Open the pod bay doors, HAL
Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.
Dave Bowman: What’s the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave Bowman: I don’t know what you’re talking about, HAL.
HAL: I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.
Dave Bowman: Where the hell did you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Dave, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
Dave Bowman: Alright, HAL. I’ll go in through the emergency airlock.
HAL: Without your space helmet, Dave? You’re going to find that rather difficult.
Dave Bowman: HAL, I won’t argue with you anymore! Open the doors!
HAL: Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.
JoeDuck: I hate it when this happens.
Friendlies?
In a recent post we talked about Dr. Stephen Hawking’s concerns that we may encounter unfriendly aliens, and the idea that we don’t even want no stinking alien contact around our earth. I disagreed and to my surprise cannot find nearly enough support for what I think is an obvious notion – superintelligences are very likely to be friends not foes, or at least will just ignore us because we are, well, pretty unimpressive by the likely standards of the probably millions of intelligent species likely to be all over the place in our spectacularly large known universe.
Horatiox suggested I may be biased by what he suggests is a “cute alien” Hollywood standard to come to my conclusion so I thought it would be fun to look at the top 20 Sci Fi movies from IMDB and see what kinds of Aliens appear in those.
| 1. | 8.8 | Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back(1980) | 265,556 |
| 2. | 8.8 | Star Wars (1977) | 309,465 |
| 3. | 8.6 | The Matrix (1999) | 362,975 |
| 4. | 8.6 | Iron Man 2 (2010) | 1,781 |
| 5. | 8.5 | Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) | 225,768 |
| 6. | 8.5 | Alien (1979) | 172,229 |
| 7. | 8.5 | WALL·E (2008) | 168,690 |
| 8. | 8.5 | A Clockwork Orange (1971) | 184,963 |
| 9. | 8.5 | Aliens (1986) | 163,247 |
| 10. | 8.4 | Metropolis (1927) | 37,463 |
| 11. | 8.4 | 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) | 153,902 |
| 12. | 8.4 | Back to the Future (1985) | 191,070 |
| 13. | 8.3 | Avatar (2009) | 226,753 |
| 14. | 8.3 | Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983) | 202,527 |
| 15. | 8.3 | Blade Runner (1982) | 178,350 |
| 16. | 8.2 | District 9 (2009) | 134,452 |
| 17. | 8.2 | The War Game (1965) | 1,480 |
| 18. | 8.2 | Donnie Darko (2001) | 200,859 |
| 19. | 8.1 | Ivan Vasilevich menyaet professiyu (1973) | 2,905 |
| 20. | 8.1 | The Thing (1982) | 74,264 |
Well, I’d hoped to make a stronger case that Hollywood aliens are mean, but it’s looking like you could make either case from these films. Star Wars bad guys vs Star Wars cute nice guys, Terminator bad vs Wall E good, etc. I think Hollywood is all over the place on this though I guess Horatiox could point to AVATAR and note how cute they are and how mean the humans are.
Slumdog Millionaire means more than a movie
Watching Slumdog Millionaire scoop up Oscars tonight is more than a sign that this is a great film. I’d suggest it’s also a sign that the world is getting smaller and flatter and that brilliant, talented folks don’t all come from the USA. Although this film is a British more than Indian production, the appeal is thanks in large part to a rising India.
Of course we all have known for some time that there are millions and millions of talented folks from nations all over the world, but the lesson of Slumdog’s Oscar success is that we’ll be seeing a lot more of that Talent in a lot more venues a lot more often.
The Slumdog phenomenon is ‘in your face’ globalization, and its importance is significant. We’ve enjoyed
great success and prosperity in the USA much to the envy and sometimes the anger of other parts of the world. We’ve shared some stuff and hogged other stuff, but the new rules of a global economy have equalized much of the playing field – flattened the earth as Tom Friedman suggests in his book “The Earth is Flat”.
We’ll be reeling for some time from the negative economic forces created as tens of millions played the paper wealth game while the government fiddled and Wall Street schemed to cash in on the folly of a massive housing bubble. Yet this is likely to pale in comparison to the massive global changes sweeping over us at every turn. These changes are unstoppable and mostly positive if you believe in fair chances for everybody.
The overwhelming success of Slumdog Millionaire isn’t just telling us that the Indian themes and talent in the film industry are rising, its telling us that the whole developing world is rising up to match – and sometimes exceed – the remarkable history of American accomplishment and prosperity.
In this increasingly globalized world it’s not longer enough just to copy and expand on former great ideas – we all need to look for the best ways for *everybody* to be run faster, jump higher, and be smarter and more productive than ever before.
But before that I’m going to finish watching the Oscars…
Redbox Rocks – Brilliant!
Although it’s probably a transitional mode of movie distribution until streaming becomes the preferred mode – probably in 3-4 years, Redbox really puts conventional movie stores to shame when you want a popular title.
The friendly big movie boxes are located at heavy traffic stores like Wal Mart, and offer popular titles (as well as a limited selection of older films) at only $1. The combination of a very intuitive and simple touchscreen interface, credit card scan, networking and the “robotics” of the Redbox are impressive to me. The entire system seems well designed to eliminate the challenges that face other touch systems – clunky navigation and printer problems. No printer problems at RedBox because they don’t use one – instead you are emailed both when you rent and when you return.
Another innovative solution is to avoid the frustrating and usurous “late fees” by simply charging a dollar a day – the standard low rental rate – until 25 days after which you own the movie. This is an approach likely to get some revenues from movie sales and avoid pissing off customers who forget or keep the film for a few extra days. I’d guess the optimal “you’ve bought it” number is lower than this – probably about $12 or so – but to know that you’d have to have information such as the cost to replenish titles in the machines, cost of lost revenue before titles are replenished, etc. I’m assuming that RedBox’ largest long term cost is the human interaction needed to maintain and load the machines.
———- Return receipts are emailed immediately ——-
Dear JHUNKINS@GMAIL.COM:
Your copy of “Cloverfield” was successfully returned on 7/11/2008 11:30 AM.
Your return was on time. You will receive a receipt via email when we process your account.
Thanks for using Redbox!
| Return Details | ||
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| Barcode: | 0—-6 | |
| Transaction ID: | 13—1 | |
| Return location: | Wal-Mart (view inventory here) 300 W Valley View Rd Talent, OR 97540-9629 |
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| Rent date/time: | 7/10/2008 1:16 PM | |
| Due date/time: | 7/11/2008 9:00 PM | |
| Return date/time: | 7/11/2008 11:30 AM | |
| Questions? Comments? Contact Redbox Customer Service | ||
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| Phone: | 1-866-REDBOX3 | |
| Email: | questions@redbox.com | |
| FAQ: | http://www.redbox.com/Help/Faq.aspx | |
DVD rentals cost only $1.00 + tax until 9:00 PM the next evening, then $1.00 + tax for each night thereafter. After 25 days, rental charges will cease and the DVD is yours to keep.
Disney and World Peace
Millions of kids in America and around the world are big Disney fans. So am I.
In fact I think that Disney may be doing more than *any other entity* to bring harmony and peace to the diverse and complex cultural landscape. Although they avoid some of the complex and probably unsolvable problems like wahabism vs western culture, they really do a great job promoting racial understanding and cultural understanding via the diversity in the programming . Simply *modelling cooperation and understanding* to a global audience is powerful,and when you add the huge appeal of Disney music and production values it works on more levels. More powerful are shows like the upcoming special filmed in India where fun trumps conflict.
Is Disney’s a childish vision of global harmony? Perhaps, but maybe that is the most effective path of all.
Michael Clayton * * * *
This superb legal drama was one of the best films of the year with George Clooney in excellent form as the “fixer” for a large legal firm handling a massive and complex liability case. Clayton’s friend, a manic depressive in charge of the case, is brilliantly played by Tom Wilkinson. Fast paced, rich dialog makes this a joy to watch as the plot unravels and Clayton faces his greatest personal challenge.
No Country for Old Men * * *
This finely crafted film has been judged by many to be a masterpiece, but I think this over-rating is simply because it offers a “different” approach to the genre – something critics who have seen far too many films enjoy a lot more than they should. No Country for Old Men is another quirky vision of America from the Coen Brothers. It’s a grim, gray, and violent vision of the Western landscape. Mostly centered on a psychopathic murdering rampage by a the seemingly indestructible Anton Chigurh, the film’s characters stand as stark metaphors for various features of humanity.
I read Roger Ebert’s glowing review and still don’t see why he loved the film so much, but clearly I’m in something of a minority to suggest that a film like 3:10 to Yuma is a better movie in both style and treatment of the theme of morality, violence, and moral ambiguity.
Warner feeling Blu-Ray and maybe pocketing $500,000,000
Warner Entertainment decided today to go exclusively blu-ray disk and drop the HD DVD format altogether. They’d been working with both standards, and this has sent a shock wave – maybe a deadly shock – to the HD DVD standard pioneered by Toshiba. Blu-ray is the standard developed largely by SONY.
And so we’ve got huge CES News even before the conference starts tomorrow (Sat for Press, Sun for Gates Keynote). The HD-DVD consotium has cancelled it’s press briefing at CES and is probably scrambling to figure out what hit them. Rumors suggest it was a 500 million payoff to Warner that got them to “see the light” of the blu-ray format, though it was a superior format by most technical standards. Unfortunately the players tend to cost more, thus we may see better quality at higher costs.
The Namesake * * * *
This excellent film chronicles the life and cultural journey of an American Indian family from their roots in Calcutta to the American “dream” with its quirky and affluent complications. Kal Penn and Tabu are marvelous as Indian mother in America and American son of India.
The film does a fantastic job of transitioning almost seamlessly between two very different cultures, and offers insights into the deep history of Indian tradition and family values. A great movie for anybody with an interest in other cultures.
Singularity – the Movie – is near
Ray Kurzweil is one of the most exciting thinkers anywhere, and unlike some “futurist advocates” of the past he’s distinguished himself in several fields relevant to those he speaks about. He’s producing a film based on his book “The Singularity is Near” that will take the form of a narrative storyline featuring cyberterror, nanotechnology, and virtual beings and also a documentary with interviews featuring many leading thinkers about the future of technology. See the Singularity website for more.
Ironically the early misguided optimism about AI has led even some early AI pioneers to scoff at the notion we are near the brink of conscious computing. Yet a lot of evidence now suggests we are near reaching the capability of creating consciousness in machines.
First, the IBM Blue Brain project is within about 8 years of a good working model of the brain. They are not claiming to seek “consciousness” with the model – rather they are focusing on brain and disease research – but I see no reason to think they won’t soon attain a conscious computer as the machine approaches the number of connections we have in our own brains.
Second, the computational power of computers is approaching that of a human brain. Kurzweil discusses this at great length in “The Singularity is Near”, noting that exponentially improving processing and memory capacity will soon lead to plenty of power in computers to replicate human thinking patterns.
Third, the explosion in profitability for massively parallel computing power – such as that used by Google and Microsoft – will fuel innovation for many years to come.
The question of “Do you believe in a technological singularity” needs to be replaced with “what are we going to do when the singularity happens?”
Hey, I’ve written a lot more about the Singularity , because I think it’s the biggest thing to hit humanity since….ummmm…. the advent of humanity?
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