Since I’m on the topic of Star Trek, thought to include this awesome detailed map of the Star Trek Alpha Quadrant Universe. The blue areas is the United Federation of Planets, green is the Romulan Empire, Dark Red is the Klingon Empire, red-orange is the Cardassian Union. Click on the picture to see a close-up of it.

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Got forwarded a link that had the following hilarious image:

“Will Work For Dilithium Crystals” — well done. Although, personally I would have used some kind of background such as this one:

To make it more desperate/funny, but that’s just me.

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You just know Paul Krugman had a lot of fun writing this paper on interstellar trade (PDF).

Of course, a lot of the interstellar economic trade theory has to rely on a future without replicators as that just throws economics out the window.

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This flashlight by wicked lasers just screams to me that they really should begin building a phaser. You know how many Trekkies would buy that?

Okay, so maybe not as much profit off Trekkies as a military contract, but still would be sweet.

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Nobody likes anything delayed, and it definitely sucks that Star Trek XI will be delayed, but if that’s necessary for a better Star Trek film, so be it.  SyFy Portal has the details:

Although Paramount Pictures is saying “Star Trek XI” will hit theaters May 8, 2009, sources with the studio tell SyFy Portal that no actual premiere date is set in stone.

That’s nearly a half year delay from the Star Trek Under Construction trailer that I linked to previously that showed it would come out on December 25th.

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Io9 has some more good information (an interview this time) on the upcoming Star Trek XI movie and some interesting plans for the movie. Though canned questions, still interesting nonetheless particularly about the avoidance of the greenscreen, which is not a bad idea in many cases as the focuses is then less on acting which can really get people involved into a movie.

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I ran across more info on SyFy Portal about the newest Star Trek movie coming out. Turns out that the viral site does show up the forth picture but only for one second of the interior of the original Enterprise so I likely missed that, but to make life easier, here’s the picture after the jump…:

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Bump and Update on 1/29/2008:

Click here for more of my thoughts on Star Trek Under Construction.

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Io9 and many others have the scoop on the newest Star Trek trailer for 2008 that provides a lovely snapshot of the original Enterprise being built with the original theme music that gave me some nice goosebumps.

From a Star Trek fan (Trekkie) perspective, hopefully this movie will be better than the last (which I thought was sadly poorly done) and 1,000 times better than the quasi-Star Trek “Enterprise” that tried to build on a new and young fan base that collapsed horrifically when it did not follow Star Trek cannon (how stupid could one be really? Sons and daughters of major Star Trek fans would only denigrate the show which would in turn only turn them off from the show). I only hope that the lesson has been learned and will strictly follow cannon this time. That means no ending the movie by giving Enterprise to the whole original crew as it first goes to Captain Pike (Correction: Captain April, then Pike, then Kirk. hat tip: fishstickjesus)!

From the buzz aspect, if you’re curious, click on the small flashing red button–it leads to a landing page with three cameras that you can adjust to see the picture better. I’m not entirely sure if there is more to the site (and if anyone knows, please tell me), but it certainly would be a good buzz campaign if they did so. Regardless, sadly the site is still mostly under construction (some links do not work) and then there’s a link to Bad Robot, a lovely picture that really tells me nothing, [UPDATE: so go to wikipedia here]. Oh, and forcing people to use Quicktime for the HD? Poor choice imo.

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The New York Times today had a fascinating article about a Korean internet addiction boot camp:

MOKCHEON, South Korea — The compound — part boot camp, part rehab center — resembles programs around the world for troubled youths. Drill instructors drive young men through military-style obstacle courses, counselors lead group sessions, and there are even therapeutic workshops on pottery and drumming.

 

 

Lee Chang-hoon, 15, runs an obstacle course at the Jump Up Internet Rescue School. He spent almost all of his time online before his mother sent him to the camp. “Seventeen hours a day online is fine,” he said at the camp.

But these young people are not battling alcohol or drugs. Rather, they have severe cases of what many in this country believe is a new and potentially deadly addiction: cyberspace.

They come here, to the Jump Up Internet Rescue School, the first camp of its kind in South Korea and possibly the world, to be cured.

Part of me wants to laugh so hard about how sad it is for such a camp, but at the same time I realize that it really can be a huge problem (think of it as a camp for WoW addicts). At least the kids look relatively in shape such that they look like they can compete the courses.

I know that for myself, having to start my first real job and stop playing WoW cold turkey was not a desirable situation, but I realized at the same time that WoW would ruin my career life if I did not cease right away. All that said, I’m still afraid for when Star Trek: Online comes out as it’s an nasty mix of my love for Star Trek and my love for playing games… my wife probably will really be angry at me with that game (that is, unless I can get her addicted to it as well).

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*drools* times 1,000 (from /film, which I guess is a part of /.?):

Someone thought it would be a good idea to model their home theater after the Enterprise NCC-1701[-]D from Star Trek: The Next Generation. The result is super geeky, but actually rather cool. Named the best theme theater installation at CEDIA 2007, this Palm Beach County, FL home features motion-activated air-lock doors with series sound effects, and a “Red Alert” button on the Crestron TPMC-10 controller to turn all of the LEDs bright red and flashing. The system also features “one of the largest Kaleidescape hard-drive based storage systems” ever created, amassing eight servers with 3,816 DVDs.

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