I just got an Icom IC-750 with the goal of going out in the open and the first thing I did is try to configure it with my computer because it’s what’s most convenient for me. I like keeping backups of various configurations and being able to go back to them. I’m also working on a project to help set up repeaters in this and others radios.
Unfortunately, I encountered the error:
Connected transceiver is not compatible model.
Check the following:
Appropriate programming software for the transceiver is being used.
The revision number of the transceiver
What was confusing is that the CS-705 was correctly seeing my connected IC-705:
I tried a few things, but long story short, my IC-705 had firmware version 1.31 and I was running CS-705 version 1.11 when only version 1.20 supports firmware 1.31. Now that I upgraded everything works:
And for the record, I’m running the USB driver version 1.12.
I find the Icom’s website to download the different versions of the software a bit confusing (especially the interactions between Icom UK and Icom Japan), but you can find it searching there
If the book is amazing and you need to highlight stuff, buy the Kindle version.
If it’s a book that you lend or give away, buy paper versions
Here’s my workflow for choosing:
Use Audible whenever possible, because going through audiobooks is much easier than going through any other format.
If the book has code or diagrams, most likely the audiobook won’t exist, but if you need to chose between Kindle and paper, choose paper. Big pages, diagrams, code, thumbing through pages are things that paper beats Kindle any day.
If the book is amazing and you need to highlight stuff, buy the Kindle version. If it’s amazing, re-reading it is probably a good idea and Kindle is really good at highlighting sections. If you need to write notes, the Kindle device is not that good, but the Kindle app on your phone is and they do synchronize, so you can switch back and forth. If you are a non-linear note-taker, the paper version might be better.
If it’s a book that you lend or give away, buy paper versions. Digital can’t be given away (not easily).
If it’s fiction or something you’ll read very linearly and you won’t listen to the audiobook, buy the Kindle version. This is where Kindle is the best.
If you want it signed by the author, or on your shelf, buy the paper version. A few times I listened to a book and it was amazing and I bought the paper version just because I want it sitting on my shelf. This is more book collecting than book reading and there’s nothing wrong with it.
If you are in front of it at a shop and want it, just buy it. Don’t be dogmatic about using a single format for everything, be a multi-format reader.
And now, the background story…
I’m a book lover, I grew up in a house that didn’t have a library, it was a library. When I was a kid my mom told me “We always have money for books”. I actually found the limit of that statement, but that’s another story. By the time I moved out of my parent’s house, my own collection was about 200 or 300 books. I’m not sure, I didn’t keep it. I gave most of it away to a friend that was setting up a used book store during the 2001 Argentina financial crisis and the only reason it didn’t break my heart was because helping my friend came first. I like paper books, their feel, their smell. I have a small collection of signed books that a prize possessions.
For a while I tried switching to one format to rule them all, but it doesn’t work.
But I also love tech, I’ve been coding since I was 7 years old, and always playing with the latest technologies. Reading from an electronic device where I can access all books and all information gets me excited. I bought some of the earlier ebook readers, made by Sony, before Amazon dominated the industry with the Kindle. And like most of us, I’m very busy, and sitting down to read a book is not something that comes easy. When I started to use Goodreads I realized how little I was actually reading and I didn’t like it. Audiobooks came to the rescue. They allow me to read a book while doing mindless but necessary activities, like chores, working out, commuting (not a lot of that happening lately).
For a while I tried switching to one format to rule them all, but it doesn’t work. Books are not all equal. Some work very well as audiobooks, some work very well in Kindle, and some require paper to be consumed. My method of reading books might seem a bit inefficient in that if I want to write notes, I end up reading a book twice. But if the end result is that I read more books, that lower inefficiency doesn’t matter because I increased my efficacy.
If you are reading this blog post, I expect you are very familiar with paper books but considering Kindle and Audible, so I’ll just talk a bit more about them.
With Kindle, you can have apps on your computer, phone and tablet as well as dedicated Kindle e-readers. They all connect to your Amazon account and they all get the same books and synchronize in which page you are. That means you may do most of your reading on a Kindle device, but open the app in your phone when you find yourself with some time to kill (better than doom-scrolling). You can start to experience Kindle with just your phone or tablet and buy a Kindle e-reader only if it’s working for you, but let me tell you, the screens on those e-readers are so much better for reading than your phone, they are much closer to paper.
Kindle Paperwhite: to me this feels like the Kindle. It has some very important features: waterproofing and warm light. This is the one I recommend to most people.
Kindle: the most basic e-reader. If you want to save money, if you want to try, maybe this is a good starting point.
Kindle Paperwhite: to me this feels like the Kindle. It has some very important features: waterproofing and warm light. This is the one I recommend to most people.
Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition: ok Amazon, you need to get better at naming things. What happened here? I don’t see why anyone would get this one to be honest. Auto-adjusting light? meh, I will adjust it anyway. Wireless charging? I plug my Kindle every other week. 32GB instead of 8GB makes no difference, books are tiny (unless you are storing audiobooks, which I don’t think you should).
Kindle Oasis: this is the top of the line, the most expensive, the luxury version. This is the one I have and it was a present. What used to be its killer feature, warm light, is not present in the Paperwhite version. It has some nice features, like the auto rotate page, the buttons, the mobile connectivity, but those only add value if you actually use them. Auto-rotate and buttons may be useful depending on how you hold the book. They are useful to me, but it’s hard to predict if they’ll be useful to someone else.
Some extra things to keep in mind when buying a Kindle:
You can store audiobooks in them, but then you need to pair your headphones to your Kindle. I have enough trouble with my headphones being paired to my phone and computer, I don’t need another device. When I’m listening to audiobooks I’m on the go, working out, doing chores. I have my phone on me, but not my Kindle on me. I don’t think this is a very valuable feature.
All Kindles come in two versions, with and without ads. I don’t know if you can upgrade to not have ads, I always bought mine without ads. Make sure you choose what’s appropriate for you. They also tend to have deals with Kindle Unlimited. Kindle Unlimited is like the Netflix of books, where you don’t pay for each individual book. The catalog is hit or miss and I never got it. My partner reads way more books than me and she got it for a while. If you start a free trial, make sure to set a task to stop it to allow paying for a subscription you don’t want.
When purchasing a Kindle, you can choose to have it tied to your account already. It’s a sort of pre-setup that they do. If it’s a present don’t chose this option. If it’s for you, it’s convenient.
Kindles have two ways of connection to the Internet: wi-fi and mobile. Mobile now is only available in the Oasis, the most expensive one. I never got a Kindle with mobile connectivity but I had friends that did. If you are a person that’s on the go a lot, that might be convenient, because it’ll keep your page synchronized even when wi-fi is not present. If I’m on the go and I want to buy a book, what I do is make my phone into a hotspot, connect my Kindle to it, and then buy and download the book. This is very rare.
I can’t comment on the Kindle for Kids since I never tried. Amazon lets you form a family and then everybody in the family can see the books of others. Unfortunately an Amazon family can only have two adults, which I find frustrating.
Understanding Audible
Amazon bought Audible, but it’s not completely integrated into the Amazon ecosystem yet. There’s a separate app from Kindle called Audible that you use to listen to audiobooks although the Kindle e-readers can also play the same audiobooks and I believe the Kindle app can do it as well. I still recommend you just use the Audible app on your phone, because you already have your headphones connected to your phone and your phone on you, what you need to listen to books.
You can buy audio books one by one, but they are quite expensive. Audible offers several memberships that are much cheaper per book. There are four offerings:
Audible Premium Plus: 1 credit per month.
Audible Premium Plus—2 Credits: 2 credits per month.
Audible Premium Plus Annual—12 Credits: 12 credits per year.
Audible Premium Plus Annual—24 Credits: 24 credits per year.
Who named these plans? This names are terrible, but that’s for another blog post.
These plans give you credits. Once upon a time, books could cost 1 or 2 credits, depending on the length. I haven’t seen a book costing more than 1 credit in ages, so when you see “credit” you can read “book”.
The higher you go in plan, the cheaper per credit they become, as you would expect. But the annual ones have an extra benefit. Credits accumulate so if you don’t use them, they’ll just pile up (at some point I think they expire, but that’s not a problem I had). If you find yourself with 0 credits and you are in a monthly plan and you want a book, you’ll have to buy the book, at its cash price, which can be as bad as double or more what a credit costs. If you have an annual plan, you can renew early. For example, I have the 24 credits per year, but if I run out of credits, and this has happened, I just click the renew button and start another year of subscription on that day.
If you have an annual plan, you can renew early. For example, I have the 24 credits per year, but if I run out of credits, and this has happened, I just click the renew button and start another year of subscription on that day.
My recommendation is that you get the 1 credit per month plan to give Audible a try, and if it’s working well for you after 3 to 6 months, switch to the 12 credits per year. If you run out of credits, then consider renewing early or switching to 24 credits per year.
Some books in Amazon have a feature called whispersync. This allows to synchronize the page in Kindle with the position in Audible. You can be listening to a book in the car, get home, pick up your e-reader and continue reading. When a book has whispersync and you own one of the two mediums, generally the other one is much cheaper. I think buying audiobooks on deal through whispersync after you bought the Kindle version is cheaper than a credit (but Kindle + audiobook is way more than a credit). If you only use Audible with whispersync-ed books, a membership might not make sense at all. I can’t comment beyond that because I have never used whispersync.
And that’s all. I hope this post helps you become a multi-format reader and that allows you to read more. It certainly help me:
I’m an avid reader and I review every single book I read. I force myself to write at least two paragraphs. This is useful to me because sometimes I forget I have read something; seeing and reading back my own reviews answers the ‘did I already read that’ question but also refreshes my memory on what I thought of it. I do this in Goodreads, where I’m asked to provide a star quality rating of the book, and that’s where the problem starts.
Normally, I rate them for myself and my rating is this:
5: Amazing book, humanity is better off because this book exists and everyone should read it.
4: Great book, will recommend it to most people.
3: Good book, I enjoyed reading it.
2: Bad book, I didn’t enjoy reading it.
1: Terrible book, this is actively harmful for humanity and should not have been written.
This naturally means most of my books get 3 stars, some 4 and 2 and even less 5 and 1. It’s a bell curve! Which should surprise no one. Actually, I think there are way more books in the 1-star category out there for consumption, it’s just very rare I accidentally read one.
But this is not how most people use star ratings. And it is also not how we are encouraged to use them either. Take Uber: in the event you did not give five stars, it specifically requests you to answer what was wrong with the trip. If the trip was perfectly adequate, it is expected that this be rated five stars. The upshot of this is that there is no way to reflect service that went above and beyond, or was otherwise better than ‘fine.’
So most people give 5 stars unless there’s something wrong, in which case they start removing stars. 1 thing wrong? 4 stars. 2 things wrong? 3 stars. I think this is a bad way of rating things because, as mentioned above, it means you have no way of differentiating good, great and amazing: they all get the same 5 stars. For a service like Uber this is not such a problem, but for artistic works and for books it doesn’t fit.
I used to just do the rating for myself so I didn’t care I was using a different system to the rest. But when publishing on Goodreads and interacting with other people it became rather controversial: I have received both praise and criticism for this. Some people caught on and they know that when I give 4 and 5 stars, it’s a rarity and worth taking a look. Some people asked me why a book that I enjoyed, and recommended to them, is getting only 3 stars.
What’s really bothering me with my discrepant system is that an author gets a (small) penalty for me being interested in them. Granted, this is tiny and unlikely to be noticed in the grand scheme of readers, but it still bothers me. Their average will go down, which negatively affects public perception, even though it really shouldn’t be perceived that way (to my mind). It also bothers me that an author might see 3 or 4 stars and be hurt and then confused by my positive review.
Should I give up and remap my review system to what everyone else is doing? I dislike losing a way to signal “This book is amazing” By all means send your suggestions.
Voyager 1 is, as of now, 22 billion kilometers away from home. One day, we’ll be a space-faring species and we’ll have Voyager 1 in a museum. It’ll be trivial for us to go and reach Voyager but we won’t retrieve it. What’s wonderful about Voyager 1 is not only the amazing science and engineering that we can see on the metal, plastics, cables, circuits, panels, batteries, etc. What’s amazing is it’s vector: direction and speed.
We’ll build a museum around Voyager 1 for people to visit and see it travel. The museum will have to be built very carefully, bringing materials from all directions at the same time, in a balanced way, to avoid affecting Voyager’s trip. Even the visitors will have to be controlled to avoid affecting it.
We’ll marvel at what once was the man-made object furthest away from earth, from home, from the cradle back when all of mankind lived there. Billions of minds will visit it and marvel through the millennia. The museum will act as beacon for commerce and science to stay away of its path… until that day.
One day, Voyager 1’s path will intersect with something else. It might be a planet, an asteroid, a star, a black hole. The odds are astronomical you might think, but so is, well, space and time.
That day unrecognizable humanity will gather to decide what to do. We’ll be mature enough to not need that piece of metal somewhere safe and instead we’ll say good bye.
Part of humanity will gather around, for weeks, maybe even months. We’ll have a festival in space about the 20th century, about how fucked it was, marveling at how close humanity came to self destruction and still produced Voyager 1. We’ll watch movies, attend concerts, both old and new. And eventually, the museum we’ll retreat and so we’ll we. We’ll all watch is silence as a relic of our infancy reaches the end of its life, as it collides and disintegrates. We’ll celebrate it, we’ll mourn it.
I’m referring to the new series, the Netflix one. I’ve never really watched the old one but I’ve seen enough clips to know: “Danger Will Robinson”. There are several reasons why I stopped watching even though I’m starving for non-pessimistic future space science fiction.
The first one is that I don’t enjoy seeing people make obvious bad decisions. When it was the kids making bad decisions it was annoying but it made sense, they are kids after all. But when it’s adults, I can’t stand it. These are supposed to be a selection of the most intelligent and capable adults on earth, and yet, they constantly make bad decisions.
Some spoilers ahead. Stop reading here if you don’t want to be exposed to them.
For example, Maureen Robinson decided to go do an experiment with a high altitude balloon, on her own, without telling anybody, on a planet of unknown levels danger. She should have taken a few people with her and notified other people where she was going to be. This is what we do on earth when we go hiking or some other wilderness adventure. At the very least her ex-husband would have jumped into the opportunity as he’s hungry for her acceptance but also being a former military man, he’s a good asset. This almost cost her life in a very stupid way.
Ignacio Serricchio, the mechanic, not notifying everybody what happened with Dr. Smith. Judy Robinson not notifying everybody what happened with Dr. Smith. See a pattern? There’s a lot of information hoarding. When you are in a life-or-death situation in such a small community of survivals, you don’t hoard information. You share it so that if they are part of a bigger puzzle, someone can put it together.
I had to stop watching when Maureen Robinson discovered their impending doom and didn’t immediately tell everybody. I don’t know if she’ll tell them afterwards but just considering not doing was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I sort of understand keeping doom-predicting information from the general population of Earth, to avoid panic, specially if the average person can’t do anything about it. This is not the case. They are a elite, they are a small community of highly capable people that should know if they are doomed to work their asses off to solve the problem, using resources that maybe they would have been saving for the future otherwise. A future that doesn’t exist.
Oh… and electricity, physics, astrophysics and medicine are all horribly wrong. Not a little wrong, not a little exaggerated: horribly wrong.
My opinion of Star Trek: Discovery is positive, but there’s still something that annoys me and since it’s a bit of a spoiler, you should stop reading here until you watched season 1.
Star Trek: Discovery shouldn’t have been a prequel. STD (oops, unfortunate acronym) should have been a sequel to all the other Star Treks we had. I don’t understand why they made it a prequel. It’s not trying to explain an origin story; if anything, it’s destroying Star Trek cannon.
If it was a sequel, in the 25th century:
the uniforms wouldn’t be an issue
the introduction of new races wouldn’t be an issue
the introduction of a human that went through Vulcan academy wouldn’t be an issue (she could be Spock’s protege, instead of Spock’s father’s protege)
the Klingons looking different wouldn’t be an issue
flat screens and holograms wouldn’t be an issue
the use of a sort of holodeck wouldn’t be an issue
discovering a way to teleport through the galaxy without needing warp drives wouldn’t be an issue
we could have Star Trek: The Next Generation, Voyager and Deep Space 9 cameos.
Why make it a prequel then? There’s no advantage to having it be a prequel. You could still have a war with the Klingons if they wanted to bank on their fame (although a war with the Borg is much more frightening in my opinion, specially since peace with the Borg is impossible).
They couldn’t have the flip phones, I mean, the communicators, which apparently are iconic enough to put on one of the posters, but aren’t the badge communicators also iconic? And if not, it feels like a small lose.
I don’t understand this obsession with needles prequels, are people afraid of the future? of moving forward and seeing what happens next?
My main computer was an Apple MacBook Pro for about 8 or 9 years. That is, until last January, when I said good-bye to Apple. It wasn’t easy, but the last iteration of the MacBook Pro is terrible.
I’m not against the touch bar. I think keyboards need more innovation and I applaud the effort. But aside from the touch bar, the keyboard feels weird because they tried to make their power-user product super thin.
Let me repeat that: for their power user product Apple favors a bit of thinness over usability.
I don’t know how much of that also pushed them to produce an underpowered product with not a lot of RAM, very expensive hard drive, very expensive in general.
At the same time as I was in need of a new laptop, I was putting together a gaming computer and I decided instead to add some more funding to that project and turn it into a proper workstation. For the price of a MacBook Pro, I got the most amazing workstation I could ever want. Granted, it’s not mobile, but I need my nice keyboard and monitors to work anyway, so, it suits me well.
I’m really surprised to be back using Microsoft Windows as my main operating system; something that hasn’t happened since Windows NT 4.0. And I’m happy about it.
Since discontinuing Screensaver Ninja, I have received many messages asking when it is coming back: over Twitter, Facebook, email, and even one person tracking me down on Reddit..
For those of you who don’t know what Screensaver Ninja is, here is the old explainer video:
It has been very painful to read these messages for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I strongly believe in the product. I want to have it; use it; and enable others to use it. I constantly see expensive and badly designed dashboards or wasted screens, which my product will address. Secondly, judging by the requests, other people want this just as much as I do. Not proceeding with Screensaver ninja could be a wasted business opportunity; although it is hard to tell if the demand is enough to support its development right now.
I set up a landing page explaining what happened to Screensaver Ninja and a form for people to register for notifications of its potential comeback. This was a way to save everybody’s time and frustration; for those emailing requests for up to date information when I could only say, with sadness, “it’s over”. To my surprise, this form has been gathering five or so leads a week, which is rather a lot for an abandoned product.
I have started playing with the idea that I might revive Ninja: This time I have designed a bigger system that covers many more use cases and allows me to support both Windows and Mac OS as well as other platforms just as easily.
During this process I identified the technological bottlenecks; the aspects to product creation that can take months to negotiate and solve, such as hacking Apple’s cookie jar or packaging Chromium. In doing so, I have built a selection of prototypes testing my choices – and everything is working beautifully.
So that’s it: I have decided to revive Screensaver Ninja. I have emailed all of you whom have shown interest to tell you the good news, and have received an overwhelmingly positive response from both individuals and corporations; some wanting to run hundreds of instances.
I want to be completely transparent with my supporters; I am building Screensaver Ninja by myself in my spare time between long days and after hours work at two different consultant gigs. Whilst I am looking into the options of partnerships, developers, and marketers, I have decided not to wait for these additions to the team in order to make progress. I’m very excited about this phase both from the technical as well as the business points of view so Screensaver Ninja is moving forward and I will have frequent updates.
I’m just getting started reading the Non-Violent Communication book. I was in the middle of chapter 2 when I put it to work, with amazing results, in a business setting. Needless to say I’m sold on the idea and I’ll continue reading the book, perfecting it and recommending it to other people. This is what happened.
I was doing market-fit research for a new product called Glycast, which is like AdSense for Podcasts. Some years ago I built the core tech for it, but the timing was wrong and it sat on the shelf until now. Now I want to put this tech to good use, so I recorded some videos explaining how it works for podcasters and advertisers and started reaching out to talk to them, get their feedback, refine the product, validate the idea.
Shortly after setting up the landing page I got a message from Dave Jackson of School of Podcasting. In his email he asked a few questions about the service and linked to a YouTube video. I clicked the link to find a video recorded by him, with the title “Clueless Podcasts Advertisers”. I though maybe this was about things to avoid, to watch out for. Nope, that video is about me. He never mentions me by name but he describes my operation and quotes me verbatim.
My blood started to boil. I’m not trying to harm anybody. I’m just searching for feedback to build a product podcasters and advertisers are happy with and the first message I get is attacking it. In my 6 years or so of running startups I been constantly attacked, so this wasn’t new to me. I don’t understand the mentality of people that when they don’t have a use for your product, they attack you, insult you, spread false information, etc. I normally just move on.
My first reply to the Clueless Podcast Advertisers video was, well, clueless. It went something like this:
I really don’t appreciate you posting a video, calling us clueless. We are not trying to harm anyone blah blah blah and you are attacking us. You are saying this and that and your are wrong, WRONG, WRONG.
Thankfully, I decided to stop and apply the principles of Non-Violent Communication I just learned. The first thing we have to do is observe without evaluation. We often mix the two. The books gives a few examples, such as:
You are too generous.
which is a mixing of observation and evaluation. On the other hand
When I see you give all your lunch money to others, I think you are being too generous.
is separating the two. Me, feeling attacked, was an evaluation of the situation. It was time to ignore that painful evaluation and observe. I re-read his email, I re-watched the video, observing, like an impartial third party and what I found surprised me.
David is helping people get into podcasting. These people are in a vulnerable position because they don’t yet understand the industry they are getting into so they can be subject to scams and abuse by unscrupulous third parties. I bet David is constantly exposed to people that signed up for the wrong service, bought the wrong microphone and now they are coming to him for help. And all he can do is break the bad news: you wasted money, you wasted time, you lost your audience, you are re-starting from scratch. I constantly see entrepreneurs making similar mistakes and I have to break the news and every time I wish I was there earlier, to warn them.
From David’s point of view, I was an potentially unscrupulous third party that was trying to pull off a vendor lock in. Podcasters needed to be warned about me! At this point, I felt I was on David’s side. How weird! It was a fast onset of high level empathy. I re-wrote my answer to be:
About the video. I’m not here to harm anyone. I’m here to make a product to help podcasters and advertisers connect, be more efficient. I’m building whatever podcasters will need to be happy. I understand your worry and your desire to warn your audience that might not understand RSS distribution and make a bad decision now that will cost them a chunk of their audience later on. That’s not something I want to do and I wouldn’t be happy with any company holding an audience hostage like that. I do want to work with you, and other podcasters, to make sure I meet your needs of an excellent platform that will help monetize your podcast, whatever your size is, whatever your topic is, and focus on your craft, on what you love, on podcasting.
I sent the email and I felt immediately better about it. Much better than if I sent the previous version. I consider it a success for Non-Violent Communication and I moved on. Shortly after he asked me for permission to publish this email and I said yes. What I wasn’t expected is that he was going to record a podcast episode reading the whole email and commenting about it: http://schoolofpodcasting.com/7141-2/
Among other things he says, referring to us:
I’m completely blown away by their response
About our solution, he says:
interesting, creative and I like it
He particularly refers to the paragraph I re-wrote as “the coolest part on the email”.
Like the question of what came first, the chicken or the egg, I feel this question is repeated over and over like it’s some grandiose enigma with no solution.
To answer the question properly, I need to know, very precisely, what’s the meaning of meaning. The answer is sort-of contained in the question, but let’s take a look at the Oxford Dictionary:
mean·ing /ˈmiːnɪŋ/
1 What is meant by a word, text, concept, or action: the meaning of the Hindu word is ‘breakthrough, release’
1.1 Implied or explicit significance: he gave me a look full of meaning
1.2 Important or worthwhile quality; purpose: ‘this can lead to new meaning in the life of older people’
Meaning is an action performed by a living creature that is intelligent. It’s a connection between a symbol, word, text, concept or action and something else. It’s not inherent to the symbol. The tree is inherently green, the word “rose” is not inherently connected to Rosa rubiginosa. We can talk about the meaning of the word “rose” because we created it with that meaning (even if the creation was accidental, like most languages).
We didn’t create life, it was here long before we were assigning meaning to things, thus, it has no meaning. You can give a rose to someone else to signify your love for them and that’s the meaning of that rose, for you, and hopefully for the recipient. But the rose growing in the wild, like life on planet Earth, has no meaning.
A meaningful life
That doesn’t mean you can’t live a meaningful life. The same we you can assign meaning to a rose you can assign meaning to your life. And that’s the gist of the issue. You have to do the task of assigning meaning. Assigning meaning is very different than finding meaning. It’s a harder task, a task with more chances of failing, a task that doesn’t have a clear path to follow, because in essence, it’s building the path, it’s creating the path.
Another clear distinction is that whatever meaning you assign it’s for you and you cannot expect it to be shared. The meaning is not inherent to the thing it’s connected to, it’s connected in your mind, so you can’t expect other minds to make the same connection. For example, you might create a meaningful life for yourself by feeding hungry children. It doesn’t mean everybody else will also agree on it being meaningful. We can’t even agree on the meanings of words and we have dictionaries!
But God!
Now someone might talk about God. What if God created us with a purpose, with a meaning. Well, there’s no such a thing as a god, but let’s assume there is. Let’s assume a super powerful external entity created us with some purpose. Maybe we are an experiment, maybe God and the Devil are trying to figure out if good or evil will succeed. Maybe God had a crush on a Goddess and we are a present, like a poem but made out of living creatures (like bacteria in the ink on a page). Is that our meaning then? Nope.
We have minds and free will and can creating our own meaning. Even if we started off as something as low as a galactic rose, the fact that we can chose our path allows us to go wherever we want.
Summary
There’s no meaning except the one you create, so, stop searching, and start creating.
My opinion of 
Why make it a prequel then? There’s no advantage to having it be a prequel. You could still have a war with the Klingons if they wanted to bank on their fame (although a war with the Borg is much more frightening in my opinion, specially since peace with the Borg is impossible).
