Club Admiralty Blog
Review: Star Trek: The Stardate Collection Volume 2 - Under the Command of Christopher Pike
Monday, Feb 22 2021, 07:05 Comic Book, Entertainment, goodreads, review, Sci-Fi, Social Media, Social Networks, Star Trek Permalink
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The adventures of Captain Pike are interesting, even though Marvel canceled the series in mid-story. Some characters are really out-of-character with what we've seen elsewhere in the Trek-universe, but this was still an interesting read :-)
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2020 Year In Beer
Saturday, Jan 30 2021, 14:00 Social Media, Social Networking, Social Networks, untappd, YearInReview PermalinkAnother Year In Review from a social site. This time on Untappd, which I use to keep track of various beers I've tried (so that I can remember whether I liked or didn't like them when I see them in the store). I don't expect of Untappd usage in 2021 since I've decided to take a break from beer in 2021, but we'll see. Here's what happened in 2020:


2020 Year In Books
Friday, Jan 29 2021, 16:30 Books, Comic Book, goodreads, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Networks, YearInReview PermalinkI usually post these a bit earlier in January, but here is my 2020 Goodreads year in review 🙂. I guess I met my minimum reading for 2020, even in a pandemic lockdown ;-)

New year, new plug-ins....
Thursday, Jan 28 2021, 18:00 RapidWeaver, realmacsoftware, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Networks, Software, web development Permalink
Happy New Year...even though it's close to the end of January 😀.
It's been a busy month, but things are coming down to "normal" levels of activity. After the crazy rush to finish my completed dissertation draft during the winter break, get caught up with the day job after the winter break, and get everything prepped for my teaching side-gig this spring, I had some time to update my website (club-admiralty.com).
For the longest period of time, I brought my old Mac Mini (2007) out of storage, plugged it in, and updated my site (that thing still runs MacOS 10.6 I think). I had RapidWeaver 6 on it, along with all the relevant plug-ins. It wasn't even the most up-to-date version of RW6 because some plugins were breaking left and right. Since I didn't have time to really troubleshoot I just left it as is. Most website updates were minor anyway.
Fast forward to more recently. I got RW8 on sale, so it was a good opportunity to get something that worked on my newer Mac (now I can probably install Linux on that old one), update the website, and try out some new things. Unfortunately, as technology progresses some things are left behind. Such is the case with one of my most used plugins: RapidBlog, which takes my blogger content and mirrors it on my domain. It seems like Loghound hung up his hat and exited the RapidWeaver scene. The person who maintained the plug-in has not updated it for newer versions of PHP, and with PHP5 being deprecated, RapidBlog has been retired. Luckily others use Blogger and want to integrate it into RapidWeaver sites, so a Stacks plug-in exists which offers something similar. What I liked about RapidBlog was that it downloaded an archive of your blog, so there was an offline version of it, and that I could use the iconic theme icons in my blog posts (whereas now I can't). Oh well, site is up and running so that's what matters. On the plus side, it seems like RW development has become very stacks-oriented while I was stuck on RW6, so there is new stuff to explore!
What I've been pondering lately is this: With all the distributed presence that we have on the web these days (facebook, youtube, twitter, etc.), how important is a distinct domain of one's own? And, how do I go about archiving my stuff from other sites in a way that's not just a portal view from my website? Something to ponder after I graduate and I can return to this hobby.

Review: How to Be Black
Monday, Sep 7 2020, 12:18 Books, Entertainment, goodreads, Humor, review, Social Media, Social Networks, Society Permalink
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I won this book at a conference a few years back (Baratunde was one of the keynote speakers) and I finally had a chance to read it. For someone who didn't spend all of my formative years in the US, I think the subject is approached in a humorous and approachable manner. Heck, in some segments, Baratude's narrative might as well describe growing up Greek-American ;-) Definitely worth a read. Obviously, there is a lot more under the surface to explore, but this was a good intro.
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Review: Star Trek: The Stardate Collection Volume 1
Sunday, Sep 6 2020, 11:47 Comic Book, Entertainment, goodreads, review, Sci-Fi, Social Media, Social Networks, Star Trek, StarTrek Permalink
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This was fun to read. This collection puts together comics in chronological order, so we get to see the original commissioning of the Enterprise 1701, we are introduced to "Number One" as a cadet, and later on we get to see Captain Pike and some of the "original" crew, pre-Kirk. Some stories are stories we know but narrated from the perspectives of other crew members. I wish more of the older comics (regardless of the original publisher) were collected like this :-)
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Review: The Orville #4: The Word of Avis Part 2 of 2
Friday, Jul 31 2020, 09:16 Comic Book, Entertainment, goodreads, Orville, review, Sci-Fi, Social Media, Social Networks Permalink
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
More of a comment on both parts of this story: Interesting commentary on religion (in a way that only a comedy can do it). I did find the story a bit unbelievable - anthropologists converting from (essentially) atheists to the religion of the Krill just by studying their sacred writing, but it was an interesting Orville tale nevertheless. At the end of the story, it sets up a potential for a continuing series in comic form.
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Review: The Orville #1: New Beginnings Part 1 of 2
Thursday, Jul 30 2020, 09:13 Comic Book, Entertainment, goodreads, Orville, review, Sci-Fi, Social Media, Social Networking Permalink
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
More of a comment on both 1+2 of this series. Interesting story. Gives a bit of background on the "federation" equivalent in the Orville universe. It's interesting that the old-style uniforms had rank insignia like TNG ;-). We also get to see sentient fowl, which was very Mighty Max :-). Some of the Orville crew get stranded on a planet where they discover the remains of a ship that was lost a long time ago. One of the ship's junior officers rigs the replicators to produce food for the locals after the econological disaster (that the ship inadvertently caused) kills most things off and makes life on the planet unsustainable. What will the crew of the Orville do?
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Review: DS9: Hearts And Minds
Saturday, Jul 25 2020, 15:37 Comic Book, DS9, Entertainment, goodreads, review, Sci-Fi, Social Media, Social Networks, Star Trek, StarTrek Permalink
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
It's interesting how much play the gamma quadrant gets in the comics, yet in the series I don't recall them ever making such a big deal of it (most issues on DS9 seems alpha and beta quadrant related). This mini-series is all about the Klingons and the Cardassians butting heads because the Romulans make it look like a Klingon ship has been destroyed by a Cardassian ship in the gamma quadrant. Interesting story, with a nice little quark sub-plot.
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Review: Star Trek: Voyager: Mirrors and Smoke
Saturday, Jul 18 2020, 03:30 Comic Book, Entertainment, goodreads, review, Sci-Fi, Social Media, Social Networks, Star Trek, StarTrek Permalink
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I always enjoy a good mirror universe story. Voyager (like TNG) didn't have an on-screen mirror universe, but it's interesting to see that even in the mirror universe Janeway and crew were stranded in the Delta quadrant. Faced with the prospect of returning to the alpha quadrant to fight a losing battle with the KCA, they decided to stay in the delta quadrant and become space pirates.
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