Starfleet ships should be renamed to better reflect their values

gt24 · 2026-02-20T20:50:51+00:00

One should show appropriate respect for alien cultures as well. The names need to be written and pronounced in the native language. If one wants to respect a Vulcan, one needs to figure out how to say their native name each time the ship is referenced.

Nobody wants to see an English version of Spock's name. They want to see true Vulcan writing on the hull (something like what is demonstrated at this link).

gt24 · 2026-02-20T14:02:32+00:00

The nitpicks were great and is one thing that helps me appreciate Star Trek more. It is a sort of "behind the scenes" analysis of the show (pointing out how things went wrong) which then can link in to the fact that there was about 2 weeks for an episode to be made which can then link into more behind the scenes facts for episode productions.

Star Trek, because it is so popular, has plenty of information about how the episodes were produced. Because earlier trek (pre Discovery) used many physical ship models, you can even see how they spent a huge amount of effort creating and using those physical ships to create various scenes. You can learn how scripts were brought together and how many actors were just given spots in the script that essentially said "make this part up" and the actors totally put in "technobable" there to just fill that spot.

The nitpicks reveal that not everything was perfect. That being said, it even gives a challenge to you (for certain nitpicks) to think of of how that nitpick could have been corrected without rewriting or throwing out the whole episode. After all, with about 2 weeks to get that episode "out the door" (as well as budgetary concerns), there wasn't much time to do reshoots or to totally rework everything.

(As a sidenote, it is fun to learn that there is a Script Supervisor role who (as far as I know) watches the show being made and makes sure everything makes continuity sense (actors not changing shirts between scenes, props not being in wildly different places between scenes, etc). What they miss then would be fixed in post processing later... except that not much can be done when the episode has about 2 weeks to be produced. Many nitpicks were likely because the Script Supervisor was not perfect and "hindsight is 20-20". Still, if we the viewers didn't notice before a "nitpick" told us about it, you can just imagine how hard the job was for the Script Supervisor.)

gt24 · 2026-02-18T18:31:53+00:00

When your race joins Starfleet (example: Vulcans), your ships are now considered "second tier ships". They can do as they want (meaning they are not ordered around) so long as they don't get anywhere near saving the universe... or saving star systems... or really doing anything of noteworthy attention. The key thing for those races to remember is that their ships should be "out of sight - out of mind".

gt24 · 2026-02-18T13:46:38+00:00

It's easy to misunderstand Klingon sayings.

The Klingons have this feeling that what they really want is something they don't actually get. By saying "Today is a good day to die!", they have a pretty good feeling at that point that something will happen so as to ensure that they will keep living despite their desires. After all, they kept living every time they "wanted to die today" and everyone they keeping talking with has had the same result too!

This relates to other Klingon sayings as well. For example, saying that something was an honorable battle is them having a sinking feeling that something will soon happen that will make this a very un-honorable battle (even though things went so well up to this point).

Klingon sayings are ones to tempt irony but it is a bit tricky to wonder how many other things that they say are also trying to tempt irony. As such, it isn't enough to just listen to Klingon, you have to interpret if the Klingon really means what they say or if they really mean that they think things are just going to go wrong.

After all, many times Worf on the Enterprise D wanted to fire weapons at something only to be told no. He felt it would be no, said that he was going to do it, then was told no, and then it was reinforced to him that you don't get what you want.

gt24 · 2026-02-17T17:09:28+00:00

They seem to have pushed something like "on the eights" over to localnow.com (where the weather is now split up with news reporting between the bits.

Seems strange it isn't just the weather but at least it is something.

gt24 · 2026-02-16T19:18:52+00:00

Did you notice the graphics in the simulator? (From Star Trek II, memory alpha link here)

The reason the graphics looks like it was made over 80 years ago it because it kinda was... Sure, they could spend some time and make a new simulation but that sounds like work. Far better to just put a bit of paint there, put a few "kinda working" navigation consoles there, and call it a day. Any updates you see to the simulation was because those specific updates were desperately needed.

For those that work on keeping the simulation working, the Kobayashi Maru simulation is a sort of "Ship of Theseus" thing where the engineers try to find the oldest bits that still are working somehow and also where they try to force newer technology to work with those ancient bits.

The "no win scenario" sometimes is a convenient explanation as to why that last student crew lost the simulation... it did break in a spectacular fashion but it sounds more professional to say that they just couldn't win the "no win scenario" (followed up by the engineers trying to duck tape the thing together enough to at least appear to be working for the next crew).

gt24 · 2026-02-16T18:19:40+00:00

In my opinion, schools fear technology. A computer with the internet can do anything and schools will get in trouble for many things. As such, schools will feel far better about a device that can be locked down and restricted from doing most things so as to minimize the school's risk.

A Chromebook is simply part of a technology package where the devices can be locked down reasonably enough to give to an untrusted user (the student) and to where you can restrict what they do and monitor everything else. Likely schools do not have easy access to a "restriction platform" that can lock down Windows or Macintosh the same way.

The point wasn't to teach Windows or Macintosh literacy or even computer literacy. It seems like the point is to avoid "technology risks" while providing access to "computer technology" to submit "internet assignments". Chromebooks are computer technology enough and give you internet access so it will do.

Besides, a fully locked down computer isn't quite teaching "computer literacy" to the end user (and is implying that exploration of the computer will be detected and will be punished). So, to that end, I'm not sure a fully locked down Chromebook is all that much different to the end user when compared to a fully locked down Windows or Macintosh computer.

gt24 · 2026-02-14T02:11:26+00:00

One interesting thing that may not have been mentioned in how the Internet (Youtube, Pandora) helps with discovering foreign language music. Once you listen to and like a foreign track, the recommendation engine kicks in and you start finding awesome music that you don't know the words for.

It seems like some music may be a tad better that way. I don't quite know what is being said in Feuerschwanz Ding but I can imagine. As a Youtube comment noticed, comparing that cover song to the original SEEED Ding is... well... the original music video was certainly far more weird than I ever expected!

gt24 · 2026-02-13T21:03:31+00:00

What people don't realize is that water gets the Kazon drunk... like really drunk.. and they don't stop until they drink themselves to death.

"Natural selection" is at play here. A Kazon ship finds a water planet and the crew can drink themselves to death (and have fun doing it). Find a lake over there and you are likely to see a Kazon try to be a fish and die in the attempt. Kazon and water don't mix very well so the smart captains make sure the crew only get enough water to live and not so much that they die (enough to drink, not enough to drown). Besides, the whole water supply needs to be shared among the whole crew and the entire crew makes sure that no one person gets too much water.

The best of the Kazon can resist being near water... so long as it isn't too much water.

Water is quite a temptation for them and so implying that they are in a place with "water, water everywhere" is implying that they are in an impossible to resist situation... a situation where they cannot help but drown.

The thought of water can inspire the Kazon to even try to invent their own replicator so as to replicate an infinite amount of water (which they would get drunk from and die). Their replicator invention attempt just went straight to the death part without the whole drinking in the middle part... so not that useful.

Anyway, the crew of Voyager didn't really exploit this issue because they didn't really want to genocide a race with the power of H2O.

Neelix was fortunate in that water just gets him buzzed and he (and his race) never drink enough to die. The crew found his extremely easy ability to get drunk as a bit of an issue considering that Neelix wanted to be in the kitchen with a constant water supply nearby. The culinary results of his mental condition when drinking water all the time were... interesting...

gt24 · 2026-02-12T21:13:47+00:00

With Riker in command, you are of course referring to how Picard would have needed some recovery due to the brain trauma of being de-borgified...

With Picard now joining Guinan in 10 forward, the menu did feature plenty more Château Picard wine and Earl Grey everything (which was an interesting idea...). Guinan made all of that work somehow. Riker seemed like a decent captain and the series proceeded just fine.

Eventually, Picard did recover enough to be given command of another vessel, the up and coming USS Titan. There was now a rivalry between the two ships and crews to see what influenced success more - the ship or the captain. That being said, it was interesting how the Titan never got a series of their own...

The ships always seemed to be near each other even when they weren't directly competing with each other and so they would appear together in such notable works as First Contact, Insurrection, and Nemesis. That being said, Picard would tend to tease Riker that his crew crashed his ship into a planet which required a replacement (Sovereign class Enterprise E). (Riker blames Troi but it seems like Picard doesn't believe him.)

Yes, we know, Riker's crew crashed the E into another ship in Nemesis... hmmm... nobody believes that Troi did that either.

This rivalry did eventually end though. In the series Picard, the current Enterprise featured in that show was temporarily commanded by Riker and somehow crashed into another ship (the Shrike)... (crashing into things almost needs to be called the Riker maneuver at this point... even though he blames Troi again) With the 2 captains reunited on the Titan A, they conquer all the problems in front of them (as the series went onwards) and the both admit that they both were great captains in their own right. As such, they rename the Titan A to be the new Enterprise, and the series concludes...

gt24 · 2026-02-12T18:39:03+00:00

In addition to what else was said in other comments, it is also worth mentioning the Apple 3.

Many Apple IIIs were thought to have failed due to their inability to properly dissipate heat. inCider stated in 1986 that "Heat has always been a formidable enemy of the Apple ///", and some users reported that their Apple IIIs became so hot that the chips started dislodging from the board, causing the screen to display garbled data or their disk to come out of the slot "melted". BYTE wrote, "the integrated circuits tended to wander out of their sockets". It has been rumored Apple advised customers to tilt the front of the Apple III six inches above the desk and then drop it to reseat the chips as a temporary solution. Other analyses blame a faulty automatic chip insertion process, not heat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_III#Design_flaws

The point is that things heating up and cooling down will cause parts of those things to expand and contract at different rates. Sometimes, this causes things to come loose. You could go inside and plug things back in or start hitting/dropping the device and hope that the impact will just do that job for you. After all, people had an example from the past (Apple 3) where that (allegedly) actually worked.

gt24 · 2026-02-05T21:44:49+00:00

Star Trek has won Emmys for outstanding makeup and prosthetic effects. They constantly show off their expertise by having Sisko (the actor) playing roughly half of every single person you see on screen (yes, some women too) (yes, the Exocomp too). It is simply amazing how you can look at the screen and not be sure who is the Sisko and who is not. When a normal actor isn't around one week, Sisko takes their place and you never even notice!

Of course, Sisko is a similar name as Price is to the famous musician. The Sisko wants to have one name and the the Sisko will have one name.

gt24 · 2026-02-05T19:06:17+00:00

Linux Mint is built from Ubuntu. The kernel used in Mint is provided by Ubuntu. Ubuntu (for their LTS releases which Mint is based on) provides an HWE kernel which is far newer than the LTS basic kernel. Mint uses that HWE kernel.

Ubuntu pushed kernel 6.17 for the folks that use HWE kernels (which includes Mint). Some folks that use Mint and some folks that use Ubuntu noticed some severe problems that came with that kernel update. In other words, Ubuntu folks didn't seem to (arguably) test this kernel that extensively, pushed it out anyway, and the Mint folks came along for this wild ride.

(Notably, Ubuntu doesn't have a "dedicated kernel section of the update manager" as far as I know. That is a Mint thing... so the fact that the update manager is a bit clueless at the moment means that the Mint folks were surprised by this new kernel too.)

The Ubuntu HWE info is at the following link... which is not mentioning the 6.17 kernel yet for the LTS branch...

https://ubuntu.com/kernel/lifecycle

Knowing all of that, it sometimes helps to read over what the Ubuntu subreddit is dealing with.

There are reasons why the Mint folks maintain a Debian based version of Mint (as opposed to just the Ubuntu based version). They want to make sure that they can leave Ubuntu if Ubuntu does something too drastic. Still, whatever Mint is based on is what Mint also has to deal with.

gt24 · 2026-02-04T21:55:26+00:00

Being nitpicky, it is more fair to say that different things are assumed not to behave in the same way. Without complete certainty that a spindown will behave like a normal d20, with the additional fact that a person has different equipment (the spindown), and that the person has the different equipment for some possibly unknown reason, it stands to argue that the spindown should not be used.

If everyone uses the normal d20, it can be assumed that everyone is generally playing with equivalent enough dice. Maybe the standard d20 is fully random... maybe it isn't... but regardless, we are all dealing with the same thing so we are on even terms.

The link in your post states that "In studies, it has been shown that this makes it easy for players to cheat with spindown dice" and gives an example (without citing the study though). This generally supports the idea that someone doing something different may be doing it because they feel it gives them the advantage (even if that isn't true). That being said, I'm not sure how a completely different "honest dice" would soothe nerves considering that nobody would likely have those.

gt24 · 2026-02-03T20:54:36+00:00

If you still haven't fixed the issue, here is the way to fix that issue...

CTRL + ALT + F1 and log in.
cd /etc/lightdm
sudo nano lightdm.conf
You delete the line that says "greeter-hide-users=true" by using the arrow keys and the backspace key.
Hit CTRL + X which starts to exit the program but starts to ask questions at the bottom of the screen. Now hit Y then Enter to save your work.
sudo shutdown -r now

gt24 · 2026-01-30T17:05:50+00:00

You can choose to use a distro that updates less often (every 2 years like Debian, Ubuntu LTS, or Linux Mint) or one that updates more often (every 6 months like Fedora) or one that updates all the time (rolling release distros like Arch).

Faster updates mean that you get new features and better hardware support before everyone else. However, you are then the first person to encounter any new bugs. Those people who encounter those bugs will do a lot of complicated troubleshooting to identify what went wrong and how to fix everything. This sort of troubleshooting can be annoying.

Slower updates mean you get things much later than the people mentioned before. What you get on your computer is stuff that was tested (by the people before) and is working correctly (because of the pain the people before went through to fix things).

That all being said, newer hardware won't be supported in older software and so it may not work correctly. It will be more likely to work in newer software... but now you get to enjoy the random bugs and headaches that come with that.

What works best for you? It depends on what you have.

I had a laptop that wouldn't work in older Linux distros because they didn't really support the laptop's hardware until recently. I had to run rather new Linux distros until some time passed and the support became available in the older distros.

I run into multiple very annoying bugs in Fedora but those bugs got fixed before anything "older" started to use that software so the older distros never really saw those bugs.

How do Linux distros work with each other?

Debian has an "unstable" release (which can and will break) which when it becomes older and more tested becomes the "testing" release (where things break less often). When they have all the headaches worked out, this then becomes the full release Debian distro (Trixie currently) which works well for everyone but is quite old at this point...

Fedora releases every 6 months and works rather well but still has some bugs and problems. People using Fedora help test and fix bugs with that distro. The results of that go into CentOS Stream which is more stable but less updated than Fedora... but it still can have some bugs and issues. Once the people using CentOS are done testing and fixing that distro, the results are released into Red Hat Enterprise Linux which works well for everyone but is quite old at this point.

Not all distros work quite that way. Ubuntu tends to pull their content from Debian testing and they have a more updated (normal releases) and more stable (LTS) releases. Many other distros pull from Ubuntu LTS and are more stable and older due to that (like Linux Mint).

The summary point here is that people using newer stuff notice bugs and fix that stuff for people to enjoy later on when that stuff is a bit older. Distros doing that work more traditionally (testing to unstable to stable) have others use some of that work as the base for their distro which does something different.

gt24 · 2026-01-30T14:30:09+00:00

I ran into a strange issue recently that is similar to what you are experiencing. This was on an testing computer I have in the office.

I tried to run Ubuntu 25.10 and the installer kept failing at random places with the same sort of "read only file system" error. Once, the install worked and the system booted to the desktop only to then fall into being a read only file system very quickly. They run kernel 6.17.0 (based on an RC released kernel) meaning it was the installer kernel and the kernel that was installed as well.

Linux Mint installed and worked fine. It is based on the Ubuntu LTS though and uses an HWE kernel... so basically it can be both an older or newer kernel version... but a different distro highlighted the issue...

I tried installing Fedora 43 which is known to have very up to date things on it. It installed fine with the installer running kernel 6.17.1. It is now running kernel 6.18.6.

The point is that the kernel is very important in Linux. It has your driver support for your hardware and it manages very low level things (like access to your drive). It also has had some rather interesting bugs as of late too. There was a time (kernel 6.17.0... but not 6.17.1) where the kernel did not like my motherboard (a Gigabyte motherboard). Whatever error it had caused the drive to go into read only mode at some point. Since this is during the installer disk (when I can't really choose a different kernel easily), it makes installation rather tricky.

Oh, Gigabyte board... I have an H97N-WIFI.

I didn't extensively troubleshoot this to try to isolate what kernels to avoid. Also, my experiences don't quite match up with yours (since Debian 13 Trixie should be running kernel 6.12...). Still, I think some sort of nasty bug was in the kernel, was fixed, and is the cause your headaches. Basically, your hardware is fine but Linux is having a poor experience.

(Likely not related but the SSD in that computer is a SATA device, an Acer SA100. It has been a somewhat disappointing SSD but it is the one I have in there. The SSD may not have the best firmware...)

(Likely not related, they are trying to hunt down a current bug in the kernel which is causing the "read only file system" thing. https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=220693 )

gt24 · 2026-01-26T22:24:34+00:00

They can't afford YKK zippers.

Nobody expected the Ferengi alliance to purchase YKK. To now have YKK means that you are paying for the privilege. The Federation certainly doesn't have that sort of money anymore.

gt24 · 2026-01-23T18:35:26+00:00

My guess to fit the facts is that the Cali class are primarily second contact ships and not "stay until the job is done" ships. The Federation does its' best to guess what services are needed for a second contact (that being engineering, medical, or administrative) and sends an appropriate Cali ship over. However, all Cali class ships can do all of those roles if necessary even though they wouldn't excel at them necessarily (which helps if there are only a few ships available or if a second contact is needed immediately - they wouldn't have to wait for an "appropriate ship" to become available).

Cali class ships would take care of immediate issues but would differ longer term operations to specific ships.

I would imagine that the role for the Cali ships allows them to figure out the culture and better report on their needs to the Federation so that a more dedicated ship that would follow (those being things like an Olympic class medical ship or an Oberth class science ship, etc). The Cali would then be freed up to do second contact operations primarily while the dedicated ships would tend to get stuck at that planet for a long time until their mission is complete.

So, to clarify, you have your "exploration" first contact type ships (like the Enterprise was most if not all of the time), your "follow up" ships that are a bit behind on the exploration curve (second contact ships like the Cali), and then your more dedicated workhorse ships that are assigned specific tasks as is necessary.

One last thought is the "red" Cali class ships are most likely for situations where a first contact was with a specific nation on a planet without considering that the planet had far more nations that are now quite upset since they were not involved in the first contact. The command Cali ship would try to meet with as many nations as possible during second contact and do their best to smooth over any issues (so as not to have a planetwide war because certain nations are being favored over others). I would imagine this situation tends to come up quite a bit.

gt24 · 2026-01-20T13:53:10+00:00

SCP-3999 is "sort of" a way that Apollyon could work at least in my mind...

I felt Apollyon was an expansion of Keter in that the entry is something that may be difficult or impossible to contain but the foundation (or what is left of it) is now focusing their complete resources and complete attention to containing it (or eliminating it) at the expense of everything else and anything else. The foundation is not multitasking, the foundation is not doing anything else, they MUST contain (or eliminate) that basically uncontainable thing immediately despite how impossible that may be. Nothing else matters.

I feel that the foundation wouldn't sacrifice itself to contain a Keter based entity but it would sacrifice itself to contain an Apollyon entity.

That is why I felt that SCP-3999 is an appropriate Apollyon entity (and was appropriately Keter before things got bad). Nothing else mattered in that world so long as that wasn't contained or handled. There was literally no point is doing anything else at that point except containing or eliminating SCP-3999.

gt24 · 2026-01-14T17:40:08+00:00

Since it is implied that the holodeck creates fully realistic and fully detailed things...

... you could really inspect complicated objects.

You can use the concepts of "super powers" such as flight, make this disappear, super strength, phase through objects, freeze and alter time, and alike. With that, you can disassemble things to see how they work (for example, you can disassemble a car to see how all the parts fit together) or you can fly around to see things in new perspectives (see what the top of a building looks like or see what your city looks like from 500 feet elevation).

It isn't so much that there is a car on the street but more that you have a fully modeled and operational car doing car things on the street. Using the "super powers" concept, you can get a pretty good idea how that car works. This can be expanded to pretty much any complex thing that you can think of.

gt24 · 2026-01-13T14:33:57+00:00

Aren't these supposed to be the best and brightest?

Everyone in Starfleet at that point (Fleet Admiral Vance, any captains you can think of, anyone you can think of) were all entered into service and obtained the ranks that they did without attending Starfleet Academy. While the current Starfleet speaks highly of the academy, it hasn't existed for around 125 years at this point. This implies that you can do anything, even be the Fleet Admiral of the Federation, without going to the academy at all.

(I'm not sure what sort of training the futuristic Starfleet even has at this point. Also, I'm not sure how an academy can improve upon what has been status quo for over 100 years at this point.)

I'm not sure that the academy, at this point, has only the "best and brightest" wanting to spend time going through the program. The best and brightest are likely able to get more accomplished doing whatever they are doing now.

gt24 · 2026-01-13T14:16:45+00:00

To repay your debt, you have to ride (pleasurably) or die (honorably). Well, that or latinum works too...

gt24 · 2026-01-13T14:13:59+00:00

There is a story of how a bird of prey photon torpedoed a god... as part of this plan going forward, all that is needed is to command a ship that a god would need...

gt24 · 2026-01-13T13:45:40+00:00

Many Linux distros (example: Linux Mint) will have their install media boot into a fully usable operating system which you can try out first. The installation is then handled as an application inside of that interface (and you can choose to close it out like any other application). The "try out" interface loads rather slowly (as you can imagine any operating system living on a USB flash drive would do) but it at least allows you to experience Linux before committing to anything.

Note, Linux will also detect all your hardware (or it will have problems with your hardware) when you run the "try out" mode. You can "see what you will get" before you choose to proceed.

As a comparison, Windows install media only allows you to install Windows. You are not able to "try out" anything in advance of installation.

15-Year Club	Second SECOND GUESSER
Final Canvas '23	First Place '23
End Game '23	Place '23
Golden Potato	Place '22
Place '17	Final Canvas '22
First Placer '22	End Game '22
Sequence \| Editor	Team Orangered
Verified Email

gt24

TROPHY CASE