The Die Is Cast (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 3, Episode 21) Garak’s mentor leads a presumptive strike against the Founders homeworld

Rewatching ST:DS9 After the recap of S3E20 “Improbable Cause,” we see Bashir, clearly missing Garak, holding forth on the decline of modern theatre during lunch with O’Brien, who kinda sorta pretends to listen. But this is the teaser for the second half of a two-parter, and there’s a plot to jump-start. A fleet of Romulans…

Improbable Cause (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 3, Episode 20) Odo investigates an attempt on Garak’s life

Rewatching ST:DS9 During his usual lunch with Bashir, Garak dismisses as farcical the notion that Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar would be surprised that his best friend betrayed him, in a literary reference that is definitely random and will certainly have nothing at all to do with this week’s plot. Garak departs with a promise to deliver…

Dennis G. Jerz | Associate Professor of English -- New Media Journalism, Seton Hill University | jerz.setonhill.edu Logo

In September, 2002, I was blogging about science writing, satire, ebonics, Google News, owl callers, astronaut Buzz Aldrin punching a moon landing denier, and an email from a former student (who thanked me)

In September, 2002, I was blogging about “The Science of Scientific Writing” (1990) from ‘pong’ to ‘pac man’ Michigan Police fall for The Onion satire about terrorist telemarketers “Ebonics” (ebony + phonics) Silly alarmist story about recessive blonde genes A scientist undone by plagiarism Google News (when it was new) Mel Gibson’s plan to film…

Through the Looking Glass #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 3, Episode 19) Sisko Must Rescue Collaborator Mirror Jennifer from Evil Mirror Kira

Rewatching ST:DS9 The teaser gives Odo and Quark a comic scene that shows Sisko in Space Dad mode. A casually dressed O’Brien says he wants to speak to Sisko, then pulls a weapon and orders him to the transporter pad.  Sisko realizes he’s been taken to the Mirror Universe, and learns his counterpart was killed…

The AI Mirror Test: Why Even the Smartest People Keep Falling Short

What is important to remember is that chatbots are autocomplete tools. They’re systems trained on huge datasets of human text scraped from the web: on personal blogs, sci-fi short stories, forum discussions, movie reviews, social media diatribes, forgotten poems, antiquated textbooks, endless song lyrics, manifestos, journals, and more besides. These machines analyze this inventive, entertaining,…

Bing’s A.I. Chat Reveals Its Feelings: ‘I Want to Be Alive. 😈’

In a two-hour conversation with our columnist, Microsoft’s new chatbot said it would like to be human, had a desire to be destructive and was in love with the person it was chatting with. Here’s the transcript. —New York Times “The version I encountered seemed (and I’m aware of how crazy this sounds) more like…

A news site used AI to write articles. It was a journalistic disaster.

Artificial intelligence has been deployed to handle facial recognition, recommend movies, and auto-complete your typing. The news that CNET had been using it to generate entire stories, however, sent a ripple of anxiety through the news media for its seeming threat to journalists. The robot-brained yet conversational ChatGPT can produce copy without lunch or bathroom breaks and…

Distant Voices #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 3, Episode 18) Dr. Julian’s very Jungian 30th birthday

Rewatching ST:DS9 Bashir is less than thrilled with Garak’s gift of a holographic adaptation of a Cardassian “enigma tale,” and explains he’s testy about his impending 30th birthday. Quark seems relieved when Bashir shoots down a shady client’s hopes of buying “biomemetic gel.” Bashir later finds that same customer (a bumpy-faced reptilian named Altovar) ransacking…