Originally published at: Levar Burton lets us know what it was really like under Geordi's visor | Boing Boing
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TL;DR because they don’t actually talk about the visor much:
It was inspired by hair bands. He couldn’t see up or down so most notably he couldn’t see his feet. The challenge was not looking like he couldn’t see his feet, so he bumped into stuff on sets constantly because he had to charge forward with authority as though he could see normally. He was excited by the novelty at first, but very quickly grew to hate it with a passion.
Saved you nine minutes. You’re welcome.
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I agree with this take:
Ditto the question of “haven’t they found a cure for baldness yet?” I mean sure they probably could prevent people from going bald by the 24th century but an even better future would be one where people aren’t stigmatized for being bald or fat or skinny or short or whatever.
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Star Trek has never been big on biological manipulation. It’s too close to eugenics. (e.g. Khan)
I’d rather ask why no one else had an optional visor. It seems like it would be really useful every once in a while.
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I do believe that the question of baldnes was asked at a convention, and Roddenberry (maybe) responded that in the future people wouldn’t care to stigmatize baldness
Hey, a link!
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Still, stigma or no, I’ll bet that the Captain that preceded Kirk would have appreciated some assistive technology that was a little better than “blink once for yes, twice for no.”
I mean, back in the 1990s the doctors came up with simple technology to allow Jean-Dominique Bauby to write an entire memoir just by blinking, which is a lot better than making a light bulb blink once or twice.
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Every time I encounter Levar Burton like this my respect for him grows. This piece was way more than the visor. They concluded with Levar’s stating that Fred Rogers is saint. I don’t mean to dis Rob Lowe, but Rob asks stuff like “do you do impersonations” to Levar, which he answers, but then continues with more thoughtful and insightful commentary. His remarks about consciously and actively avoiding getting stereotyped as Kunta Kinte (by being in star trek) were a great example of his foresight and wisdom, and knowing what’s going on around him.
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I would like to see useful implants with a decorative flair before I shuffle off.
If everyone could be so kind as to work out the bugs, esp infection, first, and maybe put out some commemorative borg, I’ll throw a few bucks at your patreon or whatevers 
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I imagine that there would be a subcutaneous, wireless link between things like visors and the human nervous system to cut down on infection; at least in a universe like Star Trek. Not so much in the 40k Universe.
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Burton certainly has done a lot to honor Rogers. Being a PBS children’s show host of renowned himself. Reading Rainbow was a labor of love.
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Touché.
Solid take.
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You’d think so, but Geordi’s neural input connecting to the VISOR was actually external, and it did get infected at least once.
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The trick is to go through a transporter when you have all your hair, but save “your” settings, then – however old and bald you get – go through the transporter again but set to the aforementioned previous settings. Voila! A younger – and hairy – you! Of course, there’s the chance that all of the memories and knowledge you had accrued later on will be lost. Busted back down to an ensign! (Future transporters will be corrected for this.)
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My wholly irrelevant hot take: Burton’s beard game is more fantastic than Frakes’. His beard awesomeness is in keeping with the general awesomeness of the man himself.
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Yep. Intentionally or not, the plot’s courtroom drama though seemed to benefit from only yes/no responses from Cap. Pike, that is, he could not explain his responses, hence, his final response re Kirk’s fate did not bode well for Kirk.
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There was an episode of TNG where Picard, Guinan, Keiko and Lt. Rho were turned into children by a transporter accident. They retained their memories though, and miraculously their clothing adjusted in size to match.
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Because it required extensive brain implants into the visual cortex, and extensive training and experience from a young age for him to be able to make sense of the inputs.
Consider: Cochlear implants have some advantages, including being able to connect your implant to an external device to filter and amplify/mute sounds. So why don’t more people with typical hearing just get cochlear implants if it would be really useful once in a while?
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I don’t think the person who included Melora Pazlar in the bottom right image actually watched the Deep Space Nine episode the character appeared in. That episode made me look up the intentions for it, and find out that character was going to be a main cast member, but was cut because they thought they would have to use special effects all the time to downplay her disability.
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“Saved”? I think I enjoyed that rather more than if they had spent 9 minutes talking about a prop.
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