Captains are tricky. But probably Picard. He hits all the high notes, Diplomacy, people skills, decent at tactics, but in a disaster, he's actually a secret badass and knows how to use a big damn gun.

I've seen this. I just don't drink the damn water.

I always liked the 'magic' from the Belgariad.

It does, funnily enough. Sure the background computers are typical 80's movies computers, but they put a lot of forethought into the actual robots. It's like a very good sci-fi book. Not so much detail that someone looking at it 30 years later can easily go "Nah, that's a tiny processor and ram! No WAY you could run…

To be fair, Star Trek has done WAY worse in terms of spouting nonsense about molecules.

Can't stop the signal...

You have to pay a lot of money for some of those services you know.

Next week, on Mythbusters...

That is pretty much the explanation I reasoned out when I read that book at around 13 years old. IT wasn't the creature, it HAD a name, IT was the act of sex that changed them from children, who were easy prey for the creature, into adults, who could fight back.

I think I had the rocket skateboard to go with the action figures when I was little.

We religiously pick up after our dogs, but it can be difficult to understand why we bother.

I've always understood that it is not 'copy-paste' but rather 'cut-paste'. When you get duplicates, it's because of something akin to someone cutting their file, then managing to paste it twice - Not impossible to do, but a rare event and there are safeguards that are supposed to prevent it.

Practical applications?

So... Starship troopers with predator drones?

Holy crap. Outfit it with an AI module, and you have yourself a real-life Bolo here...

Good if they have an android version!

She kiiiinda gets slightly written out of that corner in the later books. She has a distinctively predatory side in there. Like, she would get off on ripping people in half if she let herself really go, sort of predatory...

http://www.baen.com/chapters/basil…

I just squee'd out loud. Am I right from reading this that they are only developing the game for iOS? Because that would be a shame. Although to be fair, if they released it on Android, a LOT more people would be tempted to Harkness the software.

Tatooine is a bad example. IIRC it used to be a verdant jungle world, then it got glassed from orbit, and eventually, said glass broke down into sand.