I have an idea.

We can use technology to repair warming.

I’ve been watching a lot of Trek recently. Just rewatched Nemsis(aka trek X) as a chapter in a very very long saga, this movie was not bad at all. Especially in light of Picard series…

So, here is an idea, why don’t we make a machine that takes Earth’s excess enthalpy and shoot it into space, at a random object, say the Sun.

It occurs to me that all those astronomical scanning devices must use a lot of energy. What if we explore the space heavily and emitted a lot of energy by way of radiation into all of the universe, that would cool us down right?

I guess the challenge is to make such a machine that doesn’t produce even more enthalpy in the atmosphere while doing this.

Anyways, one can dream…

Picard s1e5, the telling of the story continues smoothly. I am a little upset that they killed off Icheb, days after I painstakingly rewatched many Discovery episodes about him. The problem with picking on a young person of a dying spieces from delta quadrant is that no one will stand up for you. Well, maybe no one except for Seven of Nine. And myself, I feel like I just got to know him over several years of time, and then ppppphhhhhhhaze, he’s dead. I am not happy about this. Star Trek is killing Starfleet’s youth too fast.

It is difficult to reconcile the very respectable older Seven and her sultry voice from her youth. The ex-borg retain a lot of her personality from the delta quadrant. This story has to be very touching to many people who have immigrated to the US seeking new lives, their young ones in tow, or as it were, not. You are being rehydrates with humanity as you come to America, becoming civilized and law abiding…. I mean, unless they kill your kid, then it feels completely right to blaster the killer into air molecules. The show even used an especially savage weapon that kills the person by disassembling him from inside outward. Reminds me of the Klingons blaster.

Elnor’s childish observations about what the crew was doing is cute and yet real. I mean I don’t know how many times I had experienced the same sentiment growing up and working in America… sometimes it is just so hard to tell what everyone is doing. as a foreigner, some contextual cues are not the same as what you are used to. The result is that you have to drop to very basic concepts and ask: are we all lying now? Did we just stop lying ?

But the targeting in the future is top notch. The pitch to the captain had his name and make, model and performance of his ship all seamlessly embedded in the advert. Very nice touch! And the drug den for Raffi, the roboticist job for Jurati, so right on!

And a bit angry rant about Asians. Finally there’s someone Chinese, it’s Raffi’s son, last name, according to closed captioning, Hwang, Wade-Giles romanization of 黄, the color yellow, a very common Chinese last name. Glad to see one Chinese descendent, even if his mom was a black drug addict and wife is some dark shade of Vulcan. Whatever! Maybe they found a gene bug in Chinese people and they were all forced to reproduce with non-Chinese people in order to not produce mutants or something… And then there is the Indian subcontinent that is zero-represented in Trek, what, did the Borg dig that continent out of earth?

aha!! All shall be revealed in Picard Season 2.

FAMX0.5 due to watching it twice. Last few episodes were X1 IMHO.

Lift your head up high,

Look to your left and righ.

Walk briskly straight ahead,

…

“””

One day, little brother dragon sought Alice the Witch’s apprentice to play. He finds Alice preparing for her Witch’s apprentice test in her lab.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m practicing the potions section of the test.” She answered glancing at his entrance quickly, gosh, that dragon is beautiful, she thought at the sight of his body glistening and shimmering as if it is covered with oil. He seems so aware and in control of his body every inch, every scale, every hair moved in cohesion and with intent. Even when he is not moving, his body shimmers with a mesmerizing throbbing, longitudinally and sinuously. “Ah, you have come at a great time” Alice’s mind snaps back to her test. “You can help me practice this very difficult spell.”

“What is it?”

“The dragon silencer”

“The dragon silencer?”

“Yes, this spell-potion combo is a challenge question on the test. The physics of it is pretty neat, you should see it.”

The little dragon is silenced

He talked, but no sound came out.

He bumped into the wall, and no sound was made.

He slammed the door, and the door made no sound.

“Heeehee” Alice giggles giddily, “it worked !!”

Little brother dragon blew a fire ball, it burned red hot, but emitted no usual poof sound.

“The dragon silencer silences the dragon” says Alice.

After a few more moments of good natured joshing, Alice decides to undo the dragon silencer. The little brother dragon is most eager as well.

“Ehermmm, let’s see, wow, the undo-spell is five pages long, looks like we have some work ahead of us.”

Little brother dragon shakes his head vigorously gesturing DO IT!

“Oh, hmmmn, it’s a potion,” Alice says after reading the third page. She busied herself with the preparation while little brother dragon tried all manors of noise making but failing to make even the slightest sound.

“Ahhdlakadablahhhhhh” mumbles Alice to complete the spell… the dragon looked at her, holding back a giggle, or maybe he giggled, we can’t hear him. That’s, did she say that right? Maybe it’s just a Chinese accent, but that sounds… different.

Finally, Alice hands little brother dragon a test tube of pink potion. He drinks it quickly.

“CAN YOU HEAR ME??!” Little brother dragon shouts.

“OMG! Yes, please don’t shout!”

“Thanks you! That was nasty!! I couldn’t hear myself pink! Pink!! I can’t hear myself PINK”

“You mean you can’t hear yourself think? That’s an interesting side effect. I’ll have to let my teacher know, she wrote the book on this, maybe she can update it with that info.”

“Pink!!! Pink!! Pink! I’m pink!” Little brother dragon caught a reflection of his body in a flask, “why am Pink?”

Alice looks over, the dreamy dragon was indeed all shades of pink. But even in pink, he mesmerizes endlessly, its throbbing, in hot pink, extends in saturation and radiance, one’s eyes cannot stop looking at such a creature, the senses are so engrossed in catching each and every shade of pink that is possible on each and everyone of the dragon’s magical scales. Even his whiskers are pink, to the tip.

Little brother dragon now has gathered his wits and waves at Alice who has yet to emerged from the trance induced by the sight of this dragon.

“Uhhh, dudette, can I make noise in my normal color?” Asked little brother dragon.

And at this moment, Alices witch teacher, the old lady, walks by.

“Alice! Have you not read the spell instructions in its entirety before performing it ?!” Demanded the old lady. “That lesson I must have taught you a million times. I guess one more time won’t hurt.”

Alice’s gaze shifted down to the book. She seem to have done everything in those five pages. She idly turns the page, and, there on the 6th page, lay one line of instruction:

The potion shall be applied by oral delivery.

“That means, Alice, you should blow the potion at him from your mouth” the old lady explained helpfully, “or any other way, as long as it is delivered from your mouth, but personally, I find blowing the most pleasant. And please read your spell books more carefully and fully in the future. There are orally administered potions which the subject is to consume, but then it would say administer orally. I certainly do hope you do better on the actual test.”

She then marched little brother dragon out of the room leaving Alice the Witch’s apprentice to ponder her blunder…

(Don’t worry, the old lady reverted the pinkness outside, so little brother dragon is all okay now.)

“””

My daughter hates eggplant.

We tried our best efforts but she yells “yuck” any time she tries it.

Her father is vegetarian and feel it is unbelievable anyone cannot be made to like the foods fit for the gods.

Her mother however decided that she’ll like it when she grows up. “I hated eggplants when I was little,” she reminisced, “but by the time I went to school in Beijing, I loved eggplant.”

I however am not of the same optimistic mind. I am slightly aware of our shared history. The daughter’s mother grew up in a very dynamic time and place. The life-quality inequality in China was rapidly ascending from worse to third-worldly. When she had eggplant as a child in the 80’s, the 1980’s, the country was still short on (cooking) oil, sugar, and many other spices. The food and other basic necessities were rationed: her family, my family, everyone were issued ration tickets which in conjunction with money is the only means citizen can secure rice, oil, meat and cloth, etc.

When her mother ate eggplant for the first time, it was probably boiled. Boiled eggplant can’t be that good. (Steamed taste good though, at least it does to me)

In the 1990’s, her mom did well on China’s standardized entrance exams, and went to Beijing to study. The city of Beijing, the most advanced city of China, due to its proximity to the that totalitarian government that we Americans love to complain about, enjoys very much a different level of quality of life. So even in college cafeterias, their eggplant were cooked with oil and spices. And oil, my friends, is the one thing that makes eggplants Devine to eat.

Fast forward to the 20’s, the 2020’s, we soak our eggplants in organic EVOO, even at her first tasting. But she will never experience this kind of dramatic enhancement of taste because her first taste is already as best as it gets.

I am somewhat saddened that my kids do not like eggplant as I do. One would have expected something as basic as eating tastes to have inherited similarities between parents and children. What else didn’t they inherit from me? I hope more of the bad than the good…

We can be optimistic that technology can improve the taste of eggplants in the future, perhaps some exotic alien spice will elevate it even further. But for now, it seems that our old ideas and solutions will probably not be enough for our descendants. What satisfies us will not satisfy them. What will happen to our world when they take over? One cannot help but wonder if it is too late to invest in “ban eggplant” signs for the eventual political upheaval. “

Has anybody ever thought that there is a racial and social-economic divide between those who want AI to work better and those who want to control AI?

Roughly, rich and powerful dominant society is concerned with control. Poor and deprived population wants more AI.

People descending from societies with strong imperialist history has builtin bias in their upbringing such that control comes to mind automatically. One can hear the grotesque and yet prenatal concern “but how do we enslave this new exploitable subject?! How do we ensure we can wield it fully to our advantage? How do we keep it to ourselves? And most importantly, how do we prevent them from taking over?!”

I’m not entirely certain why these dark thoughts flash through my head as I listen to Stuart Russell’s new book Human Compatible. I mean, it’s not like I subject myself to any brain washing beside American news and entertainment media–they do not look upon this culture negatively. This book is very insightful and educates me to advanced topics in that clear and efficient way as Artificial Intelligence–a Modern Approach does. Some of it takes several passes to absorb.

As I am used to flip flopping, it would be greater for us to be in the imperial role than the subjugated role in the next chapter of intelligent life: who wants to be in the America’s, Africa’s, India’s or China’s of the imperial Europe eras? Wouldn’t I rather have been born in the enslaving countries, white, than to stick to my own skin and cultural traditions, keeping the biases and ideals therein?

I’m not sure where this will go in real life, but I did my best by contributing to Yang’s presidential campaign. He seem to have detected this conflict ahead and offers a solution. He offers a sociopolitical solution in the form of UBI-centered economic reform to unite people of America instead of divide them over unanswerable questions. A better America is better than an embattled and uncooperative world. Yes, turning focus inward is very Chinese, but that doesn’t make it wrong. His ideas may very well not work, but it is definitely much better than any and all other Democratic candidates who are, IMHO, various mixtures of the old, the dirty and the absurd. Old in age and ideas. Dirty both dirty with money and politics. Absurd, with a capital A.

But then again, I might just be looking for something refreshing and new. Same old same old is same as old.

Watching Voyager episodes trying to catch up on Borg episodes to watch Picard.

Did anybody notice how Torres has Hispanic heritage? So… if you think back…. it took a Mexican to entice a Klingon women to bed? Man… there’s always these rumbling of I don’t know what in my mind when I watch Star Trek. On the one hand, the Federation loves diversity, rights, freedom, individuality and… of course unity. But on the other hand, why is it that Kim never got past ensign grade? How come Kim is the one with all the perverse sexual desires/experiences? Why is the Asian kid the most home sick and most gullible character ? Look at Janeway, she certainly has a great forceful but feminine leadership style. (Serious kudos here) But you really see some sex-charged body language… now that coming from a superior… it … it is hard to refuse uncomfortable and yet pleasing… leading to a perverse submission both in Federation command structure consciously and also submission in a homo sapient sexual way subconsciously.

Errrr, okay, so I guess I’m confused about what I object to… I wonder if anybody sees how clean everyone on is on Picard. I don’t know how to explain this, but do you feel… perhaps everyone on Picard is too clean in some way? During first two seasons of Discovery, I constantly complain how bad the acting is and how bad the music is and how bad the acting is… but looking back, I am a little sorry to have complained about that. A lot of minority actors does produce a different kind of show. Boisterous characters are atypical of TNG. Crying characters are atypical of TNG. In fact nobody is sad for more than one episode on TNG. Major characters dying is atypical of TNG characters… a major character with a serious accent.(with Picard’s emphasis), a smiling Vulcan…. but that difference may be exactly what is needed.

Picard is such a great show (so far as of episode 2) but it is just so very clean. It is so well produced. I’m starting to feel…. I feel like I’m listening to a cell phone from the 1990’s. The frequency range transmitted has been greatly filtered. It looks and sounds exactly right. I don’t feel the minority difference any more. No Asians. Except for a mix race asian… not a real problem here, they can explain it away easily. I mean the population of Earth is 35% Indian and Chinese, but they have their own separate space programs seem to be developing separately from European and American efforts in the 2020’s… it might actually happen that Federation doesn’t include any Indians and Chinese people because they have separate space programs and organizations. (Btw, if it is unclear, Star Trek does not have any serious characters of Chinese or Indian heritage–there ought to be at least 35%(and I hope I’m not being a racist but Malaysian, Indonesian, Pakistani heritage are not part of that 35%))

But let it be said that I can let myself believe these earthbound xenophobia has been solved in a fictional world–if only the producers of the fiction would let me.

The last few seasons of Discovery is FAMX 2 for me, skipping over many episodes, although individual episodes often are X1