Chambers wrote:
> "Man, we just had this totally amazing experience, invented some funky 
> new technology, and met some really cool people!  Now let's forget all 
> about it so we can get on with next week's episode!"

Yeah. When was the second time the Enterprise cloaked? :-)

The other complaint is the technology combinations that just don't make 
sense.  "The away team is freezing. Let's beam them down some blankets."

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Yeah. When was the second time the Enterprise cloaked? :-)

  But the lack of cloaking devices on the USS ships has been explained
many times in the series.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Yeah. When was the second time the Enterprise cloaked? :-)
> 
>   But the lack of cloaking devices on the USS ships has been explained
> many times in the series.

Has it? I never heard. What was the explanation?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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On Fri, 15 May 2009 10:16:30 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Warp wrote:
>> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>> Yeah. When was the second time the Enterprise cloaked? :-)
>> 
>>   But the lack of cloaking devices on the USS ships has been explained
>> many times in the series.
> 
> Has it? I never heard. What was the explanation?

A treaty that the UFP didn't violate and the Romulans did, IIRC.

Jim

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Fri, 15 May 2009 10:16:30 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> > Warp wrote:
> >> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >>> Yeah. When was the second time the Enterprise cloaked? :-)
> >> 
> >>   But the lack of cloaking devices on the USS ships has been explained
> >> many times in the series.
> > 
> > Has it? I never heard. What was the explanation?

> A treaty that the UFP didn't violate and the Romulans did, IIRC.

  It was most prominently explained in the very episode where USS Enterprise
got temporarily the (illegal) Federation cloak device.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Fri, 15 May 2009 14:17:19 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Fri, 15 May 2009 10:16:30 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> 
>> > Warp wrote:
>> >> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> >>> Yeah. When was the second time the Enterprise cloaked? :-)
>> >> 
>> >>   But the lack of cloaking devices on the USS ships has been
>> >>   explained
>> >> many times in the series.
>> > 
>> > Has it? I never heard. What was the explanation?
> 
>> A treaty that the UFP didn't violate and the Romulans did, IIRC.
> 
>   It was most prominently explained in the very episode where USS
>   Enterprise
> got temporarily the (illegal) Federation cloak device.

Yep, that's the episode I'm thinking of, just don't remember all the 
details.

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 14 May 2009 15:34:27 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> 
>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> I've heard that; part of what turned me off, to be honest, was the
>>> "hair band" theme music.  But I didn't give it much of a chance, I'll
>>> admit to that. :-)
>>>
>>>
>> Why does everyone hate the music? Mind, it would have been nice to see
>> something more "original", but the opening music matched the whole,
>> "This is just one more step in a long progression.", kind of idea.
> 
> I think largely the reason I disliked it so intensely was it was kinda a 
> throwback to the 80's (not a happy time for me) and the idea of Star Trek 
> theme music with a vocal was just unappealing to me.
> 
> Jim

Hmm. Interestingly I read something recently that stated that the 
problem many "older people" have with new things involves nostalgia. 
They see/hear things that remind them of how they felt "before", and as 
a result, depending on those feelings, they may avoid them, or seek them 
out, and in the process, ignore everything else from the same time 
period. This was in the context of explaining the idea of why people 
constantly whine about everything "today" being a mess, but the past 
"perfect". As the article writer put it, 90% of everything ever made is 
crap, but history tends to filter out most of the bad stuff, and, 
unfortunately, some of the good, leaving behind a badly skewed 
perspective on just how good or bad things are now, compared to how they 
where before.

Had a recent example of that even. Some guy saying, "Well, some obscure 
village decided to lock themselves in, in kindness to the plague 
infected, so those infected could walk the streets for a bit in peace, 
but would anyone do that today?" Well, maybe not, but its *choosing* to 
ignore the other millions of things people in the same period did to 
each other on a daily basis that where "not" good, just to make some 
lame point about the "charity" of modern people. And, its not 
necessarily even an accurate example of how things have changed.

My father might be the opposite sort. His perspective is that things 
have always been, on some level, bad, and filled with crazy people, so 
today is no different. He can't see the point of *trying* to change 
things. And what changes he does allow himself to see involve movies he 
doesn't like, because they are not like "his", music he hates, because 
its just noise, unlike his, etc.

We can choose to see reality, or to see the past as a great place where 
nice things happened to us, or to see it as one where bad things did. In 
the end, both of the later are purely self delusion, and prevent you 
living in the current time, without your perspective of the past one 
undermining the truth of what is happening "now". Both live in the past, 
and can't see either the problems, or the progress, that exists "now".

It presents me with a need to remind myself that, when something crops 
up I don't like too much, I need to ask myself, "Is this for a good 
reason, or just because its either, 'from a time I don't remember a lot 
of good things from', or, 'similar to something that happened when I 
felt good about the world', but, never the less, "not" as good or bad as 
I want to perceive it to be.

Its very hard to remember the positives of some time you where having 
problems, or the bad in times you where doing well. But, its important 
to consider both, if you can, otherwise, you end up being some 70 year 
old man whining about how everything you see on TV, or at the movies, is 
crap, unlike 90% of everything you ever saw 50 years ago. ;) lol

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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On Fri, 15 May 2009 18:07:43 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> Hmm. Interestingly I read something recently that stated that the
> problem many "older people" have with new things involves nostalgia.
> They see/hear things that remind them of how they felt "before", and as
> a result, depending on those feelings, they may avoid them, or seek them
> out, and in the process, ignore everything else from the same time
> period. 

In my own case, there were certainly happy times, but they largely did 
not involve hanging out with kids my own age (I can think of maybe 3 or 4 
kids I would hang out with regularly during that time period).

But sure, visual/auditory and even olfactory sensations can bring back 
bad memories.  I can't listen to The Beatles at all because of the 
memories it triggers (hell, just talking about it brings the memories 
flooding back).

> We can choose to see reality, or to see the past as a great place where
> nice things happened to us, or to see it as one where bad things did. In
> the end, both of the later are purely self delusion, and prevent you
> living in the current time, without your perspective of the past one
> undermining the truth of what is happening "now". Both live in the past,
> and can't see either the problems, or the progress, that exists "now".

It sounds like this article was full of pop-psychology nonsense to me.  
Dismissing past experiences is denying the things that make you who you 
are and prevent you from learning from past mistakes.  It is human nature 
to want to avoid things that remind us of painful times and events.  It's 
a self-preservation mechanism.

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> It sounds like this article was full of pop-psychology nonsense to me.  
> Dismissing past experiences is denying the things that make you who you 
> are and prevent you from learning from past mistakes.  It is human nature 
> to want to avoid things that remind us of painful times and events.  It's 
> a self-preservation mechanism.
> 
> Jim

Well, a lot of that is my interpretation. But, even I am not saying, 
"Deny your past.", just, "Be aware of why you have the reaction." In 
point of fact, I am not even specifically talking about the contents of 
the original article the post was made to. I don't remember what it was, 
but I think it was some tirade being made by some wacko about how chat 
rooms where all evil, because it wasn't a church social. The comment I 
referred to was someone else mentioning the statement made in someone's 
book, that in the authors opinion, most of anything made in any given 
time period isn't worth much, and that history shows a tendency for 
people to filter out most of the bad things, except when they 
can't/don't, and then they tend to, instead, filter out the good things. 
This means, in a practical sense, that, for example, Mozart may have 
written some brilliant unknown composition, only it got lost in 
someone's attic, while some piece of total junk written in the same 
period survived, purely do to having been included in someone's play. 
History loses some things it shouldn't, and keeps some it shouldn't. 
People tend to help this, by mis-associating things. For example, this 
hypothetical lost work of Mozart may have landed in the attic due to 
some big event that just "happened" to cast a negative light on music 
for the only person that had an intact copy.

Its possible that you may be missing out on something because you are 
allowing a real issue you had to prevent you enjoying something that had 
nothing at all to do with it. And its hardly pop-psychology. Fact is, 
its key to some techniques used to rid people of phobias as well, since, 
if you think about it, this is a form of phobia and/or obsession. And in 
such cases, "getting past it", requires disassociating the original 
event from the unconnected trigger. This is harder to manage with 
"positive" associations, but.. I don't think you would disagree that 
some such things can be unhealthy too, if they detract from ones ability 
to deal objectively with something new. You certainly wouldn't likely 
disagree if I was talking about someone insisting on wearing their 
"lucky jock strap" in a ball game, because they formed some irrational 
association between wearing it and winning, but this is hardly different 
than calling 100% of everything on TV "bad", because its not a 1960s 
western, or an old war movie.

The point is, not to deny your experience, just... don't let it turn you 
into the grumpy old man that hates everything new, because that "new 
thing" reminds you of The Beatles, instead of some other band you 
actually liked. ;)

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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On Sat, 16 May 2009 14:35:57 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> The point is, not to deny your experience, just... don't let it turn you
> into the grumpy old man that hates everything new, because that "new
> thing" reminds you of The Beatles, instead of some other band you
> actually liked. ;-)

I wasn't saying that it reminded me of The Beatles, I was using The 
Beatles as an example of something I can't listen to because it brings up 
painful memories.  I know why it does, but the memories are painful 
enough that I would rather not remember them.

But at the same time, I'm perfectly fine listening to The Eagles because 
(a) I like them, and (b) because I associate happy memories with them.

Similarly, I can listen to Vivaldi's Four Seasons and bring back 
extremely vivid memories of being in Puerto Vallarta when I was in 9th 
grade - sitting in the hotel lobby listening to a cassette I'd purchased 
and reading the Foundation books.  That was a school trip, and while I 
ended up spending most of the time by myself, the memories were still 
good.

What the Enterprise music evokes for me is riding on the bus home from 
school and being taunted by other kids on the bus.  It's not an 
excruciatingly bad memory, but it was typical of how I spent most of my 
days at school - being teased and picked on by the bullies at the school.

That's not exactly something I wish to remember in great detail.  I dealt 
with it then, I lived through it, and I moved on to better things.

That's not to say there weren't good memories associated with school 
(performing in the orchestra, for example, or performing solos in the 
solo and ensemble "contests" the district held).

But I've also learned over the years (only 38 of them so far) that being 
a curmudgeon has its uses, too. :-)

Jim

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