The fact that I remember this is clearly a sign of way too many hours on this site.
--
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
'real' VR devices existed before the holodeck
by
mah!
·
· Score: 4, Informative
From the article: when Star Trek's "holodeck" appeared, it bore no resemblance to anything tangible. These days it is known as the precursor of augmented/virtual reality applications such as virtual surgery or holographic simulation training programs
hmm...
In fact, although the holodeck-likeCAVE was introduced in 1992 - 5 years after ST:NG's debut, VR systems had been around a few years already.
Re:Stuff from SF we should have.
by
Animats
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Moller has been trying to build a flying car since 1967, and he's been hyping it as "real soon now" since 1974. His web site makes it sound like it's about to work. But notice that there are no dates on the items. Check archive.org and you'll see that he's been putting out the same hype for the last five years.
Another thing that should be working by now, and isn't, is turbines for small aircraft. Light aircraft are still putt-putting around on reciprocating engines, decades after the big iron switched over.
That's because Star Trek: First Contact was playing on UPN tonight. You know there's no geeks on/. when an ST movie is on.
-- I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
History of virtual reality
by
jeti
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I remember reports on VR experiments with headtracking from 1968. Sadly, I haven't yet found a good site on the history of VR. But this one claims that the idea already existed back in the 1950s.
Re:Get your SciFi right
by
miu
·
· Score: 3, Informative
1984--a distopia illuminating a potential future where communism has conquered the world
Not quite. It was a warning that communism's enemies in
the west (the democracies) could easily make themselves
into what they fought.
The spectre of 'Big Brother' is slightly ridiculous now,
thanks in some part to the warning that '1984' gave
us.
--
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
More info - Ivan Sutherland
by
jeti
·
· Score: 2, Informative
It was Ivan Sutherland that built HMDs as early as 1966. Here's a biography and here's a link with one more image of a HMD.
Re:Get your SciFi right
by
dazed-n-confused
·
· Score: 4, Informative
1984 is about totalitarianism in general, not communism in particular.
(And it's a dystopia, not a distopia).
"Don't worry about Big Brother" because it'd be embarrassingly inefficient? I don't want to be subjected to embarrassingly inefficient state voyeurism, either. So I still do worry.
Re:Get your SciFi right
by
The+Only+Druid
·
· Score: 3, Informative
There's a serious difference here, that you're clearly missing.
In 1984, there is no means by which Big Brother and the Party are actually able to know what you're thinking besides subtle clues. Granted, they keep you under nearly complete surveillence, but they're still guessing based on educated analysis of your behavior. The disturbing part is not supposed to be the observation, but instead the ability of the Party to essentially arbitrarily determine that you were a Thought Criminal. Because of this, all behaviors that might even seem innapropriate needed to be avoided, thus crippling human society.
Minority Report, on the other hand (both in the short story, and the movie), includes the accurate ability to scientifically predict significant aspects of the future. In the short story, three retarded precogs perpetually mumble and gurble snippets of truth about the future, with computers analyzing their output then proceeding to produce cards which tell the police who is going to commit a particular crime. In the movie, the precogs are not retarded, and have their direct premonitions of the future projected/recorded into an audio-visual format for outside viewers. In both cases, the police know, factually, that until they interfere that the perpetrator will [so long as all three precogs agree] commit that crime. The story, thus, is about whether or not there really is destiny, and whether or not you can change it regardless of whether you know its coming. The "big brother"-like aspects, wherein people are "ret-scanned" when walking along the street, etc. are not intended as being oppressive. In fact, it doesn't seem that they're even government administered since their effects are primarily commercial. We see the police access the tracking information, but its entirely possible that they required a warrant (which the evidence from the precogs would provide) to access that otherwise secure private system, along the lines of a phone tap. As mentioned earlier, the protagonist completely circumvents the system at several points: it is not big brother. As to your false claim that the story is a warning of tyrranical governments, you've clearly never read the story and seem never to have seen the movie. The story ends with perfect correspondence between the predictions and events, despite attempts by several people to distort the future based on knowing its course. The message is that destiny is completely written (which parallels many of Dick's other short stories involving precognition and time travel), and includes precisely zero attempt to portray it as "wrong" to arrest people for precognitive crimes. The movie also confirms the precog abilities by and large, but claims that there are sometimes "minority reports" wherein the precogs disagree. However, as also stated, the female of the trio is always correct, so the point is meaningless; it just states that the males are imperfect precogs. It includes zero instances of the government doing anything that oppresses rights or corruptly extends beyond the legal limits of the precog system. The only possible case of this is the corrupt and criminal head of precrime, who is removed when this is discovered. Moreover, his own system discovered him! You just seem to want the story to be about your perspective...
-- "Stumble before you crawl"
Re:it's not like this is really news...
by
Idarubicin
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Even if they did accurately predict some gizmos, they were incredibly funny with completely false expectations on how people will use them. Take computers and networking - as far as I know, nobody - NOBODY! - guessed that the network will be used to distribute pr0n. What were they thinking? It was so easy to guess.
Actually, I would guess that any new communications technology will be quickly adapted for pornography. It started with the Gutenberg press and movable type, things have continued that way to this day. One of the first authors to use the press was Pietro Aretino, who in 1534 published the first editions of his Ragionamenti--dialogues about "brothel affairs". Ahem. See also Lynn Hunt's The Invention of Pornography, 1500-1800.
New technology will--if at all possible--be first used for pornography and sex, followed by gambling, then crime. Hint: it is always possible. There will then be media condemnations, cynically moralizing editorials, government overreaction attempting to regulate the technology, and finally public adoption.
-- ~Idarubicin
Re:it's not like this is really news...
by
Frequency+Domain
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Virtual Reality -- I think possibly Clifford Simak had the first written version of something like a Holodeck.
I think Clarke gets credit for this one too. The book "The City and the Stars" opens with Alvin & friends playing a total immersion VR adventure game. They're even doing so using distributed networking, since Alvin doesn't even know where some of his friends live. TC&TS was published in 1953.
Slashdot Mirror
Short one, but not short enough to take the 1st prize.
The Build Your Own Bar Stool Racer story had a shorter topic.
The fact that I remember this is clearly a sign of way too many hours on this site.
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
when Star Trek's "holodeck" appeared, it bore no resemblance to anything tangible. These days it is known as the precursor of augmented/virtual reality applications such as virtual surgery or holographic simulation training programs
hmm...
In fact, although the holodeck-like CAVE was introduced in 1992 - 5 years after ST:NG's debut, VR systems had been around a few years already.
For example, Lanier's VPL had the first commercial interface gloves (1984). head mounted displays (1987), and networked virtual world system (1989).
You can buy a 100Kg ultralight helicopter. That's real.
Another thing that should be working by now, and isn't, is turbines for small aircraft. Light aircraft are still putt-putting around on reciprocating engines, decades after the big iron switched over.
Quite possibly.
/. when an ST movie is on.
That's because Star Trek: First Contact was playing on UPN tonight. You know there's no geeks on
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
I remember reports on VR experiments with headtracking from 1968.
Sadly, I haven't yet found a good site on the history of VR.
But this one claims that the idea already existed back in the 1950s.
Not quite. It was a warning that communism's enemies in the west (the democracies) could easily make themselves into what they fought.
The spectre of 'Big Brother' is slightly ridiculous now, thanks in some part to the warning that '1984' gave us.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
It was Ivan Sutherland that built HMDs as early as 1966.
Here's a biography and here's a link
with one more image of a HMD.
1984 is about totalitarianism in general, not communism in particular.
(And it's a dystopia, not a distopia).
"Don't worry about Big Brother" because it'd be embarrassingly inefficient? I don't want to be subjected to embarrassingly inefficient state voyeurism, either. So I still do worry.
There's a serious difference here, that you're clearly missing.
In 1984, there is no means by which Big Brother and the Party are actually able to know what you're thinking besides subtle clues. Granted, they keep you under nearly complete surveillence, but they're still guessing based on educated analysis of your behavior. The disturbing part is not supposed to be the observation, but instead the ability of the Party to essentially arbitrarily determine that you were a Thought Criminal. Because of this, all behaviors that might even seem innapropriate needed to be avoided, thus crippling human society.
Minority Report, on the other hand (both in the short story, and the movie), includes the accurate ability to scientifically predict significant aspects of the future. In the short story, three retarded precogs perpetually mumble and gurble snippets of truth about the future, with computers analyzing their output then proceeding to produce cards which tell the police who is going to commit a particular crime. In the movie, the precogs are not retarded, and have their direct premonitions of the future projected/recorded into an audio-visual format for outside viewers. In both cases, the police know, factually, that until they interfere that the perpetrator will [so long as all three precogs agree] commit that crime. The story, thus, is about whether or not there really is destiny, and whether or not you can change it regardless of whether you know its coming. The "big brother"-like aspects, wherein people are "ret-scanned" when walking along the street, etc. are not intended as being oppressive. In fact, it doesn't seem that they're even government administered since their effects are primarily commercial. We see the police access the tracking information, but its entirely possible that they required a warrant (which the evidence from the precogs would provide) to access that otherwise secure private system, along the lines of a phone tap. As mentioned earlier, the protagonist completely circumvents the system at several points: it is not big brother. As to your false claim that the story is a warning of tyrranical governments, you've clearly never read the story and seem never to have seen the movie. The story ends with perfect correspondence between the predictions and events, despite attempts by several people to distort the future based on knowing its course. The message is that destiny is completely written (which parallels many of Dick's other short stories involving precognition and time travel), and includes precisely zero attempt to portray it as "wrong" to arrest people for precognitive crimes. The movie also confirms the precog abilities by and large, but claims that there are sometimes "minority reports" wherein the precogs disagree. However, as also stated, the female of the trio is always correct, so the point is meaningless; it just states that the males are imperfect precogs. It includes zero instances of the government doing anything that oppresses rights or corruptly extends beyond the legal limits of the precog system. The only possible case of this is the corrupt and criminal head of precrime, who is removed when this is discovered. Moreover, his own system discovered him! You just seem to want the story to be about your perspective...
"Stumble before you crawl"
Actually, I would guess that any new communications technology will be quickly adapted for pornography. It started with the Gutenberg press and movable type, things have continued that way to this day. One of the first authors to use the press was Pietro Aretino, who in 1534 published the first editions of his Ragionamenti--dialogues about "brothel affairs". Ahem. See also Lynn Hunt's The Invention of Pornography, 1500-1800.
New technology will--if at all possible--be first used for pornography and sex, followed by gambling, then crime. Hint: it is always possible. There will then be media condemnations, cynically moralizing editorials, government overreaction attempting to regulate the technology, and finally public adoption.
~Idarubicin
I think Clarke gets credit for this one too. The book "The City and the Stars" opens with Alvin & friends playing a total immersion VR adventure game. They're even doing so using distributed networking, since Alvin doesn't even know where some of his friends live. TC&TS was published in 1953.