Highway To Mars

Mass Effect explores almost every portion of the singularity and has provides all manner of answers to how it will work.  The best part is you can try out multiple answers to the same problem.  In this 2 part episode we look specifically at the singularity elements of Mass Effect and even though we don’t get to Liara, Garrus and many of the characters we still couldn’t get it down to a single episode.

Mass Effect explores almost every portion of the singularity and has provides all manner of answers to how it will work.  The best part is you can try out multiple answers to the same problem.  In this 2 part episode we look specifically at the singularity elements of Mass Effect and even though we don’t get to Liara, Garrus and many of the characters we still couldn’t get it down to a single episode.

The Hitchhikers Guide TV series follows a similar storyline to the Vinyl edition, swapping out the Hagunemnon for an epic sun dive during a rock concert.  With it’s 80’s British TV charms there is a lot to like about the TV Series.  It fleshes out the world building of the radio play while remaining pretty much faithful to the story.  Many of the actors from the radio play return and I think this is the best version of Ford Prefect with much more snarkiness.  As a discussion point is the hitchhikers guide responsible for the “reboot” world we see these days with stories recycled endlessly to the frustration of fans (Ghostbusters anyone?).

It’s the sort of thing Douglas would claim credit for where he still alive of course because he really was terribly clever.

My favourite independent piece during the run of The Martians are Here.  This is First Contact as I suspect it will be.

This is the story of Pinocchio set in the modern world.  Unlike Pinocchio, David is in fact conceivable as a creation and as such the question is not “Can I ever be a real boy” but when will the world work out there isn’t that much of a difference.  In a world where our teens are constantly challenging and changing the definition of identity, the idea that a machine wanting to be human actually seems quaint and modest.  We don’t want to be human it seems… Why would anyone else?  This is a movie that raises more questions than it answers but that is what good science fiction should do.  In the end it’s not up to science fiction to provide the answers, mearly the reason for the real world to start working on it before it becomes real.

David, you are welcome at our house any time.

When you think militaristic robots gone awol, Terminator comes to mind.  The unstoppable machine hell bent on destroying the Connor family are the poster children for the Singularity gone wrong.  Skynet has it in for humanity, in particular it’s future leader and will do anything including screwing with the timeline to remove him.

The one thing I have always questioned about the terminator is why?  Why is it you can send back a terminator to kill him before he’s born and not two weeks earlier when they know where he was and how a battle played out has always stumped me.

That aside the unstoppable machine is scary and it’s easy to see why this sort of movie makes us nervous about The Singularity.

It’s the reason Asimov created the three laws of robotics.

I am a long way from convinced this will be how it plays out but a Quarian/Geth style war is definitely on the cards.

Machines deciding humans need to die right from the start, unlikely.  Humans deciding AI needs to die more likely.  That the two go to war over a developed conflict over resources or cultural resources or rights…  Much more likely again.

It’s not that robots will decide to kill we should be scared of.  It’s that they will not take our bullshit and fight back that we should be really scared of.  If we give them a reason to fight back, there is a real chance we would loose.

That is why we feel the need to shackle an AI.  We don’t trust each other, why would we trust something we can’t control and is likely smarter than us?

The dark crystal is one of those movies which you either love or hate.  Personally I loved it, it’s imaginative, crazy and has some great central characters.  It also demonstrates the power of strong female characters.

Kira embodies a great many capabilities all of them positive.  She is decisive, resourceful, compassionate, protective and self sacrificing.  She is better than most of us through deed.  Unlike Jen she isn’t useless.  Of course, that is what makes Jen endearing, he has to find the strength to complete his quest.   Still, you have to feel that the quest would have been done and dusted if Kira was the one that was handed the Crystal.

This story is the hero’ s journey and the heroines journey all wrapped up in one.  It’s easy to think of the reforming of the crystal as simply being about saving the world.  What get’s missed is that we are whole when we come together, not just the lighter and darker parts of our souls but as men and women.

Number 5 is alive!  We are back in the eighties where Robots were innocent, well except when checking out software and men were naive.  Well not much has changed really.  This movie is a lot of fun and proves you can present scientific concepts in a kind of friendly way that makes it more accessible.

Yes, it’s the eighties but I still believe that there is a big place for movies that educate without the sledgehammer.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, aka the day Douglas Adams discovered cut and paste.

This book is actually something of a technical challenge given portions were hand written and cut and paste was actually somewhat new technology at least at the desktop.  The book however addresses a number of the weaknesses of the second radio play, ditching the overdone shoe economy in favour of a more economical book and the result is definitely easier to read even if it’s not got a lot of additional material.

While this book is still not as accessible as the original it’s a lot of fun.

Plus you get the bonus of the stage play and game.

It seems a little odd to me that the two films that have really caught my attention this year are a french black and white film and a silent film.  In both cases it’s the story telling, without the distraction of effects or modern demands to fit in more and more content the film maker can just focus on telling the story.

Metropolis is considered a classic and that reputation is well deserved.  Even to a modern viewer this story is relatable and the story telling easy to follow without dialogue.  Having said that it’s not so easy as to be childs play, some of the imagery particularly Freder’s visions take some decoding and a liberal understanding of christian mythology.

It seems appropriate that the first Robot has very human origins and motivations.  It is also appropriate that the morality of the creation, a robot to fulfil very human desires are being debated today.

Even if the industrialisation of man has passed the nature of man and his relationship with machines is at the very beginning.