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Now you too can enjoy my Inbox without
the annoying spam. Every week I get some amazing e-mail. Some amazing
because of the sheer cluelessness of the sender, some because of
the time and energy that went into crafting them and some are just
simply amazing.
Believers
This isn't a Believer, but is about the Believers that get posted
here...
From: Jason
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 10:14 AM
To: briggsb@bbspot.com
Subject: Hardware sharing
I hereby respectfully request copies of all emails you may
receive regarding the hardware sharing program be sent to me.
Before you put the Mailbag up, i would read your site for
giggles. I now dread it for fear of losing what shred of faith
for humanity i have.
You are an evil, evil man.
btw, loved the end of that story..."Oh shit." classic.
Nothing has come in on this
article yet, just give it some time.
Microsoft Bias
I got a nice e-mail from a reader, who said he was a former Microsoft
employee, then followed it up with an explanation lest I think
ill of him...
From: Travis
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 11:49 PM
To: briggsb@bbspot.com
Subject: RE: Enterprise Vs. Star Destroyer
Oh, and so you don't hold the working at MS thing against
me, picture this:
An office door with a nameplate reading, "Tourette's
Ward" flies open and smashes against the inner wall so
hard that it drives the rubber wall protector THROUGH the sheetrock.
A software tester emerges into the hallway screaming about
not being able to do his job because, "Our software f**king
SUCKS!" and "How can I test this application if I
can't even get the F**king OPERATING SYSTEM TO F**KING INSTALL???
Not that it maters since this release is just a bunch of G*D
Damn EYE CANDY to cover all the f**king "Won't Fix" bugs
that are now THREE F**KING RELEASES OLD!"
That was me.
Dell Support
From: Dan
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 6:44 PM
To: 'briggsb@bbspot.com'
Subject: Dell Tech Support
This should amuse you. You know that when you call tech support, or your
bank, or the phone company, or just about anybody these days, you're
just about guaranteed time in Phone Queue Purgatory. You know, "Press
1 for smarmy salesmen, press 2 for belligerent shipping clerks, press
3 for soulless accountants, press 4 for incompetent level-1 tech support".
After that, you're shipped off to listen to a half-hour of your favorite
80's music Muzakked, punctuated by everybody's most-hated voice ever:
sickly sweet, "Your call is important to us. Please stay on the
line and someone will be with you shortly."
Yeah, right. If my call was important then I'd be talking
to a human, and "shortly" seems to be defined in
terms of continental drift. If you catch my drift.
Anyway, Dell has recently abandoned the delusion that anybody
believes their call is important, or that anything useful will
happen shortly. Instead, they've taken that same voice and
changed the script. Now when you call Dell Tech Support, you
get to hear:
"Did you know that most simple computer problems can
be solved by rebooting your computer? To do this, click the
'Start' button, select 'Shut Down Computer', click the green
'Restart Computer' button and click 'OK'. If this does not
restart your computer, please press and hold the power button
until the system shuts down."
I kid you not. This means that 80% of Dell's tech support
is now being handled by an answering machine.
Enterprise
Vs. Death Star
Moths are drawn to flames. Geeks are drawn to mistakes published
about their favorite sci-fi shows. I received an incredible amount
of e-mail on this topic. Here is a small sampling...
From: Daniel
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 2:07 AM
To: briggsb@bbspot.com
Subject: Star Trek vs Star Wars
Ok, I'm very ashamed of what I'm about to say, but here goes:
I own a copy of the Star Trek TNG technical manual. I know,
I know, I'm sick, but I just can't help it. Seeing as how I
have this resource though, I thought I might as well correct
some people who've been emailing in with "facts" about
the Enterprise.
2) Any sub-warp matter based projectiles would be deflected
harmlessly by the deflector dish (that’s what it’s
there for) rendering 50% of the deathstar's weapons useless
That's not true at all. The deflector dish is for keeping
out matter while traveling at warp, and has no defensive purpose,
although every once in a while they use it to channel a large
burst of energy. Obviously any missiles (proton OR photon)
would be designed to detonate at an appropriate point so as
to inflict energy on the shields of a craft, and maybe I don't
remember the Star Wars movies that well, but it seemed like
the only weapons they had that weren't energy based were proton
torpedoes.
5) Photon torpedoes don’t use mass but rather speed to
inflict damage (and by pass deflector dishes) this technology
is far beyond proton torpedoes which use protons of combustible
material to moderately scorch hull plating (if deflector dish
is deactivated).
This doesn't make any sense. Photon torpedoes are designed
to explode on contact with shields, which is why they always
explode on contact with shields in the show. It's as simple
as that. And I don't know what you mean by "protons of
combustible material", because it appears you don't know
what the words "combustible" and "proton" mean.
Protons are not combustible; neither would they produce an
explosion if just packed together and hurled at something,
which implies that proton torpedoes use some sort of technology
that we don't know about. Possibly because they don't exist.
Photon torpedoes, on the other hand, supposedly are made up
of a small quantity of matter and antimatter which are combined
to release energy, and do not inflict damage via speed. Still
a moot point however, seeing as how photon torpedoes also don't
exist.
While the star trekkers struggle to go warp 13 {13x the speed
of light} the star wars ships travel something like 25000x the
speed of light.
This also is not true. Obviously, if the warp factors were
directly correlated to multiples of the speed of light, then
most of it's trips between star systems would be measured in
years, and the show wouldn't make sense. This is backed up
by the technical manual, which claims that speed increases
geometrically compared to warp factor, putting warp 9 at about
1516 times the speed of light. (I don't know exactly what numbers
they used to calculate this)
The weaponry used by the star trekkers typically has something
like 10^20 joules/blast where the weapons used in the star wars
worlds have something like 10^200/blast. So thats not 10x as
much but more like billions of billions of billions of billions
of billions of billions of billions..... times as much energy.
The problem with these numbers is that they're obviously
made up off the top of somebody's head. I will agree, however,
that Star Wars obviously has more powerful weaponry, considering
that the Death Star could destroy an entire planet.
In general, I guess I'd probably put my money on a star destroyer
for the pure fact that while the Federation built their flagship
as an exploratory vessel with weapons included only to defend
itself, the Empire built star destroyers to conquer planets
and wipe out fleets of vessels. Personally, I enjoy watching
Star Trek more, but I doubt that the Enterprise would win.
Of course, I think we're all ignoring the possibility that
neither the Enterprise or a star destroyer would win, because
THEY DON'T EXIST.
Universal power...
From: Brendan
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2003 7:50 PM
To: briggsb@bbspot.com
Subject: Star Trek vs. Star Wars
Holy Crap!
I really have to step in on this one. Our buddy 'Marshall'
seems to have exaggerated the power of Star Wars weapons just
a teensie weensie bit, considering that by most accounts the
total energy of the visible universe is only 10^67 Joules.
Hmm...Well, I suppose the Star Wars weapons could use billions
and billions times more energy than exists in the universe,
but something tells me otherwise....That combined with the
warp 13 thing, damn. (Takes a deep breath and tries to peel
his hand away from the coffee mug, one finger at a time)
Another contender...
From: Giorgio
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 10:42 AM
To: briggsb
Subject: Enterprise Vs. Death Star
Dear Sir,
First of all you have to excuse me for mine poor writing:
I'm not an English speaking person.
About Enterprise Vs. Death Star I have to remember all of
you another contender: SPACE BALL. Space Ball is the only ship
that can view the tape to see how things will happen. In this
way they know
always enemy moves.
But a single script writer can beat them all with a simple
pen.
Another geek solution...
From: Yan
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 8:50 AM
To: briggsb@bbspot.com
Subject: enterprise vs. star destroyer
In the end there is really only one method geeky enough to
put an end to the Enterprise vs. Star Destroyer debate: a Google
fight.
Enterprise: 17,700,000
Star Destroyer: 151,000
William Shatner speaks...
From: Miranda C
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 11:34 AM
To: briggsb@bbspot.com
Subject: star wars/star trek
Hi,
Just a quick question regarding the people who take the Star
Wars/Trek debate so seriously: why expend so much energy debating
the comparable weapons and defense systems of two star craft
in series which regularly subvert and flat-out ignore the laws
of physics (and some other scientific laws as well)? When space
is as noisy as it is in both series, when light beam weapons
are visible to the naked eye, when all the issues of FTL travel
are blatantly and rigorously ignored, how can anyone make a
serious argument about the so-called physical rules and realities
of the worlds of these two series? Obviously the writers pick
and choose which reality to apply in a given story based on
the impact of the story itself, the characters and plot-lines
and things like that, so the question is not of the technical
aspects at all, but of the impact the storytelling will have,
and who happens to be doing the writing.
If these series were the kind of science fiction that was
grounded in science, a real argument could probably be made
regarding who would win a fight. They're not, even remotely,
grounded in basic scientific principals, so trying to argue
consistency in terms of battle tactics and things like that
is not only silly, it's completely moot. The laws of both these
universes are as mutable as water.
That sounds like a good place to end it.
That's all for this week!
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