wrog

wrog, 6 months ago

@annathepiper @rmd1023 @moira

No. I'll watch it if I have to. I've just been generally annoyed at all of the stupid shit (doing severe violence to the canon for No Reason: rewrite of Balance of Terror made no sense. having Enterprise-style ships land on planets?retconning the Gorn? inventing completely new federation directives (forbidding genetic stuff? wtff) that make zero sense all so that they can point out how stupid they are. and oh sure let's make the transporter even MORE MAGICAL) ... especially annoying because I really like the casting and wanted the show to succeed, but bleah...

wrog, 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago)

@moira @annathepiper @rmd1023

Thing is, if SB11 were in range continuously for 13+ years, they'd be subverting the shit out of it. There'd never be any need to hijack Enterprise.

So there has to be some reason that wouldn't work.

Best I can come up with it's right on the edge (i.e., not close enough for major skullduggery). But SB folks can pack Kirk onto the shuttle by himself and get him launched (as they actually did), and with Kirk having been awake for 36+ hours, it's that much easier for T4 to plant at least the vague suggestion of Mendez changing his mind and coming along right before Kirk finishes setting the autopilot and dozes off.

And then by the time he wakes up, he's fully in range with "Mendez" in the copilot seat

wrog, 6 months ago

@annathepiper @rmd1023 @moira

crap, I have to start watching SNW again?

(I thought I was done when I heard that they did a musical episode, which normally you're supposed to have to wait 6 seasons for, and I'm like, "wait, they're running out of ideas this quickly? aaaaaa")

wrog, 6 months ago

@moira @annathepiper @rmd1023

Hunchback Veena = total fake (her ship has records, too; and once she's awake, her memories tell them what to fix, so she's rebuilt just fine).

Yes, they would need a real Veena to know what kind of distress call to send, how to do fake encampment, interact with Pike convincingly, etc.

But she also knew too much, so no way in hell would they ever let her go, and something like HV would have been the only way to convince Pike to leave her behind.

(After: "Okay, assholes, I did EVERYTHING you asked. Vegas Honeymoon. Then you fucking KILL ME ALREADY. That was the deal. Otherwise, it's replays of Saw III and Event Horizon from now on."

13 years later, she's gone, one way or another.)

2/n

wrog, 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago)

@moira @annathepiper @rmd1023

re "The Problem of Captain Pike"

So... My Talosian headcanon:

They figured out EARLY (in "The Cage") they were going to have to be a LOT more subtle to get anything useful out of the humans -- confirmed once finished going through the records, which went MUCH faster than depicted in the episode.

Guy in Charge of Humans, originally Somebody's Nephew, got replaced very quickly, probably after that 1st illusion with Pike crashed and burned.

They then had to work out a convincing Escape Narrative -- none of the phasers in that sequence were real -- and then some kind of long term plan to get to a Talos redevelopment contract with some federation mining/colonization agency/corporate-entity.

1/n

wrog, 6 months ago

@moira @annathepiper @rmd1023

I'll assume for sake of argument their hallucination range doesn't QUITE reach SB11, otherwise they just subvert entire base from the get go, but...

ability to reach even halfway there includes a HUGE volume of space with lots of ships passing through (why else would SB11 exist?). All sorts of opportunities for mischief AND they'd have learned to be careful about it.

I'm sure Pike's accident was arranged.

Even stipulating they only make contact with people they'd previously encountered (i.e., familiar minds only), e.g., Spock,

... there's 250+ OTHER Cage-era Enterprise crew that would be eligible.

What's #1 or Yeoman Colt doing these days? I bet they'd have issues that could be exploited.

3/4

wrog, 6 months ago

@annathepiper @moira @rmd1023

to be fair, I don't think anybody in 1967 anticipated we were going to be able to do the Stephen Hawking Thing anywhere near as soon as we did (cf. Issac Asimov in 1950 imagining pocket calculators as this 10,000 years in the future thing when it only took until 1972.)

Note that SNW authors writing in 2021 do not get to use the same excuse.

wrog, 6 months ago

@moira @annathepiper @rmd1023

The unbelievable part of Menagerie was NEVER about how Spock could do what he did.

It was about why, afterwards, Kirk, Star Fleet, or anyone else would EVER trust Spock with anything EVER AGAIN.

(You want to give him a one-time exemption from the Talos Death Penalty because he solved The Problem of Captain Pike and everybody agrees it's The Right Thing (*)?

Fine, do that.

But you're ALSO going to be revoking his security clearances and asking for his resignation fucking yesterday, because anybody who's demonstrated themselves capable of pulling that level of shit very badly needs to Not Be In Star Fleet Anymore.)

(*) actually, I'm still not convinced of this either, but that's another argument.

wrog, 5 months ago

@futurebird

How about:

Neutrinos: You'd always know where the sun is, even in the middle of the night or bad weather (but not really useful for seeing stuff since pretty much nothing blocks them). Also early warning on supernovas.

Voltages: Any hotel room you'd immediately know where the outlets are. Or if there's been a power outage in the middle of the night, you're not having to look for clocks that have gone out. Never get electrocuted by anything (you could safely do fractal woodburning).

Gravity waves/tides: buh. Always know where the sun and Jupiter are? Maybe you could find oil?

wrog, 6 months ago

@Oozenet @GW

" that erroneously calls itself Christiainty "

No True Scotsman, then...

" clearly full of powerseekers who will twist any truth to suit their own needs "

hate to say this (*) but

Christianity has been like that pretty much from the beginning (perhaps ALL the way from the beginning depending ...).

Half of the epistles are known forgeries (guy wants to win political argument, "finds" scripture to back it up, gets it accepted as canon). Successive gospel authors clearly wanted their version to completely replace the prior one; none of those authors ever expected to be published side-by-side in the same codex 50+ years later (also a political decision).

And then there's Constantine...

(*) ok, no I don't.

1/n

wrog, 6 months ago

@Oozenet @GW

And it's a fair bet similar shit was going on in ancient Judaism (cf. Daniel, another obvious forgery), even if the actual history is much less settled (still no idea when the Pentateuch was actually written).

I'm still not going to say All Religion is Bad; there is endless capacity out there to make silk purses out of sow's ears. The key is knowing how to cherry-pick.

(e.g., I have nothing but respect for the Quakers (*);

well ok, the passive-aggressive consensus stuff sometimes annoys the shit out of me, but it's pretty small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.)

(*) technically still Christian as I understand it, which just shows how diverse Christianity has become.

(yes, writing Nixon off as a bad apple.))

2/n

wrog, 6 months ago

@CultureDesk @JenLucPiquant @seanmcarroll @arstechnica

"...but scientifically suspect; "

Umm. How about:

They're all scientifically suspect because they have TIME TRAVEL.

wrog, 6 months ago

@CultureDesk

and also closed timelike loops aren't really time travel in the sense people want, because a loop, by definition, is something you can't get into or out of

(I suppose you could posit a toroidal universe where the end wraps around to the beginning and put the Earth and all of human history inside of one big loop, but (1) that's not really useful for anything and (2) it would violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which for most physicists would be a huge red flag.)

wrog, 6 months ago

@CultureDesk

"gives lip service to GR"
≠
"scientifically plausible"

That is, just because you can posit a made-to-order universe and solve for it in GR doesn't make it real, and that's especially the case for solutions containing weird, impossible artifacts (e.g., Tippler's infinite, massive rotating cylinder, or exotic matter with negative or imaginary mass), and, so far as I know, that's the case for all known solutions containing closed timelike loops ..

the existence of such solutions more likely means that GR is under-constrained, never mind that we already KNOW that GR is not the whole story, that it will necessarily be WRONG in at least some out-of-bounds situations (because it doesn't account for quantum mechanics)

wrog, 5 months ago

@moira @FlipperPA @shonin

Even if SCOTUS declines to hear the case or upholds the COSC ruling, the CO Republican Party could just amend its Delegate Selection Plan to stipulate that all delegates will be Trump delegates and ignore/cancel the primary entirely. A number of other states have effectively done just this.

wrog, 5 months ago

@moira @FlipperPA @shonin

(2) for the general election, you're voting for Electors, and unless the "faithless elector" rules can actually be used to prevent electors from casting particular votes (as opposed to punishing them if they vote the wrong way -- which I believe is the only bit that's been tested; not sure about this), again, I'm not sure what leverage the state has here.

wrog, 5 months ago

@moira @FlipperPA @shonin

Things get really weird for a number of reasons. (1) primaries are intra-party functions that the state runs as a courtesy; it's up to party rules to determine which candidates can be listed on the ballot and how; primaries are used to elect delegates; some states, you vote for delegates directly, and it's also up to party rules whether the primary actually counts for anything. State can't actually tell the party how to select its delegates because that violates Freedom of Association.

wrog, 5 months ago

@moira @FlipperPA @shonin

the main value of this is the optics.

An actual court has declared he is an insurrectionist and therefore ineligible per the intent of the 14th.

If SCOTUS replies with the "14th doesn't apply here because it doesn't specifically list `President' and we have this stupid system where nobody votes directly for President anyway", that will be technically correct but won't undo the damage (i.e., how this will play with the independent voters -- the MAGA folks will, of course, ignore it as they've ignored everything else).

wrog, 5 months ago

@ColinTheMathmo

Being so sure it was PRIM & SEMEN took a while to sort out that part of the board

#CellTower 592

➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️

https://www.andrewt.net/puzzles/cell-tower/?p=592

wrog, 6 months ago

@GW

Pieces like this are NOT helpful, the Russians absolutely love it when they get promoted, and I long ago lost patience with the idiots who think we need a revolution to burn everything down (revolutions almost never turn out the way you want).

I like to think Biden's putting pressure on Netenyahu, but we're pushing on a string there; and you can be damned sure Trump would be cheering him on.

Yes, I've always had issues with the former Senator (D-MBNA) who supported the Iraq war and authored the Bankruptcy Bill. Then again, in terms of getting progressive legislation passed, he's probably the best we've had since LBJ (and he's also forgiven the most student loan debt).

Ds and Rs are NOT the same.

Life is full of contradictions.

wrog, 6 months ago

@GW

If you actually believe that, then why bother? By your logic, all you're ever going to do is replace one set of socipaths with another.

wrog, 6 months ago

@moira

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/12/what-is-it-like-to-be-a-billionaire-2

LGM folks are pretty sure this is just Billionaires Denying Reality and trying to pretend that the GOP is still just a normal political party.

wrog, 6 months ago

@moira

(1) Kochs don't actually have a good track record of picking winners
(2) Haley has not been endearing herself to the MAGA folks (who basically hate the W-era republicans), so if Trump really does go down (dies, or gets convicted of something and this really does break the spell -- I have my doubts that'll do it -- they'll be staying home...

... not that this is something we should count on (she may find a way to pull it out, or Biden himself may die or fuck up really bad on something), but $$ can only do so much here (if it were up to the $$, Jeb would have won the 2016 primary)

wrog, 6 months ago

@moira
#monsterdon
#TheMagneticMonster

"THRILLING AND EROTIC REFUELLING"

Damn. Sort of annoyed that I'm missing this.

wrog, 6 months ago

@jimcarroll

Do I want to know what "OPP" is?