Star Trek Memories by Whoopi Goldberg

I was reading the article in TrekToday in which Goldberg talks about her role as Guinan in Star Trek: The Next Generation and in fact, that is the last character Gene Roddenberry ever wrote for the Star Trek series. I have heard her interviewed in the past about her strong desire to be part of TNG, but at the time, the producers did not take it seriously until she got on the phone and said she really was interested. From the article:

But those in charge of The Next Generation weren’t keen initially on having her at first. “When I got the opportunity, I asked to be part of it. But they were like ugh, they don’t wanna … The person I asked was LeVar Burton because he was doing it. I said, ‘Tell them I wanted to do it very much,’ and told them all the reasons. He said OK.”But it took a while before Goldberg got her chance. “A year went by and nothing happened. When I saw [Burton] next I said, ‘What happened?’ ‘They didn’t believe me.’ I said, ‘Give me the phone number,’ and I called them. We had a meeting with Gene Roddenberry who asked me the same question you just did (what drew her to Star Trek). I told them the same thing I told you. I never thought about it that way. So he wrote the last character that he wrote for me, and that’s how it happened.”

The episodes I like the most with the character Guinan are "Time´s Arrow" and Yesterday´s Enterprise and I have to say, Yesterday´s Enterprise has to be one of my favorite episodes of TNG.

Apple iPad Reminds me of Star Trek Padd!

When I saw the new Apple iPad, my jaw dropped, it looked just like the Padd so frequently used in all of the Star Trek series! I always liked those Padds in the television shows because you could write stories, poems, but also look up historical records, do inventory, read books, write mission reports, the sky was the limit. I am not a big fan of new gadgets that come out every week and make the gadget I just purchased obsolete so I tend to only pay attention to what is being invented and usually it takes me years to get something new that I feel will stay around a while without being replaced quickly. When I see something similar to a common Trek prop, I get more curious than usual, but not curious enough to buy until it really has books, history, math, well, something very Star Trek -like, but that is just me, waiting for the ultimate piece of technology. Anyway, I like the look of it but I am waiting to hear if it is easy to use and not too sensitive to the touch or fragile because I am very rough with things like my cellphone, for example, I have dropped it more times than I can count and it still works! I would not want a fragile Padd, it needs to be space-worthy, Ha!

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Pac-Man in the Moon!

When I read the article about the Pac- Man image appearing on the moon that orbits Saturn it made me laugh so hard, but it is true, the image of the tiny moon taken by the Cassini spacecraft does look like the 1980 Pac-Man figure I used to play when you actually had to go to an arcade to play video games on those monstrous machines. I played Pac-Man but my favorite game was Space Invaders, I could play that game for hours as well as air hockey on those huge tables. Sometimes it is nice to go down memory lane....
From the article:

The Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn has caught an interesting new view of the tiny moon Mimas.

The probe measured temperature differences across the object's surface and produced a map that looks just like the 1980s Pac-Man video games icon.Scientists are unsure why Mimas should display such variations but say it is probably related to the diversity of textures in the surface materials.Some textures may retain heat better than others, they explain.Mimas is about 400km (250 miles) across. It has a distinctive scar called Herschel Crater which has led many to draw comparisons with the "Death Star" from the Star Wars movies.

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• 'Pac-man' shape spotted in Saturn's moon (news.bbc.co.uk)

No Video Games for the Space Station

I read an interesting article at the website io9 about how the International Space Station has internet capability but when a visitor wanted to play a multiplayer video game and bring his ipod, he was not allowed.


Richard Garriott, the first video game designer to ride a rocket to outer space wanted to play a massively multiplayer video game from the International Space Station. And he wanted to bring his iPod. Neither happened.Garriott's gaming plan was to play his then-still-active computer game Tabula Rasa from the International Space Station, logging onto a computer and playing with people down on Earth. He traveled to the space station in 2008 as one of the world's only self-funded space tourists."I looked into taking Tabula Rasa into space," he told Kotaku during an interview at the DICE gaming summit just outside of Las Vegas last week. "There's Internet on the space station. We actually originally were pursuing trying to play live, from space, but it turns out that even though there is an IP (Internet protocol) pathway, they were so worried about people tunneling backwards to the ISS and wreaking havoc that it became a non-starter."That's right, gamers. According to Garriott, the powers that be in some space agency thought that you would try to cheat your way into taking control of the space station. We all know you'd never do that.

Oh well, maybe in the future the private companies that will begin space travel will work on problem hackers and allow more freedom for the people who travel in space, only if governments get their beaks out of the picture.

Here is the story.