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Have any of you guys heard of the Blasting Company/Petrojvic Blasting Company before? I find them TMBG-like in the sense that they have often dark, bizarre lyrics and play with accordions and horns, albeit in more of a folk/swing revival-esque way.

For those who haven't heard the band, a good song to demonstrate what I'm talking about is "Princess Andy".

Edit: If my tone wasn't conveyed (especially to those who haven't watched Prodigy), this is meant to be an affectionate meme towards all of Star Trek.

Note that the language I use is meant to be a comedic summary. I vaguely define the "episode genre" as people banding together [to fight authoritarianism or a faulty idea like militarism or isolationism].

Examples of this sort of episode include:

• TOS:Patterns of Force
• TNG:The Chase
• DS9:Paradise Lost
• VOY:False Profits
• SNW:Strange New Worlds

Because of his original purpose, it makes sense that the Doctor wouldn’t have held a Starfleet rank during Voyager.

However, in Prodigy, he still doesn’t have pips. This leads to my questions:

• Can a self-aware hologram hold rank or a non-com position in Starfleet?
• If so, how would the Doctor attaib it?

According to the STO wiki, he doesn’t wear them by choice but does have a rank. That might be a reasonable explanation; I can’t imagine Janeway not at least trying to field commission him.

John Henry has its 30th birthday tomorrow!

What are your favorites off this album? Thoughts in general?

Personally, I think it’s a crime Mrs. Train and Welcome to the Jungle were excluded from the final album. Still waiting for Superfueld Freaksicle. 😉

Also, the TMBG merch shop’s having a sale, including a free download of the mastered demos and 20% off anything with the code TMBGWORLD, if anyone’s interested.

Continued From: https://startrek.website/post/13283869 https://startrek.website/post/14075369

I managed to fix the one biggest gripe about my Thinkpad E16: the RTL8852BE Wi-Fi controller randomly dropping out. I actually found this a few days ago, but I had forgotten where I put the file I had edited. You put a file in modprobe.d called 70-rtw89.conf. Both /etc/modprobe.d/ and /usr/lib/modprobe.d work - I used the latter, but for the sake of conventions, you should probably use the former.

You then put in these options for the rtw89 module: options rtw89_pci disable_clkreq=y disable_aspm_l1=y disable_aspm_l1ss=y

Now, my Thinkpad is a fully functional Linux laptop. I will be docking it to an 8 from my initial score of 8.5, but I'm back to liking it for now. If you apply the fix, be sure to update the firmware as well - some older distros have an old version that works but returns a lot of journalctl error on this card.

Update: What do you know! The updated firmware-realtek just went into backports!

Thanks, https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-oem-6.1/+bug/2017277

I know we've all been crying to ourselves in bed at night over the end of such a wonderful show - me included - so here's a fun little distraction for now.

1. What is your prediction for the plot of the series finale?
2. How much gold-pressed latinum do you bet on it?

I bet 5 strips that it will be a parody/pastiche of the time shenanigans of TNG:"All Good Things" and VOY:"Endgame" where we get to see the futures of each character.

Your turn. Betting closes once the first episodes of the season comes out (in other words, I think you have until 11:59 PM PST on October 23rd to bet, though I could be wrong). I will declare the winner of our imaginary latinum when I've watched the finale.

P.S If it's not too much trouble, since there's still more than a month to season premiere, would you be able to pin this, @ValueSubtracted? It's totally fine if not, but would be convenient due to the long-term nature of this post.

I have several songs where I think they could have done better on the album version.

This includes a lot of Mink Car:

• Bangs - Snapping Turtles had the more John-y lyrics in my opinion.
• Man, It's So Loud in Here - The first demo just had more soul, in my opinion. I get they were going for Pet Shop Boys pastiche/parody, but I really liked the general 80s vibes of the original demo.
• My Man - There's a demo that has some better compositional choices in my opinion.
• Another First Kiss - I prefer the one from Severe Tire Damage by leaps and bounds.

Another addition is I like the Severe Tire Damage version of They Got Lost more than the Long Tall Weekend version.

Yesterday, I began watching the 1960s British sci-fi series The Prisoner (first five episodes) and have been quite enjoying it. Much of my enjoyment has been from the fact that it kind of feels like “What if The Cage was a whole series?”

In other words, like “The Cage”, it’s a prison environment in which a person can’t be certain of reality any more. It does diverge in all the torture on number 6, whereas the Talossian’s illusions are less flawed and sadistic a prison in some ways (you know, besides the purpose of breeding a bunch of human slaves). However, I feel like both “The Cage” and The Prisoner overall embody the same “everything might be fake” sense of reality. I almost feel like “The Prisoner” is somewhat a window into what Star Trek might have been if CBS hadn’t thought people would be too dumb to understand “The Cage”.

Besides the similar vibes with “The Cage”, another thing winning me over is the surreal set design, which has already won a place in my heart. I just wish I could make a replica of one of the signs in the village and have it not be so obscure no one would ever recognize it.

The main thing my 21st century brain finds fault with is the strong gender roles used in The Prisoner (there is always some woman that Number 2 sends to try and manipulate Number 6), although like TOS, I’ll give it a pass since it was in the same boat as most television at the time. However, I did like the twist in “Free for All” where Number 58 is revealed to be the real new Number 2.

I like both "Maine" and "Louisiana". "Maine" has John's classic unreliable, evil narrator, while "Louisiana" just feels like a fun take on a hostage situation.

"The Songs of the 50 States" is also dear in my heart as it gets gradually crazier.

Here’s a bigger bugbear (than the Vulcan question): how does it all work in Ferengi society?

I’ll split order my post by my pre-Rom and post-Rom thoughts.

Pre-Rom:

• Gay (not Lesbian) Ferengi are probably a normal thing.
• Based on DS9 “Profits and Lace” and Nilva’s reaction to the transitioned Quark, it might be possible that male to female transition, while considered very weird, would be considered fine if you make a sufficiently good female by Ferengi standards, if you know what I mean.
• Conversely, female to male transition probably wouldn’t be accepted, based on the reaction to Pel, although Pel didn’t necessarily actually change her gender identity or get her lobes surgically enlarged. It may be possible that some trans Ferengi existed and simply hid that they weren’t cis, although it’d be more difficult considering the mobility limitations on females. There were probably surgeons on the planet who were like “If you’ve got the Latinum, I’ll totally do it.”
• Overall, I think the sentiment would be, “If you’ve got the lobes and you’ve got the Latinum, I don’t care what you do.”
• For instance, if a non-binary Ferengi made lots of profit, they might not be totally respected, but at least not bothered as much.

Post-Rom:

• Lesbian Ferengi are probably legal but still frowned upon.
• Transitioning either way is probably easier, considering the shift in gender roles as seen by 2381 in Lower Decks.
• Generally, with the Federation membership bid, probably a lot more open but still rife with social issues.

Questions:

• Do Ferengi experience dysphoria when their ears are the wrong size? (Very possibly yes, considering the dysphoria humans can experience from other secondary sex characteristics.)

Do you have TMBG songs that you like but don’t necessarily want on your everything playlist?

I’d say “Love is Eternity” off Venue Songs is one for me. I enjoy it but simultaneously find it a bit sappy. It also brings up difficult emotions since my grandmother died this May.