Never mind the Federation’s code of non-interference or whatever it’s called. The fact is that the Federation starships zoom around the galaxy armed to teeth. Of course the enemy fires on them first; that’s the standard justification for militarism, an external threat that must be defeated. This is not unusual in Hollywood, but something like Star Trek, that has at least pretensions to belonging to the canon of speculative fiction, it is not unreasonable to hold it to a higher standard. Kirk’s father drives his starship into the enemy: he ends his life as a suicide bomber. You can’t get much more militaristic than that.
The evil ideology of Star Trek
May 11th, 2009 § 0
The Left faces a predicament at election time
May 8th, 2009 § 0
On a strictly deontological basis, none of them deserve our vote. But this is the real world, and we have to make decisions based on the best outcome possible…
Scrivener: unobtrusive brilliance
May 4th, 2009 § 0
What a fine piece of software is Scrivener. You can write any number of scraps of text, organise them as you see fit, re-order them, combine them in ad hoc ways, and take “snapshots” (named versions) of a manuscript. The full-screen mode is brilliant for clearing away the clutter and concentrating on your work:
It gets out of the way, and lets you concentrate on the text. Thoroughly recommended.