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Turn Your iPad Into a Star Trek PADD
A new app from CBS interactive can help you figure out the trouble with tribbles once and for all. Star Trek PADD for iPad includes all the official data on ships, aliens, technologies, an episode guide, and uses a Starfleet-like interface. Live long and prosper.
Awesome. Now I can conclusively prove that I have no life!
Can I just yell out the word "computer!" and then tell it how to advance the plot of this week's storyline?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Five bucks = expensive? Dude, I'm out of work, and if I had an iPad (HA! If I could AFFORD one!) I would have already downloaded this app. Five lousy bucks is NOT "expensive". The iPad? Yeah, *THAT* is expensive.
Willie...
How much did these guys pay to have their ad appear as a slashdot story? I guess the future is here - the line between ad and content is gone! Or was it already and I just didn't notice until now?
PADDs are proper computers- they can run arbitrary code.
You sure about that? I thought the acronym stood for Personal Access Display Device.
I was under the impression that they were used almost exclusively to display information... Maybe some basic data-entry capabilities. Something along the lines of a modern-day ereader.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
"The app costs $4.99"
Hey wait a minute I thought currency was outdated by the PADDs were out?!
You have to pay in bitcoins.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I've always seen "Trekkie" used as a sort of catch-all for Star Trek fans while "Trekker" was a term I only heard people who took Star Trek way too seriously use about themselves.
Or the union of those terms: Loser
I thought apps whose interface didn't follow iOS standards where forbidden.
Fascinating.
Congratulations, you have locked down your "no life" status.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Let's get it right... we are NOT "Trekkies", we are TREKKERS!
Trekkies are the kids with the Spock ears and Geordi visors.
TREKKERS are more "normal"! We love Star Trek, yes, but we ALSO have a life. ;)
If the nomenclature bothers you that much, I am not sure I can grant the bolded claim.
semantics are everything!
Trekkers are more normal? I have never, ever heard the term used like that.
The real usage goes like this: Trekkies are hopeless Star Trek nerds. Trekkers are Star Trek nerds who are so hopeless, they're even hopeless nerds when it comes to discussing the terminology used to describe hopeless Star Trek nerds.
I always thought the main difference was that those who think they're actually accomplishing something by being a fan (i.e., denoted by "trekker") are the sadder of the lot. At least trekkies can admit "hey, this is just something I'm into." Anyone who calls himself a trekker is taking himself way too seriously.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Jake Sisko wrote novels with PADDs on DS9.
I'm with the GP on this one. I'm sure the creative intent was that PADDs on Star Trek were programmable, rootable, and so on. Otherwise known as real computers.
Why? Because it was Star Trek, not 1984. I doubt the Federation exerted Orwellian control over its citizens' portable computers like Apple does today in the real world.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Lol... I did the same thing with my Nook Color http://chingchongpingpong.com/2011/05/26/star-trek-padd/
I always just assumed that they were terminals that tied into the main computer.
There's an episode where a time traveler claiming to be from the future stole a bunch of their stuff, a tricorder included. When the door opened the ship's computer disabled everything he had taken.
Apparently they still have DRM in the future. ;)
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Funnily enough, no episode of Star Trek has ever demonstrated a PADD infected with malware.
And yet, the holodeck gets rooted every second week. I guess it's running a different OS.
("MoriartyOS (tm), the only Starfleet military-grade holographic cinematic entertainment system developed with the sole purpose of granting artificial sentience to period Victorian villains! With a MoriartyOS console installed in your flagship, you'll be either the envy or pity of every other advanced race in the galaxy as holographic characters periodically run rogue and attempt to subvert your warp engineering systems! Either way, everyone will know that you're too weird to mess with and steer clear! Even the Klingons are too scared to have one of these, and they pioneered the qu'Nkt real-pain touch/bite interface! As Sybok the mad Vulcan prophet would say, we'd be crazy to sell you this system for such a low, low price of one billion Federation credits (gold pressed latinum also accepted at Ferengi acquisition depots). But hey, we are! That's why we're throwing in the Grevious-Harm(tm) safety interlock disabling system for free! Make every workout a surprise when your AI opponents might suddenly pull out a real Tommy gun! But if you were entirely sane, you wouldn't have beat the Kobashi Maru test and made captain in the first place, am I right? Just touch the PADD here, it's a steal!")
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
CLEMENS: Oh? I'm not so impressed with this future... huge starships... weapons that can no doubt destroy entire cities... military conquest as a way of life.
She looks sidelong at him.
TROI: Is that what you see here?
CLEMENS: Oh, I know what you say... this is a vessel of exploration... your mission is to, discover new worlds...
The Turbolift arrives. A strange alien EXITS. Clemens reacts, stares after him. They ENTER the Turbolift.
TROI: Deck thirty-six.
CLEMENS: That's what the Spanish said... and the Dutch, and the Portuguese. It's what all conquerors say... (beat) I'm sure it's what you told that blue skinned fellow I just saw... before you brought him here to serve you.
TROI: He's one of thousands of species we've encountered. We live in a peaceful Federation with many of them... the people you see are here by choice.
Clemens ponders this for a moment.
CLEMENS: So there are a privileged few... who serve on these ships, living in luxury, wanting for nothing. But what about everyone else? What about the poor? You ignore them...
TROI: Poverty was eliminated a long time ago. And a lot of things disappeared with it: hopelessness... despair... cruelty... war...
He regards her solemnly. He's beginning to realize that his dark view is misplaced.
CLEMENS: I come from a time when men achieve wealth and power by standing on the backs of the poor... when prejudice and intolerance are commonplace... when power is an end unto itself... (beat) And you're telling me... that isn't how it is anymore?
TROI: That's right.
CLEMENS: (with a sigh) Maybe it is worth giving up cigars for, after all...
Troi smiles... the Turbolift door opens and they EXIT.
There's an episode of Voyager, Author, Author that does explore issues of the oppressed living in the Federation, but the oppressed are holograms and are obviously a stand-in for an arbitrary oppressed minority. They had to use holograms because it would have been unbelievable if they had used people whose rights were clearly established. This is also a very brief plot line that (as far as I recall) appeared only in that one episode. By contrast, Troi's view of the Federation/humanity in the future is the same one as in each of the series. Really, you have no idea what you're talking about.
You're right - I was remembering something else:
"But PADDs were much more powerful than electronic note pads. "We realized that with the networking capabilities we had postulated for the ship, and given the [hypothetical] flexibility of the software, you should be able to fly the ship from the PADD," Okuda said."
Also, the Star Trek TNG Technical manual talks about the same thing.
PADDs are proper computers- they can run arbitrary code.
You meant to say "PADDs are proper computers- they can run fictional code", I presume?
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Back in Ye Olden Days (like, when we were all getting all excited about the prospect of Star Trek coming back.. as a movie!) both terms were in use:
Trekkie: Fan of the series. Including those who really enjoyed the show and talking about it with their friends, those who liked dressing up and going to conventions, and those who wrote erotic fan fiction and passed around the xeroxed stapled copies.
Trekkers, by contrast, were those who actually worked on the show: the actors, writers, producers, prop people, set designers, etc., and Bjo Trimble and her cadre.
Somewhere along the line, other fans started describing themselves as Trekkers instead of Trekkie, and now the Trekker is just used by Trekkies who take themselves way too seriously.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.