“I’ve done far worse than kill you. I’ve hurt you. And I wish to go on hurting you.”
To boldly go … where? To the bank for a cashier’s check, it seems. Hold the phasers, drop the shields, piss on the dilithium crystals and call in the Tribbles.
Beam me up, Scotty — there’s no intelligent life down here.
A script from the Before-Time, possibly written by Dr. Eleven. Or that “Mad Blog” fella.
I always liked science fiction. Science, not so much.
Science always seemed rigid and impersonal. But science fiction, or speculative fiction, if you prefer — especially of the apocalyptic variety — spoke to the gloomy bog-trotter in my DNA.
So I studied the fiction instead of the science, with predictable results. When it came time for me to go to college, there was only one in the state that would accept me with my miserable GPA. However, the institution excused me from freshman comp because I was a fool for words, as long as there were no equations to solve.
SF seems best to me when the future isn’t pretty, but people manage to muddle through somehow. “A Clockwork Orange.” “Alas, Babylon.” Or “Station Eleven.”
We watched the “Station Eleven” TV series on Max, recently watched it again, and afterward I finally got around to reading the book, which as usual is considerably different. Author Emily St. John Mandel was gracious about the changes, though, saying she thought the series “deepened the story in a lot of really interesting ways.”
I doubt that I’m adding any significant depth with this latest episode of Radio Free Dogpatch, but the notions contained therein have been taking up space in my head for a while now and the Voices would like them to leave. They’re your problem now.
• Technical notes: RFD favors the Ethos mic from Earthworks Audio; Audio-Technica ATH-M50X headphones; Zoom H5 Handy Recorder; Apple’s GarageBand, and Auphonic for a wash and brushup. NASA noises, starship flyby, countryside ambience and appreciative audience come from Zapsplat.“Wernher von Braun” is the work of the inimitable Tom Lehrer. The Celtic tune is from Freesound. And the outro clip is from The Firesign Theatre’s “I Think We’re All Bozos On This Bus,” which remains all too relevant. All other evil racket is courtesy of Your Humble Narrator.
Thanks to Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke for “2001,” Gene Roddenberry for “Star Trek,” Emily St. John Mandel for “Station Eleven,” Pat Frank for “Alas, Babylon,” Stephen King for “The Stand,” and The Firesign Theatre for … well, for everything.
Space: the final frontier. (Some restrictions apply.)
What’s that ominous rumble? O buggah — it’s the Trane XR80 roaring to hideous life astride the cooling carcass of summer.
Mid-October is a wee bit early for this sort of thing. But these are strange times, and getting stranger by the minute.
Captain Kirk rode one of Jeffy Bozos’ dick-missiles to the edge of space yesterday and returned to tell us all how glorious it is to be a wealthy white man with friends in high places. A first-class ticket for Aer Dingus is just one more thing you can’t afford, suckers. Now get back to work.
“Live long and prosper,” murmur the Vulcans. But they’re being ironic, as usual.
Either that or they’re talking to the Vogons, whose Constructor Fleet should be popping round to start work on that hyperspatial express route any day now.
The UCI Cycling Esports World Championships sponsored by Zwift are to be held today, and mirabile dictu, the virtual cops will be on the lookout for the actual outlaws.
This dude is ready for his comeback.
It seems that digital “doping,” like actual doping, is a thing in these dark days. The same miscreants who will hitch a ride on a team car, hide tiny motors in their bicycles, and hotrod themselves with the drug du jour will manipulate the data like cadet James T. Kirk queering the Kobayashi Maru test at Starfleet Academy.
Tech blogger Ray Maker, speaking to The New York Times, suggested that Zwift is rife with the sort of shameless corner-cutting one used to see when bike races were still held outdoors, in the real world, where there are actual corners to cut.
“There’s so much cheating in Zwift that I think a lot of people would like to see more accountability,” said Maker, who writes the endurance sports technology blog DC Rainmaker.
A spokesman for Zwift, meanwhile, expressed confidence in the company’s ability “to catch cheaters and to police the races.”
Ho, ho, etc. Objection, your honor. Assumes facts not in evidence.
My favorite quote so far comes from The Los Angeles Times: “My folks came to the U.S. as immigrants,” he said in a 2012 speech at Boston University. “They were aliens, and then became citizens. I was born in Boston a citizen, and then I went to Hollywood and became an alien.”
I don’t know about you, but I watched me a shitload of “Star Trek,” mostly in college, when I was supposed to have been getting one a them, whatchamacallit, edjimications.
Here’s a little LLAP dance for you.
I could Name That Episode about a nanosecond into any one of them, which made me a hair slower than Ed the Beard, a total sci-fi geekazoid who christened his beater Step van “The Hawkwind.” We used it to deliver appliances rather than Michael Moorcock-inspired space rock.
Spock almost always had the snarkiest lines, which may be why I liked the character so much. Scotty and Bones were too excitable, and Kirk was a dickhead authority figure, so yeah, Spock.
When Edith Keeler asked what he was building, Spock replied, “I am endeavoring, ma’am, to construct a mnemonic memory circuit using stone knives and bearskins.”
Chatting about Tribbles with McCoy, who said they were “nice, they’re soft and they’re furry, and they make a pleasant sound,” Spock replied, “So would an ermine violin, Doctor, but I see no advantage in having one.”
Discussing Harcourt Fenton Mudd’s having skipped appointments with Bones, Spock noted: “It’s not at all surprising, Doctor. He’s probably terrified of your beads and rattles.”
Well, now he’s boldly gone where all men (and women) must go. We’ll miss him. Live long and prosper, the rest of yis.
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