The BBC reports Leonard Nimoy's death by end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The actor, famous for playing the role of Mr Spock in the long-running sci-fi series, passed away at his Bel Air home on Friday Feb 27th.
This is reported far and wide, including The New York Times , and Volkskrant .
fritsd: I'll never forget Spitting Image's mangling of his words: "To be, or not to be.. isn't that quite logical, captain?"
infodragon: The iconic Vulcan will be missed!
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Friday February 27 2015, @07:12PM
Shatner's passing might be mocked, but Nimoy's is sure to trigger a huge outpouring of sympathy and fond remembrance.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Friday February 27 2015, @07:20PM
As the years go on, I appreciate Shatner more and more... Nimoy? Far less. And I began watching ToS in '67. :-)
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @08:54PM
Some great artists are terrible human beings. Shatner's trick is that he manages be both a terrible artist and a terrible human being, and somehow comes off as very charismatic. How? Why? I don't understand it, but it's quite a trick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @09:18PM
So you're saying that he's qualified to be a politician?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @09:54PM
He's too likable and not evil enough for politics.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @11:13PM
Hmmm ... so he could still be Mayor of Toronto?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by urza9814 on Friday February 27 2015, @07:12PM
There we go...I was just looking over the front page stories and thinking "Wow...the news is all *good* today! WTF?". Then I refresh the page and this pops up.
Well, he was 83 and famous...at least we can say he lived long and prospered, right?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TWX on Friday February 27 2015, @08:08PM
Yes, yes he did. Tonight I'll remember him with his recording of The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS...
and everywhere the language went, it was a total loss.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Saturday February 28 2015, @12:07AM
I loved the hell out of Nimoy but to be fair Shatner...sings...the..hits..much...funnier on the....whole.
As for his passing? Shows that if you want to quit as I did to keep from choking out your family that is one thing, but don't think its gonna do shit for the smoker. After all he quit nearly 40 years ago and it still ended up killing him.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by pe1rxq on Saturday February 28 2015, @02:36PM
Which means he was well in his forties when he stopped. Chances are you smoked less than he did in the first half of his life, so stopping might still have been good for you.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Saturday February 28 2015, @06:12PM
I smoked from 15-45 so...yeah not likely, I'm still fucked. That said I'm happy now with the e-cigs, got me a box mod that puts out insane amounts of vapor and the amount of flavors is just insane, I'm vaping raspberry/blueberry nerds right now and I swear you can even taste the candy shell, just nuts how good the flavors have gotten. I look at a regular cig now and just the thought makes me want to gag.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Aighearach on Saturday February 28 2015, @09:00PM
You're still a smoker.
Keep in mind that the hypothesis that "it is the tar that causes cancer" is proved wrong. Remember "light" cigarettes? They were marketed as being healthier. And they decrease COPD. Bad news though, the rate of cancer goes UP, not down. The nicotine is a carcinogen, and a new round of advertising from Big Tobacco has re-convinced the same suckers that fell for the last round of horse shit, along with a new batch.
It isn't too late to quit. You're still young enough to substantially reduce your risks. It is just a matter of early death. Smoking "only" takes 3 years off your life, on average. But it adds 15 years, on average, of reduced quality of life at the end. You might only cut your lung cancer risk in half by quitting now, but you could add 10 years of quality retirement to your life.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Saturday February 28 2015, @09:54PM
The GP might be vaping non nicotine liquid. I know a few people who completely quit smoking using e-cigs and/or vaporizers. Some stopped vaping after they completely quit and some continue to vape to varying degrees.
But some continue to vape nicotine liquid because they aren't weening themselves off of it. That or they believe that the vapor is healthier and they are purposely still get their nicotine fix (having their cake and eating it too). And to make it worse, they mod their vaporizers to get insane heavy pulls. When they exhale, you can't see their face. So they are taking in heavier doses of nicotine then they did when smoking regular cigarettes making it even harder to quit.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday March 01 2015, @04:56AM
Sad to see somebody so ignorant of the difference, do you believe you are "smoking" when you walk into a hospital? You ARE breathing PG when you walk into a hospital, they use it to dry out the air, its pumped into the AC vents. Do you also call those that use asthma inhalers smokers as well? Guess what those are made of, VG and PG. Humidifiers? Same.
So you can save your preaching, I've already done the research and there isn't anything in vape juice that isn't used in everything from cup cakes to gel caps. Nicotine is less damaging to the body than caffeine, its simply a mild stimulant and at 10mg I'd have to drink the bottle to equal what I was getting from a pack, and a bottle lasts 3 weeks. And nothing either of us can say or do will change the fact I was a 2 pack a day smoker from 15-45 and despite the BS from the non smoking brigade Nimoy shows that you can't smoke constantly for longer than a couple years and not end up with permanent damage, not with all the garbage they put in cigs from 62 onwards.
BTW don't bother bringing up the horseshit "ecigs have formaldehyde 50 times cigs" article, as one of the two researchers has already denounced it and asked his name be removed because it was a scam. Turned out to get those "results" they took a 50c cartomizer nobody uses anymore (and you can only get it in sub $7 Chinese "all in one" kits, even gas stations don't carry those old CE3 anymore) and they had to get it to 1200c! To get that result. Of course at 1200c all they were doing is melting the plastic, somebody at Mad Vapes tried to recreate it and couldn't even take a drag as the searing melted crap coming out of the thing would blister your mouth. Of course surprise surprise that and pretty much every other "ZOMFG ecigs!" research paper was paid for by.....drumroll...RJ Reynolds, the same people that said in 1986 cigs are harmless and not addictive.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Aighearach on Saturday February 28 2015, @08:53PM
Sad to see such an ignorant comment on this post. How would somebody who never even heard of probability end up on a website like this one?
(Score: 5, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday February 27 2015, @07:13PM
Using that headline was not my idea, but why was that headline not used? Is the death of a celebrity really that solemn to you all?
Are you all crying tears in your fake adhesive vulcan eartips, bowl-headed unisex hairstyles, and ancient Hebrew hand gestures?
They should have William Shatner deliver the eulogy in his declarative staccato, punctuated with a bongo player:
(Score: 3, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Friday February 27 2015, @07:54PM
Are you all crying tears in your fake adhesive vulcan eartips, bowl-headed unisex hairstyles, and ancient Hebrew hand gestures?
I'll have you know, good sir, that my adhesive vulcan eartips are 100% Official StarTrek memorabilia. You've got some nerve calling them fake!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday February 27 2015, @08:39PM
Somewhere in a backup of a harddrive that died in 2005 I have a backup of a harddrive that died pre-9/11 filled with a giant cache of music I downloaded from Napster. On it was Leonard Nimoy's classic, "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins." That, and only that, could be the funeral processional.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday February 27 2015, @09:01PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGF5ROpjRAU [youtube.com]
Nuff said.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday February 28 2015, @09:10AM
> Is the death of a celebrity really that solemn to you all?
Not to everybody, of course.
I for one, will only be sad when Robby the robot gives himself the last oiljob.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by moylan on Friday February 27 2015, @07:15PM
he was an actor on a scifi show. yet i suspect that many geeks and nerds here were influenced positively by that show.
i'd put leonard nimoy down as much as a positive influence on me as carl sagan, issac asimov, arthur c. clarke in getting me interested in science and tech.
thank you...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @08:29PM
He portrayed an alien (as in "a foreigner who is not one of us") in the '60s as intellectual, powerful, stable, reliable and non-threatening. Pretty much the antithesis of how most non-whites were portrayed on TV and in the movies at the time. Groundbreaking? Maybe, maybe not. A watershed moment for entertainment? Yes indeed.
Being "different" didn't make him subject to ridicule or abuse. It didn't make him dysfunctional, bumbling or insignificant. He was proof positive that being smart, self assured and *different* didn't mean you had to be marginalized by your peers, your employer or society in general. Not exactly a role model ... or was he?
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday February 27 2015, @10:12PM
One might even say that Spock was a nerd, and the only nerd senior officer on the original Enterprise.
He was logical and kept a cool head, and he never came off as smug or preachy in reminding everybody else that humans are illogical.
Star Trek: TNG was my introduction to the Star Trek universe, but I am happy to say that Unification I and II [wikipedia.org] are by far two of the best TNG episodes and feature both Spock and Sarek as well as Data trying his hand (hee hee!) at a Vulcan nerve-pinch.
Farewell, Leonard! You have lived long and prospered!
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Saturday February 28 2015, @08:41AM
One might even say that Spock was a nerd, and the only nerd senior officer on the original Enterprise.
Scotty? [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday February 28 2015, @04:46PM
Scotty was a drunk.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday February 28 2015, @07:03PM
He could be so socially inappropriate, but was always helpful, although he could be entirely wrapped up in his own interests to care about the petty problems of 'space sheeple'...
...yep... he was definitely a role model for me: showed me that i wasn't alone.
Will miss him as much as Leslie Neilson. My daughter includes Robin Williams, but except for Mork, he was meh to me.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 5, Interesting) by GungnirSniper on Friday February 27 2015, @07:40PM
This scene still makes me tear up.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Friday February 27 2015, @11:11PM
Blub. Makes me sad, too, that they had to rip it off for Into Darkness.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Saturday February 28 2015, @12:21AM
Pretty much every death scene after that ST tried to do came off as just hamfisted and painful. Generations should have been called "And oh yeah, Kirk dies". Nemesis could easily have been called "And watch us throw away 7 years of character development as we show Data is nothing but an easily replaced droid, thus making classic like "Measure Of a Man" suck in hindsight" and Into Darkness should have the tagline "Ran out of ideas 5 years ago, now just badly rehashing for fan service".
You really don't realize how shitty most of the ST movies are until you sit down and watch the series starting with Khan, and as a credit to Nimoy's talent the only really good ones IMHO after Khan? Both Nimoy directed.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday February 28 2015, @12:42AM
You really don't realize how shitty most of the ST movies are until you sit down and watch the series
Oh, don't I? Can't I watch them and form my own subjective opinion? :|
It's a peeve of mine when people express their personal opinions as being any kind of remotely objective fact, even if it's only done casually. "X sucks!" "No, X is great, Y sucks!" and so on. The world - well, the internet, certainly - would be a better and more productive place without it.
And so, in conclusion, Final Frontier rocks and it's double-dumb-ass on you if you don't know it.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 5, Insightful) by arashi no garou on Saturday February 28 2015, @01:38AM
It's a figure of speech, a very common one in US English. He didn't call you, wonkey_monkey out by name, it's a collective "you". Replace "you" with "one", correct the conjugation, and you have the exact same meaning.
It's a pet peeve of mine when a person thinks they are the center of the universe to the point they believe everyone must be talking about them all the time.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday February 28 2015, @02:28AM
He didn't call you, wonkey_monkey out by name, it's a collective "you"
I understood that, and wrote my reply with that understanding, so that when I said "Oh, don't I?" I was referring to myself as just one member of that collective "you."
I was taking individual offence at being told what our opinion was, if you like.
Replace "you" with "one", correct the conjugation, and you have the exact same meaning.
Ye-es, and I'd still make the exact same point in response, since "one" generally does refer to the same collective "you." Unless you're the Queen.
It's a pet peeve of mine when a person thinks they are the center of the universe to the point they believe everyone must be talking about them all the time.
I don't think that at all. What I do believe is that even casual statement of opinion as fact has the potential to imply that one person's subjective opinion is worth more than another's, and I don't think that's ever a good thing.
I'm not saying that every subjective opinion should be preceeded with "I think that..." but just that, sometimes, it doesn't cost much to take a little care to avoid looking like you're downgrading the value of other's opinions in favour of your own, or implying that your opinion is so right that it is shared by everyone.
Maybe I over-reacted a bit on this occasion. But hey, that's what peeves are about.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 5, Insightful) by arashi no garou on Saturday February 28 2015, @02:38AM
I guess I'm just not the knee-jerk type. I got right away that it was his opinion, and as we all are entitled to them, it didn't bother me even though I do in fact disagree with his opinion. If everyone were required to say "I think that..." or "I feel that..." before espousing what is obviously a subjective take, it would be too cumbersome to read.
And if you're paying attention, that last sentence I just typed was solely my opinion, and this sentence stands as an example of how onerous, cumbersome, and ultimately unnecessary having to explain that "it's just my opinion" can be. We're not a bunch of lawyers and this isn't a courtroom; we shouldn't have to follow every opinion with a disclaimer.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Saturday February 28 2015, @01:15PM
Thank you, BTW Lord save us from Grammar Nazis! But you look at the ratings of the others with death scenes? None of them are as good as Khan as far as ratings, in fact last I checked RT the only ones that come close to Khan are again the ones Nimoy directed, showing the man knew how to put heart in a movie.
Believe me I wish it wasn't so, I was a HARD FUCKING CORE fan of TNG and DS9, I soooo wanted a movie of Khan quality from that franchise, never got one. It might be just me but they always felt like a TNG episode with a better budget, whereas TOS movies felt like actual movies....yes even V, its a bad movie but its still paced like a movie. When I watched the TNG movies on regular TV the commercial spots "fit" perfectly in the movie, it was like they still had the TV break beats built in to the flicks...am I making sense?
But you can tell almost to the minute when they ran out of gas, like a band whose past its prime and just rehashing old ideas first they took the kick ass premise of Voyager and turned it into "the good ship reset button". What was sad is Braga TRIED to save it, he wanted "Year of hell" to be exactly that, a year of Voyager fighting for their lives, Berman shot it down for yet ANOTHER reset button, and Enterprise? I can't even stand to sit through most of those for a second time, they weren't even "so bad its good", they were just painful, terrible writing,lots of obvious T&A for the sake of T&A, and on many episodes there wasn't even a single likable character with EVERYBODY acting like assholes! Finally the reboot? Felt like a dudebro movie trying to hit the beats of the previous show, only Urban felt to me like a real person though Quinto is a damned good actor, just given hamfisted dialog.
But the grammar nazi can disagree all he wants (and pick this post to shit if he wants, I'm southern so the grammar and punctuation is terrible I'm sure) but I dare anybody to watch all the movies in a marathon, I recently did and it was just painful to sit through, with 5 and 7 for me being the most terrible. I refuse to watch 1 again or even really count it as it was reported by several on the set that they didn't even have a script for nearly half the movie, Roddenberry was rewriting others scripts and they would quit in disgust. IIRC in both Nimoy and Shatner's books they said they often had to just make up dialog as Gene had gotten a writer fired and no script was given that day. No script or direction? No movie IMHO. Best in the series IMHO? 2,4,6, all Nimoy.
RIP Nimoy, it was obvious which one in that group had the most talents, actor, director, photographer, the man was talented as hell.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by arashi no garou on Saturday February 28 2015, @01:48PM
I think I'm in the minority of Trek fans who enjoyed the first film almost as much as the second. But then, I first saw them as a child, not having seen the original series first. I also enjoyed the fourth film as a child, but watching it later as an adult I found it hokey even though it's considered one of the better films. By 1992 I had seen the entire original series and all of TNG that had aired up until then, and I was just starting high school when the sixth film came out. I thought it had more plot holes than a plate of swiss cheese, and I had the entire "twist" figured out very early in. The only thing I really liked about VI was that Sulu was featured as a starship captain; he was always my favorite character from TOS.
I think I'm also in the minority that actually liked Nemesis, though I hated the way they killed off Data (my favorite TNG character) and retconned his future character. No, "B-4" is not going to become Data, no matter what the supposedly canon comics say. Those life experiences were lost when he was destroyed, and I felt it was an insult to the character. Fine, kill him off and make him the hero, but don't prop up some hollow shell as his "afterlife".
As for DS9...what can I say? It was a mix of utterly boring plots and hollow characters at first ("Star Trek: Days of our Lives"), then it finally got really good for a while, with movie-quality plots and actors allowed to act instead of just read lines. And poor Voyager...I loved it for certain characters but I always found the plots either repetitive or flat. I kept waiting for the Doctor to "accidentally" kill off Tom
SawyerParis, I couldn't stand that actor or his character.If they insist on continuing the Star Trek franchise, I think they should just stop with the original characters and focus on something unfamiliar. I've always wanted to see the New Frontier books made into a series; there are some fun characters there.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Saturday February 28 2015, @06:36PM
Dude don't blame the guy playing Paris, he was actually a really good actor who like sadly too many on that show was trapped in shitty script hell. You watch the episode of TNG they stole the character from (the one where Wesley gets somebody killed) and he actually made you feel for the "bad guy" but then he got trapped on Good Ship Reset Button and got fucked with the rest. I think Chuck at SF Debris summed up the producers feeling WRT Voyager when he said "Everyone hated Wesley on TNG? They toned his ass down and finally stuck him on a bus. Berman finds out that everybody hates Neelix and Seven Of Nine is overused? he says "Fuck you we'll DOUBLE the amount of screentime we give neelix and take others episodes and give 'em to cybertits!"
As far as ST 1? You gotta admit dude it just...ends. Its like they finally start building steam and just...stop. No real climax, they take for fricking EVAR to get the ball rolling and just when it feels like ST? End credits. I agree with DS9, like TNG it took 'em a couple years to get the ball rolling, the Dominion arc is where that show really shined although IMHO it went on a season too long, it should have ended when the war wrapped up and the Pai Wraith crap was just tarded.
Dude tell the truth, didn't the ending of Nemesis just piss you the fuck off? I mean you can just throw away "The Measure Of a Man" and all of Data's charcter development because they took a big old shit by saying "yes we can just replace him, he IS a robot after all". I never understood why the movies went out of their way just to crap on all that the TNG show built up, I mean they turned Data into a bad comedy sidekick in Generations, bad buddy sidekick (who is apparently now Superman) in First Contact, and Picard they turned from a chessmaster into an aging John McClaine spouting one liners and driving dune buggies...sigh
As for ST continuing? You really need to watch what Tim Russ is doing with Of Gods And Men and Renegades, its sad but Russ seems to be keeping more of the TNG era ST going a fuckton better than anything put out by the studio and Star Trek Continues honestly felt a HELL of a lot more like ST:TOS than the dudebro boom fest that JJ "I love teh lens flarez lulz" Aabrams put out. If they are gonna continue? Fuck it, give Russ 20 million and let him make Renegades a feature. Its got a hell of an interesting premise (subspace is breaking down, more and more of the Federation is becoming isolated and they don't know who or what is causing it) everything he's done so far shows he gets WTF made classic TOS and TNG good viewing (and he had a hell of a lot better use of his TOS cameos than Generations by a country mile) and even with a shoestring budget he has a better grip on timing and building tension than anything we ever saw from Berman and Braga.
All I know is I can't take anymore of the "new" reboot crap, between transporters that cross the galaxy, rehashing classic storylines BADLY and Chris Pine living up to his last name? Ugh, I think I'd rather watch V and VII back to back, at least it has some cheese to enjoy LOL.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @02:30AM
Um, no. Sorry. That option became unavailable when Spock died. The real one, not the one in the movie.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Sunday March 01 2015, @09:35PM
...with lens flare and Swordfish's colorist.
1702845791×2
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @08:12PM
Seriously, did I accidently log on to people.com or something?
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @08:33PM
"news for nerds" is from that green site that finally realized that it failed to realized that it failed to listen to its audience. You can go back now.
Fuck Beta.
(Score: 5, Funny) by The Archon V2.0 on Friday February 27 2015, @10:22PM
SoylentNews is people.
Mr. Nimoy is a people.
Therefore Mr. Nimoy is SoylentNews.
This is the news part.
The logistics of the Soylent part are still being worked out.
Watch for a special wrapper on your food ration!
(Score: 3, Funny) by boxfetish on Saturday February 28 2015, @02:53AM
Nimoy green?!? Sign me up!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Marand on Saturday February 28 2015, @08:27AM
Nimoy green?!? Sign me up!
The only logical choice for a balanced breakfast.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday February 27 2015, @08:35PM
Honestly, if you have to ask that question when it's Spock, you're probably on the wrong site. Or 13. But even if you were 13, you would at least know who Spock was and why nerds would mourn his death, in the same way I would have understood the significance of another Sci-Fi great who was before my time like Heinlein or Edgar Rice Burroughs. If you were a nerd, that is.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @10:51PM
You are right. This is our exclusive club and Nimoy is someone about whom we are allowed to speak. You can talk only about entertainers who have been in movies that we approve of. Nimoy, yes. Sigourney Weaver, yes if we're talking about Alien or Avatar, but not for Gorillas in the Mist. On this site you are allowed to bring up any topic on which the established clique has defined their own moral stance ("Snowden == God"; "NSA == evil"), or those topics that are about issues that fit into the Hollywood-esque mold of the "nerd". If you try to bring in an analogy or topic about sports, then you are told to go away because those are issues that only "Joe Sixpack" cares about, sprinkled with a smattering of Eurotard commentary about how even though only idiots would be interested in that, but European sports are much better. We say we love science here, but the three guys here who can actually talk about those topics are usually too busy and any science story ends up with all the comments being some variant of the poster thinking he's making a clever joke or pun. Economics topics are allowed, but only in a far as it allows one to set themselves up for rambling from self-proclaimed "liberitarians" whose world view is defined by the fact that they are in their early 20's and they have read some Ayn Rand. If your posts are not at +1 or higher, than your opinion is not welcome nor worthy of discussion here.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @08:29PM
>If you were a nerd, that is.
My apologies for my good hygiene, athletic prowess and social skills.
As you were, nerd.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday February 27 2015, @08:28PM
I had lunch with Leonard Nimoy once on the most surreal day of my life. It was the heady DotCom days. I had recently moved to New York from Chicago, having fled the implosion of the Hedge Fund industry in the wake of Long-Term Capital Management's attempt to torpedo the US economy. I landed a job at a dotcom agency building E-commerce 1.0. It was located in a ratty warehouse off Astor Place. So I showed up the first day in a t-shirt and ripped jeans, expecting to start coding. The CTO met me at the door as I walked in and said, "Hey, how's it going? Can you go to a product launch? The CEO can't make it."
I said, "Uh, OK. Where do I go?" I had never been to a product launch before; they had as soon asked me to jump on a ship to Mars.
"Rockefeller Center. Jump in a cab and get a receipt--we'll expense it."
Rockefeller Center rang a bell, like it was a famous place. So, whatever, I went. I showed the ticket to the guy at the front desk, who sent me to the *gold* elevators (he said it like that, with an emphasis on "gold"), where there were dudes in full on uniforms like they used to wear in Little Orphan Annie. So I rode up with an attendant, who paused at the end like he wanted me to tip him. I said, "Thanks, pal," and walked out into the Twilight Zone. The Rainbow Room. Amazing view of the whole city. Room full of people in power suits and nobody younger than 50. A 5-star spread on the tables. Being in a t-shirt and ripped jeans, I felt a little out of place and looked for a hole to climb into. Found one, but there was already a nicely-dressed girl my age in it, a reporter from Home & Garden Magazine.
The product launch, it turned out, was for a new version of RealPlayer (remember them?). It was the first streaming channel play. So they had chairs set up in the ball room for the unveiling. That's where the reporter and I went, because no one was in there. We sat in the first row to eat our shrimp scampi and talk about how surreal the whole thing was. We kept our heads down so studiously the room filled up without our noticing. Next thing we knew, Dick Clark jumped on the stage 5 feet away from us to MC the show (that guy's actually real, not a robot like in Disneyland's Hall of Presidents?).
First up, debuting the Music channel, the Eurythmics performing on another stage four feet away from us. Annie Lennox is tall, and her voice was as amazing live as on a studio album, no autotuner needed.
Second up, the SciFi channel, introduced by a couple of gentlemen you might know! Dick Clark pointed directly at us. Except, not us, he was pointing to Leonard Nimoy and John de Lancie ("Q" from STNG), sitting in the folding chairs directly behind us.
Then, the Comedy channel was up. Dick Clark called on Jon Stewart, who had just taken over as host of the Daily Show, sitting next to Spock and Q. He was hilarious.
There, in the Rainbow Room at the top of the Rock, surrounded by the power elite of NYC and within a 5-ft radius, Dick Clark, the Eurythmics, Spock, Q, and Jon Stewart, dressed in a t-shirt and ripped jeans. It was very like a scenario Q might have conjured up.
After the program, lunch was served. The reporter fled to file her story. I stayed to eat the free steak, but picked a small table, one of those sit/stand things, tucked away in a remote corner. I mean, the thing was maybe 2' in diameter. But who came up and sat at my table but Nimoy and de Lancie. I offered to move, but they said stay. We chatted pleasantly for 45 minutes about nothing I can really recall. Baseball, maybe. Annie Lennox's performance, I think. I was determined not to ask for an autograph or gush--how do you tell Spock and Q they inspired you to get into tech in the first place, and who influenced the entire arc of your imagination toward science and science fiction? Especially since they mostly talked about acting topics, gigs, contracts, press junkets, that sort of thing, not warp fields and continuua. Maybe some of you guys could have thought of something to say. I couldn't.
But I've always appreciated that, in that room full of powerful men whose pocket change was more than the last N generations of my family earned in their lives, they chose my company over theirs.
RIP, Spock.
(Score: 2) by Aighearach on Saturday February 28 2015, @03:03AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGF5ROpjRAU [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday February 27 2015, @08:28PM
But... yeah, at the time Star Trek VI came out, I did not want to tell anybody (especially the chicks I never had a chance with anyway) that I nearly wore out the VHS copy I had for fear of being 'uncool'. Imagine my surprise this morning when I logged on to man-kind's global communications network, something that was very much science-fiction during the peak of Mr. Nimoy's career, and nearly all of my classmates, male and female alike, paid their respects to him. I think that speaks very well to Mr. Nimoy's talents as an actor and to the writers, directors, etc who presented us with the character of Mr. Spock. He was iconic even to people who thought it was a show only nerds could love.
He did live long and he did prosper, that is not why I mourn. Today marks the end of an era. I seriously doubt there was one person on this planet who was anxiously waiting for this day to arrive.
You did a lot of good in my life Mr. Nimoy. Thank you and farewell.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Daiv on Friday February 27 2015, @08:29PM
Even though my two favorite performances were as William Bell and the narrator on Civilization IV, they were both amazing.
Don't smoke. I did. Wish I never had. LLAP -Leonard Nimoy, January 10, 2015
Even if not smoking had given you one more day, it would have been worth it.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Monday March 02 2015, @11:50AM
Similar reaction for me, however for me I mostly appreciate him for Catlow (yes, I like westerns).
Funnily enough I have a similar thing with McCoy (DeForest Kelly) with Gunfight At The O.K. Corral.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday February 27 2015, @09:10PM
Last thing he said on twitter back Monday of this week is kinda fitting.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by lhsi on Saturday February 28 2015, @10:09AM
As last tweets go, he's set the bar astronomically high.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by acid andy on Friday February 27 2015, @09:30PM
I'm not going to find sufficient words to properly honour the great actor who played my favourite (and I'm sure many others') sci fi character. As others will be saying, a truly inspirational figure.
RIP Leonard. I didn't know you personally, but I still miss you.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by number6 on Friday February 27 2015, @09:40PM
'Columbo S2E06—A stitch in crime' Leonard Nimoy plays a world-class medical researcher/professor of surgery who kills his research mentor. The is the only episode where the perp (Nimoy), for all intents and purposes outwits Lt. Columbo, who walks away like a beaten man!
If you think Lt. Columbo was not that smart then also watch 'Columbo S6E03—The bye-bye sky high I.Q. murder case' where he outsmarts a certified genius who commits the most obfuscated impossible-to-solve murder you will ever see.
RIP Mr. Nimoy
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Friday February 27 2015, @10:55PM
The is the only episode where the perp (Nimoy), for all intents and purposes outwits Lt. Columbo, who walks away like a beaten man!
Nope. Columbo gets him right at the end when he reveals that they found the suspect sutures hidden on him (Columbo) by the surgeon, during the surgery.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Friday February 27 2015, @10:01PM
"Highly Illogical" by Leonard Nimoy, from: "Spaced Out: The Best of Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner"
(Score: 5, Interesting) by looorg on Friday February 27 2015, @10:32PM
I wonder what Leonard and Sheldon will play now instead of Rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock ... or perhaps there is like a verbal counter-move to whomever shows Spock -- He's dead Jim! Making you the default winner.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by animal on Friday February 27 2015, @11:14PM
He is still an icon. And will be for the most of us. He inspired and lit the imagination of many. Ask around about Spock, few will answer "Who is he?" I think he played the most iconic characters in TV series and played it damn well. Star Trek wouldn't be what it was without Mr. Spock. Whatever we say is just not enough. Even though I never met you or knew you, I will miss you Mr. Nimoy. Thank you for the inspiration.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday February 27 2015, @11:27PM
I started watching Star Trek reruns when I was 8. I don't know why I found Star Trek so much more compelling than most of the drivel on TV. Better questions and answers, I think. Only other thing I really liked was Looney Tunes.
Spock was scary. When danger threatened, would logic dictate that he abandon others to fend for themselves, suffer certain death? Not take risks to save them? Was that really being logical? It certainly was presented in a calm, logical way, and sounded quite rational. Which made it all the creepier. One of his quietly nastiest lines was in Mirror, Mirror when he expanded upon an earlier observation that the customary action with uncooperative natives was extermination, and even blaming them for it ("Regrettable that the Halkans have chosen suicide"), stating that "Terror must be maintained." It was only logical, as terror was what held the empire together.
Why did the other crew members trust a guy like that? Seems they had him figured out as something of a phony, and despite the earnest and even innocent manner, which made his thinking even more frightening, all that emotionless logic was just his schtick.
It was also fascinating to speculate whether this extreme rationalism was possible. Could people who deliberately trained themselves to behave that way form a functional society? Could that work? Could Spock be for real? If there are aliens, might they behave that way? Or would such an approach to life soon be forced to bend to some other aspect of reality that they had overlooked and would be unable to fit into such a worldview? Spock was the very distilled essence of a 1950s and 1960s engineering rationalism, which was well harnessed to get us to the moon, but was also abused to justify the Vietnam War, and which played a big part in spurring the counterculture.
Politicians are of course ready to use any vehicle they think will serve their often foolish purposes, whatever damage that may do. In the WWII era it was Social Darwinism and eugenics, in the 1960s, it was scientific rationalism. And now? Science having been smeared a bit, some have switched horses, riding under the banner of piety and Christian morals, besmirching that. Spock looks ever more like a caricature and exaggeration of the attitudes of the 1960s. But still a very fascinating and thought provoking character.
(Score: 2) by arashi no garou on Sunday March 01 2015, @05:46PM
There's a ton of subtext, canon and not, that suggests that the Vulcan "logic instead of emotion" lifestyle is nothing more than a carefully controlled collective deception. Essentially, they are just as warlike, manipulative, and secretive as their Romulan brethren, and only put on a face of cold logical dispassion to keep the rest of the galaxy guessing.
The problem is, the majority of the experiences the audience has with the Vulcan race in the narrative is Mr. Spock himself, who is half human. The only other Vulcan with as much screen time is Tuvok from Voyager, and even though he's fully Vulcan by blood, he's also been a Star Fleet officer for most of his adult life, and he was skeptical of the Vulcan Logic way of life in his early years. Like Spock, he's not your typical Vulcan, yet he and Spock are all we really have to go on. So, is this "Vulcan conspiracy theory" an actual, canon subtext, or is it just the result of an audience with limited exposure to a fictional race's beliefs?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @12:06AM
Who did a bunch of episodes on the old Mission: Impossible?
Or was he the one who was mentioned in that gerbil stuffing incident?
(Score: 2) by mendax on Saturday February 28 2015, @05:26AM
From Star Trek VI (and my faulty memory):
Chekov: Then we're dead.
Spock: I've been dead before.
Hey, folks! He may be back yet!
On a more serious note, he will be seriously missed by me. I'd watch some of TOS tonight in a kind of tribute if I wasn't away from home for a couple days.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 1) by outlier on Saturday February 28 2015, @05:20PM
Allow me to un-paraphrase the line that Nimoy was so known for and extend the man the same gesture that he extended to so many others.
May the Lord bless you and keep you.
May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.
May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
Numbers 6:24-26
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2015, @09:51PM
"fritsd: I'll never forget Spitting Image's mangling of his words: "To be, or not to be.. isn't that quite logical, captain?""
Sorry fritsd, seems that you've already forgot some part of that. I watched Splitting Image nearly thirty years ago, but that one got stuck on my mind. "To be or not to be. That is... illogical, captain.". I sought for it on YouTube to confirm it, and there you have it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UNSuPYo8_Q [youtube.com]
As for the sad news, may I pay my little homage to Mr. Nimoy and his creation of the Spock character. Roddenderry's script called for a logical, emotionless character - but Nimoy had his own take on it. He revealed that he played Spock as being terribly passionate inside, but rigidly disciplined in the outside. Having so many people losing their temper when speaking of politics, either for right or wrong, is what makes Mr. Nimoy's creation a role model. We may not agree, ever - but cannot we at least discuss things in a civilized manner? -Ignacio Agulló.
(Score: 2) by Open4D on Tuesday March 03 2015, @01:59PM
Zachary Quinto: Leonard Nimoy was like a father to me [theguardian.com]