Don't worry, I don't really have a cat...

...or maybe to not be a fly...

Hope you brought a tarp, 'cause I'm about to get nerd all over the place. According to this article from Trekmovie.com, Robert Orci (who co-wrote the 2009 Star Trek movie) and producer Damon Lindelof locked themselves in a hotel room last week to write the Star Trek sequel and presumably enjoy those tiny coffee makers and complimentary wifi. Oh, to be a fly. And get this: they're looking for fan-input.

At this point they might as well call it
whatever they want. I'd go with: 'Deflecto-Ray' 

Now, don't eject your core just yet, they're only asking fans what to call that blue glowey thing on the front of starships. They're torn between 'main deflector dish' and 'main deflector array.' Why they don't look it up online, I don't know. Fully 18 percent of the entire internet is information about Star Trek, but if they want to know what the fans think, that's cool. Although in the last movie J. J. Abrams moved an entire planet just for the hell of it, so is accuracy really that high on their list?


I totally never got why the director did this. What made him think that Star Trek geeks-who are notorious for jumping on even the most minor inconsistencies-would think this is neat? He said he felt it would make a good Easter Egg for the fans. But as a fan, I was more confused by how the writers didn't know that planet Delta Vega was nowhere near Vulcan. Also, why would the Vulcans name one of the planets in their star system after a frat? Of course a better question might be why would they name their planet after a Roman god from Earth? Am I over-thinking this?

Zephram Cochrane: "Welcome to Earth, what planet are you from?"
Commander Solkar: "You know, we never bothered to come up with a name for it. 

Any suggestions? We're wide open."

This. This is the opposite of cool.

Is it nit-picky of me to complain about a thing like where a stupid made-up planet is? Maybe (definitely), but that's why we're called 'fans' (as in fanatic) and not say 'milds' (as in mildly enthusiastic about). We Star Trek fans have a long and rich history of obsessing over the details of a fictitious universe. It's what makes us so cool (or, you know, whatever the opposite of cool is).

That said, I didn't hate the new Star Trek, I just think it could have benefited from a Trekkie's touch. There were some, shall we say 'inconsistencies' with the established Trekiverse that could be avoided in the next film. If they really want some fan input, give me or any one of my rubber-pointy-ear-wearing brothers and sisters a call. It's not like we're doing anything else (what? I kid). We would totally be a valuable resource, like bauxite (we drop knowledge on this blog). Not only are we well-versed in Star Trek lore and minutia, but we're also opinionated. It's a winning combination, just ask my cat/best friend/science officer Lieutenant Commander Purrcy. I'll be waiting by the phone.

Although even I don't know what that hell that red thing on Tasha Yar's face was.
Blood? Some sort of space-rash? Anyone?

Today in: Seriously?

"Those guys?
Sonofabitch..."

So the Supreme Court ruled that the hate-filled verbal shit fountain routinely spewed into the air by the foaming-rabid members of the Westboro Baptist Church is protected by the first amendment. Sigh. Ok, the constitution protects everyone, even lunatic bigots (or 'lunigots') who protest at military funerals and think that gay people cause hurricanes and 9/11. I guess I can understand the ruling in kind of an abstract way. It's like how Superman would probably have to save them if their plane was crashing on the way to Homophobic Fundamentalist Convention 2011 (or HoFuCon '11). He wouldn't like it, but his moral code doesn't let him pick and choose.

In a rare 'And Another Thing' ruling,
the Court declared that Westboro
Baptist Church is full of total dicks.

The ruling basically says that Westboro Baptist Church members were within their rights and that we can't stop them from speaking just because what they say is batshit crazy. However the Justices did all agree that that the church-goers are total assholes-well, they didn't call them that, but wouldn't it be great if they did? Like if the Court handed down some kind of writ that changed the name of their group to Westboro Pack of Raving Assholes? That would be a thing.

"What? Sometimes
it's not lupus..."

But seriously, what's wrong with these people? What makes them get up in the morning and decide to spread misery? Is it syphilis? I watch a lot of House M.D. and I'm pretty sure crazy of this magnitude has to be medical. And what's really screwed up is that these folks get their kids into it too. How is this not child abuse? Didn't they take Charlie Sheen's kids away because he's mentally unstable and said Two and a Half Men sucks? Are we seriously saying that Charlie Sheen is scarier? If the Westboro Baptists were waving signs saying: 'God Hates Dancing With The Stars' would the county be knocking on their doors?

What about this says 'fit mother?' That kid is like, what, 7? What could he possibly hate?
Did his mom threaten to take the Wii away if he doesn't hate gay people enough?

Let's Play Final Jeopardy!

National Spelling Bee
Champion 32 years running.

Someone built a super computer that is better at Jeopardy than actual people. In fact, it's better than people who are really good at Jeopardy (except this guy). Amazing huh? But is this really a surprise? The computer, named Watson after Sherlock Holmes' non-coke addict pal/narrator, is basically an interactive encyclopedia of human knowledge. The question could be: "The letter 'M' appears appears this many times on page seventy three of Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities." As long as the answer is knowable and someone bothered to enter it into Watson's memory, it can access it. It was built to win at Jeopardy. Ken Jennings was built to eat, avoid predators and mate. Advantage: Machines.

I guess I've always known that these
two would preside over the
destruction of mankind...

Of course, Ken Jennings could stroll over to the next studio and probably kick some ass at Wheel of Fortune. Watson would have to wait for a teamster, an extension cord and a few solid weeks of reprograming. Advantage: Ken Jennings. Humans, for the time being, still have the adaptability advantage.  But are we doomed the day a robot mechanically intones the phase: "Pat, I'd like to solve the puzzle"?

"I, uh, have the pizza
you ordered..."

To overcome the adaptability gap, scientists in Europe are creating a sort of internet for robots. Instead of offering unrestricted access to the sum of human knowledge and porn, this robot internet will allow robots to communicate with one another and share information, experience and where our fleshy bodies are most vulnerable to their robo-kicks. It'll be sort of a collective consciousness or 'hive-mind' which is exactly what we want to give robots if we want them to rise up against us. Also, there will be some robot porn...likely full of bad acting and flimsy pretexts (see right).

Scientists predict a robot
uprising by the year 2084.

And then there's Rajesh Rao, a scientist who can't wait for machines to decide to destroy all humans. To that end he is building a robot that can read our minds. The idea is that this technology would allow prosthetic limbs to one day be controlled by our brains, but it could easily lead to the day when you find yourself being choked to death by your own robo-arm. At first, everyone would think you were kidding, like 'oh look at me, I'm pretending to strangle myself' and then you'll turn blue and keel over and everyone will be like: holy shit, he wasn't fooling around...but it'll be too late. Chalk up another for the robots...and then-wait, what was I talking about? Oh, right, the end of mankind.

But we should fear this robot, it's
made of nightmares. Thanks Japan...

These technological advancements may well be significant steps on the road towards Robot superiority and their total domination of our planet and gameshows. On the other hand you could say that humans built a machine that did exactly what it was meant to do. Isn't it kind of irrational to fear machines that are functioning normally? I mean, other than chainsaws.



Robots are only going to do what we build them to do, and for that reason, yeah, a little healthy fear is justified. But it's really just because people build them, and people can be well, jerks.

"What? You make us look like shiny metal Death-Bots, give us lasers 
and then when we take over, we're the bad guys?"

Back, to the Future!* (Now with Accuracy!)

*(actual future may vary-
and be less interesting)

Welp, that's it. The Space Shuttle Discovery's last mission took off on Thursday. If you haven't already, watch this video (see below, I embedded it or something). It's totally amazing and a complete bummer at the same time. It's amazing because a bunch of passengers on a delayed flight happened to be in the right place at the right time to catch a shuttle launch from the air. Most people whose flights get delayed just miss their connections. These people witnessed something incredible (although they still probably missed connections as well).

 They held eight minutes of
silent footage and ran on whale oil.

Anyway, this totally bums me out because it looks like this is one of the last shuttle missions ever. It would be ok if the space shuttles were going to be replaced by something even more awesome, but they're not. Instead we're going back to rockets and space capsules, which strikes me as kind of a step back. Could you imagine if Sony tried to bring back VHS tapes? For those who don't remember, it's what we had before streaming Netflix. You had to go all the way to the video rental, sometimes in like ten feet of snow and then when you were done, you had to rewind them and then take them back. Those were primitive times indeed.

As a matter of fact, I don't.

So look out next generation of space explorers, the future is here! And has been since the 1960's. Sigh. Oh, wait, it's actually not here. As a final insult, due to budget constraints these rockets we're all looking forward to (backwards to?) are themselves a few years off according to NASA. So the future is the past, but it's still a ways off in the future...follow?

Mmmm...Malthusian...

"Tell me more of this thing you
Earthmen call 'make out'..."

Holy crap, check this thing out. In a hurry? Fine, here: According to NASA, there are at least 50 billion planets in the Milky Way. Billion with a 'B.' And of those as many as 500 million (with an 'M,' still impressive though) could be in the 'Goldilocks Zone'-the potentially habitable zone between a star and the cold, endless void. Yeah, there could be like hundreds of millions of class-M planets, full of aliens ready to blink uncomprehendingly at our foolish hew-mon emotions.

The space program has
long been associated with Tang.

So my question is why aren't we zipping up our unitards and boldly going? I mean, can it really be that hard to come up with a practical method for interstellar space travel? (Yes.) We've made amazing progress in the last few decades in so many other areas. Our civilization went from like 10 websites in 1991 to a global computerized porn delivery system in like 20 years. So what's up with the space program? Shouldn't we be able to catch the red eye to 40 Eridani by now? Maybe NASA should have estimated that there are 500 million planets shaped like boobs.

Holy shit, STOP HAVING KIDS!

Do we need more motivation? How 'bout this: we're about to hit the 7 billion population mark (note the 'B'), and barring some sort of zombie apocalypse, planet Earth is only going to get more crowded, especially if we keep giving people TV shows just for breeding (thanks TLC). I'm not saying people shouldn't have kids, well, some people probably shouldn't... I'm just suggesting that people shouldn't have a ridiculous number of kids.

Sure it's people,
but have you tried the cool ranch?

Sure, they're cute now, but in 20 years when people are getting knifed at 7 Eleven over the last Hotpocket in North America, we'll know who's to blame. They're like the jerks that bring uninvited friends to a party: they eat all the Chex Mix, they drink all the beer, and then someone burns a hole in the sofa. I mean the planet's food and water can only be stretched so far. Have we learned nothing from Soylent Green?




So what's to be done? Well, I see two options: We could either convince everyone to practice restraint and have a reasonable number of children so as not to overtax the limited resources of our world or we could brake the light barrier and colonize the galaxy. Which do you think people are more likely to go for?

Suck our plasma Malthus!

Let's Declare War on the Sun!

Stupid sun, thinks it's so great...

Sure, it makes life possible, and without it our planet would be just another frozen rock adrift in the void, but what has our sun done for us lately? I'll tell you what it hasn't not been doing. It hasn't not been bombarding our planet with powerful solar flares of a magnitude not seen in years (specifically 6 years). In fact, it's been doing the opposite of not doing that. Well you know what? I'm sick of it. Enough is enough, the line must be drawn here.

Damn you sun!
Damn you to hell!

Of course you're probably thinking: "So what? Solar flares happen all the time..." Well, I'll tell you so what, the results will be devastating: power grids might be theoretically disrupted possibly leading to mild inconveniences, communications satellites might drop an occasional call, aurora borealis might even appear at slightly more southern latitudes than it typically does. That's so what. Sure, right now our shields are holding, but for how long I ask you? I say it's time we come up with a plan 'B.' Below I've outlined three bold new alternatives to help us deal our suddenly hostile yellow dwarf:

We'll get eight full minutes of basking in our triumph
before we get a face full of corona.
I like my victories pyrrhic.

1-Destroy the sun. Now hear me out, because at first this sounds insane (and it is). If we were to destroy the sun, we would have (according to this guy) about eight minutes to celebrate our victory. The only question is how to pull it off...On Star Trek all you need is trilithium, but (as I've oft lamented) life rarely works like it does on Star Trek.

If only Lorne Greene were still alive.
His soothing narration
would make the yahrens just fly by...

2-Abandon the Earth. Let's face it, the sun is like, way bigger than the Earth and made of fire. We just can't win. So why not pile into some space arks and find a primary star that appreciates us? Admittedly, this plan is not without its hurdles. First, it would take like tens of thousands of years to get to the nearest star. Second, we have at last count zero space arks, so putting together a ragtag fleet might take some doing. Of course if NASA had listened to me, we'd already have dozens of spaceships idling in orbit ready to carry us to Proxima Centauri...Thanks NASA, thanks for nothing.

Sure, there's bound to be some
Morlockism, but it's a small price to pay.

3-Burrow underground. This I think is the most practical solution, mostly because it worked in the Matrix and we're way more clever than any society that chooses Keanu Reeves as its messiah. Despite being faced with extinction at the hands (or metal claws) of the machines, they somehow managed to carve out a fortified underground city able to sustain a population of 250,000 complete with apartments, bathroom facilities and an orgy cave. Imagine what we could accomplish without the looming threat of robo-squids and wooden acting?

Sure, some of these options may seem drastic, but the sun needs to understand that it can't get away with carelessly ejecting coronal mass in our direction. Who does it think it is anyway?

Behold: the face of our enemy.

H8 W1ZRD

Not this kind of Wizard.
The racist kind...

Oh my god, what is wrong with people? Check out this story. What? Too busy? Fine, here's the gist: The Mississippi Sons of Confederate Veterans (I think they're like really, really old) want the state to issue a license plate commemorating Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest who, according to my exhaustive research (of wikipedia) was not only a slave trader and a war criminal, but was also a grand wizard in the KKK. So I ask again, what is wrong with people? Specifically these people.

We're just defending our way of life. You know, by
enslaving humans and draining the Earth of Energon. 

Why are we supposed to treat the Confederacy like it was just an opposing but equally valid viewpoint? They were basically the Decepticons of U.S. history.* Can't we all agree that what they were fighting for was wrong? Yeah, the South was fighting to preserve its economy and way of life, but that economy and way of life was built on owning people and forcing them to work for no money. So seriously, screw them.

Slave Enthusiast Thomas Jefferson:
aka 'The Nickel Guy'

I guess we do put people like slave owners George Washington and Andrew Jackson on money and we should totally have more qualms about that, but they did other things as well (like join the Freemasons, and I think they were both in politics or something). General Nathan Bedford Forrest is pretty much known for fighting in a rebellion against the U.S. Don't we put people in prison for that? You know what I say? No license plate for him-ever. So chew on that, Mississippi Department of Motor Vehicles.


Hey, you know which Mississippian does deserve to be on a license plate? This guy:

Go on, try to deny it.

More like Andrew Jackass...
Oh, burn!

That's right, Jim Henson. He invented Muppets and brought joy to millions of children and adults around the world. Henson, in every measurable way, led a more worthwhile life than Nathan Bedford Forrest. He didn't own anyone, he didn't kill anyone and he didn't lead a racist post-war hate-group in a campaign of intimidation, assault and murder. Advantage: Henson. So, why isn't he on every license plate in Mississippi right now? What kind of world would it be if General Klanny McSlavetrader gets a license plate before the voice of Kermit the Frog? Better yet, let's put Jim Henson on the twenty dollar bill, that would be awesome. Move over Andrew 'Trail of Tears' Jackson.

Very few Confederate casualties
were resurrected by Unicron.

*Yeah, so I'm equating the South during the Civil War with the bad guys from the Cybertronian Wars and this is probably not entirely fair. Not everyone who fought with the rebels was a bad person, few owned slaves themselves and many were just defending their home. Also, state's rights (except when it comes to owning people), is a more complicated issue than Autobots vs. Decepticons. We shouldn't forget the many thousands who lost their lives or sparks on both sides of these terrible conflicts. That said, we really shouldn't be sticking a slave-owning, Klu Klux Klansman on a license plate either. That's just messed up.

Zoinks! It's like,
old man Weatherby!

p.s. Check out the Facebook Group mentioned in the article: Mississippians Against the Commemoration of Grand Wizard Nathan Forrest. They're kind of like last month's Tweet-Wielding Super Heroine Jennifer Huddleston, (what with their Southern awesomeness) but with Facebook.