I haven't bothered using my posts to just repost links to other sites, because first of all, I want you to read my blog, and second of all, I assume you probably know how to use the Internet. But then I saw an article over at The Register, and figured it was as good as example as any of something that really pisses me off. And if I'm all about one thing on this blog (aside from being awesome), it's complaining about st00p1d shit.
Apparently a professor at prestigious John Hopkins U School of Medicine has taken time out of his busy day to explain that warp speed, a famous FAKE aspect of famous SCIENCE FICTION show Star Trek, is not actually something that is real. Why he felt the need to do this is beyond me, except that the Abramsverse psuedo-Star Trek movie has become inexplicably popular, meaning that hipsters otherwise unfamiliar with the definition of science fiction now want to know how much stuff from the movie is real. And instead of looking it up on the Internet like everyone else, they apparently grab the nearest professor and ask his eminently qualified opinion.
Which in itself isn't a bad thing. Professors are only professors because they profess stuff, so it makes sense to ask them questions. But this specific example is st00p1d for two reasons:
1) As I've already pointed out, Star Trek is SCIENCE FICTION, which means it contains FICTIONAL SCIENCE. Sure, it uses real scientific terms to make its lie-science sound real, but that really doesn't confuse the matter, since Hollywood does that all the time. This is a franchise that prominently features rubber monster suits and silicon elf ears, so I find it a little hard to believe that there are people who really think anything it shows is possible.
Of course many of you are so goddamn st00p1d that this is a real thing, so never-the-fuck-mind Reason #1.
2) The professor tasked with answering this question about the real-ness of SCIENCE FUCKING FICTION is Dr. Bill Edelstein, a radiologist. Now I'm not saying anything negative about radiology professors. I'm sure they are perfectly good professors when it comes to radiology. But that's the problem - Bill Edelstein the Science...Gein is a professor of RADIOLOGY, not IS STAR TREK REAL. Well, okay, maybe that's not fair. I don't think 'Professor of Is Star Trek Real' is a real thing.
Uh...okay, let me rethink where I was going with this...
Okay. Got it. Here's my point. Since 'Professor of Is Star Trek Real' IS a real thing, people should be asking one of them about whether Star Trek is real, and not a radiologist. Because while a professor of Is Star Trek Real is an expert in the field of whether Star Trek is real or not (and it isn't, so I'm not sure what the blue hell is going on here), a radiologist is an expert in the field of x-rays and MRIs and possibly the Incredible Hulk and the Fantastic Four. It would even make more sense to ask a geology professor, biology professor, astronomy professor, physics professor or chemistry professor if Star Trek is real, since Star Trek's SCIENCE FICTION is often FAKE versions of these scientific fields. What I'm saying is, these people would probably know better than a radiology professor about Star Trek's FAKE SCIENCE. Because I don't recall Star Trek ever showing a sentient x-ray machine trying to have sex with Jonathan Frakes's beard.
So st00p1d as it is, someone apparently asked Dr. Bill about the real-ness of warp drive, and he answered the question. And his answer? "No, because it would make hydrogen atoms kill you." Which is basically a sciencey way of saying "WARP DRIVE IS SCIENCE FICTION, YOU FUCKING IDIOTS." Which is how I would have answered the question. Which no one asked me, because I'm not a professor of Is Star Trek Real. Or a radiologist.
Of course, I AM a Star Trek fan, and therefore I AM qualified to point something out. Because the writers of Star Trek like to make their FAKE SCIENCE seem real, they went out of their way to make up a reason warp speed works without hydrogen-shredding everyone to death. This is called subspace, and it's basically a dimension just underneath real space where things can fly faster than the speed of light (which is what warp speed is) without running into the hydrogen atoms of real space. The ship enters a warp speed or subspace bubble, which is in subspace. Neither Dr. Bill nor The Register seems to know this. And understandably so, because it's something only hardcore Star Trek nerds and part-time, well-read Star Trek nerds (such as myself) would know.
Except that you'd think Dr. Bill and/or The Register would take time to at least Wiki the particulars of the FAKE concept, so that when they announced it wouldn't work in real space, they wouldn't look like tools for pointing out something that the writers of Star Trek ALREADY TOOK THE TIME TO POINT OUT BY INVENTING SUBSPACE.
So not only is this whole thing st00p1d, it's redundant, unnecessary, poorly-Googled st00p1d.
I of course blame J.J. "Hipster Trek" Abrams for all of this.
