Why Slow and Steady Wins the Race in Social Media

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A lot of the times, new business pop up and their owners are so excited about this new venture that they think they need to see quick growth on social media. This mindset may lead them to make some rash decisions such as buying followers or spending too much on ads. And it may look impressive to investors to have gained over 1,000 followers in under a month, but savvy investors know there's more to it than that. And the day-to-day consumer probably won't even pay attention.

Let's get this out of the way right at the front: Do not buy followers. No one knows for sure, but it's estimated that about 15% of social media accounts are bots. That's 15% of about 3 billion. So, if you had every bot on Twitter following you, it would bring your follower count up to about 450 million. Sounds impressive, right? It does right up until you realize that bots aren't buying your products or telling any real people about you. You could make the case that the high number of foll…
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Star Trek: Asterisk "Rajiin"

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Vital Information
Series: Enterprise
Episode: S03E04
Air Date: October 1, 2003
Written by: Brent V. Friedman and Chris Black
Directed by: Mike Vejar

Premise
Archer takes on board a sex slave who gets along swimmingly with the crew... sort of.

Review
In this episode we return to the relevant plot line of the Xindi council. They all get together and discuss the Enterprise moving through the Expanse while debating whether to finish a weapon that they were preparing for the Humans. Apparently it's a biological weapon and they need Human biological information in order to finish it.

So the Enterprise needs Trellium-D in order to insulate the ship against spacial anomalies. In order to get that, they go to a sort of bazaar where they've contacted a sketchy merchant. A deal is quickly made, but Archer wants more, as Archer is wont to do. He wants information on the Xindi, so the merchant directs him to a sex slave merchant who is equally sketchy. Apparently he gets a lot of Xindi customers. Archer questions the guy for a bit, but the price of information is too high. Archer doesn't want to buy a sex slave. So he steals one.
Boldly stealing sex slaves where no one has gone before.
See, when Archer walks away, Rajiin, the lovely blonde whore, runs after him hoping for asylum. Archer fights off the guards and the merchants and takes Rajiin back to the ship. And now Archer has a sex slave... awkward.

Meanwhile, Reed and Trip pay for their Trellium-D with some "exotic" cooking spices such as salt and paprika. They take the plans to synthesize Trellium-D back to the ship and Trip gets to work. It can only be synthesized in liquid form, but Trip is confident that he can make it work.

So now Archer has this woman on board his ship who has lived her entire life working as a sex slave. What does he do with her? Eat dinner. They talk about a variety of things including where she comes from and the fact that she doesn't really care to go back there. Also, Archer assures her that she can wander around the ship wherever she wants.  But things really get interesting later as Archer is getting ready for bed and she comes in and starts to make out with Archer. Not because they start to make out, but because her touch on his bare skin... makes him translucent??
Ah, I see. It's a Sex-ray.
After that, Rajiin uses her Sex-ray on Hoshi and T'Pol... because I guess she needs genetic information on Human females and Vulcans. This seems like a logical enough reason to lock her up, so that's what Archer does. In the brig, he asks her what she was doing and she says that the Xindi need Human biological information for their weapon. So the entire sex slave thing at the bazaar was a setup.

And then guess what...? Xindi attack! It's the reptilian Xindi! And right about now, the crew is wishing they were in a more advanced ship with shields because the Xindi just saunter on over and board the ship without even asking. They take Rajiin after a firefight that leaves one dead Xindi and his weapon, and then they leave the Enterprise crew with more questions than answers.

Rajiin then goes to the Xindi Council and uses her magical Sex-ray powers to produce a holographic interface of Human biological information. Some of the Xindi are not impressed with the actions that she was ordered to take and fear that they are now more vulnerable than ever. But... meh... they can make a bio-weapon now.

Overall Thoughts
So I guess the Delphic Expanse is supposed to be reason enough to believe that all these magical things like Sex-rays and 1-hour mutegenic viruses can exist, but c'mon... this is really pushing the bounds of believably. Not to mention there are a billion other ways they could have collected biological information - did it have to be from a perky pair of boobs? The Xindi that hired Rajiin also seems more like the kind of person that would beam onto the Enterprise, shoot a Human and take him back to the council. Biological information obtained without the need for gratuitous sensuality. At least we got some Trellium-D out of this episode.

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