Lorindól

When TOS aired the first time in my country, I was 9-10 years old. I found it mind-blowingly good compared to other shows at the time. I had learned to read when I was 4 and I read a LOT. And not just books for children, I also read classics and nonfiction natural science as much as I could.

I was a strange kid, but all my reading had made me ready to understand the social commentaries in TOS and the fictional scenarios really opened the concepts up for me. I often went to the library to research stuff that was explored in the latest episode to make sure I had understood everything.

My son is 13 now, we started to watch the TOS DVD-set together and he loves it. Although he is older than I was, he is not an avid reader like me. He needs many of the concepts explained and subtle guidance to understand the underlying larger themes, but he has shown advancement and after every episode we have a small discussion. I love teaching him this way.

We just finished season 1 and my son noted: “Athough this show is ancient, this stuff is still relevant and happening even today, isn’t it?”

Apparently the original team behind Star Control is making a direct sequel to II, since SC 3 was done by a different studio and did not follow the storyline that the creators had in mind.

And it’s supposed to be released this year. They are calling it “Free Stars: Children of Infinity”, since they don’t own the rights to the Star Control name. But they do own all the rights to the content in SC 1and SC 2, so this could be fun!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Stars:_Children_of_Infinity

I did like SC 3 as well, but it wasn’t nearly as great as SC 2. I can barely remember the main storyline.

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Star Control II, PC.

That was pretty wild development, yes. But still, we will not make any territorial claims. Doing so would effectively render the protection provided by NATO’s Article 5 null. We would once again be alone against a nuclear power with much larger resources than we could ever have.

So we won’t be doing that.

Finland won’t make any claims. This much is certain.

The only way we would even consider restoring the stolen lands would be IF the Russian Federation falls and IF the initiative for reunification would come from the Karelian Republic.

Playstations 3, 4 and 5 are capable of playing Blu-Rays and DVD’s. I guess the same goes with the later Xbox-models, assuming they have an optical drive.

I cannot fathom why one would purchase any console without one.

The intranet at my work is a near-useless dumpster fire. Everything is disorganized, all the important documents and instructions are hidden behind completely chaotic branches and layers of creatively named folders.

I have used the wretched thing only once. I instantly downloaded everything I thought I would ever need to an encrypted USB stick, so I would never have to use it again. This was 7-8 years ago. Everything important is always delivered by email and apparently stored to the intranet afterwards. The intranet has been hacked at least twice, but the real number is most likely much higher. For “reasons”, all the personnel info has also been kept stored on the intranet, despite the successful hacks.

HIM’s demo-version of “Wicked Game” is even better than the album version. I remember how disappointed I was when the original cover wasn’t on their debut album.

Andrew Robinson’s vision of the Garak’s character was that he was sexually attractred to Bashir right from the start. Playing this openly would have been way too much for 90’s TV, so he stuck to the idea but downplayed it. Which most likely is the reason why the interaction between these two characters was so great.

Yes! I bought mine in 2004, it was the only proper steel string guitar that I could afford at the time. And it is a really good guitar. There has been zero need for any adjustments, the only replaced part (excluding strings, of course) is a single tuning peg. I was drunk and slipped while I was playing, the guitar hit the floor first but miraculously there was no other damage.

A friend of mine was a guitar tech/roadie for Dio and Metallica in his youth and when he tried the F310 his opinion was that “This isn’t a bad guitar at all, actually it sounds a lot like my own Martin back home. You really might want to hold on to this one.”

Living in the same latitudes I could only take it as a compliment.

“You fucking Alaskan!”

I laughed uncontrollably for several minutes after receiving this compliment. Wrong continent, buddy.

You are correct. I majored in educational psychology and this language development in children has always been a special interest of mine.

Baby talk is like beacon to the baby, it tells them that “This is for YOU, pay attention!”. The baby hears and learns the intonations, patterns and the rhythms of the language. It’s importance cannot be downplayed.

A toddler can learn ~50 new words every day, so using normal speech is naturally important as well. But there is no need to try to overdo it. The mind of a small child is a massively powerful and superfocused “learning machine”, although it isn’t often apparent in their behaviour ;)

Reading to children is especially beneficial to language development. It enriches the vocabulary and introduces common patterns and rhythms of expression. And the pictures in books help to create connections between ideas and words.

The pace of language development is highly individual and forcing it is most likely useless. Children will learn what they can, at their own pace.

Every one of my own children were able to use polynomial sentences and past and future tenses before they were three. We never tried to accelerate their learning in any way, they just picked it up. On the other hand, my friend’s kid did the normal baby talk phase and then remained completely mute until the age of four. One day he just opened up and said to her mom in a clear voice: “Mom, could you give me some milk, I’m thirsty.” And he spoke normally ever since.

One advantage of quick language development is it’s effect on memory. A child that learns complex language skills early is more likely to form lasting memories of their early childhood. It may be that the memories can be stored more effectively and recalled more easily when the child is able to bind the experiences to words that can be used to express them.

This is a very fascinating subject.

This is the way.

I solely used Netscape Navigator since it came out and after it fell I chose Firefox. My interface has always been modded to look permanently like Firefox 3.6.

Everything is where I want it to be and everything works perfectly.

Many moons ago my employer tried to force us to use only Internet Explorer / Edge for reasons they were unable to explain - since there were none, technically or otherwise. I rebelled and remotely installed Firefox with Adblock / uBlock Origin to every personal computer (I was the unofficial IT guy) and told my co-workers to try it out.

At the next meeting we were told that the use of Firefox is not only approved but recommended. The magic of an “ad free browser” had taken hold, people found it vastly superior and had been vocal about their newfound dislike of MS browsers.

To my surprise I wasn’t even reprimanded in any way.

We X’s were born into the analog world and grew up as the digital age started to emerge. We have the luxury of knowing both.

I wish they had left the 32nd century as a “Discovery - only”. After the jump to the future it felt like the show had no stakes. Everything felt disconnected.

It feels like an easy excuse for the writers to pull just about anything out of their asses, “because it has been so long” and “tech has evolved exponentially”.

SNW proved that there was a lot more to explore even in the 23rd century. So much could have been done with the fallout of the Dominion War in the 24th.

But it’s all up to the writers. If they’re good the show can be good.

Yes, I do have severe deuteranomaly. Diagnosed when I was 6 years old.

I’ve read quite a lot about this, there are many cases where red/green blind people have exhibited above average night vision.

I was also very good at spotting camouflage, since the patterns were designed to fool people with normal colour vision. The only time my colour blindness was a disadvantage was in a contest between regiments, I had to direct artillery fire as fast as possible and the targets were big red boxes in front of the treeline.

Our lieutenant lost his shit when he realized that he had a colour blind forward observer. We still won the contest, my squad handled the measurements impeccably and I verified them on the map. There was discussion of transfering me to other duties after this, but when I asked “Sir, how many big red box targets are there are in real war?” they quickly dropped the issue.

During my military service I also discovered that I had exceptional night vision. I never stumbled in the dark forest and I could even read maps when others couldn’t see shit. I didn’t pay much attention to this quirk, but my commanding officer realized this and put it to good use. The following overnight recon patrols on foot and skis felt endless.

I am a lifelong fan of Tolkien and the colour of my hair is golden.