Tell me where in the world is former emperor Georgiou~? ♫

(Don’t be weird in the comments with the hot takes, I’m just happy I found a joke that scanned with “Carmen Sandiego”.)

These videos were originally uploaded by The Spoony Experiment. They use clips from the “Star Trek: The Next Generation – A Klingon Challenge” VHS board game. A single actor in Klingon makeup has taken over the off hours set of the Enterprise and challenges players to Trek themed challenges at random intervals. During your turn he’d sometimes jump out and say “Experience Bij!” It’s the Klingon equivalent of, “Take this punishment!” and would usually make you lose a turn.

The Spoony Experiment typically posted scripted skit-based media reviews, similar to the Angry Video Game Nerd, the Nostalgia Critic, and other online contemporaries. These sorts of reviews can take a while to produce, so he’d occasionally post an Experience Bij video during a gap in his upload schedule. It’s was usually a mashup of the TNG game clips and an unrelated, ostensibly grating piece of media. They were meant to be a bit of a non-sequitur and were just there to let fans know his channel was still active.

I can’t believe you eight nine.

If your replicated coffee goes cold while you read reports on your PADD, do you have to breakdown and re-replicated the coffee and mug just to get it hot again? (Assuming Kes isn’t nearby to freshen it up for you.)

Seems fishy.

No no no, the trick is you have to queue and schedule the replication order a day or two in advance. The ensigns on Deck 8 swear it tastes different.

Star Trek: 25th Anniversary for the original Game Boy had some shoot ‘em up segments like this. (The Klingons were smaller and in their own ships.) It’s not really worth going back and playing, but they managed to include some very Star Trek gameplay elements despite being a 1992 licensed handheld game.

Instead of power ups, you could pause the game to reroute your ship’s power. You started off with a balance of engines (how fast you could move), shields (how much damage you’d take if you got hit), and weapons (how far your phasers would travel across the screen and how much damage they’d do.)

It was pretty neat being able to go, “Oh no, asteroids!”, and then set your weapons to their absolute minimum and use those resources for your engines. Your phasers would only go two pixels in front of your ship, but you could zoom around the obstacles. Then when enemy ships show up you’d crank up the weapons and shields and blow them out of the sky space before they managed to square up a shot at you.

But mostly you just keep everything roughly balanced, hit a random obstacle and instantly died. I don’t think I even saw the away mission segments without Game Genie codes.

The first time they use the transporter is to save Archer during the pilot. Its second use is two episodes later when Archer himself orders a crewman to be beamed up for the first time. That person instantly gets fused with the local flora and dies. The captain has plenty of reasons to be skittish about the tech.

I like how Relics portrayed Montgomery Scott‘s use of the transport buffer for long term storage as novel, only to have every other show dabble in it in one way or another. Voyager used it to hide psychic refugees, Discovery hid the crew from galactic radiation for 10 minutes, Strange New Worlds used the pattern buffer to delay medical issues multiple times, etc. Even the Elite Force video game used pattern buffers to explain FPS protagonist inventories. It’s just too interesting a concept for writers to resist.

I like how the center panel is big enough to show both their ships.

A third of those screenshots is the Favorites Bar. Is that turned on by default these days? Turning that off helps slims things down a bit.

It’s not a big power user feature, and one typically doesn’t sit there using the touch screen for minutes on end. It’s more useful for dismissing alerts or quickly focusing IM windows. It’s just nice in small moments where you’re juggling multiple things at your desk or just sitting back down. Being able to not think and jab your browser window to scroll down a bit is a natural gesture, even on a laptop.

Rule of Acquisition #57: Good customers are as rare as latinum. Treasure Honor them.

Complaining about it is a meme at this point, but I think a large part of the original pushback was how over played it became in retail settings. If you step foot outside in December it’s basically playing on the PA.

I’m not fond of the DAX workstations. They seem to have a completely new UI every time I try them.

Keychron has some good entry points for getting into the mechanical keyboard scene. Lots of layout options, some open source keyboard firmware support, and you can buy a lot of them barebones if you want to bring your own keys and caps.

USB-C docks/dongles generally aren’t that big a deal if that’s your only deciding factor. They work fine without any weird hiccups or behavior.

If you’re buying used, it’s worth noting that the earlier M1, M2, and M3 non-Pro/Max chips had some limitations with external monitors. The M1 and M2 MacBook Air only supported one external monitor alongside the Mac’s built in screen. The M3 Air could do two external monitors with the lid closed, or one external monitor and the built in. The M4 Air can do two external monitors and the built in display at the same time. The Pro and Max chips could always do two external monitors and the built in display starting from the earliest M1 Pro.

The big difference between the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro is that the Pro has a built in fan. The Air will passively cool itself and might have to throttle your workload until the laptop cools down. The Pro can kick on the fan to help run heavy workloads longer. In practice it’s actually difficult to get a MacBook Pro to kick on its fan. Anything short of virtual machines or large video rendering can usually be done without the laptop getting so hot it would need to kick the fan on or throttle things. If you’re somewhat price conscious and aren’t pushing the machine’s limits, the Air’s definitely worth a look.

I’m with Troi, that Serious Eats Red Beans & Rice recipe really is that good. https://www.seriouseats.com/new-orleans-style-red-beans-rice-recipe

Whoops, this gif’s way too big. Just give the subspace relay a minute.