From Newsgroup: alt.tv.star-trek.tos   
   From Address: gkimeng@gmail.com   
   Subject: Re: Those Amazing Computers!   
      
   On May 11, 1:20apm, Ron  wrote:   
   > Moi? No... aBut *you* seem to b grasping at straws-- detrermined not   
   > to admit that this is just a simple plot hole or rather, a subtle   
   > mistake in the script. aTh computer's capabilitieis ar not at issue,   
   > but the fact that the scinc officer made a mistake;   
   > something even Vulcans are capable of doing. a :-)   
   If the computer's capabilities are not at issue, why is the title of   
   this thread "amazing computers" and not "Spock makes mistakes?"  We   
   could have save a lot of time by going straight to this.   
   Spock's inquiry was definitely badly framed.  No well-programmed   
   database, even in our time, would return a "no matches" result from a   
   search whose parameters were so broad as to include ANY matching   
   item.  There's no way that the dossiers for any four people who all   
   lived under the same societal umbrella would have NOTHING in common.   
   The science officer should have known this and framed his original   
   question in a manner that would filter the response in some way.  We   
   can only presume from the fact that he didn't spend the entire   
   remainder of the episode sifting through data that he either realized   
   this and provided the computer with additional qualifiers offscreen,   
   or that the computer saved him the trouble by presenting the dossiers'   
   most recent commonality (Kirk's search) first.  The latter would   
   merely be smart programming today, but would have been pretty   
   "amazing" by 1960's standards.   
   GeneK   
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