Category: Various and Sundry

Various and Sundry

Recommended Reading: Coming Changes to Transportation

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

One of the reasons I’ve become more interested in learning about basic income and future potential economic models has been what appears to be the growing automation of everything. In other words, we’ve moved beyond automating factory and manufacturing processes (though we still automate that and refine that automation), and into automating service and analytical processes. Nowhere is this more evident than in the race to implement the self-driving car, because when the self-driving car…

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Various and Sundry

Let’s Get Back to Boldly Going

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

This is the 20th entry in a surprisingly long series of posts about Star Trek’s future and its fandom called Crisis of Infinite Star Treks. So, after Sunday’s somewhat somber, but cathartic post, I wanted to get back to the fun part of Star Trek. I mean, eventually, we’ll have to end the whole Crisis series. Right? Right? Yes, I know Axanar Productions responded to CBS/Paramount’s complaint yesterday which they talk about here and you can read…

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Producing Various and Sundry

As the Dust Settles on a TV Season

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I tweeted out Vox’s rundown of shows that were renewed, canceled, or ended via the Team J twitter a couple weeks ago, though it’s since been updated further. Last Tuesday, they not only updated that list, but Todd VanDerWerff did a great rundown of the various reasons a show might get canceled. Within that explanation comes a great overview about how TV shows make money. For those of us looking to understand the economics of making…

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Various and Sundry

Crisis of Infinite Star Treks: For the World Wide Web is Hollow and I Have Touched The Pie

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

This is the 19th entry in a surprisingly long series of posts about Star Trek’s future and its fandom called Crisis of Infinite Star Treks. I’m not saying this is the most depressing entry, but well, read on. I want to tell you a story. It’s not a particularly happy story, but it’s a true story. It’s my story and yet I feel it is many a fan’s story: one marked first by excitement, giddy anticipation, fear,…

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Various and Sundry

Crisis of Infinite Star Treks: Klingons are so Derivative

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

This is the 18th entry in an ongoing series about Star Trek fandom and its future called Crisis of Infinite Star Treks. Since “18” seems a good “age of ascension,” Worf would probably approve of this being more about Klingon. For those wondering from my post last week, I did go down the rabbit hole of fan news, commentary, and the stew of social media regarding the Axanar lawsuit… and the full report of that…

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Various and Sundry

Crisis of Infinite Star Treks: Not Exactly the The Corbomite Maneuver

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

This is the 17th entry in an ongoing series about Star Trek fandom and its future called Crisis of Infinite Star Treks. Based on today’s updates, I’ll be writing about this through Spring 2017. Who woulda thunk it? While this amounts to legal maneuvers around the Axanar Lawsuit, a judge issued a ruling on Monday that will allow the lawsuit to move forward. Essentially, it’s a rejection of Axanar’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, but…

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Various and Sundry

FiveThirtyEight Follow-up on Basic Income

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

A couple weeks ago, FiveThirtyEight did an in-depth look on universal basic income and I talked about it briefly here. This is a great group to look at it because they are so wonkily numbers-driven. They’re back with a quick video recap, but the whole thing makes me feel I should be writing more about it here on the blog. As we humans face more and more automation, it seems like we need to find an…

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Various and Sundry

Crisis of Infinite Star Treks: A Klingon Language Hypothetical Scenario

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I would say that it’s inconceivable that this is the 16th entry in an ongoing series on Star Trek’s future and fandom, but then you might say I don’t know what the word ‘inconceivable’ means. The Axanar lawsuit has gotten additional press since Friday. Peter Decherney in Forbes has an excellent article going into both the legal issues and the corporate strategy. Perhaps because of this, some lawyers I know have been sharing links on social…

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Various and Sundry

Recommended Reading: The Rise and Fall of HBO?

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I’ve been thinking about “Peak TV” and such from a couple of articles I talked about back in January. Of course, one of the issues with TV or any cinematic development is that you need something of a development pipeline. As Walt Hickey’s article on FiveThirtyEight last week goes into, that might be one of the biggest issues facing HBO right now. Apparently, Game of Thrones may be shorter lived than some of us hoped.

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Various and Sundry

Crisis of Infinite Star Treks: Being a P’tach about the Klingon Language

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Would you believe this is the 15th entry in an ongoing series on Star Trek’s future and fandom? Don Adams would. Eriq Gardner wrote a good article in the Hollywood Reporter yesterday about a recent amicus brief filed in relation to the CBS/Paramount lawsuit against the Axanar fan film. As I’ve mentioned earlier in this blog series, I absolutely believe that CBS/Paramount has real and legally binding ownership of Star Trek intellectual property (IP). For non-fans, this…

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