The secret to hooking viewers is not to sell it as a TV series - it's a novel being shown on television (or a really really multi-part mini-series, I suppose). Season 1 is a bit slow, but mostly we're setting up places and people and themes. Sometimes the villain is a throwaway one-shot, and sometimes it's someone we're going to keep seeing for years and years.

Barring that, there's plenty of sites that list the "essential" episodes, so you can give them the short-version to get them hooked and then back up to get the details.

Well, properly - the series arc ends at season 4. Season 5 is the "everything else" season (basically, the B-plots that got bumped from season 4 to make room to finish the main arc). There's a lot of good stuff in there (the telepaths are a bit weak-sauce, I'll admit), but I enjoy it mainly for covering the "yay, we saved the day! Wait, what do you mean we have to keep working tomorrow?" angle that is often missing from big heroic stories. (Yes, you've started the ISA. Now you need to run it. Yes, you've sent the elder races away. Well, there were folks who really liked working for the Shadows and are a bit miffed that you chased them away. Hey, remember all those telepaths that saved your bacon? Time to pay the piper...)

Did he then post your home address online, and tell you he'd come over and assault you? That you're only use in life is as a pretty face to satisfy him?

No? Then it's not really in the same category, is it.

I've had (and delivered) crushing insults to work. Never felt the need to personally threaten anyone. (And I've had exactly *one* supervisor threaten my physically. Once. And I never worked with them again.)

Overwhelmingly is almost too light a word here. Let's put this into some hard numbers. Take 1000 rape cases, put all the victims on one side of the room, put all the perps on the other. There are ten women on the perp side of the room (outnumbered literally 99-to-1 by men), and 82 men on the other side of the room (outnumbered "only" 11-to-1 by women).

Go figure that women worry about being raped by men...

Of course, when something actually *does* happen to a woman, she'll be blamed for not being more careful. After all, she's been getting threats all this time, hasn't she? She shoulda known that it was dangerous to leave her house.

Why don't we step back a bit - when is death/assault threats *ever* a valid response to anything involving video games?

What's "sexual" about Girlfight? If it was called "Guyfight" or "Dudefight", would you assume the same?

Don't buy into the hype. My kid's seven, and we're still doing fine in a 2002 four-door Echo. (They call 'em Yaris these days). And that's counting a week long camping trip this year. Far more important than Massive Cargo Space is simply a back door to get the kid in-and-out of the seat. But what we save in fuel more than pays for the odd time we need to rent a larger vehicle.

Babies need a stroller and a diaper bag - bag goes next to kid, stroller goes in the trunk. (And after about a week you'll get one of those little umbrella strollers for the car because you don't actually need a Baby Suburban Stroller anyway.) Once they're toddler age you're down to just the bag for snacks and such, and that's about the same size as those big purses you see everywhere.

One small difference - when's the last time a poorly socialized woman went on a killing spree because men wouldn't date her? Or start spouting crap about "alphas" and "betas"?

Only one of the genders gets violently offended when things don't go their way. And the other gender gets blamed.

Then say nothing, and call in an anonymous tip afterwards.

Well, he is getting advice from "cyber engineers", so you gotta consider the source.

In all seriousness - I get that we want to make a differentiation between this and electrical or civic engineering, but please pick something better than "cyber". Otherwise don't be surprised when everyone expects you to look like a Borg drone in a suit.

Fair enough. But are you truly suggesting that hearing something is worse than hearing nothing?

Reading the article (I know, I'm terrible, I read TFA), the message I get is that the implants give options. Maybe they'll be unlucky and it won't help much, and they'll go the signing route. Maybe they'll be lucky and have little or no issues. But either way, they have *choices*. If it was my kid, I wouldn't have blinked before going for the implants.

Culture is entered, not inherited. Tell me my infant kid "belongs" to your culture? I'll show you where to shove your culture - my kid will decide for herself, thank you very much.

Even that doesn't look that terrible for an early attempt.

"Only two of the men adapted well to the mission. Of the other four, there was at least one major reason for concern, where we would ask, should we really send someone like this on a long mission," Basner said.

So, you have two well-adapted, three with issues, and one major problem. So, 1-in-3 did fine (which amusingly, is also roughly the early success rate of the rockets themselves). And that's before pointing out that the problems are attributed as much to *boredom* as isolation.

I read that, and I see useful research - they need useful things to do on the inbound and outbound trips. (I mean, if there's nothing to do - literally, nothing to do - wouldn't you sleep a bit more?)

Psychology being important is a good point as well - but that's a slightly different issue from "should we send one-way people". The problem is that some people just aren't suited to long trips with nothing to do. They'd probably have the same response if snowed in.

Fair enough on the food, but you're conflating "we fed them enough to survive and do work" with "the food was crap". (i.e. there's a reason we don't all eat healthy sludge three times a day). And you forgot the air issue.

As for Mars 500, amusingly the same article has at the bottom

Psychological effects According to official results, the crew of 520-day isolation underwent the trial as the single unit. There were no conflict situations noted, nor any situations requiring interference of the ground-based services.[38] The difficulties encountered during the performance of some complicated activities were overcome by the crew together. It is worth saying that cultural differences and language difficulties did not bare any significant influence. A friendly and constructive communication is said to have prevailed throughout the experiment. The crew spent enough time together, watching films in different languages, as an opportunity to see and discuss the seen films together. The crew prepared surprises for birthdays, major state holidays and informal holidays (on October 31st, they celebrated Halloween). It is possible to notice that the crew members somehow increased the time spent on individual activities, which did not hamper communication. There were no division of the crew along language lines or other interests to be noted. The commander exercised his authority as both a formal and informal leader.

Which seems to treat the solitude as a side-effect not worth worrying about. (One makes it sound like they're going loopy, while the other sounds like a natural response to being stuck in a oversized closet for years on end.)

I don't think anyone's saying we're ready to do Mars *today*. But you have to start somewhere, and part of that start is people willing to make the attempt. The will is the important part. Everything else is engineering. :)

Might want to read your own link: it also points out that they were suffering from lack of oxygen and food. Which, while illuminating the need to get those areas right (no good to have pretty trees if you can't breath properly!), doesn't really preclude the possibility of making it work.