I didn’t read this as fanboy-ism. It’s simply the state of things. If another company wants to step up and produce a series of tech that’s as unfragmented as Apple, one that provides rudimentary protection and privacy, one that shuns ads and doesn’t depend on tracking for its revenue, I’m ready for it.

Someone hide his Mystery Box.

I hear you, and I thought about that before posting the comment, but does method matter? Does human skill in something make it any more right, or does a computer being directed to do something make it any more wrong? The final product is essentially the same, no matter how it was achieved.

Whether I, unprovoked, physically attack someone or I command my dog to attack someone, I’m being held responsible for the attack. It’s not so much the method or the tool that was used as it is the product, because the act is wrong.

Better yet, to your point, whether I draw the Simpsons and sell that image or print an image of the Simpsons and sell it, it’s considered wrong without permission of Groening.

The question is: Is it wrong to impersonate without intention of deceiving, using any method? I’m not arguing for or against. Simply asking moral questions. It’s a quandary, for sure.

How is the AI impersonation of Carlin different from when Paramount used actors who looked like Queen Elizabeth or Barbara Bush, or human impersonators who sound just like the real person they’re impersonating (besides the obvious difference)?

I’m not saying Dudesy is in the right. Making an AI system sound like someone somehow feels different than an impersonator doing the same thing. But I don’t know why I feel that way, as they’re extremely similar cases.

Smaller. Thinner.

Displaced would be a better word.

What do you suppose could “heat” the lenses?

Seems Reddit has joined us. Only a matter of time.

The commenter is talking about adding heaters, not anti-aircraft weaponry. There’s plenty of examples of things developed by the military that are used in civilian products.

Small business owner here. Good regulations are what allows my customers to trust me, or at least trust that I’m not willing to go to prison for lying about my product, or worse.

So, Extremis from Iron Man 3?

“Some of you may die, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.” - Lord Farquaad and Musk

Good point.

I couldn’t agree more. With Star Trek, or any established properties where the originator isn’t in control (Marvel, Star Wars, etc.), it’s all pretty much fanfic, professional or not. The writers are playing in a world they haven’t created.

Wow. I wasn’t aware of hbomberguy. Seems more of an “attack the person” and less of an “attack the idea” kind of person.

You’re right. Made sense as I wrote it, but I always do see TNG. Fixing it.

Epic poems, such as the Iliad, were the preferred storytelling methods at one time, yet society had little issue with building upon that as they left it behind. It’s one thing to prefer something, and another to say that because something was once one way, that’s how it always should be. Things change and hopefully improve. Kind of the main theme of Trek.

I said pretty much the same in a comment above, but I’m not against filler, or bottle episodes, though I may have come off that way. I’m just against bad filler, stuff that would have never made it into a show if there was no predetermined season lengths. In a perfect world, it would be great if stories could be chosen simply because they were great stories. I’d like to know that something like the Fly episode of Breaking Bad would could still be filmed just because the show runners thought it was a great story, and not because they had a make a certain number of episodes and needed to save some money on one episode so they could spend more on another.

Part of the reason why TNG was good beyond the first couple seasons was because of the open script submission policy that’s no longer in existence. According to ex-Trek producer Ronald D. Moore, they were reading something like 3000 scripts a year. It allowed them to be choosy (though there were still some stinkers). Now that the characters are established, if the seasons were longer, it might be cool to see the open script submissions come back (though, as I’m typing this, maybe implementing this during or shortly after a writers strike would be a poor choice, even though there were limits to how many scripts one could submit before going through “official” channels). Anyway, one could argue that a huge amount of ideas need to be generated for a show as great as TNG to exist, more than a small group of writers could produce. If outside script admissions were allowed, I’m sure we’d see some great sci-fi episodes from writers who weren’t even thinking “Star Trek” as they wrote them.

I’m not against filler, and my post may have come off as being that way. Not every story has to advance character or advance some storyline. I’m just against bad filler.

Don’t even get me started with Sherlock. 😂 Greatest show of all time ever to jump the shark.

TNG is my favorite for now because it finished well, in spite of the notoriously bad episodes that were in each season. SNW hasn’t finished yet and could screw things up, so I can’t say it’s my favorite yet. But when comparing the two seasons of SNW to any two random seasons of TNG, SNW wins. Episode count and quality aren’t necessarily linked, true, but my point is that there’s a higher chance of introducing poor episodes when the season is longer. A longer season could produce 20 great episodes instead of 10, but I have yet to see a show where this happens.

Up until Trek started streaming, the longer seasons were all we had, so comparing NG to all the other shows before streaming, it’s my favorite. Mainly comes down to the characters for me, as I think the storytelling in the network shows after TNG were just as strong as seasons 3-7 of TNG. And even though Disco and Picard had shorter seasons, they suffered under the weight of having to fill a predetermined episode count with a serialized show, so yes, episode count and quality aren’t necessarily linked. But an episodic show with a shorter season means the show runners can be picky with the episodes they want to film, much as a chef can be picky with what dishes they want to present.