5) “Darmok,” The Next Generation, Season 5
A great episode to lure in people who wouldn’t ordinarily watch Star Trek. Fun and exciting but also deeply philosophical and smart. It’s a good story because it is loosely based on Gilgamesh which is, of course, the first story! So it’s vetted. Chaka, when the walls fell!4) “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” The Next Generation, Season 3
TNG’s spiritual response to “Mirror, Mirror,” an alternate timeline in which our heroes are at constant war. Lt. Yar is back and the Enterprise-C has a woman captain. Plus Guinan kinda saves the day. The moment when the bridge darkens is the most badass lighting cue in television.3) “Mirror, Mirror,” The Original Series, Season 2
I still remember seeing this at the age of 10. The ion storm near the Halkanian planet caused the ship to flip-flap back and forth for a moment and then — whammo — we’re somewhere else and Spock had a goatee. And instantly, somehow, I knew how the whole episode would play out. A bizarro world where the good guys are bad and ohmygod did I mention that Spock had a goatee. It’s so clever and so much fun and I went around saying “your agonizer, please” for years. I love Star Trek so much.2) “The Inner Light,” The Next Generation, Season 5
Great men are adaptable, so when Picard just can’t get back to his ship he creates another life for himself. But is it reality? This episode is a 100x better and more insightful than The Matrix and the tones of a Ressikan Flute always make me cry. We love seeing our characters in places outside of where we expect them to be, and this is the humdinger of them all.1) “The City on the Edge of Forever,” The Original Series, Season 1
Yeah, I know, everyone always picks this one, but I watched again to make sure and, yes, it really is the best. It just hums. Joan Collins’ Edith Keeler is a fascinating figure — someone so kind who, if left alone to promote pacifism at a key point in history, could potentially ruin the world. The ending just destroys me. Our 3 main characters, our eternal archetypes, are there. Kirk is clutching Bones after blocking him in his tracks. He’s holding on for dear life with his eyes shut. “I could have saved her!” Bones cries, as Edith now lies dead in the middle of the road. “He knows, doctor. He knows,” Spock replies, and even though the Vulcan is cold and logical, he’s hurting, too. Once they pop back through the Guardian and return to the planet, Shatner delivers the best line reading of his career. A simple “let’s get the hell out of here.” It’s a throwaway line, but the spin he puts on it is absolutely heartbreaking. This is science fiction at its absolute finest, using a way out and fantastical concept to address universal themes like loss and fate. It is, unquestionably, the greatest Star Trek episode of all time.
Month: December 2014
NK comments on the Interview
north korean pr needs some work:
We will clearly show it to you at the very time and places “The Interview” be shown, including the premiere, how bitter fate those who seek fun in terror should be doomed to. Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Pictures Entertainment has made. The world will be full of fear.
Exolife within 20 years?
my money is on discovery of exolife within 20 years.
the discovery of extraterrestrial life is the defining moment in our lifetime. It will define our civilization
Post-apocalyptic food
We can convert fossil fuels to food by growing bacteria on top —then either eat the bacterial slime or feed it to rats and bugs and then eat them
The great filter
if you think we’re at a bottleneck now, you’re too optimistic.
Go will fall soon
One of the last bastions of human mastery over computers is about to fall to the relentless onslaught of machine learning algorithms.
Towards Gates
i used to go to Worldchanging for a slate of good news, now i guess you’ll want to look to well-meaning plutocrats.
Zero-Knowledge Proofs
zero-knowledge proofs are one of the most powerful tools cryptographers have ever devised. But unfortunately they’re also relatively poorly understood. In this series of posts I’m going try to give a (mostly) non-mathematical description of what ZK proofs are, and what makes them so special. In this post and the next I’ll talk about some of the ZK protocols we actually use.
2016-09-20: how do you inspect nuclear weapons without learning the secrets of their design? enter zero knowledge proofs.
The Office Middle Earth
Mother of the Sea
In 1948, with Tokyo still largely in ruins and the reins of government still in the hands of an occupying army, the nori harvest completely failed. And it kept failing. No one knew why. Years and decades and a world war passed and Kathleen discovered something that no one suspected: Porphyra and another seaweed called Conchocelis rosea weren’t actually 2 different organisms. They were actually 2 different phases of nori’s lifecycle. Conchocelis rosea was a tiny spore-like thing that clung to tiny particles of seashell adrift in the water. The shell fragments were essentially life preservers for the nori-spores, which would otherwise sink to the bottom and be swallowed by the sediments. The nori fishers didn’t know that their harvest was dependent on another harvest, that of the shellfish along the same shores, and the shoals of discarded shells. The nori fishers of Ariake Bay, the producers of over half of Japan’s nori harvest, raised their small shrine to Kathleen. This coming April, they will mark the 51st anniversary of their small festival celebrating a woman that they never met, but whom they call “the mother of the sea.”
Gregor J. Rothfuss 