How do we reckon with ‘Hegemony’ without imposing our own?
Reading Time: 14 minutes I’ll admit, it’s been tough to wrap up this season of Strange New Worlds, knowing that the ongoing writers and actors’ strikes all but guarantee a long delay before Season 3. Season 2 also ends on a cliffhanger, which makes not only the wait but also the write-up a bit more
Singin’ in the ‘Subspace Rhapsody’: Music and the quest for harmony
Reading Time: 11 minutes Singin’ in the Rain (1952) was by no means the first musical, but one reason it remains among the most acclaimed is its express engagement with the role of sound and song in our lives. Maybe you only know the film by its iconic and titular “singing in the rain” scene, or may
Whose justice will emerge from ‘Under the Cloak of War’?
Reading Time: 13 minutes This week’s main episode of Strange New Worlds, which was moved up to accommodate the surprise early launch of a crossover episode on July 22, enters difficult territory. On the surface, “Under the Cloak of War” bears some resemblance to facets of Star Trek VI: The Undiscove
How do we manage our myths around ‘Those Old Scientists’?
Reading Time: 10 minutes I’ll be blunt: I do not like Star Trek: Lower Decks, an animated series set in the timeline for The Next Generation, and a crossover element in the first of this past week’s episodes of Strange New Worlds. When it comes to Trek comedy, the non-canon homage series The Orville
How what’s ‘Lost in Translation’ can be found again in empathy
Reading Time: 12 minutes What defines a “Trek” story varies between Trekkies, but one abiding feature in many series is the role of trust among crew mates. In a 2019 essay for Uncanny Magazine, Nicasio Andres Reed explored what makes this trust extraordinary. Here’s the way the story often goes, in
Broken heat records—and the promise of more
Reading Time: 4 minutes Another set of broken heat records has devastating implications—not only for human thriving in the coming years, but also the inability of consequences from past failings to stir global action to some better end.
‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow’: How time travel creeps into Trek today
Reading Time: 11 minutes This week’s episode of Strange New Worlds takes us boldly to Canada, but I promise: just because most of the show is set in my birthplace of Toronto, we won’t go off-mission too much to reflect on how it uses the location. I will only say that if you’re buying street meat (v
‘Ad Astra per Aspera’: How we escape from hardship into wonder
Reading Time: 11 minutes Last week, I gave the opening episode of Strange New Worlds (SNW) Season Two a bit of a pass: I called it a “mission statement” more than a typical outing from this version of the Enterprise. The plot and script seemed intent on solidifying character gains from the first sea
Internet Archive loses to publishers, mediocre tech futures continue
Reading Time: 6 minutes It is the easiest thing in the world to copy and paste digital content. This is why elaborate systems needed to be invented, to push back on the native capabilities of technology. Digital Rights Management (DRM) most often refers to advanced technology that locks in document
COVID-19 now haunts flu season: What other long term impacts can we expect?
Reading Time: 11 minutes It’s been a rough few days for anyone following flu season data. While China has eased zero-COVID restrictions in the face of protests, despite currently experiencing a surge in case count (along with Japan), North American hospitals face what the American Medical Associatio
The longtermism that works—and the kind that doesn’t
Reading Time: 10 minutes In 2004, a tsunami and earthquake killed almost 230,000 people in 14 Indian Ocean countries. Many forms of relief then mouldered on the beaches—used clothes, high heel shoes, expired medicines—because “in-kind” donations are well known not to be effective forms of aid on a g
Eight billion of us: What does that mean?
Reading Time: 4 minutes November 15 is the UN’s estimated date for the eight billionth person to join the living human species. We might have hit that number a few days prior, or a few weeks ago. We might meet it tomorrow, or the day after. But some of we eight billion really like the feel of concre