December 29, 2003
Added to the starship comparison charts are three images comparing various alien starships, both large and small.
I’ve also created a new opinion poll concerning STM’s latest project, Memory Alpha.
Added to the starship comparison charts are three images comparing various alien starships, both large and small.
I’ve also created a new opinion poll concerning STM’s latest project, Memory Alpha.
After four years of wacky temporal hijinks and poking fun at every science fiction series in the galaxy, Star Trek: Series ? pushes (and blunders) into its climactic series finale with Episode 103: “Hell on Earth” and Episode 104: “Tempus Fugit”.
Today is a momentous day! After three and a half years of procrastination and empty promises, and a prominent link on the front page that basically leads nowhere, I have finally done something with the Starfleet Reference Databank.
I’ve officially abandoned it.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. “I waited three years for this??“ But never fear the idea itself isn’t going away, it’s just being reborn into a new form — a better form. A new project that promises to be a whole lot more active and interesting.
Memory Alpha is a kind of Star Trek reference database that, to my knowledge, has never yet been attempted in the Trek fan community. It is basically like Wikipedia, an open source encyclopedia that anyone may contribute to, any time, with no restrictions or restrictive guidelines.
And now, on to other catch-up news:
The Subspace Comms Network has moved to a new URL as part of an upgrade to new message board system. The former URL is no longer functional.
The December 2003 winner of the Explosive Site Award is Jeff Russell’s Starship Dimensions. Congratulations, Jeff! (Yes, I’m bringing the ESA award back... again.)
Reverend has added a few more new and updated images to his collection of symbols and logos.
“Krenim” has written the next two installments of Series ? Episode 100: “The Final Excelsior Battle (Really), Part II”, Episode 101: “Recap IV: The Recap Home”, and Episode 102: “The Road to Hell”.
There’s been two new Renaissance episodes recently: Episode 3x06: “Nor Bid the Stars Farewell” by Rob Jelley, and Episode 3x07: “Collateral Damage” by Hadrian McKeggan.
There’s a new entry to the Humor Archive, this time written by yours truly! Check out If Microsoft Made Software for Starfleet..., a list inspired by that famous old “If Microsoft made cars...” list.
The reason there haven’t been any updates in the past three weeks is because I’ve got a really, really big project in the works with another Trek webmaster. It’s not quite ready for prime time yet, but it should be within the next week or two. And boy, will everyone be surprised. Hehhehheh...
In the mean time, have a look at the latest Series ? offering: Episode 99: “The Final Excelsior Battle (Really), Part I”. Only five episodes left until the series finale!
Finally added to the Humor Archive are the last three (current) parts of the "Star Trek Goes to the Movies" series: Star Trek V: The Funny Frontier and Star Trek: Insur-wreck-sion, both by Jason Gaston, and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Parody, by Stephen Millard.
The final chapt— er, um, episodes of Series ? are almost upon us! Everyone takes a breather in the latest episode, Episode 98: “The Episode of No Return”.
New to the Humor Archive are four hilarious new submissions by John Au: The Prisoner, Unimatrix Zero: The Aftermath, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universal Translator, and Klingon Forehead Ridges: The Real Story.
In case anyone’s been wondering about Renaissance updates, I’ve been less consistent about mentioning the updates here now that the mirror has been taken down from STM. We are currently well into the second season, with the following:
As a History major, I’ve learned that it’s crucial to document your sources. So, though it’ll be interesting to try and track down some of my old references, I’ve started keeping a bibliography for this site. I expect to be expanding this list in the coming months as I track down some of my previous older sources.
A long-forgotten plot point is wrapped up in the latest Series ? chapter, Episode 97: “Loose Ends”.
Kris’s logos and symbols have been reorganized according to category, and a couple of additional ones have been included.
Finally, I’ve added a few additional episodes to the script collection, including seven Voyager scripts and a preliminary draft of the Enterprise pilot.
After much pleading (you know who you are!) I’ve added a second chart to my Sci-Fi Ships Comparison page. This new chart is at about a 10:1 scale, and includes some pretty impressively-sized ships, including the frequently-requested City Destroyer from Independence Day.
Well, it’s been quite a while since the last update, but there’s a whole load of material to make up for it!
First up is a massive collection of scripts from the original episodes of TNG and DS9, organized in a new Starfleet Academy feature— Literature 329: The One-Hour Television Drama.
Also new to the Academy is a big collection of over eighty logos, insignia, and other similar images drawn by Kristian Trigwell. This impressive new eye candy is featured in Anthropology 114A: Cultural Symbols and Symbolism.
“Krenim” has posted the next two Series ? chapters— Episode 95: “By Inferno’s Pale Moonlight” and Episode 96: “Best Case Scenario”. The countdown to the final episode continues!
“Berman and Braga Reloaded”: Episode II has been posted by Jason Reichstetter.
I’ve finally managed to restore the site’s opinion poll, and started a new poll, just to satisfy my idle curiosity.
The last item is just a minor footnote, but one I’m quite pleased with. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth trying to restore my “site features” rotating banner (the one at the top right corner of every page) after it was wiped out in the Great Server Outage, I finally decided to write my own script instead. And now, I’ve finally written my very first PHP script from scratch. (Well, the first to be successfully deployed, anyway.)
“Krenim” has posted the next Series ? installment— Episode 94: “Smorgasborg”. The countdown to the end of the series continues!
The final question of the Sector Epsilon scenario has been posted. Also check out the sneak preview map for Sector Zeta, Part I!
After many long months, the author of The Adventures of Berman and Braga, Jason Reichstetter, has returned with a brand-new series: “Berman and Braga Reloaded”! Check out the first installment, Episode I: “A New Hope”.
The penultimate question of the Sector Epsilon scenario has been posted. Get ready to clean some Scytali chronometers!
“Krenim” posted Series ? Episode 93: “Desperate Times, Part II” several days ago; I neglected to mention it in my updates due to all the confusion...
I’ve done some major formatting and cleaning in the UFP Code of Military Justice page; rather than plain paragraphs, everything has been reorganized into proper ordered lists. I’m also in the process of cross-indexing all of the major sections in the document, but this will probably take a bit of time.
On Monday, September 8, 2003, Star Trek Minutiae was taken offline when our current web host, Global Internet Solutions, suffered a complete hard drive failure, eliminating both the existing websites and all backups. The server itself was completely offline for over a day, and after that, it was three more days before I was finally informed that I would have to restore my site’s files manually. That’s finally been taken care of, for the most part. But there should be a few more things to take care of, like the search engine script and other niceties.
Fortunately, there are some content updates today!
Star Trek: Renaissance has returned (belatedly, having been plagued by the same server problems) for its long-awaited third season. Our first episode is the conclusion of last spring’s cliffhanger finale, with Episode 3x01: “The Lost” by James Sampson and Rob Jelley.
The next question for the Sector Epsilon scenario has been posted as well.
My amusement quota of the day has been filled, with the moron still asking about the Dimensional Warp Generator.
Happy Star Trek Day! Today marks the 37th anniversary of the broadcast premiere of Star Trek back in 1966, with “The Man Trap” as its first aired episode.
Question Seven of the the Sector Epsilon scenario has been posted a little early this time, since I’m going to be moving back to college tomorrow.
After much delay, Question Six of the Sector Epsilon scenario has been posted. BWAHAHAHAHA! <evil grin />
I’ve gone back and posted updated descriptions about the major browsers in my article on Mac alternatives to Internet Explorer. Finally, I just couldn’t resist adding one final flair to the styling of my front page appearance— a little beveling for the mouse-over backgrounds in the main panel. 😉
Apologies for the long delays between updates... things have been rather unpredictable lately.
“Krenim” has posted the next two Series ? installments— Episode 91: “Home Again” and Episode 92: “Desperate Times, Part I”.
Well, I can’t make any promises as to an exact release date, but I’m pleased to announce that I took a major step forward today with the Starfleet Reference Databank: after teasing my visitors for more than three years, I finally have established the online MySQL database that will contain the necessary data and uploaded all of my existing information. The next step is to create a PHP interface so that the database can be accessed over the web. I have no idea just how long this will take— because I have no PHP experience on my own— but I do hope to have some assistance from a couple of online acquaintances so that SFRD will finally be up and running some time this year. I really mean that! 😉
There was no way in heck I was gonna let the problem of character encoding for ensuring proper XHTML 1.1 markup be left alone once I was confronted with the problem... <grin /> I’ve changed all of the pages (yet again), so they’re all now in the Unicode UTF-8 character set, and updated to pristine and cutting-edge XHTML 1.1.
Yeah, I must be pretty far gone if this is something I consider a priority...
At long last, the next question for You’re the Admiral: Sector Epsilon has been posted.
The next episode of Star Trek: Series ? is out— Episode 90: “May I Borrow a Cup of Flower?”.
The only spam you’ll ever find on this site is the spam that’s posted for everyone’s amusement. Some yutz out there is getting his kicks by asking around for a Dimensional Warp Generator. Who thinks up this stuff?
I apologize for any down time that may have been experienced this evening... I was attempting to update all site pages to XHTML 1.1 code, but apparently there’s some character encoding problem that I haven’t figured out how to circumvent yet. I’ve taken a step back to XHTML 1.0 Strict in the mean time.
The ASDB section has received an update. Newly added is a complete redesign of theDeneva Class freighter, as well as a unique Captain’s Yacht for the Korolev Class. Both were designed by Kris Trigwell. Also added are new 3D views of the Hokule’a and Merced classes.
Thanks to Nick Ottens for pointing out a flaw in my e-mail submission forms. Everything’s fixed and should be working normally now— even spruced up a little using some techniques I recently discovered.
Also just added is an updated history of the Deneva Class, also written by Kris.
Hey, I’m on a roll! At long last, the old Cross-Series Sci-Fi Comparison Chart has been updated and greatly expanded. It now includes a number of other series, better sources, and a wider range of ships and stations. That should shut up some of the nagging I’ve been getting via e-mail! 😛
After more than a year, I’ve finally updated my own Starfleet ship size comparison charts. A chart including most alien ships will be uploaded soon.
What happens when you procrastinate for a week? A really big update! I’d intended to make the first regular update after the relaunch a bit sooner, but I was in Greensboro, North Carolina for a few days for a business conference. (Yeah yeah, excuses, excuses... 😛) But the good news is, I’ve finally got everything up and running properly!
Congratulations to The Starfleet Archive, the winner of this month’s resurrected Explosive Site Award!
STM’s home page has been fixed and updated so that the text won’t be hidden. It’s not quite as flashy as the old “swoosh” effect (which I really liked), but it’s much more compact and requires a lot less bandwidth.
“Krenim” has concluded the latest Series ? two-parter with Episode 89: “Seeing Red, Part II”.
I’ve added a convenient form for notifying me of broken links and other difficulties with the site, built into the 404 Error page. Just copy and paste the defective URLs, and send it off!
I’ve changed the little panel at the top right of every page to show a rotating series of featured sections at STM. Check out the pages that you might have missed before! (I’ve also fixed the positioning of the panel so it won’t conflict with the main header image.)
The site poll has finally been nailed down and is running properly. I was hoping to run a simple PHP script, but that proved too troublesome, so I’m back to using another Perl script I’ve had sitting on my hard drive for a whole.
Finally, I’ve decided to break down and set up all of the redirect pages the hard way, by typing them all out and putting them in separate htaccess scripts for the individual directories. Most, but not all, of the pages are now set up and should be working properly.
Welcome to the new, improved, and jazzed-up Star Trek Minutiae v4.0! After just doing a complete redesign of the site just one year ago, it seems a little soon to do another change. But I’ve made some big improvements in my web design skills since then, and wanted to come up with an even better site that would work better for both the visitors and for me.
One of the biggest changes is that I’ve slimmed down all of the pages, so that there’s much less use of graphics. The graphics (especially buttons) may look snazzy, but they also take up a lot of bandwidth. And you all know how important bandwidth is, right? Not only that, but I got rid of all of the rollover buttons— they looked pretty cool, but both the extra images and the extra JavaScript took up more space, too. Also, over the years I’ve realized that the plain black background is way, way overdone— and so I decided so create a new look that would be much more distinctive.
I also have found various minor bugs in my layout techniques, flawed design methods, and other small problems that didn’t quite warrant starting over from scratch before now. But as I described in my earlier update, I’ve recently had the opportunity to do some much greater in-depth work with web design. (Eagle-eyed visitors may notice the many similarities between Star Trek Minutiae and the other site I recently designed.)
I’ve also changed the URLs of all the pages to reflect a more organized system. I’ve used the wonderful mod_rewrite Apache module to make sure that all the links are still redirected to where they’re supposed to be.
Also, there are a few new additions to the site, now!
Coming some time this summer will be two examples of Trek-related software created by Yours Truly: a Warp Speed Calculator and a downloadable (and entertaining) database of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition.
Visitors from two years ago may remember the Explosive Site Award. After a year and a half of neglect (and even officially dropping it) I’ve decided to bring this monthly feature back. Check it out!
A new episode of Series ?, Episode 88: “Seeing Red, Part I” has been posted. You get three guesses as to which recurring character this one’s about, and the first two don’t count...
There’s a new submission to the Humor Archive (actually sent in more than a month ago) by John Au: a list of Upcoming Episodes of Enterprise.
John Cook has finally restored the old Sev Trek cartoons for publication on third party websites.
In the process of doing the website redesign, I’ve come to the decision that I will no longer be maintaining the Star Trek: Renaissance mirror website here at Star Trek Minutiae. In the past few months, it’s simply become too much of a hassle to worry about updating two nearly-identical but still separate websites and keeping them properly synchronized.
Worry not, though— I’m setting up an automatic redirect, so any URLs that were pointing to the REN site at Star Trek Minutiae will be automatically passed on to the main site without any hassle. And aside from the base address, the current main website has identical URL names, so there shouldn’t be any problems at all.
Oh, and I just feel like posting a quick “Happy Birthday” wish for myself here... 😉
Guys and their tools... 😉
In the past week, I just finished my first semi-professional web design project, creating an entirely new website for my father’s company website, Tree Tech Consulting. It was a commissioned job, but pretty laid-back as far as deadlines and design went. (And you all know how I am with deadlines, right?)
Anyway, I specifically took the time during the design of the TTC website to build some of my own skills a bit better— using proper XHTML code, making sure that the CSS is validated too, and using the tags as they’re designed rather than creating clumsy workarounds. As great as my site looks now, I’ve found a number of bugs and issues, and I’m really aiming to streamline things this summer.
And I’ve got the perfect opportunity— Star Trek Minutiae’s third anniversary is coming up on July 13! And so I’m going to put further updates on hold pending a redesign of the entire site. (Yes, I know, I just did it a year ago, and barely finished upgrading the last pages in the ASDB and Humor Archive a month or two ago... the update will go a whole lot smoother this time because I’m using Dreamweaver templates.)
So, stay tuned, and check back on July 13 to check out the latest (and hopefully best) incarnation of Star Trek Minutiae yet!
My apologies for the lack of updates these past couple of weeks. I just got a new job, which has been taking up a lot more of my time than I anticipated. I’m hoping to get more computer time in in the coming weeks, though.
The Renaissance season finale has finally been released! Episode 2x26-2x27: “This Side of Hades” is now available. It’s an excitement-packed, double-length episode. Our apologies for the delay.
Renaissance is now on summer hiatus. Regular episodes will return on September 8, 2003, when we begin the series’ third season. Also, the REN staff officially welcomes back its prodigal son, James Sampson.
“Krenim” has written two more episodes of Series ?— Episode 86: “Losers, Guns, and Money, Part I” and Episode 87: “Losers, Guns, and Money, Part II”. Enjoy the abundance of Farscape rip-offs!
The next installments of Renaissance are up— Episode 2x24: “To Be Someone” by Shaun Hamley and Episode 2x25: “The Last Temptation” by James DiBenedetto. The first one was actually up last week on schedule, I just never posted a notice. College exams will do that to you!
The next two questions of the Sector Epsilon scenario are up. Again, the first one was up last week, but there was no update. Be sure to drop by the SCN and join in the fun!
The next installment of Renaissance is up— Episode 2x23: "Aithalian Lessons" by Hadrian McKeggan. Our apologies for the mid-week release, again!
The new Sector Epsilon scenario has started a bit early. Be sure to drop by the SCN and join in the fun!
The fourth and final question in the Sector Redux scenario has been posted. Also check out the preview map for Sector Epsilon, which will be starting at the SCN in about two weeks!
“Krenim” has given us a special surprise in the latest Series ? episode, Episode 85: "Year of Frell".
New to the Starfleet Academy section is a complete list of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition.
The third question for Sector Redux (the “You’re the Admiral!” series) has been posted.
The oft-forgotten “Interstellar Law and Treaties” section of Starfleet Academy has received an update, with two documents by Shik: the United Federation of Planets Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the Starfleet General Orders.
A bit of cleaning up to make sure everything’s up to date after the Slashdot incident...
All Renaissance episodes should now be up and completely available.
“Krenim” has posted the next chapter of Series ?— Episode 84: “Tuvok and Roll”. Yes, it’s as hilarious as you think.
No one will probably be reading this because of the Slashdot incident, but I’m not going to stop work just because of that. 😉
A new spin-off of the “You’re the Admiral!” series has been started at the Subspace Comms Network. The first part, Sector Redux, started about a week ago. There’s still time to join in the fun— latecomers are still very welcome! (The scenario is also archived here at the STM.)
“Krenim” posted the next Series ? episode a few weeks ago— Episode 83: “When on Romulus...”. (Yes, it’s a Nemesis spoof.)
Renaissance Episode 2x21: “The Ground Beneath Her Feet” by Rob Jelley has been online for a week, but not mentioned here because no one would read it.
Renaissance Episode 2x22: “The Long Night of the Souls” by James Sampson is now available.
No one will probably be reading this because of the Slashdot incident, but I’m not going to stop work just because of that. 😉
Renaissance Episode 2x20: “A Minority of One” by Hadrian McKeggan is now available.
Renaissance Episode 2x19: “Underneath the Sky” by Shaun Hamley is now available.
The REN staff bids a sad farewell to another veteran writer, Yehuda Katz.
“Krenim” has posted the next episode of Series ?— Episode 82: “Satan’s Robot Conquers the Alpha Quadrant”.
I hope you all enjoyed my April Fools Day prank yesterday!
It’s a Renaissance update today!
Episode 2x18: “Outstanding Questions” by Dan Carlson & Shaun Hamley is now available. Our apologies for our inconsistent schedule this past month.
The latest images from “Dr. Bob” for episodes 2x17 and 2x18 have been posted in the Image Gallery.
The Renaissance Technical Manual has been updated with an excellent master systems display schematic of the Enterprise-G by “Dan the Yorkshire Man.”
“Krenim” has posted the next installment of Series ?— Episode 81: “Never Talk to Rangers”. He promises this will be the last one for Babylon 5 in-jokes... honest!
I’ve finally gotten around to finishing the conversion of all of the old web pages, after six months of delays and omission... 😉
Advanced Starship Design Bureau - All ships are now available, including: Apollo Class, Bradbury Class, Chimera Class, Deneva Class, Hokule’a Class, Istanbul Class, and Korolev Class.
Berman and Braga - All of the stories which were available before are now back up! (“Berman and Braga Strike Back” and “Berman and Braga: Unemployed”.)
And finally, just for the heck of it, my old notes for the Star Trek: Restoration fanfic series.
Due to a number of issues, the next Renaissance episode has unfortunately beeen delayed until Monday, March 31. We’re very sorry, and greatly appreciate the interest we’ve had from our readers!
A new addition to the Humor Archive, a non-Trek one from my e-mail archives: Dr. Seuss Explains Why Computers Crash.
Several more ASDB pages have been resurrected from last summer’s style change; check out theSequoia Class, the Surak Class, the Wambundu Class, the Yorkshire Class, and the Zodiac Class.
Bernd Schneider has updated his shuttlecraft comparison chart, which is included in the Starship Recognition page.
“Krenim” has posted the next installment of Series ?— Episode 80: “The Federation Strikes Back”.
The next Renaissance installment— Episode 2x17: “Heat Rising”— is now available. (Technically, it was published yesterday, but 11:59 PM is stretching it. 😉
I’ve been making some incremental updates over the past week or so, but neglected to post any notices.
It’s more of a “toy” than an important feature, but I was fiddling around with some scripting options last week and set up a Guestbook for my site.
I recently discovered that several individuals have decided to “borrow” images that are stored on my webspace. I’ve set up some protection since then, and in hopes of enlightening other webmasters, I’ve written a little instruction guide on Stopping Bandwidth Theft.
A couple more pages at the ASDB mirror have been restored.
The course on Basic Warp Theory (Engineering 107) has been restored in the Starfleet Academy section.
“Krenim” has started the fourth season of Series ? a little early— check out Episode 79: “Out Like a Lamb”.
Finally continuing the long-forgotten task of updating all of my web pages (which disappeared during the big redesign in July 2002), I’ve restored the first part of the Berman and Braga series, Star Trek: Generations II. Also, after the recent news about a familiar race to be seen on Enterprise, I dug up another of Jason’s stories posted many months ago, entitled “The Enterprise Meets the Borg”.
I’ve certainly got better things to work on, but I decided to start working on a few of the ASDB pages again. There are four old pages resurrected: theMediterranean Class, the Merced Class, the Renaissance Class, and the Rigel Class.
By popular request (okay, by frequent nagging— you know who you are), I’ve changed the CSS style sheet to allow for a larger font size to make the site more readable. It turns out that this was actually the result of a misunderstanding when I first created the basic font style in July 2002— I mixed up font pixels (“px”) and points (“pt”)! I hope this solves the problems.
Lots of Renaissance news:
Due to a sudden departure from the staff, we have decided to start the hiatus early in order to reorganize and plan the episodes properly. We sincerely apologize for the sudden change of plans. Renaissance will return on Monday, March 17 with a new episode.
The Renaissance staff wishes a very sad farewell to fellow writer James Sampson. We’ll miss you!
The REN staff also wishes to welcome Shaun Hamley, the latest victim... er, that is writer to join the project.
In the mean time, I’ve put together a collection of the excellent images that “Dr. Bob” published for all episodes of Season Two. They’re linked in the Image Gallery, and can also be found on the individual episode guide pages.
The next episode of Renaissance— Episode 2x16: “God Save the Pigs!” has been published... a little late, I know.
The next episode of Renaissance— Episode 2x15: “The Walk” has been published.
The next episode of Renaissance— Episode 2x14: “Other Things Equal” has been published. This is a script written by yours truly! This episode is dedicated to the men and women who died aboard the shuttle Columbia this past weekend.
It’s been MIA for nearly six months now, but I’ve finally taken the time to revive my links list. It’s not as extensive as it used to be, but keeping track of 200+ websites was getting to be a real chore.
It’s been a while since I added something to the Humor Archive, so I decided to put up something I found on my computer a few weeks ago: Eliza the Automated Psychoanalyst.
The second Renaissance hiatus feature has been published— another “deleted scenes” interview, this time with Rob Jelley and myself, looking back at “Right There Behind You”. Check back next week for a new episode, “Other Things Equal”.
Delayed on this side a couple of days, but here as promised! The Renaissance Bookshelf has launched, with its first feature being a humorous “deleted scenes” feature from Kegg’s recent episode, “Home”.
The next episode of Renaissance— Episode 2x13: “Mercy Bay” has been published. The season will be on a short (and scheduled!) hiatus until February 3. But check back next week for some more animations from “Dr. Bob” and a humorous surprise from the writers!
Not content with just writing a cliffhanger episode of Series ?, “Krenim” also has decided to announce that the next episode will not be posted until March 26! (He’s evil like that...) Anyway, enjoy Episode 78: “In Like a Lion”.
“Krenim” has provided us with a new take on an old cliche— Series ? Episode 77: “Recap III: The Search for Recap”.
Happy New Year!
Renaissance news: Episode 2x12: “Home” has been published. Also, there’s a special gift in the image gallery: three animations whipped up by our resident artistic wizard, Dr. Bob!
Back by popular demand is the list of Things to Do if You’re an Evil Overlord. You all can thank “Golden Tiger” for nagging me about this file. 😉
ADDENDUM: “Krenim” is back with a new episode of Series ?— Episode 76: “No Big LoSSS”. (Yes, it’s supposed to be spelled like that.)