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Is Digital Rvier still around? I downloaded a copy of Windows 7 Home OEM about nine or ten months ago for my wife's shitty ASUS laptop (which is now going to get Linux Mint tossed on it and be transformed into a glorified video player).

Oh, I know. He was well rewarded for playing Spock. I think we all knew this was coming for a while; he had largely retired from public appearances, and then the reports a few days ago that he had been admitted to the hospital.

I plan on celebrating his life and his unique and significant contributions by watching a collection of my favorite ST:TOS episodes;

- Amok Time (who doesn't want to watch horny Vulcans fight to the death)
- City On The Edge Of Forever (more a Kirk episode, but Spock plays a pretty damned important role)
- Doomsday Machine (great scene where Spock removes Decker from command)
- Mirror, Mirror(evil Spock is just so fucking cool, and who doesn't enjoy watching Chekhov writhe in pain)
- A Taste of Armageddon (great episode that shows how Star Trek could go after tough issues in novel ways, and also the first real introduction to Vulcan mind powers)
- The Tholian Web (has a great scene between Spock and McCoy)
- And I'll top it off with The Wrath of Khan

The only kudos I'll give to Dell is that they still ship a clean Windows install DVD and a driver disk. Pretty much the first thing I do after I've made sure a new computer starts up is to immediately wipe out the partitions and install clean from disk.

Most of it isn't helpful at all, and some of it is downright diabolical.

I think, once he had come to terms with the good and the bad of playing an iconic and culturally significant character, he was willing to accept that Spock had been a positive influence on a lot of people. In the later years he showed a good deal of pride, and really he and other members of the cast were quite influential in a very positive way.

And, from the perspective of the Star Trek franchise, I think Nimoy has to be given a lot of credit. His portrayal of Spock made him probably the most popular actor of the cast (Bill Shatner has talked in the past of how he got a bit jealous that the bulk of fan mail during the TOS run usually came for Nimoy).

While I don't think much of the reboots, I think there's a reason that Abrams got Nimoy to reprise the role, and showed little interest in Shatner reprising Kirk. Spock is a touchstone character, and if you're going to try to bring some credibility to your reboot, you're going to want to pick that kind of a character for the job.

It was a pretty inspirational cast; Spock's dedication to science was inspirational, and there are plenty of people who talk about how Scotty inspired them to engineering. Nichelle Nichols and George Takei both were members of minorities who were given fairly prominent positions on the Enterprise at a time when many minority characters were still played by Caucasians (I'm thinking about Mickey Rooney's obnoxiously awful portrayal of an Asian in Breakfast At Tiffany's, released just five years before ST:TOS).

I was thinking that that was my favorite scene as well. I actually also like the similar scene from The Motion Picture (not included in the original theatrical cut, sadly) where Kirk looks to Spock, who has tears streaming down his face, and explains "I weep for V'ger as I would for a brother." In a movie that sadly lacked the emotional angle that TOS and the later films usually had, it was a nice touch.

Thankfully, Nimoy's mixed feelings about Spock and about his experience on The Motion Picture didn't so taint him that he didn't reprise his character, because that makes me think of his death scene from Wrath of Khan, which again shows Nimoy's ability to bring deep feelings to a character that spent a good deal of time reminding everyone of how logical and dispassionate he was.

Yes. The character of Spock in so many ways represented Roddenberry's hope for the future; where reason and science would be used for the betterment of humanity.

What I liked about Nimoy's portrayal was that he always allowed Spock's fundamental humanity to peak out through the sides. It was always subtle, often little more than his famed raising of the eyebrow, but it somehow gave Spock so much depth.

One only has to look at Zachary Quinto's take on Spock to see Nimoy's deliberate and effective acting choices. I'm not saying Quinto's portrayal is bad, but it lacks the subtlety that Nimoy brought to the character.

Yes, a very sad day. Nimoy created one of the great cultural icons of the 20th century.

I thought Prometheus, all in all, was an excellent film. The only element that really bothered me was just how achingly stupid the captain of that ship was. But other than that sour point, the film was very good.

Boy, does that take me back!

Now get off my lawn!

That's simplifying the concept of falsification to the point of inaccuracy, or more appropriately in your case, an outright lie.

As to counter-studies, some fraud paper published in a Mexican pseudo-journal does not constitute the destruction of AGW.

I'm assuming such deals are now rendered unenforceable.

The FCC sucks. Allowing ISPs to openly and brazenly fuck over content producers and their own customers is worse. The ISPs brought this on themselves.

Won't the market solve this problem? ISPs with smaller limits will be at a disadvantage?