We’ve tried most of them over time.

Star Trek Resurgence has consistently excellent reviews. It’s about a 25 hour role play where the player makes choices for two different crew - a senior bridge officer and an NCO in engineering. It’s well done and one of our teens and I are enjoying it a lot. Great value for the sale price. My patience on this one was reinforced by its initial release being exclusive to Epic - but on Steam and on sale it’s worth it.

Bridge Crew is an older game. I have had it for a couple of years, and took advantage of the sale to pick up copies for each of our kids Steam accounts. One of them got really into it right away.

Timelines is also older. It held their interest for a bit in middle school but doesn’t seem to be one of the better tie-ins.

Star Trek Online is a long running massively multiplayer game that starts out free but then can cost a lot for in-game purchases. One of our teens is into it, and got fairly far without purchasing much, but the Steam sale is a good opportunity for them to buy things they’ve had on their wish list.

As a parent, I find these better than the endless number of Star Wars mods on Roblox that one of ours got into for a while.

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So the childhood favourite ‘Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh’ was onto something.

You are so missing out on the wonder that is Sam Kirk.

SNW has a lot delightful surprises, but adding the insouciance of Sam Kirk, but having brothers Kirk spar when Jim shows up on occasion, is truly inspired writing.

Not to mention he really gets under Spock’s skin.

Startide Rising is the best of them all.

Sundiver is quite good too.

The later books were deeply marred by Brin’s giving into pressure from his editors to centre them on a group of adolescent males of diverse species because his publisher was of the view that the average scientific fiction reader was a 14 year old male. Brin has written about this and how difficult it was for him to write outside his natural quite adult style. His fantastic characters from Startide Rising are pushed into the background and only get to step forward and shine again at the very end.

Clearly, the ability to be outside in appropriate clothing for activities isn’t being mandated. This is where a temperate climate enables ridiculous practices to persist.

All I can think about when I see this image is how in Ontario, the responsible provincial ministry requires all schools and ‘day nurseries’ (read day and after school care) to put the kids out in the yards twice a day unless the weather conditions are severe (Less than -20 or more than +30 Celsius.).

Parents are responsible to send their kids with suitable clothing for the cold. One rarely sees little girls in skirts in schools unless they are wearing tunic dresses over leggings.

In an earlier era, pre 1970s, when skirts were mandatory for girls, that meant switching to pants or snow pants from the skirts 3 times a day to go outside in winter (two breaks and leaving end of day).

The StarTrek.website instance has nontoxic and active community with views - and of course one of the longest running franchises to discuss.

There’s even a great where to start post along the lines you’re looking for.

Now naturally other stuff exists, and we even have a place to discuss that over at /quarks.

Yoon Ha Lee really plays with fun math concepts. Great stuff. The Ninefox trilogy was a real entry point for me to begin to appreciate Korean mythology.

Yup, lack of advanced science concepts and an accumulation of errors despite a pretension to working problems for the audience.

Even some basic geography errors - early in the book, he claims that the sample had to be landed in Saskatchewan for a high latitude to match the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Baikonur is at 45 N latitude, about the same as the border between North and South Dakota. Everywhere in Saskatchewan is North of the 49th parallel and south of 60. Sigh.

I have to say that I just don’t get the hype about this book.

Project Hail Mary is really targeted at a middle grade reading and maturity level. I would have happily given it to our kids to read in middle grade (as I did The Martian).

It’s a Robinson Crusoe meets a buddy in space boys-own-adventure tale (although Weir insists on male gendering a hermaphrodite when ‘they/them’ is well understood). There are clear indications that the story was told to pull in immature readers - starting with the ludicrous scene where Grace has spent days waiting for zero G without stowing any of his lab equipment or supplies.

It’s a compellingly written ‘work the problem’ read but anything beyond high school science concepts isn’t really there. Once again, I feel like we’re seeing more overhyped STEM based on concepts that haven’t advanced beyond what a mid 20th century bachelors degree would cover.

It held my attention as an easy read while fighting a bug, I can’t see picking up another of his books for myself.

There are a few very odd ‘too much information’ references to sexual relationships and use of alcohol that seem almost awkwardly placed to bump up the level, but there’s not really enough in there to even warrant the ‘school edition’ treatment that ‘The Martian’ got. Otherwise nothing stretches past middle grade emotional maturity.

All told, I was expecting more.

Appreciated sincerely!

The moopsy appears in Star Trek Lower Decks S4E2 ‘I have no bones, yet I must flee.’

Working through ‘Ten Low’ by Stark Holburn now. My partner is through the sequel already and recommended.

Love Scalzi but wish he could vary his voice more. I find I have to spread out reading his books as the snark will all blur after a while.

The orgy in The Diamond Age isn’t much better.

Stephenson got a pass on a lot of his weird stuff.

I found The Sea of Tranquility a bit dry but whimsical nonetheless.

In a genre overburdened by books with two dimensional characters and core dumps of exposition, it was an interesting puzzle but it also isn’t making me want to reread it either. 7.5 or 8.

Hugely disappointed by The Diamond Age after Snow Crash. It really lost the plot.

Sorry She-Hulk didn’t work for you.

Won’t ask what put you off but suggest seeing it through to the end.

As someone who read the comics it felt very comic-accurate while adding in the clearly feminist perspective of its creator/showrunner. Basically, it took a female action hero created by men and gave her ownership by women.

All of these platforms skew male, white, heterosexual, older etc.

It’s a major concern when AI’s are using them for training data. Or, when studio executives take them into account in decisions about what to greenlight.

Reddit is actually relatively better balanced at 2/3s male. Review aggregator sites like Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb are more heavily male.

I’m finding the conversation on Lemmy more civil, but unconscious bias is a thing.

For me the feeling happened first when I saw Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley was going to be the survivor in the original Alien.

Now, movies conceived and produced by men starring female action heroes are their own trope and don’t have the same impact.

She-Hulk however gave me that joy. I hope Marvel looks at the actual viewership numbers of She-Hulk and the success of Barbie when making a decision on a second season.

“Works-for-hire” is exactly the key point here.

This is about who holds the IP. Sometimes, depending on the employer and contract, an engineer will get to share in a patent created in the course of the job. Or might have incentives such as Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) or options.

So it’s not true that the IT folks are exclusively paid salary. Many share in the risk as well as the returns of their firms.

Let’s unpack that.

Yes, there are ‘writers for hire’ in licenced tie-in fiction and comics. These authors get a flat advance BUT they still get royalties based on the number of books or comics sold. That is - base payment and then returns based on success if the product.

Film and television writers are compensated by residuals in addition to salary. The studio owns the IP but the creators have a stake. It’s a risk and return sharing relationship with the studio. That’s the standard arrangement.

How is this different from an ESOP or options as an incentive remuneration?

How would an IT employee feel if a firm licenced the IP and then excluded its value from the calculation of ESOPs and options due, or the dividends on the nonvoting shares issued to employees?