Thanks for the reply!

The info missing from your post was the output voltage.

Yeah, the info I gave is all that’s offered on the transformer… LED driver… whatever. That’s why I interpreted the voltage as unchanged from input to output. If that’s even possible.

I often want to rewatch Voyager for Janeway, the Doctor, Seven and Tuvok, but Neelix and Paris really sours the whole prospect.

“You know, I heard they cancelled it already” 🤣

Yeah, when has Star Trek shied away from slopping latex (or CGI) on actors’ faces? It’s a weird choice.

I agree that this show is a delightful slice of Trek for our times.

I don’t think the online detractors have nearly as much impact as their loudness might indicate, however. And their criticism doesn’t come from actually engaging with the show, but from a desire to ride the negativity algorithms of YouTube and some social media. Clearly, this isn’t just about SFA, but any franchise or media they can glom onto.

Most people realise that intuitively and watch a show or don’t based on their own tastes. It’s really us in the community that get most affected by the negativity industry. We’re the ones actively searching for “Starfleet Academy” to find insights and previews. Or so my theory goes.

Since the second season is already in post production, it seems Paramount management has a lot of trust in the show, at least to the point of giving it a fair showing before weighing the audience numbers?

I wouldn’t call it a huge miss, but I don’t think the two stories could stand on their own in separate episodes, either. It was just a bit… meh. Definitely the low point for me in the season so far, though.

Ah yes. Perfectly reasonable spot for merpeople to be married. Wonder how that place smells a few hours into the ceremony?

Iirc, in later seasons Damar seems to be knocking 'em back with much greater ease on Cardassia Prime than would be possible with the oily stuff seen on DS9.

So I guess the message here is, “You’re okay (without faking your application or going through with arranged marriages), and people around you want the best for you”? Which is valid, but not exactly mind blowing, narratively speaking.

I enjoyed the Genesis/Caleb staycation hookey games, not least Caleb seeing through her long con. Our boy is not a complete dupe, good on him.

The whole Darem sudden wedding side of things was part dull, part derivative. The entire landscape and scene setting where Jay-den arrived had me thinking of the SNW recreation of that “Amok time” arena. Which is promising I guess, if the writers and art dept. expect new 20-something viewers to glom onto 60 years old references — but they don’t do much with it anyway.

I sort of thought the scaly amphibian form Darem changed into in the pilot was the default Khionian look. But despite a lot of talk about seaweed and “we’ve all got gills”, everybody looks peculiarly human. Which is Star Trek, I know. The entire subplot just felt underdeveloped.

I’m still scratching my head what anyone sees in Kyle, so I’m assuming he’ll turn out to be a salt vampire.

All in all, this felt like a stopgap episode before the season finale, where stuff hopefully goes off the rails on a more epic scale.

why the characters are so inconsistent and indistinguishable from one panel to the next. Why the shadows don’t make any sense. Why the hands when we see them don’t make sense.

TBF, those are issues I have with loads of industry comics of the past, say, 50 years. But even if that artwork was made by a human artist, that person was probably not a comic artist but a person from the art staff who could do something passable.

Most likely this wasn’t really made to be read or dwelled upon. It’s a prop that should represent as a comic book as it whizzes past on the screen. Which is sort of a missed opportunity when there are actual Star trek comics being made, and the producers could have reached out to one of the artists already drawing Trek comics…

I stopped watching Discovery after the first episode

watching the first 10 minutes of Starfleet Academy makes me want to bury the whole franchise

These are shows that historically have taken a couple of seasons to grow their beard, and you’re judging them on (parts of) their pilots? Maybe you’re just not as much into Star Trek as you think.

Very good writeup! Beyond the face value that, yes, we are told on screen that Newsome is actually playing a 1000+ years old Dax, you made it make sense 🙂

Since we’re in the DS9 lore here, I need to address your suggestion that

the reason most symbionts choose to not live to 800 years is that they get bored

Would you say that perhaps the Trills who expand their life spans beyond 800 are teaching their cells new mitochondrial tricks? Please, don’t let this leak to the soulless minions of orthodoxy that try to suppress the truth 🤣

At face value and current watching experience, I’d say that’s a hard disagree. But then I can’t be arsed watching some rando with a webcam circling around their actual point for several minutes, and would love a one sentence summary beyond that “let’s you and him fight” title.

From the video description:

I care about great stories for kids and the new show Star Trek: Starfleet Academy was made by people who don’t understand Star Trek at all or what makes it so interesting to young people. And old nerds like me.

Personally I’d say that about Strange New Worlds — and speaking as one old nerd to another, I realise I’m fairly alone with that opinion — but unlike this youtuber I’ve had three full seasons of that show to form my opinion, rather than four episodes of SA.

Oh wait, the video was published on 18 January, she actually judged it only on the first two episodes…

Argh! 😰

You’re right, I didn’t dig past a first glance, and I missed [counts fingers] some 60+ years worth of copy/pasting…

Looking good. I have to ask, considering what I have ahead of me — that newsblog going back to 2022, are those all Hubzilla-native posts, or did you import the older ones from another CMS?

Ooh, thanks! That didn’t turn up in my searches. Are you involved with this?

I’ll try to get by with my rusty schoolbook German, and browser translations if needed 👍

closer to Drupal than it is to WordPress

Ouch! Thanks for that assessment. As much as I’ve favoured Hubzilla in my considerations lately, I’ve gotten a similar impression going over their docs. I just needed someone else to put their finger on it.

Bonfire — yeah, our timing is off as far as their development goes 🙂 But I think/hope we have time to wait it out before Wordpress realises their “AI” plans(?)

I could reach out to Bonfire, but imagine someone like you would have more cachet with them? Plus, knowing open source development, users asking for/wanting a thing doesn’t necessarily translate into developers changing their focus to that. But it’s worth a try!

Yeah, Vitus is the masculine form of vita. It just isn’t a Latin word but a name formed from one. There are similar examples of modern names derived in the same way, which ancient Romans wouldn’t recognise as words, but might well interpret as descriptive adjective names.

I was hoping for advice on the list I’d gathered, but you’re not making it shorter, Julian 😄

Thanks for the heads up! It’s a rollercoaster with Classicpress, but good to have it back in the race.