Rewatching the classic Trek episode “The Conscience of the King,” which features a Shakespearean acting troupe. In one scene, McCoy writes a report on a wedge proto-iPad… …but in the very next scene Kirk scrawls on a piece of paper. This episode also features characters doing computer searches, using an exposition-friendly voice interface to call…
So proud…my eagle-eyed tween noticed the “James R. Kirk” tombstone in “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” #startrek #tos #geeklings
My plans to use a Chromebook over the weekend didn’t go as well as I had hoped… In between family events I was pretty wiped out and didn’t have much time to experiment. After just 3 years as an Apple user, I found myself feeling very frustrated by a brief return to Windows (because I…
via Rainbow Hector Weblog
Both Spock and McCoy are frequently at odds with each other, recommended different courses of action and bringing very different types of arguments to bear in defense of those points of view. Kirk sometimes goes with one, or the other, or sometimes takes their advice as a springboard to developing an entirely different course of…
Soon I’ll start live-tweeting part 2 of #BuckRodgers, “The Plot to Kill a City” Opening chase in a cubicle farm without cubicles.#BuckRodgers #BuckRodgers , my kids warned you guys not to split up. @devolved Arrgh, I can’t un-see that now! Oh, thank you Wilma, for pointing out to the flunky bragging about destroying Chicago that he…
Set phasers to “meh”! My wife arranged a visit to The Franklin Institute a couple of weeks ago. We didn’t actually know that this Star Trek exhibit was there. I was ready to pass, in favor of the more educational exhibits, but my wife made it a Father’s Day treat and shelled out enough gold-pressed…
Last night, I went to see the new Star Trek movie with a member of the computer science faculty. A math professor was hoping to come, but had a change of plans. The previews suggested it would be a bit intense for me to take the kids to see it, but now that I’ve seen…
THERE is nothing particularly unusual about the living room of the two-story town house that Scott Veazie shares with his wife in Washougal, Wash., except for one piece of furniture in a corner: a full-size replica of the captain’s chair from the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise, as seen in the original “Star Trek” television…
Ricardo Montalban (1920-2009). My kids know him as the grandfather in Spy Kids 2 and 3. Let’s hope they lay him to rest dressed in a spotless white suit, in a casket lined in soft, Corinthian leather. He will always be Captain Kirk’s finest foe, the would-be conqueror who first tried to steal the Enterprise…
Besides not beaming down, another factor that showed to increase the survival rate of the red-shirts was the nature of the relationship between the alien life and captain Kirk. When Captain Kirk meets an alien woman and “makes contact” the survival rate of the red-shirted crewmen increases by 84%. In fact, out of Captain Kirks’…
With all the gratuitous use of Shakespeare language and imagery in the series (including its four spin-offs, a successful franchise of feature films and a short-lived animated series), is there an underlying reason to the use of the Bard’s works? Does the combination of classic literature and pop-culture sci-fi result in something greater than the…
Consider their treatment of Mr. Spock. Almost every episode, Dr. McCoy heckles him over his logic and even uses “green-blooded” as part of his threats. Captain Kirk, ostensibly Spock’s greatest friend, takes any opportunity he can to point out problems logic causes, and on more than one occasion makes Spock the butt of race-based jokes…
—Leonard Nimoy (Spock) – Music Video (YouTube) Watching this video caused me so much deep pain that the only way I could relieve it was to share it with you. You will probably feel either filthy or angry after watching it.
Writers are always beaten over the head with the admontion “Show, don’t tell.” It’s not bad advice by any means. Often it’s pretty good advice. But, I know there are times when you should tell instead. For instance, in my Nanowrimo, I appreciate the word inflation, but I’m well aware that no one actually wants…
The 75-year-old actor said: “I’m interested in man’s march into the unknown but to vomit in space is not my idea of a good time. Neither is a fiery crash with the vomit hovering over me.” Onboard the Starship Enterprise, sci-fi fans saw Shatner freely ‘explore the final frontier, seeking out new life and strange…
There was no separating the two Treks, the vacuous and the visionary. It’s no coincidence that one of the most legendary episodes — “The Trouble with Tribbles” — was essentially a comic take on the show’s established themes. Given some distance from the moment, I realize this is actually an entirely healthy attitude. It’s the…
Project, to be penned by Abrams and “MI3” scribes Alex Kurtzman and Roberto OrciRoberto Orci, will center on the early days of seminal “Trek” characters James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock, including their first meeting at Starfleet Academy and first outer space mission. —Trekkies have a new leader: ‘Star’ treatment for J.J. (Variety) The fans, captain!…
Also known as yupster (yuppie + hipster), yindie (yuppie + indie), and alterna-yuppie. Our preferred term, grup, is taken from an episode of Star Trek (keep reading) in which Captain Kirk et al. land on a planet of children who rule the world, with no adults in sight. The kids call Kirk and the crew…
As befits its beginnings, the genre is planted firmly in pop culture’s nerd division. The films most often given the fanfic treatment – The Matrix, X-Men, and Pirates of the Caribbean – wing straight out of dork central. There are thousands of fanfics online for each popular anime TV series, and many hundreds for sci-fi…