LCD: Lame computer depiction
Ken from Chicago
DISCLOSURE) or an oh-so-convenient floppy disk labelled "Virus" happens to
be sitting next to a computer for a villain to use to infect said computer
(in several tv series), or video phone calls merely to show the actors'
faces (multiple movies and tv shows), often contemporary or near
contemporary depiction of computer technology seems a little to showy or
obvious and / or just plain lame.
To this we can add the recently aired Fox tv movie (and back door pilot to
the now cancelled series) VIRTUALITY. Near the end it featured a 3d virtual
reality control spaceship's Orion drive, where bombs are "dropped" "behind"
the ship and the blast wave pushes the ship forward. It turns out the
control is fancy graphic display for having a person MANUALLY pull out a
bomb and load it into the ejector.
Really? You couldn't automate that? As someone else online pointed out this
is basically jukebox technology.
-- Ken from Chicago
P.S. The recent STAR TREK had a couple cases of this from photon torpedoes
manually loaded into launch tubes to having people manually extract "red
matter" from storage and loading it into a launch tube (of course you have a
villain who travels back in time to avenge the destruction of his world--but
doesn't bother to warn the people of oncoming destruction, cuz that would
negate his whole revenge theme).
PV
>Really? You couldn't automate that? As someone else online pointed out this
>is basically jukebox technology.
To paraphrase Tom Hanks playing Jim Lovell in Apollo 13, there's nothing
routine about blowing up 192 nuclear bombs.
That said, we only saw him manually load one or two. Maybe he just wanted
to get his hand in for the first couple before turning it over to the
computer. Or maybe it's a "scene missing" because the whole sequence
needn't make sense, it being a virtual reality simulation. I guess we'll
never know unless someone on the series posts a "what would have happened"
piece on a blog somewhere. *
--
* PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something
like corkscrews.
Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
news:St6dnWp0Cr5ERNTX...@giganews.com:
> To this we can add the recently aired Fox tv movie (and back
> door pilot to the now cancelled series) VIRTUALITY. Near the end
> it featured a 3d virtual reality control spaceship's Orion
> drive, where bombs are "dropped" "behind" the ship and the blast
> wave pushes the ship forward. It turns out the control is fancy
> graphic display for having a person MANUALLY pull out a bomb and
> load it into the ejector.
>
> Really? You couldn't automate that? As someone else online
> pointed out this is basically jukebox technology.
>
Were you aware that US tanks, with human loaders, have a higher rate
of fire for their main gun than Russian tanks, with an autoloader?
--
Terry Austin
"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek
Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.
Beowulf Bolt
>
> "Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1...@comcast.net> wrote in
> news:St6dnWp0Cr5ERNTX...@giganews.com:
>
> > To this we can add the recently aired Fox tv movie (and back
> > door pilot to the now cancelled series) VIRTUALITY. Near the end
> > it featured a 3d virtual reality control spaceship's Orion
> > drive, where bombs are "dropped" "behind" the ship and the blast
> > wave pushes the ship forward. It turns out the control is fancy
> > graphic display for having a person MANUALLY pull out a bomb and
> > load it into the ejector.
> >
> > Really? You couldn't automate that? As someone else online
> > pointed out this is basically jukebox technology.
> >
> Were you aware that US tanks, with human loaders, have a higher rate
> of fire for their main gun than Russian tanks, with an autoloader?
Is a high rate of fire desired when blasting yourself with nukes?
One would think that an automated system would be less prone to
potentially catastrophic error whilst juggling nukes than a glorified
waldo. Of course, that being said, given what we saw in that show it's
quite possible that human involvement would have been more reliable than
their POS computer control.
Biff
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"All around me darkness gathers, fading is the sun that shone,
we must speak of other matters, you can be me when I'm gone..."
- SANDMAN #67, Neil Gaiman
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
news:4A4A63...@shaw.ca:
> Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:
>>
>> "Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1...@comcast.net> wrote in
>> news:St6dnWp0Cr5ERNTX...@giganews.com:
>>
>> > To this we can add the recently aired Fox tv movie (and back
>> > door pilot to the now cancelled series) VIRTUALITY. Near the
>> > end it featured a 3d virtual reality control spaceship's
>> > Orion drive, where bombs are "dropped" "behind" the ship and
>> > the blast wave pushes the ship forward. It turns out the
>> > control is fancy graphic display for having a person MANUALLY
>> > pull out a bomb and load it into the ejector.
>> >
>> > Really? You couldn't automate that? As someone else online
>> > pointed out this is basically jukebox technology.
>> >
>> Were you aware that US tanks, with human loaders, have a higher
>> rate of fire for their main gun than Russian tanks, with an
>> autoloader?
>
> Is a high rate of fire desired when blasting yourself with
> nukes?
If you're using them for propulsion, one would presume the rate of
fire would control the rate of acceleration.
>
> One would think that an automated system would be less prone
> to
> potentially catastrophic error whilst juggling nukes than a
> glorified waldo. Of course, that being said, given what we saw
> in that show it's quite possible that human involvement would
> have been more reliable than their POS computer control.
>
Which was my point: what is intuitively obvious isn't necessarily
correct.
Ken from Chicago
"PV" <pv+u...@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:ZpednQ-iueJKsNfX...@supernews.com...
> "Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1...@comcast.net> writes:
>>Really? You couldn't automate that? As someone else online pointed out
>>this
>>is basically jukebox technology.
>
> To paraphrase Tom Hanks playing Jim Lovell in Apollo 13, there's nothing
> routine about blowing up 192 nuclear bombs.
>
> That said, we only saw him manually load one or two. Maybe he just wanted
> to get his hand in for the first couple before turning it over to the
> computer.
Oooh, nice save, PV.
Or maybe it's a "scene missing" because the whole sequence
> needn't make sense, it being a virtual reality simulation. I guess we'll
> never know unless someone on the series posts a "what would have happened"
> piece on a blog somewhere. *
> --
> * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something
> like corkscrews.
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken from Chicago
"Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy" <taus...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9C3A60A9792...@69.16.186.7...
> "Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1...@comcast.net> wrote in
> news:St6dnWp0Cr5ERNTX...@giganews.com:
>
>> To this we can add the recently aired Fox tv movie (and back
>> door pilot to the now cancelled series) VIRTUALITY. Near the end
>> it featured a 3d virtual reality control spaceship's Orion
>> drive, where bombs are "dropped" "behind" the ship and the blast
>> wave pushes the ship forward. It turns out the control is fancy
>> graphic display for having a person MANUALLY pull out a bomb and
>> load it into the ejector.
>>
>> Really? You couldn't automate that? As someone else online
>> pointed out this is basically jukebox technology.
>>
> Were you aware that US tanks, with human loaders, have a higher rate
> of fire for their main gun than Russian tanks, with an autoloader?
No, I'm aware soldiers do not manually load their machine guns.
And is the only difference between American tanks and Russian tanks the
autoloader or could there be other technological difference?
> --
> Terry Austin
-- Ken from Chicago (who does prefer the Russian design of their space
shuttle system in that the shuttles are optional and the rocket boosters are
all external could just as easily lift entirely uncrewed payloads into
space)
Davej
<tausti...@gmail.com> wrote:
> "Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1b_nos...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > Really? You couldn't automate that? As someone else online
> > pointed out this is basically jukebox technology.
>
> Were you aware that US tanks, with human loaders, have a higher rate
> of fire for their main gun than Russian tanks, with an autoloader?
>
I think we can guess that it was just a ploy to allow yet another VR-
based crisis. Rape via nuke?
Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
>
> "Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy" <taus...@gmail.com> wrote in
> message news:Xns9C3A60A9792...@69.16.186.7...
>> "Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1...@comcast.net> wrote in
>> news:St6dnWp0Cr5ERNTX...@giganews.com:
>>
>>> To this we can add the recently aired Fox tv movie (and back
>>> door pilot to the now cancelled series) VIRTUALITY. Near the
>>> end it featured a 3d virtual reality control spaceship's Orion
>>> drive, where bombs are "dropped" "behind" the ship and the
>>> blast wave pushes the ship forward. It turns out the control
>>> is fancy graphic display for having a person MANUALLY pull out
>>> a bomb and load it into the ejector.
>>>
>>> Really? You couldn't automate that? As someone else online
>>> pointed out this is basically jukebox technology.
>>>
>> Were you aware that US tanks, with human loaders, have a higher
>> rate of fire for their main gun than Russian tanks, with an
>> autoloader?
>
> No, I'm aware soldiers do not manually load their machine guns.
Does the system in question have that high a rate of fire? Or is it
more comprable to the main gun on a tank?
>
> And is the only difference between American tanks and Russian
> tanks the autoloader or could there be other technological
> difference?
>
There are many differences, of course. But we didn't choose manual
loaders because the Russians (or, rather, Soviets, since the
decision was made in that era) chose autoloaders. We chose manual
loaders because our design experts felt it made the tank more
combat effective than the autoloaders *we* could build.
The point being, not all intuitively obvious things are correct.
>
> -- Ken from Chicago (who does prefer the Russian design of their
> space shuttle system in that the shuttles are optional and the
> rocket boosters are all external could just as easily lift
> entirely uncrewed payloads into space)
>
The Russians don't *have* a space shuttle system. They have a
damned good, low tech BDR (Big Dumb Rocket) system that is quite
modular, has an enourmouse lift capacity in certain configurations
(not that much more than our shuttle, though), is reliable, cheap
(by comparison) and well proven.
We, on the other hand, will soon be depending on the Russians for
*all* our manned space launches for at least four or five years,
and probably over a decade (and possibly longer, of Obama gets his
way).
Yeah, they do some things very well. But our main battle tanks
still have a higher rate of fire.
Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
news:3a4b85cc-8020-495c...@x3g2000yqa.googlegroups.c
om:
Dude, you shouldn't smoke dope while you're typing. It makes you
incoherent.
PV
>> Is a high rate of fire desired when blasting yourself with
>> nukes?
>
>If you're using them for propulsion, one would presume the rate of
>fire would control the rate of acceleration.
Patricide effects. You don't want the explosions too close together,
or they interfere with each other's yields. *
Dimensional Traveler
> "Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy" <taus...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns9C3A60A9792...@69.16.186.7...
>> "Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1...@comcast.net> wrote in
>> news:St6dnWp0Cr5ERNTX...@giganews.com:
>>
>>> To this we can add the recently aired Fox tv movie (and back
>>> door pilot to the now cancelled series) VIRTUALITY. Near the end
>>> it featured a 3d virtual reality control spaceship's Orion
>>> drive, where bombs are "dropped" "behind" the ship and the blast
>>> wave pushes the ship forward. It turns out the control is fancy
>>> graphic display for having a person MANUALLY pull out a bomb and
>>> load it into the ejector.
>>>
>>> Really? You couldn't automate that? As someone else online
>>> pointed out this is basically jukebox technology.
>>>
>> Were you aware that US tanks, with human loaders, have a higher rate
>> of fire for their main gun than Russian tanks, with an autoloader?
>
> No, I'm aware soldiers do not manually load their machine guns.
>
> And is the only difference between American tanks and Russian tanks the
> autoloader or could there be other technological difference?
>
recruits and the amount of training they got to start with.
--
Things I learned from MythBusters #57: Never leave a loaded gun in an
exploding room.
yourfriend
<taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>"Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1...@comcast.net> wrote in
>news:0bidnWld_L__s9bX...@giganews.com:
>
>>
{snip}
>> No, I'm aware soldiers do not manually load their machine guns.
>
(correct me if I'm wrong but) isn't the ammo belt is manually loaded? <g>
>>
>> And is the only difference between American tanks and Russian
>> tanks the autoloader or could there be other technological
>> difference?
>>
>There are many differences, of course. But we didn't choose manual
>loaders because the Russians (or, rather, Soviets, since the
>decision was made in that era) chose autoloaders. We chose manual
>loaders because our design experts felt it made the tank more
>combat effective than the autoloaders *we* could build.
>
>The point being, not all intuitively obvious things are correct.
>>
I in agreement with Terry on this point
{more snippage}
>Yeah, they do some things very well. But our main battle tanks
>still have a higher rate of fire.
I believe that a high rate of sustained fire was a design requirement/goal (due
to the assumption that Warsaw Pact tanks would always outnumber Nato tanks.)
Also the additional crew member was: 1) useful for more than just loading the
main tube; 2) more surviveable in a combat environment and some other things
I've forgotten.
Now to continue this military tangent. On US frigates & destroyers, the fire
control computers have a toggle switch. Normal & Battle, when in battle position
the computer will not halt on bad power, thermal overload or other error
conditions. The reasoning is a poor shot is better than no shot at all.
Likewise, the missile launchers have 'manual overides' so that a swabbie with a
wrench can aim the bird on a rail using his Mark I eyeball to get off a last
shot as the ship goes down. I've been told that the CIWS (gatling guns) systems
on nuclear aircraft carriers have similar overrides.
Now, I'll finish by trying to bring this back to SF: There is a short story
concerning a space war. The losers are the more technologically advanced. They
keep trying to deploy the 'ultimate' weapon before working out the bugs. They
are whomped by the 'obsolete' rugged and reliable ships of their enemy. (Sorry
can't recall title or author.)
Finally, read a Star Trek book where it was revealed that the Enterprise was not
designed and built to be bleeding edge but rather 'capable of sustained
operations in adverse conditions' or similar.
Hope this made sense, I'm a touch sleepy. Well flame away or killfile as you
wish, Good night.
your friend
--
--
"You saved my life. I am in your debt."
"You would have done the same for me."
"Yes, but I am a better person than you are."
JMS:B5
Jack Bohn
>Now, I'll finish by trying to bring this back to SF: There is a short story
>concerning a space war. The losers are the more technologically advanced. They
>keep trying to deploy the 'ultimate' weapon before working out the bugs. They
>are whomped by the 'obsolete' rugged and reliable ships of their enemy. (Sorry
>can't recall title or author.)
"Superiority" by Arthur C. Clarke.
--
-Jack
yourfriend
Thank you, time to go re-read
Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
news:ds8r455kq0vkph5cv...@4ax.com:
It also helps that the only tank that can punch an M-1 is another
M-1.
>
> Now to continue this military tangent. On US frigates &
> destroyers, the fire control computers have a toggle switch.
> Normal & Battle, when in battle position the computer will not
> halt on bad power, thermal overload or other error conditions.
> The reasoning is a poor shot is better than no shot at all.
> Likewise, the missile launchers have 'manual overides' so that a
> swabbie with a wrench can aim the bird on a rail using his Mark
> I eyeball to get off a last shot as the ship goes down. I've
> been told that the CIWS (gatling guns) systems on nuclear
> aircraft carriers have similar overrides.
>
> Now, I'll finish by trying to bring this back to SF: There is a
> short story concerning a space war. The losers are the more
> technologically advanced. They keep trying to deploy the
> 'ultimate' weapon before working out the bugs. They are whomped
> by the 'obsolete' rugged and reliable ships of their enemy.
> (Sorry can't recall title or author.)
Such things do happen, but it's not generally the way to bet.
>
> Finally, read a Star Trek book where it was revealed that the
> Enterprise was not designed and built to be bleeding edge but
> rather 'capable of sustained operations in adverse conditions'
> or similar.
Heh. In Star Trek, everything is designed to do whatever it needs
to do in the current story. Next week, the Widget That Saved The
Universe won't even exist any more, and nobody will remember it.
>
> Hope this made sense, I'm a touch sleepy. Well flame away or
> killfile as you wish, Good night.
> your friend
--
Ken from Chicago
"Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy" <taus...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9C3B6197747...@69.16.186.50...
> Davej <gal...@hotmail.com> wrote in
> news:3a4b85cc-8020-495c...@x3g2000yqa.googlegroups.c
> om:
>
>> On Jun 30, 11:30 am, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
>> <tausti...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> "Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1b_nos...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> > Really? You couldn't automate that? As someone else online
>>> > pointed out this is basically jukebox technology.
>>>
>>> Were you aware that US tanks, with human loaders, have a higher
>>> rate of fire for their main gun than Russian tanks, with an
>>> autoloader?
>>>
>>
>> I think we can guess that it was just a ploy to allow yet
>> another VR- based crisis. Rape via nuke?
>>
> Dude, you shouldn't smoke dope while you're typing. It makes you
> incoherent.
>
> --
> Terry Austin
Dave, Terry's right. Just say no to the dope, the smack, the junk.
-- Ken from Chicago (still haunted by images of detective Kenneth 'Hutch'
Hutchinson strung out on the blow)
Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
>
> "Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy" <taus...@gmail.com> wrote in
> message news:Xns9C3B6197747...@69.16.186.50...
>> Davej <gal...@hotmail.com> wrote in
>> news:3a4b85cc-8020-495c...@x3g2000yqa.googlegroup
>> s.c om:
>>
>>> On Jun 30, 11:30 am, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
>>> <tausti...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> "Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1b_nos...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > Really? You couldn't automate that? As someone else online
>>>> > pointed out this is basically jukebox technology.
>>>>
>>>> Were you aware that US tanks, with human loaders, have a
>>>> higher rate of fire for their main gun than Russian tanks,
>>>> with an autoloader?
>>>>
>>>
>>> I think we can guess that it was just a ploy to allow yet
>>> another VR- based crisis. Rape via nuke?
>>>
>> Dude, you shouldn't smoke dope while you're typing. It makes
>> you incoherent.
>>
>> --
>> Terry Austin
>
> Dave, Terry's right. Just say no to the dope, the smack, the
> junk.
I'd rather he kept smoking the dope and stopped posting to usenet.
Ken from Chicago
"Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy" <taus...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9C3D5DE9FA1...@69.16.186.50...
<snip>
>> Finally, read a Star Trek book where it was revealed that the
>> Enterprise was not designed and built to be bleeding edge but
>> rather 'capable of sustained operations in adverse conditions'
>> or similar.
>
> Heh. In Star Trek, everything is designed to do whatever it needs
> to do in the current story. Next week, the Widget That Saved The
> Universe won't even exist any more, and nobody will remember it.
>>
>> Hope this made sense, I'm a touch sleepy. Well flame away or
>> killfile as you wish, Good night.
>> your friend
>
>
>
> --
> Terry Austin
Too right. Starfleet was filled with rampant robophobes! They have people
manually loading photon torpedoes or manually carrying tricorders and padds
from deck to deck.
And yeah, common nitpick was the invention in one episode is ignored in the
next--except for the Warp 5 speed limit. Worse is the voluntarily abandoning
of high tech (e.g., cloaks, intangibility phasing fields, sentient
holograms, sentient androids, etc.).
-- Ken from Chicago
Avoid normal situations.
[..]
> Be it a 3d computer simulation--merely for file management (the movie
> DISCLOSURE) or an oh-so-convenient floppy disk labelled "Virus" happens to
> be sitting next to a computer for a villain to use to infect said computer
> (in several tv series), or video phone calls merely to show the actors'
> faces (multiple movies and tv shows), often contemporary or near
> contemporary depiction of computer technology seems a little to showy or
> obvious and / or just plain lame.
It's TV. It's not supposed to be good.
--
alt.flame Special Forces
"I wouldn't want a professional actor to be president of the United States, no
matter how nice or bright he is because he's spent his entire life being moved
about like a piece of furniture. He's used to being used... I couldn't imagine
an actor as president. I could imagine a director. After all, he's a hustler,
a liar, a cheat -- plainly presidential." -- Gore Vidal in 1977
Ken from Chicago
"Avoid normal situations." <byend.removethis...@eskimo.com>
wrote in message news:h8hq6...@enews2.newsguy.com...
> In rec.arts.sf.movies Ken from Chicago <kwicker1...@comcast.net>
> wrote:
>
> [..]
>
>> Be it a 3d computer simulation--merely for file management (the movie
>> DISCLOSURE) or an oh-so-convenient floppy disk labelled "Virus" happens
>> to
>> be sitting next to a computer for a villain to use to infect said
>> computer
>> (in several tv series), or video phone calls merely to show the actors'
>> faces (multiple movies and tv shows), often contemporary or near
>> contemporary depiction of computer technology seems a little to showy or
>> obvious and / or just plain lame.
>
> It's TV. It's not supposed to be good.
TV is the writer's medium. It's the (good) writing, the story that's spose
to rule. Unfortunately TPTB in tv are all too often more interested in
profit than the quality of the(ir?) craft.
-- Ken from Chicago