If you have CBS All Access^W^W^WParamount Plus, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is everything you liked about old Star Trek plus all the coolness of the newer Treks.

If you have Showtime, The Man Who Fell to Earth is fantastic.  Chiwetel Ejiofor deserves all the awards.

Some small OnePo improvements and fixes:

• Making links to other pages the traditional way, via the "link" icon and the dialog box, works again on the iPhone.
• You can also make links by just pasting a link to any page straight into your post, without clicking the link button. When you do that, a nice automatic preview and link appears. We've had this for ages, but there was a dumb bug that broke it for most cases, except YouTube. All fixed. Here's a nice example (and a cool game):

You'll note I didn't have to create any content for that, I just pasted the address of the page straight into this post. This is based on the "open graph" tags that websites already provide for the benefit of Facebook sharing.

• Speaking of the automatic link feature: pasting a URL like that in the middle of your text once again splits the text into two sections, with the link preview in the middle.

As I mentioned, you can still make links the old-fashioned way too.

(At this point I don't care that I'll never be able to buy the domain onepo dot com. I'm still going to call it that, because how can you not?)

Just a quick one to let y'all know I started the Draw 100 Heads challenge today (with a fantasy theme, of course) over on my Twitter account.

If you'd like to check it out, I started a thread, so you should be able to come back to this link as time passes and find all of them...

https://twitter.com/mrlich/status/1542564568274190336?s=21&t=6tuEhcRXrvdpQ-ii_Qtmgw

Did some drawing tonight. My newest character in a new D&D campaign we're playing just over the summer. We're a troupe of bards.

My character (Quinn) is an eloquence bard, and he's a changeling. Think of him as the face of the group.

Anyway, I started drawing him previously, but hit that point where I just decided that I hated everything about that version so I started over tonight.

So far, I'm a bit happier about it.

Of course, by next week...

More music reviews from those same three CD cases!  
​​​​​​​Track 1:  A brief mention of hellfire, but otherwise just high levels of peppiness.  ***
Track 2:  Not so peppy, and imagines an end to many avoidable deaths.  Still not bad.  **
Track 3:  A quiet meditation on a shadowy location.  **
Track 4:  Aha.  Exactly one dead bird, but a very moving eulogy for her.  ****
Track 5:  This song has only 7 words.  It's easy to listen to, at least.  **
Track 6:  Again no obvious physical death, but a genuine classic that can't be ignored.  It's about spiritual death, perhaps?  *****
Track 7:  One dead brother, lauded with exceptional peppiness.  Bring tissues.  *****
Track 8:  A bright love ballad that suddenly threatens to burn down cities and hear the lamentation of the women as they are also destroyed.  ****
Track 9:  An extremely peppy hymn to a baby destined for salvific sacrifice.  ****
Track 10:  A cheerful day in the park, then BANG, nuclear holocaust.  Mrs. Ferret claims to hate this song, but this time she played along bravely.  *****
Track 11:  A great song that possibly threatens death by drowning, but I think that's just metaphorical.  ****
Track 12:  A young man has become a petty criminal for reasons that are unclear to him.  He probably didn't kill anyone, but who knows?  **
Track 13:  A remixed version of track 6, probably the singers' best-known song.  It's been covered by a heavy metal group. *****
Track 14:  Dead leaves remind us of the inevitability of aging, loss, and death. ****
Track 15:  I can't find anything to particularly like about this one, but they can't all be hits. *
Track 16:  This song literally refers to the death of raindrops, but no one cries about dead raindrops, right?  **
Track 17:  After this remix/sequel of track 12, my son said "That song is so good, why is it so short?"  This made me very happy. ****
Track 18:  Entirely instrumental, with hints of track 22.  Reasonably peppy. ***
Track 19:  There's no trigger warning in this song about the suicide of a gentleman in otherwise pleasant circumstances. ****
Track 20:  Wow, a second consecutive suicide, of a man in less pleasant circumstances.  Who compiled this album?  I don't like this one as much, probably because it's not as peppy. **
Track 21:  Definitely refers to death, but I'm fairly hopeful that this is just a reference to the death of a love affair. Brief and lacking pep. **
Track 22:  More relationship death, but peppier. ***
Track 23:  A rocking ode to individual isolationism that contrasts a peppy beat with a less-peppy message. ****

Look out, Rogan! Ted’s brand new podcast is live. 
https://lifeinthetedlane.buzzsprout.com

In other news: Symone decided to lie down far from our bed, close to the door. Sort of weird (she usually likes to be close to our bed, or in her own), but maybe it's cooler over there. 

Thrym decided to abandon Vince's lap and go relax with her for a bit. Not a great picture: it's dark-ish and I had to zoom a lot to avoid distracting them. Maybe peace is possible? 

Boo: I have paxlovid rebound. I am “screamingly positive” for COVID, much like in this article. It happens.

Yay: the rebound symptoms are mild, as promised. Think “severe allergies.” No one has yet reported serious symptoms during the rebound, and more importantly paxlovid reduces hospitalizations by 90% during the initial course of COVID.

I have to stay isolated for another five days and retest. I’ll live! (Literally)

If you don’t have any risk factors they say you probably don’t need it. I took it because of my asthma and history of difficult flu. That may well have been a super-great decision. I don’t have a control Tom. 🤪

🌠 for anyone who finds themselves facing the “paxlovid or not?” question.

ÞÓRUNN is home to a coldly predatory society with a combination of military strength and economic power.  Þórunners frequently raid interstellar traders and poorly-defended outposts.  These pirates of the space lanes do not conceal their origins, but sport badges with the logos of their sponsoring corporation.  According to Þórunning Law, all plundered assets become the property of said financial institution as soon as they are returned to Þórunn itself.  At this point there are usually bribes to be paid to influential off-world interests who might otherwise be inclined to reappropriate the stolen property.  Anyone not dissuaded from that course of action must face the massive energy weapons mounted on each Þórunner vault.  These are advertised by colorful beams aimed into the sky, inviting challengers to take their best shot at attacking Þórunn.

TAKATSUKI is a rocky planet that lies within its star's habitable zone, but it has no atmosphere or native life.  It was colonized in the distant past because of its rich deposits of valuable rare elements.  The first settlers formed independent homesteads accountable only to themselves, but eventually they agreed to form a league that collectively controls the planet and limits immigration.  There are seven members of this league, which are called "Dōmei".  To ensure accountability to this regime, a cryptographically-secure identification scheme was established.  Any new arrival must broadcast their public key, and upon approval is required to join the least-populous Dōmei.  Failure to authenticate is punishable by death, and that sentence may be administered by any citizen.  Crime (such as killing an authenticated citizen) is adjudicated on the "Justice Channel", which transmits evidence for or against the alleged offense.  Each Dōmei gets one vote on whether to revoke the credentials of the accused, which is effectively a sentence of death unless the convicted person can quickly flee off-world.

YORDAN bears an interesting resemblance to Orla in that it is a gas giant with exports based entirely on intellectual property.  Yordanians take the Orlan obsession with their adopted planet to another level, however, by actually worshipping Yordan as a god.  They claim that it whispers to them in their dreams, teaching them secrets of the universe.  Though even their Paraíbite-enhanced neighbors in the Ventura sector warily regard these assertions, their worlds engage in frequent trade.  For it is undeniable that there is something to be learned within the Yordan system.  Yordanians have developed numerous technological advancements, and they also trade in knowledge of a more personal nature.  It is said that making a pilgrimage to Yordan often precedes an unexpected rise to power or a remarkable financial windfall.