Programming Windows Azure

Chapter 7. Storage Fundamentals

I’m a big fan of all things Star Trek. I was a big fan of TOS (“The Original Series,” for all you non-Trekkies), which was the original television series from the 1960s. My evenings were filled with the Prime Directive, about Klingons and Vulcans and Romulans and transporters and phasers and aliens in bad rubber costumes. The captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise, James T. Kirk, was a swashbuckling space cowboy who preferred to shoot phasers first and ask questions later. Several episodes ended in a fistfight with Kirk duking it out with some bad guy. It was also common for Kirk to jump into bed with a beautiful female alien in every episode; something I always thought would drive exobiologists in the twenty-fourth century crazy.

One fine day, I ran out of TOS episodes. The television channel advertised that it would be broadcasting a new show starting the following week: Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG from now on). I instantly hated it. Instead of the bold, aggressive Kirk, we had Picard (played by Patrick Stewart), who was much happier to negotiate than fire phasers. Thankfully, he never jumped into bed with any alien woman. Instead of a dynamic relationship with a Vulcan first officer and a cranky doctor, Picard had a bland android and a personality-deprived first officer. I was not happy…for a while. Over time, the show grew on me. Pretty soon, I loved TNG much more than I had ever loved TOS. I loved the characters and the twentieth century relevance ...