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Topic: Stupidity unleashed (Read 4933 times) previous topic - next topic
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Stupidity unleashed

This may sound like a f*cked up question. But where, or what, do you think computers will be like in the next 10-15 years?

I have visions of one day walking in the house and HAL 9036447 asking me how my day went:

HAL: How was your day Mike?

ME: Shitty.

HAL: Do you want anything special?

ME: Get the mixer cookin' and whoop up a gin & tonic.

HAL: Anything else?

ME: Fire up foobar 6754339 and give me list of all songs that end with "t".

HAL: You want 6,000,000 songs in playlist?

ME: Just do it dammit.

I told you this was f*cked up (I'm getting there).

Really though. Does anyone here see computers as being more than a simple machine that you have to actually touch to get a response from? Do you think there will be more to come? I'd like to believe that someday HAL will have my shower at just the right temp when I get home from work. And the gin & tonic shaken, not stirred...

edit: spelling

Stupidity unleashed

Reply #1
IMO, the pace of progress has shown that predictions like that are just flat-out impossible.  10-15 years "computer time" might as well be 100-150 years "human time."

Some general trends can be extrapolated... have you seen the movie "Minority Report?"  They used a think-tank of scientists for that one, which apparently met for more than 3 days to consider what things would be like about 50 years in the future.  My guess is that they're way off, however (and the movie will look laughably quaint 50 years from now).

Stupidity unleashed

Reply #2
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Some general trends can be extrapolated... have you seen the movie "Minority Report?"

Yes. It was one of the worst I've seen in years. The only one in recent memory that beats it for 'bad movie of the year' is: A.I. (Artificial Intelligence)

Proof that humans are drawn to a name more than substance. READ: Director Spielberg.

Stupidity unleashed

Reply #3
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Some general trends can be extrapolated... have you seen the movie "Minority Report?"

Yes. It was one of the worst I've seen in years. The only one in recent memory that beats it for 'bad movie of the year' is: A.I. (Artificial Intelligence)

Proof that humans are drawn to a name more than substance. READ: Director Spielberg.

I liked it rather better than A.I.  Granted, it has the "marks" of Steven Spielberg all over it, which IMO isn't often a good thing these days... but I found it entertaining (actually, A.I. was too, altho a bit long). 

As long as nobody's pretending those movies are classic science fiction (or anything more than pleasant diversions) all is well, especially comparing them against some other terrible recent releases.  Just my 2c anyway...

P.S... I thought "Matrix Reloaded" stunk (but loved the original)... probably nothing varies more than opinions on movies.  For me, a lot depends on the mood I'm in when I see it.

Stupidity unleashed

Reply #4
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As long as nobody's pretending these movies are classic science fiction

heh. My classics might include:

The Time Machine

Star Wars [all]  (Like it or not, these are about the best you can get)

Journey To The Center Of The Earth

1,000,000 Years B.C. (who can argue the best looking gal in a skin bikini is Raquel Welsh?)

Most Dr. Who. Silly as they are, modern masterpieces.

There are more, but I'll leave it that for now.

Stupidity unleashed

Reply #5
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As long as nobody's pretending these movies are classic science fiction

heh. My classics might include:

The Time Machine

Star Wars [all]  (Like it or not, these are about the best you can get)

(snip)

All the Star Wars movies?  Sheesh, I'll see anything by Spielberg compared to any of the crap put out by George Lucas in the past 5 years.  Pfew!

(edit -- edited for negativity and Episode 1/2 bashing )

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Reply #6
I don't see why I would stand up and have to wave my arms several meters left or right in order to move a window on the screen, like in minority Report, while I ca do the same now while sitting and mouving my hand several centimeters 

 

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Reply #7
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The only one in recent memory that beats it for 'bad movie of the year' is: A.I. (Artificial Intelligence)


Funny...A.I. was one of my favorite movies of that year. I saw it three times in the theater, then bought the DVD and have since watched it three more.

But, now that we're off topic on silly sci-fi movies, I watched Soylent Green last night, which I've always kind of enjoyed. Since I was sitting at the computer, I decided to read up on it and found out some interesting things I never knew. It turns out that in the book that the movie is based on (Make Room, Make Room by Harry Harrison), soylent stands for soy beans/lentils, which makes the whole point of the movie ("Soylent Green is people") sort of ridiculous.

Rob

Stupidity unleashed

Reply #8
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It turns out that in the book that the movie is based on (Make Room, Make Room by Harry Harrison), soylent stands for soy beans/lentils, which makes the whole point of the movie ("Soylent Green is people") sort of ridiculous.

Not so ridiculous, when you realize that in Make Room, Make Room Soylent Green really is people, but no one is aware of its origin at first!

  Minority Report was based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, who's probably the most-filmed science-fiction writer of all time.

  ... and I still haven't seen PinnA.I.chio.

    - M.

Stupidity unleashed

Reply #9
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Yes. It was one of the worst I've seen in years.

You don't go to the movies a lot do you?

Stupidity unleashed

Reply #10
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I don't see why I would stand up and have to wave my arms several meters left or right in order to move a window on the screen, like in minority Report, while I ca do the same now while sitting and mouving my hand several centimeters 

It prevents you from growing a fat ass faster.

Stupidity unleashed

Reply #11
This was a newspaper cartoon, but it may work in plain text as well (it's from 1993 or 1996):

Visions of the future

1960: Robots do all the work for us
1993: Working days and nights to understand new computer programs

1960: Spending a day off on the moon
1993: Drive 8 hours to Disneyland to find out they're bankrupt

1960: One injection a year protects you from all diseases
1993: One wrong one and you're dead

1960: With bioengineering, no more famine!
1993: With bioengineering, no more appetite!

Stupidity unleashed

Reply #12
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Not so ridiculous, when you realize that in Make Room, Make Room Soylent Green really is people, but no one is aware of its origin at first!


Really? I haven't read the book, but I was reading about the movie on the author's website and his comments gave the impression that the whole cannabilism theme was not in the book, but was concocted by the filmmakers because it was more controversial and sensational than the mundane theme of overpopulation that the book was really about.

Rob

Stupidity unleashed

Reply #13
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Really? I haven't read the book, but I was reading about the movie on the author's website and his comments gave the impression that the whole cannabilism theme was not in the book, but was concocted by the filmmakers because it was more controversial and sensational than the mundane theme of overpopulation that the book was really about.

Well, it's been close to twenty years since I read it myself... and I've seen the film in the interval. I'll have to dig it out of the archives sometime soon and re-read it, and if I'm mistaken I'll crawl back here and admit it. 

    - M.

Stupidity unleashed

Reply #14
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I don't see why I would stand up and have to wave my arms several meters left or right in order to move a window on the screen, like in minority Report, while I ca do the same now while sitting and mouving my hand several centimeters 

It prevents you from growing a fat ass faster.

ROTFL!    (sorry....  )

From here, it was a typical 'film device', like the overblown PC screen displays in even the most recent films.  Apparently, it just doesn't look good on screen to see a static, unmoving chunk of text mode or SVGA graphics -- especially when a filmmaker is going for a "futuristic" look.

It doesn't seem worth it to be too critical of Hollywood these days... very little 'art' and very much 'big business' now, there's just too much big money in it to risk any genuine creativity.

Stupidity unleashed

Reply #15
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It prevents you from growing a fat ass faster.

If only it could happen. I'm as thin as a nail.

Stupidity unleashed

Reply #16
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Yes. It was one of the worst I've seen in years.

You don't go to the movies a lot do you?

No. I do however rent/buy DVD's several times a month. On occasion I also do the PPV thing through my cable provider.

In the case of A.I., I would have gotten up and walked from the theater. My sense of what makes a classic is maybe skewed, and much of this has to do with my preferences of entertainment.

I really have a problem with Hollywood trying to insert their views and make a moral statement about our lives and how we should be. If you want an example of this see, 'Tears Of The Sun' with Bruce Willis. And check out the line, 'For all our sins'. Um, what? Our sins?

A.I. does this as well by implying that everything we humans do/make is disposable. And that our only saving grace will be the machines we create to look after our sloppy selves.

<smirk> Is this a little to deep? </smirk>

Stupidity unleashed

Reply #17
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Some general trends can be extrapolated... have you seen the movie "Minority Report?"

Yes. It was one of the worst I've seen in years.

Weird. I loved it.

Stupidity unleashed

Reply #18
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I really have a problem with Hollywood trying to insert their views and make a moral statement about our lives and how we should be. If you want an example of this see, 'Tears Of The Sun' with Bruce Willis. And check out the line, 'For all our sins'. Um, what? Our sins?

I haven't seen "Tears of The Sun", so I can't comment on that, but what I am constantly disgusted by is their glorification of war.  Well I suppose what's glorious to them is sitting on their fat asses getting fater while Joe Average Guy gets his head blown off in some third world shithole, thinking that he is fighting for freedom, when he is actually fighting for the pocket books of theose fat ass rich people back in the US.  F*** Hollywood and F*** the mainstream media.  Oh and just in case any of you out there think that there has been "good wars" read something by Howard Zinn ("A People's History of The United States" is a good choice, whether you are from the US or not).
gentoo ~amd64 + layman | ncmpcpp/mpd | wavpack + vorbis + lame

Stupidity unleashed

Reply #19
Quote
This may sound like a f*cked up question. But where, or what, do you think computers will be like in the next 10-15 years?

2013:
* Microsoft Virus Writter 2013 Home Edition
* Microsoft Virus Writter 2013 Professional Edition
* Microsoft Virus Writter 2013 Kid's Edition, free for educational purposes.

2027:
* Microsoft Internet Exploiter v24 SP666 (Service Pack 666)
includes Open All Ports v69.

2039:
* January 1, 2039: Apple buys Microsoft.
* January 10, 2039: Apple announces the new company name as MicroAppleSauceSoft and a major shocker; all security updates and patches now must be purchased on a per download basis.
* January 25, 2039: MicroAppleSauceSoft personal computer systems now afflicted by strange random crashing and virus attacks.

2041:
* All those SETI hours utilizing personal computers finally pays off, we have contact Houston.

2042:
* AOL quickly puts plans together and becomes an intergallatic ISP serving many different alien races with their main server located on Uranus. However NetZero still has a lower price by utilizing Hi-Speed worm hole technology blatantly lifted from Star Trek re-runs.

2045:
* September 9, 2045: Sony PlayStation 16 unveiled, priced lightly at $3.5 million dollars. Has a somewhat slow running 2.5 million Ghz Quantum processor, and lackluster memory at only 2 billion GB. Includes game Gran Turismo 24 and an extra hypno-brainstem jack controller.

2046:
* January 3, 2046: MicroAppleSauceSoft releases X-PIE (formerly X-BOX) to directly compete with the Sony PS16, prices are reasonable at $3 million.
* December 1, 2046: Late to the game Nintendo releases GameTube, it is seemingly using a processor and memory of alien design. Includes Mario In Space, and the much anticipated Legend Of Pluto.

Stupidity unleashed

Reply #20
@Andavari

Can't wait for GT24!

(great post btw)

Stupidity unleashed

Reply #21
but what of Sega? Still whoring themselves out to other hardware companies?

Stupidity unleashed

Reply #22
Quote
From here, it was a typical 'film device', like the overblown PC screen displays in even the most recent films.  Apparently, it just doesn't look good on screen to see a static, unmoving chunk of text mode or SVGA graphics -- especially when a filmmaker is going for a "futuristic" look.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010111

The whole MovieOS arc lasts about two weeks.