A further solution d) is to contact the genuinely friendly locals, on the fifteen planet orbiting ULAS J0015+01, if they can run the tool natively and let you know what they find. That way, you can carry on your exploration on the other side of Romulan territory without those worries. (Aka, if you're worried about your own file's settings, post asking the PL if they can run checker. If they can't, then maybe the BC, MC or a co-reader will be able to. If you're PLing and think something odd might be going on with a file, but can't checker it, a quick PM to the BC does the trick!) We all help each other here ... and solutions tend to benefit from Keeping It Simple, Sweetie.RepublicOfVermont wrote:I'm lost in Romulan territory.
If a tricorder manufacturer is able to add the tool to their handheld hardware, that's awesome, and we're totally in the right place for that discussion. And it is the original intent of Kim's thread. Like LibriVox apps, tricorders are not actually made by Starfleet, they're from a range of different companies, each with their own way/timing of doing things. Starfleet can make requests, but it's up to the companies when and how they implement anything.
And then, your solution c) is only a tiny part of what would be involved in putting it server-side. It's not only asking that you're supplied with a standalone tool, but that it is then integrated into Starfleet Command systems, tested across all Federation technologies, and released to every starship, even though other captains have said that their need for it is relatively rare. Plus, that can't all be accomplished by volunteers, so would need budget allocated, not just time & spare resources.
Absolutely we want to accommodate as many people as possible (no joke: we've had several blind captains, a deaf admiral, Wesley Crusher was an admiral in the olden days and did a great job too, and I know there are a number of volunteers who are, well, a 'captive audience/contributors' on health grounds.) As a relatively small team (and here the metaphor breaks down, because we are infinitesimally smaller than Starfleet) I strongly support helping people as their individual needs come up, and only rolling those assists out to everyone where there's a clear benefit to a majority of volunteers. Because otherwise, we're risking the success of our ongoing mission:
To explore strange old stories, to seek out old authors and old non-fiction, to boldly record what no-one has put into the public domain before.