I never thought I'd be asking this but does anyone have a USB "microscope" to suggest that has a decently long working distance and really small head?

I'm thinking about how I'm going to record/livestream my reworkctf v2 playthrough and the microscope I have on the mill is not set up to record video, and I have no easy path to change that.

So I'm wondering about just adding a second macro/closeup view off to one side looking at the work area and hopefully not in the way of anything else. With the microscope, light, milling column, and dust collection it's already gonna look like the inside of a SEM/FIB chamber, what's one more imaging axis? lol

Some people: "I don't like new #StarTrek"
OK. I get how that isn't the outcome you have hoped for. Sorry to hear it.

Some people: "new Star Trek is bad"
Well, what's your objective measurement for that? How about people who report liking it?

Some people, apparently: "If you do these series of steps, this new series will get cancelled, because I don't like it."
What the hell is wrong with you?!

Speaking of #StarfleetAcademy, I think I'm kinda done arguing with it's haters.

I mean, I usually enjoy a good critical discussion, but most of the time it's just jerks hung up on bits of humor instead of looking at the whole.

"LOOK AT WHAT STAR TREK HAS BECOME: THAT STUPID GIRL ATE HER COM BADGE" or some similar nonsense. I get the impression it goes like this: they've gone into it hating it out of the gate, they saw some cherry-picked moments that seemingly vindicate that expectation.

And... that's about it: they're locked in now, and that's about as deep as it gets.

Meanwhile the show has been going from strength to strength, this week's pulling out one of the best Klingon-focused episodes in a long time.

So yeah, fuck it: these guys aren't arguing against it in good faith. Why should I give energy to them?

I don't see it becoming another Picard S2 at this point. Much more likely it'll be like Enterprise and Voyager: heavily criticized at the time, but eventually it will gain recognition. Hopefully it doesn't take two decades to get there. :P

#startrek

Today, we remember all the victims murdered during the Holocaust, and we stand with those who survived.

We also mark the 81st anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.

This dark memory must be passed to future generations.

Never again.

Just read a review about #StarfleetAcademy and I have some notes.

So, for background, I came out of the womb watching Star Trek. I have lived my life wanting to be a member of #Starfleet. Learning to embrace the flaws of humanity and grow from them. Learning that Picard was an irrational young man who got himself stabbed through the heart in a bar fight, Kirk cheated his way through the Kobayashi Maru to refuse the possibility of a no-win scenario, Sisko committed literal War Crimes, Janeway would drag her crew through every nebula for coffee, and learning that imperfection is a fact of the world around us. ("It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness; that is life")

Hell, Enterprise was literally written to show the imperfections of an Early pre-Starfleet.

These reviews seem to forget that all of this is part of the core ethos that #StarTrek was and is remaining to be. Oh but how hard I wished for a show like Academy as a teenager. A show that gave us glimpses into the imperfect nature of the teenagers and young adults that will, I am sure, grow into the captains and officers they need to be. It's full of modern language that youth can understand. It shows us a returning captain willing to shed the decorum of rank to be a strong educator and mentor to a group of young adults whose lives were characterized by destruction and loss. ("They're little warp cores, do you want to say something about it?!")

Yes, it watches like a CW teen drama set in the Star Trek universe: It was designed to. It's for awkward young adults to learn that it is OK to be awkward young adults. It confronts themes that shouldn't still be bothering you in your thirties: And that's OK, not all Star Trek has to be for everyone. Prodigy was for kids, Academy and Lower Decks target an older youth demographic, and SNW exists for all the cranky old Star Trek fans who can't deal with anything other than Alien of the Week serials.

These reviews read like people who want a show about the War College, grinding every unique trait out of everyone who comes into the Academy. A show that teaches the younger audience to fight battles, not end wars. Instead, the show reminds them to serve each other, keep an empathetic mind, and start the day off on the right foot. Lessons many of these reviewers could take the time to learn. It is OK to lead, and to be led, by empathy and hope.

These lessons are not hidden deep in the show, they are stated in the open for an audience much younger than most of these reviewers. It is a true shame that it has to be stated again.

Ultimately, and I guess TL;DR:

If you are a grown adult writing reviews about Academy, complaining about how you can't identify with a group of teenagers onscreen I have news for you: YOU PROBABLY SHOULDN'T BE. Look for identification in Holly Hunter's laissez faire attitude toward the world. Take less seriously, and just enjoy what you have... Or don't.

But let other people enjoy things.

#LLAP