, some thirteen pages of the report reference pounds as a measuring system.

I am surprised that in an official report such as this, the use of “pounds” being used as a unit of measurement while in zero gravity.  In zero G, how would they know the exact weight say, of water in a tank?  How did they measure 14 pounds of water in zero G?  There is no gravity, hence no weight.  In my research, I have yet to find an answer for this. I don’t see this questioned anywhere.  I also don’t know why the moon Hoaxer crowd hasn’t jumped on this as evidence of fakery.  After all, the only place pounds could be measured would be on a sound stage in Earth.

Even one of the electronic schematics is wrong, showing an output component with no input listed.  There would be no output without an input.

Question

Why are none of of the reviewers of this book on Amazon catching any of this?  

Will we ever know what happened?

Overall, Apollo 13 reads like a dumbed down account of what happened aboard this doomed ship.  Too much dramatic license is taken to the point of making things up.  It’s an insult to the brave men who nearly lost their lives, and to the superb group of technicians and engineers that helped bring them home safely.

The public which paid for the space program deserves the truth.  

Sources

Apollo 13, Jim Lovell, Jeffrey Kluger

https://www.amazon.com/Apollo-13-Jim-Lovell/dp/0618619585/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=Jim+lovell&qid=1552480406&s=gateway&sr=8-2

Apollo 13 transcript, Biomeds

https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap13fj/11day3-minimise-power.html

The Apollo 13 Flight Journal

https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap13fj/index.html

Apollo 13 Mission Report

https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a13/A13_MissionReport.pdf

Apollo 13 Guidance, Navigation, and Control Challenges, John L. Goodman

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20090026451.pdf

Center of Gravity In No Gravity

The damage on the Apollo 13 service module.  

(Updated at https://georgebailey.substack.com/p/center-of-gravity-in-no-gravity)

NASA once again makes the impossible, possible.

The near loss of three astronauts in the Apollo 13 disaster is probably one of the most dramatic events in the history of the moon landings.  It was NASA’s finest moment as the “can do agency” to get those astronauts home safely.  A closer look brings up lots of anomalies  and unanswered questions.

 By now we know the story and the movie.  The public’s interest was waning as the moon landings got too routine.  Then in 1970, Apollo 13 on its way to the moon, suffered an oxygen tank blow on the command module and the three astronauts, James Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise had a life or death situation on their hands because the tank explosion also ruined the power systems and ended any chance of accomplishing a landing.  The LM (lunar landing module), still in perfect working order, became the lifeboat and the means of arriving home.  Any problems that ensued the wunderkinds at NASA came to the rescue.  Of note, the jury-rigged carbon dioxide filter that could have ended the astronaut’s lives simply by exhaling.  Good thing they had duct tape onboard!

Jim Lovell’s Book

It’s probably best to go to the source.  Jim Lovell’s book, with co-author Jeffery Kluger, Apollo 13 published in 2000 for the 30th anniversary of the mission, is the recent version of Lost Moon, published in 1994.  It’s a gripping read and well written but filled with peculiarities and scientific oddities that Lovell should have addressed and corrected. 

The strangest part of the book is the constant use of weight as a measurement system.  For example, on page 123, it is stated that the fuel cells were pressurized at 300 pounds per square inch and one of the damaged oxygen tanks was leaking, and eventually, 218 pounds of oxygen would bleed off.  (Page 104 lists 320 pounds of oxygen in the tank before the damage took place.) 

My word, that 1960’s NASA technology is amazing!  Only they could have a tank holding over 200 pounds of oxygen in zero gravity!  I fail to understand how this is possible or how weight such as this, could be measured in a gravity free environment.  Perhaps they used some other method of measuring the volume in the tank?  There is the other issue of pressuring tanks at “pounds per square inch” or PSI, which is a pressure system based on gravity—pounds equals weight.   How does that translate to zero G?   It is common knowledge that in zero gravity everything weighs nothing. If you read the reviews of the book on Amazon, most of which offer high praise, nobody ever points this out. 

This weight issue drives through many of the areas of this Apollo 13 account, as well as many other books by the other astronauts. 

In another example, after the explosion, Jim Lovell had a hard time at first keeping both spacecraft's attitude in proper alignment.  The reason given on page 148 is that the added “weight” of the command module, coming in at 63,400 pounds, was causing the problem.  I kid you not!  It was actually stated that the attached command module was throwing off “the center of gravity” of the ships.   As if there is a center of gravity in no gravity!  Please note this is not an issue on a normal mission when the command module is in control and LEM is docked and not being used to transit to the moon.  But suddenly there is a problem with a dead command module.

And they don’t stop there.  Later, NASA had the backup astronauts test various strategies in the flight simulators, such as piloting the LM with the added “weight” of the command module docked (p. 225).  Again, what weight?  Why is this irrelevant and time wasting exercise?

They are in zero gravity, everything weighs nothing.  And not a single reviewer of this book on Amazon has an issue with this.  

Obviously, I have no background in astrophysics.  But what is written in this account of the Apollo disaster makes no relative sense.  The authors are saying that weight in zero gravity exists and is producing an influence on many spacecraft systems from fuel tanks to flight attitude control.  (This carries over to the Apollo 13 Mission Report, link below, that states at launch there was 338 pounds of water in the LM.  At the end there was 50 pounds left.  Where is the weight coming from? How would they possibly measure it?  Even NASA, it seems, is into this weight in zero gravity nonsense.)

They are in zero gravity, everything weighs nothing.  And not a single reviewer of this book on Amazon has an issue with this.  

Perhaps this account of Apollo 13 is a book written in a dumbed down fashion, so the average person could enjoy the narrative and the heroics and not get bogged down in technical details.   And it should be noted that there are various technical facts that are omitted.  One may research elsewhere online to uncover those details.  

Did this dramatic event actually happen?

Addendum  3.3.19

Added to the links below is the Apollo 13 Mission Report.  Some of it is at odds with Jim Lovell’s book.  

Sources

Apollo 13, Jim Lovell with Jeffery Kluger, Houghton Milfflen Company, 2000.

Center of gravity, center of mass

https://study.com/academy/lesson/understanding-the-center-of-mass-center-of-gravity.html

Apollo 13 Mission report

https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a13/A13_MissionReport.pdf

The State of Apocalyptic Fiction

Nothing like impending doom and the destruction of civilization to make for entertaining reading, movies, video games and TV shows.  It's a popular brand of fiction that has been around a long time.  Probably the earliest example is Mary Shelley's The Last Man, published in 1824.  Since then there has been a steady stream of apocalyptic literature:  The Stand, Lucifer’s Hammer, A Canticle For Leibowitz, I Am Legend, On The Beach, One Year After, The Drowned World, Alas Babylon, The Postman, The Hunger Games, Divergent–the list is endless.

And why this fascination?  It's apparently a popular form of fiction as new novels on this subject are cranked out just about every year.  Rather than speculate about other readers I'll talk about my interest.  For me, it's interesting to see a different way of living.  Sort of a return to the old ways of life without indoor plumbing, electricity, speedy travel and communication, refrigeration, internet...all the things that enhance and add comfort to our lives.  It's observing how the good people maintain order without creating a police state.  It's also about scrutinizing human nature and seeing how quickly normal, law abiding people quickly turn to their baser instincts.  And it's not a myth–one can see the breakdown occurring at most natural disasters or the aftermath of war.  Most authors of the apocalypse generally get this right.  

Of course it's a world none of us would want to live in.  Unless you are a survivalist loner.  Constantly searching for food, or trying to harvest it from a poisoned landscape would indeed be a hardscrabble life and one not long lived.  Constantly looking over your shoulder for possible attacks or robberies; continually having to defend what you possess; dealing with health emergencies with little or no medical treatment available; burying family and friends as they die in the aftermath of total ruination.  My main interest is seeing how people cope with all of this hardship and get through it.  I suspect that is the main interest of the authors writing such stories.  Let us all hope and pray it never happens. 

What follows is a run down of some of the apocalyptic novels I read and my comments on them.  It's not meant to be the best of, and it is by no means final; I'll add more books to the collection in time.  So stop back in the future for updates.

The Stand by Stephen King

One Apocalyptic Novel to Rule Them All

Stephen King once remarked how dismayed he was that so many people told him how The Stand was their favorite novel, despite all of the best sellers he's churned out over the past 30 years.  Nevertheless, The Stand is epic storytelling featuring the age-old conflict between the forces of good and the forces of evil in the aftermath of a weaponized flu outbreak and it never gets any better than this.  Featuring great characters such as the Godly Mother Abigail to the creepy demonic Randall Flagg, the narrative is as big as the landscape stretching from the northeastern area of the USA, across the rocky mountains, to the desert sands of Nevada.  It is to King's talent as a fiction author that he breathes so much life into his characters and the story itself.  He can make the supernatural seem natural. 

It's King's biggest novel, at ​over ​1,200 pages and is good to the last drop. Published in 1978 it was updated with additional narrative in 1990.  If you have not read it I recommend the later version.  King has been criticized for unsatisfying endings.  He almost did it in The Stand but managed to pull it off at the end.  One thing that always interested me about the story is how the evil and seemingly undefeatable Randall Flagg gathers an army of misfits, losers, and social outcasts to his side but in the end, they are ultimately his undoing.  And how fitting is that? 

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

The Woke Version of Apocalypse

This novel could also be dubbed the "chick-lit" version of the apocalypse as well. The story starts out promising enough about a troupe of post-apocalypse Shakespearean actors traveling to and fro among isolated communities presenting the plays of the great Bard.  It's a cool idea really, and an interesting take on this genre of fiction.  But ultimately, it bogs down on the weight of the author's own pretentious and misdirected thematic direction.

One of the characters, a famous actor, dies early on before the killer flu breaks out and his life is revisited in flashbacks throughout the story.  Why, I have no idea since he must be one of the most boring literary figures to ever appear in print.  What a waste of paper! One of the characters keeps a scrapbook of clippings on this man.  What on earth is it?  Is the post-apocalyptic world this dull?  It is in this version of the world's end.

The second issue is the title of the book, drawn from a graphic novel of the same name.  Oh how cool!  I kid.  Some of the characters obsess over it.  I never understood what was so special about this comic book or why any of the characters cared about it.  It seems to have no relevance to the plot and it's not a guide to where anybody needs to go.  When a central object is a ring, a sword, or whatever, it forms in the mind's eye more clearly and carries the weight and purpose of the narrative.  Describing printed graphics is off-putting and it's hard to visualize what the art really looks like and what impact it is supposed to have.

And finally all the agendas.  The females are strong, decisive, intelligent and virtuous.  The men are a bunch of spineless sissies who blunder about like a bunch of dullards being outwitted and led by the highly intelligent and resourceful women.  What a poor specimen of manliness they all are.  They resemble a bunch of trendy metrosexuals.  The only remotely strong male figures are the bad guys but like the other men in the story the females outwit them.  Anyway, this is all part of the modernist writers and their rearranging of gender roles in making women appear almost superhuman or god-like.  Strong female characters are great!  But come on, we need a reasonable balance here.  

Overall...promising but not enough post-apocalypse story telling that quickly fades into a bore of things better left alone.

One Second After by William R. Forstchen

EMP Apocalypse

One lady in this t​ome​ remarks, "Sometimes I feel like a character in a bad novel."  Sorry to inform you dear Character, but this is your eternal home!  Let that line be a good example of what you aspiring writers out there should never use in a story.  It might blow back on you!  While the highly educated William R. Forstchen may be well versed in the technology involving an EMP attack, which fries all electronics and sends the modern world back to the dark ages, fiction writing is apparently not his forte.  It's an example of how career flipping sometimes fails and one should stick to their chosen field of endeavor.  The story reads like a first novel (which it is not), the one you write to get some experience but have enough good sense to never publish.  His characters are bland–they don't live and breathe. Their dialogue comes off stilted and lacking in natural flow.  And speaking of that, in the tablet version, two characters have a conversation that lasts for around nineteen pages.  Oh my!  I skipped most of that blather and don't feel bad because of it.  

A good book to read about how an EMP works but the rest is typical post apocalyptic battle lore where the barbarians show up for your stuff and your women and you have to kill them all.

One side note...I was really annoyed how he treated my home state of Florida.  It got worse in the disaster with some sort of poisoning of the ocean.  Oh come on!  There are thousands of lakes, ponds, creeks and so on to fish out of, not to mention a steady supply of wild game.  Really, we would survive far better than his characters located in the NC mountains.  Can you farm up there in the winter? ​ ​No, and in fact, it’s hard to farm at all in the mountains.  Here, we can grow vegetables and fruit all year long.  Abundant game, livestock, fish in the waterways...it’s the author’s biggest goof.

World War Z by Max Brooks

Zombie Apocalypse!

Haven't we had our fill of zombies?  Not by a long shot!  Zombies have come to possess our fears of future ruination with a touch of horrible bizarreness.  They pop up all over the place in popular culture from movies, TV shows, comic books, video games, to an unending publication of novels.  Like a wave of shuffling zombies it just keeps on coming.

Max Brooks's account of a zombie apocalypse is quite original with a novel that reads basically as a series of after action reports.  No set of characters reappear throughout the story so each report is different.  Brooks documents the ebb and flow of a world wide bizarro zombie conflict in such a realistic manner you have to remind yourself this is fiction, not a history of a real event.  The zombie war features patient zero outbreak, techniques and survival of individuals, military tactics to stave off the undead hordes, the psychological effects on the survivors, and all manner of interesting lore. 

Ultimately, a great entry in the apocalypse genre.

And the movie.  It's just okay.  Stick to the book.

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

Shooting, Flying and Fornicating in the Post-Apocalypse!

This version of the post-apocalypse comes down to a bunch of gunning, flying and sexing.  The lead character survives the end of the world to fly around in a single engine plane in Colorado with his dog.  How cute!  Dog characters rarely survive in stories like this so shed your tears now.  The lone survivor sets up sniper nests to shoot the bad people when they come up to his house with the porch light on.  Bang!  How is that for the cowardly dispatching of the bad guys?  His ex-army buddy on the other side aides in shooting them too.  The violence charges on with little sympathy for the victims, or guilty conscience among the shooters.  Eventually the sole survivor meets up with a hottie living on the mountainside with her daddy.  Nothing like love among the ruins though you can hardly call this book a post-apocalypse romance novel.  It all ends rather abruptly with the good people surviving at the end but with nowhere to go.  There is no there, there.  Where is the character development?  Where is the big plot reveal?  Who are these people anyway?  I was left wanting more and not getting it.

One thing I did find disappointing, and a bit annoying, is that in the book's Reading Group Guide is a list for other Apocalypse novels to read.  The Stand is not on the list.  That's an offense.  Oh well, all interested readers in this type of fiction know and have most likely read The Stand by now.  At least somebody can write a classic of the form, something that alludes to Mr. Heller.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Post Apocalypse Doom and Gloom

Probably the most depressing of apocalypse novels listed here.  The end of the world as we know it doesn't get any darker and grittier than this.  The story involves the travels of a father and his son.  Together, they travel through a ruined landscape of gloomy skies, distant rumblings, bad people, cannibals, and a constant scavenging for food.  McCarthy never tells the reader what the names of the two characters are what caused the end to come.  Despite being the darling of the lit critics, and a hipster of modern prose, McCarthy forgoes quotation marks for his dialogue. How's that for hip prose writing?  It's up to you to suss out who is talking to who.  I guess the old way of doing it is for the throwbacks that still love pecking away at their manual Underwoods.  I'm suspecting that Cormac McCarthy fancies himself some kind of cool dude.  Only too cool for school since he isn't going by the normal literary rules of serve and volley.  Despite all of that independence, he actually won a literary award for his dark story.  

Having said all of that, this novel is high up in the cannon of apocalyptic fiction.  The movie is a very accurate portrayal of the book.  God help us if any of this ever comes true. 

Swan Song by Robert M. McCammon

The Supernatural Apocalypse Mixed with Mad Max

Often compared to King's The Stand and deservedly so.  Also often said, if you like The Stand you'll like this too.  I sure did.  Robert M. McCammon's version of the apocalypse features interesting characters dealing with episodes of supernatural and magical events, warring armies of survivors, and mixed with great hardship for all.  Yes, Swan is a special little girl with supernatural powers to guide them all through the holocaust. (Mmm...I wonder where McCammon got that character sketch from?)  The main plot revolves around three bands of survivors: A shape shifting Randall Flagg type entity in pursuit of a homeless woman with a magical jewel; a former soldier with a whiz kid; and a giant pro wrestler teamed up with Swan.

Robert M. McCammon demonstrates his skill as a very good fiction writer.  His dialogue and pacing is well focused and his characters are fully realized with noticeable personality types, each with their own speech patterns.  He chronicles concise backgrounds on his characters, but not long, rambling bios.  Because of this, the narrative isn't bogged down and the story takes flight at a good pace.  His handling of a nuked out world with adverse weather, bizarre lighting, endless destruction, and dangerous people and animals is very well rendered.  

Highly recommended.

The End by G. Michael Hoff
EMP Apocalypse...Again!

Now there is an appropriate title for an apocalyptic story.  They could all be named that. What G. Michael Hopf does in The End make​s​ One Second After look good. Which also means it's that bad.  

Authors have learned that when approaching a subject of this scale to concentrate their energies on a handful of survivors.  Robert M. McCammon did in Swan Song and so Hopf does here concentrating on his main character, a former Marine with his family; his brother in the Marines overseas; and lastly, a Speaker of the House drafted to be president since DC has gotten nuked and the real president and vice president have been vaporized.  And off the story goes running, with the usual mayhem of societal breakdown after the EMP occurs and modern life comes to a grinding halt.

Probably the worst part of the novel is the main character, Gordon Van Zandt.  The ex-Marine starts out as a tender family man only to quickly turn into a cold blooded killer, shooting unarmed men and then robbing them.  The hero is a sociopath with no remorse where the ends justify the means.  Van Zandt at one point gets a man to surrender by telling him he won't hurt him.  Then shoots him anyway.  How can the reader root for a monster like this?

All writers have their quirks in their writing.  With Hopf, he has the habit of mentioning a character's height when introducing them and most of them are tall.  The men mainly and the women rarely.  It borders on being obsessive and after a while, hilarious.  Apparently the author considers the short characters somehow disadvantaged as if they lost life's lottery on tallness.  However, the author notes that they make up for it with "colorful" personalities, as if the shorties need some kind of redemption.  With every new person introduced I waited for the height report and Hopf never failed to deliver.  Frankly, this displays a tad of amateurism on the author's part.  Too much repetition.  A no-no for professionals.

G. Michael Hopf could easily be the character in the Beatles's tune, Paperback Writer. He has a pot-boiler writing style and one could almost envision him at his Underwood cranking them out. And in fact, he does, since The End (apparently not really the end...) is the first book in the four-book, New America Series.  These are self-published books and this first volume features poor editing, awkward and redundant sentence construction, amateurish dialogue, and minimal character development.  One can hope he got an editor for the following volumes.  A language arts teacher would do nicely as I discovered for my self-published novel. 

I would avoid this one.

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
Vampire Apocalypse!

Author Richard Matheson proves himself an able writer of prose.  In this account of civilization’s end, a bacterium causes humanity to convert to the classic vampire meme. Matheson creates a plausible vampirism biology which his lead character investigates for a cure.

The hero of the story Robert Neville, must withstand nightly attacks in his fortified house while resisting the urge to give up. Neville is haunted by the loss of his wife and daughter and often turns to drink. This novel is a classic study in isolation and Matheson accurately relates Neville’s loss, pain, and loneliness as he questions his desire to go on amid the chaos of the bizarre world he is cast in.

Once again, the movie starring Will Smith is nothing like the novel.  Hollywood just uses the title. Too bad as the story presented here is so much better than the one they invented for the movie.  Plus, the novel's ending explains what I Am Legend means.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Femdom Dystopia!

It seems fiction of late with strong female leads just can't get any balance.  Just like Ocean Eleven's modern feminist agenda, Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games trilogy suffers the same fate.  The strong main character, Katniss, is so dominating she could just be called Super Girl with a bow and be done with it.  As per the script, the females are virtuous and brave and the men are either villainous or spineless wimps and cut outs.  The archetype here is: A strong man is an evil man. 

In this post apocalyptic world where what is left of civilization is divided into districts ruled by a central government.  Since food is in short supply a competition is devised to have children and teens fight each other to the death in a nationally televised event to win food for their district.  It's all heavily hyped to the population at large, like a bizarre dystopian version of a Super Bowl game.  The kids, picked by lottery and treated as pampered stars, are trained in combat and weapons and how to murder one another. 

And this trilogy of books is marked as a children's book series!   A totally creepy idea.

The heroine of the story, Katniss, does what nobody else can do–beat a rigged system and out with its software and special effects.  She not only wins but saves a boy she's partnered with, Peeta, who like other spineless males, needs her help to get through it all.  She then goes on to become the leader of a resistance movement.  More bloodshed follows.  Is Suzanne Collins trying to show kids that violence solves problems?  It does in this dark dystopian tale.

Never the less, this best selling trilogy has won critical acclaim from the usual typists in the mainstream media who typically review fiction like this with little regard to moral considerations or the message being sent to young people–a story of morbidity, of torture, and of killing people, even the most innocent, to feed your family.

Really, it reads like ​e​nd ​t​imes fiction until our own real-life End Times dawns on us.

The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King

King invents new literature genre:  Incomprehensible Fantasy

Sprawling through 7 novels is a hodge-podge of every fiction genre one can imagine.  The reader is dragged through the wild west, science fiction, time travel, multiverse travel, horror, fantasy, romance and last but not least, the apocalypse.  The tale rambles on so, it lacks consistency with the mixing of the genres that do not mesh well together.  There is too much blather, drawn out dialogue exchanges and backstory breaks that disrupts the narrative flow.  It appears as if King took on a project a bit out of his ability to properly narrate.  

Stephen King’s Magnum Opus.  This 7 novel series was written over the course of many years of King’s career as the popular horror fiction writer.  Never has a writer of fiction been so indulgent.  I know of no instance in Western literature where the author of a fiction work features himself as a character in the narrative.  He then resorts to including references to his earlier novels and even brings back a few past characters who he then manages to kill off.  One character finds the novel that King has written (Salem’s Lot) that features himself and all of his events in his story.  How weird is that?  This is an example of a writer taking indulgence to the extreme.

Regarding the apocalypse, we are told, “The world has moved on.”  A good catch phrase that could apply to our world now. Too bad as this novel series it is basically a backdrop for the quest of heroes who are out to save “Beams” which we are told hold the world together in harmony.  A world that doesn’t appear to be worth saving but our band of heroes press on regardless even as the Beams fade from relevance.  

The overall quality is spotty, with some novels in the series being good classic King reads and the others not so much. One novel in the set I refused to read has the main character Roland, the gunslinger, telling a story to his band of heroes and while in the middle of that, he meets up with another character along the way and tells a different story to him.  A story within a story!  Meanwhile, the quest of Roland and his band of heroes is delayed to the next book.  Maybe it is just me, but I want to read the story of the quest, not take indulgent side trips like this.  

Lord of the Rings Magnum Opus, it clearly is not.  Stephen is a very good fiction writer.  He deserves his success.  But here, he fails.  This series shows he is not up for something this big.

It’s all about the journey and not the arriving as King states at the end of the final novel, The Dark Tower.  I guess that is his half-ass excuse for the less than satisfactory ending, which he is famous for, and which he did here.

Sources

All books mentioned in this piece are available at Amazon, Barnes&Noble, iTunes iBooks, and Kindle. 

Getty Images and iStockphoto - A Corporate Marriage Made In Hell

“iStock becomes less profitable with increased success.  As a business model, it’s simply unsustainable: businesses should get more profitable as they grow.”

“Money will not make you happy.”

Kelly Thompson, Sept 9, 2010

The big fish devouring the little fish is as common place in and nature as it is in the annuals of business.  Getty Images purchase of the upstart online stock company, iStockphoto in February of 2006 blazes a familiar trail of corporate takeovers.  However the history of what happened to iStock, it’s contributors and buyers of imagery is a sordid tale of greed, mismanagement and underhandedness that would entice Al Capone to repent of his sins. 

A Bit of History

iStockphoto.com was founded by Bruce Livingstone in May, 2000 as a free stock image site that gradually evolved into a stock agency where the photographers were paid though at very low values.  Over time that grew and provided a profitable return for contributors.  Exclusivity was encouraged and those that complied resulted in additional perks such as quicker approval time for submitted images and a higher royalty rate.  However, many remained independent but at a lower royalty rate.  The arrival of iStockphoto and other online stock sites (Shutterstock, Dreamstime, Fotolia, etc.) launched the Microstock wave that caused many traditional stock image companies to either flounder or go under.  Over time, iStock would add vector illustrations, video and audio clips to the mix of products to sell.  A sense of community developed through iStock’s forum which allowed a free exchange of ideas, help, critiques, complaints,  besides just hanging out with like minded creatives. 

Never the less, Bruce Livingstone’s sale of iStock to Getty in 2006 changed all of that, slowly like it always does, with the frog put in his pot of water on a slow boil.  There was much consternation in the forums with some despairing the change, some positive to the point of being delusional, and some people absolutely clueless as to what happened.  I will never forget the poster that wrote, “They couldn’t beat us, so they joined us.”  Poor soul.  Have working for a company taken over in 2000 and having lost my job as a result of it, I was leery of what waited down the road and was glad in my decision to never go exclusive there.  

And, that wasn’t the only takeover because private equity firm Hellman & Friedman bought Getty/iStockphoto in 2007.  Since then, in October of 2012, The Carlyle Group announced its acquiring of Getty/iStockphoto.  

One Damn Thing After The Other

The first notice of Getty’s new ownership was the arrival of the “controlled vocabulary.”  This came from Getty’s keyword system and allowed for the use of multiple languages to used in image searches.  A lot of grumbling about that since the contributors were tasked with making the changes to their portfolios.  It was a lot of work, especially for those with thousands of images online.  At least it allowed for broader international search coverage and one thing that worked out well.

But other issues ensued over time and clouded over iStock’s sense of independence within a larger corporate structure.  Here is a brief look at the worst of them:

Redeemable Credits.  In the beginning, sales progression for a contributor was shown as film canister graphic.  Copper, bronze, silver, gold, etc.  This original system everybody was happy with.  It gave one a sense of something to work towards to, a viable goal for success.  In 2010 a new system of "redeemable credits" was announced which amounted to selling on a curve.  Now everybody would have to sell a certain amount of images to maintain their royalty percentage.  Few do with the added burdens of a bad search engine, price hikes and massive Getty image content uploads, among other issues so the majority took an income hit.  Many are calling for an end to the RC system but but an update from the General Manager stated that this won’t be happening. This announcement of this new royalty structure by former admin Kelly Thompson was accompanied by his now famous “Money will not make you happy,” quote which did nothing to soften the blow and certainly gained the ire of many.  Even worse, all were told that the original commission model was no longer “sustainable.”  They take an 80% commission from each image sale from the non-exclusives and that is not a viable business model?  Laughable.

Screwed up search.  Complained about for months on the forums, the “best match” image search has been tinkered with so many times buyers can’t find what they need and photographers have seen, for many, a drastic drop in sales.  Management has been hesitant to admit any problem, with GM Rebecca Rockafellar who at first would not admit to it at all.  This is an ongoing issue and apparently, the BM currently favors Getty images first.  Stay tuned.

Price Raises.  Multiple price hikes over time have caused many buyers to look for cheaper images at iStock’s competitors.  The pricey Vetta collection really raised the bar and to be fair, is made up of some very high quality and creative imagery.  But the slogan such as “The designer’s dirty little secret,” is from a bygone era.  Buyers know there are cheaper alternatives at other Microstock sites.  Notice these price hikes were not seen at Getty–but at iStock they were.  

Flood of Getty Images.  This was bound to happen.  Getty took various collections of images from their massive library of content and started flooding them on iStock’s servers.  Naturally, they get a high placement in search.  It annoyed many that these images didn’t have to go through the file inspection process and the original images could remain on their respective web sites–something no iStock exclusive photographer can do–thus cheapening the whole selling point of exclusive content not available elsewhere.  Not to mention how much competition these images bring to iStock contributor’s sales.

The Claw Backs.  In early 2011 there was apparently a surge in credit card fraud.  Some of the bigger selling contributors lost thousands of dollars.  One photographer, Sean Locke reported a loss of over $5,000.  Was he repaid?  No.  Nobody was.  I lost a few bucks myself so I consider my involvement in this very fortunate.  My heart goes out to those that lost their work and income to fraud and my never ending loathing of a company that allowed such a thing to happen through sheer incompetence and their failure to repay those who were robbed.  And to add to the resentment, contributors were promised new security measures in place to prevent this from happening again.  However,  claw back messages are still being sent out but are now vaguely worded so the photographer has no idea what happened.  Was it fraud?  Was it a refund?  Who knows?

Exchange Rate values resulting in questionable payments.  Probably the most confusing and convoluted mess currently ongoing at iStock.  So bad they’ve brought on a forum admin named iStock Lawyer to respond to questions.  Apparently, when the exchange rate goes up compared to the US dollar, the royalty percentage is taken from the original dollar amount, not the increased value, if any.  Also, exchange rates involve a lot of rounding up and down and the exchange rate for international currency is set monthly, not daily.  Various esoteric concepts such as “currency hedging” come into play.  Anyway, contributors have noticed discrepancies in moneys earned and get a lot of meandering answers regarding the issue.  iStock apparently quietly updated the Artist Supplier’s Agreement (ASA) to include rate changes which is in violation of the agreement to issue a 30-day notice for any such changes.  iStock Lawyer’s response?  To simply state that they had been doing this for years so no need for a notice.  Ha!  However, one poster on the forum had an original copy of the ASA showing that a rate change occurred on 9/7/12.  And no 30-day notice was sent out.  

And this is just a bare-bones account of what has gone on since iStock was sold in 2006.  It’s one outrage after the other and I’m shocked that no class action lawsuits have been filed.  The credit card fraud and lack of reimbursement should be reason enough alone for one.  They have proven themselves unworthy of trust and unethical in their deeds.  

The Clueless Among Us

Some people don't seem to get what happened.  Getty did not buy iStockphoto to grow the brand.  No big company does that when it buys a smaller company viewed as a competitor.  They either absorb the company, cut out the fat, sell off the assets or keep it functional but on a tight leash.  That is basically what happened to iStock.  This was evident early on when Getty would place ads for their content on iStock’s web site but no link-back on Getty’s site for iStock's images.  Then with the reduction in royalty rates with the RC system, lack of marketing of iStock’s brand, poor search and the price hikes, so the main marketing point of iStock was devalued.  It was on the leash at that point.  Every decision Getty made, some which looks dull-witted in retrospect, was meant to devalue the iStock brand.  And at that, they succeeded.  They started slowly at first but now it’s full speed ahead.

It was quite telling when the contract was changed from agent to distributor.  An agent has their client’s best interests in mind and acts accordingly.  A distributor doles out the product with no other interest than moving product.  That’s how cold the business relationship is with the content providers.

Many people on the forums complain about Getty management not giving them any respect.  Hey people, it’s Crowd Sourcing.  You work too cheap to be respected.  You are the peasants at the King’s gate with your torches and pitchforks.  That’s why the Redeem Credits model was instituted (with Shutterstock’s subscription model arriving before that) to keep the peasants in their place.  You rose up too high.  Now it’s time to put you back down to where you started.  Where you belong in their eye.

Future Days

Corporations are needed things.  They give us jobs and a good life if principled people are in charge.  They also can lapse into oppressive organizations capable of all kinds of unprincipled deeds.  Many people constantly blame iStockphoto’s management for these awful decisions and the mess it has become, but really, most of the decisions have come down from on high.  iStock management for all intent and purposes no longer exists.  Getty has the majority of the blame for what has happened.  One must wait and see what Carlyle management will do with all of this.  

I suppose there are worse examples of corporate takeover, greed and incompetence besides the Getty mauling of iStockphoto.  But this situation has taken a turn to the dark side so rapidly it’s amazing to watch.  Nobody could have dreamed up such a scenario as has unfolded.  It is as if sociopaths are in charge and no injustice is deemed too outlandish to carry out.  No telling what is coming in the future.  Sit back and see.