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Computers and Doctor Who
Esther Schindler writes "We all know that the arts reflect the technology of their times. So let's look at The Doctor ('the definite article,' as Tom Baker said in December 1974) and his use of computers. Actually, for a show so closely associated with the Slashdot-techie lifestyle, Doctor Who didn't have much to do with computers early on. This article by Peter Salus traces the formative years: 'In January 1970, Jon Pertwee (Doctor #3) acquired a Cambridge scientist (Caroline John as Liz Shaw) as his companion, which might lead the unsuspecting viewer to think that a firmer computer science basis might ensue. But only in April did Liz exhibit her technical knowledge (by recognizing a Geiger counter reading).' And then we get to K-9....."
I know people think of Doctor Who as SF, but it's really a fantasy series. The SF elements are only a mechanism for allowing the fantasy.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
For nerds? Definitely. /Tom Baker was my first Doctor.
Stuff that matters? Unquestionably.
News? Not so much
More music, fewer hits
This read like a middle school student's book report. WTF was the point of cataloging the interactions of a tv series and a piece of technology? I thought maybe they would point out how the changes in technology affected the show, but that only got a final paragraph that seems unfinished.
In other news, Two and a half Men's coverage of stem cell research is, frankly, appalling. Had they know that in 2032 stem cells would cure alcoholism, they could have made heavier use of the subject. amirite?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJeu3LCo-6A
Obviously not canon, but these commercials are mentioned quite a lot.
the computers are always there but to Doctors are like the oodles of controllers we have in cars, microwave ovens and elevators. too ubiquitous to even merit notice or much thought.
yes kiddies, for our controllers I'm using the old definition of digital computer was device having processor, memory, input, output
was that in programming the TARDIS in some Who iteration (I'm not a Whovian so know zilch about which) he typed coordinants on a 1940s typewriter. Who knew the TARDIS was an analogue device?
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
Creates a semi-sentient (tiny bit alive) virus that takes over the global information infrastructure to display zeros on every kind of display and system in existence... written on a smartphone. In less than a minute.
Dammit, he's a Doctor, not an Engineer!
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
almost two years ago: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/07/dr_who_verity_stob/
The point of Doctor Who in the time that I've seen it (eighties through current) is adventure with cleverness driving the story. Every thing in the story that serves to drive it is a MacGuffin, and computers and other tools fit into that category.
Even the TARDIS itself is generally a MacGuffin. Despite people's attempts to render what the TARDIS looks like in its pocket universe within the time stream, we really don't know what it looks like or how it truly functions. Things get made up as they're needed for the story, and over-explaining may hamper storytelling in the future.
Terry Pratchett's choice to not make detailed maps of the Discworld is for the same reason, he doesn't want to tie himself down with factoids that will later hamper future story telling.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The fourth Doctor and his companion, Romana, did advertising my former employer, Prime Computer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJeu3LCo-6A
I learnt to program on an Prime 750. My Polytechnic bought it in 1982 to replace their old Univac.
Everything he does is by the seat of his pants. To do seat of the pants things you need to grasp handles that are connected to levers which control valves and apertures that gloop glop into gloping chambers. Every button is a Frankenstein switch that tosses a relay accross the room, and for every relay there is an Override Lever.
You need steam driven technology to propel your contrivances, with beefy pistons, moving fluids and rotating coils. You need planetary gears and axles and rocket assisted rotation (NOTE: replace rockets after each use). You need self destruct device timers with real gears so you can save yourself with a piece of chewing gum.
If you have a computer companion on board you cannot stoop so low as to conduit everything, make yourself into a helpless git by relying on digital to analog circuits to (hopefully) permit you to ask the computer to fly what is actually YOUR own goddamned ship.
Your computer must consist of a hybrid electro-mechanical system that is mobile and pot-bellied, that loco-motes where it is needed and drives multiple robotic arms (with Mickey Mouse gloves) to grasp aforesaid mechanical controls just as you would. In case of a virus or malfunction you can then just kick the stupid thing out of the way and take control of your own destiny, rather than whimper and die like some horrid little clam trapped inside a malfunctioning shell.
Every control system on your ship must be able to operate with a kick, or be disabled by kicking harder.
There must be lots of blinking lights, but they must be operated by relays and stepper contacts.
And if your computer plays chess, it is because there is an actual dwarf hidden in the console.
Dr. Who did not spend his time debugging arcane API incompatibilities after version control branches incorrectly and legacy memory-mapped data type formats change after a compiler and library upgrade, forcing some off-by-one read of noble structs to ignoble garbage that makes pointers overflow and underflow, careening wantonly through memory structures like spiders on LSD. All of this causing nothing to happen in the real world, it just sits there inoperative.
Dr. Who has no need for do-lotsa-think-first Object Oriented threaded systems either, he is impulsive, violently productive and has visited three Universes in the time it takes you to decide on whether to capitalize or encapsulate or do whatever the hell you do, or not.
And he does it all with levers and dials.
And girls. He does it with girls.
Case closed.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
That was really the weakest point of that story and really completely unnecessary. Considering that Doctor Who established that a Weeping Angel is a -stone statue- that can't move at all if anybody is looking at it, it makes no sense at all. First, the Statue of Liberty is not stone, and second, is there actually any point in time where -nobody- at all is looking at it?
RETURN without GOSUB in line 1050
Is the man. I think that's what this thread is about anyway, and I agree wholeheartedly even if it isn't! What? yes!
The "Slashdot lifestyle". ROTFL and pissing my pants. Slash'er,,, wacker,,, slacker..
Ya gotta love Slashdot... a lecture on the unreality of one trivial but effective plot detail in a clearly admitted pseudo-SF fantasy series involving immortal time travelers and neverending existential threats to (fictional) life throughout the (fictional) multidimensional multiverse.
I find your selective lack of suspension of disbelief amusing.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
It's comments like that that keep Slashdot worthwhile. Total crap story with perhaps the best comment I've ever read. Someone post this to the front page. It' far better than TFA.