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Domain: underview.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to underview.com.

Comments · 11

  1. Yet another stupid, gratuitous 2001 reference by Chas · · Score: 1 · on NASA Appointed Team Set Out Priorities For a Europa Surface Mission

    http://www.underview.com/funbits.html

  2. Re:why not just post-process? by hummer · · Score: 3, Informative · on Homemade Digital Cameras

    The similarities with slit-scan photography immediately stood out to me as well.

    For anyone that's interested, there's a reasonably good page describing the technique here and pages about it's application in the stargate sequence of 2001 here and here.

    It's possible to fake the technique in Adobe aftereffects with the time displacement filter too.

  3. 2001 space odyssey monolith by morcheeba · · Score: 2, Interesting · on Behind The Development Of The iPod nano

    That article mentions the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey... good comparison. If you scaled it, it's pretty close:

    nano dimensions: 3.5 x 1.6 x 0.27
    monolith ratio: 9 x 4 x 1
    scaled 0.4x: 3.6 x 1.6 x 0.4

    So, it's a slightly (3%) taller and 2/3rds the thickness of a monolith.

  4. The need for a "self" symbol by Etcetera · · Score: 2, Interesting · on A Diagnosis of Self-Healing Systems

    HAL: I've just picked up a fault in the AE35 unit. It's going to go 100% failure in 72 hours.

    This is really something that, IMHO, calls for more interaction between the best of the futurists, science-fiction writers, and coders, and other complexity thinkers.

    In order for any system to have an understanding of and proper diagnosis of its own operation, it needs to be able to conceptualize its relationship to other systems around it. Am I important? What functions do I provide? What level of error is proper to report to my administrator? Do I have a history of hardware problems? Has chip 2341 on motherboard 12 been acting up intermittently? If so, is it getting worse or better? How have I been doing over the last few days? Is there a new virus going around that is similar to something I've had before?

    What good is a self-diagnosing system without a memory of its prior actions?

    All of these questions imply some sort of context that will require the system to use symbols to represent "things" in the "world" around it. Clearly, the largest (though perhaps not qualitatively different) symbol will be a "self" symbol.

    From there, all you have to do is follow Hofstadter's path and you'll arrive at a system with emergent self-awareness or consciousness.

    The end result of this will be something a) very complex and b) designed/grown by itself. You'll have either the computer from the U.S.S. Enterprise or H.A.L.

    Side question: What is CYC doing these days?
  5. get a stylish watch for a real ooh aah factor by quiddity · · Score: 1 · on Looking for High-Tech Watches?

    your tastes might veer more towards hamilton, otherwise try a halter barnes Time Machine. or maybe even something rare and cool like the vulcain jump hour. failing that, try searching for skeleton watches.

  6. Why Not Start With The Orion? by codefool · · Score: 1 · on NASA's New Space Wheels

    The Orion.

  7. Re:There Something Wrong With This picture! by gorilla · · Score: 2 · on NASA Researching Antimatter Engines

    It reminds me very much of Discovery 1. It would be interesting to know if the designers were thinking of this, or if it's simply a case of the same reasoning forcing the same design.

  8. Re:HAL is IBM by runestar · · Score: 2 · on Marvin Minsky: It's 2001. Where is HAL?

    No no no, according th the Author Clarke that was not the case. As is demonstrated here:
    http://www.underview.com/2001/faqs/faqs.html#faqg

    "HAL". Something like Highly Advanced Lifeform, right?
    Well, almost. The answer is given in black and white in Arthur C. Clarke's book of "2001: A Space Odyssey", Chapter 16, which is titled (ahem) "HAL" (note that in this case the book gives a specific answer to a specific question, whereas in situations that are more open to individual interpretation I do not necessarily take solutions out of the book).

    Clarke writes:

    "Hal (for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer, no less) was a masterwork of the third computer breakthrough."

    Note that, strictly speaking, HAL is not an acronym in the sense of being formed from the initial letters of separate words. In the film we only see it as "HAL 9000", but it is noticeable that in the book Arthur C. Clarke himself consistently refers to "Hal", not "HAL". So, therefore, do I.

  9. 15 second attention span by c8to · · Score: 2 · on Is Technology Making Kids More Intelligent?

    what happened in my case is that the internet gave me a fifteen second attention span. i mean at least tv made me sit there now i cant even focus on tv for that long. because here im only a single click away from another interesting distracting bit of information, halfway through an article.

  10. Re:Anagram for "rank poole"? by ASeed · · Score: 3 · on Kubrick's 2001: A Triple Allegory

    Google solves it again... giving us this link: MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT 2001

    There, you can find this text:

    The space voyage begins, and Dave Bowman - Zarathustra - becomes the central figure. Dave's colleague, Frank Poole, symbolizes the rope dancer (tightrope walker), a character in an important parable in Zarathustra. One clue to Poole's allegorical identity is that the last nine of the ten letters of [F]rank Poole are an anagrammatical rearrangement of the last nine of the ten letters of "[W]alk on rope"; another clue is that Frank, like the rope dancer, is killed by an entity symbolizing God who sneaks up behind him; a third clue is that Zarathustra (Bowman) picks up the rope dancer's (Poole's) body and later disposes of it. Next, Zarathustra and God clash, and Zarathustra kills God (Bowman shuts down Hal's brain). The words "Beyond the Infinite" flash on to the screen. You undoubtedly gave those words a spatial meaning, but Kubrick gives them a temporal meaning. "Beyond" means after, and "the infinite" is one of theologian Paul Tillich's names for God. "Beyond the infinite" means "after God " - after the death of God (Hal).


    --
    ACid

  11. For all the skinny on HAL and 2001... by SydBarrett · · Score: 2 · on Happy Birthday, HAL!
    Check out:

    Underman's 2001

    The section on how some of the special effects were done is great. Did anyone ever notice that during the Turn The Pod Around HAL scene that HAL lies? Even though he can read lips, he refuses to turn the pod around when the comm link is shut off, making the crew think that he can't hear them.

    In the same regards, the AE Unit failure can be seen as a trust exercise by HAL to see wiether or not the crew really trusts HAL's data, and in turn be trusted to complete the mission.