Nikolai

Chances are that you aren't playing them all at once. The computer can put some balls on a shelf that it's using for a game you switch from, and picking up new balls for a game you're switching to. Whether or not this goes over its maximum ball capacity depends on how many balls it has to keep juggling even if you're not playing the game at the moment -- just to keep track of stuff that it can't (or doesn't want to) put on a shelf easily. (For example, KSP requires that a relatively large number of balls always remain in play if it's going to be used at all.) So it kind of depends on the games and the demands they each make on the system. I'm sorry that it's not an absolute answer.

RAM is, in a sense, how many balls your computer can juggle at once. Different tasks require different numbers of balls. If it has to juggle more balls than it can handle at once, it has to dump some of the balls onto the hard drive. If the task it's trying to perform require it to juggle more balls at once than it possibly can, then you run out of RAM.

I have to agree. I made getting into orbit the condition on which I'd buy my daughter a full copy of the game. When she did it, she was grinning from ear to ear. Sadly, she doesn't play as much as she used to; Minecraft has been more of her kind of thing lately. But she learned how to talk about "periapsis" and "retrograde". And it's still a proud papa moment.

I've heard a rumor that Tony Todd is being cast. Can anyone confirm or deny? And if you can confirm, do you know anything about the role?

That, as it turns out, was one of the glitches in Apollo 12 -- Al Bean accidentally pointed the camera at the Sun and fried it. TV networks didn't know how to handle it. One of them -- CBS, I think? -- opted to use marionettes to simulate what was happening on the lunar surface (as best as could be made out by listening to the comms). You can see some of that in this video here:

Can you provide more context for this? Killing whom? The most opponents in battle? Yup. Hence my original quote, emphasis added: "Conversational tactics like these seem to indicate that you're not listening." I never made an absolute statement about your listening or not, precisely for the reasons you state. I note, though, that you're not giving reasons for the behavior that made it seem that way, which is interesting -- as is the fact that I evidently have to repeat myself when the conversational topic is about listening. Okay; that's a decent opinion. But even if we take it as written, that doesn't imply that new story territory is a bad thing; there are more cheesy stories to tell in entertaining ways than the ones covered by Star Trek's original format. In other words, it seems like difference in format and excellence in storytelling are separate issues, and as such, there's no reason not to try new formats. Even if you take one storytelling format as excellent, that does not even imply that other storytelling formats are a bad direction for the franchise to take.

Did this occur in TOS? If so, can you refresh my memory as to when? Right. So it seems pretty baseless to insist that every instance of "not listening" must be covered by "doesn't get it", right? Not to mention that the instances I brought up were specifically where you seemed to ignore what I stated in order to state it again as if you were bringing up the topic. It could also be argued that it started to tank when it became predictable, and that they needed to tell new kinds of stories. After all, the kinds of stories it was telling were already decades old to print sci-fi fans when TOS aired. To what extent was it "great" because it innovated for the kinds of stories televised sci-fi could tell? To what extent was it "great" because it adhered to a predictable formula? That seems a matter of opinion, and pretty hard to gauge absolutely. I think some pretty good stories came out of changing the formula. But that's not going to be agreed upon by everyone, obviously.

Absolutely my favorite Moon mission. How could it not be, with "It's upside-down" Conrad as commander?

Well, yes, but violence isn't the thing that defines them. They're more complex than that. If violence was what they were after, there are far more efficient ways to get at it -- never mind appropriate it as your own, as something that some apparently educated folks in your culture insist came from your culture. And I don't see "we're tough" as necessarily requiring that "war defines a lot of our society". I didn't think so. But your mileage may vary. I didn't. I cited reasons why I thought you were completely misunderstanding what I had to say -- at least one of which hasn't been addressed and could still be an example of you failing to pay attention (you attempting to school me on the title of "The Doomsday Machine" when it was in the message you were quoting, or you apparently not understanding that I had already provided for the possibility of using violence to prevent even more violence). Yes, I did misunderstand some things, like the intent of your point about living through the Cold War. But don't take misunderstanding of messages as not understanding what "listening" means. People might accuse you of not listening. I'm not sure that trying to keep as large an audience as possible is a good in itself. Arguably, the reason we see trends in sci-fi that lead to predictable plots, corrupt corporations and governments, etc., is because these tactics offend as few people as possible (and keep an audience as large as possible). I'd also say that it's not necessarily required that the resolution "has to be in a way everyone in the audience can agree on". I think I'd get much more out of a television show that made me think, even if I didn't agree with it. (And I didn't, always. One of the first episodes we've discussed, "A Private Little War", ended up being "resolved" in a way I didn't like -- but it's still one of my favorites.) I didn't see as coherent a message from the critics on "Battlefield" as you claim; in fact, I seem to remember reading quite a few who praised Star Trek for being one of the only shows on network prime-time television to try to tackle issues like racism.

I guess I read a bit too much into the "as a confederation" part of the definition. Ah, well. Regardless, that's not what I'm trying to talk about. I guess your mileage may vary. It seemed to me that a culture that would try to appropriate Shakespeare for itself, for example, would have to be more complex than a simple one-note caricature. Plus, you know, the fact that they had a High Council and a Chancellor and so on kind of implied to me a more complex system of government than you saw in the TNG era, where the leader was decided by knife fight. I know. Remember how it was I who first pointed out that different people like different things for different reasons? Way #4: You make points about what you think regardless of how you think people might respond. Episodes like "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" didn't try to beat around the bush, or come down in a way that let people "agree to disagree", or bury its larger philosophical points with action -- and they continue to enjoy critical success. Way #5: You use godlike beings to act as propaganda pieces for your point of view. I think we both dislike this direction, though. Way #6: You show why your characters have grown past some ways of thinking about and resolving issues and employ others. Way #7: You have it remain an ethical dilemma for a while, but then you seek resolution in ways that allow your characters to act like adults who can grow and change. All of these have different strengths and weaknesses. It should be pretty obvious, though, that we have different goals; "most fun for the biggest audience" is more simplistic than I'd like to go, but I also admit that this makes it a much harder sell to studio executives. Yeah -- in re-reading it, I can see that point. I first read it as a passive-aggressive snark against all those who didn't grow up under those circumstances, with a sideways glance actually within the conversation. Sorry about that.

You're right. I didn't mean to imply that I thought the media could be described to have a coherent political stance... but I can see how bringing it up could cause ugly arguments. My apologies.

Which version of dictionary.com are you looking at? "Hegemon" is defined as "a person, nation, etc., that has or exercises hegemony"; and "hegemony" is defined as "leadership or predominant influence exercised by one nation over others, as in a confederation". The word "cultural" may not be there, but the concept sure seems to be. How would you exercise "leadership or predominant influence" without cultural domination? Granted. But they had no "leadership or predominant influence". They used magic to exert their will on a single aspect of society, and that's it. There was no leadership -- simply a threat of punishment. There was no "predominant influence" -- merely a command concerning a single sphere (military action). That sticks in my craw plenty, too, but it couldn't be described as hegemony. To be honest, I think that was something that came out of lazy writing. The Klingons started out as complex as humans. They could be aggressive, sneaky, deceptive, sly... in short, they could exhibit that unpredictability you claim to crave. Over time, though, they were reduced to one-note space Viking-caricatures. (This may have been due in part, I think, to Kor's line in "Errand of Mercy", when he pines over the war that would not be thanks to the enforced cease-fire: "It would have been glorious!" They were pretty fleshed out by other episodes through the series' run, like "Elaan of Troyius" and "Day of the Dove". By TNG, though, the writers decided that war was all there was to the Klingon culture, and ramped up the talk about "honor" and "dying in battle". This seems unfortunate to me.) I'd be inclined to believe this if I didn't have to keep referring back to places where I say the same thing you're saying (such as the use of force to prevent a much worse outcome, or the title of "The Doomsday Machine"), but you seem to pretend I never said any such thing; or if you didn't seem to make wholesale judgments about my age and experience (such as whether or not I lived during the Cold War). Conversational tactics like these seem to indicate that you're not listening. As do oversimplifications like these: I think it has not, because you're confusing military might or commandment with "leadership or predominant influence".

It seems to me that this is the same sort of fallacy that conservatives who complain about "the liberal media" engage in, or the liberals who are convinced that television is wholly steered by moneyed conservative interests. Taken as a whole, television sends out enough messages that it's a jumbled mess, and it would be difficult to pull a coherent way to view the world out of the pile. There are lots of television shows that stomp bad guys into submission, and lots of television shows that don't. Different people prefer different styles for different reasons. I disagree. In fact, this disagreement is why I consider things like the American Constitution's prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment" (Amendment 8) to be virtuous, as well as old legal standbys like habeus corpus. The goal of compassionate punishment is not merely punishment; it is also an attempt to get the perpetrator to behave better when the punishment stops. (We're not very good at this, but I'd like to see us become better.) I know. Please read the parenthetical bit in the block you quoted. Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, you are seen killing the bad guy by those who think you should have handled it differently, and they respond with force when an opportunity becomes available -- enough force that they hope you will learn your lesson. And it goes back and forth for a long time. This is as old as human history, and we're watching this sort of thing unfold as I speak. The only way to get an enemy -- or someone who cares about your enemy -- not to retaliate is either to pound them and everything that loves them into the dust, or to respond in such a way that their hateful rhetoric against you and your kind fails to match reality. ("They wantonly bomb our innocent civilians" only works to rally people to your cause if they do bomb your innocent civilians, even only as collateral damage.) You seem confused about what "hegemon" means. There is no sense in which the Organians exerted the most powerful cultural influence on either the Federation or the Klingons. They dictated the terms of warfare, but they did nothing to interfere with the self-governance of, or create any kind of aggression or expansion into, the cultures of these interstellar governments. Even after the Organian Treaty, the Federation and the Klingon Empire still had something akin to what we would call "national sovereignty" in our day; there was no attempt to erase and supplant the identity of their peoples with something else, even as they assured them that they had equal say in events surrounding them. I'd argue that "Errand of Mercy" got poor ratings because it employed godlike beings dictating military terms. Godlike beings generally make for poor drama; consider how they had to weaken Superman over the decades to keep him interesting. What I'm advocating has absolutely nothing to do with that; it has more to do with the way even cultures that claim to value equality can be thoughtless in their assumption that everyone else sees things the way they do. Keep the military excitement, if you want. Keep the exploration into the unknown, and the unpredictable responses to it, that make for thrilling and intriguing television. These are good strengths to retain. But please don't misunderstand me. I'm not trying to depict the Federation as some kind of threat to the main characters in my suggestion, any more than President Josiah Bartlet was a threat in The West Wing when he did things that would sometimes surprise and shock his staff. He just did things differently than they might have chosen to do them, and that created dramatic tension.

Excellent point. They would in the kind of plotline I'm trying to describe. Isn't it just as legitimate for people to want to watch television for other reasons -- e.g., to remind oneself that all that crap is temporary, or remember that all that crap can be overcome rather than ignored or stomped into submission? I disagree, since compassion is a virtue. Violence always carries collateral damage -- innocent people will suffer, sooner or later. That's why violence should be a last resort. (Now, come up with a baddie who stands to create even more collateral damage than the use of violence against him/her/it/them, and I'd be right there cheering as you do below.) It's also been brilliant when it shows that the people who seem to deserve the screaming death you describe can be dealt with more constructively, or may have been misunderstood. (Consider how Kirk dealt with the Gorn.) I find myself in agreement with this. One of the gripes I have about even TNG was that it made space travel seem routine in many regards. So it wasn't really oppressed by an un-self-aware hegemon, then, was it? And seeing as the Organians had a complete society of their own, it was pretty far away from the plotline I've tried to describe. Being oppressed isn't always simply a matter of "I have more power than you". Sometimes it's simply a question of who gets to call the shots in a society where everyone pretends you're included equally.

I like the succinctness of that. As did I. I grew up under the constant threat of nuclear war. I also paid attention to Russia, and even visited the country. By "relatively uncontested", I don't mean that there were no shows of power against it -- just that it's been in an economic and martial class by itself, and was even during the height of the Cold War. We knew that, while a formidable foe with more than enough deterrent to keep us from trying to dictate terms, the economic inertia of the former Soviet Union didn't really compare to the United States. Right, but the Vulcans weren't always present. They held a sort of power that amounted to a lot of blustering and threatening, but we never saw them trying to press humans into a larger social order in which they had little to no stake. In fact, just the opposite -- when the Federation is finally formed, humans are the ones to define large amounts of policy and structure; the Vulcans are large players, but there's no question that Earth is the cultural, political, and military capital of the Federation. Part of the frustration a lot of people had -- which, I'd argue, led to the show's demise -- is that supposed Vulcan domination was used as little more than an occasional plot point, not as part of a social order that had to be considered at every turn. As such, it failed to have the ring of verisimilitude. It was nothing like what we know about hegemonic regimes. In other words, there was occasional "You will do this, humans, and we will make you, because we are more powerful than you" when some kind of deus ex machina was needed to steer the plot -- but there was no "You will do this, because you are part of us, and this is the way we do things -- and there are more of us who want it this way, even if you don't, so it's clearly good for the society as a whole". There was no exploration of the tendency of democracies (or democratic republics) to turn into rule-by-majority even in those circumstances where that rule proves a detriment to those who cannot hope to influence the majority. What is it like to be within a power structure where you were present, but had little say as to how things were made, even as the larger society formed itself in no small part due to the effort and ability of your people? Where large sections of a society seem bent to preserving the status quo for the people in power and those who might come up after them, even as that society trumpets its freedom and fairness? That's what I'd like to see. We also have no sense of how it is that the Vulcans came to recognize their error. I trust that the humans in the outline I've provided would, but that a quick fix for this sort of thing is difficult and would not be instant. It's also not meant to be the focus, even though it provides a backdrop. I disagree. There's no "drama" in watching fisticuffs play out, or even in the (relatively brief) shock that a Good Guy is Behaving Badly. Drama comes from watching people try to cope with their problems, not in watching them attempt to destroy their problems. And suspense that consists mostly of "Who's going to beat up whom?", or even "Who's going to get beat up this episode?", is pretty lazily written. I'd also opine that this is antithetical to Star Trek as we've come to understand it. Much of the success the show has enjoyed has been to show that humans can learn from their mistakes and become better at tolerating the differences among ourselves -- and, by extension, other peoples and cultures we encounter. That we can rise above the kind of vicious pettiness that makes us do terrible things to people we don't get along with or people who scare us. Determining that this kind of mutual understanding and respect is not the Federation after all would be frustrating to many fans.

Well, technically, the new Star Trek series is, not the sins of past Star Trek series. That said, I applaud your return to rough-and-tumble -- it's what drew me full-circle back into TOS fandom after all these years -- but I worry that too much of that will repeat the problems that have got people complaining about J. J. Abrams. (Most of the complaints I hear are that there's too much action and not enough thoughtfulness.) Let me propose something from the other end of the spectrum. I'd kind of like to see a series that is to the bridge crew what The West Wing was to the President and his cabinet... because so far, we've sort of seen most of the stories from the point of view of people who are comfortably in charge. (Trek is largely political allegory, and it should come as no surprise that it was written in a country that has enjoyed being a relatively uncontested superpower for some time.) The parts of Trek that I personally like best (and I realize that other people like it for other reasons, and will probably hate this idea) are not when they're showing us humans flying around and fixing everyone else's problems like British people afflicted with what Kipling called "the white man's burden"; it's when they're struggling to cope with the unknown or things that are outside their direct control, and sometimes showing us things that we need to examine in our society. So here's the pitch: Our main cast isn't the bridge crew; it's a clique of cadets fresh out of Starfleet Academy, from a race generally considered a Federation backwater, where people hardly ever go to Starfleet Academy at all (never mind manage to secure duty on one of the Federation's finest starships). The bridge crew is always known and present, the same way that the President was always there in The West Wing, even when he wasn't on camera; but while we get to see the prejudices and difficulties these underdogs encounter as they interact with beings closer to hegemony, we get to see how we treat people without thinking about it. And we see not only how underdogs understand and interact with brand-new peoples and cultures -- we get to see how they react to how the hegemony understands and interacts with brand-new peoples and cultures. The biggest flaw I perceive in this goes back to the fact that there are an awful lot of writers who pile into any Trek series, and they tend to dilute its content over time. I worry that it will eventually devolve into yet another show starring trendy young people having trendy young people problems; there are already too many of those.

You raise a lot of excellent points. I fear we're in danger of hijacking the thread, though, so I'll try to keep my responses brief. That's a good point, though I also think it's worth considering how much of this is due to an actual lack of creativity versus the reluctance of investors to put their money into a movie that may or may not give a return on their investment, especially given that movies have also gotten much, much, much more expensive. These are good points, too, and bear thinking about. I have to wonder if it would be more acceptable if the ethnic and national groups you've singled out were better represented in all sorts of roles.e That episode was not about a nuclear war, either. That was an explanation for a plot-driving MacGuffin, which isn't at all the same thing. And even those episodes that were about nuclear war tended to treat it as a warning to the present. I didn't say they were. I said they were "among the bigger problems society is aware that it is currently facing". There's an important difference. Yes, and I said as much. You'll never have a collection of media that are completely one or the other. I think we've swung towards a heavier emphasis on experience rather than contemplation.

They have a queen to make utter collapse of their society simple to comprehend and something that can be squeezed into the space allotted for a single movie. Assimilation is the appropriation of the individuals of a different culture and pressing them into the use of the Borg. This seems to have been tacked on as the Borg were fleshed out, since when they were introduced, they had no interest in the Federation or its peoples -- only the technology represented by the Enterprise. The idea of space vampires seemed like a more interesting threat than the idea of space scavengers, I suppose. EDIT: I know about the title, but does this really belong in the "Science & Spaceflight" discussion area? Seems more like Lounge material to me.

I'm not sure it's a lack of creativity thing, or even a fear of giving offense. Popular trends in science fiction have changed a lot over time, and I think the reasons are deeper than these. Yes. But science fiction is never about the future. It's about the present, as seen through a different lens. Tales of political and corporate corruption are popular now, I'd argue, because they're among the bigger problems society is aware that it is currently facing -- and that because modern audiences are craving sensory experiences over thoughtful storytelling, themes surrounding them don't tend to be explored deeply or well. (Also note the popularity of movies where some kind of natural disaster is helped along by mankind until someone figures out a way to stop it.) This tends to lead to planet-sized holes in a lot of storytelling (e.g., "If the corrupt government could be taken down by Our Hero, and found herself surrounded by enthusiastic supporters as soon as she declared her intentions, why did no one else even try before now?"), but I think they serve to remind people what's important to struggle for in the face of our current circumstances. Well, yes, but I'd also argue that that's because "The Doomsday Machine" gave people a lot more to think and talk about than Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The mainstreaming of a lot of geek culture has led to a lot of geek culture becoming less contemplative. I remember when I first left Blade Runner, for example; friends and I had conversations for long stretches about the nature of mortality and the ethics of creating something aware of its rapidly approaching demise (which, in turn, raises interesting theological questions for various religious traditions); the implications of technology on the environment, and the degree to which technology creates the environment (artificial animals are popular in the movie), as well as how technology itself contributes to decay (technology is shiny in some parts of the movie and in serious disrepair and decay in others in the movie); the role of empathy in the human condition, and means by which it could be transferred to something not-exactly-human; and yes, even corporate and governmental corruption. "The Doomsday Machine", even though it was primarily written as a sensory experience, still had interesting implications about sacrifice and the kind of leader it takes to work out a new strategy by watching the mistakes of other leaders who stubbornly refuse to alter their own. With recent movies, what is there to talk about? The fact that we just saw the Hulk beat up a robot, and it looked cool?

He didn't have to. Kirk was practically parroting Johnson's rhetoric about reasons for staying in the Vietnam conflict. By the end of the episode, he knew that he was helping an arms race, but also realized that wasn't much he could do about that. (The original draft of the episode, according to The Star Trek Compendium (1981), p. 128, was even more blatantly about U.S. policy in Vietnam as reflected by Federation policy concerning Neural. It suffered a Roddenberry rewrite that made it seem much more pro-Vietnam.) Calling back to get official orders from the UFP was specifically written into the series bible as a practically nonexistent thing -- the creators liked the idea of having the starship captain acting largely autonomously. Here are the creator's original notes; there's an interesting bit added as to why the Enterprise departed at episode's end -- to make contact with Federation agents and enlist their help in continuing the "private little war": http://www.orionpressfanzines.com/articles/tyrees_woman.htm There was also Kirk's line, "We have advisors there now... how long until we have troops?"(*), implying that everything that happened was perfectly in line with how the Federation preferred to handle things. All that said, this amounts to speculation. I enjoy talking about it, though, even if we end up simply agreeing to disagree. --- (*) I admit that I know this line was in several drafts, but I don't know that it survived Roddenberry's final rewrite. I'm going to have to go back and watch the episode, in any case.

<cough> "A Private Little War" </cough> You're right that it was rare, but every once in a while, it was the very policy of the Federation that was the problem. (And it was the sixties.)

Just to clarify: "Disastrous" isn't the key problem here. Any attempt to control energies that permit starhopping is going to be potentially hazardous. The problem is closer to what you hint at in the rest of your message: That's more what I meant to get at. In order to keep the crew safe in the event of a warp core breach, a Galaxy-class starship must fire up some engines and push the warp stuff out. Thus, whether or not the crew stays safe depends on the proper activation of a complex system (that has its own failure modes and so forth). Far better to take a system that would normally eject the warp cores all the time, but restrains itself from doing so only if things are working as expected. (Some disciplines call this a "dead man's switch"; the right action is taken even if the operator is incapacitated.) For example, have the warp cores ready to be expelled by exceedingly simple technology at all times (e.g., springs under compression) that are held in check by the proper operation of the system (e.g., electromagnets that will only operate if the power plant is generating juice within a tight band). Then, if the warp core is unstable, it gets ejected into space automatically, without the need to activate a separate, complex system that cannot be tested beforehand and that may or may not work properly. Those electromagnets might fail very infrequently when they're not supposed to, but believe it or not, that's what you want. You want a system that, when it errs, still keeps people safe. (They might have to wait to be towed or whatever, but no one's going to get blown up because the ejection rockets didn't work. In other words, the failure of a "dead man's switch" is vastly preferable to the failure of an active system.) We use techniques like this in power plants now, so it's kind of inconceivable that the super-engineers of Star Trek don't employ similar principles.

Part of the difficulty in rating them is that I want to be able to rate how well they operate based on the principles of physics that support them -- with implications that include tolerance before failure, contingency planning, and so on. In other words, the quality of technology is not just a question of what it can do, but how reliably and elegantly it can do it, especially considering that a good bit of what we've seen is dedicated to keep fragile creatures alive and working in a hostile environment. Star Trek is written by a collection of writers and doesn't have a very comprehensive bible, so new physics rules tend to be made ad hoc for any new particular plot that wanders along. This makes technological analysis... difficult. That said, there are certain aspects of their engineering that seem sub-par by our standards, and engineering is strongly related to technology. For example, engines that are about to undergo a warp core breach must be actively ejected from a starship. That's just bad design. This, sadly, is typical; they don't seem to employ basic engineering concepts in the dangerous bits of technology, like redundancy, isolation, diversity, and failure actuation. (Every potentially-dangerous thing is run by one critical system, which threatens to destroy the ship if it goes critical. This critical system is merged with other critical systems, so that one failure can initiate multiple disasters. And every critical system relies on the ability of the starship to continue running within tight operational parameters.) And of course, when things fail, they fail catastrophically (we've all seen the exploding control panels). The show is also the incarnation of the engineering aphorism that "the better is often the enemy of the good". A new way of doing things often comes with new failure modes that have not yet been discovered or explored adequately -- so especially in hazardous environments, old, basic technology with few and well-mapped failure modes is often to be preferred. If you have a life form in the brig that could kill the members of your crew (and will, given half a chance), keep him behind a steel wall, not a force field that requires the millisecond-by-millisecond proper operation of the power plant on your starship. (Often, a low-tech solution is simply more elegant.) They test brand-new propulsion devices, artificial intelligences, and weapons on fully-crewed starships rather than uncrewed test beds. Do they have fun stories? Oh, yeah, absolutely; I'll watch Star Trek any time you have it on. But is their technology better than ours? More capable, perhaps, but given their propensity toward bad engineering, calling it "better" seems either callous or foolhardy.

The paper's author (Dr. David Grimes) didn't need it. The calculations attempt to determine how long it will take a conspiracy to break, even by complete accident. Consider his examples carefully.

The fact that it's so approachable that kids are pretty sure they can do something with it... and they learn a lot when they try. One of my kids felt such pride when she got a rocket into orbit (and won herself a full copy of the game), and the other one sure is trying. And every time I take it to the local science museum to show kids some quick orbital mechanics, they love checking it out and beg their parents like crazy.