diesel sweeties - Ten Forward Thinking

diesel sweeties.

Starfleet uniforms do look very pajama-like.

Thoughts on Time of the Doctor

Oh god.
Oh god.
OH GOD.
Oh god.
Oh gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawd.
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Hey, remember Lobot from The Empire Strikes Back?

Lando's right hand man with that big chunk of hardware on the back of his noggin?

(via Wookieepedia)

I remember watching ESB for the first time and thinking that Lobot looked cool as hell. I mean, the guy was a cyborg and easily stood out amongst the droids, normal humans, and Wookiees almost as much as the only black guy in the entire Star Wars galaxy!

I bet that thing wasn't fun to wear, though. It gives me neck strain just looking at it.

Hopefully the space battles in Elite: Dangerous will be almost as good as the one in this trailer

Never heard of Elite: Dangerous until today, but daaaaaaaaaaaaamn, the trailer I came across on YouTube looks sweet as all hell.



On a related note, it looks like space sims are starting to make a comeback! You have this game, X Rebirth, and the much-hyped Star Citizen, which honestly, looks almost as good as Christina Hendricks.

(via Softpedia)

Almost.

Well, I almost nerd raged just now

Saw an article on Tor.com's blog about a spoilerish detail involving the Doctor Who Christmas Special, Matt Smith, and regeneration. What pulled me back from the brink of a nerd rage was that the post cited The Mirror as the source. Supposedly, they had done an interview with Steven Moffat and he made a shocking reveal, but since it came from The Mirror, I'm calling BS because The Mirror is a tabloid like The Daily Mail. As for what Moffat allegedly said, hit the jump - I'd rather play it safe just on the off-chance that they're not bullshitting.

Google has a Doctor Who doodle up on their site and it's also a browser game

I'm actually surprised because it seems like they only do doodles for holidays and the 150th+ birthdays of people that I've never heard of (which is the point, of course). In any case, you can play the game by clicking on the triangle. You can even pick which Doctor you want to play as! The game itself is fairly basic, with the goal being to grab one of the letters in Google's name and make it back to the TARDIS without getting zapped by Daleks and whatever else. I've only played the first level and it was fun.

Hopefully, this won't be like three years ago when Google put a full version of Pac-Man on their front page. Supposedly, that cost over $120 million in productivity (though really, I think that's a lot overblown bullshit).

The Night of the Doctor is just awesome

Well, it destroyed my theory that John Hurt was playing an aged Eighth Doctor. I'm guessing that they're not going to count the "War Doctor" as one of his "main" incarnations. It also explains why Eleven claimed that the War Doctor's actions weren't done in the name of the Doctor. Can't wait until the 23rd!

Because you need this in your eye holes: The Master Systems Display (MSD) for the Excelsior-class (Enterprise-B variant) from Star Trek

Click to embiggen.
(via Memory Alpha)

My favorite thing about the Excelsior refit are those two big ass impulse engines Starfleet slapped on the saucer. It's like they decided to turn some of the Excelsior's into hot rods. The Excelsior class in general is on my list of "ships I'd like to command if I somehow ended up in the Trekverse", along with the Constitution, Ambassador, NX, Nebula, and Intrepid classes.

Finally! BBC releases a Day of the Doctor trailer!

About damn time. I was getting tired of all of these fake trailers on YouTube.

On geek knowledge

Credit: Real Life Comics.

The first question wasn't obscure, though; I would be disappointed if a Trekkie didn't know that.

Long lost episodes of Doctor Who found!!!!

From BBC:

A number of early episodes of Doctor Who, which were believed to have been permanently lost, have been returned to the BBC.
BBC Worldwide is expected to confirm the find at a press screening in London later this week.
It follows weeks of speculation that some lost episodes had been located.
A total of 106 episodes featuring the first two actors to play the Doctor, William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton, are currently missing.
The BBC destroyed many of the sci-fi drama's original transmission tapes in the 1960s and 1970s.
However, the majority of the episodes had been transferred on to film for foreign broadcasters. It is often these prints found in other countries that are the source of retrieved episodes.

This is fantastic!

A bit of a music interlude

I've got some posts currently percolating, but until then, have some music: Fire Woman by The Cult.



Now if you'll excuse, I have some epic air guitaring to do!

Someone definitely has too much time on their hands: a chart of (almost) every starship in science fiction

Found on Kotaku, created by a chap named Dirk Loechel on DeviantArt, this sucker is immense!

Holy Hannah! Like the title of this post says, it has almost every starship, but I think Loechel is adding new ones in the future.

I bet the United Federation of Planets never had a government shutdown

I swear to god, space battles are way more gut-wrenching in books than they are on TV and in the movies

(via Memory Alpha)

I just finished reading through one in Star Trek Vanguard: Harbinger and cripes, it was tough. It's the same with reading a space battle in a Honor Harrington or Lost Fleet book, they're just more intense than what a show or movie normally offers. I think with the latter, there are elements missing, like what the characters involved are thinking, what's happening elsewhere other than a ship's bridge. I'm not saying that space battles in visual media aren't exciting, because they are, but there's just something more visceral, more personal when you're reading about a ship getting pounded and a favorite character of yours gets decapitated or sucked out into the void of space.

I can't recommend Harbinger highly enough. So good. So damn good.

That Day of the Doctor poster BBC released is sweeeeeeeet

(via Blogtor Who)

Me too, Daniel Bryan, me too.

I actually fear for the Whovian fandom, because I just don't think many of them will be able to handle having David Tennant and Matt Smith onscreen together.

Bradley Cooper to voice Rocket Raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy movie

You handsome bastard.
(via IMDb)

I'm sure this was his lifelong ambition - to play a talking raccoon. Then again, Vin Diesel is allegedly going to voice Droot; a talking tree alien, and Karen Gillan is playing a bald, blue-skinned space pirate, so this movie has already gone a little bananas. The rest of the casting is equally excellent. Glenn Close is playing Nova Prime - the highest ranking member of the Nova Corps (think DC Comics' Green Lantern Corps), Dave Bautista, who wrestling fans will better know as Batista as Drax the Destroyer, Chris Pratt from Parks & Rec as Star-Lord, and Zoe Saldana as Gamora.

Pro-tip: if you catch a raccoon going through your trash and he's packing heat,
just let him go about his business.
(via Geekosystem)

I wonder how many space STDs Bones cured Jim Kirk of?

My personal theory is that is the reason why those two became friends in the original continuity. I mean, the man chased damn near anything with a pulse and the appropriate "gear", so he was bound to catch something. It also brings to mind a question about how many kids he had around the galaxy?

Check out this vintage ad heralding electronic mail as the wave of the future!

Clearly, that was before spam came along.

via Gizmodo.

I like how it looks like that guy just shit his pants because a letter just magically appeared in front of him. I bet he switched to decaf after that. It's interesting to see an ad from major tech company for email, but the way the ad describes it, email was really much more appealing than it is now. Back then, it was a useful method to keep all departments of a corporation in-touch and informed, nowadays it's mostly just spam and social media notifications. Back then, it was the wave of the future. Now, it's as mundane as the phone.

I like about the ad is the way it talks up the usefulness of email as a method for making businesses run faster and better and it most likely was and still is. Something I've noticed however, is that the lack of email addresses. The ad talks about sending mail from terminal to terminal(s), but makes no mention of whether or not email address existed. Wikipedia doesn't have an answer, but I think addresses probably didn't exist back then. It's possible that each terminal had it's own ID and sending an email to one worked similar to a modern email address.

I can imagine what it must have been like back then. A person working for a company needed to run something by someone in another department (maybe the head of a design team to the head of the accounting department) and instead of picking up the phone or physically going to that person's office (if that was even possible), they would pop off an email instead. The biggest advantage I see with that is that you wouldn't need to have all of your employees and departments in one building. I think a lot of tech companies nowadays have their headquarters set up in a campus format with multiple buildings as opposed to a single skyscraper. Hell, you wouldn't even need to have them all in the same city. Distributive business model?

I also like the way the ad is drawn. The way the artist set the desk and office up, it looks like what an one back then probably would have looked. It also presents an interesting contrast with the ad's pronouncement of the "Office of the Future". He has a stapler and a tape dispenser, both of which would likely be rendered obsolete in the Office of the Future and eventually in real life, since physical paperwork is probably dwindling in the age of tablets and touch screens. I don't know whether they still use corded phones (though, all the TV shows and movies seem to think so), but that one right there is outdated as all hell. The two (three?) picture frames are a nice touch, adding a touch of personability to the businessman, something we don't see much in popular culture or real life. Is that an ashtray in front of the double picture frame, though? That's how you can tell this ad is old - that people were allowed to smoke inside an office building instead of outside.

All in all, it's a nice snapshot of what a typical 1970s office probably looked like and that fits in nicely with my interest in the 70s tech industry.

The ED-209 from RoboCop and it's potential alternative uses

For those who haven't seen RoboCop recently or at all, this is the ED-209, the Enforcement Droid Series 209.

Credit: RoboCop wiki.

ED-209 was built as both a policing unit and as a possible military weapon. The latter explains why it's armed with three autocannons, a shotgun, and three rockets. Cripes. According to Dick Jones, the movie's antagonist and head of the project that developed the 209, the machines would have been deployed to the streets of Detroit to help wipe out crime before construction of OCP's Delta City was set to begin and if it had been successful, it would have been offered up to the military.

If it had been successful.

Cue gangsta rap playing in the background.
Credit: Future Fiction.

On the plus side, this cleared up his asthma.
Credit: Future Fiction.

It wasn't. However, it did get me thinking about alternate uses for the ED-209, derivative designs based on the original. The two that came to mind was riot control and firefighting.

• Riot control: The simplest of the two, as it would just be the base model without the cannons. In their place, you would have launchers for rubber bullets and beanbag rounds, and separate ones for tear gas. There would also be dispensers for pepper spray. If these things were built today, I'd add in threat recognition/assessment software that would scan a crowd and if it spots anything categorized as a possible weapon - a rock, brick, club, etc. - it tags that person as a potential hostile and alerts whoever is in charge.
• Firefighting: This variation is pretty good. Instead of weapons, it's arms would be loaded with fire suppression equipment. Maybe they could even be modded so that they can be hooked up to a water source. I picture these things being trucked to fires and acting like mobile, flame resistant, water cannons, focusing on the major parts of the fire while the firefighters handle the smaller areas and search and rescue. It would also reduce the number of firefighters needed for a fire, so that way each station could handle multiple emergencies at the same time.

As for the original 209, I think it's problem was entirely buggy software. Like I mentioned earlier, these things were going to marketed to the military as well as the police, so presumably it's operating system had programs for both role and since this thing was still in beta, not all of the bugs had been worked out, so as a result, some poor dude gets his chest cavity turned from an innie to an outtie.

Even if the 209 ran perfectly, I still can't see them being used in the same role as a flesh and blood cop. For one thing, how exactly is it supposed to arrest someone? Dick Jones was never clear on that during his presentation. My best guess is that it would hold a person (under threat of obliteration) until a cop picked them up. No, I would use them to protect buildings and areas that likely targets for terrorists and criminals, places like power and water facilities, government buildings, airports, ports, that sort of thing.

Amazingly, despite their flaws, the second RoboCop movie revealed that they were eventually deployed in Detroit and four other American cities and that they were still malfunctioning.

Cha-cha-cha-changes

Recently, I've been dwelling on what to do with this blog after steadily losing interest in science fiction, so after much thought and deliberation, I've finally decided that I'm going to convert this blog over to my newfound passions: Korean pop music, My Little Pony, and Taylor Swift! I hope you all stick around and enjoy future posts as much as I will.










Haha, I'm just jerking your chains. God, can you even imagine? Hey, what's with...okay guys, put the pitchforks and torches away.

In any event, I am going to be making some changes to this blog. I'm still going to post about science fiction, because that shit is awesome, but my interest in science and technology is being renewed and so I plan on posting about that stuff too. I may not fully grok it, but I still dig it. I'll also be giving my thoughts on the future of the human race: space travel, colonization, cybernetics, etc. Another thing you'll be seeing on here is retro technology. Over the past few days, I've been getting more and more interested in technology of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, as well as the scientific and technological culture that existed back then, so don't be surprised if you see geeking out over old electronic calculators, computers, and whatnot.

Now for what is easily the biggest potential change, a new name. I've never been a big fan of the Rayguns and Space Suits name, I only chose it because I didn't think this blog would be around a year and a half later. Plus, I want a name that reflects my interest in science fiction, as well as all of the stuff I mentioned in the above paragraph. Unfortunately, I can't think of a new name, so I'm opening the floor up for suggestions. Otherwise, I might just leave the name be.

I didn't know it until last night, but Karen Gillan is going to be the Guardians of the Galaxy movie!

Even bigger surprise:

Credit: Geek Magazine.

Yup, the lass who won the hearts of Whovians as Amy Pond shaved her noggin for her role as Nebula, who is bald. I'm not entirely familiar to Nebula, since she was never a big time character, but I think she is or was a space pirate at one point, claimed to be the granddaughter of Thanos (the purple dude that briefly appears in the Avengers movie), and oh yeah, is green skinned. So next year, we're going to be seeing a lovely green skinned, bald Karen Gillan on the big screen. This is awesome.

I really do dig that, though. I don't think there's a lot of actresses who would shave their heads for a movie role, especially a comic book movie. And it's not like she had to do it, she could very easily have cut her hair short and worn one of those bald caps. That's commitment right there.

What's your opinion on Gillan's baldy baldness?

Matt Smith almost stuck around as the Doctor

According to Steven Moffatt, Smith came close to staying on as the Doctor for two or three more years.

And women and anyone who's a Whovian, really.

Now if you guys will excuse me, I have to go throw myself into the nearest sarlacc pit.

Trek thought: I wonder how much paperwork the captains had?

Damn these TPS reports! Damn them to hell!
Credit: Memory Alpha.

I mean, being the captain of a starship or of a backwater space station can't be all boldly going and in the case of Kirk, getting laid all of the time.

Speaking of Kirk, I just cannot imagine him filling out forms and whatnot. Picard seems like he would be the most okay with the administrative side of command, mostly because he can just grab a nice cup of Earl Grey, turn up the Van Halen and work in his ready room. Sisko, I imagine, had a pretty heavy workload. He had to manage a mixed crew of Starfleet and Bajoran military personnel, in addition to the civilian population and a warship. Janeway likely had it the roughest, since she probably had to deal with the upkeep of Voyager and its crew without the benefit of starbases. As for Archer, no clue.

Heh, maybe that's the real reason why Riker waited so long before accepting promotion?

Why the Eleventh Doctor regenerates revealed!

Yes folks, I have discovered how it is that Matt Smith's incarnation comes to regenerate into the Twelfth Doctor! Check it out below:

Given current events, all future editions of 1984 should come with a disclaimer "this is a work of fiction, not a how-to guide, you dingleberries."

I originally had a long post about the current happenings, but instead, I'm just going to post this video featuring two of the best scenes from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Drumhead".

Musical interlude: Lindsey Stirling and William Joseph's take on the Halo theme

Badassery. Having people dressed as Spartans battling during the video was a nice touch too.

Dang, Matt Smith is leaving Doctor Who

To quote a certain Dark Lord of the Sith: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! He's departing in the Christmas Special, which brings to mind another quote by a Starfleet admiral:

KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

Welp, I wonder who will be replacing him as the Twelfth Doctor? My choices are Dame Helen Mirren, Sir Patrick Stewart, Emma Waton (Hermoine with a sonic screwdriver!), Richard Ayoade. Really, the only qualification to play the Doctor should be British citizenship. The Doctor should never be played by an American! Ethnicity, skin color, religion, etc. are irrelevant.

What do you think about Matt Smith leaving and who do you think should replace him?

Now this would be a Star Trek movie I'd love to see

Credit: Where's Randy Savage.

Oh yeaaah!

For those who have never watched professional wrestling, that is the (unfortunately) late, great "Macho Man" Randy Savage, but you might also remember him from the Slim Jim ads back in the 90s. He also had a small role in the first Spider-Man movie as the wrestler Spidey fights prior to him becoming a superhero. Sadly, Savage died two years ago of a heart attack. Which I guess is fortunate for Jim Kirk, because he wouldn't stand a chance against the Madness.

h/t Drop Toehold.

So...how about that Doctor Who last night? I think Steven Moffat is trying to kill us Whovians. (spoilers)

The man makes Joss Whedon look downright tame. :P

I honestly have no idea where to even begin with this episode. The opening scene with Clara and all of the incarnations of the Doctor gave me a raging nerd boner that was compounded by the unexpected appearance of Professor River Song. To use internet speak, this episode gave me a lot of "feels". Then it destroyed those feels like Emperor Palpatine destroyed the Jedi Order - Quickly, brutally, and without remorse. Hit the jump for the rest of the post, but beware of spoilers.

With you, May the fourth be.

Hmm?

Wookieepedia.

I'm gonna pop some Xenos, only got twenty rounds in my bolter

Soooo there's a rap song by a guy named Macklemore and his friend Ryan Lewis called "Thrift Shop". The song is an ode to well, thrift shops and how they're good places to get clothes and whatnot on the cheap, and encourages people to find their own style rather than following popular trends (such as blowing a load of cash on a t-shirt just because it's "limited edition" or "vintage"). I'm not a fan of rap in general - with the exception of nerdcore hip hop. Yes, that is a thing - and prefer rock music, but from time to time, one will pop up that's enjoyable.

(Fair warning, there's some adult language in the song, so you might not want to watch it while at work, school, or in the presence of children, bosses, co-workers, and priests)




In any case, I've found myself sometimes singing the chorus ("I'm going to pop some tags, only got twenty dollars in my pocket") and the other day on Tumblr, I came up with a version for the Space Marines from Warhammer 40k, which happens to be the title of this post. Someone else offered additional 40k-ish lyrics:

Drop into the field be like ohfuck that’s a big WAAAGH!,
So pumped to wreck some shit with a mag in my Boltgun,
Orks start to die, their brains all pulpy,
The Warboss be like “Damn that’s a cold ass Astartes!”

(via thunderwarehouse)

 This isn't even the weirdest scifi related thing I've done on Tumblr either. I think the same day I started a discussion on Data's balls. It started out as a joke, but actually turned into a real debate. Last night, I started another about whether or not zombies still have functional digestive system and that started out with me wondering if zombies pee and poop!

In case you're wondering, probably not. The best answer was that zombies simply eat until their stomachs burst. That in turn led to the larger issue of whether their organs still functioned. I don't think so, otherwise you could kill a zombie by shooting it in the chest and destroying its heart.

I honestly have no idea how I come up with that stuff.

I am now 30. These birthdays seem to be an annual thing and I have no idea how you turn that feature off.

Though, if you ask me, it's more a bug than a feature.

Thoughts for those injured and dead in Boston

<3

I have a bad feeling about this: SyFy's going to make miniseries out of Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End and Larry Niven's Ringworld

These two bombs are going to create a disturbance in the Force so massive, it would probably give the Jedi strokes. SyFy's done this before with Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea and well, it failed so horribly, that Le Guin has referred to it as "Frankenstein's Earthsea". I've never watched it (thank the Living Force), but one review paints a picture of a series that was processed into a sub-standard fantasy miniseries, which is par on course with all their other fantasy offerings.

While I've never read Childhood's End (a gross oversight on my part which will be remedied) or Ringworld (a deliberate choice because I have qualms about Niven himself), I'm cringing like a motherfrakker at what fate will befall them and what we'll actually see on TV. My guess, the aliens in the former won't look like demons, but humans in Nehru suits or generic "scifi" jumpsuits. Meanwhile, the aliens in the latter will be of the cheapest CGI possible. Who knows, SyFy might surprise us and break a $20 and splurge in that area.

A sad day for all: writer Iain M. Banks announces he has terminal cancer

From his website:

I am officially Very Poorly.

After a couple of surgical procedures, I am gradually recovering from jaundice caused by a blocked bile duct, but that - it turns out - is the least of my problems.

I first thought something might be wrong when I developed a sore back in late January, but put this down to the fact I'd started writing at the beginning of the month and so was crouched over a keyboard all day. When it hadn't gone away by mid-February, I went to my GP, who spotted that I had jaundice. Blood tests, an ultrasound scan and then a CT scan revealed the full extent of the grisly truth by the start of March.

I have cancer. It started in my gall bladder, has infected both lobes of my liver and probably also my pancreas and some lymph nodes, plus one tumour is massed around a group of major blood vessels in the same volume, effectively ruling out any chance of surgery to remove the tumours either in the short or long term.

The bottom line, now, I'm afraid, is that as a late stage gall bladder cancer patient, I'm expected to live for 'several months' and it’s extremely unlikely I'll live beyond a year. So it looks like my latest novel, The Quarry, will be my last.

As a result, I've withdrawn from all planned public engagements and I've asked my partner Adele if she will do me the honour of becoming my widow (sorry - but we find ghoulish humour helps). By the time this goes out we'll be married and on a short honeymoon. We intend to spend however much quality time I have left seeing friends and relations and visiting places that have meant a lot to us. Meanwhile my heroic publishers are doing all they can to bring the publication date of my new novel forward by as much as four months, to give me a better chance of being around when it hits the shelves.

There is a possibility that it might be worth undergoing a course of chemotherapy to extend the amount of time available. However that is still something we're balancing the pros and cons of, and anyway it is out of the question until my jaundice has further and significantly, reduced.
Lastly, I'd like to add that from my GP onwards, the professionalism of the medics involved - and the speed with which the resources of the NHS in Scotland have been deployed - has been exemplary, and the standard of care deeply impressive. We're all just sorry the outcome hasn't been more cheerful.

A website is being set up where friends, family and fans can leave messages for me and check on my progress. It should be up and running during this week and a link to it will be here on my official website as soon as it’s ready.

Iain Banks

I hate cancer.

I'll admit right now that I haven't read any of Banks books. I have three of his Culture novels - The Player of Games, Excession, and Matter - and always planned on reading them. I was attracted to them because of the way people on an internet forum years ago gabbed about them and when I finally looked them up, my mind was blown by this man's imagination. He made Star Trek, Star Wars, and the other bread and butter scifi universes look like stone age civilizations compared to what he writes.

I hate cancer because like too many people, I know what it's like to see a loved one stricken with the disease and to lose someone to it. My mother is a cancer survivor and my paternal grandmother died from it. I can't even begin to imagine what Iain M. Banks is going through, but he and nobody else should have to suffer from a disease that with all the medical science and wealth of an entire planet, should have been vanquished a long, long time ago.

Like I said, I have several of Banks Culture books, but have never read them. Until now. I'm setting aside all of my current reading and focusing solely on those. It obviously does nothing for Banks, but it's the best way I can think of to honor him.

Another trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness

I'm really hoping that this puts to rest the "Benedict Cumberbatch is playing Khan!" idea. I can't see someone like Khan as one of Starfleet's top secret agents. I still think that "John Harrison" is a red herring. You'll notice that in none of the trailers so far has Harrison been referred to by name. Then again, they said that Cumberbatch was playing a character from The Original Series and John Harrison was indeed the name the writers used for named extras. Maybe Harrison is a member of Section 31.

Of course, J.J. Abrams could just be blowing smoke up all of our asses and Star Trek Into Darkness could turn out to be a Rickroll on repeat for two and a half hours, for all we know.

Riker, the Enterprise, and why it took so long to leave

Back when Riker still had ambitions.
Credit: Memory Alpha.

I think the reason why Will Riker kept turning down promotion after promotion was because he wanted to be captain of the Enterprise, but what he didn't count on was Jean-Luc Picard sticking around for so long.

When he was first offered the post of First Officer on the Enterprise, he did some research on Picard and figured that he would be captain of the ship in no time. Keep in mind that Picard had already been captain for over twenty years (closer to thirty) at that point and Riker assumed that “well, he’ll probably hang around for a few years, then move on to the Admiralty and I’ll become the new captain!”, so he accepted the offer and bided his time, waiting for Picard to scoot.

Unfortunately, what he didn’t count on was that Picard had no interest in being an admiral and that even if he was, the loss of the Stargazer and the resulting court martial probably pushed him down to the bottom of the promotion list. I think getting command of the Enterprise was meant to be a consolation prize by some sympathetic Admirals who felt that Picard had gotten a raw deal.

He looked good with the four pips.
Credit: Memory Alpha.

Anyway, Riker waited and waited for Picard to move on, but he never did and as time passed, Riker grew complacent as Picard’s Number One. I think this is best illustrated after the events of Best of Both Worlds where Riker, who was field promoted to captain and given command of the Enterprise, gave both up and returned command to Picard. I’m sure that if he wanted it, he could have pushed the latter aside and kept both the promotion (which Starfleet would have surely made permanent) and command of the ship. But he didn’t because he respected and loved Picard too much to do that.

On the other hand, Riker’s decision was incredibly selfish. Starfleet lost thirty-nine ships during the Battle of Wolf 359. Thirty-nine ships and thirty-nine captains. I don’t imagine that it was a crippling blow to Starfleet, but it had to hurt in terms of the combined experience that was lost. I do imagine, however, that Starfleet did a round of mass promotions to replace the thirty-nine (forty, if they promoted a captain to replace Admiral Hanson, who died at 359). At that point, Riker should have conceded that he probably was never going get the Enterprise, sucked it up, and moved on as a captain for the good of Starfleet.

Clearly questioning his previous life choices.
Credit: Memory Alpha.

Riker really lost his original ambition while serving on the Enterprise because of his aforementioned complacency. According to two episodes of TNG, he had wanted to make captain by the time he was thirty-five years old. He was forty-four by the time it happened. Before that, he was offered command several times, but turned down each one.

Another book haul post

Because I've felt completely blocked when it comes to writing posts, even though I've got about four Trek related ones bouncing around in my head.

• Wing Commander - Fleet Action (William R. Forstchen), End Run (Christopher Stasheff and William R. Forstchen), and False Colors (William R. Forstchen and Andrew Keith*)
• Battletech - Test of Vengeance (Bryan Nystul) and The Price of Glory (William H. Keith, Jr.)
• Star Trek - Mindshadow (J.M. Dillard), The Peacekeepers (Gene DeWeese), Requiem (Michael Jan Friedman and Kevin Ryan), Worlds in Collision (Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens)
• Star Wars - Before the Storm (Michael P. Kube-McDowell)
• Heris Serrano by Elizabeth Moon
• And in case I didn't mention them, two Douglas Adams books - The Long, Dark Tea Time of the Soul and The Salmon of Doubt.

I've been buying more non-fiction (history and science books) and classic lit lately than scifi and fantasy.

*Funny this, the cover incorrectly credits William H. Keith, Andrew Keith's brother, but the title page gives credit to the latter. I wonder how they managed to confuse the two?

Welp, so much for Google Reader.

Because in case you haven't heard - or rather, seen their little pop up notice - Google's shutting down the RSS reader in July. They claim that it's because the number of people using Reader is "declining" and that they're trying to reduce the overall number of products they have. Dumb reasons, if you ask me. If Reader was in decline, then why not simply redesign it to make it more attractive to both old and new users and give it just a tenth of the promotion that Google Plus, Chrome, and other products receive? As for the latter; nobody told Google to go and create twenty million things that no one was going to use.

Pulling the plug on something that a lot of people still use just because it isn't as popular as it used to be is just ridiculous. If other companies followed that line of thought, then no one would have a landline, because AT&T and the other phone companies would ditch it because of "declining use".

It also makes me question the value of using any of Google's other products, like Plus and their Play store. Are those going to go the way of Reader if they decline too? They're not giving both current and potential new users much incentive.

Anyway, if you're looking for a replace, CNET has a list of five free ones. I'm trying out Feedly and it looks nice and you don't even have to register an account to use it. Unfortunately, it's being swamped because of the announcement and CNET's article, so patience is a virtue.

Hit them with my sword!

via Dr Poxo.

 And he's probably score a critical hit with it too.

Mecha Monday: What the cats have been plotting all along

imgur.

Thank god for catnip and cheeseburgers, because they're the only things delaying the feline revolution.

This picture Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted is relevant as crap

Especially given recent events involving meteorites and flybys by asteroids.

Via Neil deGrasse Tyson's Twitter.

It's true too. We - not just the U.S. of A., but the entire world - need to pour money into getting off this rock and colonizing space. How about instead of each country having its own space agency, a truly international one could be established and funded/supported by any and all nations that can do it. Once we're a space faring species, nationalities won't matter anyways.

Plus, it would be nice not to have humanity and all life on Earth wiped out by a lucky shot from an asteroid.

Descent: FreeSpace is a great game worth playing

One of the best games I've ever played. I really need to finish playing it.



Descent: FreeSpace - The Great War was released in 1998 on PCs and developed by Volition, who would also create great games such as FreeSpace 2, the Red Faction series, and probably most famously, the Saints Row series. The game was published by Interplay, who also created the Fallout series and published Baldur's Gate. In the game, you pilot a variety of starfighters and perform missions.

Story-wise, FreeSpace takes place during a war between the Galactic Terran Alliance and an alien race called the Parliamentary Vasudan Empire. The first few missions in the game are focused on that war, but things quickly change when both species are attacked by an insanely powerful and advanced species dubbed the Shivan. Probably the most mind-blowing aspect of the Shivans is the Lucifer, the gigantic destroyer they deploy against humans and Vasudans both. Now, when I say gigantic, I don't mean "oh, it's pretty damn big", I mean "HOLY MOTHER OF GOD WHAT THE F*CK IS THAT THING!?" Basically, it's the biggest ship in the game. Needless to say, the GTA and Vasudans put an end to their war and buddy up to stand against the Shivans.

There are several neat things about the game. For one, you can earn promotions and medals if you do very well on the missions. You can issue commands to other fighters, such as ordering them to only target specific parts of an enemy fighter or capital ship. You yourself can similarly target subsystems and honestly, it's more fun than it should be to take out a capital ship's engines, weapons, sensors, and comms without destroying the ship itself. Another thing I like is the way the tutorials are set up as training missions. At the start of the game, you go through basic training to learn how to pilot the ship and fire the weapons. You're given the option to take further, more advanced training courses as the game progresses, each one showing you some new tricks.

You can still buy the game, even after 15 years, if you want to try your hand at it. GOG.com has it available for download for only $5.99. Not a bad deal.

Over 1,000 Russians injured by a meteorite!

Damn Bugs!
Via Popular Science.

So today a meteorite popped the atmosphere at around 33,000 miles per hour (or 44 times the speed of sound!) and exploded over the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia. The shockwave shattered glass and 950 people were unfortunately injured by the flying glass. On the plus side, only about 112 had to be hospitalized and of those, only two are in serious condition.

I saw a report about this on the local news (which is to say that they were just showing a report from ABC News) and apparently some people in Chelyabinsk thought Russia was being attacked. Good thing the Russian government didn't or else we might be reenacting Fallout 3. :P

Pretty crazy though, especially with an asteroid passing close to the Earth at around the same time. According to scientists, the two events are unrelated.

"Hello, I'm the Doctor. Basically...run"

AKA one of the best and most badass moments in Doctor Who.



And yet, there are people who don't like Matt Smith or the Eleventh Doctor! One of my favorite things about Who is when they reference the Doctor's previous incarnations. It's a nice way of touching on the show's nearly fifty years of history.

[Updated] Is Google Reader and/or Blogger messing up for anyone else?

Because they both seem to be going through some sort of mental breakdown for me. With Reader, things that I've already read - sometimes days ago - are appearing on the front dash as "new" items. Going to the folders or the subscriptions themselves of course show that they've been read already. Another bit of an oddity is that feeds I've unsubscribed from (again, sometimes days or even weeks ago) are reappearing like ghosts! I have no idea if I should contact Google or the Ghostbusters for that one, LOL.

Blogger, meanwhile, is doing something similar on its dashboard, showing "new" posts from earlier today, even if they've been succeeded by newer posts.

I may have to perform an exorcism, folks, LMAO.

Edit: Looks like the Techpriests have been successful. Blogger cleared up at some point after this post and it looks like Google Reader is running normally again.

Which of course means that it will now proceed to mess up epically. WELP.

You think your world is safe - Star Trek Into Darkness Super Bowl commercial

"I am better."
"At what?"
"Everything."

I think there's some clues to the identity of Cumberbatch's character (I still think John Harrison is a red herring) in the video. First, he says "You think your world is safe". Notice how he says your and not our. Then a few seconds later in the video, Kirk asks who he was. The first implies that "Harrison" isn't from Earth and the second that he isn't in Starfleet. There was an assumption that he was because he was wearing a shirt with the Starfleet insignia on it. The thing is, however, that Starfleet didn't adopt the arrowhead as their insignia until after the Enterprise's much famed five year mission ended. At least, in the original timeline that's how it went. It's possible that what "Harrison" is wearing is just spare clothes they gave him to wear after they took him aboard/captured him.

So possibly not a native to Earth or in Starfleet, hmm. Yeah, I still have no clue who the character really is. I'm leaning towards maybe a Klingon. We know that they make an appearance in the movie, so maybe "Harrison" is a ridgeless Klingon made to look more human and sent into the Federation as a spy? Could he be a Romulan?

Post your ideas in the comments!

Hey look, Star Trek comics

Both from the webcomic AmazingSuperPowers.

Star Trek.

Replicators are one of four reasons why there will never be a zombie apocalypse in Star Trek (excluding the Borg, of course); they can just replicate the delicious human brains that zombies crave. The other three reasons are:

Transporters. Kind of hard to noms on people if they beam your undead ass into space.
Phasers and other directed-energy weapons. Screw headshots, vaporize the suckers!
Doctors McCoy, Crusher, Bashir, EMH, and Phlox. Each of them are likely to find a cure to whatever is creating the zombies before the episode even ends!

Klingons and Hirogen get honorable mentions, because those guys would just have a field day.

Star Trek: The Wrath of Comic.

This is why I said in this post that I would rather have Kirk as captain during a battle than Picard. Picard is great at diplomacy and whatnot, but Kirk is a fighter and just handles combat situations better.

Mecha Monday: It's a Gundam!

Also know as a minute and half long video of people crapping their pants at the sight of a Gundam. Fair warning, there's a bit of language near the end.




IT'S A GUNDAM!!!!

Mecha Monday: Robotech live-action movie

A belated Mecha Monday is still better than no Mecha Monday, right?

The other day Ashley of Paint-it-Pink and secret member of the Legion of Doom posted about a live-action version of Robotech getting a director. Nic Mathieu, has apparently never directed a movie before and is mostly known for doing commercials. But boy, is he good at it. Topless Robot has a video for a commercial he did for Zenith a few years back and frankly, the fact that this guy hadn't been tapped to direct big budget scifi movies sooner is terrible, because the commercial is awesome.



Seriously, why was this guy overlooked for so long!?

Anyways, here's to hoping the Robotech movie sees the light of day.

One year strong

I've been anticipating the first year anniversary of this blog for weeks and I almost forgot about it! Yes, one year ago today, I created Rayguns and Space Suits so that my "main" blog (at the time) wouldn't be taken over by all the scifi posts I had in mind, as well as a nice counterpart to my fantasy blog, Swords, Dragons, and Nerds.

Then I deleted it because my enthusiasm suddenly left me, but would undelete it weeks later. Since then, I've managed to clock over 20,000 total pageviews, with about 100+ hits a day. Thirty people have chosen follow this blog, so clearly I must be doing something right!

Now, if you'd all be so kind as to don these red shirts, I need a landing party to explore this uncharted and mysterious planet...

Thanks, everybody!

A little Galactica reading

Battlestar Wiki.

I mentioned this in another post weeks ago that I found a copy of an Classic Battlestar Galactica novel at a Goodwill and I started reading it today. The book, written by Robert Thurston is an novelization of Saga of a Star World, the pilot for the TV show. I'm not that far into, but its interesting so far. Apollo and his brother, Zac are checking out the moon (Cimtar) of a dead planet and find an old Cyclon tanker vessel floating near it. Well, well, well, I think I know what happens next.

Something that caught my interest about the book is that my copy as a "Special Edition" mark on the cover. I mentioned it in the comments over on Christopher Mills' excellent Space1970 and he thinks it was a book club thing.

I'll admit that I've only watched bits and pieces of the original series and preferred Ronald Moore's series more, but I might have to change my opinion if this book turns out to be as good as it looks to be.

I'm not touching Galactica 1980, though.

And the director of Star Wars Episode VII is...J.J. Abrams

I did not see that coming at all! But it's true, according to Deadline. It's interesting, but I haven't paid much attention to the Sequel Trilogy since it was announced. Not because of any ill will towards the idea of a new trilogy, but more because they're years away from being made.

Starship appreciation: the Miranda-class from Star Trek

There are a lot of Starfleet ships that I would love to command - the Akira, Galaxy, Steamrunner, Excelsior, Intrepid, and of course, a Constitution class, amongst others - and the Miranda class is definitely high on the list.

Memory Alpha.

Though, to be perfectly honest, I would not want to command one during the 24th century, especially during the Dominion War or a Borg attack. I like the Mirandas, but not that much! Anyway, what I like about the class is how different they look. They don't have a deflector dish or a secondary hull like most of the other ship classes, and that rollbar just makes the ship look cool. It certainly doesn't hurt that the USS Reliant was able to cream the Enterprise's corn in short order, showing that a Miranda can go toe-to-toe with the big guys.

I also like its modularity. We've seen different versions of the Miranda on TNG - with and without the rollbar, some with sensor pods, and such. It seems that by the 24th century, a good chunk of the Mirandas were being used in secondary roles as transports and cargo ships. Not surprising, given their age.

Their age also worked against them during combat. I would actually cringe while watching the space battles on Deep Space Nine, anytime a Miranda charged into the fray. As tough as they were in the 23rd century, they weren't up to snuff in the 24th. It was like watching a senior citizen take a roundhouse kick from Chuck Norris.

Still, I would jump at the chance to sit in the captain's chair of one back during its heyday. Just not the Reliant, because I know how that shit goes down.

I wouldn't mind having an E.V.A. Pod from 2001 in my room (though things would be mighty cramped)

Truth be told, I'd much prefer a shuttle from TNG.

Credit: Real Life Comics.

This is shaping up to be a pretty decent storyline. Dave decided to create a network throughout the house so that his computer/AI PAL could oversee and control automation of different aspects of the house, like power and water usage, security, etc. Naturally, PAL went rogue, as AIs are wont to do. To be fair, it was largely Dave's fault. He tried explaining the concept of privacy using written computer memory and PAL now sees two of the characters as bad files that need to be deleted. If you're interested, the storyline starts here.

If you've never read or even heard of Real Life Comics, I'm not entirely surprised. While it's been around as long as Penny Arcade, PvP, and other long time webcomics, RLC never quite achieved the same level of popularity. A shame really, because the comic is pretty good, save for some occasional "meh" moments. There are some nice scifi storylines that have involved Battlemech vs. Eva (from Neon Genesis Evangelion), time travel, travel to alternate timelines, space stations, journeys to other planets, and more.

Best bit of Wikipedia vandalism ever

Haw haw!

And no, I didn't do it. :P I've only committed one act of vandalism on there and it was about Steve Jobs.

This blew my goddamn mind

Oh the things you find on the internet!

Jay over on EXONAUTS! posted this after finding it on Universe Today. After scooping what was left of my brain off the floor and putting it back in my head, I thought I'd post it here. It's a stereograph of Melotte 15 in the Heart Nebula created by a Finnish fellow named J-P Metsävainio. He has a website and blog displaying his other awesome works.

Freaking awesome!