Arazil

The prognosticator and explorer with interests in the performing arts, media arts, sensuality, meteorology, and infrastructure design. Recovering journalist. Proprietress of Cafe ElvenStar and Showrunner of Lost Frontiers. Occasional Gamer(tm). We brake for nobody. #nobot

Pronouns: she/her, they/them
Linkstack: https://arazil.net/

Last Notes

2026-05-14 14:29:16 UTC

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I went with "COBOL" because "moved into Bartender" comes off as LLM generated nonsense. "Aquamarine" was close with the "cordless" section, but maybe it's just a graphic designer that likes using a tablet at the beach. As for "moon-minded" and "low-fi", those look legit because I've seen many profiles with that sort of pattern and they generally pass the "smell" test.

2026-04-06 00:54:55 UTC

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I am not a fan of the current "bubbles everywhere" aesthetic. We already have enough bubbles on social media. 😐

2026-02-27 13:17:59 UTC

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I went through the then standard "Drug Abuse Resistance Education" (DARE) program back in the mid 1990s. The whole generative AI fiasco is like a text book example of what we were taught to avoid in that course - peer pressure, bandwagoning, hook-habit-hobby, the perils of addiction, etc.

2026-02-23 01:51:48 UTC

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I agree. Both character's distinguishing traits were short term gimmicks that couldn't last very long. Kim's status of "the new recruit experiencing their first days on the job" got really old by the end of season one. And Kes' weird accelerated aging scheme was doomed to fail because it is not sustainable to keep the same person doing a character that is 20 in year one, 60 in year four, and 90 by the end of the show.

2026-02-23 00:59:31 UTC

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Additional Trivia: There is an initial draft version of the season-wide "Year of Hell" pitch hidden in the episode "Before and After." In the episode, they show Kes investigating an alien weapon during the Year of Hell. Why Kes? Because the original plan was to drop Harry Kim from the show and keep Kes on it. I think that writers were forced into reconsidering their plans by studio leadership during the development of the final season three installment, "Scorpion."

2026-02-23 00:36:36 UTC

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The "Year of Hell" was originally pitched as an entire season of Voyager. Apparently the writers were getting tired of the ship being left in a pristine state week after week and wanted to do something more gritty and impactful. The initial pitch was rejected by Berman and various other executives because they demanded a predictable and episodic show. At the time, Voyager was the only fictional show drawing viewership numbers to the UPN network that was airing it. After the defeat of the original pitch, the producers scaled the idea down to the iconic two-parter that we have today. It is an interesting peek into the story that the writers wanted to tell with Voyager and a practical demonstration of how frequent executive meddling tied the hands of the Voyager production team to the detriment of the show.

2026-02-18 20:56:19 UTC

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Years ago, I thought The Darkling was a bit too over the top and melodramatic. In the more recent years, I have developed a renewed appreciation for the episode after experiencing the events of Tay AI, Grok, and OpenClaw first hand. :facepalm:

2026-02-07 02:33:54 UTC

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I am watching it with family tonight and monitoring Mastodon when I can.

2026-02-05 02:56:28 UTC

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Ronald D. Moore: I've always felt that the experience in 'Inner Light' would've been the most profound experience in Picard's life and changed him irrevocably. However, that wasn't our intention when we were creating the episode. We were after a good hour of TV, and the larger implications of how this would really screw somebody up didn't hit home with us until later (that's sometimes a danger in TV – you're so focused on just getting the show produced every week that sometimes you suffer from the 'can't see the forest for the trees' syndrome). We never intended the show to completely upend his character and force a radical change in the series, so we contented ourselves with a single follow-up in "Lessons". (AOL chat, 1997)

2026-02-05 01:36:44 UTC

What's Kirk have in common with most modern day drivers? They both can't drive a stick shift.
@npub177x…u9jc #AllStarTrek #StarTrekTOS #APieceOfTheAction

2026-02-04 03:56:05 UTC

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The one thing that really bugs me about this episode is the way that Julian comes off as a total domineering creep whenever he's interacting with Sarina. 🙄

2026-01-08 19:48:48 UTC

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I worry about the whole thing devolving into an self hosted email type situation where a self hosted instances are more likely to get banned from interacting with "big tech" instances hosting millions of mailboxes due to a lack of traffic volume from the self hosted side.

2026-01-08 02:33:59 UTC

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https://cdn.elvenstar.cafe/media_attachments/files/115/857/123/798/165/435/original/33ecae9e59117d11.png

2026-01-07 01:24:18 UTC

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I almost moved there a year ago... But I couldn't afford the rent with the salary I was offered. I was essentially forced into turning the job down at that point. 😞

2026-01-07 01:17:54 UTC

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I'm glad we've moved past the big boom box era... Although reminders of it still remain in places (like the "no stereos" signs on San Francisco's BART system).

2025-10-17 18:24:13 UTC

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"[Not] great [but] it has bits of charm" is a wonderful description of most [Star Trek] Enterprise episodes.