I saw Star Trek last week and my opinion mirrors that of James Lileks in his review of the same: “Loved it. Loved it, loved it. O I loved it.”
Except, that is, for that one fatal flaw that kept yanking me out of my willing suspension of disbelief. See if you can guess what that flaw was by reading this bit of nostalgia from Stephen E. Whitfield & Gene Roddenberry’s 1968 book, The Making of Star Trek:
Excerpt from Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek Guide for script writers:
Can you find the major Star Trek format error in the following “tease” from a story outline?
The scene is the bridge of the U.S.S. (United States Spaceship) Enterprise. Captain Kirk is at his command position, his lovely but highly efficient female Yeoman at his side. Suddenly, and without provocation, our Starship is attacked by an alien space vessel. We try to warn the alien vessel off, but it ignores us and begins loosing bolts of photon energy-plasma at us.
The alien vessel’s attack begins to weaken our deflectors. Mr. Spock reports to Captain Kirk that the next enemy bolt will probably break through and destroy the Enterprise. At this moment we look up to see that final energy-plasma bolt heading for us. There may be only four or five seconds of life left. Kirk puts his arms about his lovely Yeoman, comforting and embracing her as they wait for what seems certain death. FADE OUT. [END TEASER].
PLEASE CHECK ONE:
[ ] Inaccurate terminology. The Enterprise is more correctly an international vessel, the United Spaceship Enterprise.
[ ] Scientifically Incorrect. Energy-plasma bolts could not be photon in nature.
[ ] Unbelievable, The Captain would not hug a pretty Yeoman on the bridge of his vessel.
[ ] Concept weak. This whole story opening reeks too much of “space pirate” or similar bad science fiction.
Understanding the right answer to this is basic to understanding the Star Trek format. This was the correct answer:
[x] Unbelievable. Why the correct answer? Simply because we’ve learned during a full season of making visual science fiction that believability of characters, their actions and reactions, is our greatest need and is the most important angle factor. Let’s explore that briefly.
Now, try again, same basic story situation, but against another background
The time is today. We’re in Vietnam waters aboard the navy cruiser U.S.S. Detroit. Suddenly an enemy gunboat heads for us, our guns are unable to stop it, and we realize it’s a suicide attack with an atomic warhead. Total destruction of our vessel and of all aboard appears probable. Would Captain E. L. Henderson, presently commanding the U.S.S. Detroit, turn and hug a comely female WAVE who happened to be on the ship’s bridge?
As simple as that. This is our standard test that has led to Star Trek believability….No, Captain Henderson wouldn’t! Not if he’s the kind of captain we hope is commanding any naval vessel of ours. Nor would our Captain Kirk hug a female crewman in a moment of danger, not if he’s to remain believable.
…
If you’re one of those who answers: “The character acts that way because it’s science fiction,” don’t call us, we’ll call you.
I’m sure you’ve sussed out the flaw by now, but just in case, here’s a hint:
I guess since Gene died, nobody cares anymore how the characters act, because it’s only science fiction! (Yes I’m looking at you J.J.!)
Tags: star trek | j.j. adams | science fiction | star trek 2009
NASA has just announced that a photo taken by the Phoenix lander of the ground under it may show patches of ice! You can see in the image below the shiny patches where the overlying soil was blown away when Phoenix landed. That shiny stuff may be rock, but it looks a lot like ice.
“We were expecting to find ice within two to six inches of the surface,” said Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, principal investigator for Phoenix. “The thrusters have excavated two to six inches and, sure enough, we see something that looks like ice. It’s not impossible that it’s something else, but our leading interpretation is ice.”
In the meantime, if you’ve got an LCD monitor with 1680 x 1050 resolution, check out this wallpaper I colorized of the image from Phoenix.
Back in 1978, JPL scientists were puzzling over some photos sent by the Mars Viking Lander:
Analysis of three component color pictures taken by the Viking lander camera on Mars has established color differences for the background material, the rocks and spots on the rocks. Changes in the location of greenish rock patches and ground patterns have been observed over time. A combination of wind movement of dust and dirt dropped by sampler arm operations could have produced the slight changes in pattern and position. However, the observed patches, patterns and changes could also be attributable to biological activity. Analysis of six component color data on the same scene confirms the observations including the greenish color of the rock patches. [My emphasis]
The report was unable to say for sure what the greenish patches were, but they tried in some ingenious ways to verify that what Viking was sending actually was the color green. Obviously they weren’t able to conclude that the patches were some form of life or we wouldn’t still be looking.
That said, take a look at this portion of an image from the Phoenix Mars Lander just released yesterday by NASA:
Looks green to me. Bear in mind that the images were taken using infrared and violet filters, the staff at JPL had to process images from Phoenix, inferring “from two color filters, a violet, 450-nanometer filter and an infrared, 750-nanometer filter,” to create the colors you see, so the green could still be a mistake.
But if it isn’t a mistake, what could it be? Debris kicked up by Phoenix’s landing should be reddish, not green, anyway you don’t see any green in a similar image from the Mars Spirit Rover.
Since NASA sent Phoenix to Vastitas Borealis, the arctic plains of the Martian North Pole, to investigate “whether the site could once have supported microbial life on Mars", they must hope to detect life in some form. I’m guessing they don’t expect it to be complex forms like lichen, but it could happen.
Stay tuned.
In the meantime, if you’ve got an LCD monitor with 1680 x 1050 resolution, check out this wallpaper I made of colorized images from Phoenix.
Update: I’m still looking into this. I found this article about Spirit Mars Rover having photographed some shiny green rocks that turned out to be Olivine, but the Phoenix pic doesn’t look much like the description of Olivine.
Update: Found this image taken by Mars Spirit when it explored Gusev Crater. The bluish-green rocks in Gusev may be similar to what Phoenix photographed, in which case it’s probably not some form of life. Still can’t say for sure though, as the Phoenix image shows the green arranged in clumps of very small somethings mixed in with the stones, unlike the Gusev Crater photo where the greenish stones are scattered about.
phoenix mars lander
02:32:04 pm, Categories: Science & Tech, Global warming, Junk science, Scandals, Environmentalism, Global warming headlines
After years of controversy, at last we’ve got incontrovertable proof of manmade Global Warming!
Errors introduced into data being added to the GISS surface temperature database for the U.S. ended up increasing temperatures in the U.S. by about 0.15 °C (0.27 °F) over the last 20 years. The mistakes, named “Hansen’s Y2K error” after NASA’s Dr. James Hansen (Director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, science advisor to Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth, and contributor to Clinton/Gore, and Kerry/Edwards presidential campaigns), were very convenient for the warming advocates, but at present appear to have been caused by human error that simply went undetected for years. As to why the error’s named after Hansen, the reasons are many and varied, but you can start here for a quick primer.
Well, last week Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit blogged that he had found and the corrected the errors. As a result of McIntyre’s work, 1998 is no longer the hottest year on record—1934 is! In fact, the decade of the 30s averaged 0.5 °C (0.9 °F) above normal while the 90s only averaged 0.424 °C (0.763 °F). Six of the ten hottest years occurred before 1955.
Here’s the new Top Ten list (hottest first):
| Year | Corrected Temp | Previous hottest year |
|---|---|---|
| 1934 | 1.25 °C (2.25 °F) | 1998 |
| 1998 | 1.23 °C (2.21 °F) | 1934 |
| 1921 | 1.15 °C (2.07 °F) | 2006 |
| 2006 | 1.13 °C (2.03 °F) | 1921 |
| 1931 | 1.08 °C (1.94 °F) | 1931 |
| 1999 | 0.93 °C (1.67 °F) | 1999 |
| 1953 | 0.90 °C (1.62 °F) | 1953 |
| 1990 | 0.87 °C (1.57 °F) | 2001 |
| 1938 | 0.86 °C (1.54 °F) | 1990 |
| 1939 | 0.85 °C (1.53 °F) | 1938 |
Note that the temps in the table are not the actual high temperatures for each year (if they were, we’d be talking about global freezing, not warming!). They are the amount in °C (°F) that an average of the temperatures for a particular year was above statistical normal.
Hansen’s error increased temps in the last 20 years by 0.15 °C on average (some stations had errors as high as 1 °C (1.8 °F), others were the same in the negative direction, but the average amounted to an increase of 0.15 °C).
The following graphic is an animation comparing the old GISS temp curve with the corrected curve:
Click on the image to see a larger version. The source images used in the animation came from here.
Once again, the GISS temp data shows how much temperatures were above or below statistical normal. Called "anomalies", the temps that aren’t normal fall between a +1.5 and -1.5 °C (+2.7 and -2.7 °F) band. The red lines show the running 5-year average (or mean) of the anomalies. Notice how the majority of the errors fall conveniently between 1990 and 2000.
Some people are trying to trivialize the change, saying it doesn’t make “much difference”, but as the vaunted Kyoto Protocol is only supposed to reduce temps 0.07 °C by 2050 at a cost of billions of dollars, Steve’s correction is quite an accomplishment.
On his own, Steve McIntyre has reduced temps in the U.S. by 0.15 °C—more than Kyoto ever could!
Tags: blog | weblog | global warming | science | climate change | junk science
Today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year and the first day of summer.
If I had planned properly, I’d be celebrating with 25,000 “druids, revellers, hippies, ‘New Age’ travellers” that this Daily Telegraph article predicts will be at Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain in southwest England.
When the sun rises over the Heel Stone to the sound of Pagans beating drums, some chant, some cheer, others meditate and the odd character has been known to frolic naked in delight.
Clear skies are predicted between four and five o’clock Wednesday morning.
“We’re hoping for a great sunrise,” said a spokesman for English Heritage, which manages the site, one of Britain’s most popular tourist attractions.
“Last year’s was spectacular. There’s always a good atmosphere here.”
Six people were arrested at the 2005 summer solstice, mostly for drink-related offences.
A Wiltshire Police spokesman said: “We’re expecting between 20,000 and 25,000 people. A lot will probably arrive in the early hours of the morning after having watched England play Sweden.”
Of course, if you can’t make Stonehenge, there are other henges you could visit:
Are you getting “Stonehenge Fever?” Then check out this MSNBC article, America unhenged: 7 great Stonehenge replicas.
I’ve blogged before about my dislike of bullfighting and of the “sport” of hunting grass-eaters. Well the Festival of San Fermin, which takes place in Pamplona, Spain, is less than three weeks away, so Pamplona’s barbarous Running of the Bulls is back in the news.
Early in the morning of July 7, six “wild” bulls and herds of tame ones will be released to run the half-mile from the Santo Domingo corrals to the Bull Ring, where they will fight and die in the arena later that same day. The only compensation for the stampeding bulls is that they have a chance to inflict a little payback on the knuckleheaded monkeyboys who will attempt to race the route just ahead of them. ¡Victoria a los toros!
On the lighter side of needless animal cruelty, here’s a bit o’ wit from the last people on Earth you’d expect to have a sense of humor: PETA. On the 5th of July, two days before the Festival of San Fermin, they’re sponsoring the fifth annual Running of the Nudes in Pamplona. PETA promises that “this festive, cheeky event, [is] full of babes, not bulls.” To back it up, they have a page of “hot-to-trot hotties you could be partying with in Pamplona this year!”
Maybe, but I’ve seen the video from last year’s run and the nudes I saw merely confirmed Heinlein’s observation that “some people should wear clothes.”
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