Meanderings

by Ren Basel renbasel.com

Originally created by Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek is a franchise that spans decades. From the original series of 1966 to current shows such as Lower Decks, it stands as a titan of television and pop culture. The real world has undergone incredible change since Star Trek’s first appearance, yet nerds everywhere still find entertainment, inspiration, and hope in its classic episodes. Recently, along with my husband and best friend, I decided I wanted to attempt the gauntlet of watching the entire franchise from beginning to end, revisiting favorites and finally checking out the ones I missed. Media and fandom studies are my passion, after all, and Star Trek is a foundational part of modern American nerd culture.

Starting with the original series proved more difficult than expected. Living in a tiny apartment, we don’t have much space for DVDs, so Star Trek wasn’t in our existing collection. The local public library didn’t have copies, either, and putting in a purchase request doesn’t guarantee it will be made available. My family doesn’t have the funds to pay for every single streaming service on the market, and Star Trek isn’t available on any we do have access to. Piracy was starting to look like the only option, but even that fell flat when we couldn’t find a version with subtitles. Finally we dug it up officially and with subtitles, for free via PlutoTV, but there were still limitations: PlutoTV only streams season one, and season one is only available in the remastered edition that replaced the original special effects with new visuals.

It wasn’t ideal, but, hey, it was Star Trek.

Watching just one episode a week gave us enough time to scrape together savings to get what we really wanted for seasons two and three: the official BluRay release, which includes both remastered and original-release versions of each episode. The remasters are fine, but as a lover of media history and practical effects, I’m always disappointed to lose a chance to appreciate the originals. It doesn’t matter how good it might look, remasters are never as much fun to me as matte paintings, camera tricks, and whatever the prop department could pull off with ten dollars and some glue.

Finally having the BluRays in hand for season two only affirmed my love of vintage practical effects. Seeing the Enterprise in her original glory, before she was ever rendered in digital form, felt like opening a time capsule. I love time capsules. My favorite pieces of media are always those which capture a moment in time, showcasing the aesthetics, concerns, and culture of the time and place they were created. Star Trek: the Original Series is rooted in the late sixties, when mainstream culture in the United States was experiencing immense upheaval and social change. That context is written all over the show. The vintage effects add to it, grounding it in a very specific time and place. Updating the show’s effects takes away some of that 60s aesthetic, and while some may see it as making the show more timeless, I don’t care for it. To me, seeing what they could pull off before modern technology is half the fun of watching old shows. The ingenuity and creativity of propmakers, makeup artists, and set designers working on shoestring budgets is unparalleled.

To be clear, digital effects are also done by skilled professionals who deserve much more respect and many more labor protections. There are some truly stunning works created with digital tools. That said, I hate when digital effects are used to cover up the practical effects that came before. It feels disrespectful to the original artists, as if telling them their work wasn’t good enough; as if their work was just a placeholder until something better could come along and fix it. Practical effects aren’t a placeholder, they’re an art form in their own right, and that art form is one for which I have deep appreciation.

It frustrates me that the original, non-remastered episodes were such a pain for us to access, but I’m very glad to have added them to my personal media collection. No matter what future tweaks Star Trek’s rights holders might make, I can always pop in our personal copies to enjoy the Enterprise and her crew in all their vintage, “outdated” glory. If you’re also too young to remember the show’s original airing, and you have the opportunity to watch the unedited version, I highly suggest you do. Watching the version that aired in 1966 gives the show a charm that no amount of remastering can ever match.

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Uber drivers can be suspended at 4.6 stars.

Lyft drivers risk suspension under 4.8 stars.

Even for apps where they don’t have a publicly stated minimum, their algorithms will bury you.

4 stars does not mean 4 stars. It means 1.4 stars.

I'm a teacher, and every year, the State sends out a "climate" survey to all students, parents, and teachers. It has a 1-5 scale and a 'not applicable' option. If you select 4 or 'not applicable' it's marked against the school.

For example, I'm a virtual teacher. The climate survey has questions about the safety and cleanliness of the halls and bathrooms in the school. A normal person would assume that, if they attend a virtual school, they should use the 'not applicable' option, since their school has no halls or bathrooms. Nope, if they select anything but 5 out of 5, our school gets marked down.

It's Jeff! Meets Daredevil #1 (2026)

No matter what the politics, eggs hatch, and milk sours.

An oldie, but a favourite.

When I say belief I don’t actually mean that people in Denmark truly believe it. It’s more like a funny thing you can say like “The sun is shining so I’ve been good” or “Its not my fault its raining. Must be all the other people who have their birthday today”

Heh, the weather on the day you were born says nothing about you in this context because it’s supposed to be indicative of your behavior since your last birthday. You haven’t had a chance to be good or bad yet on the day you’re born.

Unfortunately your personal weather preferences don’t count. It goes like this:

Downpour/snowstorm/storm: very bad

Rain/snow: bad

Cloudy: neutral

Sun with clouds: mostly good

Clear skies: good

Heatwave with cruel sunshine: people will beg you to commit a crime next year to save us all

You can however request that a person behave a certain way to get your desired weather on their birthday. My grandmother used to say she had been deliberately bad so her garden would get rain.

The responses below are exactly the spirit of this “belief”, silly and fun banter for all.

It's important to keep an eye on our elected officials, but to be honest, I'm only really doing this to see how long it takes for Reform to start in-fighting. If today is the 5th day of this new Senedd, on what day do you think we'll see the first sign of in-fighting? Can they make it to day 100? Can they make it into double digits?

Well, the correct answer is, they started today. Hehehe.

Francesca O'Brien

Small item to start. Francesca O'Brien won one of two seats for Reform in Gwyr Abertawe. She was congratulated by Voice of Wales, an anti-migrant, anti-Muslim hate group. They posted Francesca's photo on Facebook. And Francesca replied to thank them for their support.

This is bad. The group's run by a known fraudster, and a failed candidate for rightwing anti-EU party UKIP. Both are associates of anti-Islam criminal and terrorist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage had urged party members to distance themselves from Voice of Wales, who proudly embrace the labels "bigot", "far-right" and "racist".

It's an interesting rift. Voice of Wales used to support Reform, but they've now called for Farage to embrace them, or they'll switch their support to rival far-right group Restore, whose leader is Rupert Lowe. So Reform have some competition in the populist far-right space.

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Meanwhile, Reform's new chief of staff is Torfaen Councillor David Thomas. Three fun facts about David Thomas. Vote for your favourite!

And he's not happy about the appointment of the Senedd's two new referees - Presiding Officer Huw Irranca-Davies of Labour, with Kerry Ferguson of Plaid as deputy.

A troll account on obscure far-right social media platform X called this a "Plaid-Labour stitch up", and David Thomas shared and endorsed the post.

Except ... Irranca-Davies secured 85 votes out of 96 MSes. Which means at least 23 votes in favour came from Reform themselves.

If Reform wanted a rightwing MS in the position, they could have endorsed Tory MS Paul Davies. None of them did.

Failing that, they could have nominated one of their own MSes for the position. None of them did.

And here's the sweetest bit: an anonymous Reform insider told Nation.Cymru that there are concerns within the party about David Thomas's new role. Fight!! It's day 5 and they're fighting!

I don't normally quote Reform on here, because I have no desperate desire to signal boost their communications. But I'll make an exception when they're turning on each other:

"Thomas is already clowning around and is not able to realise his own MSs voted for this. It just shows he can't tell the difference between his left and right shoes. He will destroy the Reform group in the Senedd as Chief of Staff."

Here's the fake Lidl photo. Lidl have confirmed there was no official opening for the new supermarket.

Happy 100th Birthday David Attenborough [b: 8th May 1926]

It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living.