StillPaisleyCat @ StillPaisleyCat @startrek.website

Posts

130

Comments

750

Joined

2 yr. ago

I was referring to the one in Vancouver.

I wouldn’t call it a ‘trial’.

It was in place for a couple of decades. Agreed that it failed in the end, as did Rideau street in Ottawa.

There’s good reason to be cautious. These don’t always work well, and security can become an issue. Changing the built environment to support safe and active public spaces is challenging.

It would be great to know what factors make a pedestrian mall in a downtown core work well over the long haul and which don’t.

In the 1970s, several Canadian cities emulated European ones and created pedestrian spaces in their cores. Vancouver had a good length of Granville ‘theatre row’ closed for decades and Ottawa had Rideau closed to all but public transit. A great deal of infrastructure investment was made to make them appealing pedestrian spaces. Ottawa still has Sparks street completely vehicle free in the Parliamentary precinct.

Both Granville and Rideau were eventually reopened to traffic after they became crime focal points. Both were places women felt safe to walk on in the evening in the late 70s and early 80s, but by the 90s many pedestrians avoided them during the day and businesses left, replaced by boarded up storefronts.

All to say, not such a simple public good question as some are presenting here.

Seeing some of the wonky slowness just getting to communities for the first time. Really appreciate the heads-up/acknowledgment.

In the silver lining category, it’s been nice to see a few of the regulars here get set up on the fediverse sister platform Mastodon, especially on tenforward.social. There’re nice Trek folks there. Guinan is a gracious host and assiduous in her care to protect the instance from everything many of us we never wish to see or read.

Which brings me to the last point. Over at the ‘alternatives’ subreddit, there was a fair bit of discussion over the long weekend about illegal content and how instances can protect themselves from it federating to them. I hope that this migration hasn’t turned up too much stuff that the mods and sysadmins should never have to look at, and hope that the new home will help support better tools to filter that out.

I found that the opinion-piece from Space.com didn’t distinguish classic tropes and use of legacy characters from ‘gimmicks.’

While my personal preference prior to the show’s premiere had been to hold on the introduction of so many TOS legacy characters, to allow the others and original ones to breathe, as long as having Kirk there is bringing new insights to his character (and others’), it’s all to the good. At this point, I’m eager to see more of young Scotty.

Agree totally. Which is why I have a certain exasperation for those who gave Lower Decks and Prodigy a couple of episodes and then decided it’s not for them.

It struggled with that the first half season, but it found its own voice over time.

The fact that it’s found and retained its own dedicated fanbase who have no prior experience of Trek is evidence enough that it stands on its own.

It’s all moved to Paramount+ and SkyShowtime.

They get worse as they go on, like most Weber series. A few books in and they seem to always devolve to coredumps of exposition and backstory marginally dressed up as meetings. Even the tactics and action diminishes to the point where I’ve read more compelling write ups of tabletop war games.

(And I’m someone who both war games and has read every single book in the Safehold series.)

Advent calendar looks cool but expensive.

I’ve lived everywhere but Atlantic Canada actually. I also work with colleagues from coast to coast.

One hears it, (as in, ‘she moved into town once her husband had passed on’) but it’s not the kind of automatic euphemism that would make it the first interpretation. ‘She passed on that opportunity’ is really common.

When someone dies, we usually just say that.

I’d like to see CJ Cherryh’s Alliance-Union universe brought to the screen.

Downbelow Station seems made to become a streaming series.

I can get behind this take.

I don’t think we should over-exalt 20th century science fiction literature that was fantastic at communicating concepts and ideas but made no genuine effort to do that with well developed characters.

The awe factor was great, and it did inspire, but even for avid readers, it can be a slog. If one takes the position the value of science fiction lies in engaging a broader audience than those of us who can read the math and follow the science, then it needs to be engaging enough that it attracts and holds the interest that audience.

At this point in my life, I expect both good ideas and good characterization and storytelling. Otherwise, I’d rather just read stories and models in real math. I have no criticism at all of the show’s EPs effort to make the ideas in Foundation more appealing and accessible with better storytelling.

I first read the Foundation series in my teens, after Dune and Dune Messiah, having graduated out of John Wyndham and run out of Arthur C Clark at my school and public libraries. Foundation held my attention, the ideas were cool, but I was also reading anything I could when I wasn’t doing schoolwork. I find it hard to imagine it would have held my interest in the face of the kinds of diversions kids can take with them now.

OP isn’t American. It’s not a universal euphemism.

Even having lived in the US at one point it’s not an automatic connection.

Canadians (at least in my experience) use the expression ‘passed away’ if at all to avoid saying ‘died.’

But also being Canadian, I’ve given my regrets elsewhere on this thread. And I’m sorry for the unintended shock to any and all who don’t share my dialect.

Well that’s another cultural difference right there.

I’m Canadian. Expressing regret and saying we’re sorry is a reflexive social necessity.

We even have federal and provincial legislation (Apology Acts) to prevent an express of regret from being used against us in court.

But it’s also true that ‘Sorry, not sorry’ is a thing.

English usage varies. That usage of ‘passed’ isn’t top of mind for me.

Regrets to have evoked death for anyone.

I thought she’d directed episodes of Voyager too.

Memory Alpha credits her with Voyager episodes ‘Riddles’ and ‘Workforce Part II’.

The point is that this doesn’t work at all.

I’m in Canada, and our local hobby, game and comic stores are dependent on the distributors or the ability to order directly from the manufacturer. We usually start with them, and when we can’t order through them, go online.

Even for some of the small specialty presses producing Star Trek books, we’ve been obliged to order through Amazon because the publisher isn’t working directly with Canadian stores, even though the books should move without difficulty under the North American free trade agreement.

Final point, Canada has the most intense Trek following in the world, even more than in the United States. TNG was the top rated show during its run - of any television show, not just in its genre. So, if a company can’t sell Trek merch here, they won’t be successful.

The company needs to get some representatives out to the toy trade shows and conventions in North America to break into the market. That’s how the models get picked up by genre sellers and distributors.

Even getting a representative seller at various Comic-Con’s and regional cons would be worth it to sell to core fans and build a base. Our kids have walked around cons with money to spend and come away with nothing but a t-shirt and pins because there really wasn’t much on offer for Star Trek suitable for their ages.

Wish these had been available a few years back when our kids were in their peak Lego building phase.

The key question I have is about BlueBrixx distribution to places that science and tech oriented kids (and gift-giving extended family) look for toys and models. Does BlueBrixx have any distribution other than online?

While adult fans will find things online, having boxes and models physically on display somewhere that kids can see them makes a huge difference to whether a certain kind of model ever gets considered for a wish list and can even determine whether or not it gets built.

While our kids loved to peruse catalogues to decide what projects they wanted to do next, our occasional visit to the Lego store outside Montreal or a Playmobil vendor really sparked their enthusiasm. I don’t think that it’s only the Lego branding that gets in the way of building the North American market for a competitor.

Beyond online purchases and catalogues, our kids picked up their advanced LEGO, Playmobil, SnapCircuits, Smithsonian models etc. at museums, hobby stores, a few toy stores that targeted learning toys across a broader age range and even children’s hospital gift stores. It seems like family had picked up gifts from similar places where they lived.