No, we don’t have transporters or warp drives. But here’s some tech that started in Star Trek that is now real.

Automatic Doors

On the original show, the automatic doors were operated by set hands. There are numerous out takes where they failed to do their job. The poor actors had to act as if they absolutely trusted the doors would indeed open.

The first automatic doors were invented in 1954 and installed in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1960. They were mat actuated, and the reason it happened there? Corpus Christi was so windy people kept having doors blown shut on them.

…

In April, a guy and a friend showed up at The Ashford in Jersey City. One of them was wearing upscale joggers, jacket, and sneakers.

The two men were told that they were dressed too casually and would be seated on the patio. Fine, but the bouncer later let in an entire group of guys dressed the same way.

Do I need to spell out the difference?

(Incidentally, the guy who was asked to eat outside was a model, so I’m pretty sure he was dressed well, just not in a style…)

Are Dress Codes Even Relevant?

Honestly, more and more of us are questioning…

So, tomorrow is Juneteenth. Yesterday, at the last possible moment, Congress voted to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. Only 14 Republican Congressmen voted against it and Biden signed the law yesterday afternoon.

Here’s the thing, fellow white people.

Don’t be surprised to hear Black people not cheering this decision. First of all, it’s performative. (Which says something about those 14 Congressmen that isn’t very nice).

Second of all, we all know who works even harder on Federal holidays. “White people gave themselves a day off” is one comment I saw.

What we’ve taken to calling essential workers, more of whom…

So, to give some insight into my thought processes at times. Last night, I was riding a horse named Maggie who is an amazing horse, but can get very strong.

My thought process: “Maggie the Choo-Choo Train” (In the horse world it’s not uncommon to call a strong horse a “freight train”).

“You know, none of the engines in Thomas the Tank Engine are guys.”

“Well, yeah. The female characters are carriages.”

“They have no agency and can only go where a guy takes them.”

“Thomas the Tank Engine is really sexist.”

You can now mock me for never having…

Memory is a funny thing. I have to really concentrate to remember titbits of the route I took across campus in college, but I can mentally walk the entire route from my house to elementary school. (How much of that is from having to do it in a peasoup fog, though?)

Human memory is just plain weird, and here’s some ways in which it is particularly strange.

Time Slows Down When Forming Memories

Ever noticed how it takes longer to get somewhere, especially a new place, than to get back?

Now think about how long a year lasted when you were a teenager.

The more new…

The Hugo awards are given out by the World Science Fiction Society. For those who don’t know, they are a two layer award. Both nominating and voting is restricted to members of the World Science Fiction Society.

Which means people who pay an annual fee to be a member. It’s usually about $50. So, it might as well be a popular choice award.

Hugos are given out in a number of categories, and these include two categories for Dramatic Presentation.

The Dramatic Presentation Categories and Rules

The two Hugos given for Dramatic Presentation are “Long Form” and “Short Form.”

This is a simple division by length…

So, poulaines were these shoes guys wore back in Medieval times. They were known for having very, very long toes. Sometimes several inches. By the 15th century, wealthy men (and some wealthy women) wore them exclusively. In England, they were outlawed in 1463 because people were openly implying that they implied something about the length of a rather more private asset.

What Was the…Point?

Like many other more extreme fashion trends, the reason a guy wore very long toed poulaines was to demonstrate that you didn’t need to engage in physical labor.

In other words, they were hugely impractical, and that was the…

Romeo & Juliet might be the best known of Shakespeare’s plays, especially in terms of how many people know what happened in it. Even without seeing or reading it. West Side Story and an entire slew of books take the story and put it in new places, in new situations.

That doesn’t, though, mean that most people understand it. The worst error is to call it romantic; not only is Romeo & Juliet not a romance in the modern sense, but it’s a tragedy in which the lovers are supposed to be that dumb.

And the other thing people misunderstand…