Exasperated Calculator

Exasperated Calculator: Star Trek & Economics

  • Bond Villain Business Plan Reviews: Thunderball

    Business Plan Summary: Threaten to explode stolen atomic bombs in order to demand a ransom from NATO. Founder/Leader: SPECTRE’s founder continues to prefer to not provide details on his background. Key Personnel: Emilio Largo, Chief of Extortion Operations. Ruthless and driven, Mr Largo has shown considerable talent in blackmail. Prefers a ‘climate of fear’ approach,…

  • Bond Villain Business Plan Reviews: Goldfinger

    Business Plan Summary: Contaminate the US gold in the US Bullion Depository and profit from the ensuing rise in gold prices. Founder/Leader: Auric Goldfinger. A smuggler and jewellery magnate. Greedy and a megalomaniac, strong organisational abilities and a creative problem solver. Key Personnel: No other management or coordination personnel. Support Staff: Oddjob. Chauffeur, bodyguard and…

  • Bond Villain Business Plan Reviews: From Russia With Love

    Business Plan Summary: Create conflict between the United States and Soviet Union, allowing SPECTRE to take over the world. Founder/Leader: No background information available. Key Personnel: Rosa Klebb (Number 3): Chief Operations Officer. Ex-KGB, with a strong track record for delivering covert operations effectively. Tov Kronsteen (Number 5): Chief Planning Officer. A chess grandmaster, and…

  • Bond Villain Business Plan Reviews: Dr. No

    Business plan summary: ‘Topple’ rockets launched from Cape Canaveral. Early stage funding through bauxite mining. Founder/Leader: Dr. Julius No has extensive experience with organised crime, acting as Chief Financial Officer for the Chinese Tongs. Since then he has worked on research into electromagnetic radiation. Currently a member of the SPECTRE syndicate, he has a strong…

  • Trekathon: All Good Things

    738 movies or episodes down. ([Memory Alpha](http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Portal:Main) says 728, but I count five of the two-part episodes in their syndication versions, not their original aired versions). What did I learn from all that? First, I became a Star Trek fan. Before I did this I was just someone who liked Star Trek. But after watching…

  • Trekathon Movie Summary

    Twelve movies – all very different. Let’s start with the rankings, and then discuss: Great: – Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan – Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Good, but flawed in some way: – Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home – Star Trek Into Darkness – Star Trek: First Contact – Star…

  • Trekathon 738: Star Trek Into Darkness (MOV)

    Kirk hunts down a dangerous terrorist. For the first time since I started this, the spoiler one is in effect. Watch out, spoilers for the entire movie after the break. If you want the non-spoiler version: I liked it. Some of the flaws of the first movie are still a problem, but it feels a…

  • Trekathon 737: Star Trek (MOV)

    JJ Abrams reboots Star Trek. This is a pretty good, but not spectacular, movie. There’s a good mix of action and plot, a believable enemy with understandable (if extreme) goals, good character development, and some good humour. It has some problems, most notably some ridiculously overcomplicated camera work, and a some bad inconsistencies on scale/speed…

  • Trekathon Season Review: Enterprise, Season 4

    It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. So to start, this season needs to be considered in two brackets. Firstly, the five ‘standalone’ episodes: three awful (*Bound*, *These are the Voyages…* and *Daedalus*), one average (*Home*) and one OK-ish (*Observer Effect*). By any measure, a pretty bad year here. But…

  • Trekathon 736: These Are the Voyages … (ENT)

    Dear Writers of this Episode, No, Fuck You! Signed, Everyone who actually liked this show. Outside of the big problem (that this is a bad episode of TNG, not a farewell to Enterprise), there are a lot of other issues with this episode. Characterisation feels off all over the place. No one has gotten a…