On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:25:52 -0700 (PDT), Katie Ohara
wrote:


I dont watch any sci fi (ok, i have no attention span for tv or movies
at all) and do not read much of it either mostly cuz the writing is
soooooo bad. I picked up a book by a guy with the last name of
"Ringo" to read while doing mindless stuff and had to throw it away
half way thru it was so bad.

I never quite understood the fascination with Ringo's Posleen War
books - the first one was ok, never made it through the second. He has
a very repetitive style that is annoying. David Drake's "Hammer's
Slammers" series is uneven at best and for the rest of his material,
once you've read one, you've read them all.

Keith Laumer wrote a series about sentient heavy tanks that never got
the recognition it deserved - very well written.

First Ringworld book was "ok", second was boring and stupid.

The second was a "contract" book - had to write it. He's admitted
that the second Ringworld book was less than a stellar effort.

The real thing, reading science blogs is to me far more interesting
although I admit it bores others. Us geeks never change I s'pose.

Heh - you must be self-isolating then. Most "geeks" read a lot of
scifi and even write it. Geek based fan fiction is almost a
sub-industry of the scifi genre. Most of it's crap, but occasionally
you run into something half way decent and every once in a while a
novella or treatment that is truly outstanding.

Years ago when I watched Star Trek I hated it. Every episode ended
with some BS like "I've got it, we can cross phase the neutrino
generator with the proton de-polarizer and reverse the field" or some
other stupid techno-mantra.

It became a running joke among scifi fans with "Star Trek: The Next
Generation", "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager" - reversing the polarity
of the tachyon beam and running it through the deflector dish seemed
to be the solution to everything. Those three series also brought
into the lexicon "FOTW" - Forehead Of The Week or "EOTW" - Ear Of The
Week. Rocky O'Bannon, one of the original writers for the original
series, actually combined the two concepts when he created the
Ferengi. :)

Despite the FOTW/EOTW syndrome, a lot of the Star Trek technology and
"science" is based on real world physics and research. You may or may
not be aware of it, but physicists have a working theory about "warp"
drive and some of the medical stuff, like the diagnostic beds monitors
and such are being developed.

When they put Whoopui Goldberg on Star Trek, my skin crawled,
touchy feelly drivel, ugh.

Voted the worst Star Trek character EVER. :)

And that's saying something because all the Star Treks had some real
doozies for characters.

Yeah, real science is slow but pay attention to several fields at once
and it gets better.

I suppose, but I've done enough dissertations, thesis papers, research
and peer reviewing in my life to have lost a lot of respect for modern
"scientists". Since I've been involved in computer modeling, I've
become more convinced that a lot of the "science" is politically
motivated more than scientifically motivated. The inter-disciplinary
sniping also drives me nuts.

I truly think amateurs should do science and not leave it to the
corrupt scientific priesthood. When you have 50 authors on a paper
and somebody wins a Nobel for managerial excellence, real science is
dead.

Heh - hafl the time the amateurs do a better job of it than the pros.