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I'm not sure it's safe there.

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Northwest_Passage

See: Denobulan Species

They seem to have worked it out just fine.

Thanks. Wait, tribbles have tags?

Why yes. If you look closely at the footage from TOS, the tags could be there :-). To quote a brilliant parody: "Merchandising! It's where the real money from the movie is made!"

Really, though, it was cute to see little colonies of tribbles hidden in corners throughout the set and the store. It was a little crass that both the "experiences" exited in the gift shop.

Rabid fans will be glad to hear the next movie opens May 8, 2009 and lots of spoilers are available here.

My Slashdot UID has been passed on for generations, and will continue to be passed on. I'm actually only 3 years old.

Wow! There must be a wormhole nearby, and a pretty stable one at that. Imagine, an Ocampa on Slashdot.

What ever happened to the Prime Directive?

That's a classic Star Trek reference, in case you youngsters don't get it.

(And if memory serves me correctly, the line was actually, "Brain and again brain. What is brain?")

Soon this guy will be able to get rid of that Delco air filter on his face.

Not arguing that many of the early Communists were ... at the very least, very optimistic. I personally find that Marx created a really excellent critique of the capital system of his day. I think he and many others faltered when it came to finding solutions. But that's really neither here nor there :-)

Now what they seem to think will happen is that everyone will turn to the betterment of themselves given no constraints upon their resources. What I think they skip over is the century or two where they gave all the undesirables unlimited holodeck access until they keeled over dead.

Yet TNG also warns against the dangers and pitfalls of such a future (episode http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/When_The_Bough_Breaks )

It's the same narrative as The Decline and Fall of the Roman Narrative, Ibn Khaldun's muqaddimah, etc. Empires rise, become decadent (ie, turn themselves to the arts, consumption, etc) and fall, to be replaced by more.. vivacious peoples.

Details from TFA:

• You start the game as captain of a small Klingon or Starfleet vessel

Correction: not the rank of captain, a lower rank, but you do start as someone in charge of your own ship.

Counter-correction: It's Star Trek canon that a vessel's commanding officer is called Captain, no matter their actual rank. Source: http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Captain

Timeline is a few generations after Nemesis

Correction: 30 years after Nemesis was stated by the lead designer in the webcast.

No release date yet

Correction: he said less than four years, likely less than three years.

It used to be the three most important things in Journalism were accuracy, accuracy and accuracy. In slashdot it's being the first post?

Webcast? I'm summarizing relevant details from TFA, not from the internet in general. In the article, they say a few generations after Nemesis. In the article, they say there is no release date. (And from what you posted, there still isn't. 'Within three years' isn't a release date.)

You should either check your facts or check your ego. If it weren't for the last line of your post I probably wouldn't even bother to reply, but what can I say, I'm easily antagonized.

Even a perfect optical cloak would still be detectable in many ways...

Very clever list of suggestions, but you forgot the most obvious one: a tachyon detection grid. If it worked for Geordi La Forge, it damn well works for me.

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Gold-pressed_latinum

Latinum can't be replicated.

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Bussard_collector

Argh. Bussard ramjet. You always link to Star Trek to "explain" something?

then think about adding say a Bussard collector http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Bussard_collector (i know we would have to invent a bussard collector but the idea is not that hard)

And I thought Robert W. Bussard already took care of that.

> though it seems strange that they'd route such a dangerous device into an area populated by so many key people

The EPS (electrified plasma system) is basically the power grid of a starship, it has to go anywhere that needs electricity.

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/EPS

actualy because this design heats the gas to a plasma state then uses EM waves to move it to create thrust - the idea could be used on just about any gas - your effeciency would be how much energy goes into heating it to a plasma state and keeping it there.

this is a great idea because they could design one engine and while the gas is consumed it could be replaced by any gas - and electricity is the true source of the power to run the engine..

we already know what gasses are readly avaliable on mars - design one to run on say H to get there (assume Hyrdogen is the easiset to heat to plasma sate) but have the engine also able to run on the gasses from Mars.. then when it gets there refill the tanks.. carge up the batteries (or use a nuke power source on the thing) and come on back - or keep going.

think of a ship with this type of drive.. then think about adding say a Bussard collector http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Bussard_collector (i know we would have to invent a bussard collector but the idea is not that hard)

if this works they way the say it does - it is going to be one of the best propultion advances for traversing our solar system.

and with us having probes leaving our system - the data from there might show that there is a good ammount of particals in the space between systems.. if that is true then you could use this to send probes to other systems. sure it would take awhile but i bet they can alwasy make improvements.

http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Subspace_communication

everyone agrees that Star Trek's subspace communication is a better definition.

Not 100% universal: Darmok, and Jalad... at Tanagra. A damn fine episode, IMHO.

Only, you know, smaller?

On ST:TNG, Malcorians are quite porky; they have trotters for hands.

I'm sure that is exactly what Adam Smith had in mind for free market competition.

Do not be so quick to pin this one on Adam Smith and the free market. The secret organization exists solely to mitigate the effects (at additional cost so it is still inefficient) of a patent system enforced by the power of government. In a purely free market neither the patent system nor this organization would exist. That is the problem with government incursions into the free market, they tend to create more problems than they solve which then require additional incursions and so on until the market itself is so hobbled by regulations that very little if any useful economic activity is actually occurring.

Since this is Slashdot I will indulge myself with reference to a Star Trek episode to illustrate my point. In the two-part Voyager episode Year of Hell the protagonist, Annorax of the Krenim Imperium, constructs a temporal weapons ship which allows him to erase anything from individual molecules to entire civilizations from history in a "temporal incursion". He subsequently spends two centuries with incursion after incursion and ever more complex calculations attempting to make good the effects of his previous incursions in a never ending quest to restore everything that he had lost when he began meddling with the timeline.

Government interference in the marketplace is analogous in that if we could only calculate exactly how much to tax and which policy to enact then everything would work out perfectly except that it never seems to work out that way here in reality. Each incursion into the marketplace requires additional incursions in a never ending game of whack-a-mole. It has always been tempting, for both the government and investors, to believe that they can calculate and predict every event and variable in an extremely complicated market system full of millions and even billions of individuals all acting differently and simultaneously in both rational and irrational ways. IMHO, it is best to let the chips fall where the may and limit government responses to reactive rather than proactive remedies.

"True AI" has thus far been like the horizon: you can cover a lot of ground, but it doesn't get any closer.

I like that analogy. The definition has changed so much that the idea has lost most of its meaning.

In my mind, a machine will one day be able to do virtually anything a human does, but from what we know about human development, at best it is mimicry, and tied to the perceptions of the human that programs it. I think our ideas of what defines human intelligence are inexorably tied to the experience of being a human. In this sense, a machine would actually have to become human to have human intelligence. This makes "true AI" impossible.

Just because "true AI" is impossible, does not mean that trying to make progressively more capable "intelligent" machines is a waste of time. Far from it.

Example: a person grows up watching Star Trek TNG and dreams of being like Dr. Noonien Soong. (such a person might vehemently disagree with my "true AI is impossible" comment above...heh...). This person probably would never actually make anything like Data but a full-on attempt at such a project would yield so many practical advancements.

"True AI" has thus far been like the horizon: you can cover a lot of ground, but it doesn't get any closer.

I like that analogy. The definition has changed so much that the idea has lost most of its meaning.

In my mind, a machine will one day be able to do virtually anything a human does, but from what we know about human development, at best it is mimicry, and tied to the perceptions of the human that programs it. I think our ideas of what defines human intelligence are inexorably tied to the experience of being a human. In this sense, a machine would actually have to become human to have human intelligence. This makes "true AI" impossible.

Just because "true AI" is impossible, does not mean that trying to make progressively more capable "intelligent" machines is a waste of time. Far from it.

Example: a person grows up watching Star Trek TNG and dreams of being like Dr. Noonien Soong. (such a person might vehemently disagree with my "true AI is impossible" comment above...heh...). This person probably would never actually make anything like Data but a full-on attempt at such a project would yield so many practical advancements.

I thought they wouldn't have them until the 23rd century.

By the way, when they do get here, I wish that could be the Slashdot icon for Android.

I doubt the "platitude-dealing pollyanna" in question was a Maple tree in a previous life. A Denebian Slime Devil, perhaps, but not a Maple tree. That's an insult to the whole Acer genus.

I remember reading about the level of storage or RAM aboard the Enterprise a few years ago, tried to find some similar info: http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Petabyte this page claims that the human brain can store about a petabyte of information, that's pretty cool. I wonder how much a layered SSD the size of a brain would currently hold..

Awesome, it's Earth's first Class 4 probe.

Pffft. Everyone knows you should use metaphasic shielding.

They ought to wait for the development of the metaphasic shield in 2369.

...that was already done on Star Trek.

I for one think that it is an interesting idea if they can reliably pull it off.

power transfer go boom

The Bussard collectors on Star Trek ships (the red lights at the end of the warp nacelles) function as pseudo ramjets. They collect the material used for the fusion generators that power the impulse engines.

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Bussard_collector

Why not try some Gagh then?

Sounds similar to Utopia Planitia to me...

Now, we just have to go looking for someone named Zefram Cochrane...

Unless his thinking is limited to 2-dimensional sca--

Is that you, Khan? KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!

Our first test of Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development!

Actually, it does. Especially if you are a citizen. You know, stuff like due process and all. Since this is /., a Star Trek quote seems appropriate.

...cells die because they get bored.

Voyager already explained it

Yeah, ever since they saw The Corbomite Maneuver

Doomsday Machine, stellar edition!

Having a worldwide master computer really worked for the Bynars. I'm sure it'll work here on Earth too.

In addition to being a Cardassian in that episode, he has been a Klingon and one of those treacherous, good-for-nothing humans. No Romulan acting experience as far as I can tell.

In addition to being a Cardassian in that episode, he has been a Klingon and one of those treacherous, good-for-nothing humans. No Romulan acting experience as far as I can tell.

In addition to being a Cardassian in that episode, he has been a Klingon and one of those treacherous, good-for-nothing humans. No Romulan acting experience as far as I can tell.

A nice idea!

Have you thought of something like starting an open hardware project around this idea? If only to get some knowledgeable people together to research what is possible and what isn't? :)

An Optical Bus Interface Wiki or something like that? ;)

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Optical_data_network_relay :D :D

It really depends on which Enterprise you are referring to..
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/USS_Enterprise

Actually - that one is really easy to do in 3D

That scene was based on 1984 which in turn incorporated real Nazi and Soviet Propaganda"