Star Trek Now - Part I
I've always wanted to be on "Star Trek." Not some guest appearance or a walk-on role, I'm talking about a full-fledged, tricorder weilding, holodeck visiting, phaser firing visit to Gene Rodenberry's world of starships, aliens and the Prime Directive. I know... it's pretty geeky. I wear that badge proudly. But honestly, wouldn't the world be better off with replicators and transporters and super intelligent computers?
In a lot of ways, Rodenberry's world has already begun to creep in upon us. Technology has taken a few leaps since the '60's, and suddenly some of Rodenberry's ideas aren't so much science fiction as just plain ol' science. This week, I begin a series of columns that focus on how Star Trek is among us!
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Check out my PADD
Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) may be set in the 24th century, but they still have a need for some means of accessing information. The ship's computer is a vast storage system, with a database crammed full of history, entertainment, novels, plays and any number of other types of knowledge. And in TNG, the way you access this info is either through some stationary terminal or on the holodeck (more on this later!). And, for those who want to carry their info on the go -- there's the PADD.
PADD is an acronym that stands for "Personal Access Display Device." It's this little table that the Federation's finest can carry around and use to access the ship's database. It can display books, lines of a play, and even photos and movies. It can also be used as a communications device in a pinch. It's a nifty little tool, and believe it or not it's avaiable right now!
We don't call it a PADD of course, but we come pretty close. We mere 21st century denizens call it a "PDA," or "Personal Digital Assistant."
PDA's have come a long way since Apple's Newton or the other early ancestors to todays modern super gizmos. Wireless access allows us to tap into the boundless information on the Internet. Bluetooth gives us the ability to communicate with any number of devices such as printers, wireless headsets and desktop computers. And the growing memory and processor speeds let us play sophisticated games, store e-books, or even watch video and listen to music, all from the palm of our hand.
Hailing Frequencies
Speaking of Bluetooth... the advent of this new universal technology opens up a whole new toy for tech-geeks to drool over. Couple a Bluetooth ear-piece with a cel phone and you're about a Vulcan Neck Pinch away from a real live Starfleet communicator badge!
Of course, today's sleek and cool looking Bluetooth headsets allow you to have a much more private conversation than the comm badges of our Enterprise counterparts. But most, like Motorola's tiny little gem, give you the same tap-and-answer ability as the inverted little gold "V" of Star Trek fame. Of course, you never see Captain Picard complaining that he's out of his comm badge service area.
And even though this next feature isn't particularly touted on Star Trek, it does pop up from time to time. The "locator" ability of the comm badge. While on ship, the computer can track where a crew member is by following their comm badge signal. Today, that feat can be accomplished by the GSP ability of some digital cel phones. Global Satellite Positioning is mostly meant to allow emergency personnel to track your location when you dial 911 in an emergency. But heck, it's just a short walk to using your computer to go online and find out where your charming 16-year-old has gotten off to with his friends. I'm sure we'll see it someday.
Taking a Holo-day
Well, if there's one piece of Federation technology that might spell the end of civilization as we know it, it's the Holodeck. Imagine being able to walk into a grid-lined room, ask for anything your heart desires, and it shimmers into being! Dating would change, that's a given.
Well, the holodeck isn't quite a reality. But Virtual Reality IS getting more complex. In fact, there are several full-emersion VR systems already on the market. Tactile response suits, 3D sound, complete 360-degree visuals, and even SMELL generators are already being adapted into systems like these. We already use technology like this in gaming, and it's just a matter of degree before we evolve to a full-on VR entertainment center.
Of course, we're missing a vital component in this system -- the aritificially intelligent computer that allows us to simply ask for what we want instead of spending hours inputing computer code or paying thousands of dollars to have something developed for us. Oh, and the interactive photonic force fields that make the whole thing take on a new level of reality. But I'm sure those are already in the works. Hey, it's probably just a 9-volt battery and a pair of rubber gloves away from being reality!
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Star Trek changed the way we look at the world. I was never a huge fan of the original series, but I do recognize that it ignited a creative fire in future engineers and inventors. It's easy to look around and see the influence of this show in our society, even in mundane things. The technology that was only dreamt of a few decades ago has become a reality, mostly because people started looking around their world and seeing possibilities.
That's it for this week's, but I'll be returning to this topic for at least one more column. I hope you'll join me, and I hope you'll enjoy it! And if you have any ideas, suggestions or comments about this topic, let me know. There's a comment button below.
J. Kevin Tumlinson is the Editor of ViewOnline.com and can be reached by e-mail at kevin@viewonline.com. He holds a Master's degree and is an award winning writer of fiction. He would like to be beamed up now.
Down with the FCC
J. Kevin Tumlinson
When Janet Jackson had her "wardrobe malfunction" (the "Tempest in a C-cup" as Brian Wilson calls it!) America got a good, healthy dose of the FCC in action. Or FCC inaction... I'm still not sure. What we saw was a sudden rise in McCarthy-like hounding of radio and television networks. The justifiable outrage against the alleged "malfunction" during a Super Bowl half-time seems to have opened a crack wide enough for the FCC to begin exploiting its power.
Ok -- we're less than a paragraph in and already it's clear where J. Kevin Tumlinson stands on the FCC. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but it just seems like this oft ignored government agency was itching for some lime light and the power that comes with it. It's as if they were waiting in the wings, frantically rehearsing their lines just in case one of the other, more notable agencies broke a leg. I think of the FCC as an understudy for groups like the RIAA (not a government agency, but it seems to cover some of the same ground as our FCC buddies).
The Federal Communications Commission has the unenviable job of regulating radio, television, wire, cable and satellite communications in the United States and its official holdings. They're the group that defines what is and is not appropriate for broadcast. They have been given control over something that no one would have imagined could be controlled... the airwaves.
If you think about it, that's a lot of power. Heck, the ability to control what people see and hear -- despots and tyrants have been trying to gain that power for thousands of years! The FCC has a government license to dictate what we find acceptable or offensive.
For years, the FCC didn't bother to abuse this power. In fact, in a lot of ways it had begun to surrender it entirely. Shows like "NYPD Blue" and "Arrested Development" have pushed the envelope on what's acceptable. It was becoming pretty common to see a little naked butt action on prime time. Certain words that (according to the legendary George Carlin) could never be said on television became part of a common lexicon for our TV pals. It was beginning to look like Marge Simpson's prediction was going to come true -- "Fox turned into a hard-core porn channel so gradually, I didn't even notice!"
But then the 2004 Super Bowl came, and a washed up boy-band dink pulled at the fabric of our reality by removing the barely-there covering of Janet Jackson's boob. The boob seen round the world.
Now we have a McCarthy style Boob-scare. It's like the entire '90's didn't happen -- none of the things that had become common-place are allowed any more.
What kind of world do we live in when Howard Stern has to move to satellite radio to be left in peace by the FCC? Why is it a problem that ABC plans to air "Saving Private Ryan," uncut and unedited? Why should Fox, rebel network of the '90's, suddenly be too afraid to air a Super Bowl commercial that shows Mickey Rooney's octagenarian butt? Ok... I'm not too upset about that last one...
Most of these things are fairly harmless, and in the case of "Private Ryan," they're HIGHLY publicized. It seems that at this point the FCC is stepping in, rolling up it's sleeves, giving a good ol' fashioned Barney Fife snort and is telling us that it has to "nip it in the bud." It's this sort of over-zealous watch-dog behavior that's causing networks to panic and dump everything. Anything that might be the slightest bit controversial gets discarded because they don't want to take a chance on getting fined. What we're working towards is the kind of bland, white-on-white world you might expect in a sort of Orwellian universe where Big Brother is watching and everyone has to tune in for the mandated eight hours of television programming determined by the government to be good for us.
I'm a slippery-slope sort of guy. I have this nightmarish vision of the FCC gaining the power to control EVERYTHING we see and hear. A sort of Bland Censor Board gets set up and nothing comes to us that isn't filtered of all "impurities." Yeah, I can be a little paranoid at times. But we're already seeing the FCC exercise more and more muscle. There are television networks being fined millions of dollars because some handful of people are allowed to speak on behalf of the whole country. Forty people get together and decide they don't like something and they send e-mails to the FCC who then says, "It's offensive. Here's your fine."
My question is, why do we even NEED the FCC?
I'm going to put forward an idea here, and I know it's not going to be popular. In fact, many people may turn their heads and never look back. I can envision some out there with fingers in their ears, saying "nyah nyah" over and over to block out the noise. But here it is in a nutshell -- If you don't like what's on TV, turn it off. If you don't like what's on the radio, turn it off. If you don't like what you see and hear, you have the right, the ability and the responsiblity to remove yourself from it.
That's the crux of the faulty logic of the FCC and those who turn to it for regulation and enforcement of what is "acceptable" or "unacceptable." It's this assumption that in order to protect ourselves FROM ourselves, we need the government to step in, hold our hand, spank us when we're bad and cover our eyes and ears when something "naughty" is on. It's the assumption that morals can be determined from the outside.
If you believe something is wrong or evil, it is. To you and, by extension, to those you are responsible for, such as your children. But you don't have the right to determine for me what is and is not acceptable. Laws are established to give everyone a common set of rules to live by so that we can each live freely without infringing on the freedom of others. Laws should NOT become a means of curtailing another's freedoms based on the moral views of a small minority.
The FCC should be disbanded. There's no need for it. The only thing needed to regulate the airwaves is the advertiser.
Let's take TV networks for example. If Fox decides to run an all-nude line-up where every show contains multiple sex scenes and the use of the F-word, then the advertisers who are targeting families will pull their ads. There's no use advertising diapers and Ovaltine on a porn channel. The families are going to go somewhere else for their entertainment.
Joe Moral and his kids don't like the new Fox line-up, so they watch CBS. CBS has a block of shows that teach the kind of morals that Joe Moral wants his family to see. McDonald's wants Joe Moral to bring all the young Morals to their fine eating establishment, so they pull their ads from Fox and put them on CBS instead.
Fox's CEO says, "Hey, we're losing McDonalds, Ovaltine and all those diaper companies! What should we do to get them back?" A smart and well-educated member of the Fox board says, "Change the programming to something more family oriented," and before you know it Fox has the kind of shows that Joe Moral wouldn't mind letting his kids watch.
Now Fox has self-regulated its programming based on the views of Joe Moral and the advertisers who want his business.
Of course, Fox might decide that they don't NEED McDonalds or Ovaltine or diaper companies to advertise on their network. They have a list of advertisers who don't care if they advertise to Joe Moral because he isn't their target customer anyway. So Fox continues to run it's all-nude line-up and picks up a few sponsors to fill the vacancies that had cropped up. Now, Joe Porn can watch his favorite show on Naked Wednesday on Fox, and that's all he really wanted anyway.
Once again, the networks are self-regulating. Some people will choose to watch Fox, some will choose to watch CBS, and some will choose to just turn off the TV all together, because what kind of crazy world is this anyway? The point is, no one's freedoms are being stepped on, everyone is getting what they want and the fabric of the universe has not come unwound.
We don't need the FCC.
Of course, we'll still have that small minority that's going to gripe and complain that Fox is airing naughty programming. How they know what Fox is airing will always be a mystery. Doesn't it seem odd that the groups who complain about inappropriate programming always seem to know exactly what took place or who said what or what body parts were shown?
Face it -- there are people out there who just want to control what you see, hear and think. They have pumped themselves up with "moral outrage," and they have decided that its their job to complain and make the world do what they want. Notions of freedom of expression, freedom of speech, and just plain freedom to enjoy what you want and make decisions for yourself are completely foreign and, subsequently, out of the question. No matter what, we'll always have these bozos yelling in our ears. They can't allow anyone to simply "live and let live." They have to tell YOU what morals are, and shame on you if you don't listen.
We don't need more government regulation. We have far too much as it is. For a government that was founded on the principle of "by the people, for the people," we sure seem to surrender a lot of our freedoms. We do it for the sake of safety or for the sake of moral and ethical responsibility.
Why do we do it at all? Instead of surrendering our freedoms out of some ill-advised feeling of "doing it for the greater good," why don't we stand up and take them back? We can start by disbanding the FCC and reclaiming the airwaves.
J. Kevin Tumlinson is the Publisher and Editor for ViewOnline Magazine at www.viewonline.com. He is a Houston Baptist University graduate with degrees in English and Communications and a Masters in Education. You can reach him by e-mail at kevin@viewonline.com. He is being censored by the FCC.
