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According To Star Trek: Discovery, Starfleet Still Runs Microsoft Windows (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the final-frontier-indeed dept.

AmiMoJo shares a report from The Verge: The third episode of Star Trek: Discovery aired this week, and at one point in the episode, Sonequa Martin-Green's Michael Burnham is tasked with reconciling two suites of code. In the show, Burnham claims the code is confusing because it deals with quantum astrophysics, biochemistry, and gene expression. And while the episode later reveals that it's related to the USS Discovery's experimental new mycelial network transportation system, Twitter user Rob Graham noted the code itself is a little more pedestrian in nature. More specifically, it seems to be decompiled code for the infamous Stuxnet virus, developed by the United States to attack Iranian computers running Windows.

45 of 237 comments (clear)

  1. Blue Screen of Antimatter containment failure by physburn · · Score: 4, Funny

    Who wants windows to managed their antimatter.

    1. Re:Blue Screen of Antimatter containment failure by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 5, Funny

      I don't want it to manage the turbolifts or even whatever they use for toilets. If the best the federation has is Windows, I'm joining up with the Romulans.

    2. Re:Blue Screen of Antimatter containment failure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      I don't want it to manage the turbolifts or even whatever they use for toilets. If the best the federation has is Windows, I'm joining up with the Romulans.

      Closed environment?

      Smug sense of superiority?

      Apple!

    3. Re:Blue Screen of Antimatter containment failure by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Who wants windows to managed their antimatter.

      What's worse... if Windows manages their computer; Cortana (aka Clippy 2) is probably the voice control controlling the computers. That bitch cortana is who my grand kids will have to talk to if they want their "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot". This makes me sad.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    4. Re:Blue Screen of Antimatter containment failure by zifn4b · · Score: 2

      Who wants windows to managed their antimatter.

      The antimatter containment chamber has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down.

      --
      We'll make great pets
    5. Re:Blue Screen of Antimatter containment failure by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2

      This makes a core dump a much more exciting event.

    6. Re:Blue Screen of Antimatter containment failure by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The ship's computer seems to have gone through some fairly drastic changes over the years.

      Enterprise: No voice interface, apparently people got fed up with Alexa and Siri by the next century.

      Discovery: Young female voice borrowed from an early 21st century sat-nav.

      Original Series: Lost her voice again, people finally realized that touch interfaces and transparent screens are dumb and reverted to good old reliable 12V bulbs and switches.

      Next Generation: The computer is a bit older and wiser now, and everything reverted to flat screens and touch panels.

      Deep Space 9: CRTs are back in fashion, complete with curved display.

      Voyager: Why does the ship even need people any more?

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    7. Re:Blue Screen of Antimatter containment failure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      DS9 gets a pass. That was a Kardashian station so it had whatever was hip at the time. Yes, I know, Cardassians.

    8. Re:Blue Screen of Antimatter containment failure by The+Grassy+Knoll · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Cannot convert matter to anti-matter. It is already in use by another object."

      Meh.

      --
      They will never know the simple pleasure of a monkey knife fight
    9. Re:Blue Screen of Antimatter containment failure by Dracos · · Score: 2, Funny

      That was a Kardashian station so it had whatever was hip at the time.

      That was a Kardashian station so it had whatever was ass at the time.

      FTFY.

    10. Re:Blue Screen of Antimatter containment failure by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

      We are the Bug. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your food and carbohydrates to our own. Your farming will adapt to service us. Bug spray is futile.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    11. Re:Blue Screen of Antimatter containment failure by perpenso · · Score: 4, Funny

      Why do starship designers love to route plasma conduits behind control panels?

      They need the power, there is a background task mining federation coins.

    12. Re:Blue Screen of Antimatter containment failure by cayenne8 · · Score: 2

      Huh? They talked to the computer all the time on TOS.

      It had that ethereal, echoey female monotone voice: "Wor-king... in-suf-fic-ient da-ta to com-pute..."

      If I recall...that was the same voice that did Nurse Chapel.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    13. Re:Blue Screen of Antimatter containment failure by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

      . . .And I'll be damned if I'll pay extra to CBS' streaming service to watch it!

      Have to agree...

      I'd absolutely watch this if it were on Netflix, Amazon, or Hulu. I refuse to pay for CBS service though. Two reasons:

      1) I don't want to pay more when I have so many shows I haven't seen on the other networks.
      2) The principle. Paying for CBS service helps support the splintering of streamed TV online. If I pay- that partially contributes to the potential success of CBS's experiment. If CBS is successful then every other network is going to follow the same model. Eventually you'll end up with a dozen different streaming sites all wanting $x a month and end up paying the same as cable.

      Anyone paying for CBS to watch this is doing the rest of us a massive disservice.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    14. Re:Blue Screen of Antimatter containment failure by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

      Anyone paying for CBS to watch this is doing the rest of us a massive disservice.

      You mean I get to piss off nerds WHILE WATCHING STARTREK? Sign me up.

      Not just nerds... everyone. We all stand to lose out if every network decides to charge $7 a month to view their stuff. If all the networks pull their old stuff off Netflix, Amazon and Hulu and set up their own to-pay site. You either have a lot less choice- or pay a lot more money. If CBS is successful in this all the networks will do something similar.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    15. Re:Blue Screen of Antimatter containment failure by jwhyche · · Score: 2

      The antimatter containment chamber has performed an illegal operation ....

      fixed it for you.

      --
      I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
  2. Slashdot Ads by itamihn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What is with the huge banner that Slashdot lately has? Worse yet, it's floating and moves with scrolling, making it impossible to read anything on a short window. Will Slashdot finally be the site that makes me use adblocking software?

    1. Re:Slashdot Ads by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Was kind of hoping for some interesting discussion about the show. It's very different... The captain from the first two episodes was a model Starfleet officer, trying to avoid conflict and do the right thing. Now we are getting echos of Section 31 and doing what it takes to win the war.

      The Federation itself perhaps has not reached that level yet. Life imprisonment doesn't sound very enlightened, especially when the crime was largely poor decision making. Of course, in reality she was actually correct and the Klingons would have started the war no matter what, but the court didn't know that. Had she succeeded in destroying that ship the war might actually have been averted.

      Star Trek usually considers the moral and philosophical implications of choices, but so far there has been very little of that in Discover. Okay, we are only 3 episodes in so probably too early to judge.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:Slashdot Ads by Baron_Yam · · Score: 4, Insightful

      >Star Trek usually considers the moral and philosophical implications of choices, but so far there has been very little of that in Discover

      That would be science fiction. CBS isn't in the sci-fi business. Hell, they're not even in the 'sci-fi veneer on something else' business. They're mainly in the 'procedurals with some action for the over 40 crowd' business.

      They really ought to have sold off the Star Trek TV rights, it's not in their wheelhouse.

    3. Re:Slashdot Ads by Kiuas · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's very different... The captain from the first two episodes was a model Starfleet officer, trying to avoid conflict and do the right thing. Now we are getting echos of Section 31 and doing what it takes to win the war.

      You're right that it's different, but there's also an issue with the main character that bugs me which is that she's got a way too broad range of skills based on the first episodes. Like just as an example in the 2 first episodes she twice beat a Klingon warrior in single combat while having no previous experience of fighting them, and being smaller. I get that the show wants to emphasize that she's a supergenius and raised by the Vulcans in science and martial arts, but still, I was expecting her character to be a modern take on Spock, not a deadly warrior-princess archetype that goes around instantly kicking everyone's ass. Really the ending of the 2nd episode was a really big blunder in my view from the point of view of writing. I mean, she first tells the captain that they should seek to capture the Klingon leader not kill him so as to not make him a martyr. Okay, makes sense. How do the plan to do it? By beaming to the klingon ship with no backup, just the 2 of them with phasers, 2 women against a shipload of gigantic space Mongol-superwarriors, and then when the captain is killed, instead of doing the logical thing which is retreating hell out of there, she violates her own advice and shoots the Klingon captain dead, essentially causing their mission to be a total failure while also making the death of her captain counter-productive. From a story point of view how're we supposed to feel that she's ever in any danger when she's already demonstrated in the first few episodes that no matter what she's up against and with how little previous experience, she'll get through just fine.

      I mean, I get that they're playing round with the notion that she's not a Vulcan so her emotions do take over from time to time, that's ool, and that can function as a neat narrative device, however it's really rather annoying to watch a character that's supposed to be like the smartest person in the whole of Starfeet give out advice on what to do, and then violate her own advice 5 minutes later. Likewise in the beginning she goes to have a look at an unknown artifact that they have no scans on and no idea how hostile it is and instead of doing a flyby like she was instructed, she instantly goes 'wow, this is pretty, I'm going to land on it', runs into a Klingon and kills him in 5 seconds. Is this the Vulcan approach? Is this what Spock would have done? Is this the kind of discipline the Vulcan academy teaches to their students?

      That being said, I think the show can still go into a good direction, we'll need to wait and see. So far it's a tad too much like the Abrams films, which is to say that it looks neat and has a lot of action that probably appeals to a larger audience, but it doesn't feel very Trekky to me yet.

      --
      "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
    4. Re:Slashdot Ads by Baron_Yam · · Score: 2

      > the main character that bugs me which is that she's got a way too broad range of skills

      That is standard for Trek. They give lip service to specialization, but when you get down to it the lead character always knows what the technical people are doing and can micromanage them if they're not actually just doing it themselves.

      > in the 2 first episodes she twice beat a Klingon warrior in single combat while having no previous experience of fighting them, and being smaller.

      Modern television. Nobody wants to point out that a petite female has to have far, far superior training plus some luck to take out a large male... physics itself can take a flying leap because nobody's even paying attention to mass, inertia, or leverage in these matchups never mind muscle. Also, since TNG it has been traditional in Trek to beat up a Klingon to show how badass you are.

      Trek science is usually only marginally better than what you'd find in a Michael Bay movie.

    5. Re:Slashdot Ads by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 2

      I thought that the majority of Slashdot users decided that they weren't going to watch this show when they made it exclusive to CBS's new streaming service?

      We probably aren't. 100% of my knowledge of this show comes from Slashdot. I'm not stupid enough to pay money for a service that still shoves ads down my throat, particularly for just one show. I'm not interested enough to yoink it. So I live vicariously through marketing astroturf fluff.

    6. Re:Slashdot Ads by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They really ought to have sold off the Star Trek TV rights, it's not in their wheelhouse.

      Your criticism of CBS may be correct, I don't really have a basis to evaluate it. But I would argue we do not live in a time when the masses will tolerate an idealistic utopian future, the philosophical dilemmas inherent in bringing it about and real people trying to be better than we expect.

      We live in a time when pragmatists and self-centered behavior is idolized, when war and violence are seen as ideal tools for solving difficult social problems, and when letting people die because they're not us is ok as long as we don't say it out loud. People acting on idealism are viewed as ridiculous and naive and with utmost contempt. That's not compatible with any of the Star Trek series I've liked.

      I guess I don't think we're living in a time when Star Trek could be successful, even if it were holding itself to its ideals. They really should just sell the IP and the new owners should sit on it for a little while, while we wallow in our self-imposed cess pit for a decade or two. After a few decades we're going to realize that pragmatism may not be that great after all.

    7. Re:Slashdot Ads by Baron_Yam · · Score: 4, Interesting

      >I guess I don't think we're living in a time when Star Trek could be successful

      I think perhaps you have that backwards. Sure, we're still producing 'gritty/dark', but I think we're on the tail end of that as audiences often want to escape reality and get a taste of something different - which can simply entertain or be inspirational - and the world's been a bit too gritty and dark recently.

      I'd say now is actually a great time to start popping out the idealistic stuff, but maybe not quite as simplistic as it used to be. Not every idealist has to be deeply and secretly flawed... but they do have to deal with a realistic world where not everything goes their way just because they're 'fighting the good fight'. (And I'd throw the current MCU Captain America and DC Wonder Woman up as decent examples of this)

      A lot of entertainment presents an idealized individual who encounters no serious barriers because everyone more or less falls under the spell of their righteousness in 60 minutes less commercial breaks, and that's just stupid on too many levels to take.

    8. Re:Slashdot Ads by zifn4b · · Score: 2

      We live in a time when pragmatists and self-centered behavior is idolized, when war and violence are seen as ideal tools for solving difficult social problems, and when letting people die because they're not us is ok as long as we don't say it out loud.

      So... what you're saying is it would be more accurate to have a Sci-Fi show called Extinction Event. That wouldn't be any fun though because we all know generally what the ending would be...

      By the way, idealism won't fix that problem. You must focus not on utopia and ideals but rather on what will avoid the extinction event. The two are not one in the same. Believing they both are is a claim that has no evidence to support it that I'm aware of. But... whatever delusion gets you through the day I suppose.

      If you want to make the world a better place, you need to get engaged in problem solving. That was always the idea in Star Trek. There were these social issues, moral and philosophical dilemmas and so forth and what happened is people worked through them together in a problem solving capacity. No one ever said "The world would be much better if it were just like the uber X utopia." It was an exploration of thought to see how far you could push towards ideals. That's where idealists fail. They think they already know what a utopia is and what it would be composed of and everyone who doesn't see it is stupid and/or immoral. It's not a destination. It's an iterative process and we can't realize our true potential if people want to distance themselves from actual problems rather than getting engaged to help solve them.

      --
      We'll make great pets
    9. Re:Slashdot Ads by cryptolemur · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'd like to point out that it was petite captain Georgiou who was fighting the klingon, and in the end lost mainly due to the mass/power difference. Burnham shot the klingon from behind to her captain, so differences in mass, power, gender or race did not really have any effect in that regard.

      One way to look at the same story is that this allegedly superb Star Fleet officer accidentally killed the klingon she was trying to make contact with, and then in haste shot the klingon she really needed to capture alive. So, instead of being all-powerful, unbeatable hero she actually messed everything up and turned a solvable confrontation into a war.

    10. Re:Slashdot Ads by DarkOx · · Score: 4, Informative

      I think your memory of Star Trek is a little shaky. The usual formula was:

      1) Kirk arrives at some planet and encounters some culture supposedly more primitive than the Federation.

      2) Some moral delima is presented, with little real ambiguity in terms of justice, and kinda obvious parallels to our real culture. For example hatred between people who are black on the left and white on right, vs black on the right and white on the left.

      3) Kirk gives some lecture about how humanity moved passed all this.

      4) A contrived action scene where some red shirted folks die. Nobody will be held responsible ultimately.

      5) Kirk somehow either explains how the cultures current path will lead to their total destruction or in some cases threatens to bring it about himself.

      6) everyone sings kumbaya

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    11. Re:Slashdot Ads by theweatherelectric · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I guess I don't think we're living in a time when Star Trek could be successful

      Maybe the The Orville will be successful. Even with the comedy aspect to it The Orville is more Star Trek than Star Trek is these days.

    12. Re:Slashdot Ads by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I have to agree that I am pleasantly surprised about the Orville. A lot of the Low Brow Humor had been toned down, and the stories seem to move well, and are interesting, and the characters are likable. Is it realistic dark and gritty... No, but I don't watch Star Trek for a dark future, but for a fun one. Well managed Camp that we had in TOS, STNG and even in DS9 made the show enjoyable.

      The Orville seems to be done with Heart and Love of what Star Trek use to be, While Discovery seems like a money grab, with the Artistic flair to make the Reviewers love it, however it just isn't that engaging as a normal viewer who after a long day at work, wants to watch something to make you feel calm and relaxed.
       

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    13. Re:Slashdot Ads by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 2

      > I guess I don't think we're living in a time when Star Trek could be successful,

      Are you talking Financially? Hollywood accounting aside, they made money off the Reboot.

      * Star Trek (2019) = $257 million (US) + $385 million (world) - $150 million (budget) = $492 million
      * Into Darkness (2013) = $228 million (US), $467 million (world) - $190 million (budget) = $505 million
      * Beyond (2016) = $158 million (US), $343 million (world) - $185 million (budget) = $316 million

      That said, even though Beyond made money it was considered a flop. It remains doubtful if there will be a sequel -- people are getting tired of STD:ADHD.

    14. Re:Slashdot Ads by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I've been enjoying The Orville too. I just find it funny that so many people who seem to hate Discovery for the "touchy feely crap" and "forced diversity" seem to love that show.

      Last week the away team was three women, a man and a genderless robot. Two of the women had a long conversation about their feelings. There was also a domestic conflict subplot. The week before that it was an all-male society that considered the female gender to be a handicap in need of medical intervention, loads more feels there. Before that it was more domestic conflict when an ex-married couple are forced together in an apartment/zoo, and a female member of the crew has a crisis of confidence that she needs to talk out at length.

      In comparison Discovery is very business-like and direct.

      I think Discovery could keep with the ideals of Trek. Remember the war in DS9, it was fascinating to see how that kind of enlightened society dealt with a major conflict. Hopefully they will bring the moral issues that made that great into Discovery as time goes on.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    15. Re:Slashdot Ads by houghi · · Score: 2

      Perhaps she went to the Vulcan version of an Online University.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    16. Re:Slashdot Ads by freeze128 · · Score: 2

      ...and she was court-martialed for it. Her poor choices led to consequences. I don't see a problem with that. In fact, it's a nice break from previous treks where officers disobey direct orders of a commanding officer, and they don't even get a day in the brig. I guess the ends justify the means a little too much.

    17. Re:Slashdot Ads by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 3, Insightful

      /Oblg. "STD is so bad it isn't even worth pirating!"

      Well, I wasn't going to watch either (Yet-Another-Stupid-Paywall) but a friend had CBS access and they _still_ chose to download the torrents so they could watch it across ALL their devices. (Go Figure!) I borrowed their USB stick so I could watch it on my 60" Plasma.

      I 99% agree with Midnight's Edge's analysis, and RedLetterMedia's review about STD:ADHD.

      If CBS hadn't been trying to leech onto the Star Trek name I think more fans would be wiling to cut it some slack as just another "Sci-Fi" show. But going back and rewriting history is a slap in the face to many fans. This is one of the same reasons Enterprise failed -- show us something NEW _past_ Picard.

      It is interesting to note that according to Rotten Tomatoes fans only give it 60% while the spiritual successor to Trek, The Orville has 90%.

      --
      Censorship is NOT the Solution, it is precisely the Problem.

    18. Re:Slashdot Ads by JackieBrown · · Score: 2

      If CBS hadn't been trying to leech onto the Star Trek name I think more fans would be wiling to cut it some slack as just another "Sci-Fi" show.

      This is exactly why I haven't watched it. I read an article the other day about how dark, gritty, and cynical the show is. The article was acting like this was a great thing. That's fine. I loved Farscape which was pretty cynical in nature. Even BSG was great for a good half its run. But they stood on their own so I was cool with whatever tone they wanted to take

      SGU is a great example of cashing in yet betraying a franchise. It could have easily been it's own show and I probably would have loved it (or at least liked it.) But taking the stargate franchise into such a bleak, hopeless direction was unacceptable. The way the military was portrayed in the show also changed drastically. To make things worse, the creators of the show had loud disdain for the fans that did not appreciate the change and refused to make any more of SG1 or SGA movies to punish us - I forget how they worded it but basically if we didn't tune in to support SGU, they wouldn't support more SG1 or SGA

      DS9 was a good middle ground for star trek. It took things darker without destroying the Trek atmosphere and feel.

    19. Re:Slashdot Ads by jwhyche · · Score: 2

      This Side of Paradise

      Best since ever, where Spock beats the living shit out of Kirk.

      --
      I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
  3. In a later episode... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    the Klingons will travel back in time to destroy mankind and starfleet by inventing Windows...

    captcha: compile. really, slashdot?

  4. Hollywood OS by iTrawl · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The Federation runs Hollywood OS. It's so advanced that it can run legacy code of the 20th century in a bio-quantum context. If you look closely enough you'll see that it can run a languane known as PerlthonJS (to give an example), which, to the untrained eye, looks only like a random mixture of Perl, Python and JavaScript in one source file.

    --
    "Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
  5. Windows XP runs the warp core by MrKaos · · Score: 4, Funny

    Press START to STOP engines.

    FATAL EXCEPTION: Warp core dumped!

    --
    My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  6. At least it's actually code! by cmseagle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They could've taken the typical Hollywood approach and shown a bunch of green, Matrix-like gibberish scrolling across the screen. I'm choosing to view this more as an easter egg than as a continuity issue.

    1. Re:At least it's actually code! by Zocalo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      My take too - it's a cute touch, and they must have known what the code was when they used it or they would have just have grabbed something vaguely appropriate from the OSS code base - like the use of NMAP in The Matrix, and many similar examples since - or gone down the gibberish/pseudo code route. I think most directors are well aware by now that with high-def. video anything like that put up on the screen will be subjected to a freezeframe and analysis, so you either need to make it relevant or an easter egg if you want to avoid some mockery. Since we clearly don't have any actual code to deal with the analysis of quantum lifeforms yet, that just leaves the easter egg.

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
  7. According To Star Trek: Discovery... by Freischutz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    According To Star Trek: Discovery, Starfleet Still Runs Microsoft Windows

    Better headline: "Whoever creates the tech props for Star Trek: Discovery has a wicked sense of humour" (assuming this really is decompiled Stuxnet code)

  8. Kill it already. by B33rNinj4 · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's an idiotic series with no basis in any Star Trek lore. Hell, even fanfic is better.

  9. The Federation is DOOMED! by Chas · · Score: 3, Funny

    The Borg are in orbit.
    SIR! Our global defense grid just BSOD'ed!
    Shit! Someone send the Borg a Linux ISO from a distro that uses systemd!

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  10. Star Trek: The SJW Generation by newdsfornerds · · Score: 2

    This show is complete tosh.

    --
    Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.