This. My signs are rarely visible, even most t-shirts cover them, and I don't exactly go around flaunting them. It's a personal thing that tells something about me, for those who like to know. It's also a kind of joke about the perceived disjoint between those who have tattoos and those who work in education or research. That said, I've seen a surprising amount of ink in the teachers' lounges, and one of my most inked friends is an elementary school teacher; the university people seem more conservative than teachers in this sense, in my experience.

Some people might prefer an expensive suit or a fancy car to maintain a certain kind of image, and they don't seem to get the same kind of hate -- though that kind of image is usually associated with a status that attracts haters for other reasons.

It's pretty hard to go about your life not giving any kind of impression. If you avoid giving one at all, then chances are that others will come up with all kinds of false impressions.

I'd pay to see those stretch goats.

"Voyager" would have worked if the writers would have cut back severely on the booze. Kate Mulgrew is a fine actress, but the writing for her character was wildly inconsistent and the writing for the show varied between "going through the motions" and "people actually got paid for this crap?". If there was ever a by-the-numbers, we-can't-upset-the-status-quo-one-iota television show, it was "Voyager". You can go back and watch "Gilligan's Island" reruns and there is a more realistic chance that the castaways will get rescued in every single episode than there will be in the Voyager crew making any meaningful progress in getting back to Earth, until the finale-decreed deus ex machina.

If your brain did work, you'd likely have better appreciation for classic cinema, and if you still didn't like it, your criticisms would be more meaningful than "they are so terrible", therefore I conclude there is no evidence to back up your assertion.

I thought you were being sarcastic to make a point in the first paragraph.

In the second, I realized that maybe you weren't and I feel very sad for you. What do you like? Michael Bay movies?

Maybe not to you, but I've seen the three episodes of "Star Trek Continues" and I thought they were great. Yes, the acting the isn't always the best, but the effort faithfully created the look and feel of the original show and the stories were really good. You might not like it or think it's a good idea, but other people, like me, disagree with you, and are willing to finance the project so that it can continue. Therefore, it is a good idea.

Gee, a television show shouldn't feature its stars performing most of the action? The thing that ticks me off more than anything else about criticism of shows like Star Trek is people who refuse to acknowledge the trade-offs that needed to be made to make a _television show_ 50 years ago. Sure, let's have Ensign Ricky and a team of redshirts we don't care about be the away team because that's more realistic, and no one is interested in watching the show.

Says the Anonymous Coward. Being an Anonymous Coward surrenders your right to share an opinion and have anyone care about it.

Star Trek was fine science fiction, but it was soft science fiction, and the science part of the fiction wasn't often the core of the story, nor what made the show good.

Star Trek had plenty of cool ideas that have become reality, but every one of those ideas existed before Star Trek... it just made them more widely known, so it's a bit of a stretch to say it inspired all those ideas.

I'm a math/science guy, and I have math symbols on my arms. If I ever regret my affection towards math and science, I might as well have some skin torn off.

Besides, the capital Sigma works great whenever somebody asks me "Are you series?".

I used to do modelling on a supercomputer. That's like supermodelling, right?

It would certainly be interesting if the tunnel project helped balance out the drastic price/income/tax differences between Finland and Estonia, similarly to what has happened between Sweden and Denmark to some extent. Booze runs to Estonia are a national pastime in Finland where alcohol is heavily taxed and monopolized, while many an Estonian spends their weeks working well-paid jobs in Helsinki. Of course, our government is doing everything to curb the booze runs in the name of national health, intra-EU free trade be damned. Meanwhile, a lot of Finnish entrepreneurs are moving South to enjoy a more business-friendly taxation.

You know these two are the same thing? It's just a matter of coordinate transformation. Isn't the scientific name of a regular bear, like, Ursus Cartesius?