flipper wrote:

On Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:25:11 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


flipper wrote:

On Tue, 17 Aug 2010 11:26:48 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


flipper wrote:

One of my favorites was a meaningless byline to the plot in Star Trek,
the original series, "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" (1967) where the computer
keeps calling Kirk "dear." As Spock explained, the computer system had
been 'repaired' on a planet dominated by women and they felt it lacked
a 'personality'. So they gave it one. Female, of course.

It also has an unfortunate tendency to giggle.

Well, at least that's a computer of the future where anything's
possible


A giggle is better than a rude '404 ERROR!' on your screen.

Hehe. Well, maybe for *you* but I'm sure Spock would much prefer
straightforward text and an appropriate error code.


I ran across a website a few years ago with a custom 404 page with a
'Marvin the paranoid Android' theme.

Make that Norman and you got a winner.

Tough enough dealing with emotional humans but an emotional computer
too? Must have seemed like sacrilege to ruin a 'logic' machine..


Don't you mean 'Fuzzy Logic'? ;-)

Spock might think that no better than an ermine violin


Gee. Do you think that's why 'fuzzy logic' is rarely mentioned these
days?


Making Spock half human was a stroke of brilliance because it would be
impossible for any human to flawlessly keep up an unemotional 'purely
logical' character for any length of time and any 'mistakes' can be
attributed to that, as well as providing the 'internal conflict'.


It also gave him plenty of excuses for being one of the weirdest
characters on the show.

LOL

Well, I liked him better than McCoy. He was *too* irrational.


Well, Deforst Kelly was an old school actor from the days or
'westerns'. Did you ever see anything rational in a western?


The recurring 'debates' between Kirk and Spock on the virtues of human
intuition and emotion were a lot of fun, though.


Spock didn't like sex, and Kirk did.