Aerodynamics Don’t Matter In Space 
by Riker on Oct.09, 2010, under General
Once again, two of my worlds collide. I mean, yes… we already know one of them thrives on colliding with stuff, but still. We have yet another “Roller Derby / Star Wars” mash-up in the form of a great preview video from an LA Derby Dolls bout.
Awesome.
For the record, I’d pay some serious cash to see a derby bout if they allowed the use of blasters on the track.
Oh, and while we’re on the topic of aerodynamics in space… yes, I was referring to the flying rollerskate in the video, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that in Star Wars, even ships that never enter a planet’s atmosphere look incredibly airplane-like. That’s terribly inefficient packaging. At least in Star Trek there’s some representation of more sensible interplanetary transport.
Pay no attention to the also-airplane-like Enterprise
Happy 23rd Birthday, Star Trek: The Next Generation!
by Jules on Sep.28, 2010, under News
On this night, 23 years ago, I sat glued to the spare television in my parent’s bedroom, waiting with baited breath for the premiere of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Being the lone nerd in the house, I watched it alone. I remember this night as if it were yesterday. I remember thinking as I heard the brand new intro for the very first time, “OOO! The words have changed! I’m excited to see how these changes will play into this new series.”
This night was a very important night to me. So important, that I included it into my Spring science fair project that year. Every year, I would do my science project on Astronomy. The year in question, my project was on important scientific discoveries in Astronomy that forever changed the way we looked at the stars. Sandwiched in my timeline, which included people such as Galileo and Copernicus; 1987: Star Trek returns to television. Star Trek played, and continues to play, a huge part in who I am.
So in honour of Gene Roddenberry, his dream for a better future and Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s birthday, I present to you the following.
As with the 40th Anniversary tribute video, I find something in my eye. So to counter that, I present to you the following:
Happy Birthday Star Trek: The Next Generation! May you continue to live long and prosper!
Ask A Hot Chick #2
by ForceSlinger on Sep.14, 2010, under Ask A Hot Chick
In this edition of Ask A Hot Chick I queried the stunning Kathrina Manalac who works for a little thing you might’ve heard of… WIRED magazine! That’s right, THE WIRED magazine!
ForceSlinger: So Kat, can I call you Kat? First tell us a little about yourself and what you do.
Kat: “By day I work at WIRED Magazine on the Brand and Strategy team. That means I get to bring the magazine to life. My job allows me explore the whole, vast expanse of WIRED-dom. One week I’m doing speaker handling at a cloud conference, and the next, I’m building a recreation of Merlotte’s bar at Comic-Con. It’s a pretty wild world sometimes, but then again, so is the web (which is apparently dead <http://bit.ly/bknmCP> ).
“In my off time, I have a few pretty nerdalicious tendencies. I’m a lifelong fan of fantasy (currently reading Game of Thrones), a lover of good adventures games (my favorite being The Longest Journey), and I am obsessed with the Zombiepocalypse. In my dream life I’d be an actress on a sci-fi tv show (imagine the costumes…the props!) and directing the staged version of the Fables graphic novels. ”
FS: OMG! The web is dead?! Quick, into the basement (http://www.4chan.org)! Zombie-web is coming?!
Kat: … “I’m also a foodie. A good friend once said (and I believe this pretty much sums me up in a nutshell), “Kat is probably eating something super gross right now…or winning something awesome.” I will never, ever pass up a fish head or a piece of offal. I have a food website called “Hidden Menu” (hiddenmenu.com), which chronicles the secret menu items at restaurants and bars. Working on the site has been like a neverending culinary treasure hunt. So far we’ve just covered San Francisco, but maybe someday…the world.”
FS: A fellow nerd! Fantastic! So which is it? Star Wars or Star Trek?
It ain’t no light saber, but it’s somethin’!
by Sublatum on Sep.09, 2010, under News
While scientists are no closer to making a light saber, they have clearly been taking steps (Albeit small steps) to bringing Star Trek technology to life. We found out early last year scientists from the University of Maryland and University of Michigan were able to ‘teleport’ information from one photon to another across the space of about 1 meter. (Article here)
It appears the next big technological advance is our modern (small, like very small) version of the tractor beam! In the following article scientists from the Australian National University have announced that they are able to transport small particles without touching them. In my case, girls have managed to move away from me without touching them for years, so what is the big deal? Apparently there are applications for this technology!
“These include, directing and clustering nano-particles in air, the micro-manipulation of objects, sampling of atmospheric aerosols, and low contamination, non-touch handling of sampling materials.
“On top of this, the laser beam could be used for the transport of dangerous substances and microbes, in small amounts,”
I say cheers to these scientists! We all have to start somewhere, and not to worry, we still have a few hundred years to catch up to Roddenberry. (Next Generation Anyways).
So *high-5* Star Trek, way to make things seem possible… however this doesn’t mean I don’t want my light saber.
Happy Birthday, Star Trek!
by Riker on Sep.08, 2010, under News
Star Trek, you’ve been a fixture of popular culture ever since Mr. Roddenberry first shared you with us. I can’t say it any better than our big sister Jules, so I’ll point you to her excellent tribute over at Geeky Pleasures:
Wars Vs Trek: The Star Sex Edition
by Jules on Sep.06, 2010, under Debate
Before I lay down the law and tell you just how unsexy Star Wars is, I just want to say:
YAY! I am very happy to be contributing here from time to time. Hi, my name is Jules. (Hi, Jules!) When I was asked if I would be willing to contribute to this blog from time to time, I said, “Are you kidding? Writing about why Star Trek is so much better than Star Wars? Being able to have epic debates, not having to worry about language, throwing it down like never before? Of course!” So here I am. You may already be familiar with me as I run this little site called Geeky Pleasures. If not, well… you are either in for a treat or you will wish you never laid eyes upon my words. I vote for the “you are in for a treat” option. Now then, to the topic at hand.
Sex. Sex. And more sex. It sells. It is what drives young nerds to lose all rational thought. It turns normally sweet children into hormone-filled podpeople, propelled to find the next opportunity to drop a “that’s what she said” (Many of us do not outgrow this. Don’t worry. Despite what your camp counselor told you, that tingly feeling in your pants is perfectly natural and you will not die as a result of “dating yourself”). It drives a billion(s) dollar a year pr0n industry. It is in print adverts, television adverts, television shows, movies, music and hopefully, in your bedroom (without the use of aides that you may or may not affectionately refer to as Optimus Prime or Data). It is what enables us to keep our species alive.
So naturally a show or movie that utilizes something as natural as sex is automatically WAY better than one that… ummm… comes a little late to the party… And what better way to illustrate this point, but with lots and lots of videos. Good, old-fashioned, sexified (and not so sexified) videos. These videos will demonstrate exactly why Trek is so much better than Wars: Sex Appeal.
If you hop on over to YouTube, you will find A LOAD of fan created videos, both of the Brokeback variety and the straight on variety, dedicated to the sexy that is Star Trek. Over on Geeky Pleasures, I have dedicated a number of posts to this awesomenicity, which causes Jules to have juicy geekasms. I will not ram a bunch of them into you at this time. For now, I’ll just tickle you a little bit with two of my favourite ones, which are of the Brokeback variety.
*wipes tear from eye* Beautiful. Touching. The above video manages to get something in my eye each time I watch it. I suppose we should kick it up a notch.
Now, it isn’t all about the Brokeback Bad Romance. Star Trek is full of sex and sexual innuendo. It does not discriminate against sex, gender, sexuality, sexual preferences, sexual orientation or intergalactic species. There are buckets of fan made videos guaranteed to bring out the 10 year-old in every one or cause them to be tingly in the frontal region.
The second video I wanted to post is so HOT and filled with delicious alien sex, it cannot be embedded otherwise it may cause a tear so big in the space-time continuum that not even a certain sexy Ensign can conjure up some device to save the entirety of existence at the very last nanosecond. If you know what is good for you, you will click this link. Make it so!
So what about Star Wars? Yes… what about it. In not so many words, it is a franchise filled with teenage girls leading on 10 year-old boys, space slugs with slimy tongues, this guy named Han Solo who’ll shoot his blaster prematurely in an effort to compensate in other areas where he fires way too early and incest.
I tried, with all that I could, to find sexy Star Wars videos. The closest I came… well lets just say it left me wanting for more… a lot more.
This left me in quite the pickle. What does a person need to do in order to get a little bit of satisfaction? The title of the above video is “Satisfaction Guaranteed”. Ummmm… hmmmm… well to be polite, I’ll just say, “I’m happy it was good for you, honey.”
So I did what any sane person would do. I decided to search “Star Wars Sex” on YouTube. It produced a lot of pleasure when I searched “Star Trek Sex” (the above video, Star Trek: The Sexed Generation being the top video listed). And the top video for the Wars search term is:
There is this saying: “Brokeback anything makes Jules happy”. I think that phrase may need a disclaimer attached to it after seeing the above video. So to help rid your brains of the dark deeds above, I will leave you with this:
Live long and prosper. Engage!
Vlog Trek: The Vlog Generation
by Riker on Sep.05, 2010, under Debate
ForceSlinger asked for it this time.
No…. he really asked for it.
This one runs in at around 6 minutes. I only needed one minute of it to introduce myself; the rest of it is all dedicated to casting a spotlight of reason on ForceSlinger and his misguided love for George Lucas’ money trap. Take this one with a side of fries, Star Wars.
Oregon 72 – New Mexico 0 : Empire Approves!
by ForceSlinger on Sep.05, 2010, under General
In a stunning performance in their first game of the season the Oregon Ducks football team dominated the field against New Mexico Lobos (what’s a lobo again?). The 72 point win by the Ducks ties for the all time record of most points scored in a single game at Autzen Stadium. Why am I blogging about college football you ask? Well for one I’m a huge fan of the Ducks. Also, this guy rocks!
Apparently the Empire not only watches American collegic football, but is a fan of the O. Rock on storm trooper. I’ll take a bit of the dark side as long as it gets us to the Rose Bowl!
Geeky Pleasures Geek Of the Week: Sept. 3rd
by ForceSlinger on Sep.03, 2010, under News
Over at Geeky Pleasures this weeks “Geek of the Week” is right up our alley. I could go on about it here, but it’s probably easier if you just head over there yourself.
Give ‘Em The (re)Boot?
by Riker on Sep.01, 2010, under Debate
Something’s been bothering me.
I got to thinking about the excitement that arose when JJ Abrams announced he was going to reboot the Star Trek franchise with a feature film starring the original-series characters; after the movie released, the fan reaction was overwhelmingly positive*, despite the huge risk the script took by abandoning an entire history’s worth of timeline cherished by legions of trekkies far more committed than I (this coming from a guy who did many of his book reports in grade school dressed up as Spock, even when the book had nothing to do with Star Trek).
