The ship flying out of the rift reminds me of the XCV-330 Enteprise from the 22nd Century, first seen as part of the Enterprise lineage of ships in a painting in TMP. The ring structure might be a coleopteric warp drive which the XCV-330 used, also used by Vulcan starships.

I think a similar ring design was also an early concept for the Enterprise, before they settled on the familiar saucer + nacelles look.

Totally agree with you. One of the things that I love about LDS is that it’s not just by and for fans of the show - that’s more or less a given with any longstanding franchise - but that it’s about fans of the show.

[Spoiler tag here because I’m talking about the most recent episode and I know some people won’t be caught up yet!]

Great notes, as always!

Freeman sends Purple Data back through the fissure in a photon torpedo tube, much like how Spock’s body was shot towards the Genesis Planet at the end of ST II.

Along with the use of the torpedo tube, I thought Mariner’s off-key flute playing in this scene was a homage to Scotty playing the bagpipes at Spock’s funeral.

These interviews are really interesting! I’m going to have to go and read the book now.

🖖

If us Star Trek nerds can’t get our facts straight, what hope for humanity?

Measure of a Man is season 2!

I’d start with Strange New Worlds. It’s very classic Trek in terms of its themes and stories, but as it’s still being made it has contemporary audiences in mind. If you like it, I would then go to TNG.

I don’t think this is true at all. She has a lot of media appearances coming up, as does Tim Walz.

But as other people have said, if you’re worried about, you can do something about it!

But he voted Trump in 2016. I think that’s what @[email protected] meant by a ‘historical conservative’.

Further thoughts on this:

Criticising the Democrats as merely a type of Republican has other downsides: it effectively takes the Republicans as the standard type of politician, i.e., it turns every argument into an argument on their terms.

This also means that we don’t effectively criticise the Democrats, who are best criticised on their terms, not as merey lesser or mutated Republicans.

The “lesser” fascist is still a fascist, and fascists spend much more of their time attacking us than attacking each other, and on top of that even if they do attack each other it’s through attacking us.

But the Democrats aren’t fascists, lesser or otherwise. They’re not ‘the Republicans, but less so’; they’re a different organisation with different histories and philosophies, different people and different priorities. The Democrats, for example, are not promising to overthrow the constitution, but overthrow it a bit less than the Republicans; they’re not planning to overthrow it at all. Degrees of evil are not possible in this case, nor in many others. The Republicans are straight up wrong in a way that the Democrats just are not.

For these reasons, I don’t buy the framing of lesser evil at all. If I did buy that framing, I would still wholeheartedly vote for the lesser evil, because it would still be better than more evil, by definition. Even your definition of ‘the same amount of evil, but slower’, would be better.

Seems like a good choice from where I am (which is, granted, the other side of the ocean). Republicans want to depict Democrats as dangerous extremists, but Walz comes across as a friendly dad, so that just won’t stick. No one will care about his policy record, they’ll just sound weird talking about that stuff.

The thing is that when Americans voted for the oldest Presidential candidate ever, with Harris as the VP, they were effectively saying they were okay with her as President. So, it’s safe to have some faith in Americans on this one!

Absolutely correct. And Trump is very beatable. The Democrats have loads of candidates who could beat him (including, IMO, Biden, but that’s in the past, now).

Earthsea is very good. It’s kind of YA, but from before the term existed, so it should be good if you find your mind wandering when reading. Plus, it gets progressively darker and weirder as the series goes on.

It’s quite different from JS&MN, except in being about magic. If your library doesn’t have it, it’s worth buying a copy!

My top recommendation for ‘fantastical […] with amazing first person descriptive prose’ is Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. It’s beautiful and unlike anything you’ve ever read. I’ve bought it for three or four different people now and they’ve all loved it. Couldn’t recommend it more highly, a genuine five star read.

Other people have already said Ulysses and Mrs Dalloway, both modernist classics that take place in a single day. There are a couple of other examples of similar novels, but the only one that springs to mind right now is a deeply annoying experimental ‘novel’ called Fidget by Oliver Goldsmith, which I don’t recommend at all. He wore a tape recorder and spoke out loud describing everything he did that day, then transcribed it all and that’s the book. If you do decide to read it, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I don’t know if this will count for you, but there’s a hypertext novel called 253 by Geoff Ryman which IIRC takes place over just a couple of minutes, with very short chapters describing the thoughts of each of the 253 passengers on board a train. He did later also publish a print version.

Ah-ha as [email protected] said, this is indeed Morning Mood, by Grieg. Oddly, I also immediately thought of The Simpsons’ use of it!