Day: October 28, 2005

Well actually, it was actor George Takei, who played Mr. Sulu on Star Trek, who revealed in an interview that he is gay. As far as I know, Mr. Sulu is straight. Now that said, let’s go off on a fun tangent!

In the original series episode, "Mirror Mirror", Captain Kirk and the landing party find themselves in an alternate universe due to a transporter malfunction. In this mirror universe, their counterparts are essentially barbaric opposites to our peace loving, noble crew. The mirror universe Sulu is particularly aggressive and in one scene leaves no doubt that he’d like to get busy with the very fine Lt. Uhura, right on the bridge…yow!

So, maybe there was more to this that meets the eye. If the mirror universe Sulu was aggressively straight, then maybe our Sulu actually is, wait for it….Nah, too easy, never mind. Besides, how would you explain Captain Kirk?

Anyhow, I must say that I am neither shocked nor surprised by this announcement because I never really thought about it. George Takei was the first Star Trek cast member I ever saw in person and one of my favorites. He’s just a really cool guy. And most recently I’ve greatly enjoyed the voice work he’s done in animated productions such as Mulan, Avatar: The Last Air Bender, and others. So I hope that his announcement won’t cause too much trouble for him. I can only imagine how painful it must have been to keep such a secret for so long. Human beings seem to have an inherent need to express themselves to each other. Denying that can only bring suffering to the soul.

While my honeymoon with Ubuntu Linux may be over, the love continues after nearly a month of use. Let me just say right up front that while Ubuntu is great on the desktop, this is still not the OS for your grandma! No offense to grandma or Ubuntu, but there are still a number of things that are easier to do in Windows or a Mac. The biggest problem is with multimedia. I still can’t get DVDs to play and setting up sound and screen resolution was more of a pain than it should have been. This isn’t a big problem for me because I actually like the challenge of solving these problems, but the average consumer won’t be so amused.

Still, I really really like Ubuntu! With the strength of Debian behind it, updates are a breeze. And heck, if I ever get some time maybe I can write some stuff that will address some of the shortcomings I mentioned above. I think though that one of the best things about Ubuntu for me is that when I’m using it, I feel like I’ve got control of my computer again! Just last night I was able to get the Cisco VPN client to work with some help from a poster in the German Ubuntu Forum. I don’t read German, but it was almost too easy and a bit ironic since I had been unable to get this to work using Knoppix a release or two ago. Knoppix is a popular German (though it is available in English too) Debian based distribution, probably best known for popularizing live CDs to demonstrate and test Linux. Knoppix is pretty good and got me hooked on Debian, but Ubuntu has really sealed the deal for me! Now if I can just get these pesky DVDs to play…