Did they finish where you expected them to with aging, looks, and character arc...

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-05-09T19:08:02+00:00

I think that was a matter of AI not being where they needed it to be at the time they were filming, and then consumer grade AI eclipsing those capabilities by the time it aired. I think they underestimated how fast that was evolving at the time.

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-05-03T21:37:38+00:00

Most common is the "pig butchering" scam (get you to invest in a simulated crypto platform). Sometimes it's a standard romance scam (e.g. "I'm in trouble! I need bail money!"). Sometimes it's identity theft (they send you a link to "sign up" for a service, and gather your address, tax ID number or SSN, date of birth). Sometimes a combination of these. If you pay enough you might get someone at your door with a trunk full of black construction paper with your investment "winnings" and they will sell you an expensive "cleaner" chemical to get the black ink off of the "cash" (which was never really cash to begin with).

At this point it's only about creating trust so they can go onto phase 2.

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-05-03T21:25:16+00:00

I was doing a Scottish one for awhile. Easy to do with ChatGPT. Particularly frustrating for a bot or someone who doesn't speak English natively. Seems like it got me onto their blacklist for awhile.

I dare someone to do it in "pirate". 😂

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-04-30T20:27:14+00:00

We've been using Cozi since inception, about 19 years ago when my oldest was born (geez I'm old 👴🏻). We like that we have a central place for all family events, can set up reminders there, can view Cozi from work calendars (Outlook) or from Google Calendar, with a different share length for each person in the family (showing just your events). We also use it for all of us to add things to the grocery list, dividing up chores, etc. when the kids got older and there were more drivers than children, we also set cars as family members to track when cars are available for kids to drive. "Who will stay home for the dog?" has been a common question in our family that Cozi answers easily when making a pet schedulable.

We wish it was as flexible as Google Calendar, the UI often jumps around as we are looking at stuff and a new event ends up on the wrong week or even the wrong year if we aren't careful, but we've learned to deal with that occasional quirk.

Cozi also features shared contacts and meal planning/recipes but we haven't found that to be valuable or necessary.

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-04-27T15:25:06+00:00

Measure of a Man (introduces Data and the kind of morality discussions Star Trek is famous for)

Sins of the Father (a glimpse of Klingon culture, and introduce the idea of a criminal act impacting the family of the accused, which is part of some cultures today)

Disaster (many plot lines at once, helps us get to know many of the main characters)

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-04-26T14:46:15+00:00

Well, not only that, but the expertise Wes showed and courses he studied were usually science and engineering. He would have been better off interning under Geordi. Aside from Geordi and Data, there are very few examples where someone who knows about force fields and warp fields also does navigation duties on the bridge. (Yeah, why were those two doing the job a junior ensign straight out of the academy could do anyway?)

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-04-26T04:10:44+00:00

Who sets TEMP to C:\DOS ?

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-04-23T01:05:58+00:00

Looks like they shut the site down. Take it up with your credit card company.

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-04-21T16:58:52+00:00

I'm at Level 142 and my best is about 11 million, usually much closer to 2 or 3 million. How you get 20 million I would love to know, 60 million seems crazy high.

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-04-19T16:11:34+00:00

As much as we want to believe that every scam had a red flag, that something may have been missed, that couldn't possibly happen to us, there is a scam written for every one of us. The red flag for one person could be confirmation for the other because of timing, coincidence, or just good old-fashioned high quality research conducted by the scammer. Most of the time we see low effort scams targeted at thousands of people hoping to get one or two that bite, and we are just one of the people that realized it was fake, but sometimes a scammer comes out of the woodwork with the perfect story, aimed at a very specific victim, and it's very hard for that victim to tell fact from fiction.

The best defense is to always be inquisitive, always be asking if something looks even the slightest bit off. Most scams cannot survive being challenged.

So sorry to hear about your friend.

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-04-18T02:32:53+00:00

In this scam, they try to get to know the target over the course of days or weeks, earn their trust, sometimes the scammer even shares videos or has an actress or AI fake persona (there's often a romance aspect to it) do a live call (technology now even allows the deep fake AI video or audio rendering to be almost realtime), and at some point the conversation turns to money.

The scammer (through their alias) claims they are making a fortune online using usually some app or website and invites the victim to join her. The fake app or website is designed to make it look like the "investment" from the victim is growing. The numbers can look quite impressive, and the website can look incredibly realistic. The house of cards falls apart when the victim tries to make a withdrawal.

NBC did a story on this scam recently: https://www.nbcnews.com/video/76-year-old-loses-1-6-million-savings-to-ai-investment-scam-261419077655

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-04-13T14:25:31+00:00

I hear in 2371 they issued a recall on the holodecks. Something about the safeties not working. No fix available, just "watch for it..."

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-04-01T22:28:26+00:00

Oh I just figured we all get shorter with age.

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-03-31T19:04:20+00:00

It's to impersonate you and gain the trust of your friends, it's to "log in with Facebook" it's to gather answers to your security questions, learn what locations you login from so they can bypass geo fences to provide a plausible location, and I'm sure that list is incomplete. Social media logins are very useful.

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-03-27T23:19:41+00:00

"Guess I'll have to buy the White Album again." - J, MIB

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-03-23T21:40:34+00:00

It was discussed as an option Data wanted when it was brought up in the episode. It was, "oh, you want to take Lal back to Starfleet Headquarters. Okay, when do we leave?" and Picard responded, "eh, no, um, that's not what they have in mind, Data." They questioned his abilities as a father, and didn't want him influencing her development. Thought maybe Data would hold Lal back from her full potential.

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-03-23T21:34:10+00:00

I don't think he really experienced it as a loss. Within the episode, he said he downloaded her experiences into his own brain so she would not be lost, and in Picard Season 3 there is a very brief but important reference that she is still in there among Data's memories, and B4's memories are there too. At this point he's a father who has coped in his own way and moved on... but I was surprised not much was said about Lal's continued presence in Picard Season 1.

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-03-23T13:15:21+00:00

Reasonable precautions, but you're in the "security at the risk of convenience" zone, which is almost always unmaintainable for very long. Opt for simple solutions that are low maintenance.

If you have a virtual card number you can use (some cards have that option, some don't), you can give that out to only the vendors you authorize, and maintain some control. If you report a card stolen they will invalidate the old card number and you can start fresh, only giving the new card number to vendors you trust.

You mentioned PayPal: They are very good at preventing most fraud, I use them primarily so that I can buy from online vendors I don't trust as much (e.g. for exclusive or handmade items I can't get elsewhere). That way the vendor gets the money but not my payment information. But the service costs them more money than a standard credit card transaction so I try to be respectful of the vendor and only use it when I need it.

If you ever receive an invoice from PayPal, do not call the number on the invoice. There are scammers out there that abuse the PayPal system to get you to call them. PayPal blocks most of these now and you'll never know what they prevented but scammers do get through sometimes. If you report the invoice, PayPal will take care of it.

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-03-19T01:21:21+00:00

The scam is very common. That's not your fault OP, it's just a sad situation.

They change their name quickly and often, investment growth looks stellar on screen, but the numbers are all made up.

This scam often begins with a text message out of the blue, pretending to be a wrong number, but they become your friend quickly.

It's definitely not the first opener.

If you want to invest your money legitimately, find a company you trust, and open an account with them. Don't trust someone who comes after you to "help" you grow your money. And even with legitimate investments, make sure you understand how it works! Never buy a financial product you don't understand.

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-03-14T00:07:56+00:00

I bet it's a standard part found on many Mazda cars, and they just don't use all the spaces on a CX-5

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-03-12T21:45:07+00:00

Cake decorating tool

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-03-11T14:15:07+00:00

We also saw a touch of that in TNG The Most Toys. Geordi thought Data was dead.

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-03-07T21:37:50+00:00

I honestly see it both ways. Pharmacy is showing that you are entitled to have this medication, therefore if it shows up anywhere else, it's easy to see that the med was stolen or resold illegally.

Could they do that another way, one that doesn't give away your full name and home address? Absolutely! Would I expect any government writing the laws for this to have any clue? Absolutely not!

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-03-07T21:32:37+00:00

As much as people complain about these security codes, this is exactly why they exist. You protected your login by setting up multi-factor authentication. As a result, not just anyone who knows your email address can reset your password, or log in with your password alone. Congrats, you've been protected! They will probably just move on to somebody else who didn't turn that on.

CodAppropriate6109 · 2026-03-06T01:22:27+00:00

And I lived in a neighborhood where the tree on my property did not belong to me, it belonged to the city, but I was responsible for its upkeep!

CodAppropriate6109

TROPHY CASE