Sunday, June 25, 2006

More Creepiness

You might already know this, but I didn't.

Q: What's the stock ticker symbol for Halliburton?

A: HAL

When you consider the modulated, yet menacing, voice of that computer run amok with the one emanating from that company's former CEO . . .

Thanks to The Nation's William Greider for pointing this out.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another book I haven't read, confesses the woman with 2 literature degrees. Sadly, however, I do remember the computer in "Lost in Space." You remember that program. The little sisters clamored for it when their older brothers were watching "Star Trek."

I can still hear the Lost in Space robot's voice. He used the first and last name when addressing people. As if everyone on the program was Charlie Brown

bjkeefe said...

The book is fine, but the movie is great. The best function of the book is to explain the movie (as Uncle Dan once pointed out to me), but it's worth watching the movie first. Kubrick's point, I have heard, was that encountering an alien lifeform would be tremendously confusing, and one shouldn't expect to be able to understand everything on the first pass.

The movie still stands up on the big screen, regarding special effects. There is a real majesty, especially to the opening scene, featuring the space station in orbit. I have never seen it on the small screen, but I imagine the drama of the increasingly erratic computer would hold up well.

The sequels: 2010, the movie, is pretty worthless. (It wasn't a Kubrick work.) But Arthur C. Clarke's books, 2010, 2061, and 3001, are all fun reads. As with most of Clarke's science fiction, they are optimistic about the near future, which can make one sad, given current events.

The original movie, to reiterate, is a must-see, however.

bjkeefe said...

Something else I didn't know until just now:

The web translation service, Babel Fish, gets its name from Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (no, I never got around to reading that one). In THGTTG, the universal translator is a "small, yellow and leech-like" fish that yo stick in your ear.

Thanks, Economist.

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