Boss Techie

These new shorts come from the mind of Casper Kelly, an animation vet who is perhaps best known as the mind behind the 21st-century masterpiece of insanity “Too Many Cooks.” I jumped on a call with Kelly to talk about the new shorts, which will feature the voices of Trek luminaries like Jonathan Frakes, Doug Jones, Armin Shimerman, Gates McFadden, George Takei, and many others.

Kelly said that Star Trek boss Alex Kurtzman was a fan of a series of Wonder Twins shorts that he made back in the day, which is in part what led him to work on the franchise.

“I came up through Cartoon Network and Adult Swim and did these shorts making fun of the Wonder Twins,” says Kelly. “I did it exactly in the style of the Wonder Twins. In fact, I think I used Wonder Twins cartoons and then just added new animation.”

You may remember them because they’re pretty brilliant. In one, a group of teens is lost in a cave, so Zan the Wonder Twin turns into a gopher and digs a little moat around them to protect the kids from a bear. That really happened in the original cartoon, but in Kelly’s version the bear just steps over the moat and kills all the kids.

There was a huge debate of what color the blood would be, because they figured it would be canon if it was used.

“So you never know,” laughs Kelly. “You do something, you don’t know if anyone’s seen it, and then somehow you get another job out of it.”

16 best headphones of the 21st century

Since the What Hi-Fi? Awards began in 1983, headphones have been annually celebrated by this publication – first in their wired form, of course, but now rightfully inclusive of wireless pairs too, as they continue to be the most personal and most intimate deliverers of music, not to mention facilitators of music on the move. In the past couple of decades, we’ve had some belters in both categories, from entry-level aces to high-end hotshots and including a model that has won a gong in more years than it hasn’t!

So, somewhat ashamedly, years after we have created lists for the best speakers, turntables and stereo amplifiers of this century, it is well and truly time to salute what are, in our books, the very best headphones of the past 23 years. Many have heritages dating back decades, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are lost to the annals of time. Most are still available today in newer editions, their legendary status kept alive for newer generations of music fans to discover, so it’s not too late to own a slice of headphone history yourself.

Grado SR80 (1991-)

The latest version of the SR80, the SR80x (Image credit: Grado)

Second Amendment for the 21st century

The jury chose to send the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooter to his death. But let’s talk about the use of the Second Amendment in ways that made his and the many mass killings possible.

You probably know the Second Amendment begins with the words “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…” You may not realize that was because militia members were expected to bring their own guns both for training and to any wars they had to fight. Today, soldiers are completely prohibited from bringing or using their own weapons. The Army supplies standard munitions for standardized guns. And of course, in 1791, when the amendment was ratified, you had to stuff powder and a shell into the barrel separately for each and every shot. So the Second Amendment as written is completely outdated and obsolete and should be treated that way – except this Court’s been in bed with political groups supporting gun rights fanatics.

Gun rights fanatics are determined to extend the Second Amendment to guns that were unavailable and unknown in the eighteenth century when the Amendment was created, for a purpose which no longer exists. Those guns now exist to challenge the militia, not to support it. Gun shows are full of claims about “tyranny,” obviously aimed at government and the people we’ve elected. Some in the gun rights movement think the language of the Second Amendment is sufficiently open to justify having howitzers, tanks and bombs – which itself makes clear the fanaticism of the movement and the danger of leaving the Second Amendment unchanged.