Red Shirt Volunteer

Ditch Hoshi. She's expendable with the UT operating. They really seem to struggle for reasons for her to take an active part in the show. The recent ep., "Exile", could have just as easily used any other member of the crew, including the men if they'd made the telepath female. They don't even have to kill her off, just let her fade away and have another actor/actress fill up the space with a character that actually does something usefull.

I'll admit she's less irritating than before, but, ah, she's just boring. They wouldn't even have to kill her because I think Linda Park has gotten a raw deal with the lame-*buttocks* way that the character has been written. I really thought last season, when she got stuck in the transporter, that her character would change because she had this experience of single-handedly saving the ship (or at least she believed so at the time). They really ought to have made her stronger and given her more responsibilities to take on at the time if they felt Ms. Park was up to the job. I just cringe every time Hoshi starts to speak now. It's like they're thinking about how to kill off a few seconds in the show to make a scene stretch out for editing purposes, so they throw a line to Hoshi now and then. Come on, make her a real officer already that has some gumption or make her "walk the airlock."

Yes, the fact that Bakula has a major part in it alone should make it good. Although I don't like his character in a I'd-like-to-know-him kind of way, Bakula has done a great job of evolving the character gradually over the first few seasons. I happened to stumble upon an old episode, "Breaking the Ice" from season 1(?), and noticed how bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Archer was then compared to now. Seeing that makes me look look forward to what this new episode might do for the character. T'Pol's character has moved along very well, too, in Blalock's hands and I'm sure we'll see some changes with her.

As some of you may know, a lot of ADSL ISPs give you a dynamic IP, meaning that it changes every time you connect to the Internet. Some people pay for a static IP. There are reasons why you would want one of each, but that's not important here. Using Windows (at least on XP), you can force a static IP and decide which address you want to use. Sometimes I want a specific IP. My questions to anyone who knows about this are as follows:

1. How are dynamic IPs generated?

My guess is they come from a blocked list of IPs assigned to particular ISPs.

2. If I designate an IP using my OS, am I taking someone else's and causing them problems?

I'm assuming no because it's random. Sometimes someone else is using that IP, so I can't connect, in which case I always fall back on the dynamic selection.

3. Is it legal to designate your own IP using your OS?

I don't know about this.

Thanks for any help you can offer,

Red Shirt Volunteer

I hate the drag out the old "Fully Functional" argument again, but...

Data and Anyone

The ep. with the Tasha encounter was quite amusing. Data could have even hooked up with a guy since he has no emotions, no religous qualms and no ability to reproduce (presumably without assistance, but that's a whole other thread). Geordi seemed to know how to, err, push his buttons so to speak.

Needs platform shoes.

No, do not wipe your hard drive unless you have almost no software installed. It's not even that serious a problem. Even then you'd be looking at about 5 hours to reinstall Windows XP (if that's what you're running) and get it set up again properly. Also, formatting your hard drive does not necessarily get rid of all files. If you're that worried and don't want to pay money or waste time, just try the Pest Patrol trial.

Hmm, I had Gator once and managed to delete it. It didn' want to be deleted, but I pulled it off eventually - but I don't remember how. Most spyware is fairly innocuous and is used to target advertising at you; however, it's an open door for nastiness.

I suggest you install the following two programs on your computer to avoid this kind of thing in the future:

Zone Alarm Pro 4.xx

This is an excellent firewall that will stopi advertising. There's a free version that you can DL for nothing and use as long as you like, but the full version has better features. I believe it costs US$50. It's well worth it. It may slow down your Internet connection very slightly depending on settings.

Zone Labs

Pest Patrol

This program searches for and deletes nasty cookies, spyware, etc. US$40 This also has a free trial that you can download. If you're really desperate, you could DL it, get rid of the junk, then let it expire. Personally, I think it's well worth the money. If you go to the Zone Labs link, I think you can get both for a cheaper price than if you buy them separately.

Pest Patrol

I've used both of these for about a year and a half and haven't had any problems with them. You'd be surprised how much junk accumulates on your computer. I wouldn't assume that Hotbar is the only spyware you've got on your machine if you're not using a firewall.

This looks kind of lame as far as moving the story along goes. You know at the end things'll go back to the way they were. The only difference might be that Archer will have some insight into what could happen with the Xindi and use the knowledge to prevent certain events.

On the other hand, it might give us some more insights into T'Pol's character. I think she's developing quite well this season. The episode with the nutty Zombie-Vulcan crew may leave an impression on her and get her acting more emotionally/less logically - it could make her even more interesting. Perhaps we'll see some of that future T'Pol in this episode?

Let me first say I do like the episode and I was glad to see more of Hoshi.

 

But i tend to be a bit empathetic. And as a female I would never wear such a dress or leave the bedroom in a night gown when I feel uncomfortable with the situation. I still see no logic in it. I agree with RSV that " a story element should be integrated in the plot"

 

By the way, RSV could you exlain me what you mean with "I can see where you are coming from"? - I'm just curious nothing else

 

I did't see that there was already another threat and other members already talked about the dress - I feel a bit embarrassed about it - sorry for that.

I just meant that I understood what you were trying to say after you added more details, but when I first read your post it seemed like another in a long list of complaints about problems that do not exist. I have to admit I hadn't seen the episode at that time, but I was able to imagine the situation. I've watched the episode now and I think I understand the problem. I was not surprised by what I saw - it was almost exactly what I expected given the description: A simple dress that really didn't flatter Hoshi that much. I'm going to have to return to my original position on the matter after having seen it; however, perhaps the term "country bumpkins" was a bit harsh. I'll try to explain this from my standpoint.

I live in Japan, and I can tell you it is not uncommon to see girls in short dresses like that. In fact, they come into fashion at this time of year moreso than in the extremely hot summer months. In the autumn season, most fashion-minded girls here wear rather high boots. Curious, I asked my girlfriend why they would want to wear shorter skirts/dresses at this time of year, and she told me many do so that they can show off their boots. She was wearing something very similar at the time. Hoshi does not live in Japan and the era is different, so there's no reason to think this would apply to her. Girls here have a different perspective on what others might see as a negative - peer pressure. There's a certain amount of comfort in conformity, and that includes fashion.

I think the problem is that in some parts of the world people simply don't wear that kind of clothing, so it appears to be what they call "sexy." The only thing I can tell you is that it is extremely tame compared to some of the stuff I see around here. I've lived in Canada and almost no girls ever wore anything like that - people might say things behind their backs if they tried to look good. It was amazing how conservative it was. I'm not one to wear flashy clothes, but I have a few items that I wouldn't wear in Canada because I know how many silly comments I would have to put up with. I occasionally wear a nice suit or some brand clothes to work, and one of my co-workers always feels the need to make some crack about me being dressed up for a date or a new job interview. It doesn't really bother me because I know it's only his own sense of being underdressed that leads him to say these things in order to feel more confident about his lack of fashion sense. I think it makes him feel comfortable in his ultra-conservative, Gap/Eddie Bauer/L.L.Bean/Other-lame-shop-with-too-much-brown-in-its-selection wardrobe. Whatever.

People never realise how conservative their surroundings are until they experience another one. If this sounds condescending, sorry, but too many people base their opinions on a very limited range of experiences and expect everyone else to share the same views. I think you need to see the clothes from another perspective. I don't know. I've travelled a bit - I'm no globetrotter, but I've visited a number of countries and lived in 3 on 3 different continents. Each one had different standards, but I can tell you this for certain: North Americans have disturbingly conservative views on this. A large number of the people on this forum, and any Trek forum for that matter, seem to be from that area, which explains some of the commentary on this topic.

Let's look at it from Hoshi's point of view: She was going down to this cold planet, but it's not like the alien didn't have central heating or anything. The real question is, why would she want to wear her uniform? She has to wear it every day. I don't know about the rest of you, but the first thing I do when I get home is change my clothes into something I feel more comfortable in, or that are more functional. Then we must ask why she wore a dress that would be suitable for a date. One reason Hoshi may have worn the dress is that she knew the telepath had some designs on her, so appealing to him might allow her to manipulate him more easily. I don't think it was a blatant appeal for ratings.

Come on now, everyone, let's not get too excited over things that really have little impact on the program. It's 2003 for goodness sakes, not the Victorian era.

There. That's it. I'm done with this thread. Peace.

Oh, thanks for the detail. Perhaps I overreacted to your comment. It's just that this kind of comment seems to pop up a little too much; but, having read your explanation, I can see where you're coming from.

I don't think it's a problem for them to do something for ratings. I mean if you think about it, they would write a good story for ratings. They would link the Ent. storyline to the overall Trek universe for ratings because fans would appreciate it. On the other hand, any story element should be well integrated with the rest of the plot, which I think is what you were saying.

Will the moaning ever stop about people looking good on Ent? It's like they have to find the most unattractive actors they can and dress them up like country bumpkins from the 50's or something (possibly this decade from some responses). That's what they're wearing, so deal with it.

I see girls wearing short skirts all the time. They seem to like them.

VBG,

I share your pain. This summer I made some upgrades to my system, including a new CPU (Athlon XP 2400+), 512MB more RAM and a new hard disk. My horror story follows. Not quite Halloween yet so this scary story might be a bit early.

Turns out it was a good thing I bought the new HD because after installing the new CPU (properly, including the BIOS upgrade in advance), the thing decided to kill itself about a week later and the HD developed a major problem and stopped booting Windows (XP), at all. I thought it was done for and reinstalled XP on the new one, then tried to use the old one as a slave. It worked and I managed to recover almost all my files.

Then the new one did the same thing! OMG I was absolutely livid, but new I could recover data from the old one so just reformatted and wrote XP over the old version. Turns out it doesn't necessarily lose the files anyway because they were all right there. After 5 reformats and reinstalls of XP in 2 weeks - yes, 5 times in 2 weeks at at least 5 to 8 hours a crack because I also had to reinstall all my software every time (even though it's on the HD and you can see it, it's not installed in the new OS directory properly when you format and reinstall).

I finally realized I had to clear CMOS by taking the stinkin' battery out of the mobo for a few minutes (or do it the hard way - this is easier for me). It's worked generally correctly (as correctly as a Microsoft product can) since then. I don't need to tell you that I have 2 HDs now and 1 is just a back-up. I learned a lot about my box and computers in general this summer. I'm kind of glad it happened now because it gave me the confidence to take pretty much anything inside it apart - it doesn't get much worse than the state mine was in (no boot screen or anything and repeats of the BSOD on every subsequent fatal crash). In the end the only money I wasted on it was for a HD that may not have been necessary, but I don't trust the old one anymore.

The old one was called Riker, by the way. The new one's Archer.

You seem to know a lot more about this kind of thing than me so I'm sure you'll work it out soon enough.

Cheers,

Red Shirt Volunteer

I thought this was a great episode! In my opinion there was no sexuality in it, just some scantally clad women in the beginning. And that Xindi weapon that shoots the goo was GREAT!!!

I give this epiosde a 9 on the 1-10 scale.

This was a really well put together episode and I think it'll do a lot to move the story along in the future. The entry of Rajiin has provided the crew with a link to the Xindi "high command" (not sure if they've been referred to as such, or as something else). If her character is developed as a background story (fall-out with the Xindi), she could be central to the whole Expanse story.

As for the lack of clothing some people have referred to, please watch a few eps of TOS and tell me this isn't Trek. As klingonmike noted, there wasn't much.

Oh, and is it really necessary to use the spoiler feature inside a thread that has an on it to start? It's a pain going through all that clicking. Just the on the front should be enough, shouldn't it? Just a thought.

Hmm, I don't really see it except for the future guy/deep throat thing. :angry:

I.W. Harper?

I don't think there are too many relationships. They've been in space for, well, the show's been on for 2 seasons and still no relationships to speak of. How many adults go 2 years without a relationship of some sort? It's not odd that relationships are formed, it's odd that they aren't. The only people they spend time with are each other, so you'd think there'd be even more time to get to know other crewmates well and build up towards a relationship. I'm not saying I want the show to be about relationships - I think this would detract from the stories. But how can they not get involved with each other?!

Oooh, the dangers of not having a delete button. B)

It's an interesting point that they've decided to incorporate this concept into the show. If you go to a major urban centre with people who have come from different areas or parts of the world, I think you'll find they speak a more standardised form of their language than rural areas where people tend to grow up together. This is necessary so that people with diverse linguistic abilities and cultural backgrounds are able to communicate with each other on common ground.

An example is Tokyo, which attracts workers from all over Japan. Japanese has a lot of different dialects, but Tokyo Japanese is known as the standard. Part of this is a result of the fact that so many people migrate there to find work from other parts of the country after university. Another factor is that the media is centred in Tokyo, which means news, TV programs and dramas produced there are broadcast to and received by viewers across the country, and thus they need to be familiar with that standard way of speaking. Perhaps Ent. is also exploring the concept that the diverse aliens that end up interacting with Starfleet influence how they communicate with each other from a "Starfleet-is-the-centre-of-it-all" point of view.

Tis a mystery...

Yeah, I know. The site can be viewed fine through the MOTD, but the flash buttons don't show up. They worked fine when viewed through Internet Explorer, but I had to remove them since they did diddly in the MOTD. I'm still pretty new to making webpages so I thought there might be a simple solution that I was completely overlooking.

Aren't they usually at fairly close range when they use torpedoes? Close enough to get caught in the explosion, right? If you fire it from too far away the enemy can detect it easily and just go to warp. This is just a thought, not a theory. Maybe they just used nukes to finish off ships that were dead in space or for orbital bombardment as subcommanderbeavis mentioned. Or maybe it was just one of those things that made sense when TOS was made but doesn't make sense now. Put it into the context of the height of the cold war and the use of nukes seems scary. Put it into the context of our era and it's still scary, but doesn't make much sense given what we know about Trek now. It would seem like a step backwards for Ent, not forwards.

I haven't bought a new CD since I picked up the latest Radiohead disc. It's really good, but kind of irritating in that it's the one and only CD I have that I have to turn on my stereo to hear. Grrrrrr. I've got everything else on my hard drive since WMP combined with DFX (when it's on) and my sound card produce waaaaaaaay better sound than my stereo. Why must the music industry mess things up so much?

I have to admit I don't like either theme as a song in and of itself, but the first one really fit the theme of the show and I thought it was very appropriate. The new one's too upbeat and it didn't make much sense introducing it at this point. They're on their way into the unknown and just before we join them we're listening to a happy-go-lucky pop tune - not a well thought out plan.

Cordless is OK, but they suck when the batteries start to fade in the middle of something you can't stop: eg. online game. I use a cordless now and likely won't go back to a regular one because they clutter up the desk too much, but cordless mice are not ideal for everything.

Yes, your point was pretty obvious - how anyone couldn't have seen it is beyond me. It was quite interesting to consider. Nobody should be taking anything all that seriously.