Crowd-sourcing Political Persuasion in Social Media

Update: Although this post was written a while back, people are still finding it and reading it. I have updated it here and there to reflect the post-Trump realities.

Right after the 2016 US election, we heard a lot about the "echo chamber" that saw a lot of people talking about issues in social media, but mostly to people of similar beliefs.

Why did neither side have much success persuading people of conflicting beliefs and what should we do differently for the futute?

Teachers Have More Impact than they Know

Since I announced my retirement, I have heard from people, particularly former students, who I haven't had contact with for years.  It has caused me to think more generally about the impact teachers have on their students' lives.

Some things I'm thinking about:

1. Years ago, when I was a development officer for the USD Foundation, we had a prominent alum retire.  I won't name him, but he was the chief financial officer for a major corporation that you would all realize. In reflecting on his retirement for the USD alumni newsletter, he named a business faculty member who he said had a profound impact on his career. When the teacher was asked, he didn't recall his former student at all, i.e. the guy hadn't been much of a standout in class, but he had been influenced anyway.

2. I am also reminded of a movie few people will remember from 1980 called The Competition.  In it,  a character played by Lee Remick lists her pedigree as a piano teacher:

"Ludwig Von Beethoven taught Carl Czerny, who taught Leschetizky, who taught Schnabel, who taught Renaldi, who taught me."

What I taught was the product of things that my previous teachers taught to me, as well as meaning I made on my own.  Some of what I learned on my own was after I started teaching, so I could better explain things to students. And there are things nobody could have taught me years ago, because they were brand new. Some of what my own teachers taught me was what their teachers had taught them, and their own teachers before them.  

In the last couple of weeks, since I announced my retirement, I have heard from hundreds of people, many of them former students, many of them saying remarkably nice things.  Some are crystal clear in my memory from their time as students and some are more of a "what class were they in?" kind of memory. I see some often on Facebook, and some I haven't hardly heard from since they graduated.  

It leaves me pondering what people really learned from me, what they have taken farther based on the foundation I helped them develop, and how they are using this ability and knowledge today.  How are they, formally or informally, teaching others? Do they even remember which ideas and skills they first came to understand in my courses, but that they are using today?

Teachers don't pour knowledge into people's heard.  They create environments in which students can connect the dots and create new knowledge for themselves.

Often teachers don't know the true impact we have had on our students.

Is the news media liberal? Yes, but not the way you think.

We've heard accusations for years about the alleged bias of the "liberal news media." Professional journalists are trained to keep their own opinions out of their work, but in the broader (non-political) context of "liberal," having a liberal news media is good for everybody. 

Read to find out why.

What do I want from Star Trek Lower Decks?

CBS has announced that Star Trek Lower Decks premiers August 6th.  The first animated Star Trek series since the 1970s is also the first Trek series to be produced as a comedy. It tells the story of a group of low-ranking crewmembers of the USS Cerritos, which has a mission of second contact with new "new life and new civilization" which had first contact with some other Starfleet ship.

The very first trailer that came out did not impress me, but I will give Lower Decks a chance because I have seen every Star Trek episode of every series and it's nice to keep the collection complete.  BUT here are some things that will determine whether I keep watching:

• Good continuity.  This animated series is clearly intended for young audiences, but I still want stories that are consistent with the rest of Star Trek continuity.  Don't break the rules that we know so well.
• Social messages. Star Trek is always (or at least usually) about social messages. I want to see thoughtful morals to the stories. Even South Park has worthwhile "messages" embedded in its juvenile humor.
• Interesting characters.  In animation, it is easy to have cardboard cutouts for characters.  I want to see some depth, backstories, and something other than slapstick.
• In-Jokes.  Yes, I do want to see some references to other incarnations of Star Trek, obvious or even better subtle.

This series is set after the final TNG movie, Star Trek Nemesis, a period of time not addressed in detail on-screen, except for the snippets of back history given in Star Trek Picard. That gives them a little elbow room. I HOPE that in catering to children, they don't forget that they are likely to have their grown-up Trek fans watching, as well.

The series was originally announced as being produced for Nickelodeon, but the latest word is that the ten episodes of the first season will be on CBS All Access now, and will appear on Nik sometime in 2021.  A second season of Lower Decks is already in the works.  Curiously enough, ten episodes, one a week, take us up right up the premier of the third season of Star Trek Discovery in October.

All Good Things 2: Accomplishments

On the occasion of my retirement, I have been thinking back over the past 16 years.

I have been the radio station advisor and Radio Workshop teacher for almost a third of the lifetime of KWSC-FM, which begins its 50th year this fall. When I inherited the station, it had a transmitter that was past its design lifetime, aging studio equipment, no AP service, bootlegged software on its production computers, and a programming automation system that somehow kept playing outdated things we tried time after time to remove. The station was also facing a $10,000 fine for FCC violations, committed before my time.  One of the main things I was charged with when hired was to "get things under control."

Today, the station has a new tower and transmitter site, audio consoles with years left in their lifetimes, a constantly updated production music library, a constantly updated on-air music service, and an automation system that works effectively (except for occasional glitch caused by human learning curves). We have recently-purchased BluTooth sports remote equipment, recently-purchased standardized studio microphones, and we are using a podcasting platform that I researched and brought to the table. My partner in all of these technology updates was our engineer, Tom Schmitz.

I have also been a leader for many curriculum updates.  What we now call "Electronic Media" was "Broadcasting' but the industry had moved beyond that "silo."  Collaborating with Maureen Carrigg and Max McElwain, we updated the name of the major and began the ongoing process of converging the student media to make them multi-platform, as the industry expects.  I also like to think that I helped find critical resources and the curriculum structure for the very popular digital film coursework of the "Hot Attic Film School", which is probably leading Mass Communication to a record enrollment, possibly as soon as this fall.

I have had multiple service roles at the school, including serving on the vital Academic Policies committee, the Institutional Review Board, chairing multiple hiring committees (they were all good hires), and some years ago chairing the Technology for Learning and Teaching (TLTC) committee as we revitalized it.  I also served on the WSC Centennial Committee.

There was a time recently, due to unexpected faculty changes, in which I was the ONLY full-time faculty member in mass communication. I do believe that I was an important part of holding things together during that challenging time.

For the record, there are things at WSC that only I know how to do, particularly involving the radio station, and I say that literally.  In anticipation of having Emeritus status, I am fully intending to assist and mentor whoever comes next teaching the classes that have been mine and in operating KWSC-FM.

Spock's Character Arc

The Star Trek character Spock is one of the best-known and beloved characters in American television. He is a central character in season two of Star Trek Discovery, and he began the story arc more...emotional than we might have expected.

How has Spock's character evolved over the years, spanning multiple series?

We first see Spock as the son of a Vulcan man and a human woman.  In The Animated Series, a seven-year-old Spock is bullied by other Vulcan children for being part human. He struggles with his emotions, particularly when his (very large) pet shelat, I Chaya, is critically wounded in the wilderness.  Spock chooses to allow an animal healer to provide I Chaya a painless death, rather than living on in pain. In doing this, Spock chooses to live his life in the Vulcan way of logic.

But in Discovery, we learn that Spock at a similar age also had affection for his older, human foster sister, Michael Burnham.  Their father, Sarek, had hoped that Michael would help Spock learn to balance the two sides of his personality, the more logical Vulcan alongside the more emotional human side.

But Michael unwisely drove Spock away, out of fear that "logic extremists" who were vexed that mixed-bloods were among them on Vulcan, would target Spock rather than herself. This rift, according to Spock in Discovery, caused him to pursue logic more ardently, but immediately after his youthful confrontation with Michael, Spock experienced a vision from the "Red Angel" telling him how to find the endangered Michael.

Thus we have competing influences in the young Spock that affect his balance between logic and emotion.  Fans generally accept the animated episode as "canon" for how Spock came to embrace the logical side of his makeup.  But the version of Spock who comes from the Discovery writers gives us a Spock who continues to be unbalanced between logic and emotion (as well as possessing a never-before-mentioned learning disability, which must have complicated his young life).

Sarek eventually arranges for Spock to join something the Discovery writers called the Vulcan Expeditionary Group, but Spock joins Starfleet instead. It has long been part of Trek continuity that Sarek actually wanted Spock to join the Vulcan Science Academy, and refused to speak to Spock for 18 years when Spock choose Starfleet. Discovery implies that Spock did not actually attend Starfleet Academy, but joined in some other way.  This is supported by Spock's statement in The Wrath of Khan that he had never taken the Kobyashi Maru test. Michael also did not attend the academy and made her way to a Starfleet commission via an alternative route.

We next see Spock as a lieutenant on the Enterprise a dozen years before Kirk takes command and a couple of years before he appears in Star Trek Discovery, which is set a couple of years AFTER the original series pilot. That pilot episode, The Cage, was the first time Leonard Nimoy played Spock and the character was not yet fully formed, but this Spock grins, often raises his voice, and generally behaves more emotionally that we expect today from a Vulcan character.

In Star Trek Discovery, Spock also begins his the season in a more emotional frame of mind, expressing anger, which Captain Pike, who had known him for some time, finds to be uncharacteristic.  Specifically, something triggers nightmares about the red signals, and Spock goes so far as to check himself into a psychiatric facility at Starbase 5. The writers were never explicit about what triggered this, but the implication is that Michael's mother, using The Suit, somehow triggered it, because it was needed for the overall defeat of Control.

By the Original Series, Spock had become generally logical and unemotional, but with strong friendships aboard Enterprise, presumably prompted by Michael Burnham's farewell admonitions to find people who seem farthest from him and to let them guide him to balance.  This is generally considered to be a foreshadowing of Spock's relationship with Kirk, but it also heralds his sparring friendship with McCoy.

In TOS, however, viewers had repeated hints that, when Spock was under stress, drugged, etc., his emotions were just below the surface.  As we have seen, this is true of all Vulcans.  They are not automatically logical.  They learn to actively suppress emotions.

Indeed, in The Motion Picture, shortly after the end of the Enterprise five-year mission, Spock undergoes the Kohlinar ritual to purge the last vestiges of emotion, suggesting that he wanted to end his balancing act between logic and emotion.  This would have been almost exactly 15 years after the Discovery season finale.

Maybe no longer being shipmates with Kirk, McCoy et al. meant Spock lost the balance they provided, although one would have hoped that the 15-year older Spock would have learned more self-regulation in the intervening years.

Regardless, Spock does not complete the Kohlinar, because Vger mentally calls to him across space, and an emotion, curiosity, gets the better of him. I can imagine Spock thinking, "Again?"  Was he secretly saying "this could be Control, I've got to return to Enterprise to check it out."

In the Motion Picture, Spock mind melds with the pure logic of Vger and finds it to be lacking. He comes to the realization that both parts of his personality, logic and emotion, must synergize. Possibly for the first time, he becomes fully comfortable with who he is and his ability to balance logic and emotion.

Of course, a few years later, he dies, has his katra refused with his body, and has to go through the process of discovering balance all over again.

Later in life, Spock becomes an unofficial ambassador to the Romulans. Because the Romulans were so driven by emotion, reuniting them would have meant the same epiphany for the cultures as Spock earlier had for his own personality. So he becomes a teacher, living in hiding, until possibly after the events of Star Trek Nemesis.

In the Kelvan timeline, weird things happen. Spock goes back in time and eventually dies. In the main timeline, we do not (yet) know Spock's ultimate fate (the movie rights and the TV rights are held by different companies and they are not obligated to conform to each other, however TV executive producer Alex Kurtzman has been involved in both).

From a storytelling point of view, episode and movie writers have enjoyed placing the logical and unemotional Spock in circumstances that disconcerted him and allowed his emotions to bubble out. From an in-universe perspective, however, we can see that Spock has ebbed and flowed back and forth, between more and less emotional orientations, more and less balance.

Of course, the season finale of Discovery provides a rationale for why Spock has never mentioned Michael, even to his closest friends. Spock is good t keeping secrets - remember that he also had an older half-brother, Sybok, who he did not mention for decades.

At the conclusion id Discovery season 2, Spock's character is ready for the mindset we see in the Original Series and beyond. If by chance a Captain Pike series happens, I hope Spock is fully recognizable as his in-balance TOS self.

(Photos used under Fair Use provision of copyright law, for the purpose of comment and criticism.)

Star Trek Discovery: Saints of Imperfection

Here are observations about the fifth episode of Star Trek Discovery this season, Saints of Imperfection.  There ARE a few minor spoilers below, but not full episode summaries.

1. May refers to transporting Tilly across the "dimensional plane."  So the thing Discovery is temporarily stuck in is basically an inter-dimensional portal.  Like a Stargate event horizon without the actual Stargate. Maybe THAT'S why the parts of the Discovery saucer need to rotate.  Because Stargates rotate in setting the destination address.  (In reality, CBS can't overtly use elements from MGM's Stargate, due to copyright, but the visual portrayals are reminiscent.)
2. Pike is seen entering the bridge from Lorca's Ready Room, even though Pike made a big thing a few episodes ago of not liking it and moving elsewhere. We can still see the stand-up desk through the doorway.
3. Pike and Georgiou were classmates at Starfleet Academy, although maybe not the same class year.
4. When Pike, Georgiou, and Burnham get into the turbolift, it starts going without anybody saying the destination.  In fact several times people get into the turbolift and don't say where they are going in this episode, but this is the only scene in which we see them continually after the doors shut.
5. A reference to "alligators" on Cestus III, was likely a reference to the Gorn, although supposedly Starfleet didn't know anything about the Gorn until the TOS episode Arena.  On the third hand, Lorca appeared to have a Gorn skeleton on display last season.
6. Also a reference to Deneva, one of the first Earth colonies, where Sam Kirk and family eventually live (and some of them die). 
7. Georgiou is eating an apple to show how cool she is, kind of like how the J.J. Abrams Kirk ate an apply in one of the movies.  She drops it when Burnham gets in her face.  She isn't as cocky as she pretends to be. Since they are getting ready to make a series about her, I HOPE that she is a nicer person than she lets on.  Here "oh look at the cute baby" moment last episode gives me some hope.
8. The new chief of security, Commander Nhan, is still wearing the skirt-and-tights version of the Starfleet uniform, except in Discovery blue.  Note that when Pike first came to Discovery, he identified her as an engineering staff member.  Now she's heading security.  Was she Security pretending to be Engineering, as a safety detail for Pike?
9. Once they find Tilly and...what else (spoiler) they find...they fritter away a LOT of time when they urgently need to be heading back.
10. Tyler has a radio integrated in his com badge, like TNG and later comm badges.  Nobody else has ever heard of that before, through the TOS movies.
11. The Section 31 ship does not have invisibility, but apparently is able to make its shields look like a big asteroid.
12. The tractor beams in this episode need a receptor or "tractor rig" to pull against.  The only time I remember the 1701 Prime using a tractor beam was in Space Seed, and they may well have placed a receptor on the Botany Bay, which we just didn't see.
13. Now we have two "we will meet again" foreshadows: Tilly and May, and Pike and Jacob (on New Eden). 
14. Leland is apparently in charge of Section 31, but he made a reference to "control" last week, and now we find out who "control" is.

Note: Photo is a "fair use" screen capture used for purposes of review or criticism, and thus complies with copyright law.

Star Trek Discovery: Points of Light & An Obol for Charon

Here are observations about the third and fourth episodes of Star Trek Discovery this season, Points of Light and An Obol for Charon.  There ARE a few spoilers below, but not full episode summaries.

Points of Light

1. A lot of Points of Light has to do with establishing Section 31, Phillipa, and Ash as major players in the story.  Section 31 first appeared in DS9, but also appeared in Enterprise, so it has been around for a while.  But I could live without ever seeing Klingons again, if you must know.  So tired of them.
2. Tilly and May talked for a LONG time, but Tilly caught up with the other running cadets in short order.
3. When Sarek's ship approached Discovery, it was JUST like when Reliant approached Enterprise in TWOK.  Pike knew the rules about activating tactical systems when communication has not been established with an approaching vessel.  Kirk, true to form, ignored the rules. 
4. The transporter room (or at least the one in this episode) is on Deck 4.
5. The Klingon D7 starship, seen here in its design or early construction phase, has been seen throughout Trek. 
6. My wife and I both thought that L'Rell's residence looks a bit like Rivendell.
7. That data storage device looks a LOT like a 3.5 inch floppy disk, complete with write protection hole.  But is also looks a bit like the storage disks they used in TOS, which is presumably their intent.
8. "Post-war the Klingons are growing their hair again." Referencing the short hair on TOS Klingons, which was yet another time of war between the Klingons and the Federation?
9. In the jogging scene, there was Tilly, another woman, and two men.  In the bridge exercise later, there were two men, Tilly, and a couple of Mays.  Did the other woman wash out already? Or was she a training officer (she had a different colored shirt)?
10. May thinks Stamitz is the captain of the ship, and thinks he is terrifying.  But she needs to talk to him, or her plan will fall apart. Somehow Tilly is special to her, and her only chance...for something.
11. The "red angel" told Spock where Michael was when she ran away from home, years ago. Furthermore, Spock followed Michael around like a shadow, until she pushed him away and hurt him irreparably. She believed that the "logic extremists" would target him, if they could not target her.
12. May is some sort of apparition from the Mycellium, but so was Hugh appearing to Stamitz during the jumps, right?  Are they working together or at odds?  In both cases they have been helpful, but there is certainly an agenda at work.  Note that both Tilly and Stamitz have had spores get inside them.
13. House Kor is a reference to the Klingon character or, played by John Colicos in the TOS episode Errand of Mercy.
14. The Section 31 ship is reminiscent of Spock's warp shuttle in TMP, but presumably much bigger.
15. Didn't you love Phillip making googly eyes at eh baby, until ash looked at her?
16. The Klingon monastery at Boreth was mentioned in the TNG episode Rightful Heir, which featured Worf visiting it.
17. The look Phillipa gives the baby at the end the the episode is tender, but she hardens her face when she sees someone is looking at her.  To be the lead on her own spin-off series, she NEEDS some redeeming qualities.

An Obol for Charon

1. May gives us a moderately big reveal in this episode about why she is there, grooming Tilly for something.
2. This episode also makes a major character development for Saru.
3. Number One has been described in some non-canon sources as being a genetically perfect example of her species, making the name both a starship title, and possible a real name. But what's with her eating a cheeseburger and fries? I guess if she IS biologically perfect, she doesn't need to worry about healthy eating.
4. Note that she mentions Enterprise Chief Bouvier, presumably a reference to the chief engineer.  That suggests that Scotty is not yet in that job.  Also, they retconned NOT using the kinds of holographic displays on Enterprise in 10 years that Discovery has now.
5. Also note that her PADD is taller in the back than in the front, a bit like TOS PADDs (but not exactly). However later in the episode, the doctor's PADD and Michael's is just an ordinary flat screen.
6. Oh, great, there's some sort of conspiracy in Starfleet, causing Spock's case to be classified more highly than it should be. Conspiracies in Starfleet have been done to death.
7. Did Commander Nhan show up really abruptly in the briefing?  She she really her, or a mycelium entity, appearing to everybody, not just Tilly? 
8. There is a chief engineer on Discovery who we have not met.
9. There is more than one sickbay on Discovery. There was a reference to "take non-critical to sickbay 2."
10. Doctor Pollard's comm badge is NOT the overlapping circles for "sciences" like on the TOS Enterprise, but rather a little black version of the red cross denoting medical.
11. Saru and Michael seem very close in this episode, even though in last season he was telling her how dangerous she was and how he resented her for keeping him from being first officer.
12. Discovery has EPS systems, even though they were never mentioned in TOS and were allegedly new in TNG. They used antibodies to slow the virus progress, but it wasn't until Voyager that ships had bio-neural gel packs that contain synthetic neural cells for circuitry.
13. So the sphere is 100,000 years old and now we have everything it has seen and experienced.  Kind of like Vyger, huh? And there was a reference to "all library computers" implying more than one.
14. Discovery's jumps harm the residents of the Mycelium network, which is maybe why TOS, TNG, etc, never heard of it. One is reminded of the Voyager episodes Equinox, in which the smaller ship was killing alien lifeforms to get a boost toward home.

27 Things you may have missed in Star Trek Discovery

Screen capture under copyright fair use

I believe that I have seen every Star Trek episode and movie so far, so of course I am interested in Star Trek Discovery.  I enjoy looking at story lines and visual elements, but I also enjoy watching for the little details that other reviewers often don't mention.

There are no significant spoilers about the story line, but here are some details I notice in the first two Discovery episodes of season two, Brother and New Eden.

1.  Spock told Pike about Michael ("He said you were smart") but not Kirk about Sybok.  Is there a chance that Kirk DID know about Michael, but it never come up on screen? 

2.  Change of command cannot be transferred without DNA authentication witnessed by the entire bridge crew since the war.  Tell that to Matt Decker and that other guy who appropriated Enterprise ten years later.  

3.  Pike served on the USS Antares, poor ship (it's the one that Charlie X blew up). 

4.  The Enterprise "new uniforms" are exactly the same design and cut, except with different colored fabric.  The design makes the Discovery uniforms look like jumpsuits, but the same design makes the Enterprise new uniforms look a separate top and trousers.  The trousers that go with Pike's gold shirt uniform have zippered pockets, by the way, and I believe that e have never seen pockets in a Starfleet uniform before. 

5.  In episode one, Tilly talks about living with ghosts, which actually happens to her in later episodes. Foreshadowing.  

6.  Michael's pillow is on her bed vertically, now horizontally, like most people have their pillows. Maybe it's pre-positioned for sitting up in bed.

7. Their phaser pistols DO have the little phaser 1 on top. They look a lot more like TOS phasers than the ones Pike had on Talos IV.  Plus, why did they take the bigger pistols to New Eden when they wanted masquerade as locals? With no threat obvious, the littler ones would be more inconspicuous. 

8. During the Klingon war, which the Federation almost lost, Enterprise was too far away to come back?  That means months at high warp (or what was high warp back then) because the war lasted at least ten months.  Were all of the Constitution Class ships that far out? 

11. The ships we see outside the window in Brother tractoring Enterprise look a lot like Miranda Class, with old-style nacelles. 

12. When Spock gave up the Kolinahr because he sensed Vyger from a distance, maybe his consuming curiosity came from the fact that he'd been through it all before with the still-mysterious Red Angel. "Wait - another one?"

13. In episode 1, Pike says he needs a new Ready Room.  By episode 2 he has one, and it is apparently NOT right off the bridge, as the old one was.  The new one has a surprising number of decorative items for a temporary captain. 

14 In New Eden, when Michael arrives on the bridge, Tilly says she has been using Michael's station to run calibration modeling programs, but the things she has open on the desktop are Command Training Program manuals, checklists, a "to do" list, and private messages. 

15. Identifying the location of the New Eden red signal needed better technobabble. Discovery uses a momentary warp jump to get closer to a signal in order to pinpoint its location, but being in maximum warp for five seconds is inconsequential compared to the 51,450 light years away the signal actually was. This compares to the roughly 70,000 light years Voyager was swept by the Caretaker, past the Beta Quadrant into the Delta Quadrant. Did Captain Janeway ever consider going to the known human colony on New Eden?   

16. Nice that Discovery mentions the ban on human genetic engineering that was featured in Star Trek Enterprise episodes and that resulted from the Eugenics Wars. 

17. "Be bold, be brave, be courageous" sounds like an embryonic catchphrase. 

18. The Discovery is under red or yellow alert, little motion graphics appear at the upper left and right of the bridge view screen to remind everybody. Presumably Black and Blue alerts, also.

19. Saru can determine how long the radio message has been transmitted based on "audiophonic degradation"?  Technobabble failure. 

20. Lots of people have comments on the reference to reframing Arthur C. Clark's third law. Suggesting that "any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God" pretty well lays out that this a YAGLA story arc (the term used by fans for "Yet Another God-like Alien"). 

21. Tilly referred to her metreon-charged asteroid and metreon-charged dark matter.  Metreons have mentioned several time in Star Trek's past, including as particles that interact with dark matter.  Nice technobabble continuity. 

22. In Brother, Michael has several holographic candles burning in her room, whereas in the New Eden church, real candles are burning during the day, plus flaming torches outside at night, with none of the locals around. Apparently the locals have plenty of candle-making and oil refining capability.  In addition, the basement lights are bright and have wires running to them.  They can keep them lit, but not the lights upstairs? Plus the power to run the transmitter for years and years?  Inconsistent portrayal. 

23. It looks like each of the seven red signals is leading Discovery to a rescue mission, but each of them seems to be a manipulated event - by May or somebody else?  Seven signals equals half of the season.  Will the second half of the season be a different story arc, like last season? 

24. I don't get how the entire 365 degree ring is heading toward the planet, but pulling away just some of the debris in one place pulls all the debris everywhere away.  By the way, the "donut in a starship" wasn't all that great a special effect.  A donut is a 360 degree skid.  Sorry, producers - the visual effect didn't pay off. 

25. Transporters can't lock on to the Metreon asteroid rock (Brother) but tractor beams can (New Eden)? Plot device. 

26. There did not appear to be a bell in the church belfry.  They should have one, plus lights there.

27.  The episode preview at the end of New Eden shows the Discovery commissioning plaque.  She is Crossfield Class, presumably a reference to famous pilot Scott Crossfield, the first pilot to fly at twice the speed of sound.

So, yes, these are the kinds of things I look at when each new Star Trek episode, along with the more obvious things like story line, script, visual presentation, and acting.

Star Trek's Borg are reflected in today's society

I wrote this in 2018, but given the extraordinary growth of white nationalism in American society, it's worth considering again.

Star Trek's ultimate bad guys, the Borg, are a metaphor. As we see them from today’s perspective, they are placeholders for white nationalists and for invasions of our privacy by technology.

The Star Trek Enterprise episode Regeneration was on the other evening, and it made me think again about the Borg, their original role in Star Trek storytelling, and how they speak to us today.

From its beginnings in the 1960s, Star Trek has told stories of computers and technology overshadowing human freedoms.

• The Ultimate Computer made the captain and crew unnecessary
• Several aliens, like Trelane and Apollo, used hidden technology to amplify their god-like powers
• Landru and Vaal were computers that controlled entire planetary societies
• Androids imprisoned Harry Mudd
• Nomad and Vyger just wanted to kill everybody

These stories were clearly rooted in the concerns that were common in the 1960s that computers were turning us into numbers and taking away our individuality. It was a time when computer databases were first used to automate and track the interactions of people, and errors were often made due to lack of sophistication.

The Original Series plots served as metaphors for these societal concerns, generally showing the defeat of the computers/technology through the cleverness of the captain and crew, including confusing the computer with logic or illogic, getting it to calculate π to the last digit, etc.

These social anxieties about computers and technology have never completely gone away, and we see them resurgent today in the news about hacking and tracking and deceiving people via their social media and smartphones.

When The Next Generation producers were looking for a nemesis, they reportedly first considered a society of space-going insects, but settled on cyborgs, i.e. the Borg.

The Borg drones are humanoids that have extensive technology implants and replacements of body parts, but the technology suppresses their individuality. They are the ultimate of a peer-to-peer network, with no central control (the Borg Queen is simply a mouthpiece for the collective) and no individuality, hardly even individual consciousness.

But Borg is not just a cybernetic society.  It aggressively assimilates species after species, claiming to want to improve their quality of life, which requires taking away their individuality.  They are the ultimate of conformity to a black-and-white values system, with "you must comply" as their mantra.

The drive for conformity was powerful in 1950s America.  In the 1960s, the pendulum swung the other way, at least among young people, and "do your own thing" was the standard wisdom, along with great distrust of "the establishment", prompting the "don't trust anyone over 30" rule.

These twin youth culture rules had largely faded away by the time the Borg were introduced in The Next Generation.  Their original proponents were in or near their 40s, were settled down with children, and most had establishment jobs. But in Star Trek's positive multi-cultural view of a future embracing technology, it is not surprising that the great antihero (the Borg) misuses technology in a mono-cultural and deeply utilitarian society that has no respect for those who are different, including those who embrace individuality.

Based on Seven of Nine and other drones separated from the collective, Borg drones find great comfort in never being alone, in being immersed in the cacophony of the thoughts of billions of Borg.

I can't help note that many people today seem to be unable to stand being disconnected from their smartphone "friends" and are endlessly pressured to conform by forwarding memes, playing "games", and being guilt-tripped by statements like "only 1 in 147 people will share this, but do it to prove that you are my friend."

But the Borg are not just representative of today’s marketing in which loss of privacy and sharing of data leads to improved quality of life.  They are the powerful majority, suppressing the weaker minority.

The great underlying message of all Star Trek is multi-culturalism. The Borg are not just compelling bad guys. They are the antithesis of a multicultural society. In today’s terms, they are the White Nationalists, who are really interested only in power.

The dominant white culture, they believe, is polluted by the differentness (individuality) of the immigrants, just as the Borg cannot abide by individuality, forcing individuals to perfectly integrate into their cyborg society.  I wish we could simply order THEM to calculate π to the last digit.

Rick Berman (executive producer of four Star Trek series) said recently:

“If you believe in the values of Star Trek, you need to vote in November, and to get everyone you can to vote. Trek and apathy don’t fit.” 

I would go a step further and say that if you believe in the values of Star Trek, you have to take a stand against those who oppress minorities.

Don’t engage in violence, but vote, call out ethical and moral failures and don’t assume it is going to happen without getting yourself involved.

(Image from: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Borg_dockingstation.jpg)

Facts vs. Truth

Screen capture from Meet the Press, NBC

Rudy Giulaini claiming that "truth isn't truth" is so strange, but WHY it's strange has been missed by the people reacting to his comments. 

It is a tenet of conservationism that there IS an absolute truth, outside of human experience and perception, that it is fixed, and relatively easy to understand. That is where literal reading of the Bible comes from. 

Conservatives, in the meantime, are skeptical about "new" knowledge, particularly when it contradicts the established narrative. This is where climate change denial comes from. I can easily understand a conservative saying that "facts are not the same thing as truth because facts are always suspect." 

The trouble for Giulaini is that this idea goes both ways. An administration that thrives on ignoring evidence, "alternative facts", and innuendo cannot be assumed to be telling the truth. But the way that Giulaini said "truth is not truth" smacks of propaganda and "if I say it enough times, they'll believe it IS the truth." And if the truth is not the truth, it leads to a mindset that lies are not lies. 

It seems to me that we see this "truth is what we persuade people it is" mindset all the time in the bogus and easily debunked claims that float thought the advocacy media. 

That is why we NEED professional, trained journalists, whose job it is to question claims, and fearlessly seek the actual truth, among the jumble of facts and opinions. The advocacy media can't do that for us, which is why we need the professional journalistic media.

Trump: Masterful Control of the Narrative

More than ever before, political operatives struggle to influence what people talk about, and thus influence what they believe.  More than ever, it's done by making assertions that are, at face value, false.

Why do they do this and how does it work?

Many years ago, I watched an election campaign in which a member of Congress was seeking reelection.  His opponent had been active in local causes but was not well-known statewide.  The incumbent's campaign staff thoroughly researched the opponent for past public statements, such as letters to the editor.  For the last 45 days of the campaign, the incumbent blasted the challenger about every three days for some past public comment. The result was that the opponent was always defending himself, and never got to go on the offensive.  He lost the election in no small part because what people believed about him was defined by his opponent, not himself.

In all manner of public relations, practitioners want to maximize the positive and minimize the negative.  That's why negative news is often released after 3 pm on Fridays - because fewer people will see it Friday evening and Saturday, so any reaction will be smaller, and less intense.

Years ago, when Donald Trump became a celebrity, he learned that when he said outrageous things, they would be reported by journalists. He learned about the news cycle, in which his statements would be reported for a day or so, and then any reaction would be reported over another day or so. He learned to influence what the media talked about.

When he became a political candidate, reporters were guaranteed to report what he said in campaign rallies/interviews, particularly when it was something other than a standard stump speech.  It was the same pattern - inflammatory statements reported for a day or so, and reaction for another day or so, always repeating the original claim and thus validating it.

And on top of that, the more inflammatory the Trump statement, the more it, and reaction to it, would dominate the news for a couple of days, often marginalizing other stories having less controversial content.

Lesley Stahl's report that Trump has admitted attacking the news media so that negative stories about him won't be believed is just another way of using the news cycle to control the narrative.  It's not really a new tactic.  Vice President Spiro Agnew was famous for attacking the press (before pleading guilty to tax evasion, resigning from office, and serving felony probation).

Singling out of people and media employees for personal attacks uses the ad hominem logical fallacy, and while all of our teachers tell us that we should avoid logical fallacies, they can be highly effective in persuasion, because most people do not detect that the logic is flawed.

So here is the pattern:

1. A claim is made, with either no evidence or faulty evidence, but is reported by many media outlets because of who said it.
2. Other people react, repeating the original assertion, denying it or supporting the assertion, so the original claim is reinforced from many directions, creating doubt about the truth in the minds of the public.
3. When there has been enough talk, allies then say "we need a formal investigation into whether this is true."
4. The investigation repeats the claim endlessly, making it seem more and more plausible, or disappears into the background static of the news, and gets little attention when conclusions are finally released (if ever), because they are not as inflammatory as the original claim, thus leaving the original claim as the strongest thing most people remember. 

You can criticize this strategy of controlling the media.  You can make an excellent case that the use of falsehoods and exaggeration makes it unethical (along with a lot of other things in politics).

BUT...

It is a sly, crafty, and highly strategic way of manipulating the media and controlling the narrative, making sophisticated use of the fundamental ways in which journalists work, public psychology, and ways in which people consume news content.

Lost in Space; Lost in Science

The new Lost in Space from Netflix is an ambitious project with likable characters, but the show runners could have benefited considerably from a science adviser.

There are a few minor spoilers below about situations, but not about the characters or story line details (unless they have already been shown in trailers).

As in the original 1960s Lost in Space, the Robinson family is on a colonizing expedition to Alpha Centauri.  This time, the Jupiter 2 is a landing craft from a larger vessel, which ends up in the wrong place and runs into trouble, requiring evacuation.

The production, based in Vancouver, uses beautiful locations and elaborate sets to produce an authentic feel.  The characters are generally likable, although they have different and more complex family relationships than in the original Lost in Space.

At face value, it is an enjoyable season with nuanced characters, a complex villain, and good action sequences, partnered with thoughtful character development.

But time and again, I was taken out of the story by having to say "that's not right" or "it doesn't work that way" about things related to science.


Ice doesn't freeze that way

Early in the series, we see a lake freeze solid in an instant, causing problems for the characters.  But water freezes at the surface first.  Yes, the script established that it was really cold, but there is liquid water under the ice on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, not to mention probably at Pluto, which has been very cold for a long, long time.  Ice freezes by forming a thin crust of ice, which slowly gets thicker and thicker.

There are other scenes (hinted at in the trailers) in which the Jupiter 2 is also stuck in ice, and the way the ice works in those scenes doesn't seem right, either.


Forests and critters don't grow that way

Like in the original Lost in Space, the planet the Robinsons are on is in a funny orbit that will cause it to get VERY hot and pretty much kill all life.  At one point, a character notes that the trees only have one growth ring.

The life clearly has ways to recover, but the series was shot in a typical BRitish Columbia forest, with tree trunks several inches in diameter.  You are telling me that the trees get that big in one growing season?

Plus we see several indigenous animals, some of which are very large.  How do they survive the heat?

Oh, and in one scene, we see a fallen tree and stump that was clearly cut by a chainsaw.


Radio doesn't work that way

One of the main points of the overall story line is that part of the colony ship is still in orbit and and the remaining crew there is transmitting, but can not hear the landing craft on the planet, because the colony ship's dish antenna is missing.  But if you know ANYTHING about radio, this breaks down.

A broken dish antenna WOULD prevent one from receiving, but it would also prevent one from transmitting, which they were doing just fine. Plus one would not use a big dish antenna for general coverage of the entire planet, which is what the folks in space wanted.  Dish antennas are directional and the colony ship did not appear to be in a high enough orbit to be able to cover the entire planet with a tight beam dish antenna.

True, they could have been using a different omni-directional antenna to transmit, but such an antenna would also work fine for receiving signals from the surface.  Astronauts on the International Space Station use five watt portable (handheld) radios to talk to ham radio operators on Earth, transmitting through a window and using nothing but the built-in antenna of a few inches long.  Because of the altitude, and nothing in the way, it doesn't take much.

In addition, if the transmit antenna is not working right (or missing) the transmitter in the ship would not work right.  The radio operators would realize immediately that they had an antenna problem.  For purposes of talking to and from the planet, jury-rigging a replacement would not be at all hard.

Without this "the ship can't hear us" plot point, the entire rest of the story breaks down.  It is clear from the dialog that the landing ships don't have the fuel to go back into space, to save themselves from the heat, but that if the colony ship could hear them, it would send down fuel.

So the whole rationale of the ten episode story arc breaks down.


Biofuel production doesn't work that way

At one point, the folks on the planet talk about using the biowaste (manure) from animals on the planet to create fuel to power their ships.  I can't say much more, in order to avoid spoilers, but the plan is to produce huge amounts of fuel in a very short period of time, and I am not convinced that they can produce enough fuel to do what they want, starting from scratch, in the time available.


[Sigh]

I still liked the new Lost in Space and if they make a season 2, I will watch.

It has a rich production design, character-based scripts with lots of interesting character development.  It generally does a nice job of promoting the "willing suspension of disbelief" that is needed in science fiction.....

Except for these troublesome "it doesn't work that way" problems with the science part of the science fiction that significantly undercuts the story arc of the series.

Facebook

There has been a lot of angst recently about how Facebook uses data from user profiles. But pretty much every organization that uses advertising does essentially what Facebook does, i.e. collecting information about customers and using it to target advertising messages to them.  So how do we make sense out of current events in social media?

Yes, Everybody does it

It is a standard postulate of advertising and marketing that we respond most favorably when the messages we receive are relevant to our interests. So ALL advertising companies do research to find out where their preferred customers (and prospects) hang out in the media, and they advertise in those locations.

They also do various kinds of research to understand us better.  For example, the bar code scanning in our favorite supermarket.  Everything goes into a database, and if we pay by credit card for check, they know a lot about us, personally.  Have you ever noticed that the coupons that print out while we're checking out are usually for something we already buy (or a competitor)?

Data collection about customers is not new, by any means.

• For centuries, newspapers and later radio and TV created interesting content in order to get people to also see advertisements.
• Starting in the 1970s there was an explosion of specialty magazines, allowing advertisers to reach audiences they knew was already interested in the specialty products the advertiser sells. 
• The hundreds of cable channels now provide this same pre-selection of specialty interests for advertisers.
• When businesses started using the WEB, the same thing happened -- specialty websites sprang up allowing advertisers to find the audience interested in their particular specialty products.

Modern mobile technology has certainly taken this way of doing business to new heights, like knowing your exact location so they can text you discount coupons when you are near a certain store. But it is more of the same and NOT something unprecedented.


How does Facebook Advertising work?

When you make a post on a Facebook business page, some people see the post "organically" because they already follow the page, or they see a friend comment or like the post.

But as page administrator, you also have the opportunity to pay money to extend the post so more people see it.  You can select friends of your current followers, or use a variety of other criteria, such as geographic area, age, and gender.  Facebook also watches what members post, like, and share, so you can select people based on a variety of interests which Facebook has identified, resulting from your history of posting.

In doing this, Facebook does NOT actually share your data.  The advertiser provides the criteria, and Facebook does the match internally in its system, and "serves" the post (advertisement) to the people who match the criteria.


So how did Cambridge Analytica get the data?

According to this article, the researcher, Dr. Kogan, made an agreement with Facebook which allowed collection of data for research purposes, but forbade transferring the data to third parties.

At face value, this is reasonable.  Academic researchers collect personal data all the time, but ethical research does not allow the identities of the participants to be known by anyone outside the study. Institutions have mechanisms in place to ensure this, called "Human Subjects Institutional Review Boards."  I have served on HSIRB at my school and have written proposals seeking approval for my research plans.

In keeping with this, Facebook prohibits collected data from being sold or transferred “to any ad network, data broker or other advertising or monetization-related service.” Dr. Kogan apparently collected the data, then violated the agreement with Facebook and transferred the data anyway.


What was the real failure here?

One can certainly argue that Facebook needs a stronger way of enforcing it's terms of service policy than simply trusting people to comply.

One can argue that websites and apps on which we post personal data should not be allowed to use that data, but this has been happening for 20 years or more on almost every commercial online platform you visit.  It is the REASON they exist, i.e. to make money (not to "serve the public.")

One can argue that users need more warnings about "the information you are about to post may be used for advertising, and delivered back to you in individually-targeted messages."  Most people will still ignore the messages, as they do the terms of service and other warnings.

One can argue that the people in Congress who are charged with regulating this stuff have no clue about what they are trying to regulate (a fact made clear by the questions from members of Congress to Mark Zuckerberg).

I wish I could boil this all down to a single failure with corresponding solution, but the social media environment is too complex.

The vast majority of these web and app systems are for-profit undertakings, meaning that they either need to charge fees, or depend on advertising.  The tried and true business model is to attract an audience with interesting content, and then expose them to advertising, ideally focused to the interests of the audience because what is advertised aligns with the content.

But most consumers conceptualize these content sources as "services" and do not understand that they, themselves, are an audience being sold to advertisers.  This makes them gullible and prone to impulse when they encounter memes, quizzes, and other means of data collection.

There is no simply way to change this paradigm, but public education is part of it.  Caveat Emptor (let the buyer beware) is critical.  Stop and think what information you are entering into the app or website.

If you don't want the entire world to know something, don't put it on the Internet (including ANY communication transmitted via technology).

Why they had to Redesign the Enterprise...Again

Spoilers below!

Note: This post was written before the reuniting of CBS and Paramount.  This article reflects the considerations in effect when the Discovery version of Enterprise was created.

-------------

The Star Trek Discovery season finale appeared on CBS All Access last night, and the cliffhanger was an unexpected appearance of the original USS Enterprise, NCC-1701 (no bloody A, B, C, D, E, or anything else, as Scotty might say).

Careful examination reveals that this is yet another "re-imagining" of the classic starship.  So why couldn't they just use the design from the "Kelvan Universe" in the most recent movies?  That would be logical, wouldn't it?

The answer is that if they had, they'd probably get sued.

The problem is that movie Star Trek and television Star Trek are no longer controlled by the same corporations.  CBS and Viacom (which owns Paramount) were once part of the same corporation, but over a decade ago they were split into two separate publicly-traded corporations (now there is talk of them recombining).

The result required years of negotiations over who owns Star Trek, which is why we didn't see new Star Trek for years.

Viacom/Paramount controls the rights to the Star Trek movies, whereas CBS controls the rights to television Star Trek.  When to comes to making NEW Star Trek, they're not allowed to draw significant content from each other.  They have to go back to the source material that THEY control.

All previous redesigns of the NCC-1701 Enterprise were in the movies.  The only appearance of a Constitution Class Starship in television Trek since The Original Series was the USS Defiant, seen in Star Trek Enterprise, which was a faithful CGI reproduction of the original design.

So given the decision to redesign the Enterprise, CBS HAD to create an Enterprise that was not directly linked to any of the movie incarnations of the ship. Of course, they COULD have made this Enterprise also a faithful reproduction, but...

My guess is that merchandising considerations led to the redesign.  We now have (or will have next season) yet another version of the Enterprise to make into plastic model kits, Hallmark ornaments, etc. 

Oh by the way, Pocket Books, which publishes all the Star Trek novels, is owned by CBS. Last year they negotiated a deal with Viacom/Paramount to also public Star Trek books based in the J.J. Abrams Kelvan Universe, but I do not know when any actual Kelvan Universe books may be released.

Separating the two companies resulted in Byzantine complications for Star Trek.  Merging them again would probably be highly beneficial for Star Trek, if they could decide which production team takes over.

For the record, what is different in the redesign?

• The struts attaching the nacelles are different.
• The shape of the rear landing bay is changed
• The nacelles, themselves, are different - the original did not have those lighted side panels
• The exterior lighting is different   
• The ship's markings in some areas are different
• The impulse engines at the rear of the saucer are different

There are probably plenty of other things that we will see when we get a plastic model kit or Hallmark ornament...or more video from next season.

No More "Like and Share" - Maybe

Facebook's new policy about keeping "Engagement Bait" out of the newsfeed is intended to eliminate posts with "like and share this post" calls to action.  But liking and sharing is part of the engagement that marketers really want.

So what do they do?

First, let's take a step back and analyze why "like and share this post" has been so common.  There are three things to consider:

1.  Some marketers do superficial planning and all they want is good numbers.  Liking and sharing does cause more people to see a post, although they may not be the best people, i.e. the ideal prospective customers or key stakeholders of the business/organization making the original post. 

2.  Facebook has also been downgrading the ability of a post to spread via organic sharing and liking.  Facebook is a business and they are incentivizing marketers to spend money to deliver their posts (which are really advertising messages) to constituents who are selected by various categories and interests. 

3.  Persuasion theory says that we get people to do big things by first getting them to do little things that build towards the big thing.  Liking and sharing our posts demonstrates support, and repeated small demonstrations of such support set the stage for larger acts of support, like buying our product or voting for our candidate.  So, getting people to like and share has a strategic role.

So how do we respond to the new Facebook rules?

Marketing communications is about brand persuasion, and brand persuasion requires engagement -- a two-way interactive relationship between our business/organization and our customers/constituents.

So, we still want people to like and share, but we'll have to use more creative language.  Language like "pass this along" and "tell us what you think" are likely to become more common.  And marketers will need to monitor their insights (statistical reports from Facebook) about performance of messages containing various calls to action, to see which work best.

But the reality is that as social media matures, it is going to cost more money to use it for marketing.

Up to now, the costs have been relatively hidden -- the staff time for people to create posts and maintain the page, and the costs to develop customized content, like graphics, photography, and video.

More and more, organizations are going to need to use paid reach to get their messages to the people they want to reach. A small business may be able to do this with only $15 or $20 a post, a handful of times a month, reaching a few thousand people. Bigger businesses, of course, will need more money to reach the hundreds of thousands or millions of people they need.

So, strategic planning, including budgeting, is a new reality of Social Media Marketing.

2018: A critical year in Star Trek History

SS Botany Bay

We don't know a lot about the early 21st Century from historical references made on-screen in Star Trek, but we know something BIG happened in 2018 - the invention of Impulse Engine Drive.

One of the things that has always appealed to me about Star Trek is how all of the timeline and historical references fit together, an important part of the overall continuity of the multiple Trek TV series.  From the beginning, the producers have worked hard to ensure that they remember what they have said previously, and everything (usually) holds together well. 

So, this essay is based on many tidbits of what onscreen characters have said about 2018, and this general era in Star Trek history.


Star Trek is not in OUR Timeline

First, we have to admit that we do not live in the Star Trek universe.  As early as the 1990s, things happened in Star Trek history that did not happen in our own.  Specifically, the Eugenics Warshappened, in which genetically engineered "supermen" conquered a lot of countries and ruled as dictators.  Khan was one of them.

The Eugenics Wars are a fixed point in time in Star Trek history.  So what can we infer, based in this fact?

Humans, at least in one secret laboratory somewhere, had genetic engineering technology in the 20th Century that was already well in advance of what we have today.  The Original Series referred to Khan as the result of "selective breeding" but The Wrath of Khan and later TV episodes amended that to "genetic engineering."  Assuming that Khan and the supermen aged at normal speed (not TV magic rapid aging) means that somebody had advanced genetic engineering capability in the 1950s or 60s, which in our timeline we didn't have.


DY-100 Space Craft

We know that in 1996, the last of the supermen was overthrown, and Khan and 81 of his followers escaped Earth in the sublight DY-100 class SS Botany Bay. The Botany Bay, pictured above, appears to be a cargo ship, vaguely like the Hermes in The Martian, with detachable cargo pods. The Botany Bay was a sleeper ship, putting passengers in suspended animation for the months-long trip to Mars or other places int eh solar system.

Having an operational inter-planetary craft in 1996, with functional suspended animation, was certainly beyond what we were capable of in our own timeline.  This implies that humans were capable of transporting heavy cargo to the Moon, Mars, and maybe other places (you don't need a sleeper ship to go to the Moon).


2018, "The Year Everything Changed" 

In 2018 in the Star Trek universe, humans invented the first generation of Impulse Drive. Eventually, Impulse engines would be able to propel a starship close to the speed of light. Even the primitive 2018 first generation would likely have dropped the Mars trip to only weeks, or maybe even days.

(In our own timeline, a possible Electromagnatic Thuster is being tested. If it is proven to actually work, it might be something that could be scaled up to serve as our own version of an Impulse engine.)

The consequences of Impulse Drive in the Trek universe are not discussed on screen but it is clear that a small fleet of DY-100 or similar DY-500 ships, upgraded to employ Impulse engines, would have opened up the solar system to exploration and eventually to colonization.


What Comes Next

In 2037, Earth launched a mission outside the solar system, the Charybdis, which was large enough to carry planetary shuttles and an extensive library, arriving in the Theta 116 star system in 2044. To achieve interstellar distances in seven years certainly required speeds close to the speed of light, i.e. Impulse Drive. 

The 2030s is about the time when Zefram Cochrane was born, who would go on to invent Warp Drive in 2063, after a nuclear war a decade earlier. Within a few more years, the starship Valiant reached the "edge of the galaxy," a century before Kirk and Spock.

So, 2018 is a BIG turning point in the Star Trek parallel universe.  Maybe it will also be in our own. 


Image from: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/bQgAAOSwTglYkpSy/s-l400.jpg

5+1 Tips for Good Photographs

I am getting ready to teach photography again this coming semester, and I also have some friends with new cameras. So I have been reviewing my basic rules for taking good photos, whether by smartphone or a more elaborate camera.

Here are tips, plus a bonus, to help YOU take better photos (and the rules apply to video photography, also).


1. Tell a story 

Your photo will have the most impact when it tells a story.  What are the people doing? What is happening around them?

2. Don't pose (or at least don't let your shot look posed)

Posed pictures are boring.  Better to take candid or impromptu photos that feel more spontaneous.

3. Plan your time and place

Often being at the right place and time makes the difference between a boring photo and a powerful one.  At events, figure out what the most interesting things are and figure out what the right angle to capture them is.  Wait patiently for just the right moment.

For outdoor photographs, time of day can also be important.  Early morning and late afternoon light is warmer and less harsh.   But also, avoid facing the sun while you shoot.  This will increase the odds of ending up with a silhouette (unless that is what you want).  It is often still a matter of finding just the right moment.

4. Take lots of shots and choose the best.

"One-and-done" is not the way to get great photographs.  Take a photo, look at it, and analyze "how could it be better?"  Then take another shot that makes it better.  Do this from several different angles, or in ways that capture several different elements of what is going on.

5. Don't center everything in your photo! 

This is the biggie, and is a principal you see across many realms of art. It is called the Rule of Thirds.  You mentally divide your shot into thirds, both horizontally and vertically.  Then you use these lines, in two complimentary ways.

One: The MAIN thing you are depicting should be at one of the intersecting points of those imaginary lines.  The rest of the shot should provide balance. Don't put everything right in the middle.

Two: Often, there will be a logical dividing line in a photo.  Outdoors, it might be a horizon line, or the edge of a tall building.  Indoors, it might be more than one person's face forming a sort of line.  Put those actual dividing lines along one of your imaginary thirds lines in a way that provides balance.  If people are facing left, put them at the RIGHT vertical line.  If you have a horizon line, decide what is more important, the sky or the land and choose your imaginary line accordingly.

Combining these two elements...matching horizontal and vertical lines in your shot with the imaginary lines of thirds, and putting your prime subject at an intersection of the lines...will give you strong, memorable photos.

6. Bonus: For cameras that are not in smartphones -- explore the menus and learn the settings, such as the various focus and exposure options.  Often the fully automated mode will not produce the best photos for advanced photographers.


There is a lot more to being a great photographer, but these 5+1 tips (rules) will help you stay on the right track.

The Star Wars Cycle of Storytelling

I've been surprised to learn that there are people who are quite unhappy with
The Last Jedi. One of the complaints is that none of the original heroes remain.

This article makes the point clearly that it is painful for fans to have heroes age and become secondary characters. There are also complaints that the film did not meet the expectations of fans, that we didn't really find out about Rey's family, didn't find out where Snoke came from, and many other complaints about details.

On the other hand, there were complaints that The Force Awakens was too much of a retread of A New Hope.

I see Star Wars as recurring cycle of tried and true storytelling, and The Last Jedi fits right in.

I have written before about "A Heroes Journey", the standard formula that pervades ancient Western myth, identified decades ago by Joseph Campbell, and which we see so often in stories today. A young reluctant hero is called to a journey that takes him out of his ordinary experience and discovers a villain or threat to which he has a hidden connection.  He has companions who help him as he is tested, and an older mentor.  The older mentor is "taken away", and the young hero most stand up to the villain alone, eventually triumphing and returning to his ordinary life.  (Note: In the ancient myths studied by Campbell, the hero was always male.)

Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings are all basically this same "Hero's Journey" story.

In The Force Awakens, most of the focus was on the young hero, Rey, and her companions.  Han Solo became her older mentor, and he was "taken away."  In The Last Jedi, more of the focus is on Luke, now Rey's older mentor. In due course, he also leaves the stage, in a way that is similar to how Obi Wan left in A New Hope.

We know that Leia will not return for the next film, and other possible older mentors, like Vice Admiral Holdo, are also gone. In perfect keeping with Campbell, it is time for the young reluctant hero to stand up and directly confront evil.

We also know that the older mentors have histories in which they were likely the younger heroes.  We got the history of Obi Wan in episodes 1, 2 & 3.  The Fantastic Beasts movies will tell us more about Dumbledore's youthful adventures.  Gandalf implied past adventures with the family of Bilbo.

So in a story spanning decades, it is not surprising to see changing roles.

When we look at Star Wars as a recurring cycle of storytelling, which I am convinced is how the writers and producers see it, it allows us to project things we might see in the final movie of the trilogy:

1.  Luke will return in astral form.  Han might also.

2.  Rey WILL be revealed to have some sort of hidden family connection to Ben, in spite of what will turn out to be Ben's misdirection about her heritage. This also means a hidden connection to all of the Skywalker and maybe Solo ancestry. Whatever the answer is will explain the symbolism of Rey seeing multiple versions of herself, receding into the distance, in the mirror.

3.  Ben will have some sort of redemption and atonement, as Anakin did before him.  I still think that he wants to complete his grandfather's work by "balancing the force."  Nobody is clear what defines this "balance" but he presumably has his own ideas about it. 

Of course, these points leave out a wealth of detail, but they are the recurring plot elements to be expected from Star Wars as a Joseph Campbell Hero's Journey.  Remember, however, that as Campbell also said, it is not what is similar that defines a story.  Creativity is in innovation, i.e. how the formula is used in a way that feels new and fresh.

Did Spock attend Starfleet Academy?

I have been reviewing what we learned about Spock and
Sarek from the first half of the Star Trek Discovery season, and now I am wondering whether Spock actually attended Starfleet Academy.

I have always assumed that he did but it has never been explicitly stated (except in the JJ Abrams movies, which are a different timeline).

Here's what leads me to this conclusion:

We know that Michael Burnham graduated from the Vulcan Academy of Science circa 2249 or 2250.

The episode Lethe tells us that Sarek secretly chose to keep her from joining the Vulcan Expeditionary Group (i.e. the Vulcan space service) in a deal to allow Spock to join instead.  The Vulcan snobs didn't want two human/half-human people in their space service and gave Sarek the choice of one or the other.  Spock, of course, did not take advantage of this opportunity and joined Starfleet instead. 

Sarek turned around and found Michael a post on the USS Shenzhou.  Within two years, Spock was a lieutenant on Enterprise during the Talos IV incident.  He prosumably could not have attended the academy AND risen to the rank of lieutenant in that time.

That implies that neither of them attended Starfleet Academy, because they got the equivalent of their college education on Vulcan, and that they are about the same age.  He may even be a couple of years younger than her.

Note that Sarek is revealed in Discovery to have sought a position for Spock in the Vulcan Expeditionary Group, however in the Original Series episode Journey to Babel we were told that Sarek was upset with Spock for 18 years because Sarek wanted Spock to join the Vulcan Science Academy, which is presumably something different.

I had always assumed that a) Spock was quite a bit older than he appeared, several years older than Kirk, and that he did attend Starfleet Academy.

Now it appears that he did not, which resolves questions about Spock's statements in The Wrath of Khan that he never took the Kobyashi Maru test.

One of the things I have always enjoyed about Star Trek has been the way the over 700 TV series episodes and the movies actually hung together in their continuity. 

I wonder if the Discovery writers KNEW what they were establishing on Star Trek continuity with respect to Spock and the Academy?