posted on December 23rd, 2005, 2:12 am
U.S.S. Windows NT-98
The story of Bill Gates comparing the computer industry and the auto industry is well-known: "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon."
In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a humorous press release, describing the way cars would behave if they were like Microsoft products.
This is what Starfleet ships developed by Microsoft would be like:
1. For no reason whatsoever your warp core would be dropped twice a day.
2. Every time they changed the main interstellar flight routes you would have to get a new ship.
3. Occasionally your starship would die in outer space for no reason, and you would just accept this, reinitialize the engines and warp on.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause your engines to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the warp core.
5. Only one person could work on the ship at a time, unless you bought "Starship98" or "StarshipNT". But, then you would have to buy more bridge modules.
6. Macintosh would make a starship that was powered by a stable Omega molecule, had quantum slipstream drive, was reliable and twice as easy to fly, but would only run between Earth and Vulcan.
7. The antimatter containment, structural integrity and shield failure messages would be replaced by a single "general starship failure" warning.
8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt (poor Scotty!).
9. The deflector shields would say "Are you sure?" before going up.
10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your ship would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grabbed hold of the radio antenna. Well, how this can be accomplished on a starship, remains unanswered...
11. Utopia Planitia would require all starship buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Mark IV tricorders, even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the ship's performance to diminish by 50% or more. Moreover, Utopia Planitia would become a target for investigation by the Federation Council.
12. Every time Utopia Planitia introduced a new class, ship personnel would have to learn how to operate it all over again because none of the controls would work in the same manner as on the old ship.
13. You'd have to say "engage" to shut down the engines.
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