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And while 1 was awful, 2 really wasn't terrible, and I'd contend that 3 is actually on par with A New Hope and Return of the Jedi.

However, the book version is still far superior. But that's mainly because it gets inside the character's heads in ways the movie can't.

But the best Star Wars story is Darth Side, Darth Vader's blog. That's pure concentrated awesome in literary form.

I for one welcome our mask overlords

Too bad it hasn't also figured out a way for everyone that wants health care to pay for that insurance. In the mean while, even those who can afford it have been forced to accept the annual doctor shuffle where they are forced to stop seeing the doctor they know and trust because the health plan has changed yet again.

Doctors who specialize in the care of patients with difficult conditions but are not "specialists" get driven out of the practice because their patients cost more to treat on average than those of a doctor that sees a lot of colds and hangnails. Statistically they appear to be inefficient even though the care their patients get is far more cost effective than seeing the specialist for vaguely related problems.

The rules for who pays what and when have gotten so complex that often, nobody (even the insurance representatives) knows how much will be paid or who will pay what until the paperwork circles around two or three times. By the time it's figured out, the total cost for all parties involved exceeds the amount that was in uestion.

Meanwhile, the cost of all of that paper shuffling and repeatedly familiarizing a new set of doctors with each patient could have been spent giving someone a cheap antibiotic before they showed up in the ER with and expensive life threatening pneumonia.

That and people with "pre-existing conditions" become indentured servants. They cannot start their own business EVER. They cannot afford to become unemployed for too long. If, through no fault of their own, they DO become unemployed for too long, they can measure the cost in decades of their life they won't live because emergency treatment of a chronic condition only goes so far.

People who MIGHT have a medical condition are afraid to get it checked out when inexpensive preventative measures might help because as soon as their concern becomes a diagnosis, it also becomes a "pre-existing condition". As long as they avoid the doctor, they can hope and pray that they get health insurance before things get bad enough that they must seek medical help. As soon as they see a doctor, all hope is lost.

There's a reason genetic screening isn't seeing widespread use in the U.S. Even if finding out about a high risk well in advance cuts the lifetime cost of care to 1/4th what it would be otherwise, people can't afford to risk becoming an insurance pariah.

All in all, the system of private insurance mostly works well (for those that can afford it) only so long as they are going to the doctor for things that don't actually call for a doctor ("I'm paying for it, I might as well see some benefit!"). Once it's really needed, the problems show up in droves.

Canadians with their subsidized health care live longer on average than Americans with private health care. Before you blame diet, consider poutine.

This is a particularly satisfying story to me. When I was writing my pulp scifi novella The Bikes of New York (in which the poor pedal generator bicycles for spare change) I was told by many snotty self-proclaimed debunkers that human beings could never generate a meaningful amount of power using their bodies, and some of them had all sorts of intimidating mathematics to prove their points.

This story seems to show that their rigour was limp, and their points pointless.

Hooray for a legitimate basis for my surreal vision! Nerd on, MIT.

This guy doesn't seem to be having any problems.

http://cheeseburgerbrown.com/stories/The_Bikes_of_ New_York.html

s/steal off/steal from

* This corrections service is offered as a courtesy by Cheeseburger Brown, author, clown and smart-ass. *

Scifi short story that takes place at the heat-death of our universe.

Topical? Yes!

Tipping encouraged. I'll be here all week.

Assorted narrative jokes about robots and spacehips

...people would be able to take just about anything that burns to the Sociedade Municipal de Iluminaçao e Traçao and exchange it for electricity meter tokens!

1) This is good because, as many have mentioned, going out on a high note is far preferable to shrivelling into unadultered guano before calling it quits. Besides, the sooner they kill it the sooner someone else can "reimagine" it a generation later if we honestly find the concept that compelling.

2) The success of BSG has taught the Sci-Fi Channel some good lessons, and we can hope such lessons are applied as they develop new properties, thereby giving them an edge in the race to suck less.

3) I'm arranging to have my own scifi project pitched to the Sci-Fi Channel in the near future. A hole in the schedule means a potential opportunity!

Look, Cheeseburger Brown has already prophesied all of this.

For a science-fiction cant on some of the issues raised in TFA, take a look at The Bikes of New York which explores a post-energy crisis near-future in which impoverished people have the option of riding stationary bicycles to spin massive underground flywheels that top up the energy needs of commercial enterprises.

I think creative solutions to electricity problems are in all our futures. Personally, I live about 75% off the grid and am looking forward to be able to afford to get all the way off -- but I need to get my roof re-done before I can even think about solar panels or mounting a wind turbine up there.

At any rate, fiction for thought.