I think it’s precisely because Picard is uncomfortable with that sort of thing, and probably has a reputation for it. I hear that hint of “unamused” too, but I think it’s at Picard’s immaturity with respect to the situation rather than “Why would a starship captain allow this to happen”.

I’m not sure the ribbing is that gentle, though I don’t read it as aggressive, either. More of a “Captain Picard Day? You’re actually participating in this, Jean Luc?” I don’t think they’re that close, probably only by work meeting/reputation.

I think either reading could be accurate, though. I don’t think this Admiral appears in any other episodes so we don’t have a broader picture of her.

I never interpreted it as her giving the side-eye to the idea of Captain Picard Day. I always read it as her knowing how much Picard would hate Captain Picard Day and is poking at it because she knows how much he would hate having even more attention drawn to it.

Raise your hand if you remember Garburators.

✋

That is exactly what the “dark” in “dark matter” and “dark energy” means: that our theories require it to exist to explain our observations, but we have no way to detect it, ergo it is “dark”.

It’s like the infamous cosmological constant that Einstein initially added to the theory of relativity. Just like the “dark” things it had no physical analogue, and was there so that his equations held for a universe of constant size. When Hubble demonstrated that (contrary to the belief at the time) the universe was expanding the cosmological constant was no longer needed.

It is entirely possible that a new theory will explain what the dark stuff is and we will be able to remove those terms from the equations that need them in order to explain our observations. It is possible that we will find some kind of actual matter that interacts with the gravitational force but not the strong, weak, or electromagnetic forces, which I think is what would be needed for a “dark matter particle”.

In my personal opinion, the best explanation I’ve heard is that the error terms are best explained by the expansion of space itself. Specifically, we have some very recent evidence that the expansion of space isn’t uniform, and that might explain a significant amount of the dark energy. PBS Space Time does a good job with relevant videos and keeping up with the science.

No physicist will tell you that we know what “dark matter” or “dark energy” is, because we don’t. I think most would agree with you that ultimately we will find multiple explanations that add up to “dark matter + dark energy”.

I think the one thing that I disagree with you on is that science is “bogged down” with theories and maybes. The theories and maybes are where the most exciting research is happening!

Science isn’t the body of knowledge that results from experimentation; it’s the cycle of theory and experimentation that generates new knowledge. We don’t remember the hundreds and hundreds of false theories that had to be argued about and discarded to get to relativity or quantum theory. Today we only read the papers that were proven right in hindsight. If you look at “dark matter/energy” science of today we’re in that churn, so it looks different. In time, all these disproved theories will be forgotten, too.

“Dark matter” and “dark energy” are the “errors in the prediction of Mercury’s orbit” (relativity) or “errors in the predictions of black-body radiation” (quantum) of our time.

If you own something then you are responsible for it. The contrapositive of this, which logically follows from it, is: “If you aren’t responsible for something then you don’t own it.”

By its own argument, OpenAI does not own its AI agents. It must therefore be selling or leasing them to their customers, not granting a license to them. If I have ownership or a lease for something, I have possession of it. Since I do not have possession of an AI agent, I cannot be owning or leasing it.

It also does not square with their business model, therefore it must not be how they conduct their business. Their own behaviour betrays their argument.

QED.

I always have to look to see whether I’m in /c/lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world or /c/adhd@lemmy.world