Could Startrek ever accept the Propeller?
LoopyByteloose
Posts: 12,537
I am taking a bit of a risk here and wondering if there would ever be a place for the Propeller on the Starship Enterprise? Maybe a recreational module?
Comments
Or maybe the handheld medical scanner? With modern displays we could probably put a fairly convincing biomedical scan picture on a display with a propeller.
Of course it'd need to be programmed with someone's engrams, say, Ken Gracey's, and then tested, say with a series of research and contact problems, navigational manuevers, and war game problems. What could go wrong?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rYb-VU7MEA
But seriously, Startrek is chock full of what is called 'speculative technology' - that is science fiction technology which might soon become reality. Certainly there seems to be some kind of tacit partnership between Parallaxians and Treckers when it comes to 'speculative technology' advancing into realized technology.
In other words, 'Welcome Trekkers, feel free to participate!'
Ummmm.. I'd rather not replace the entire crew. ATMs have nearly done that already here in Taiwan.
Here is something.....
http://www.jamesgames.com/content/steampunk-star-trek-propeller-powered-enterprise-takes-flight
Well... not exactly what I'd hoped for.
Isn't that the show where they still haven't invented fuses?
Given how often computer consoles blow up in that show, who would want to expose a Propeller to that?
Interesting that guest Neil deGrasse Tyson imagined taking a modern graphing calculator back in time to Isaac Newton. That's pretty much the scenario in the 1979 short story "Newton's Gift," by Paul Nahin. A mathematician with access to a time machine wonders what Newton could achieved if he'd been spared the drudgery of doing all his calculations on paper, so he gives Sir Isaac an advanced calculator. Only one small problem--Newton sees the glowing red LEDs of the display and decides that the machine must be an instrument of the devil, a suspicion that is confirmed when the hapless mathematician punches in a complex problem whose solution is, of course, "666." Newton, horrified, gives up science and devotes himself to years of theological study--the very "waste" of Newton's talent that the mathematician had decried before starting his journey.
Years ago, someone at college told me there were 40,000 manuscripts of unpublished Star-Trek episodes on the web that people like you write in hopes of having their manuscript accepted by the creators / producers.
Write it into the script and hopefully someday you will be noticed. Or write a possible scene here in hopes of being noticed
Doesn't anyone want to design and build a Klingon toilet paper dispenser? It might be a big seller at Startrek conventions.
RE:Newton
The amazing thing about Newton is that we are still refining and making new applications for his relatively old mathematic. GPS for instance relies on Calculus. And to think that his ideas all suddenly came together in one year. The future may suddenly open a new path to us at any time. Someone said that 'true immortality' can only be achieved by mathematicians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricorder
So you could build yourself a very crude prototype (maybe your the one that invents it? ;-) one from a number of Parallax products;
- Air temperature
- Humidity
- Air pressure
- Light (Photo-transistor)
- Light at various frequency ranges using junction collapse of different colored LEDS (UV, Blue, Green, Yellow, Red, IR). Seach the old forums for Light Meter.
- Gas Sensors (O2, CO2, Alcohol) use the output of the sensor not the limit setting.
- Magnetic coil demo
You can get Geiger tubes from other organizations (Sparkfun sell a kit), and digital compas.
You could be a bit creative on other things like;
- Sound level
- Air movement (using Ultrasonics)
You could also integrate a GPS and SD card.
Then output to an OLED display.
Use a Lipo battery for weight and size.
The problem would be callibration, presentation and interpretation of the data points.
Also looking at the number of items you may want to use a mythical Prop I-B which has the additional 32 pins enabled. Or tie several props together giving you the ability to have each sensor monitored by it's own cog thus providing contineous data.
Oh, and don't forget a little speaker so that it makes that whirring sound while it samples ;-)
if ($pedantic['ahole'] == TRUE) { echo "If a Propeller were to be found on the Enterprise it would be under a small glass dome in Geordie's quarters alongside a myriad of other ancient technology. Not to knock the Propeller, but we're talking about the 24th century."; }For speak yourself!
Meanwhile neither Issac Azimov nor anyone else has offered a vision of a future where computers robots become an economic liability due to the attrition of human job tasks - and yet we may be near to that now.
My main interest in Startrek is that it was basically optimistic and tolerant of others. I am a bit frustrated by the fact that technology seems to seek to first innovate in terms of weapons; only later to evolve a 'peace dividend'.
So it is just true that we must always invent swords, and only then beat them into plowshares? Or has humanity have begun to evolve beyond that innovative modality?
and Tom Swift as well, Giant Robot, Megascopic Space Prober, Outpost in Space, etc.
Anyone care to speculate for Outer Limits???
Aside from Star Trek 11 movie, is there any new Star Trek, or talk of a new TV series?
Some people are simply lucky. Writing of any sort is still one of the best ways to strike it rich if you really can reach a wide audience.
Back to the thread....
What do you see the next wave of extremely useful future technology to be?
The Propeller has really changed the tiny microcontroller from being an 'embedded system' to being a whole system on a chip - complete i/o as well as task related computation.
The Propeller2 seems to have even more awesome ambitions with better access to fat RAM and lots of I/O inclusive of ADC and DAC.
Done: http://articles.cnn.com/2010-11-18/world/switzerland.cern.antimatter_1_antihydrogen-matter-and-antimatter-cern?_s=PM:WORLD
Bill