theredroom
The most surprising thing to me here, is that I’m looking at a scuba diver writing on what appears to be a piece of paper on a clipboard.
Neato! It really is just a piece of (waterproof) paper on a clipboard – and you write on the clipboard, too – and with just a regular graphite pencil. I can’t say I’ve ever given much thought to how one might write underwater in that situation, but if I had, I would’ve guessed some sort of waterproof tablet. But it’s cool to see that sometimes the basics work better.
Now I’m imagining the TOS version where 3/4 of the pie chart is “gets some tail”, and 1/4 is “thinly veiled cold war allegories” about a society in decline that’s lost all individuality and forgot how to function, as it’s being run by a computer. (Although most of those involve getting some tail, too.)
lol Let it be known I have nothing against Majel Barrett. I immensely appreciate the endless work she put into keeping Trek going over the years, I love that her computer voice is omnipresent, I dig her as Nurse Chapel, and I think she would’ve been great as #1 on TOS, had she continued the role. Personally, I just think the writers pushed the earlier Lwaxana character too far into purposefully annoying territory, and without enough redeeming qualities to balance it out. She embodied some highly dislikable characteristics – a narcissistic sense of entitlement, being rudely dismissive, ignoring boundaries and being seemingly oblivious to others’ feelings – which never made sense to me, her being a telepath. Either she’s a Betazoid lacking in telepathy, or she’s well aware her impositions and advances are unwanted and make people uncomfortable, but doesn’t care and proceeds anyway. But any blame, I put solely on the writers, not Majel. And I definitely softened to her when they started giving her some character development, later in TNG and esp in DS9 with the Odo plotline. The elevator scene completely won me over.
This is a good step forward for accessibility, but unfortunately, the $50 price tag will still put it out of the hands of many who need it. It should be handed out, for free, to anybody who wants it. There’s zero downsides. It cannot be misused, diverted, or abused. It has no other uses. It has no effect on someone not ODing. It cannot benefit anyone in any possible way… unless they are actually dying right now. If we were serious about saving lives, we would be gladly giving it out. Hell, put it in free vending machines on the street. It would be the ultimate pro-life move. But, of course, in a capitalist hellscape, profit motive is of utmost importance. How about drug cos. making billions off opiods foot the bill? Thankfully, there are many great harm reduction organizations that do hand it out free, but the easier to get, the less people die. I recommend anyone pick up some, if you can find it for free, even if you don’t think you’d need it. Home/work/car, you never know what might happen in your vicinity. It’s like the modern Heimlich Maneuver. Ok… that’s my PSA for the day.