Why Into Darkness Retroactively Makes Star Trek Better

(This post is going to spoil the daylights out of the new Star Trek movie. I'll put all the spoilers after the jump, but, if you haven't seen the film and have managed to avoid the big spoilers so far, consider yourself warned.)

Science fiction is important. Our fiction says a lot about our society, and our science fiction says a lot about what we want (or don't want) for our future. Star Trek Into Darkness is a terrific example of how our society shapes our fiction, and the other way around. You need look no farther than the dedication in the credits to see how wrapped up in social commentary our fiction is.

Star Trek Into Darkness was a moderate box office success. The film had mixed reception from both critics and fans, who largely hailed it as a good popcorn flick but lacking in the lore and depth that made the original Star Trek great. One major criticism of the movie is that it buys too much into Hollywood "guy culture" mythology, for a lack of strong female characters.

Discussion about race, on the other hand, has been scant, but not entirely favorable. I want to focus on one casting choice in particular, however, and how a little bit of revisionist history makes the whole Star Trek franchise more nuanced.

And seriously, stop reading here if you do not want the movie spoiled.

Are Etsy Lawyers Bullying Jayne Hat Makers?

(If you're familiar with the Jayne hat controversy, skip the introduction and get right to the good stuff.)

The Jayne hat. Oh, the Jayne hat.

If you're a fan of the short-lived show Firefly, you already know what I'm talking about. If not, the shortest coherent explanation I can give is this: In one episode, Jayne Cobb, the big thug character (who secretly has a good heart) receives a hand-knitted laplander-style hat from his mother. It is brightly colored, with a pom-pom, and is fairly silly-looking and entirely inappropriate to his general demeanor -- which is what makes it perfect. Jayne loves the hat, and wears it in a climactic scene involving guns and threats of violence.

In the intervening years, the Jayne hat has become iconic for Firefly fans. "Browncoats" (Firefly fans) have been knitting the tricolor hats for about a decade. I actually own one, made for me personally as a birthday gift. You see them all over conventions; they're an instant symbol for the fanbase.

You can see where this is going. Recently, Fox, which owns the rights to Firefly, licensed a manufacturer to start selling official Jayne hats. I actually applaud that move -- why should only fans who know knitters get to show off the accessory? But, of course, it didn't stop there, and Fox (not having learned from, oh, any other decision they ever made involving the Firefly franchise) started sending cease & desist letters to online sellers of handmade Jayne hats.

Unlike most people commenting on the situation (and even most Jayne hat knitters talking about it), I actually think Fox is on pretty shaky legal ground. Despite what they would have people think, it's not at all clear that Fox has any legal right to stop people from knitting red, orange, and yellow laplanders and calling them "Jayne hats" -- and, if they can, that should give us pause. (That may be the subject of a future post, but it would take a fair bit of research to cover the topic adequately.) But let's, for the moment, suppose that they do.

There's someone in this controversy who is cutting a path even closer to the line, and even more dangerous, than Fox. It's Etsy. And it all relies on something we were never supposed to see.

Red Equal Signs: A Study in Sorting?

(Now that the bar exam is over and I have had time to sort out a number of personal and professional items, this blog is being revived. Sorry for the suspense.)

Odds are, you have a Facebook account. No, really. Over 50% of Americans have Facebook accounts. So, odds are, you have a Facebook account. (25 other countries are also over the 50% threshold, including the United Kingdom and Canada.) So, odds are, you've seen a red equal sign in the last few days.

In the extremely unlikely event you don't know what I'm talking about, here's what happened. This week, the U.S. Supreme Court, highest court in the country, heard challenges to the laws known as Proposition 8 (the California law prohibiting the performance of same-sex marriages in that state) and the Defense of Marriage Act (the U.S. federal law restricting federal marriage benefits from same-sex marriages*). Among the many memes and other trends on the Internet relating to the cases, Facebook was awash in red. The Human Rights Campaign urged followers to change their profile pictures in support of marriage equality, and it caught on. I haven't seen any estimates of how many people changed their pictures, but it was a lot. It also spawned a number of spoofs, from Ernie & Bert to corgis to bacon.

This is not a post about marriage equality. Sorry to disappoint. But I am going to talk about Facebook and social sorting, so click on!

#1ReasonWhy Gamers Should Care About This Trend

I tried really hard not to write this post.  I've touched on gender in two posts before, but this subject is so big, and so delicate, that I was legitimately worried to write it.  But the #1ReasonWhy trend on Twitter today has convinced me that I need to approach this topic.  This post is going to be long.  It might be uncomfortable.  And, while I have tried to keep the language here tame and analytical, it might be difficult for some people to read -- and some of the content I link might contain triggers.

I don't develop games.  In gaming, I am strictly a consumer.  I have, however, been playing console games since 1991 and online games since 1997.  Gaming, in its many forms, is a hobby of mine and an important element in my social life.  I'm also a fan of pencil-and-paper roleplaying games and tech culture in general, two areas that share a large portion of their populations with the "gamer" culture.

In case you haven't seen the Internet for the past 24 hours, #1ReasonWhy is a massive trend in social media today discussing why women are (drastically) underrepresented in the game design industry.  It started with one simple question, and has resulted in a torrent of tweets about sexism in the industry, a movement to create mentoring relationships, and many blog posts on the subject.  The movement has thrown a light on some truly disturbing trends (and also a series of heartwarming stories).

However, people outside the gaming industry -- and particularly men -- may be struggling to see the relevance of this trend.  As a male gamer, I have found the #1ReasonWhy trend very striking, and I'm writing this post to explain why other male gamers should care about it.

The reason is this:  Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, The Sith Lords.

No, really.  I'm serious.

Take This DRM. It's Dangerous to Distribute Games Alone.

(I am back after a couple of weeks of intense thesis immersion.  So let's talk about The Legend of Zelda.)

Let's be honest: If you never wanted to erase Navi, link's fairy companion in The Ocarina of Time, then you never played The Ocarina of Time.  If I had to make a list of the top modifications I wanted to otherwise great games, deleting Navi would top the list, and it wouldn't even be close.  If I had the time, energy, and technical skill, I would go back and erase Navi from the game myself, just to be able to go back and play the game without her.

Entrepreneur, gamer, and candidate for Dad of the Year Mike Hoye recently modded his own copy of The Wind Waker, Link's first adventure on the GameCube in the Legend of Zelda series.  He didn't remove the fairy companion; to the best of my knowledge (I don't own a GameCube), there is no fairy companion in The Wind Waker.  Instead, he painstakingly changed the dialogue to change protagonist Link's gender from male to female.

Hoye enjoys playing video games with his daughter, but was frustrated by the lack of positive female role models in games.  So he did the sensible thing, and built one.  He didn't change the plot or the function of the game, just a few words here and there to make the game more accessible to his daughter.  He also made his modifications available to the public for other concerned parents.

But this isn't a post about gender in video games.  Everyone knows that video games have done a terrible job of handling gender in any sensible way, with very few and limited exceptions.  No, I want to talk about copyright.  Mike Hoye's labor of love is demonstrative of why our copyright system isn't just broken; it's insanely broken.

Why?  Hoye's brilliant Zelda hack is probably illegal.

Italy's Assault on Science? Not Necessarily.

I have seen a lot of ink over the conviction of six Italian scientists (and one other government official) in L'Aquila last week. The coverage, to put it mildly, has been bad. A serious injustice has occurred here, but most of the English-language media have been too busy sensationalizing to comment meaningfully on it.

For anyone not familiar with the situation, a 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy, caused the deaths of more than 300 people. In the days leading up to the earthquake, tremors in the area appeared to indicate a coming earthquake. One Italian official, on information from the Italian National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks, stated that an earthquake was unlikely. After the quake, the official and six scientists at the Commission were charged with manslaughter on the theory that their "inexact, incomplete and contradictory" statements caused people to stay when they should have fled the area. Last week, the Italian court handed down a verdict of guilty and a potential sentence of 6 years.

Make no mistake about it: This is a bad thing. Seven people who do not deserve imprisonment look likely to get it. (Although, under Italian law, the sentence must be reviewed.) But the English-language press, out of the United States and United Kingdom, has largely missed the point. They have focused on largely on two things: 1) This conviction bends the definition of "manslaughter" and 2) This conviction is an attack on science that will have a chilling effect on how scientists do business.

I am not really convinced that either one is true.

FTC Gets Crowdsourcing Right, Sets Example for Rest of US Government

When I interned in the federal government in 2010 and 2011, the government was experimenting with crowdsourcing to its employees. Every once in a while I would receive an e-mail soliciting ideas for what the department could do to save money and eliminate waste. The best idea each round would receive some recognition, and the department would implement it. (I can't remember if there was a cash bounty attached.) Submissions usually involved saving on electricity by turning off electronics or reducing paper waste by changing printing policies. I appreciated the idea, but it wasn't generating any landscape-changing policies.

Around the same time, the Government Services Administration (with input from the Office of Management and Budget) rolled out Challenge.gov, an online platform for soliciting ideas from the public. Much broader in scope, Challenge.gov is available for any government department to post challenges to the entire public. Challenges on the site range from video essays on responsible saving to launching nano-satellites to orbit. Again, this idea is an intriguing step, but limited exposure and lack of focus have limited its appeal.

This week the Federal Trade Commission has changed the game, I believe. The just-announced FTC Robocall Challenge has all the elements to get the viral attention a crowdsourcing initiative really needs.

The FTC wants you to "Be a hero." I think people will answer the call.