Well now… it’s clear that not much will be happening on Season 5 of The Walking Dead:
Okay, okay, I jest!
Aug 042014
Jun 252014
My latest Forbes piece is a change of pace from the usual health policy discussion. Instead, I decided to have a bit of fun and write about, “8 Star Trek Technologies Moving From Science Fiction To Science Fact“.
Some of the 8+ technologies (or story elements) of Star Trek that I discuss include:
1) Warp Drive
2) Universal Translator
3) Handheld Computers
4) Medical Tricorder
5) Energy Weapons
6) Androids
7) Teleportation
8) Intelligent Aliens
9) Other Technologies
Although some Star Trek technologies are still clearly in the realm of science fiction (e.g., the warp drive), others like the medical tricorder are coming close to reality. And some design elements (like the flip-style communicators of Star Trek: TOS) have already come and gone as consumer products in the real world.
For more details, read the full text of “8 Star Trek Technologies Moving From Science Fiction To Science Fact“.
I had a lot of fun working on this latest Forbes piece. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
(And I’d like to thank Ari Armstrong for his blog post on Microsoft and Skype Translator that inspired this article.)
Oct 242013
Quick, take the quiz!
Here are my results:
and are usually intimidating.
| Worf |
|
60% |
| James T. Kirk (Captain) |
|
55% |
| Jean-Luc Picard |
|
45% |
| Will Riker |
|
45% |
| Chekov |
|
40% |
| Deanna Troi |
|
40% |
| Uhura |
|
35% |
| Geordi LaForge |
|
35% |
| Leonard McCoy (Bones) |
|
25% |
| An Expendable Character (Redshirt) |
|
20% |
| Beverly Crusher |
|
20% |
| Mr. Scott |
|
20% |
| Spock |
|
19% |
| Data |
|
16% |
| Mr. Sulu |
|
10% |
Alas, that’s pretty accurate… High D in DiSC for the win!
Jul 242013
Paul and I love The Walking Dead, and this preview suggests that Season 4 will be downright phenomenal.
May 162013
Zachary Quinto vs. Leonard Nimoy: “The Challenge”:
Kudos to Audi for making such an awesome commercial!
Feb 112013
For all Star Trek fans:
You’re welcome.
Jun 182012
I didn’t much like any of the Bourne movies, but I’ll see this one, because I’d pay to watch Jeremy Renner peel apples for two hours.
Renner was phenomenal in the gripping war drama The Hurt Locker. Paul and I enjoyed him in the tragically cancelled television show The Unusuals too.
Jun 202011
Priceless! A new introduction for Firefly as a 80′s show:
And here, Simon has his own 80′s show:
It’s all in the music and the graphics!
Oh, and here’s an awesome video of Summer Glau training for the fight sequences in Serenty:
Aug 202010
Some FormSpring Questions and Answers on personal preferences in art:
What is your favourite classic novel, outside of Rand?
It’s hard to name one, so here’s a few, in some rough order:
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
- Persuasion by Jane Austen
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
- The Sea Wolf by Jack London
- Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
I love classic fiction, and I read a great deal of it, but I’m not nearly as widely read as I’d like to be.
Which TV shows do you watch?
Some of these shows are no longer running, but we’re still watching them on DVD.
- The Unit
- Burn Notice
- Psych
- South Park
- The Office
- Inside the NFL
Of all of them, I like The Unit the best… perhaps even more than Firefly.
Do you like Rush? Why or why not?
No. It’s too hard rock for me. My tastes run more to pop. (Go Mika!) I can’t stand to listen to more than a few seconds of it.
Apr 272010
One of my favorite television miniseries is the HBO production, “From The Earth To the Moon“. This series details the saga of the Apollo space program, with the goal (in President Kennedy’s words) of “landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth”.
Although I’m not a supporter of government-funded science for the same reasons Ayn Rand laid out in her essay “Apollo 11“, like Rand I still marvel at this tremendous achievement which was a triumph of man’s reason and courage.
Of the various episodes in the series my favorite is probably episode 5, “Spider“.
“Spider” depicted the development of the Lunar Module (LEM) by Grumman Aircraft, led by engineer Tom Kelly. Kelly and his team solved engineering challenge after challenge through a combination of reason, ingenuity, creativity, intellectual integrity, and above all an utmost respect for the facts of reality. The episode is upbeat and nicely captures the joy of engineering.
The whole episode is superb and worth watching. But I was especially glad to find this short excerpt of the final 5 minutes on YouTube:
Kelly’s musings about how each LEM has a “soul”, consisting of the souls of all the men who built her, designed her, and dreamed about her was very reminiscent of Dagny Taggart’s musings in Atlas Shrugged during the first run of the John Galt Line when she thought that the motors running her engines were alive — operated by remote control by the souls and minds of the thinking men who designed them.
This excerpt also contains one of my favorite short pieces of television music, the “Eagle” theme by composer Mason Daring.
Daring’s piece captures a uplifting combination of hope, yearning, solemnity, and pride in wanting to meet great challenges and overcome them.
The musical theme to the series (at the beginning and end of each episode) by Michael Kamen is also very nice:
(The video track just above is from a different television show, but the audio track is from the HBO series.)
I’ve always thought of these as wonderful musical concretizations of the optimistic American sense of life that was so widespread and normal just a few years ago.
So if you find yourself getting depressed over current events, just remember that many Americans still retain that marvelous implicit sense that life is good, happiness is desirable and attainable, and great achievements are possible to men. And as long as we still have that, this country still has a chance.
