By Dr. Philip Baczewski, Associate Director of Academic Computing

To Boldly Go...

One of the benefits of working in computer systems management is that you often get to stay up late hours when some process or another does not work correctly. At least now you can dial in from home, rather than having to go find a mainframe terminal (or worse, a card punch machine) as was necessary in the prehistoric days of computing. For me the task of dialing in is make a little bit less tedious because of the video input port built into my Macintosh.

Recently, while fixing a problem with Internet account generation, I happened to catch an episode of Star Trek, the Next Generation (the episode was "Lessons," originally airing 4/5/93; see http://www.startrekcontinuum.com/tng/q.asp?ssector=log.asp&ID=68596 ). The primary plot revolved around Captain Picard falling in love with a "Stellar Cartographer" (today, this would be someone who draws maps really well, but in the 24th century, it is someone who maps stars.) Any fan of the first Star Trek series knows that Captain Kirk seemed to fall in love every episode, but for his successor, Picard, such a circumstance is quite rare. What made this episode particularly interesting to me was that besides being such a stellar cartographer, Lieutenant Commander Daren is also an excellent pianist. It seems that in the 24th century, humans will still be playing the same pianos/violins/cellos/etc. that are in use today.

There is all kinds of opportunity here to launch into an essay on the lack of musical imagination shown by Star Trek writers and producers, and their ignorance of current musical technology and contemporary concert music. However, it was another small part of this episode that got my attention -- probably the worst pickup line of the 24th century. It seems that Daren, Data, and an unidentified cellist stage a performance of a Brahms Piano Trio. After the performance, Picard remarks to Daren something to the effect that in a particular measure of one of the movements she played a "diminished arpeggio" rather than minor and how particularly moving that was. To anyone who knows music, this line is particularly stupid and bothersome for a number of reasons.

Although it might be imagined that the music of Brahms will have reached the same status in the 24th century as the plays of Shakespeare have today, it still does not justify Picard's idiotic comment. First, to have noticed such a small change in such a large work, Picard would have to have a much more rigorous musical education than his self-taught Ressikan flute playing learned in a 25-minute virtual lifetime (the episode which introduced the Ressikan flute was "The Inner Light", originally airing 6/1/92; see: http://www.startrekcontinuum.com/TNG/log.asp?id=68556). Second, it's unlikely that such a change would have the emotional effect apparently felt by Picard. Third, who would have the audacity to change the music of Brahms? Making such a change in the music of one of the most meticulous composers of tonal music is akin to spouting the following line within a production of Hamlet: "To be or not to be. That is the question. Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or maybe I'll just go postal and take care of business once and for all!"

The future is closer than we think...

Although we know that Star Trek is really about the present and not the future, it does illustrate that the future is not always what we predict it will be. This irony hit home recently when I began to research the options I have for a high-bandwidth Internet connection to my house in Fort Worth. The high-speed choices these days for the average home Internet user are ISDN, ADSL, and Cable Modem.

For me, ISDN and ADSL are provided by Southwestern Bell (http://www.swbell.com). I inquired about ADSL service, which is dependent on your telephone outlet being close enough in wire length to the phone company's digital switch. You would think that living in a neighborhood that didn't exist 10 years ago would ensure the latest utility technology. Apparently, there is fiber-optic cable serving my neighborhood and I am close enough to the switch, but the fiber is so saturated with voice lines, that Southwestern Bell cannot provide my relatively new house, with the relatively newest technology. I suspect I may get a similar story if I attempt to sign up for ISDN service.

That leaves Cable Modem. This a frightening prospect for me. After all, the service will be provided by the same people that for a number of years could not go a day without an outage, and that were fined by the City of Fort Worth for their poor customer service. Nevertheless, I bit the bullet, found the Web site (http://charter.home.com) which only came on line recently, in spite of the fact that it's been several months since they made a mess poking holes in the neighborhood to pull fiber-optic cable. I found their Web page to contact them for more information. My initial attempt was met with a message that said their Web page could not accept my information. There's a confidence builder -- the people who I want to provide me with Internet service can't even keep their own Web site working. I did try again a couple of days ago and did manage to apparently provide them with information, including an e-mail address. Did I get an e-mail confirmation? Not yet.

Getting there is harder than we thought...

Technology waits. Or, we wait for technology. The Daguerrotype was invented in 1822, yet it was another century or more before photography became accessibly to the average consumer. High-speed networking has been around for a while, and hopefully, it won't be a century before Charter Cable responds to my inquiry. In the next year, we will see Cable companies and phone companies tripping over each other to establish market share in high speed networking. Neither, apparently, is ready. It's a high stakes contest, because whoever becomes established will end up providing an array of communication and media services. It is likely, that before long, phone, Internet, television, long distance, and a number of things we haven't thought of yet will be provided over one "wire." Whoever owns that wire can make a lot of money. However, if no one can provide adequate service, then I guess the future won't be as soon as we thought it might be. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Comments, Questions? Send them to Philip Baczewski.