H is for Hyperspace

Hyperspace (noun): a theoretical concept used in science fiction. It generally refers to a space with more than the three traditional spatial dimensions (length, width, and height)

It's a concept used in science fiction that enables faster-than-light (FTL) interstellar travel. Ships by-pass the speed of light (a universal constant) by travelling through an alternate, higher dimension where the distances are vastly shorter. 

In Star Trek they use a different method of FTL travel. Starships form a subspace bubble that envelops the vessel, distorting the local spacetime continuum and moving the ship through their own warp bubble

Yeah, both methods are convenient plot devices used in science fiction. Otherwise, most stories would involve years spent travelling between star systems. :)

I Am Only One

"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."

- Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909)

"Michael, come closer. You were spared to lead the great fight. Don't turn away in fear. One man can make a difference and you are going to be that man."

- Wilton Knight to Michael Knight (first episode of Knight Rider, 1982)

"John Kennedy believed so strongly that one’s aim should not just be the most comfortable life possible, but that we should all do something to right the wrongs we see, and not just complain about them. We owe that to our country, and our country will suffer if we don’t serve her. He believed that one man can make a difference – and that every man should try."

- Jacqueline Kennedy, 1964

Mr. Spock: [holding his hands to form an circle symbol] One.

Sevrin: [Sevrin and Adam look up and form the same circle symbol with their hands] We are one.

Mr. Spock: One is the beginning.

Adam: Are you one, Herbert?

Mr. Spock: [dead-panned] I am not Herbert.

Adam: [smiles] He's not Herbert. We reach!

- The Way to Eden (Star Trek original series episode, 1969)

L is for Log

Practically every episode of Star Trek opened with William Shatner as James T Kirk giving details of the crew's latest mission in his Captain's Log. But why do we call it a Log? 

The term log-book originally referred to a book for recording readings from the chip log, a piece of wood that floated upright in the water and enabled them to estimate a ship's speed through the water. The line attached to the chip log had knots on it, and periodically the log was dropped off the ship and the number of knots counted as they passed (hence also why we register nautical speed in knots...)

Readings taken from the chip log were transferred to a log-board or log-slate, and finally recorded in a log-book. Eventually the book was simply abbreviated to log.

The ship's log is a record of important events in the management, operation, and navigation of a ship, used through the centuries for ships of all sorts. The ship's log is essential to traditional navigation, and must be filled in at least daily. 

A modern day ship's log has grown to contain many other types of information, such as weather conditions, times of routine events and significant incidents, crew complement or what ports were docked at and when.

The Logical Thing To Do

Advertising campaign in Los Angeles, 2022

 

J is for Jab

All of these are alternative names for the medication that goes into your arm to prevent you getting seriously ill...

• injection
• vaccine
• vaccination
• inoculation
• shot (informal)
• jab (British, informal)
• jag (informal)
• hypo (from the term 'hypospray' used in Star Trek; a 23rd Century medical device which didn't penetrate the skin. It was invented because 1960's TV executives weren't allowed to show needles in the show. Hence characters might encourage the doctors to 'hypo me')

X is for eXodus

Exodus: An Oratorio in Three Parts (2008) is the ninth album by William Shatner, produced in 2008. It is a dramatic biblical reading in which Shatner is accompanied by the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. It was produced by David Itkin,

In addition to Shatner and the 75 member orchestra, a choral group of 350 singers accompanied the reading of the passages.

Time Is A Construct

(my son's reply to a question about 'having time to do something'. Yep, it got me thinking and eventually led to this blog entry.)

Question: Is "time" an abstract mental construct or does it exist independent of human consciousness?

I do believe that time exists. (Good job, because it's part of the title of this blog!!!) There are even verses in scripture that scholars say tell us that God created time, and that he lives independently of it. I came to that conclusion a while ago, and here's the blog post I wrote about it at the time, here. Star Trek fans will doubtless understand, have a read...

Another popular saying is: "Time doesn't exist, only clocks exist." Aah, now I believe you are on to something. Because it's really the way that we 21st Century humans relate to clocks that cause us so many problems. 

Because it is our clocks who tell us when we need to wake up, when we need to go to work, when it’s time for lunch, when we really should go to sleep. 

And there are so many of us who don’t do those things when we want to, we do them when others have determined they should be done.

Someone asked me an honest question the other day. "How did man ever exist without clocks?" Simple. They got up when it was daylight, and went to bed when it got dark. 

Want to get less stressed? Take that watch off your wrist for a little while...

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so - Douglas Adams, The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Patience! You've got all the time in the world - whether a thousand years or a day, it's all the same to you. - Psalm 90:4, The Message translation.

S is for Space

Of course! We are one big, happy fleet! Ah, Kirk, my old friend, do you know the Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish that is best served cold? [pause] It is very cold in space!
Khan, from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

So, is it true that space is always cold?

Actually, you are asking the wrong question. Space is mainly empty - no air, no matter, nothing. It’s only when you put something in space, like an asteroid, a satellite, or even an astronaut, that you can measure temperature. If you're in total darkness at the coldest spot in the known universe, the vacuum of space can get down to -270.45 degrees Celsius (reportedly the temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which permeates the entire Universe). Which is as cold as it can get.

However, in direct sunlight near Earth, temperatures can vary wildly. A piece of bare metal in space, under constant sunlight can get as hot as 260 degrees Celsius. This is obviously dangerous to astronauts who therefore take great precautions to protect themselves if they are called to carry out an EVA (extravehicular activity, or spacewalk). That's why astronauts wear reflective white spacesuits, complete with both heaters and cooling systems.

Vulcan Hello, Irish Goodbye

This week has been a week of learning new ways of saying 'hello' and 'goodbye'...

It started last weekend with a binge watching session to catch up with the latest Star Trek series, Discovery, which is now available to watch on Netflix in the UK. And, I have found it to be pretty good so far! Well worth a watch, and definitely full of nice little plot points and pieces of character development to please a long time Trek fan such as myself. And it has also introduced me to the concept of the Vulcan Hello.... (the title of the first episode) ... I won't give any surprises away - however, I'm sure that the reasoning behind such a greeting is logical... or will be by the end of the series ...

And later on that week, thanks to a podcast, I have been taught a whole new way to say goodbye. Ever think of what is worse than going to a party that you didn't really want to be at? It is trying to find the right time to get up and leave that party... remembering to politely say your goodbyes. I think we've all been there. Ugh

I was intrigued this week to hear about something called the Irish Goodbye... referring to leaving a social gathering without saying your farewells. Just slipping out the back way, as you won't be noticed in the crowd... Apparently, the phrase stems from the Irish predilection for extreme hospitality (oh go on, go on, go on... Father Ted reference) and the resultant, tremendous difficulty in getting away from an Irish get-togethers. It's far, far easier to slip away unnoticed...

Yes, I know what you're thinking. How rude to leave without saying goodbye! And there's the problem. Many of us are far too polite to simply walk out without saying thank you. Even if you said thank you when accepting the invite, and once again, when coming in the door in the first place, you have to say it again on the way out... Probably why an Irish Goodbye is so frowned upon. And yet, the practice is now so popular, there's even a term for it. And it's not as if you didn't bother turning up at all, is it...

If you are a slave to etiquette, you simply have to say something. The Emily Post Institute (which advises readers of its website about the correct way to do things) advises that party guests should... "make sure to say goodbye and thank you to each of your hosts... If they're not by the door, seek them out and thank them personally before you go."

I wonder if I could get away with an Irish Goodbye more often...

Self-Medication

These are the TV series that I watched during last month and this month to get me through a few weeks of frantic activity, followed by spates of inactivity which triggered off a few 'lows' whenever I stopped to take a break. In some cases, I must admit that I tended to binge-watch shows to get me through! I recommend this method of 'self-medication' over large quantities of intoxicants (which is how some people of my age seem to self-medicate). And it's cheaper, too!

• Blake's Seven, season one (YouTube)
• Dave Gorman's Modern Life Is Goodish (Dave)
• Doctor Who (BBC, Watch, Horror)
• Flash, season one (DVD)
• Flash, season two (Sky One)
• Humans, season one (DVD)
• Hunted (Channel Four)
• Star Trek (CBS Action)
• The Prisoner (DVD)
• The A-Team, season one (DVD)

Y is for Yamato

It's the year 2199, and an alien race is raining radioactive meteorites onto the Earth, rendering the planet's surface uninhabitable and forcing the population underground. All seems lost... until a discovery gives mankind one further slim chance to save the planet. All efforts go into restoring the hull of a battleship that was sunk during World War II. This becomes the Space Battleship Yamato, and supplemented with the installation of a new type of propulsion system - the wave motion engine. The ship then sets off on its journey to the planet Iscandar -  there's a device there that can heal the ravaged Earth...

Space Battleship Yamato ( 宇宙戦艦ヤマト ) is a Japanese science fiction anime series. The name of the ship may be more familiar to US and UK audiences as it was also used as the name of one of the Enterprise's sister ships in Star Trek: The Next Generation (NCC-1305-E).

Q is for Galaxy Quest: The Protector

The NSEA Protector is an Evolution Heavy Cruiser that serves as the flagship for the NSEA (National Space Exploration Administration). It is Earth's most powerful interstellar spacecraft and has a full crew complement of 600.

Galaxy Quest is a 1999 comedy film, written as an affectionate parody of Star Trek; therefore, there are similarities between the two ships... for example, the Protector has a registration number of NTE-3120 which alludes to some sort of similar space federation. In reality, the letter prefix stands for "Not The Enterprise" - that's according to visual effects co-supervisor Bill George in a 2000 interview with Cinefex magazine.

G is for Galaxy Class

The Galaxy Class USS Enterprise is a entirely different ship to its predecessors. With a total of 42 decks, this Enterprise was twice the length and had eight times the interior space of the Constitution Class ships of over a century earlier. She carried a combined crew and passenger manifest of 1,012. The ship has a whole host of phaser arrays and torpedo launchers, which can fire both photon torpedoes and antimatter mines.

Star Trek: The Next Generation (which is often abbreviated as TNG) is the second TV series based on Gene Roddenberry's original premises. Aired some twenty-one years after the original series debuted in 1966, seven seasons were produced between 1987 and 1994, with four movies subsequently produced.

C is for Constitution Class

(of course, I just had to have the Enterprise. But there's been so many versions of this legendary starship...)

The Constitution Class USS Enterprise is 289 metres long, with 21 decks and a crew complement of 430. One of 12 ships in this class, this heavy cruiser is armed with phaser banks, 6 forward photon torpedo tubes and an aft torpedo launcher.

Of course, this Enterprise comes from Star Trek, the TV series that was created by Gene Roddenberry in 1966 and ran for three seasons. Because of the unprecedented success of the show and its later development as a franchise, the series is now known as Star Trek: The Original Series (or simply TOS) to distinguish it from the other versions of the show.

Note: this version of the Enterprise has a registry number of NCC-1701. Since the 1920's, N is the indicator for any aircraft from the United States, and C means 'commercial'.  Some people say that the Soviet Union designation was CCCC - thus, one N and 2 Cs together made it kind of international. Others say the extra C was simply added just to make it look better. In the show, they justified this by coming up with a Starfleet abbreviation for 'Naval Construction Contract', which was comparable to what the U.S. Navy would call a hull number. And the 1701? This was chosen to avoid any possible ambiguity; the numbers 3, 6, 8, and 9 were 'too easily confused'.

A is for Andromeda Ascendant

The Andromeda Ascendant is a Glorious Heritage Class starship which is discovered trapped in time, along with its captain Dylan Hunt (Kevin Sorbo). Awoken after a 300 year sleep, Hunt must now assemble a new crew in an attempt to restore order to a galaxy.

The ship has an impressive artificial intelligence (AI) system, which appears to the crew in three different formats:

• on the two-dimensional monitors
• as a three-dimensional holographic projection
• as the avatar Rommie (all three played by Lexa Doig). 

The TV series Andromeda was based on material written by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, and developed after his death by Robert Hewitt Wolfe. The show premièred in 2000, and ran for five seasons.

We Share This Earth

It's so easy to knock other people.

We seem to make judgements about people's actions or beliefs based on minimal information. Are we scared of finding out more? We jump to conclusions; allow ourselves to be influenced by public opinion or gossip; make up stuff that seems to it. All rather than take pains to form an informed opinion of our own. We are quick to dismiss other people's views, without finding out why they think that way. Perhaps it's because it's safer to stay within our own prejudices.

One of the podcasts that I regularly listen to touched upon this earlier this week, when talking about our experiences using motor vehicles. Comedian George Carlin made the following observation in one of his stage shows: “Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?” It's true. Because we're safely cocooned in our cars, the other drivers are fair game. We hardly ever relate to the drivers concerned personally. So the 'maniac driver' who we will never meet face-to-face is a safe target (perhaps that's why we have such a problem with road rage - we're so used to - and even enjoy - being angry at other road users that we can't control it on those occasions when do meet up).

We do all have something in common. That big blue marble that we live on. We share this planet with so many different types of people. Some are markedly different from us; some are the same. We can easily identify with those who are the same as us. We find it tougher to find common ground when all when can see is a barrier rather than an opportunity.

The truth is - we are all unique. You and I. Everyone is different, and there is no one on this Earth who is quite like you. Someone could find you so different, that it could make them uncomfortable, even scare them. Could that explain why other people behave differently?

We all need to embrace diversity. Step out of our comfort zone. That's the way we can grow.

Star Trek fans have a simple way of summarising this into one symbol. The Vulcan IDIC (pictured above).

Infinite Diversity, in Infinite Combinations.

Let's rejoice in our differences. Be glad that we are not all the same. Learn from each other, not criticise.

Make this world a better place. Dare to be different.

Lucky

"Random chance seems to have operated in our favour." - Spock
"In plain, non-Vulcan English, we've been lucky..." - McCoy
"I believe I said that, Doctor." - Spock
(from the Star Trek episode 'The Doomsday Machine')

I posted a picture on my Facebook wall last night. Actually, I kind of felt I had to. Don't usually do that sort of thing...

You see, I had the opportunity to go for a meal in the Sky Garden restaurant (it's 36 storeys up, right on the top on London's 'Walkie Talkie' building just by the Thames). Here's the pic...

Terrific view, isn't it? I don't usually get to see London from that sort of viewpoint. It's the sort of view you usually only get from an aircraft - and I've only flown a handful of times in my life.

However, I was taken aback by a couple of the comments that were made following that post...

Some of them said that I was 'lucky'...

Do I think I am lucky?

Not in the slightest. 

You see, I don't actually subscribe to the concept of luck.

It was an ancient Roman idea, wasn't it? They used to talk about the goddess Fortuna, their own personification of luck. It's from her name is where we get the word ‘fortune’.

Luck implies that good fortune can be a tangible thing in itself - and certain objects, like for example four-leaf clovers, are said to bring luck. It's superstition, pure and simple. So, no. I wasn't lucky.

Carl Jung said that he viewed luck as synchronicity, which he described as "a meaningful coincidence". It's interesting that he used the term 'meaningful' - I suspect it all depends on who attaches the meaning to it....

Perhaps you might even say that "random chance has operated in my favour".

Or, if you accept this final concept, you might say that God has blessed me with an awesome experience yesterday.

I'll accept either of the latter two. But I know which one I believe.... :)

Better Than Life

This post was inspired by a documentary on the life and works of Burl Ives, that I was listening to one morning this week. It featured the song "Big Rock Candy Mountain", a folk song about a homeless man's idea of paradise. In the original version of the song, there are lakes full of whisky and there are cigarette trees. Yep, doesn't sound like paradise to me, either.

Yet, we're all attracted to our own image of an idyllic paradise, aren't we? A place where everything is positive, harmonious and eternal. This sort of thing seems to echo throughout science fiction tales, too. Even Red Dwarf had an episode set in a computer simulation called "Better Than Life" - Lister's fantasy paradise involved curries and lager (typically!).

Star Trek featured the word Paradise in two of the classic episodes. "This Side Of Paradise" was a tale about a group of colonists who were being controlled by plant spores. A side effect was the removal of worry from their lives... all seemed perfect. But it wasn't. Hmmm - the use of a mind-altering substance to make life seem better. No thanks...

Also, "The Paradise Syndrome" depicted Kirk losing his memory in a particularly shocking encounter with an alien device and living an idyllic life as a member of the indigenous population - free from worry and strife. That's more like it. The lack of worry bit. Not the shocking :)

Then I remembered a scene in one of my favourite films, "A Matter of Life and Death"(1946).  Set in the afterlife, Richard Attenborough looks out over row after row of desks in a huge admin office and says "It's heaven, isn't it."

And there's the point. To some people, the thought of working as an administrator would be paradise.

So, what would be paradise for you?

When I pray...

“When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don’t pray, they don't. ” - William Temple

I was on the way home the other day, reflecting prayerfully on how God could use me over the next few years.

There was one simple problem - my own inability to see things from anything other than my own point of view.

God’s answer came in the form of a quotation that I stumbled across on an internet page. A coincidence, that I would encounter this page? I don't think so.

It was describing God’s perspective by comparing it to the three-dimensional chessboard that was featured in the original Star Trek series.

“We're the pieces, and all we can see is the next move in front of us,” the writer explained. “God, however, sees every piece, every move, and every level. The world is at his disposal. He can move people and resources wherever he needs them to fulfill his good purposes.”

When we pray, God is gracious enough to allow us to be part of this. The choice is up to us.

Awesome.

Overthinking

overthink ( əʊvəˈθɪŋk )
Verb, with object: Think about (something) too much or for too long...

Yes, I know. I have been told before. I do have a tendency to overthink things. True; I often sit and ponder, mulling over things that happen for hours or days afterwards. The events flood back over me, demanding my attention. I've been wondering why...

I know this tends to happen after particularly busy days. Those days when the introvert inside me has to come up with an elaborate coping strategy for the day (actually, I kind of like the buzz from these days every once in a while. It's good for me).

I believe the overthinking issue stems from the struggle that takes place inside of me - whether I should respond to things with feelings or with rational thought. I'm predominantly concerned with values, with harmony, so I tend to empathise with people. I'm a feeler at heart.

However, I've noticed that the emotional side of me has been known to switch off early on long days - I think it is due to 'data overload'.

In these times, the logical side of me takes over; I start going a little bit 'Spock' on people, reacting a bit like a Vulcan; and I believe that's when I start to overthink. Before long, simple things can become awfully complicated.

I've been reading someone else's blog post on the topic of overthinking; the writer concluded by saying that it takes a lot more work to be happy than it is to be sad. And that's because it’s easy to be sad.

Happiness is learning how to cope with all that life throws at you. Happiness in a choice.

So, I must learn to stop overthinking. And I think the key is working out how to be better at feeling...

Comments, folks?