Trekkies Unite: Be part of the USS Gygax’s Crew
Lieutenant Commander Tia Marie here, Chief Operations Officer & founding member of the USS Gygax NCC-63545, a correspondence chapter in the Starfleet International (an international Star Trek fan association). I became a part of founding the USS Gygax with Otaking and many others from a Star Trek themed LambdaMOO called Where No One Has Gone Before.
Since its inception almost a year ago, being a member of the USS Gygax has been a great deal of fun and most importantly at my own pace. I’ve participated in charity events, gaming events, and even cosplaying at Star Trek events. Being a member of SFI had really helped me gain a deeper enjoyment of Star Trek through it’s rich and wonderful fan community.
That’s why I want you right here with me. Lets enjoy Star Trek together and join me as a member of the USS Gygax’s crew. There is a $15 a year membership fee (email if you’re interested but the fee is a problem) and since we are a correspondence chapter there isn’t much of your RL time you have to put into being a member. We are in Region 4 (R4) but that doesn’t limit you to join if you are elsewhere in the world.
As a crew, we engage on WNOHGB and on our forums. We have regular gaming nights online and even do some local stuff where members live near each other. I’ve known most of the folks in the crew for about 4 years and they are a blast!
You can register for membership here: https://db.sfi.org/secure/signup.php
Make sure to select USS GYGAX – R4 in the chapter drop down. Additionally, I’ll sponsor the fee for up to 4 people if you are interested in joining!
Give me a shout on Twitter or introduce yourself on the USS Gygax forums once you’ve applied for membership of SFI and we’ll introduce you to the crew. You can also feel free to ask questions about membership.
Hope to see you aboard!
HBO – Shut Up & Take Our Money!
The battle for standalone HBO GO (via The Christian Science Monitor)
When the premium cable channel HBO created its own online, on-demand service, subscribers rejoiced. The two-year-old HBO GO gives current customers unlimited access to all of HBO’s original programming (including the complete series of “Sex and the City” and “The Sopranos”), documentaries, and movies…
My latest addiction
Let me first explain that I have a different definition of fun than most people do. I enjoy writing, I enjoy theatre and I enjoy D&D greatly.
That being said, let me describe this game that I play. For those of us who had the internet in the early 90s, games like MUDs, MUSHes and MOOs were our MMOs. There was a big difference for me though, creating the characters and getting to play them out. Sure that sounds pretty nerdy, probably a lot more nerdy that writing fanfic but I swear it's lots of fun.
So, the game that I have been playing is called "Where No One Has Gone Before" and it is a Star Trek themed text based role playing game. Whew, that was a mouthful! I use a program called Atlantis to log in with my Mac (you can use Telnet if you're really a sadist or SimpleMu if you're on windows).
I've been playing at that game for almost a year and a half now and it's been the greatest time killer anywhere. I recruited one friend and she has gotten addicted. Now, if you haven't gotten an idea at all of what happens in a text based role playing game, then let me give you an example. Check at the roleplay logs from the game. That is the game and what happens every day in multiple places.
I think that the Staff there are great, they have been very welcoming and helpful and I also have gotten friends with one of the guy who made it happen. He's a really awesome person, he's @Otaking over on twitter. He's certainly made my transition into the game and really made things great.
I can't say more than awesome things about it, it's a great deal of fun and the events that happen run by the Administration is very fun, witty and very involved. I know that it might not seem your type of game, you might need some pictures or even some buttons to click but text really grows on a person.
I encourage you to to go check out the wiki, I wrote a lot of the stuff on the Romulans. You can find out about the timeline and some of the commands that you'll need to learn to play the game and get a feel for the characters that exist in game, read their stories and perhaps if you like it you'll join me. If you figure out how to connect and want to make a character give me a shout out, my character's name is Ael'Ihhuein.
Kari Byron now has an educational show, why not Danica McKellar?
I'll preface this entire post with this, "I'm grumpy and snarky today," and that I don't hate Kari Byron. Getting those two points out of the way, I wanted to dedicate my #Blogin5 post to this topic.
Every web nerd's wet dream, Kari Byron will be staring in a science show with the aim of getting kids interested in Science. She's gorgeous, charming and got her start in a very popular show. It's pretty easy to see why she got the role/gig. She's a sexy "geek." There are tons of other sexy geek lady actresses (who probably would never host a kids' show) that originated their professional lives with an education in Science/Math related fields. I've put together a small helpful list!
- Danica McKellar: Wonder Years actress, Mathematics – UCLA
- Lisa Kudrow: Friends Actress, Biology – Vassar
- Natalie Portman: Star Wars Queen, Psychology – Harvard
This is a really short list, I haven't done tons of research (I didn't want to spend a load of time on this post cause I am at work), I'm sure you guys could name some other actresses who started in a science field.
It probably is difficult to find Television personalities who have backgrounds in science or math to host educational programs. As far as I'm aware, the most prominent person I can think of who had an actual background in science who taught in an educational show was Bill Nye, who studied mechanical engineering at Cornell. I even looked into Mr. Wizard and Beakman from Beakman's World, neither of which studied science or math in college.
Of everyone I've listed in this post, Danica McKellar is the one that really stands out to me. I'm still dumbfounded she hasn't gotten her own educational show (she might not want one). Danica has been a proponent of helping middle school aged girls gain interest in mathematics. She's even written two books, Kiss My Math: Showing Pre-Algebra Who's Boss and Hot X: Algebra Exposed that targets young girls in grades 7 – 9.
I do appreciate Kari's position at least that one can be a girl without a science background and still celebrate and enjoy science related things. Regardless of who gets to host an educational kids' show, if it inspires at least one child to imagine and fall in love with science. It's a Good Thing.
