Henk van de Goor's Bloggers@large

When I moved to my new home in October, I also got a so-called triple-play deal with my telecom provider UPC. So I got hi-speed Internet access (16mbps), VoIP telephony, and digital TV (on demand etc). Instead of just the standard TV-channels, I also got all the extra channels that go with it. Including SciFi Channel (Dutch version). And boy, did I get hooked.... All my favorite old and new Sci-Fi series are shown there.

But I must confess that the one TV-series that really got me drawn in, is the new Battlestar Galactica. I watched the late '70's early '80's version and always thought it was cool series. I wasn't that enthousiastic when I learned that there was a new version of the series (just like some other '80's series have been revived). I never saw one episode however, until recently when I started to watch SciFi Channel.

To my surprise the new Battlestar Galactica series is fast paced, has a great story-line and is just a joy to watch. I was also lucky that I stumbled right into the start of the first season, when I started watching it. My DVR has been taping every episode since then..

The only problem: I just saw the season 2 finale: "Lay down your Burdens part 2". And now I have to wait till season 3 starts! Sadly the Dutch Sci-Fi channel website has no information whatsoever on when it will pick up again!

What the frak!

I'm going through some major "BSG" withdrawal! Hopefully I can find the series on usenet or P2P.

Forget robots. Think "exoskeleton".

Please, please, pretty please; can someone put a cork on religion? Some say money is the root of all evil but I say it's religion. About a week ago my friend Vincent mailed me about something I had missed completely as I was busy working my ass off. The Dutch TV station EO (Evangelic Broadcasting Company) secretly has been removing all references to evolution from their programs and most notably from David Attenborough's documentary 'The Life of Mammals'. They even completely ignored a whole episode that is dedicated to the evolution of mankind from apes to homo erectus.

The reason why the EO did this is simple; evolution has no place if you believe in creationism. Obviously for the EO this means that you can just apply censorship and just cut out everything that does not fit your beliefs. Even though - clearly - believing that God created heaven and earth in 6 days is just ludicrous. Every piece of scientific evidence points in the direction of evolution and the fact that Earth is older than 10.000 years.

I guess there is no point in even starting to debate things like this with the people that believe in creation. What's even worse: now there are (religious) people that start teaching some other travesty of science, called "intelligent design". Intelligent design claims that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." Therefor there must be a "God".

A key strategy of the intelligent design movement is convincing the general public that there is a debate among scientists about whether life evolved, in order to convince the public, politicians and cultural leaders that schools should "teach the controversy". However: there is no such debate. Within the scientific community the scientific consensus is that life evolved.

Luckily for us Europeans most people seem to have some braincells left. In June of 2007 the Council of Europe's "Committee on Culture, Science and Education" issued a report, The dangers of creationism in education, which states "Creationism in any of its forms, such as 'intelligent design', is not based on facts, does not use any scientific reasoning and its contents are pathetically inadequate for science classes." In describing the dangers posed to education by teaching creationism, it described intelligent design as "anti-science" and involving "blatant scientific fraud" and "intellectual deception" that "blurs the nature, objectives and limits of science."

Sometimes a TV-series grows on you. A lot of TV-series I never got into until later or even when they started to have the re-runs. The same goes for "Enterprise". The series has already been cancelled in the USA where the last epsiode aired in May 2005, and is currently in the third season here in Holland. At first I was excited that there was going to be a new Star Trek series: I loved the original Star Trek series (ST:TOS) and really enjoyed Star Trek: The Next Generation (ST:TNG). I never was a fan of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (ST:DS9) but I really thought that Star Trek: Voyager (ST:VOY) was the best of the series. However, the last few weeks I started to follow Enterprise and I must say that I really enjoy it! For those not quite familliar with the Star Trek franchise; Enterprise is set up as a prequel to the other Star Trek series. The pilot episode takes place ten years before the founding of the Federation, about halfway between the events shown in the film Star Trek: First Contact and the original Star Trek series. I wasn't all that excited when I heard that. But in fact it has proven quite interesting. Gone are the polished uniforms, computers and nearly invinceable weapons. And most of all: there is no "prime directive" yet.

Basically, the main characters in Enterprise are exploring the boundaries of ethical behaviour in the age of space travel and interstellar relations. And I must say it is proving very interesting. As it seems the third season is the best out of four and I already regret that I know it will be all over soon. As with the previous series the characters are very well choosen and I do like the story lines. It is just a more 'unpolished' version of Starfleet and deals with a lot of subjects that explain some of the themes that were used in the earlier series that are actually set later into the future.

Of course I liked "Borg-babe" Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), but I do say that I also fancy Vulcan subcommander T'Pol (Jolene Blalock). Paramount sure knows how to appeal to nerds. I think it's the first time where a Vulcan is portrayed to be a drug-addict and also has a sexual relation with a crew member (something that never was shown explicitly in any ST series - that I know of) which is consistent with epsiodes that are set in later time-lines in the Star Trek universe.

All in all I am currently glued to the TV, trying not to miss the last episode of the third season, that airs tomorrow: Zero Hour. As far as I can tell now it is a worthy seasons finale and it looks like season four is going to be... interesting...

Ps: more cool news, it is now official that there is going to be another Star Trek movie; working title Star Trek XI.