With the exception of the origional series–well, and the damage they started doing to the franchise with the last couple movies they turned out, you might say I’m a bit of a Star Trek fan. Well, okay, probably more than a bit–days like today would be mighty fine use cases for transporter technology, if we’re being completely honest. So I keep an eye on things that look like they might have been slightly inspired by the land of full-fledged civilizations dotting the final frontier. Which means my interest is a little bit increased when I read about a researcher that has developed the capability of 3D-printing a nearly completely plastic handgun, or the ones who’ve improved on that to put together, again using a 3D-printer, an honest to god pistol.
Okay, so maybe vaguely inspired projects that involve replicating new and interesting ways to kill each other isn’t the healthiest way to start off a Star trek inspired post. I mean hey, I’m screwed up, but not quite that screwed up–well, most of the time. So maybe let’s skip right to the “directly inspired from Star Trek” pile, then, yeah? For that, we skip across the border and land us in Canada, where a software engineering company has put together its very own attempt at a universal translator. At the moment, the goal is only to make the accents of those folks in call centers overseas seem just a little less like about half to three quarters of the problem in any customer service conversation since the dawn of customer service conversations. Having bin on the serving end of some of the conversations that have resulted from a few of those overseas accents, if I had the money handy right here right now, I’d be looking wicked hard at where to sign up. And hey, if it ever gets beyond the experimental stage, perhaps the folks behind it will be cellebrating by cracking open a bottle of an equally experimental and equally interesting present-day version of synthehol–complete with the ability for you to sober up quickly should you need to. You know, in the event your designated driver’s off in the corner drowning himself in the real thing, the fool, and you’ve just blown what should have been your cab money. Of course if this ever stops being experimental and goes mainstream, I wonder if designated drivers will still actually need to be a thing.
From the directly inspired by Star trek, we fly right on over to the directly pulled straight out of star Trek. And we land in North Carolina, where a city councillor there named David Waddell has submitted his resignation–in Klingon. “Today,” he says, “is a good day to resign.”. Not exactly a direct translation, but I mean what are you expecting from a 21st century non-Klingon? It beats the hell out of another politician deciding he wants to spend more time with his family, anyway. so, now, who’s gonna get cracking on this transporter thing? Anyone? I’ll wait…