Lao Tzu, who seems to have a line for every human inanity compressed into his 81 little poems, said (in my translation):

"There is no greater disaster, no blinder ignorance
than not knowing when you have enough."

Hills and valleys, poetic images and wistful metaphors delivered with Shakespeareian bemusement over a cup of Earl Gray in the ready room, near the end of another episode's close shave with some Cosmic Anomaly or other. Perhaps Q is there as well, whispering: "the trial never ends, Jean Luc..."

I write: by day, technical documentation. By night, the kind of stuff I actually like to write. But I would have thought "cat" would be among the choices at a geek site!

BTW everyone: treasure your kittehs, they just don't last long enough here and leave a big hole in your chest when they have to go.

See my sig line below: Buckminster's the man to read, you geeks.

Agreed - I've written at some length on this topic (see the footnote); and the BMI is not helping at all. Geeks here may find my approach to this question excessively new-agey and such, but the point is merely that weight loss is not a superficial undertaking, even if you consider it from a purely mechanical positivist perspective.

I'm fairly sure Commander Data would have come up with some more engaging compositions; this stuff could be placed in an online dictionary beside the word "dull." I suspect that in the next few generations the algorithm will be as abused in applied practice as email, texting, and video have been in our time. Still, if it goes well and the corporations stay away from it long enough for it to develop naturally, the algorithm could become a faltering forward step in human evolution. I am admittedly not confident about that, but it is a good target for hope.

Well, yeah, he could be. But for that to be, you must become the fool who would persist in his folly. Go so deeply into that darkness that only dark remains. Then it's all a great, purgative laugh.

I was just writing about this last week. One of my points is that there simply isn't enough information given in the series (most notably TNG and Voyager) to draw any inferences, let alone conclusions, That's what I mean by my desire to see "the real drama" of those ST stories -- what's really going on in the Terran system that makes that Wall St. goon awoken from his cryogenic sleep such a stranger there. It's such a fascinating notion, this amaterialistic global economy, that a completely new series could be made about it, but as presented it's all too vague.

a ring. Next big thing you know: throw away your watch, the e-moodring is here, coming to a finger near you.

oh c'mon give Jeff a break, it's hard to sell newspapers.