That’s because Tholians originally came from ST:TOS, and TOS had a relatively large number of non-Sapien races. TNG made bumpy-foreheads a standard, and later retconned it into the universe with the Progenitor storyline - probably as a cost-saving measure - but TOS was full of truly alien races which looked nothing like humans. Most were one-off encounters, and the recurring aliens tended to be humanoid: Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans. Cost, a recognition that viewers were going to struggle with identifying with non-humanoid body plans, and probably realizing that fleshing out a truly alien psychology was a lot of hard work; easier when the Enterprise has only a brief, single-episode encounter with a race.

TNG, and later series, went hard-core on the bumpy foreheads, and most of the few non-humanoid aliens were some sort of nebula or energy creature - far cheaper to render. At one point I hoped that with how much of new series were CGI, and his cheap it had become, that new series would ditch the Proginator-dominated interactions and re-introduced alien aliens. Lower Decks did, a bit, and The Orville (ST-adjacent) did a little better than the usual live-action ST. Bab5 was still mostly humanoid, although two major, recurring species were very inhuman.

Anyway, TOS did a commendable job of populating the universe with really alien aliens, and did so long before CGI. It’s one reason why I think TOS is still the best ST.

Shit, take away Giordi’s glasses. Take away any prosthetic from anyone. Removing the arm was dumb.

Turning people off is also astonishingly easy. Turning them back on is a harder trick, but we do it on the regular.

The entire arc of those two are simply genius, and some of the best story telling, writing, and acting - full stop. And I’m a Firefly fan, so that’s saying something.

More exposition! Explain yourself.

For me, the Borg were boring until First Contact, where they became scary. Invasive. Not just lumbering Frankenstein’s monsters with good shields.

But I want to hear more about your thoughts on the Tholians.

And that, kids, is a great use of RAID: under some other form of data redundancy.

Great story!

RAID 1 is mirroring. If you accidentally delete a file, or it becomes corrupt (for reasons other than drive failure), RAID 1 will faithfully replicate that delete/corruption to both drives. RAID 1 only protects you from drive failure.

Implement backups before RAID. If you have an extra drive, use it for backups first.

There is only one case when it’s smart to use RAID on a machine with no backups, and that’s RAID 0 on a read-only server where the data is being replicated in from somewhere else. All other RAID levels only protect against drive failure, and not against the far more common causes of data loss: user- or application-caused data corruption.

TBF, odds are good some of the first in the tank are the same size as the baby. I don’t blame him for being wide-eyed.

There’s such a huge diversity of Orb Weavers! I love jumping spiders (Salticidae), but Araneidae is a close second.

We had a missus living in a boxwood in front of our house, and she was everything but small. With her legs, she was at least the size of my palm, with beautiful coloring on her thorax and her legs looked almost like she was wearing opera gloves. A bit like the picture below. And, yes, her webs were massive, but hers were out of the way and a bother to no-one except her prey.

You could probably fit it all into AZ. You’d still need oil wells and refineries somewhere; there are still plastics involved. And rare metal mines - mines in general, for metals, so you’d probably need outposts in other states, and then a rail system to get materials to AZ. Feeding people would be hard on AZ, though, so you’d definitely need to clear forests in the Midwest and put in a bunch of factory farms to produced food.

The US might have enough of everything to support this, although I suspect some rare metals would be difficult to source, as many of our’s comes from other countries. However, maybe you could stockpile enough to last. You need the rare metals, but maybe a few tonnes of processed would be enough to last?

I understand; I’m saying, you’d need to take back an entire industry to produce photovoltaics, batteries for storage, the computer control systems; or the high-tensile composites needed to build wind turbines, the fine machining to produce electric motors and wiring, and the cranes and such to raise them. You’d need to clear swaths of land for either, although you might be able to set up in the great plains, but in any case, all of the current renewable tech is high tech supported by countless other industries. You’d be taking back a civilization, to make it all work. And then you’ll need agriculture to feed all those people, housing for them to live, clothing, and so on; and which native tribe are you going to steal land from to put all of this?

Renewables require industry and high tech to produce and maintain. If you go far enough back to establish a foothold, your renewables will most likely not be functioning by the time colonists arrive. If you settle just before they do, you won’t be able to have much advantage. In either case, unless you go really far back, you’re still settling and taking land from indigenous people.

What are you hoping to achieve?

It’s hard to tell, it’s so out of focus, but the markings look like an Orb Weaver to me. They’re common in the US, harmless, can get big, and can be really pretty.

Ones you can download, or, like, ones that provide free hosting for remotely loaded fonts on every new client request?

That’s Ok; it’s basically a poor suburb of Portland.

Although, the one in Washington (state, USA, Earth, Solar system, Orion Arm, Milky Way, Local Group, Virgo Supercluster, Laniakea Supercluster, The Universe) isn’t full of hipsters.

No worries. I use “actresses” all the time, and “stewardess”, too, although I think nowadays you’re supposed to say “flight attendants”. The hard part is that some women actors want to be called “actors”, and some “actresses.” You never know.

In my story, it was “actor” because that’s what my wife wanted to use. It’s not a hard rule - it’s a difficult one, but not set in stone. It depends on the individual’s preference.

Community theater is the best, although K-12 can be pretty fantastic, too.

Depends on who you ask. Many people in acting prefer “actor” to be non-gendered.

If you’re anti-PC, then you probably prefer the gendered terms. In my wife’s case, she was a female actor, and I respect that. So, “actor.”

Obliquely related story.

My wife was briefly an actor, and they were running The Cask. During one rehearsal, the guy playing Montresor was doing the brick laying, and he started going:

“One brick… ah, ah, aah!
Two bricks… ah, ah, aaah!”

I don’t know if you had to be there, but I almost died laughing. Now I can’t read or see a reference to The Cask without thinking about that.

Threeee bricks… ah, ah, aaaah!

And that breaks the processor and you have to reboot your listener and it’s such a paaaaaiin.