Alternative title: "Man doesn't understand how language works."

Wing Commander is a universe of WW2 dogfighters and aircraft carriers; this spiritual sequel hews pretty closely to those conventions.

Ah, I suspected you might mean flux pinning. (Nobody in physics or engineering calls it "passive quantum levitation." That sounds way too much like crackpottery.)

What is "Passive Quantum Levitation" supposed to be?

I think historians can debate your second statement (in fact, so would I), but I'm happy to add some relevant caveat to my argument. I'm perfectly willing to say something like: nuclear deterrence is a crappy strategy in the modern world!

Nuclear deterrence is a crappy strategy. It encourages arms races, and it encourages adversaries to look for asymmetric ways to attack us. That comes as the price of only a nominal - if any - increase to our own security. Meanwhile, nuclear weapons systems and warning systems around the world are deteriorating,…

*Applause*

"After decades of admittedly cool robotic explorers but overall modest ambitions, NASA is daring to dream big."

I just have to disagree. On my second viewing, I found the main characters bland and unsympathetic. Any development that happened to them would be un-done an episode later with a reversion to the status quo. Try watching more than one episode back to back: you'll see O'Brien learn to deal with some horrid trauma, and…

I think the cardinal rule for drawing a fantasy map, if it is connected to a story, is that the information should be story-relevant! It may be nice that the author built a ton of extra stuff for their world, but the reader doesn't need to see them prove it unnecessary.

I'll begrudgingly give you Garak...problem is, he usually comes with tons of Bashir

There's a whole episode about putting Sisko in a box.

I'll just point out that all your memorable characters were secondary or tertiary characters!

I agree - DS9's characters were lacking. We got tired of Kira's relentless racism, Julian's insufferable haughtiness, and the Ferengi in general. The changelings were uninteresting adversaries, and any time the Bajoran religious figures showed up was cause for eye-rolling. Whenever something happened to Sisko, we'd…

My fiancee and I recently plowed through Voyager, and then Deep Space Nine, on Netflix. We both came away with the sense that Voyager is better. Go figure.

You nailed it with the last sentence. NASA has right rules about when the space station gets supplies, especially since SpaceX is picking up the deficit from the Antares that blew up.

Small correction: the mission was a complete success. Dragon is in orbit. The TEST FLIGHT did not result in its "stretch goals," as it were - of total success on the first try - but it was also successful in that it provided necessary data for improving the technology. The fact that there are pieces of the Falcon on…

Nice! I'm glad they've got somebody applying a little imagination for public benefit. We scientists and engineers always have fun when we get to deviate from the cut-and-dry.

Stardust is also one of those rare cases where the movie was better than the book. Sorry, Gaiman, but some storytelling techniques work better on film than in long form prose. (I'm looking at you, training montage by the end of which the unlikely hero is super competent and in love with the character he previously…

I think it's time to remind everybody of what's the best dinosaur. And the worst.