Switch 2 to me is something I’m okay with from the perspective of, I think these consoles need to update more often. Nintendo didn’t have anything revolutionary to add this time around, but wanted to update the Switch because it had been 8 years. It’s nearly 100% backwards compatible. This is a better choice than the WiiU which basically was Wii without the fun.

I’m curious what Sony and Microsoft do because there isn’t any new improved tech for those devices that would really drive a better experience for people. Microsoft seems to be toying with the Xbox isn’t a single device it’s an experience concept. Sony made the Pro and no one cared.

SNW S1E2 - Children of the Comet. This is a tricky one because of potential predestination and the end result being an accidental major break of the prime directive. A warp capable civilization is certain that a comet must destroy a pre warp civilization and refuse to let that change. The issue is that the ship/comet wants the Federation to interfere and does not intend to hit the planet. This is all in Federation space.

Another in Federation space that is also a loose fit is LD S5E7 - Fully Dialated where the crew must recover Data’s head from an alternate reality that has fallen on a pre warp world. The loose fit here is that the only reason they count as external is that it is Purple Data who is not technically a a member of this realities Federation and thus an outsider.

Lastly a decent fit but outside Federation space is Prodigy S1E7 - First Con-Tact. The crew first breaks the prime directive by making first contact with a pre warp civilization but then defends it by stopping a Ferengi from influence the civilization negatively. This is outside Federation space though.

I get it, but we should as a community try to be better than that.

AI won’t fail. It already is past the point where failing or being a fad was an option. Even if we wanted to go backwards, the steps that were taken to get us to where we are with AI have burned the bridges. We won’t get 2014 quality search engines back. We can’t unshitify the internet.

That AI is the one you make or at least host. No one is going to host an online AI for you that is 100% ethical because that isnt profitable and it is very expensive.

When you vilianize AI you normalize AI use as being bad. The end result is not people stopping use of AI it is people being more okay with using less ethical AI. You can see this with folks driving SUVs and big trucks. They intentionally pick awful choices because the fatigue of being wrong for driving a car makes them just accept that it doesn’t matter.

It feels dumb, it is dumb, but is what happens.

Nestle bottling water is bad, so my solution will be to never drink any water and make fun of people who do. This is how it always comes off to me.

You are supposed to, but it is only insured to 250k. That might seem like a decent amount but if you suffer inflation and a government that is inclined to decrease FDIC rather than increase, you might end up not really getting much value out of that cash.

250k is not a very big nest egg for retirement.

Your funds might be in a HYSA but the bank holding them probably has them in stocks and bonds.

So if the stocks fall enough you won’t have your money anyways.

Now you could say you want to hold onto cash instead, but the only fix for the banks not having money is to print money which makes cash worth less.

Okay but what if you held gold or other minerals. Well the value of those comes from the perception that they could be used to trade when other things fail, but even if milk is $500 a gallon no grocery store is going to take gold as it isn’t able to be insured and tracked. So the value of gold also will drop as it can’t actually be used for goods and services.

So basically you can’t isolate yourself and protect yourself from societies stupidity. Its all a gamble and maybe your option works out or maybe it doesn’t but there isn’t a clear way to avoid the problem.

Specifically for a new viewer who wants 3 shows that would be different and enjoyable:

TNG:

The Inner Light, Cause and Effect, Lower Decks

DS9:

Duet, The Visitor, Trials and Tribbleations

Who in the world eats hard shell tacos?

I believe the rule is any food that is perfect for eating on the road while you drive 45min from your first job, to your second part time night shift job. All of that kind of food doesn’t exist in Europe or at least isn’t popular for some reason.

It is the progressive party. But they can’t win a local council seat let alone any valuable position. But they run for President every year and normally run one of their established candidates. The right gains more by supporting them.

That said funding is questionable. They normally have their primary debate around a rental folding table. Im shocked they can even afford chairs.

The reminder is due to the fact that she never should have been the candidate in 2024 in the first place. She was not even in the top 5 in 2020. She didn’t do anything during her time as VP that made up for that gap. She was pushed in because the folks above her were two leftists, a gay man, and a rich DINO.

I don’t know that she would win California and if California goes to a Republican governor that takes away one of the handful of hail mary possible counter balances to Trump right now in a possible secession action. Right now if Trump attacked Mexico and Canada it isnt unreasonable to think some states would actively refuse to support the action but if California or New York were not both states to support it then it would be meaningless.

Why is your hobby more important than their hobby?

Would be sick to get to vote for someone who actually had opinions and goals and stood for something. If we want to vote for just the general prevailing opinion we should just run an LLM and train it on superbowl commercials and cable news.

Prodigy has holoemitters on every deck and is able to reconfigure the bridge using them. It is possible but they just need a reason.

We have like three entirely reasonable shows all setup that they keep not even touching. All of them episodic, all of them able to both speak to new generations and old.

Upper Decks: Live action show with the characters from Lower Decks. Primary focus is the main characters coming to terms with the fact that they are good enough to be senior members of a crew. Continue the idea that they are the little ship that could and their missions focus around support rather than flagship or the biggest of the bads.

Prodigy 2.0: Again live action, with Ella Purnell as a captain who is super in demand and capable and would be fantastic in the role. Focus here is again episodic, when the rest of the Federation has abandoned exploration due to all the BS at the start of Picard, they are the only crew left with the charter to seek out new life and new civilizations. You have an incredibly young but capable cast and easily could bring in some heavy hitters to support them.

Legacy: This idea has floated around a ton since Picard S3, honestly its the least developed of the ideas and I’d rather see a way to roll it into one of the much better and more fleshed out ideas above. I feel like the final scene in Picard was an afterthought while both Lower Decks and Progidy it was a true capstone.

The new 20 episode season is a 10 episode season with 5 webisodes and a cheaper side project like a cartoon or anthology.

Honestly this is better to me because it enables the good plots of the smaller episodes to get all the focus without forcing some awful secondary plot to fill run time.

I see this a lot which is wild to me because I feel like S4 felt like it finally was real Star Trek but just rushed and some of the damage to some characters couldn’t be fixed. All the major plot points that make Enterprise relevant to Star Trek happen in S4.

I’m curious where you put Discovery? That is the one I struggle the most with. My primary issue there is that for me I have to actually like and want to be invested in a character but as far as I’m concerned 10 episodes in to Discovery if the ship blew up all hands lost the Federation I can’t think of anyone I’d feel sad for. Enterprise though has Trip and Phlox who are S tier, a few fantastic guest stars, and no character that is bottom bin material to me no matter how much fanfic quality writing they tried to force on T’Pol.

Ukraine was the 3rd largest nuclear power in the world, and is famous for it’s history with nuclear energy.

The issue here is that them starting the enrichment process is grounds for the start of WW3, and they wouldn’t complete the effort in time to offensively defend themselves. You’d have to give them entirely complete nukes and even that would just mean it’s nuke launchin time for a number of folks.

Normal for a person, but not normal for him. We see him as a very passionate person before he gets his implant who treats the dulling of his emotions as a boon.

I’d be shocked if the person influencing this writing of his character had never dealt with SSRIs or a similar medication.