Re: Star Trek

Bob Paddock ( bpaddock@csonline.net )
Wed, 24 Mar 1999 19:14:40 -0500

>1) FG - the Tantalus Field - a device that allowed you
>to tune into any person and electrically kill
>them....this is an extrapolation of Morays claim of a
>device that let him produce an 'electronic ear' which
>could move through space without any physical
>parts...it was basically a moving wave that reported
>back to the receiver...they monitored people walking
>and talking even to a train station up to 5 miles from
>his home where the test was being conducted.

This is the Xenographic scanner that was on VOY a few episodes ago,
complete with video now. I want one. :-)

>the good luck happened and a highly chaotic field when

Chaos as found practical applications in cryptography devices.

>you see nothing, when you look into the slit, you see a
>full blown screen...CGA resolution though they were
>working on a VGA version...

I've had a mechanical sample of the VGA device in my hands.
Motorola is coming out with them. About the size of your eye, require
a lens to make them useful. They are going into pagers that you hold
up to your eye to read the messages. Can you say first generation
Tricorder display...

>fall in, you are rewarded with a light sexual buzz...as
>you become more proficient at it, the buzz intensity
>and duration increases until people are stopped in
>their tracks everywhere, moaning and groaning from this
>stimulation..<g>..

Check out the book "Super Memory: The Revolution".

>and on and on...but that's enough to show, at least in
>my opinion that the shows routinely introduce new or
>novel ideas or technology...

3.5" floppies are what Spock is fiddling with as computer storage
devices...now we have them.

Next molecular storage, Trek "Issolinear Crystals", where covered in "Storage"
magazine a few issues ago (It covers the hard disk industry)...

>> sci-fi programmes seem to be unimaginative. Some of
>> their devices look out of date today.

Can you lay a Xenographic scanner in my hands? :-)