If you're referring to my comment. The prequel comics which are supposedly part of the canon is that the Narada is a borg-ified romulan vessel.

They use that as part of the reason why JJverse Enterprise is different from TOS Enterprise. The explanation goes that the Kelvin scanned the Narada and magically gleamed all the borg tech from those scans which led to a massive explosion of new technology. so JJverse tech is supposedly roughly on par with TNG-era tech if not better because of the borg tech boost from the Narada....all that from just scans of the ship.

Don't blame me, that's just what I read

EDIT: just looked it up. Yep, that's what the writers wrote about it.

Uh, isn't the song an homage to the first film when Kirk steals the car and drives it off a cliff (pretty sure this was the song playing in the background)?

Look, this is the 3rd movie in the rebooted franchise. Do people really not get the idea of a "reboot"? They're not re-making Star Trek, they're taking it in an entirely different direction. The first one clearly showed they wanted to go in the blockbuster action film direction and the second one re-affirmed that. So, it completely baffles me as to why anyone at this point would still think the rebooted franchise is going to be anything like the original Star Trek movies (let alone the TV series, which had far more time to build the characters and establish the universe than the movies do).

Now, as to the particulars of this trailer... they're going to blow up the Enterprise, again?!? We haven't "been there, done that" enough yet? And so much for their 5-year mission--looks like that is going to get cut a little short.

Still the idea of the main cast members getting stranded on a hostile planet is pretty good for allowing some cool between-character interaction and does in fact harken back to all of the TV series versions (where it seemed to happen on a fairly regular basis).

Will wait and see. Probably will be a good action popcorn flick (which is clearly what they want the series to be).

IKR! Why go through all the trouble and not make it to scale?? The Enterprise A is apparently shorter than the Normandy, yet is listed as longer...

How is Halo a starship? Ringworld actually travelled to another star, but did Halo copy that at some point? (along with the basic premise).

Wow.. so.. a lot of good.. a lot of bad. Actor performances and writing were all over the board. The seasoned actors were all awesome, and sean young who at first seamed out of place turned out a wonderful performance as Dr Lucien and a hopeful character. The space sequences were numerous and well done with great ship models. Pyrotechnics were kept minimal as those are still hard to do in style in CG so its best to keep it good or keep it out.

The bad how ever. The klaxon mining facility was just all kinds of horribleness. The bad layering, the over the top and ridiculous amounts of shooting flames, and the cherry on the top is the introduction to the main bad guy race with their mask straight out of planet of the apes. I seriously can't believe someone though those were a go for filming. Also most of the planet intro scenes are more of a neo electro artistic style rather than something that looks real. This is a bit surprising since I would think the "animated paintings" from enterprise and voyager era would have been pretty low cost. The worst of the performances is by Crystal Conway, chekovs great great grand daughter.

Writing was also up and down. I think the story was ok with 2 general sins being committed. #1 a little to much backstory stuffed into the first 30 minutes. Icheb's borg roots were uncomfortably recited in a full scene in front of his own crew who would have already known this, and should have instead been a few lines to say he was a borg and then leaving his origin story for a later date. And #2, a lot of plot points like the doorway placed on earth ahead of time and being able to transport through the time distortion seem awfully convenient and tries to absolve the episode from going any farther in complexity. This is a pretty big sin when you consider these need to be %90 self contained episodes. Also it seems no matter how bad you are or how much of an outlaw you are, finding you in the star trek universe is one scene away. I do have to give props to Corin Nemec as the captain of the other ship. His crew is actually pretty bad but I liked him. I was sad to see his script called for more shooting and less investigating. Also I feel bad for the horrible looking bridge set they built him.

Still in the end, I am a big supporter for more star trek. I loved voyager and I think the renegade crew is actually in good shape. Lexxa, is not BAD but needs more work. Like another comment I read, she doesn't seem very smart about anything, no hidden talents. Her fighting is pretty horrible and scripted, and while she pulls the bad girl image off, she lacks the muscle or fancy footwork to look like she could actually hold her own physically.

Ronara was largely forgettable and suffered from the same origin scene stuffing scene sin as Icheb. Chekovs 2 girls on the other hand look like good additions and I think they pulled the female andorian well. Nothing dramatic in their acting but at this point, not sucking is a good thing.

Unfortunately who knows how many years till we see eps 2. I seem to recall this one finished its kickstarter long ago but delayed heavily.

@Trancecoach

nice article.
explains much in regards to the evolution of germanys social market economy,the reasons and motivations.was a rather enjoyable read.

it still does not excuse your own hackery,but it does explain how germanys more marxist socialism was failing and needed to be adapted to a more free market enterprise.that by itself,did not create a free market capitalism though,it changed the dynamic of a marxist socialist economy that was failing to meet the needs of a country that imported way more than it exported.

in the end it was still a social market economy with the market expanded.

we all need to evolve and adapt ,and elements of free market capitalism is well equipped to do just that.so bravo for germany.

It is in the process of moving from a mainstream product used by everybody and installed by default to a niche product used by a few and not installed by default. I don't know if you'd say that counts as dead or dying, but it is certainly changing.

The reasons for this include the number of security flaws found in flash, and the increasing capabilities of html5, but it also just seems that the world is moving on and leaving it behind. You could say that Apple started the trend, but it's also possible that they just picked up on it before anybody else.

Interestingly though, just as the move away from flash became obvious, VMWare have moved from a standalone vsphere client to a flash app for managing enterprise ESX clusters.

http://videosift.com/video/Numberphile-Problems-with-the-Number-Zero

Skip to 10 minutes for 0/0 if you don't want the background. A quick spoiler clue is that x/x = 1; Also, 0 x 0 = 0, which implies the answer is 0. Indeed, there are a number of different mathematical constructs one can make to demonstrate that the answer is any number one likes.

Mathematics needs to be uniform and consistent, and an operation that can return infinite legitimate values depending on your approach is a disaster as far as this is concerned. Suddenly the whole enterprise of mathematics is ruined. Better to call 0/0 undefined.

Into English and cookies. How many cookies does nobody get when you don't divide cookies among no people? Does this make sense?

Into speed. If I am travelling at speed and you want to measure it you need distance travelled and time taken. If I travelled 100 kilometres in 1 hour you can say I'm travelling 100kph. If I travelled 50 kilometres in half an hour (50 / 0.5) , you can say the same thing. 25km in quarter of an hour (25 / 0.25) and so on and so forth. All come out at 100kph. But what if you decide to measure how far I travel in 0 seconds? I travel 0 metres. 0 / 0 = ? 0kph? And if you took this narrowly focussed measurement every few seconds you would see that my speed remains at 0kph but I manage to cover 100km in an hour anyway. Maths is now broke

The Trump analogy should be more like comparing a businessman failing 3 business to trying to legitimize some criminal enterprise. The failed businessman is still legitimate and the criminal still isn't.


This decision is a rip in the American fabric equal to Roe VS Wade.

Considering the dick-waiving that the whole Star Trek vs Star Wars thing always devolves into, I actually enjoyed the light-heartedness of this skit.

That said, the purpose of the stories told by each is meant to be completely different. That Star Wars goes for the simpler, classic hero's journey doesn't make it a lesser work, it just has a more singular focus, and the original trilogy did it well. But when you have a strong foundation like that, you really can't expand on it without losing a lot of the charm of the basic story. That's part of why the sequels were so disappointing. They couldn't retell the hero's journey without being a rehash, and by focusing on the hero's downfall, they had to up the complexity of the plot. But how complex can you make a plot before it just drags the movie down? (The exception was Clone Wars, which was able to circumvent this because it had more space to tell the story.)

This is why I am fairly certain that the new Star Wars movies will be lacking. They can either go the simple route and end up with a rehash, or the complex route, and end up with a similar mess to the prequels. There's a fine line they need to ride in order to make a good set of movies, but there are a lot of things working against them, from the expectations of the Star Wars fans, to the concessions writers have to make to appeal to the mass audience of modern movies. (To say nothing of Abrams, whose insultingly abysmal treatment of Star Trek gives me little confidence.)

Now on the Star Trek end, the stories are meant to be more complex, with commentaries on philosophy, modern politics, and the human condition (as well as showing the unique technological possibilities that the future held). Most of the stories were designed for introspection, and that's a major part of what made the show popular.

But if you lose that introspection and focus on action and special effects, the stories become empty. This is why many of the later movies, which again had to focus on mass appeal, were so lacking. (Movies like Wrath of Khan, Undiscovered Country, Generations, and First Contact avoided this because they were able to draw on the richness of the show to round out the themes they were trying to express, but even still, they weren't quite up to par to the shows when it came to the fundamental concepts of Star Trek.) The same goes for much of Voyager and Enterprise, which often ended up going more for appeal than intellect. (Perhaps the writers ran out of things to say, perhaps the audience just got dumber, who knows.)

So in the end, which one is nerdier? Star Trek, hands down, and as ChaosEngine said, it's a good thing.

Which one is better? That depends on what kind of story you're looking for.

But in the end, there's no denying . . .


Riker is a freaking boss.

Brother, if you haven't had your daily dose of rage-inducing madness, check out this magnificent rant: The Asshole Factory

"The Great Enterprise of the Age of Stagnation is the wholesale manufacture not of great, world-shaking, ground-breaking ideas, inventions, concerns…but of bigger and bigger assholes."

Nothing is good about this situation and there is no reason to think this will end in anything but Greek default.

Greece's government, elected by its citizens ran up a large and unsustainable debt which was masked by easy credit before the GFC and fraudulent accounting.

There were many contributors. Corruption, hugely wasteful state owned enterprises, joining the euro zone before they were ready to lose the ability to devalue their currency and lower interest rates, and flagrant tax evasion.

But as a country they're collectively responsible for not demanding the necessary reforms of their politicians to ensure they were not vulnerable to a credit crisis when the GFC hit and lenders began to look more scrupulously at individual European countries rather than Europe as a whole. Equally, Italy is responsible for voting Berlusconi into power for every year their economy recorded negative growth under his government. Spain is responsible for not providing sufficient oversight to bad bank lending leading a huge indebting bailout package.

Some of Syriza's reforms are reasonable. Tackling corruption and trying to break up oligopolies are worthy ideas, but they are unlikely to be easy and yield any immediate benefit. Raising the minimum wage and planning to hire back state workers as they have already promised will almost guarantee they will cease to receive EU funding/ECB assistance and later IMF funding.

The simple truth from the point of view of Germany and other austerity backing Nordic countries is if they buy their loans (and in effect transfer money to Greece) without austerity stipulations, there will be no pressure or guarantee that structural reforms that allow Greece to function independently will ever be implemented. These lender government and by extension its people have no interest in transferring wealth to Greece if it stalls its reforms.

Yes fire sales of state owned enterprises suck but the likely alternative at this point if the Troika lending is stopped is that all other lending stops and Greece defaults. At that point there would be mass loss of state sector jobs and sky-rocketing unemployment relative to what is now being experienced. It would take years of reform for the Greek government to be lend-worthy again. There is simply no trust for any alternative to austerity on the part of north Europe.

Currently Greece has reported positive growth in the past quarter and excluding debt repayments is running a budget surplus. Realistically, yes they cannot pay back the 180% of GDP. The likely way forward is after several more years of real reform they (+ Spain & Portugal) would get better terms from the EU as politically, leaders in Germany and elsewhere will be able to make the case that their objective has been achieved.

The ECB's QE package is in some ways already part of this. What I guarantee won't happen is electing Syriza to oppose bailout terms helping to secure that. Germany et al will quite rightly see that if they acquiesce to Greece they will encourage other populist parties in Spain, Portugal, Italy and France and stall reforms.

Could Germany and others in theory provide a huge cash infusion to Greece, Spain and Portugal now? Sure. And those parties would be voted out in the next election and the terms reversed. Even with the relative stinginess of current loan terms, the likes of UKIP and the National Front with their anti-EU stance, have gained political standing in the EU parliament and will likely see huge boosts in upcoming domestic elections.

I think there is a lot of truth behind this and, in my opinion, Ms Holten does share in some of the responsibility for at least the existence of these pictures. Being a young and likely naïve person without much relationship experience (which can apply to both men and women), she allowed her boyfriend to take those intimate pictures. Loss of private information is not a new occurrence and there have been some big stories about data theft or loss in the past decade or so. Ms Holten must have realized that these intimate pictures might still have ended up on the internet even if her boyfriend hadn't posted them: phones get lost or stolen all the time; personal computers and cloud storage services are not always secure, etc. Ms Holten seems like an intelligent woman, so I think one can assume that she was at least aware of the risks and, at the time, accepted them.

If Ms Holten's boyfriend had taken the pictures without her knowledge and then released them to the internet, she would clearly, at least in my opinion, have zero responsibility. That is not the case though. She willingly allowed the creation of the original erotic pictures and accepted the risks associated with their existence. That does not make her any less of a victim, but she is partly responsible for the existence of the pictures; if the pictures didn't exist, her boyfriend couldn't have put them on the internet and she wouldn't be subject to the ridicule she is receiving now.

A good example is sharing your banking username and password with someone. This is intimate information that you might only ever share with someone that you trust completely. Even so, many banks are very clear that this is a violation of their terms and conditions and can result in you being held responsible for any monetary losses incurred from unauthorized use. Another example: Enterprise administrators are constantly admonishing users for writing down their network credentials and leaving them lying around. While someone shouldn't use your credentials without your consent, that doesn't mean they won't and therefore you have the responsibility to protect that information. To me this is a demonstration of common sense: don't expose information that you can't afford to lose control of. With that said, Ms Holten's boyfriend absolutely committed a crime and should be punished. Furthermore, it's likely that many of the unsolicited emails that she received overstepped the line between opinion and harassment. I have no argument with that.

Lastly, releasing nude images of herself in order to regain control of her life is admirable and shows courage, but it's naïve to assume that it will shame or impact, in any way, the lives of her harassers; the media headlines about her "getting revenge" are laughable and nonsensical. Ultimately, the new nude pictures probably just gives her harassers more material to enjoy. Still, if it helps her move on, power to her. After all, it is her choice. I'm curious if Ms Holten will post a follow-up about the response to her new images.

The Enterprise could so totally take out the Death Star.

@newtboy
i totally understand my friend and i dont necessarily disagree,but what do you think makes a greater impact?
banning an intelligent person,who may cause some controversy from time to time but is VITAL to human discourse.
OR...
as we are seeing here,a community coming together to admonish that person for breaking the rules?

which is the point i was trying to make.i want trance to acknowledge that what he did was out of an emotional,ego-driven response,but i dont want his voice silenced just because we may disagree from time to time.

and i am willing to bet that trance gets the point.he is no fool and understands full well the implications.the community is telling him:
bad trance..baaaaaad....

shunning is a FAR more powerful tool than clicking a button to silence someone.
just ask the amish.

not everybody fits into this category.there have been some who were deliberate in their offensiveness.those people SHOULD be banned from civil discourse but trance has something to say.we may not always agree but to silence him over an emotional over-reaction is a tad harsh..in my opinion.

and thats all it really is..my opinion.

i also dont think it fair to drag dag into becoming supreme overlord to pass judgement.i dont think he created this site with that in mind.i think he wanted a community driven enterprise that self-regulated without the need for moderators.

which is exactly what we are doing here..yes?

remember siftquistions?
good times my friends..good times.

Nailed it dude!

The only angle I feel hasn't really come up so far is the idea that private enterprise and public governance could easily be regarded as two manifestations of the same "real" social dynamic: Establishment/challenger (or master/slave if you want to get fully Hegelian about it)

Like, why do we even develop governmental systems in the 1st place?

I have yet to conceive a better answer than: "to curb the destructive excesses of private wealth/power."

Why would we champion personal freedom? I would say: "to curb the destructive excesses of public wealth/power".

Or something to that effect at the very least. The idea of a society with either absolute personal, or absolute collective sovereignty seems hellish to me. And probably unworkable to boot!

There seems to me a tendency in the history of societies for these two types of power to dance either side of equilibrium as the real power struggle unfolds i.e. between reigning establishment and challenger power groups/paradigms.

Right now the establishment is both economic and governmental. The corruption is mutually supporting. Corporations buy and control governments, governments facilitate corporations ruling the market and continuing to be able to buy them.

The circle jerk @blankfist IMHO is between government and private dynasty and moreover I strongly believe that in a vacuum, one will always create the other.

Pure collectivism will naturally breed an individualist challenger and visa versa.

People are at their best I think when balancing self interest and altruism. Too much of either tends to hurt others around you and diminish ones capacity to grow and adapt. (being nice is no good if you lack the will and capacity to get shit done)

It seems natural that the ideal way of organising society would always balance collective state power, with private personal power.

Libertarianism (even the superior non anarchist version) defangs the state too much IMHO. Some collectivist projects such as education, scientific research and exploration I think tend to be better served by public direction. But more importantly I expect the state to referee the market, just as I expect public transparency to referee the state.

Total crowbar separation between the three: public officials cannot legally own or control private wealth and cannot live above standard of their poorest citizens. Private citizens cannot inherit wealth legally, only earn and create it. The state cannot legally hold any secret or perform any function of government outside public view unless it is to prepare sensitive legal proceedings (which must then be disclosed in full when actioned).

In the age of global communications this kind of transparency may for the first time be a workable solution (it's already near impossible to keep a lid on most political scandals and this is very early days). There is also the possibility of a steadily de-monetised market as crowdfunding and crowdsourcing production models start to become more advanced and practical than traditional market dynamics. e.g. kickstarter style collective investment in place of classical entrepreneurial investment.

The benefits and dangers of both capitalism and socialism here would be trending towards diffusion amongst the populace.

And then there's the whole Meritocracy vs Democracy thing, but that's really getting into another topic and I've probably already gone on too long now.

Much love