If it’s the USA, then “iced tea” may actually mean “sweet tea” (an American South tradition), which is often prepared something like this:

• bring 1/2 gallon (1.9L) water to a boil
• place 8 large black tea bags in a 1 gallon (3.8L) pitcher
• pour boiling water over the tea bags in the pitcher
• steep 10-15 minutes, then remove tea bags from the pitcher
• add 1 dry cup (220g) granulated sugar
• stir the slurry until sugar is dissolved
• fill the pitcher to the top with ice cubes
• wait 20 minutes for ice to chill and dilute the tea, gently stir again
• serve

It may be a stronger tea, but so much sugar gets added (probably 3x what would be used to sweeten tea served hot) that you typically don’t notice any bitterness.

It’s like in Unpretty, that 90s song by TLC:

you can buy your hair if it won’t grow

you can fix your nose if you say so

you can buy all the iPhones that MAC can make

I’m pretty sure that “oh, shoot, things got wonky… toss a 13th month in here real quick” is due to people trying to force months to fit weeks.

It’s the opposite of what I was saying about the role that months play in timekeeping & how they work.

ALSO, the same can be said for weeks & leap days… so if it’s a point against months, it’s just as much a point against weeks.

Months are one of the best ways for a low-tech/pre-tech culture to keep track of dates (using the Zodiac for something it can actually do—act as a calendar you can see no matter where you are in the world).

Keeping them around is a sensible fail-safe in case some nuclear power sets us back into the dark ages.

It’s definitely been translated into the most used languages, but there are a bunch more that are being worked on still.

Here’s an infographic on it from another org: https://www.wycliffe.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/2023_Infographic-Large_EN.pdf

Looks like the way they calculate it, 80% of people in the world have access to a full translation of the Bible in their language.

Original sin: AI edition

I think the controversy of Janeway’s choice is largely due to the show’s failure to address the orchid of it all.

As I see it, Tuvix is not “Tuvok + Neelix,” but also isn’t “something new.” I maintain that Tuvix is primarily the orchid, which has subsumed the essence and personalities of two Voyager crew members and is asserting itself on board the ship.

All it would have taken is for Janeway to have maintained (or be convinced by another) that this was the case, and it would be the obvious choice to split them back up.

Of course that would negate the tension of the episode, but it could be left as “not everyone on board agrees that this is who/what Tuvix is, but Janeway believes it so that’s why her decision isn’t immoral.” We could have the same kinds of “was Janeway wrong?” debates, but some of the rough edges would be smoothed out, I think.

My understanding of the concept was that it was something like multiple channels of data being sent along the same wire. So long as the frequencies are the right kind of different they’ll essentially exist completely independent of each other.

Maybe this requires a minimum of two time dimensions so that the variance can result in the different beings following time along different “tracks”?

I took Troi’s awareness of the beings to be a result of the intermittent overlapping bits of time where they did overlap. Like, it happened too quickly to perceive visually, but enough for the empath to have something to pick up on.

“Fair” in the context of this phrase is meant to convey “beautiful” but literally meant “light or pale skinned.”

“Maiden” is meant to convey “young woman,” but literally meant “virgin” (as in “maiden voyage”).

The Prime Directive seems at least a little bit hypocritical if it fails to discriminate between species on a planet.

I’m thinking about how there are dolphins serving on some Starfleet ships. Was the PD undeveloped when they were introduced? Was there a pre-warp history of Earth’s humans and cetaceans working together in similar capacities (such that they could be seen as sharing a collective technological culture)?

I already quote Mario’s “Let’s a go!” whenever I’m trying to get my family into the car. It’d be a hoot to break that out each time and watch my bridge crew try to contain the groans and eye rolls.