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A Movie From Before Movies Were Invented

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the break-out-the-huey-lewis dept.

Alien54 writes "Two astronomers at the Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton near San Jose have discovered a set of 147 plates taken of the transit of Venus in 1882. They've assembled them into a Quicktime movie! Think about it. This is a movie from before movies were invented. As a point of comparison, Edison didn't get his films going until the 1890s. This is just around the time when Muybridge was doing his work on the motion of horses and people."

12 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. Yeah, but by jabbadabbadoo · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm pretty sure there's plates of porn somewhere from the 17'th century. They're always the first ones to use new technology.

    1. Re:Yeah, but by NanoGator · · Score: 2, Funny

      "Now does anyone have an example of Neoholitic porn?"

      Here ya go!

      --
      "Derp de derp."
  2. prior art! by Neophytus · · Score: 4, Funny

    Looks like the USPTO need to look at any patents on quicktime again!

  3. Another blow for Edisons patent portfolio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yet more prior art discovered.

  4. Somewhere... by FrostedWheat · · Score: 5, Funny

    A sysadmin for Sky and Telescope just sat down for Easter dinner, and then his beeper goes ....

  5. Slashdotted by kantai · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sky&Tele: Hey, uh Mike
    SysAdmin: Ya?
    Sky&Tele: See, we have this little problem....
    SysAdmin: How bad could it possibl...well, damn.

  6. Better still.... by Kenja · · Score: 4, Funny

    Its a Quicktime clip made 109 years before Quicktime 1.0 was released! Or at least thats as true as it being a movie made prior to movies being invented.

    --

    "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
  7. Re:Cool! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Not quite prior art, but I remember doodling sequential drawings on the page edges of my textbooks... Does it count as parallel development?

    Depends on whether you were doing it in the 19th century.

  8. Re:Muybridge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    "by having multiple cameras expose in sequence"

    So like bullet time then? So the Matrix is sort of Muybridge Reloaded?

  9. /. ed soo.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    here it is..
    (scroll & blink rapidly..)

    ( ) sun/venus
    (. ) sun/venus
    ( . ) sun/venus
    ( . ) sun/venus
    ( . ) sun/venus
    ( . ) sun/venus
    ( .) sun/venus
    ( ) sun/venus

  10. Disney by PsiPsiStar · · Score: 3, Funny

    Can you find one of Mickey Mouse before he was invented? I really want to piss off Disney for extending the copyright to keep their damn rodent.

    --

    ___
    It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
  11. Re:i refuse to install quicktime. its malware by Game+Genie · · Score: 3, Funny

    And wmp isn't??
    -