at the IMAX 3D opening night show of the new Star Trek movie. Went with The Boy/Man. People clapped the moment the feature started.

I have strong memories associated with opening Star Trek films. One in particular — stumbling out of a mall theater and blinking in the afternoon sunlight with Max and Senrab, trying to hide tears in my eyes because Star Trek.

Just gets me. Right down in the core. Wrench. ‘Cause I want to go, so bad. Not really the whole space-war villian thing, just the nebula cruisin’.

This one’s good. Really, really good. I loved it dearly. I’ll probably see it again before it leaves the theater, maybe in regular mode so that I don’t spend most of the movie clenching up as I 3-D plunge down the sparkly warp-hole.

Gene, dude, you done changed the whole future with your little crew of misfit new archetypes.

Better late than never.

Found this linked to an article at the Breakthrough Institute, who I’d never heard of and suspected it might be a denialist front. Wikipedia page shows they’re legit and seem to have some pretty good ideas:

Breakthrough Institute analyses of energy, climate and innovation policy have been cited by US President Barack Obama.,^[8] National Public Radio ^[9] the Wall Street Journal^[10] and C-SPAN.^[11]

Shellenberger has co-authored analyses of cap and trade climate legislation,^[12] of the “planetary boundaries” hypothesis,^[13][14] energy rebound from energy efficiency measures,^[15] carbon pricing,^[16] renewable energy subsidies,^[8][17] nuclear energy,^[18] and shale gas^[17][19][20]

The Institute argues that climate policy should be focused on higher levels of public funding on technology innovation to “make clean energy cheap,” and has been critical of climate policies like cap and trade and carbon pricing that are focused primarily on raising energy prices.^{[21][22][23][24]}

The Institute has conducted research showing that shale gas and other major technological innovations were created by American government institutions and public financing. The Institute advocates higher levels of public spending on technology innovation, which they argue will lead to higher environmental quality, economic growth, and quality of life.^[17][19][20]

A lot of footnotes to dig into there.

… in oh so many ways. Here’s another:

Marijuana Slims? Why Pot Smokers Are Less Obese

A new study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology finds an intriguing connection between marijuana use and body weight, showing that rates of obesity are lower by roughly a third in people who smoke pot at least three times a week, compared with those who don’t use marijuana at all.

From Sam Harris’s excellent analysis of the strange justifications for highly respected scientist Francis Collins’ religious beliefs:

1. Jesus Christ, a carpenter by trade, was born of a virgin, ritually murdered as a scapegoat for the collective sins of his species, and then resurrected from death after an interval of three days.

2. He promptly ascended, bodily, to “heaven”—where, for two millennia, he has eavesdropped upon (and, on occasion, even answered) the simultaneous prayers of billions of beleaguered human beings.

3. Not content to maintain this numinous arrangement indefinitely, this invisible carpenter will one day return to earth to judge humanity for its sexual indiscretions and skeptical doubts, at which time he will grant immortality to anyone who has had the good fortune to be convinced, on mother’s knee, that this baffling litany of miracles is the most important series of truth-claims ever revealed about the cosmos.

4. Every other member of our species, past and present, from Cleopatra to Einstein, no matter what his or her terrestrial accomplishments, will be consigned to a far less desirable fate, best left unspecified.

5. In the meantime, God/Jesus may or may not intervene in our world, as He pleases, curing the occasional end-stage cancer (or not), answering an especially earnest prayer for guidance (or not), consoling the bereaved (or not), through His perfectly wise and loving agency.

Loonies every one.

According to numerous reports, the European Commission regulators yesterday raided the offices of oil companies in London, the Netherlands and Norway as part of an investigation into possible price-rigging in the oil markets. The targeted companies include BP, Shell and the Norweigan company Statoil.

read the rest here

Jeremy for school

so i skied to sky harbor and under the sky
looked over the edge in the storm flying by
saw faces of many that i’d not seen before
the truth of it struck me like words from a war
there’ll come a day when i won’t post again
when i won’t hear the posts of illustrious friends
when the weirdy stream planet goes dark but ’til then
i’ll post little bits
of nothing but —-
and title it
first words that pop up;
debble don’t git me
therain’t no debble
debble in the dark park
debble went down to georgia n’ stayed dere
good debble.

writing a novel just now.

Just the usual Bay Area 3 hour commute to work.