Seven Observations...

...Regarding J.J. Abram's take on the Trek universe.

1) Starting the film with a time traveller changing history is massively clever, because now no-one can complain about future films messing with the time line.

2) That still doesn't mean you can get away with having people order Cardassian cocktails in a bar, but even I recognise how pointless a nit-pick that is.

3) I'm also somewhat displeased that the only remaining stories that actually "happened" belong to Enterprise (better than Voyager, admittedly), and everything else is gone. I can't entirely articulate why I'm pissed that a bunch of fictional events now aren't recognised within the same fictional world, but Dr L tells me my reaction is consistent with literary theory, so I guess I'm OK with it.

4) Abrams continues to indulge in his twin obsessions with father issues and big red shiny balls, and has now apparently added "falling off of things" into the mix.

5) The new cast works pretty well in general, though Pegg is only required to play Scott as a comic character, so I remain unconvinced he's going to work over the long term. Assuming that's an issue, of course.

6) The future is now undergoing a retro revival, which includes swanky cars, Nokia sound systems, the Beastie Boys, and padded bras.

7) If I had a tiny man-bat to keep me company for the cost of one bean a day, I would renounce Lord Mothington completely.

Update: C has e-mailed me to point out there was at least one Cardassian exiled on Vulcan before Kirk meets Uhura in the bar. He quotes Memory Alpha:

Iloja of Prim was a Cardassian serialist poet who lived during the First Republic. Jadzia Dax regarded Iloja of Prim as her favorite Cardassian author. One of her symbiont's previous hosts, Tobin Dax, met Iloja when he was in exile on Vulcan. He noted that Iloja had "quite a temper". (DS9: "Destiny")

Iloja of Prim's exact time period has not been established. He had to be alive sometime before 2245 by which time Emony Dax carried the Dax symbiont. As both were on Vulcan during this time period this indicates that both Trilland Cardassians were known to the Federation before 2245.

Thus Cardassians were in fact known to the Federation on an individual level; one assumes that official first contact with the Union came much later, and led to the war described in "The Enemy".

C also points out I could double the number of comments above entirely by listing the ways in which the film pisses all over the laws of physics, but given my shaky grasp of even the most basic physical laws, I'll leave that to those better trained in it.

Update II: Apparently the links in the above quote didn't work ( I copied straight from C's email), so I've removed them.

Outrageous Slander

This kind of racist political cartoon cannot be tolerated! The Space Squid is a kind and gentle creature! First that bastard Watterson tricked me into believing tigers could talk, and now this!

h/t to Garathon.

A Small Request To Supervisors

If you insist that something needs to be submitted today, and you know that the submission process requires you sign a form, and you're told by your student that they're going to fetch the form, could you please not fuck off home in the intervening thirty minutes?

Fortunately, I was able to switch to emergency back-ups, and the thesis is now submitted. Go me.

Emergency Blogging

Well, not really an emergency, I guess, so much as horribly limited time, stuck as I am with one of the coin-guzzling steam-powered "computers" the Travelodge has burdened me with.

All I want to say, really, is that Cambridge = Durham - Hills + Tourist Hordes (whether this constitutes an improvement is mainly down to individual taste), and that if you ever find yourself down here, a visit to Caffe Uno would be entirely worth your time, because it is excellent. Ask for the tiramisu. [1]

Further, it turns out my reputation has spread as far as Cambridge. When asked for my name today, I was told, in distinctly suspicious tones, "Yeah, I figured that would be you".

"The only thing worse than being talked about...", I guess.

[1] Also, ask for the ridiculously cute waitress. I can't guarantee she'll be there, but it has to be worth a try.

Ten Thousand Gleaming Robo-Judges, Clutching Shotguns

Senator Orrin Hatch accidentally reminds us all why the Republicans are so dangerous whenever they get to exercise power (h/t to Steve Benen).

[President Obama's] also said that a judge has to be a person of empathy. What does that mean? Usually that's a code word for an activist judge.

I am genuinely horrified by the idea that there are people out there who are displeased by the idea of an empathic judge. This goes beyond the fact that, as I've argued in the past, I think empathy should an essential pillar of human life. If there's one place the ability to understand somebody's emotional state, it's when that emotional state has led them to commit a crime, and they need to receive a fair sentence (or, in the case of the Supreme Court, when it needs to be decided whether a given sentence was fair). More than that, Hatch implies he not only doesn't like the idea, but that the mere suggestion must be a code for a judge that will attempt to re-jig the application of the Constitution. Empathic judges are not only a bad idea, they are a priori less trustworthy when it comes to considering the constitution.

I'm not by any means suggesting empathy is a sufficient condition for being a good judge, but there are a lot of reasons to fear the suggestion that lack of empathy might be a necessary one.

Right, I'm off for my quick tour of the South. See you all on Friday.

Shake #3

Today's shake: Jaffa Cakes

Taste: 5
Texture: 3
Synergy: 5
Scorn: 3
Overall: 5

General comments: I gave this one a low scorn rating because it occurred to me that chocolate ice cream with a hint of orange would work very well. In the end, though, the chocolate is difficult to taste, and the orange impossible, save for the occasions when a tiny globule of the jelly they fill the biscuits with plops into your mouth like a citrus-tinged parasitic worm. This unsettling experience also means a low texture score. The shake gets away with a midrange taste score because I suspect that tasting mainly of vanilla is far from the worst case scenario. A similar logic is applied to synergy; vanilla with a chocolate twist isn't a bad idea.

All told, though, it's a shame: this shake could have been so much more...

Hope everyone's having a good Bank Holiday, and is enjoying the snooker. My original prediction for the final score was 18-14 to Higgins, but at this rate it may not be that close.

Friday 40K Blogging: Chaos In Space

This Friday we take a look at my Chaos fleet. I painted it in these colours because I had a vague notion at the time of starting a Thousand Sons army; since then my obsession with the Red Corsairs and the new and distinctly unimproved rules for Chaos Daemons in the CSM Codex has temporarily nixed that plan.

Still, as a fleet I think they work quite well. The formation consists of a Desolator class battleship (the End Of Days), a Styx class heavy cruiser (the Filth-Hive), two Murder class cruisers (from right to left, the Shaitan and the Shark's Tooth, which has the highest kill tally of any ship I own, mainly because C keeps using it against me), and a Slaughter class cruiser, the Dagger of Magnus, escorted by the Headhunters squadron.

A close up of the Headhunters (an Idolator class raider and four Iconoclast class destroyers).

The assembled Chaos fleet attacks an Imperial outpost orbiting a gas giant. Looks like it's a bad day to be stationed in the Carpet Nebula...

I can't guarantee any updates over the weekend, since I won't be in the office (finished my thesis yesterday, go me!) and I'm still sans internet in the flat. I'm also on a course from Tuesday to Thursday, so it may be a light week over here.