...so that he doesn't have to watch what they've done to his vision and legacy.
TNG was the last great trek that had his blessing. This movie is nothing like TNG.
I suppose you could quibble over the definition of "great", but DS9 had Gene's blessing before he died, and I'd say that was a pretty damned good series.
Re:OK, but just not "believable"
on
Reviews: Star Trek
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· Score: 3, Insightful
"caveat: I'm a 37-year old Trekkie and a former Naval officer"
Let me guess...you wanted to serve on CVN-65.
I don't know about the grandparent poster, but I did serve on CVN-65.
That aside, with my own Navy background, I have the same qualms as the GP poster. I have not seen the movie myself, and I'm relying in the review here and the spoilers from others for details. But what I hear has some strange implications. Bad enough that the reboot screws up the ages of the characters (Kirk and McCoy and Scottie were considerably older than guys like Sulu and Chekov in the series), but handing command over to a cadet with no experience? What the hell? I'm pretty sure that's not how Kirk came up in the ranks in the original canon, and in a real fleet, the CO would be quickly relived of his duties and scheduled for a court martial for doing such a thing. There's a damn good reason that you have to do time as a division officer and an Executive Officer before you get anywhere near that chair; experience counts, and no matter how talented you are, no one is born with it.
Abrams is simply asking for too much suspension of disbelief here. I know it's fiction, and science-fiction adventure at that, but speaking as someone that's actually served in a military force, the cadet-to-captain thing is just too much. That's not Star Trek, that's Spacecamp with photon torpedoes.
"Science for science sake is worth while no matter the cost or the expect benefit."
That's nice and all, and true, but it still ignores fiscal realities. This kind of research is expensive, and there's an economic slump going on right now. What should the Austrian government cancel to pay for this research? Roads? Schools?
Its easy to tell them to keep up the good work, when you're not footing the bill.
"You mean like the time when they kicked North Korea's ass out of South Korea?"
Saying Korea was a UN victory is like saying WW II was a French victory. The UN had very little to do with it. The vast bulk of the fighting forces were American and South Korean. That doesn't belittle the contribution of other allied nations, but face it, just five years after WWII, no one else was in any shape yet to fight a major war again. And the point is still moot, as after Korea, the communists wised up and used political tactics to make the UN completely useless, usually with reliable vetoes on the Security Council. And its been that way ever since, with both Russia AND China now continuing the same tactics. As for the Cuban Missile Crisis, that wasn't settled in the UN at all; it was settled in back channels between JFK and Kruschev, basically with JFK capitulating on missiles in Turkey. The UN is just where the best show was. Former UN workers have testified (and even written a book) to the fact that if you're suffering from civil strife, the very worst thing that can happen to you is the arrival of UN "peacekeepers".
Using the Korean War as an example of how well the UN works is like using the Code of Hammurabi as a model for a modern Constitution. So stopping sucking on the UN's teats.
The head of the UN "human rights commission" has been Colonel Gadaffi, for the love of Jebus.
That's nothing, the head of the Department of Justice in the USA approved of illegal wiretaps, and the President of the country personally approved of torture, for the love of Jebus.
What illegal wiretaps? The courts certainly haven't ruled them illegal. You may consider them illegal, and perhaps you're even right; it wouldn't be the first time our courts ruled on something in a manner contrary to the Constitution. But for good or ill, the law in America is what judges says it is, not you or I. So until SCOTUS changes its mind about the wiretaps, they're not illegal. And apparently, Even President Hope-Change has done a 180 and now backs the wiretapping. So spread the blame around while you're at it. The best you can hope for right now is that the current lawsuit in the 9th Circuit makes it to SCOTUS and that they agree with you.
Commerce Clause. Thanks for making the argument that more education is needed.
Thankfully, the SCOTUS came to their senses a few years ago and declared that the CC is NOT a blanket justification for universal Federal authority over everything. Congress had used it to justify totalitarian powers up till that point. Any argument using the CC as its justification has to have a much more narrow focus now, or SCOTUS will throw it out. I can only hope that one day they'll make a similar ruling on the "general welfare" clause.
Buying Ashton-Tate, maker of dBASE, was their downfall. Huge outlay and the migration to windows was a massive failure.
That wasn't their downfall. Their downfall was the same thing that made WordPerfect an also-ran, that virtually destroyed Novell, that ended Netscape, and heavily contributed to the end of Sun: Microsoft.
Love them or hate them (and at Slashdot it's usually the latter), Microsoft is single-handedly responsible for the deaths of many tech companies. In Borland's case, they simply couldn't survive against MS Visual Studio. Everything else they did or did not do pales against that fact.
"The article is from the Daily Mail, hardly a good source."
Why aren't they a good source? They're the second best selling mainstream newspaper in Britain. You're going to have to elaborate on this one.
"Translation: The Daily Mail wanted an anti-BBC headline to support their political stance, so they made shit up."
Is that why they're not "a good source"? You don't like their editorial stance?
"The last sentence in the article is the most useful: "A spokesman for the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform said: 'There are no plans to impose new taxes.'""
Well, that settles it then. Politicians and government officials never lie, do they?
"Actually, you're playing right into the hands of the pro-life movement by saying that."
Yeah, pro-life, what a wicked position to take. Who do those people think they are, anyway?
It is NOT (repeat NOT) that you needed to kill/abort the fetus so as to get stem cells.
It is if you want lots of new stem cell lines. For a massive fetal stem cell research effort, where are you going to get all of the new lines? If fetal stem cell research truly went widespread, you're going to have to make many more, for the express purpose of harvesting them and destroying them for research. So while current small scale research may have enough fetus test subjects, and expanded effort would need far more. You're then in the business of creating human life, perhaps in factory conditions, just to destroy it to harvest the resources. That's a Pandoras' Box, and only a fool couldn't see that.
People like you are everything that's wrong with politics in this country.
Why? Because I won't lay down for your political leaders? Ah, I see. Dissent is the highest form of patriotism... except when your guy is in office.
You don't know a damn thing about him other than that he doesn't always vote with the groupthink.
I bet I know more about him than you, being the political junkie that I am. I've followed him closely over the years. You're just angry because I've insulted your pretty new political trophy. Be sure and come back and post about how proud you are of his "independent streak" when he's betrayed your party on an important vote.
"They used to care for traditions, principles, and institutions."
Rubbish. Republicans are being castigated by guys like you precisely because they refuse to abandon the very things you listed. Because traditions, principles, and institutions aren't progressive.
Are you actually making the case that the Democrats aren't corrupt? Honestly? Says the guy whose current party leader can't seem to fill out a cabinet with people that actually pay their taxes? Guess they just feign ignorance about their corruption, eh?
"Eh. Specter is an old school reagan-ish republican."
There is nothing even remotely "Reagan-ish" about Arlen Specter. The only principle Specter has ever had are the ones that keep Arlen Specter in power. Though it puts the GOP in a painful disadvantage in the Senate, I am well and truly glad to see him gone. Besides the shiny new (D) beside his name, the only difference in Specter is that now he'll have to stab the Republicans in the front.
And Democrats, while you're happy about your new supposedly filibuster proof majority, consider this; if history is any indication, sooner or later you'll need Specter's vote on something. And he'll screw you guys too. When a whore leaves her husband for another man, does she ever really stop being a whore?
"That would pay for a lot of tax breaks and still support the arts and sciences, roads, safety codes, police, fire protection,..."
And you have it backwards. The Constitution explicitly lists the military as perhaps the highest priority in Federal spending, and lists none of those things you listed, most of which are local matters anyway. Perhaps you meant the Constitution of another country, because that's not the US's governing document.
No way should you ever do this. If it's worth doing then it's worth getting paid for doing it. And for each McMurry out there there is one less paid job at Verizon.
Exactly! I've heard there are even idiots who will write and support entire computer programs for free! No wonder we're in an economic crisis...
Linus Torvalds got people to help him with Linux because they wanted a Unix of their own, more or less. That's a rational reason for a productive use of time. This fool in the article is just working for a corporation for free. There is a difference.
You do bring up an interesting point though. Some companies both mocked and admired IBM for convincing legions of Linux coders to essentially write code for IBM, gratis. "Free as in working for IBM without getting paid" was the refrain. And they had a point. At what point does this stuff go from being a public good to simple exploitation?
Ignoring the fact that the government is not, to the contrary of what the Republican party seems to want, a for profit enterprise,.
I don't want the government to be "for profit". I'd just be happy if government stuck to what the Constitution says the government should do, and spent as little tax dollars possible doing so.
How do so many people, who voluntarily choose to eschew the internet and computers, survive?
In their own little isolated worlds where nobody really cares about them.
I was with you until you said that. That was petty, wrong, and frankly, stupid. No doubt that its harder to live without the Internet these days, but... so what? You can eschew various means of communication (and that's all the Internet ultimately is... a form of communication) without being "isolated". Some people would call that being free. And to say that "no one cares" about them because they don't think like you do... who the hell are you, the lifestyle fuhrer? There are plenty of people that live their lives without a lot of technology just fine. What's it to you?
"Though the way you reject universal health care because "it's socialist", allowing your poor to sicken and die, maybe I'm too optimistic."
Optimistic, I don't know; but you are a pretentious little prick. Our medical system isn't perfect, but I've got news for you, Jack. Neither is yours. Wherever there's universal coverage, there's also usually long waits for specialized surgery, even for terminal patients. Universal care doesn't do you any damn good if you've been given six months to live, but you're so far down the waiting list that you won't get surgery or treatment for twelve. One of the ways universal care is achieved is by rationing services, and hiring limited amounts of medical professionals to keep costs down. State medical care is great if you break a bone... in and out in a few hours, for just a paltry fee. It's not so great if you have a serious illness, and there's not enough specialists to go around to treat you in a timely fashion. In that case, who is killing their people?
I live in the boonies of the USA and my connection peaks just over 1 Mbps (I have a WiFi connection to a tower on the local volcano. Not a typo.).
The problem isn't that you can't get broadband in the boonies. Anyone can. The problem is that most of the time, that option is via satellite. Once you get past the initial hardware expense, monthly service for satellite tv and Internet packages are comparable to cable packages. The problem is the damn latency. Satellite is fine for downloading files and surfing. But try playing FPS's on one.
Five bucks...er, five pounds, that this will be filtered to high heck...
Probably more than you know. If broadband comes to be seen a government-delivered service, then the government will reason that they own it, and can do whatever they please with it... including ration it, restrict it, and even censor it.
Assuming we're still talking about digital piracy here, it is NOT stealing, it is infringing. The two have separate legal meanings that have to do with a scarce good being taken away from another person/entity. Copying music does not take that original away, ergo it cannot be stealing, it is infringing.
Go before a judge, and tell him that infringing isn't taking what doesn't belong to you. Let me know how that works out for you.
It isn't stealing, as stealing means something was taken. In the case of downloading, it's copied not removed from the source.
Taking a CD from a shop is stealing and a criminal act. Downloading a CD is infringement of copyright and therefore a civil matter.
All your analogies involve removing a physical item and that constitutes theft.
The legal difference may be one of criminal vs. civil, but you're still using weasel words to defend illegal actions. Just because nothing physical is being stolen doesn't mean nothing of value is being lost. It's still considered a form of theft in the law, just not the same kind of theft. The RIAA's abuses don't excuse yours.
Could that be because the contested cases were the "false positives" of their piracy sweep, and that the others were, oh, I dunno... guilty of copyright infringement?
Er, what do you think Sony's "core business" is? Hint: it's not TV sets.
I'd bet Sony makes more money off of music and movies in America than they do from hardware. Like everything else, most low-to-mid grade electronics Sony sells now is made outside of Japan in cheaper Asian factories. I can't imagine the profit margin from things like headphones and Walkmans are all that great compared to the money they're bringing in from record labels and Columbia Pictures.
Slashdot Mirror
...so that he doesn't have to watch what they've done to his vision and legacy.
TNG was the last great trek that had his blessing. This movie is nothing like TNG.
I suppose you could quibble over the definition of "great", but DS9 had Gene's blessing before he died, and I'd say that was a pretty damned good series.
Let me guess...you wanted to serve on CVN-65.
I don't know about the grandparent poster, but I did serve on CVN-65.
That aside, with my own Navy background, I have the same qualms as the GP poster. I have not seen the movie myself, and I'm relying in the review here and the spoilers from others for details. But what I hear has some strange implications. Bad enough that the reboot screws up the ages of the characters (Kirk and McCoy and Scottie were considerably older than guys like Sulu and Chekov in the series), but handing command over to a cadet with no experience? What the hell? I'm pretty sure that's not how Kirk came up in the ranks in the original canon, and in a real fleet, the CO would be quickly relived of his duties and scheduled for a court martial for doing such a thing. There's a damn good reason that you have to do time as a division officer and an Executive Officer before you get anywhere near that chair; experience counts, and no matter how talented you are, no one is born with it.
Abrams is simply asking for too much suspension of disbelief here. I know it's fiction, and science-fiction adventure at that, but speaking as someone that's actually served in a military force, the cadet-to-captain thing is just too much. That's not Star Trek, that's Spacecamp with photon torpedoes.
"Science for science sake is worth while no matter the cost or the expect benefit."
That's nice and all, and true, but it still ignores fiscal realities. This kind of research is expensive, and there's an economic slump going on right now. What should the Austrian government cancel to pay for this research? Roads? Schools?
Its easy to tell them to keep up the good work, when you're not footing the bill.
"You mean like the time when they kicked North Korea's ass out of South Korea?"
Saying Korea was a UN victory is like saying WW II was a French victory. The UN had very little to do with it. The vast bulk of the fighting forces were American and South Korean. That doesn't belittle the contribution of other allied nations, but face it, just five years after WWII, no one else was in any shape yet to fight a major war again. And the point is still moot, as after Korea, the communists wised up and used political tactics to make the UN completely useless, usually with reliable vetoes on the Security Council. And its been that way ever since, with both Russia AND China now continuing the same tactics. As for the Cuban Missile Crisis, that wasn't settled in the UN at all; it was settled in back channels between JFK and Kruschev, basically with JFK capitulating on missiles in Turkey. The UN is just where the best show was. Former UN workers have testified (and even written a book) to the fact that if you're suffering from civil strife, the very worst thing that can happen to you is the arrival of UN "peacekeepers".
Using the Korean War as an example of how well the UN works is like using the Code of Hammurabi as a model for a modern Constitution. So stopping sucking on the UN's teats.
That's nothing, the head of the Department of Justice in the USA approved of illegal wiretaps, and the President of the country personally approved of torture, for the love of Jebus.
What illegal wiretaps? The courts certainly haven't ruled them illegal. You may consider them illegal, and perhaps you're even right; it wouldn't be the first time our courts ruled on something in a manner contrary to the Constitution. But for good or ill, the law in America is what judges says it is, not you or I. So until SCOTUS changes its mind about the wiretaps, they're not illegal. And apparently, Even President Hope-Change has done a 180 and now backs the wiretapping. So spread the blame around while you're at it. The best you can hope for right now is that the current lawsuit in the 9th Circuit makes it to SCOTUS and that they agree with you.
Commerce Clause. Thanks for making the argument that more education is needed.
Thankfully, the SCOTUS came to their senses a few years ago and declared that the CC is NOT a blanket justification for universal Federal authority over everything. Congress had used it to justify totalitarian powers up till that point. Any argument using the CC as its justification has to have a much more narrow focus now, or SCOTUS will throw it out. I can only hope that one day they'll make a similar ruling on the "general welfare" clause.
Buying Ashton-Tate, maker of dBASE, was their downfall. Huge outlay and the migration to windows was a massive failure.
That wasn't their downfall. Their downfall was the same thing that made WordPerfect an also-ran, that virtually destroyed Novell, that ended Netscape, and heavily contributed to the end of Sun: Microsoft.
Love them or hate them (and at Slashdot it's usually the latter), Microsoft is single-handedly responsible for the deaths of many tech companies. In Borland's case, they simply couldn't survive against MS Visual Studio. Everything else they did or did not do pales against that fact.
"The article is from the Daily Mail, hardly a good source."
Why aren't they a good source? They're the second best selling mainstream newspaper in Britain. You're going to have to elaborate on this one.
"Translation: The Daily Mail wanted an anti-BBC headline to support their political stance, so they made shit up."
Is that why they're not "a good source"? You don't like their editorial stance?
"The last sentence in the article is the most useful: "A spokesman for the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform said: 'There are no plans to impose new taxes.'""
Well, that settles it then. Politicians and government officials never lie, do they?
We could call it the Gorm flu. Your joke was nauseating.
"Actually, you're playing right into the hands of the pro-life movement by saying that."
Yeah, pro-life, what a wicked position to take. Who do those people think they are, anyway?
It is NOT (repeat NOT) that you needed to kill/abort the fetus so as to get stem cells.
It is if you want lots of new stem cell lines. For a massive fetal stem cell research effort, where are you going to get all of the new lines? If fetal stem cell research truly went widespread, you're going to have to make many more, for the express purpose of harvesting them and destroying them for research. So while current small scale research may have enough fetus test subjects, and expanded effort would need far more. You're then in the business of creating human life, perhaps in factory conditions, just to destroy it to harvest the resources. That's a Pandoras' Box, and only a fool couldn't see that.
People like you are everything that's wrong with politics in this country.
Why? Because I won't lay down for your political leaders? Ah, I see. Dissent is the highest form of patriotism... except when your guy is in office.
You don't know a damn thing about him other than that he doesn't always vote with the groupthink.
I bet I know more about him than you, being the political junkie that I am. I've followed him closely over the years. You're just angry because I've insulted your pretty new political trophy. Be sure and come back and post about how proud you are of his "independent streak" when he's betrayed your party on an important vote.
"They used to care for traditions, principles, and institutions."
Rubbish. Republicans are being castigated by guys like you precisely because they refuse to abandon the very things you listed. Because traditions, principles, and institutions aren't progressive.
"now the property of ignorance and corruption"
Are you actually making the case that the Democrats aren't corrupt? Honestly? Says the guy whose current party leader can't seem to fill out a cabinet with people that actually pay their taxes? Guess they just feign ignorance about their corruption, eh?
"Eh. Specter is an old school reagan-ish republican."
There is nothing even remotely "Reagan-ish" about Arlen Specter. The only principle Specter has ever had are the ones that keep Arlen Specter in power. Though it puts the GOP in a painful disadvantage in the Senate, I am well and truly glad to see him gone. Besides the shiny new (D) beside his name, the only difference in Specter is that now he'll have to stab the Republicans in the front.
And Democrats, while you're happy about your new supposedly filibuster proof majority, consider this; if history is any indication, sooner or later you'll need Specter's vote on something. And he'll screw you guys too. When a whore leaves her husband for another man, does she ever really stop being a whore?
"That would pay for a lot of tax breaks and still support the arts and sciences, roads, safety codes, police, fire protection, ..."
And you have it backwards. The Constitution explicitly lists the military as perhaps the highest priority in Federal spending, and lists none of those things you listed, most of which are local matters anyway. Perhaps you meant the Constitution of another country, because that's not the US's governing document.
No way should you ever do this. If it's worth doing then it's worth getting paid for doing it. And for each McMurry out there there is one less paid job at Verizon.
Exactly! I've heard there are even idiots who will write and support entire computer programs for free! No wonder we're in an economic crisis...
Linus Torvalds got people to help him with Linux because they wanted a Unix of their own, more or less. That's a rational reason for a productive use of time. This fool in the article is just working for a corporation for free. There is a difference.
You do bring up an interesting point though. Some companies both mocked and admired IBM for convincing legions of Linux coders to essentially write code for IBM, gratis. "Free as in working for IBM without getting paid" was the refrain. And they had a point. At what point does this stuff go from being a public good to simple exploitation?
Ignoring the fact that the government is not, to the contrary of what the Republican party seems to want, a for profit enterprise, .
I don't want the government to be "for profit". I'd just be happy if government stuck to what the Constitution says the government should do, and spent as little tax dollars possible doing so.
How do so many people, who voluntarily choose to eschew the internet and computers, survive?
In their own little isolated worlds where nobody really cares about them.
I was with you until you said that. That was petty, wrong, and frankly, stupid. No doubt that its harder to live without the Internet these days, but... so what? You can eschew various means of communication (and that's all the Internet ultimately is... a form of communication) without being "isolated". Some people would call that being free. And to say that "no one cares" about them because they don't think like you do... who the hell are you, the lifestyle fuhrer? There are plenty of people that live their lives without a lot of technology just fine. What's it to you?
"Though the way you reject universal health care because "it's socialist", allowing your poor to sicken and die, maybe I'm too optimistic."
Optimistic, I don't know; but you are a pretentious little prick. Our medical system isn't perfect, but I've got news for you, Jack. Neither is yours. Wherever there's universal coverage, there's also usually long waits for specialized surgery, even for terminal patients. Universal care doesn't do you any damn good if you've been given six months to live, but you're so far down the waiting list that you won't get surgery or treatment for twelve. One of the ways universal care is achieved is by rationing services, and hiring limited amounts of medical professionals to keep costs down. State medical care is great if you break a bone... in and out in a few hours, for just a paltry fee. It's not so great if you have a serious illness, and there's not enough specialists to go around to treat you in a timely fashion. In that case, who is killing their people?
I live in the boonies of the USA and my connection peaks just over 1 Mbps (I have a WiFi connection to a tower on the local volcano. Not a typo.) .
The problem isn't that you can't get broadband in the boonies. Anyone can. The problem is that most of the time, that option is via satellite. Once you get past the initial hardware expense, monthly service for satellite tv and Internet packages are comparable to cable packages. The problem is the damn latency. Satellite is fine for downloading files and surfing. But try playing FPS's on one.
Five bucks...er, five pounds, that this will be filtered to high heck...
Probably more than you know. If broadband comes to be seen a government-delivered service, then the government will reason that they own it, and can do whatever they please with it... including ration it, restrict it, and even censor it.
Assuming we're still talking about digital piracy here, it is NOT stealing, it is infringing. The two have separate legal meanings that have to do with a scarce good being taken away from another person/entity. Copying music does not take that original away, ergo it cannot be stealing, it is infringing.
Go before a judge, and tell him that infringing isn't taking what doesn't belong to you. Let me know how that works out for you.
It isn't stealing, as stealing means something was taken. In the case of downloading, it's copied not removed from the source.
Taking a CD from a shop is stealing and a criminal act. Downloading a CD is infringement of copyright and therefore a civil matter.
All your analogies involve removing a physical item and that constitutes theft.
The legal difference may be one of criminal vs. civil, but you're still using weasel words to defend illegal actions. Just because nothing physical is being stolen doesn't mean nothing of value is being lost. It's still considered a form of theft in the law, just not the same kind of theft. The RIAA's abuses don't excuse yours.
They've never won a contested case.
Could that be because the contested cases were the "false positives" of their piracy sweep, and that the others were, oh, I dunno... guilty of copyright infringement?
Er, what do you think Sony's "core business" is? Hint: it's not TV sets.
I'd bet Sony makes more money off of music and movies in America than they do from hardware. Like everything else, most low-to-mid grade electronics Sony sells now is made outside of Japan in cheaper Asian factories. I can't imagine the profit margin from things like headphones and Walkmans are all that great compared to the money they're bringing in from record labels and Columbia Pictures.