This sort of thing happened to me once but it wasn't our software's fault, just the weather's. Anyway a cast for a traveling musical was stranded in New York due to weather and I had to move about 7,000 butts in seats around in 10 hours or so. I could've used this kind of help that day.

but not from beardo

>> This sort of thing happened to me once but it wasn't our software's fault, just the weather's

You were manipulated into triggering a global war by a time-traveling Starfleet officer?!

"Also, where's the rest of the Enterprises' crew? Why is there no-one else on the bridge? Is that even Riker; could it be Q?"

Most likely it's Tom Riker. The Maquis busted him out of that Cardassian prison and he pulled the same "Defiant" stunt to get control of the Enterprise, so he could sell software in the 1990s. That's a "Yankee trader" move if there ever was.

OH! Right, yes, of course, that makes a lot more sense. I'd totally forgotten about Tom Riker, but yes, this seems like the sort of thing Riker's transporter-clone would do.

We never actually see "Riker" send Harold back to 1990s Earth, do we? He and Harold warp away. Perhaps *that's* what Riker meant with his cryptic threats; perhaps Tom Riker just shanghaied Harold on behalf of the Maquis! Maybe Harold had some rarified skill-set and the Maquis intend to train him as a renegade terrorist operative - like, perhaps they'll have Harold hack into the Cardassian data network and make all the shuttles in the empire run really, really behind schedule.

Perhaps late 20th century computer-savvy folks are the equivalent of code talkers to the Maquis: 400 years from now, who is going to expect that Maquis transmissions are taking the form of WordPerfect 5.2 data files? Sure they're easy enough to pick apart if you know what to look for, but you've got to know to look for it first.

Another couple thoughts:

- Snatching up people from the early 1990s makes a lot of sense, because it makes for a narrow window in which basic computer skills were expected of office workers, but it predated the common availability of the Internet. A person from that era would have computer skills that were becoming lost and forgotten just as the Internet was coming into being, which is to say, there would be no record of those skills in the 24th century. And if you were trying to run WordPerfect or Lotus 1-2-3 or any of the software packages falling out of favor in the early 90s, you either had a cardboard template you would place on your keyboard just above the function keys to know where to find things, or you didn't need the template because you were just that good. I'm guessing Harold and other code talkers were chosen for knowing the function keys inside out; put a modern user of Windows up against WordPerfect (to say nothing of people raised on LCARS) and they'd be completely lost. Not so with Harold.

- It fits Tom Riker's psychological profile that he would seek to rescue people from bad lives and unfulfilling work, just as he wishes he had been rescued all those years ago. Plus it's very important to Tom not only that he does the right thing, he needs to be recognized for it, to remind him that he's every bit the man Will Riker is. So the person at the cubicle next to Harold's might be equally competent at desktop publishing, but it would weigh on Tom's conscience if that person had family and friends who would miss them. Harold, though ... ? Not only is he unremarkable and lonely in the 20th century, in the 24th century he'll be fascinating exactly as he is.

Yeah. I had to work with a pretty outdated software called ARCHtics, so it was basically like this but with tracking tickets instead of things like airplane flights. It might have been cool when Windows XP was all the rage, but the economy crashed so it was sort of like buying an Atari Jaguar, if the Jaguar cost millions of dollars and you couldn't get a different device. But like Harold I knew people in other smaller non-profits who had a more advanced software but every time I tried to Riker them up like this it just ended in defeat. Luckily that organization's shit has hit the fan and fuck them hahaha

oh shit! Ticketmaster must've bought them after I left! Fuck them even harder hahaha

Hang on, Bort. Riker only abducted ONE techie. In order for your code talking scheme to work, they'd need at least two, and preferably a lot more (one per major Maqui outpost/ starship).

Perhaps abducting Harold for the purposes of code talking is what Riker WANTS you to think, but evidently, code talking cannot be the true purpose. It *could* be that more abductions are going on off-camera, but I think we'd both agree it's far more likely that Riker was turned by the Cardassians during his stay in their prison camps, and is now working as a double agent. Harold cannot be a code talker, but a code talker and a Maquis are what the Cardassians want others to think he is; this could well be the start of an elaborate false flag operation meant to discredit the Maquis and dupe Federation citizens into supporting a war of aggression against their downtrodden human brethren.

"Hang on, Bort. Riker only abducted ONE techie. In order for your code talking scheme to work, they'd need at least two, and preferably a lot more (one per major Maqui outpost/ starship)."

I would bet anything that Tom Riker has figured out how to recreate his transporter accident on command, so only one Harold abduction is required. This raises questions about the ethics about duplicating people, but again, if we go back to Tom's psychological makeup, either the duplication process is constructive and laudable or he is an abomination. The latter conclusion is unacceptable, so it therefore becomes necessary that the duplication process be justifiable. And how better to justify it than through a noble cause?

Your pet theory that Tom Riker is a double agent, is just too silly to even discuss.

>> I would bet anything that Tom Riker has figured out how to recreate his transporter accident on command


If that were the case, then why would the Maquis even *need* code talkers? Riker could just clone up an entire division of Maquis commandos in the space of an hour. Within a week, they could field a Clone Army strong enough to overwhelm the Cardassians.

Using time travel AND teleporter cloning to get a few 1990s code talkers, is as if the American scientists at Los Alamos had decided to use the newfound power of the atom, not to build bombs, but to cook late-night snack buritos instead. No, I'm sorry Bort, but the more I think about this, the less likely it seems. I'm afraid we have to go back and face the increasingly likely possibility that this is Q, and he's trying to spark the Eugenics War.

Riker's sense of ethics would not allow him to create an army of slave warriors and you know it. Additionally, an army of RIKER slave warriors would sooner die than support a cause willing to turn to slavery.

I can't believe you would even try to make that argument, EvilHomer. You don't know a thing about how Commander Riker thinks. Not. A. Goddamn. Thing.

COMMANDER Riker. Not TOM Riker. Particularly not Tom Riker after having spent years in a Cardassian gulag. Besides, you already admitted that Tom Riker would have no ethical misgivings about creating an army of code talkers, so why not an army of commandos instead?

Hey OW, whatddya think of these:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PX52C7Q

I ordered some recently but they haven't come in yet, but I predict they are going to become the preferred model at Bort Laboratories.

They look pretty sweet, actually. Not sure how the price compares to the rat shack ones I mentioned, but it's got the right pattern anyway ( none of this stupid business of a sea of unconnected holes ). Thanks for the tip.

I should tell you my solution for the water alarms: squat Ziploc tubs (sandwich-shaped), with the detection wires snaking out to the bottom of the container, where they are taped and kept from touching each other with a wad of cotton. The cotton will wick water to the contacts, and the rest of the assembly is designed so that the thing will float if need be, or otherwise not get waterlogged even if water spills directly on it. Not an industrial grade solution but good enough for my purposes.

Next thing I'm going to do: build one with very long detection wires (maybe 20') twisted together, where I cut the insulation every foot or so, and tape the wire to the floor. That way I'm metering not just one spot but an entire length of floor. Yes, I'm getting obsessive, and none of this does me any good if an anvil drops through my roof.

You misread. It says "tolkien ring."

Token ring was still really popular well into the late 90s, because there were a few situations where it still performed better than ethernet (although they were pretty limited and this wouldn't have been one of them).