Josef “Jeff” Sipek

Yesterday, with a group of other people, I went to the Star Trek Exhibition at the Detroit Science Center.

Unforunately, photography is not allowed so if you want to see what it sort of looked like, you’ll have to look at the official slideshow.

It was really nice to walk around the bridge of the Enterprise - N C C one seven O one; no bloody A, B, C, or D.

We got a group photo (paid one of course) of the whole bunch of us on the bridge, I might post it when I get a copy of it.

There were plenty of items from all the different series as well as movies - including phasers, tricorders, costumes, ship models, etc., etc.

They had a transporter room (TNG-style), as well as the Guardian (from TOS: The City on the Edge of Forever). We got a group photo with the Guardian as well, I might post it when I get a copy.

Afterwards, we went to see the latest movie in the IMAX they have there. I saw the movie once already (back in May, I think) which was good as some scenes were really hard to follow on such a large screen (e.g., the bar-fight scene).

Overall, it was fun, and if you happen to be near Detroit or Philadelphia you should go and see it before it’s over.

Yesterday, I forgot to mention that I got myself a copy of Hamlet….in the original Klingon:

It’s been a month today since I moved to MI. Time flies! I know, I have been neglecting this blahg a whole lot, and I promise to try harder :)

Here are some photos of stuff from the past few days…

I like bread. This one even looks tasty:

A couple of days ago, I got myself a can of Spam. Unfortunately, it turns out, the can’s seal got compromised, and the insides look quite uneatable:

Today, I was doing some more grocery shopping, and I couldn’t resist but get some drink worthy of a warrior:

(Yes, that’s a 40th anniversary of the IBM S/360 mug.) It’s hard to identify the contents of the mug, so here’s a photo of the bottle:

That’s it for today’s what’s-Jeff-up-to post.

Monday, September 28, 1987 - The pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation aired. That’s 20 years today!

So, few hours ago, I watched Stargate SG-1’s episode number 200, aptly named “200.” It was a rather odd episode, which by itself wouldn’t have been that interesting if it wasn’t for all the references to a very large number of sci-fi shows. The two truly amazing references were to:

• Farscape — Since I haven’t watched it, I can’t say how much it is like Farscape, but from what I know they went crazy. (After all, they have Claudia Black.)
• Star Trek: The Original Series — Since I have seen all of it, I noticed that the actors (as well as the prop & set people) had a lot of fun trying to make it look and feel close as close to Star Trek as possible.

Overall, very funny episode - even though there was very little plot :)

So, I was at ICON the past 3 days. I took a bunch of photos of people and of the place; I went to a bunch of presentations; I did two presentation myself (with some other people); but the most interesting thing was when I went to a Q&A Session with George Takei on Saturday. (Those who don’t know who George Takei is: he’s Sulu from the Original Series of Star Trek.) There was this one guy, who asked him (Takei) if he (the guy) could have his tea cup. I found that an awesome idea. But it was too late.

The next day (Sunday = Today), I went to the second Q&A session, and asked Takei if I could get his tea cup. He said sure. :)

I know I am crazy, but I don’t care. I have an autographed tea cup, and you don’t.

(More photos to follow when I get to it.)

So, Linux Users’ Group @ Stony Brook is going to host an Install Fest at ICON — a science fiction convention right here in Stony Brook. Some of ICON’s guests include George Takei (Hikaru Sulu), Kevin Sorbo (Hercules), and even bizarre individuals such as Voltaire (author of “The U.S.S. Make-Shit-Up,” etc. in addition to most of the other “music.”)

So, show up, and have some fun!

So, here I was - resting after new years (PF 2006) when I decided to watch some Star Trek. Since I have a considerable backlog of episodes to watch I resumed where I left of last week… Star Trek: The Original Series, Season 2 Episode 14. In this episode, Kirk, et. al. goes down to a planet that seems to have had a history similar to that of Earth. The major difference was, the Roman Empire did not fall. So, the away team finds themselves on a planet with Roman values but mid 20th century technology. Well, at approximately 17 minutes into the episode, there are a bunch of shots of Roman buildings. At 17:27 in, there is this one:

When I saw that, I went: “Whoa! Is that….?” I couldn’t help but resist pausing and googling to make sure my suspicion was correct. And it turns out it was.

What exactly did I think when I saw the frame above? “Whoa! Is that Building 10 at MIT?” Yep. I knew the name or rather number of the building. (I blame the fact that I applied there as a freshman.) Here’s a photo I found on google that is from not too long ago:

And here is a link to the original of the above image. In the larger version you can clearly see the “MASSACHVSETTS INSTITVT OF TECHNOLOGY” and the year “MCMXVI.”

I think the reasons the producers chose the MIT shot were:

• Not everyone knows what it looks like, compared to say many of the Roman-like architecture buildings in Washington, DC.
• (Possibly) Star Trek does tend to be watched by more technologically oriented people. And it adds the episode a nice touch to show one of the major technology universities

Overall, it was a nice episode.

Ok, it is about two weeks too late, but I’ll share this anyway. Someone found this, and posted it to the Klingon Mailing List. The group immediately took it upon itself to translate it to Klingon.