Strange New Words (Adam)

Writer, Trekkie, Sherlockian, hiker, reader of books, francophile. Sub Rosa is the only canon episode. He/him

#StarTrek, #SherlockHolmes, #PreWGA, #French, #SQL, #Python, #hiking, #history

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nos.lol

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Last Notes

2026-08-10 22:35:30 GMT

My mom's 2018 x86 Macbook Air has reached planned obsolescence, she doesn't want to replace it, and her very basic needs don't require more powerful hardware. She basically uses Firefox, Zoom, Word and PowerPoint. So I'm experimenting to see if I can make Linux enough like MacOS that her routine won't be badly disrupted.
On one hand, I'm amused how plausible a MacOS you can make with an existing KDE Plasma theme and a couple tweeks. On the other hand, I doubt this can work. Has anyone else ever tried this?
#Linux #Mac #KDE
https://cdn.tenforward.social/media_attachments/files/117/073/548/165/305/499/original/7fb7e3707dde1067.png

2026-06-25 23:57:22 GMT

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@nprofile…5876 I did an AI training yesterday and the trainer referred to his various Copilot agents as "he" and "she." Would that be considered at all anthropomorphizing language?

2026-05-30 04:59:56 GMT

So they're saying if you're Catholic you can refuse to use AI at work because the pope said so. And then, if they fire you, you can sue. If this is true, I might convert.
#AI #Tech

2026-05-24 14:12:28 GMT

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@nprofile…npc0 This is as much as the US spent each year on World War II, adjusted for inflation. Just these eight companies.

2026-05-24 14:05:45 GMT

AI boosters like to compare it to the Manhattan Project but the spending's more like the entire annual US military budget for World War II, adjusted for inflation. And that's just these eight companies.
#Tech #AI #History #WW2
#nevent1q…mdr7

2026-05-17 17:34:50 GMT

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@nprofile…77n8 I recommend the book but I feel I should say that this isn't the main point of it, just an idea that really popped out in the current moment.

2026-05-16 04:36:00 GMT

I'm such a nerd that tonight I made a command-line program for those moments where I'm like "which episode did Spock say..."
#StarTrek
https://cdn.tenforward.social/media_attachments/files/116/582/389/908/123/877/original/4a668d863a39acd3.png

2026-05-07 00:15:39 GMT

TIL that annual AI spending in the US is exceeding US annual spending for World War II when adjusted for inflation.
US AI spending in 2025: $1.5 trillion
US cost of World War II over 4 years (Dec 1941 - Aug 1945), adjusted for inflation: $4.1 trillion
The Apollo program, by contrast, was a steal at a mere $300 billion, adjusted.
#AI #Tech #TIL

2026-04-26 16:11:46 GMT

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@nprofile…c7z3 I love how, when Hobbes is in a panel with Calvin's parents, the art shows their POV as they pretend he's a stuffed animal because the truth would break their tiny minds.

2026-04-19 01:06:44 GMT

There's a character in Galápagos, the 1985 novel by Kurt Vonnegut, who has created a computer called the Mandarax that can understand natural language, translate languages, and answer questions on many topics -- it's basically an LLM. His wife does ikebana (Japanese flower arrangements) and she discovers that his machine can do it as well as her because he's tape recorded her classes and fed the data into the computer. She says to him,
"You, Doctor Hiroguchi, think that everybody but yourself is just taking up space on this planet, and we make too much noise and waste valuable natural resources and have too many children and leave garbage around. So it would be a much nicer place if the few stupid services we are able to perform for the the likes of you were taken over by machinery. That wonderful Mandarax you're scratching your ear with now: what is that but an excuse for a mean-spirited egomaniac never to pay or even thank any human being with a knowledge of languages or mathematics or history or medicine or literature or ikebana or anything?"
I read that on the bus this afternoon.
#Books #Tech #AI

2026-03-27 07:30:03 GMT

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@nprofile…nr3x First you will get overwhelmed because a bunch of weirdos are tripping over themselves to give you advice. Fight the panic!
You should use Ubuntu, Mint or Fedora, and whichever choice you make it will be the right one, because it doesn't matter.
Next you will download an ISO file from the distro's website. It's a disk image of the operating system.
You will flash that ISO onto a USB stick. You can google how to do this.
You can boot your computer from the USB stick and use Linux without installing it. Try it out. Kick the tires.
Maybe watch some videos on a Youtube channel called The Linux Experiment at this point.
When you're ready, and your files are backed up, you will install it on your computer.
If you're not sure you're ready, you can install Linux on that old laptop in your closet. If it's a PC less than 15 years old, it will work well. A Mac with an Intel processor will work too. If your closet is empty, a virtual machine is also a good way to take an extended test drive.
Anyway, when you're ready, install the OS. Installing an OS is one of those things that is scary and turns out to be easy.
For the most part, everything is going to work. If you're unlucky, something non-crucial like the webcam might not work at first. You will fix it by installing a driver.
If there isn't a Linux version of a piece of software, look on AlternativeTo.net for an alternative. However, if it isn't made by Microsoft or Adobe, there usually is a Linux version. If there's some particular thing you absolutely need that they don't make, you can usually get the Windows version working.
When you have a question, you will post it on Mastodon and you will get ten more answers than you need.

2026-03-25 02:00:45 GMT

My hope is that Star Trek will be stuck in development hell for the next few years, during which time the AI bubble will pop, Oracle will go bankrupt, and Paramount will get a new owner. That's the best case scenario.
#StarTrek #StarTrekStarfleetAcademy

2026-03-21 01:12:01 GMT

RIP Nicholas Brendon.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/nicholas-brendon-dead-buffy-the-vampire-slayer-1236543090/

2026-03-10 05:28:04 GMT

Another day, another disgusting development involving AI.
https://www.honest-broker.com/p/is-spotify-enabling-massive-impersonation
#Music #Jazz #Tech #AI

2026-03-04 05:25:48 GMT

I'm watching Star Trek: First Contact and it's really jumping out at me that they forgot to do make-up on the hands of this Borg extra. #NitpickersGuide
#StarTrek
https://cdn.tenforward.social/media_attachments/files/116/169/238/614/304/179/original/1e84ed080009afe8.png
https://cdn.tenforward.social/media_attachments/files/116/169/238/687/382/663/original/d36e5c9d4edadf19.png

2026-03-02 15:10:59 GMT

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@nprofile…ugpy We must normalize replying AI;DR.

2026-03-01 07:33:16 GMT

I see the #Firefox "block AI" setting has arrived. It's clearly labeled and easy to find in Settings.
It would be even better if #AI were deactivated by default, but I give #Mozilla credit for listening to the criticism. It's still a million percent better than Google Chrome.
https://cdn.tenforward.social/media_attachments/files/116/152/736/617/883/740/original/453230b42361013e.png

2026-02-23 15:01:28 GMT

It's been a while since I've read an original criticism of AI, but LLMs as Stepford Wives is a pretty amazing one. I'm never going to be able to unsee it.
https://abiawomosu.substack.com/p/they-built-stepford-ai-and-called
#AI

2026-01-22 00:20:14 GMT

Today I learned that this 1837 photo by Louis Daguerre is actually a photo of a busy street. But because the exposure time is so long, everything that is moving disappears and only what is still can be seen. This is unspeakably beautiful. #photography
https://cdn.tenforward.social/media_attachments/files/115/935/862/070/970/050/original/5ef46ba94c35a191.jpg

2026-01-11 23:49:20 GMT

There are still a few Voyager episodes I don't think I've seen since the '90s. Today I watched "Darkling." It's an absolutely wonderful Kes episode which is hijacked halfway through by a truly horrible Doctor episode. So much more disappointing than if it had been bad all the way through.
#StarTrek #StarTrekVoyager

2026-01-10 16:24:59 GMT

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@nprofile…ugpy When Canada makes an adversarial app for big tech products, they should call it Sorri.

2025-12-10 03:38:11 GMT

I honestly don't know what bothers me more: that Microsoft uses the Windows 11 lock screen to advertise AI, or that it doesn't bother to align the advertisement properly.
#Microsoft #Windows #Windows11 #AI
https://cdn.tenforward.social/media_attachments/files/115/693/168/683/299/125/original/31bde08367cac6e4.jpg

2025-11-22 16:22:56 GMT

This week at work I was forced to do a training in which I was strongly encouraged -- coerced, really -- to use #AI.
The training concluded with 22 bullet-point warnings about different ways that AI might mess up, and informed me that if AI might any of these 22 broad categories of mistakes while I was using it, my employer would hold me responsible.

2025-10-08 04:26:11 GMT

Recently the #NewYorkTimes website has been full of annoying autoplaying videos. At this moment, there are six autoplaying videos on the landing page, and three of them are in a special hashtag <nyt-betamax> which dodges the Firefox Disable Autoplay extension. (I just spent 15 minutes figuring out how to add a #UBlock CSS rule to hide the element.) What is this about? Hasn't anyone told the Times that "pivot to video" was a scam?

2025-07-27 11:21:56 GMT

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@nprofile…pwgm All it actually reveals is that Starfleet doesn't know if Sisko returned. Starfleet wouldn't be writing "did he die in the caves of Bajor?" if they knew that Kasidy had talked to him in the wormhole after that, so clearly there's some stuff they don't know about. It's possible Sisko commutes home every night and he never misses one of Rebecca Jae's tee-ball games, but nobody bothered to tell Starfleet.

2025-07-27 07:29:10 GMT

Where's Tilly?
#StarTrek #StarTrekStarfleetAcademy

2025-06-07 16:17:05 GMT

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@nprofile…rqca @nprofile…htkk @nprofile…qz4x Next time Cory is taking requests, put me down for "Marty is thawed out of cryo-freeze on Mars to audit an android Elon Musk."

2025-05-21 01:02:12 GMT

Even if the books on the Chicago Sun-Times' summer reading list existed, it's depressing as hell to think about reading a book because AI told you to.
https://www.honest-broker.com/p/a-major-newspaper-publishes-a-summer/
#AI #Tech #Books

2025-05-03 00:44:28 GMT

I like TNG "Tapestry," but it has always seemed strange and borderline offensive to me that Picard would rather be DEAD than not be successful in his career. I mean, it checks out for his character, I guess, but it's pretty fucked up!
Which led me once to write a spec script of Lower Decks called "Shmapestry." It starts with Boimler inexplicably in a blue uniform and very distraught. When Mariner asks him why, he says he made a deal with Q to fix a regret from his Academy days and it has unraveled the whole tapestry of his life.
"Tapestry, shmapestry!" says Mariner. There isn't one all important event that defines your whole life, and she'll prove it. She summons up Q and challenges him to change anything he wants about her past. Her life will still be AWESOME because she's an awesome person. If her career sucks, she'll just be awesome some other way. So he starts messing with her back story, and sure enough, Mariner is absolutely killing it in every single version of her life.
Tendi and Rutherford decide to get in on the fun too. Tendi wonders what would happen if she hadn't given up dance, and suddenly she's transformed into an Orion dancer who's doing a USO tour of the Federation. Her manager is a flaming gay Tamarian whose entire dialogue consists of metaphorical references to present-day pop stars and TMZ drama. Rutherford wonders what would happen if he hadn't gotten his implant -- and his life turns out to be exactly the same in every way, just no implant. (I wrote this before they introduced Kayshon or gave Tendi and Rutherford much of a backstory.)
Finally, Q is getting annoyed by how nobody is learning his Tapestry lesson. Mariner has him so flummoxed that she goads him into offering her the power of Q, like Riker -- and she promptly uses the power to put everybody's life back to the way it was and kicks Q the hell off the ship. Everyone learns that your life is more than your career and there isn't one single moment in your past that defines your whole life. Because that's stupid.
#StarTrek #StarTrekLowerDecks #TNG #Tapesty

2025-05-01 21:31:29 GMT

I bought this #StarTrek DS9 Complete Series box set on #Amazon and I'm starting to suspect it's a knock-off.
When I insert the disc, I get a warning that says it was made with DvdFab/MacTheRipper and could have errors. And, sure enough, I've found at least two episodes with a disc read error: "The Ascent" and "Dr. Bashir I Presume."
After I return it, I'm going to buy used versions of the individual seasons. Hopefully those were manufactured better.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09DMXRCYL?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title
#DVD

2025-04-02 03:09:14 GMT

Chechnya has banned all music with a tempo faster or slower than the 80-120 bpm range, meaning Andante is the only legal tempo and orchestras can only play the second movement.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/08/europe/chechnya-music-ban-scli-intl/
#music #classical

2025-04-01 12:58:57 GMT

I spent part of last night playing #CarmenSandiego.
Fun fact: The Apple II version of the game is 300 kilobytes, roughly one-tenth the size of this JPEG of its title screen.
#retrogaming
https://cdn.tenforward.social/media_attachments/files/114/262/818/982/755/934/original/ab4e492773003f8f.jpg

2025-03-05 07:33:04 GMT

Got talking to a manager-level friend at my office today. When I have the time I make databases and scripts to help his department's workload because they're being outsourced to death. This isn't my job, but I'm trying to help. When his crew gets behind I can't do my job.
He was worried because the company leadership had asked him how Gen #AI could help his team and he couldn't think of anything. I opined that the problem is that what Gen AI companies actually have (a computer program that can plausibly answer questions in human language) is pretty cool, but it isn't a trillion dollar idea. So they've decided instead to market something they DON'T actually have (a program that can creatively solve problems) and count on people not to know the difference.
My manager friend said this was the first time anyone had explained AI so he could understand it, questioned me further for about 15 minutes. Then asked me to join the next meeting about AI, which I politely declined because nobody at the company leadership wants to hear what I have to say on this subject.
This is where we are. The leadership has all the company's developers trying to figure out how to use AI for everything; meanwhile I, a non-developer in a non-technical job, am secretly writing the software my manager friend needs to keep his department going with its depleted headcount.

2025-01-29 18:01:03 GMT

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@nprofile…mpuw @nprofile…8qnv @nprofile…7j24 I meant specifically in Star Trek. My nitplugging doesn't extend to SG-1 and Sliders, I don't want to give myself a brain aneurysm!

2025-01-29 17:07:18 GMT

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@nprofile…mpuw @nprofile…8qnv @nprofile…7j24 My head canon explanation for why you don't fall through the floor while phased is that the artificial gravity source is in the deck plate. So your feet go through the carpet but they stop at that grav plate because they've reached the bottom of the local gravity well. In other words, you wouldn't fall out the bottom of the ship because there's no gravity source below the ship to pull you out there. On a planet it would be different -- you would fall to the center of the earth -- but I don't think we've ever seen someone out of phase on a planet.
However, I have no explanation for how your lungs can breathe the out-of-phase air.

2024-12-27 17:37:48 GMT

I'm sorry #StarWars isn't a multiverse because they can never travel to the dimension where Leia fell to the Dark Side, deposed the Emperor, and the whole Galaxy now runs like a well-oiled machine.

2024-12-05 16:27:02 GMT

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@nprofile…q3m3 Great video! Any chance of more histories of popular distros for us newcomers?

2024-11-28 23:56:51 GMT

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@nprofile…q3m3 It's a Youtube thing primarily but only happens to me on my Linux laptop. They don't like something I'm doing -- using Linux?, using Firefox?, using a VPN?, not logging in?, blocking ads?, blocking autoplay?, following the channel on RSS?, blocking cookies on youtube . com? Clearly their line about "community safety" is BS. They're retaliating for behavior they don't like.

2024-11-28 21:51:57 GMT

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@nprofile…q3m3 Here's a Linux problem I'm having more and more... YouTube requiring a login ostensibly to confirm I'm not a bot when I try to watch a video on Linux with Firefox....
https://cdn.tenforward.social/media_attachments/files/113/562/712/194/386/525/original/e0d1277be76070ff.png

2024-11-27 14:44:28 GMT

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@nprofile…39xp My followers over there have more than doubled, but I'm not seeing much engagement.

2024-10-16 04:31:39 GMT

All this has happened before -- in the first episode of #Caprica -- and will happen again.
#BattlestarGalactica
https://cdn.tenforward.social/media_attachments/files/113/315/220/846/056/124/original/2671fa198e02d4f1.png

2024-10-12 04:52:25 GMT

When you think about it, #Google forcing sites to add many paragraphs of long-winded SSO garbage to their articles, then offering its users AI summaries so they can skip that garbage, is a MAGNIFICENT rug pull.

2024-09-08 17:03:39 GMT

I love that they've got Dr. T pouncing!
#StarTrek #StarTrekLowerDecks
https://cdn.tenforward.social/media_attachments/files/113/103/012/739/741/115/original/6df014f1369b215c.jpg

2024-09-08 17:00:04 GMT

Is this tusky ship from the #StarTrekLowerDecks Season 5 poster a Tellarite ship?
#StarTrek
https://cdn.tenforward.social/media_attachments/files/113/102/991/989/398/792/original/83ef116eb8d0e97e.jpg

2024-09-08 16:15:30 GMT

The new #StarTrekLowerDecks season 5 key art is a little more subtle than usual in its homage to the corresponding movie poster, but you can still see it.
#StarTrek
https://cdn.tenforward.social/media_attachments/files/113/102/818/247/545/967/original/d2ff66d830321919.jpg
https://cdn.tenforward.social/media_attachments/files/113/102/818/985/824/078/original/24d615912521d4d1.jpg

2024-07-12 19:26:39 GMT

1. Anson Mount says they're doing something crazier than the musical in SNW S3.
2. The Doctor joked to Ruby Sunday that they should visit Star Trek someday on Doctor Who this year.
3. Russell T. Davies and Alex Kurtzman are doing a panel together at SDCC.
THIS IS HAPPENING.
#StarTrek #DoctorWho

2024-06-28 15:42:29 GMT

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@npub1hyk…3p33 I'd say 1970s or *very* late '60s, based on the accurate Apollo landing and Concorde jet images.

2024-06-21 17:43:08 GMT

I just got a #phishing text that said I wasn't registered to vote, click here to register. That almost got me....

2024-05-21 03:57:53 GMT

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@npub1cxy…vryr Pretty good. It has strangely little to do with the Empire, however. It follows two minor Dark Side characters from Clone Wars and Ashoka, so I'm not sure it's good for casual fans.

2024-05-11 04:17:51 GMT

I would say #DoctorWho is back, but I'm not sure it was actually this good ever before.

2024-05-08 20:15:47 GMT

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@npub1w73…2zce Every once in a while, something happens to remind you that Omega's the oldest one.

2024-05-07 11:13:56 GMT

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@npub1jc0…sldg I would have suspected Microsoft leaked it to give the PC clones a head start and create more compatible systems that could become MS DOS customers.

2024-04-30 23:19:22 GMT

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@npub1trm…8s6h They ascended to the koala plane, like Badgey.

2024-04-20 23:00:30 GMT

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@npub1yf4…fcsf
Step 1: Acquire new friend
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Eat new friend

2024-04-05 13:13:20 GMT

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@npub1cxy…vryr So is mine! Happy birthday to you!

2024-04-02 00:10:05 GMT

It's hard to believe #StarTrek Picard, Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, and Prodigy (sort of) have released two seasons since the last season of #StarTrekDiscovery. It's high time for some Disco!

2024-02-15 05:52:33 GMT

#StarTrekDiscovery premiered on Sept 24, 2017 and will conclude on May 30, 2024. That makes it the longest running #StarTrek series -- it will beat #StarTrekTNG's run by 11 days!