StillPaisleyCat @ StillPaisleyCat @startrek.website

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809

Joined

2 yr. ago

Yup, lack of advanced science concepts and an accumulation of errors despite a pretension to working problems for the audience.

Even some basic geography errors - early in the book, he claims that the sample had to be landed in Saskatchewan for a high latitude to match the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Baikonur is at 45 N latitude, about the same as the border between North and South Dakota. Everywhere in Saskatchewan is North of the 49th parallel and south of 60. Sigh.

I have to say that I just don’t get the hype about this book.

Project Hail Mary is really targeted at a middle grade reading and maturity level. I would have happily given it to our kids to read in middle grade (as I did The Martian).

It’s a Robinson Crusoe meets a buddy in space boys-own-adventure tale (although Weir insists on male gendering a hermaphrodite when ‘they/them’ is well understood). There are clear indications that the story was told to pull in immature readers - starting with the ludicrous scene where Grace has spent days waiting for zero G without stowing any of his lab equipment or supplies.

It’s a compellingly written ‘work the problem’ read but anything beyond high school science concepts isn’t really there. Once again, I feel like we’re seeing more overhyped STEM based on concepts that haven’t advanced beyond what a mid 20th century bachelors degree would cover.

It held my attention as an easy read while fighting a bug, I can’t see picking up another of his books for myself.

There are a few very odd ‘too much information’ references to sexual relationships and use of alcohol that seem almost awkwardly placed to bump up the level, but there’s not really enough in there to even warrant the ‘school edition’ treatment that ‘The Martian’ got. Otherwise nothing stretches past middle grade emotional maturity.

All told, I was expecting more.

A strange, new to us viewers, world.

And the Orion homeworld this week!

Lower Decks keeps bringing it.

I’m all here for the Lower Decks production design team’s determination to ensure that Orion comes across as a diverse planet, with different climatic regions and levels of urbanization.

I also think it’s fantastic that the Orions as a people have a broad range of skin tones and hair colours.

I’d like to see more of this in other major humanoid (and feliniod) alien species across the franchise.

Will do. Thanks.

Will do as well.

For me it has occurred when I am setting up a comment and copying a link from another tab to add. I’ve had at least a couple of comments that I’ve lost and had to re-enter.

The long hamster wheel to load communities has been reduced over the past week, but still much less smooth than on the previous server for me.

Actually, the independence of central banks, or in other words the isolation of monetary policy from fiscal and interventions to counteract market failures, is not a settled or proven essential for developed economies.

A basic knowledge of dynamic macroeconomic theory and evidence shows that some level of coordination of monetary and fiscal policy is essential to avoid bad corner outcomes. That means coordination between the finance/treasury minister and the central bank.

Most of the time, independent monetary policy is fine to contain inflationary pressures, especially when most of them are externally driven in an open economy like Canada’s. But not always. In those cases, when fiscal and monetary policy move in opposite directions, the trajectory will be poor.

It’s important to consider the impact and total volume of ultra processed foods, and the chemicals they contribute to the diet.

There’s increasing evidence that it’s not just a a matter of calorie equations or carb restriction overall that has effects.

Decades ago, research established that managing the glycemic load was more effective than just calorie counting for persons with diabetes.

15 years ago there was evidence building that diet drinks actually could contribute to metabolic problems.

Now studies looking at overall impacts of ultra processed foods suggest they mess up the gut micro biome or at best get taken up into energy much faster than expected.

The items listed in the article fall into the ultra processed category. The ‘everything in moderation’ approach may not be that successful when too much of the diet flips into the ultra processed categories.

One of the biggest questions is whether she’s willing, as finance minister, to take on the Bank of Canada.

Monetary policy isn’t the only macroeconomic tool, and it’s one that should be coordinated with fiscal and other measures.

In this case, the inflation fighting interest hikes can be argued to be having a ‘perverse effect’ of keeping the housing stock tight without cooling demand while at the same time being completely ineffectual for the other major inflationary drivers of food and fuel.

Food inflation needs antitrust action, while fuel is a long term necessary adjustment to move the market away from fossil fuels. Interest rate hikes have nothing positive to contribute to those concerns.

The Bank of Canada isn’t constitutionally independent no matter how much certain previous governors have tried to make that case. It only has responsibility for one macroeconomic tool, and isn’t democratically elected, rather appointed by the executive.

The current governor of the Bank sounds increasingly like John Crown did in the early to mid 1990s when he put Canada into a deeper and deeper recession/depression because he placed inflation-fighting above all, and used the bank. He claimed however that no government should tell him how to manage monetary policy, and made speeches about the need for a constitutionally independent governor. Then, it took the electoral near eradication of the Progressive Conservative Party at the federal level plus the eventual exasperation of Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien to push Crow out.

I wish Hallmark would have a better balance between promoting and featuring new shows and dial back having yet another 1701 TOS or TAS era model.

Given that Data’s connection to Spot was a significant plot/character point in Picard season three, I can get behind this one.

The Bagey one is however the only truly fresh collector’s item that profiles a currently running show.

However, they completely lost the window with our kids to get them interested in collecting. They would have loved a Discovery or more positive Lower Decks ornament a couple of years back. There was nothing.

Now, they’ve moved on to other fandoms that actually had stuff to collect. They each still have their favourite Eaglemoss Voyager and 1701-D ship models prominently on display in their rooms, but other franchises have crowded out interest in Star Trek.

As I have mentioned previously, Jon Van Citters and the CBS side really need to take a lesson from colleagues in the Paramount Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles team who have moved TMMT from niche collectibles back to main stream tie-ins that are worth 10 times the value of their new movie.

I agree. I’m wondering if they might find another panel to slip into.

Neither is Prodigy.

Really hope someone from the production can bring some Prodigy presence and impact similar to at SDCC.

Or Short Treks, which was referred to as a fifth series at one point.

The Prodigy erasure is brutal and unbecoming.

I really feel like I’m back in the late 70s with the TAS erasure.

One might therefore hope that there might be one in the set that I don’t find so unbearably cringey that I might want to watch it more than once.

Am I really the only one here getting T’Pol-Trip-like Vulcan-Human romantic tension from T’Lyn towards Boimler?

The B’lyn / T’boimler / Boilyn ship is getting a lot of chatter elsewhere.

Normally, I’m not into such speculation but with the number of failed Vulcan- Human romances in the franchise despite the success of other inter species relationships, this seems exactly the kind of thing Lower Decks would target for humorous remedy.

Besides even for an ‘out of control’ overly emotional Vulcan, T’Lyn was far too distraught and physically close to Boimler when he was being revived.

Loved the episode. My take is that we’ll get to see every classic junior management mistake from our Lower Deckers this season, fit to personality.

Boimler’s admission of discomfort sending others into danger may have been part of his motivation. The classic micromanager bad behaviour of not trusting subordinates with risks, and doing everything himself was pretty much what I’d expected of Boimler though. He had a hard time learning to trust and rely on peers, why would he be different with subordinates?

Lower Decks may become another Star Trek (after TNG) to be cited in leadership training.

I understood that the EP/Showrunner is the same for all, and the writer of the first one. So, he set the tone. Sigh.

A am still hopeful for ‘Holograms all the way down’ as it has Aaron Waltke as the writer credited.

If you’re saying that the 90s shows have more direct references in Lower Decks than Discovery, I can agree.

I’d add The Animated Series too though. There are many Easter eggs from TAS included.

However, the OP should be aware that Lower Decks is written to be enjoyed by those completely new to the franchise. The deep cuts are added value not a necessity. There are numerous new fans that watched Lower Decks and only later got to the other shows they reference and enjoy discovering in reverse.

Discovery in-universe becomes a secret at a level that it’s not the kind of thing the Cerritos crew would know about from reading historic resources.

Sigh. It’s astounding how frequently, for a franchise that wants to be global, we are confronted with the perspective that really, to those marketing tie-ins, only the US market counts.

Yes, there’s legal stuff to deal with. So deal I say. It feels like Paramount licensing is still existing in the 1960s.

I’m definitely seeing that white light as a whale probe-style weapon.

I bet the whales found no cetaceans on the ship so it was destroyed, with the crew taken for a menagerie - or to repopulate a planet the whale probe inappropriately cleared.

Cerritos’ cetacean officers will save the day.

Alternate hypothesis - the ship belongs to the clown-alien species of Voyager ‘The Thaw, because what could be more frightening than a clown ship?