Harris demands satisfaction, challenges ED to duel

"Madder'n Hell" is one word (or combination of words) that could describe how Israel "Izzy" Harris feels right now. Harris stormed into Command last week and offered a harsh criticism of the Standard Ship Specification Format (SSSF), wondering (rhetorically, of course) why approved specs had to be re-submitted just because of the SSSF process. He cited as one example Mark "Thomas F." Wilson's Andromeda class, which has been locked in ED litigation for months. ED officials were quick to put an end to Harris's tirade, noting that the Andromeda was submitted after the "grandfathering" date when all ships submitted for SSSFification would be required to do nothing more than conform to the stylistic changes of SSSF. They also noted that, although Harris placed the blame on current EDir Bret "Talent scouts" Godfrey, it was former EDir Owen "Cities are bigger than" Townes who set the timetables for SSSFification.

Those who aren't ED regulars, including FComm-7 Nikolle "Quigley Down Under" Burchett, were stupefied by the SSSF grandfathering policy, also wondering why approved specs would suddenly be stripped of approved status. STF Mike Larry I was quick to point out that some specs, though considered "approved," were seriously lacking by current ED design standards. "Take the Trafalgar, for example," he said at a press conference live via satellite from his secret compound on the planet Crell. "Its maximum impulse speed is listed as 0.75c, which is clearly a violation of current ED design standards. Not to mention it would mean that the crew would miss an entire season of Friends while they were at impulse speed for a few hours." Mike "Plankaa" Bourdaa responded to discussions of the SSSF in disgust, as he complained that it was easier to let his Athens class be mothballed rather than bring it up to code. "My new ship class will be the Monkey-class destroyer. It will look a lot like a monkey and fire torpedoes shaped like bananas," he said last week.

PO in hot H2O

See what happens when they try to take things seriously? Command was upset last week at a story from Project Omega entitled "INept Strikes Again." The article, written (conveniently) by former IDir Chris "Sit! Stay!" Healey was a report of events that happened in IRC when Elana "Sandwich" Rubin asked Project Omega editor Mike "Grouse" Rouse-Deane to remove a cartoon of her from his website (see below for details; void where prohibited). Healey reported what had happened and then took some time to criticize (read: insult) the current Internet Department for "ineptitude," among other things. Healey never cited other cases of the current ID's ineptitude, which may have led some folks in Command to think that he was reporting opinion as fact, which is exactly what happened. Onlookers wondered if Healey was the right man for the story, since his opinions of the Wonderly ID are clearly known (and they're not very pretty). "Healey promised us that he was not biased," said a representative from Project Omega. "Security tapes later revealed that he had his fingers crossed behind his back. That gets us every time!" SNN Command Squabble Correspondent T.E. Lawrence felt that PO was taking itself too seriously as a news entity. "They should lighten up, you know, not take themselves so seriously. This is an RPG, for crying out loud! I know that when I started taking life too seriously, I went to fight the Turks. That cleared me right up."

Rouse-Deane's other Command scandal erupted after he posted cartoons of Elana "Sandwich" Rubin on his website. Rubin argued that her likeness was her own property, and thus she had every right to demand that it not be used. Rouse-Deane countered that since her likeness was already in the yearbook, it was already "public" and was therefore open for use. What no one knows is that if the cartoon is based on her likeness in the yearbook, the cartoon falls under the auspices of "fair use," which allows copyrighted material to be used for academia, criticism, or parody without the consent of the copyright holder. Slats Grobnik was heard to comment, "It would have been funnier if he drew her as a Reuben sandwich. Mmm, I could go for one of those right now!" The scandal continues as both sides determined, by mathematical calculation, that budging or compromising would be detrimental to the fabric of the universe. "We'll just see how it works for them. I know I learned my lesson," commented the North-Going Zax.

Wendy's founder dies

Already the year has begun on a low note (what did we say about those palindromic years?). R. David Thomas, known to the world as "Dave Thomas, Founder of Wendy's" died Tuesday, 8 January of kidney cancer. As a high-school dropout and adopted child, Thomas championed adoption issues and strove to teach kids to stay in school. His fast-food career began when he bought several ailing Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants, turned them completely around, then sold them back to the company, making him a millionaire. He named Wendy's after his daughter Melinda Lou, nicknamed "Wendy" by her siblings. The ad campaign featuring Thomas as not only the company's CEO, but pitchman, began ten years ago and has been a staple of Wendy's marketing. The ads reinforced the "old-fashioned" quality of Wendy's by featuring a homely, portly man -- an "everyman" -- speaking honestly about his product. Thomas was ill of late, undergoing kidney dialysis and requiring a quadruple-bypass in 1996. America, and indeed the world, has lost one of the last of its true rags-to-riches success stories.

This month, SNN sent me to the intergalactic computational conference on Rigel VI. I hate computers. I can't even get my PADD at home to work correctly, so why would I want to spend my weekend surrounded by optical chips and quadritonic subprocessors? For the women. Most computer experts in the galaxy today are women, and boy, are they good-looking. I feel almost guilty going to these conventions, since it's almost like an unfair advantage: all the other men within an eight light-year radius don't have half the opportunity I do to meet an intelligent, attractive young computer genius. Did I mention that they have money? These people make huge amounts of money every year, more than I'll ever see in my whole life as an SNN lackey that ... but anyway, I went to the computational conference on Rigel VI.

One thing you should know about these conferences is that they're not really conferences; they're conventions. They just aren't called "conventions" because the law on Rigel VI is that all conventions must be held at the Rigel VI Hilton. The planet is run by the hotel mafia, as is the case with most tourist planets these days. Risa is operated by the Hyatt Regency gang, Talos IV is under the control of the Wyndham syndicate, and even Starbase 814 has its own faction of mobsters associated with Embassy Suites (still the only hotel chain to be given five stars by Consumer Reports). So, we have to call these things "conferences" and hold them in tall office towers with lots of tables full of coffee and snacks. If the law ever found out, everyone would be put in prison. It's terrible to have to live a life in secret like this.

Most of the hype was centered around Nyetscape Communications' new AI mod-ule, ENGELS, which stands for "Emulsified Numerical Gadget and Egalitarian Liberation System," whatever that means. I just wrote the acronym down. ENGELS, says Nyetscape spokesperson Nikolai Rachmaninoff, "is great update from old AI module. Advanced egalitarian subsystem ensures that all crew members have equal authorization. Just because captain is captain doesn't mean he should have more power than anyone else, da?" ENGELS also boasts 55% higher power use with 67% less efficiency than the GORBI module, the flagship product of the Nyetscape industrial product line.

MicroApple Bell, makers of the popular LCARS software, has previewed its newest creation, LCARS ZY. Due to software licensing and pirating concerns (it seems several Starfleet captains were involved in a software piracy ring where they all chipped in some money for one copy of LCARS software, then burned their own copies on optical chips), MicroApple Bell unveiled its new "activation" system, which ties a particular copy of LCARS ZY to a certain ship using the hardware features of the ship -- things like carpeting, chairs, and the bridge module of the USS Montgomery -- to make sure that a particular copy of LCARS ZY is usable only on that ship. The software functions normally for the first 45 days; after that, the captain must register it or the software will shut off life support and decompress and jettison habitable volumes of the ship into space. "No, it's not harsh," said MicroApple Bell chairman William Henry Gates XXIII. "Better to have 1,014 people die than allow a pirated copy of LCARS ZY to continue to be used." Some captains were worried about what would happen if they changed the things that tied a copy of LCARS ZY to the ship -- the carpeting or chairs, for example. "Well, it's simple," said Gates. "You absolutely cannot change those things. Once a copy of LCARS ZY is linked to those things, then it is impossible to unlink it. In retrospect, that may not have been the best idea we've ever had, but we'll fix that at some point. Besides, what's the likelihood that carpeting and chairs are going to change versus other stuff like computer cores and warp reactors? Do you have any idea how many warp cores Voyager has gone through? The Montgomery bridge module, though, was an error on our part. Oh, well. We'll fix it in the next version. Maybe."

Not content to be left in the dark in this new age of computing, Obsidian Order Software, Ltd. introduced its new computer-protection program, Hak-Dajok'Mashuvaa NT. The program is designed for use exclusively aboard Romulan, Federation, and Klingon vessels. OOS spokesman Gul Hossentheffer relayed his hope that "this program be used in only the most secure areas of Federation, Romulan, and Klingon computers. After all, you wouldn't want these sensitive areas with all sorts of ship control codes and confidential shield harmonic information to be open to attack." Gul Hossentheffer assured reporters that his company's program was not designed exclusively for Klingon, Romulan, and Federation use because these three are the Cardassians' biggest enemies. "It's because we didn't want to make too many different language versions. That's all, I swear!"

By the end of the week, I was so bogged down in operating systems, chipsets, and user interfaces that I needed a drink and some low-tech stuff. Fortunately, there was a seedy pub not too far from the hotel where they served you the best Aldebaran whiskey this side of ... well, Aldebaran. And they calculated my bill using an abacus. That made me pine for the simple simplicity of home. I left the computational conference that day, marveling at how machines were becoming even smarter than people. I hoped that one day the machines didn't take over like they had done in so many movies. It's only fiction, those movies. It's not like we're living in a computer-generated dream-world.

The police are not there to create disorder; the police are there to preserve disorder

When we wrote the ending to this issue a few weeks ago, we wrote that the STF political arena was very calm, edging on tepid. That was, of course, before the political explosion that happened in the past two weeks. Boy, were we worried; we thought we might have to make some stuff up just to get an issue out. Fortunately, Israel "Izzy" Harris got hopping mad at the Engineering Department, and Mike "Grouse" Rouse-Deane pasted some caricatures and made some bad objectivity calls. Our thanks to all of these people: they pay our salary every week.

But we only get our salary paid if we adhere strictly to our Journalistic Motto of "Quick, Informative, Totally Biased Reporting" of STF Events.

It's been a blast here in yet another one of our prime-numbered issue (it seems like forever since out last one, II.69), but never fear: II.73 is just around the corner with more indivisible fun! Plus, we'll hear another story in the travelogue of H. Simon Gregory, as well as more from Your Friends at Starfleet Command, assuming anything happens over there (and usually, nothing ever does).