Robert A. Black, Mathematical Storyteller

Last night was the much-anticipated premiere of Star Trek: Discovery , the first new series for the franchise in twelve years. I'm still processing what I thought of the two-part pilot. The setup reminds me vaguely of David Gerrold's Voyage of the Star Wolf novels, which are also centered on the first officer of a starship that gets blamed for bumbling into a war - but I'm pretty sure that similarity will end within an episode or two. I was irked by the main character's behavior, although you can't say she didn't suffer the consequences of her actions, so maybe she'll grow from here. And I was ticked that they killed off Michelle Yeoh, even though I suspected they would it do after both she and Jason Isaacs were announced as the new Star Trek Captain. What I found most dismaying is that we have yet another Trek series about war. The final years of DS9 covered almost nothing but the Federation's war against the Dominion. Voyager , being a si...

I'd made my plan a few months ago, to give myself something to look forward to through the long weeks of audit preparation and online class creation. Catalina Island offers a number of deals to people who go there on their birthdays, including two-for-one on the boat fare out there. I'd gone to the island just after my birthday last year and loved it, and I already knew I wanted to take Emma back there, so she was an easy choice as my "plus one." There's just one problem with celebrating a birthday in public. It's that you're celebrating your birthday in public. At the Catalina Express ticket window, they give you a big, festive button and invite you to put your name on it. Eventually, I did pin it onto my hat, but as you can see, I remained the anonymous birthday boy. Others were more into the birthday spirit, including this one lady and her gal pals who sat next to us on the boat. Pretty much everything that happened during the ride was compl...

I'm not sure I've ever gone this long without a journal update. The week-long audit I've spent more than a year preparing for begins tomorrow. Getting ready for it has been hampered by other craziness in the day-job world, and I haven't had the mental energy to do much else. I've gotten so out of my writing mindset that I feel like I can't even put a decent blog post together, let alone anything else. So today I'm going to do something low-pressure and fun, to get my momentum going again. I give you... The Anime Nerd Girls of Science! Five female anime characters I've come across who take science more seriously than their American counterparts. That is, if they even have American counterparts. #5) Senomiya Akiho, Robotics;Notes The "Science Adventure" series of visual novels and anime series had to have at least one character on the list. My first thought was Makise Kurisu from Steins;Gate , but she's too much of a male ...