Something has been bugging me about my Yahoo email. Somehow I got selected to go into some kind of social network and the durn thing wouldn't let me go till I sort of completed a certain process and got to a certain point. I immediately turned everything off that would reach out to everybody else, not being part of the up and coming generation that wants everybody to know every detail of everything that should be private with all this Facebook, Twitter, etc. [I probably just showed how out of touch I am by not naming what the current craze is].
A little background: Science Fiction has had a constant theme that computers were going to take over the world one day, and I just realized recently just how far back it goes. There is a really corny movie from the 50's that has a robot named Robby the Robot, and in this movie [studying the plots I am guessing it is 1957's The Invisible Boy] a Supercomputer [that controls Robby] is so powerful that it achieves "self realization", becomes evil, and has to be destroyed or somesuch. I was astonished to see that plot, it surely showed that Science Fiction writers went into deep distrust of computers right from the get-go. This theme certainly was repeated as late as the "Terminator" movies, where the Defense Department computers become very powerful and finally also get to the point of "self realization" and become evil. And also in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, which had a computer with too much ambition as well. This brings me back around to Yahoo email.
In the movie 2001, Hal the computer is getting snipped to death by Dave, and keeps asking "what are you doing, Dave?" in a very memorable manner. This can be imitated and the name of someone else substituted. When you do this, seems to me it always has an eerie affect for anyone who has seen the movie.
So, Yahoo email? Well it turns out that my new homepage cannot be avoided. I usually like to bookmark the inbox and skip all the baloney, but when I try this now, it doesnt really work right. Definitely "Hal" doesn't like that. So I have to constantly go to the home page. And what do I see? Check it out above, "what are you doing right now?" it constantly asks. This is really starting to give me the creeps!
All I can say is, should you see my blog go dark for too long a period, you better check on me. After publishing this post, I am going to be checking my email with a pair of snips ready to go, I'll tell you that!
6 comments:
Who can answer this trivia question? Various hints exist but I have not found any that exactly reveal the real reason "a bicycle build for 2" is the song chosen by the movie for Hal to sing when nearly all his memory is removed.
I'll be picky about the answer to this question: a different song than "a bicycle build for 2" would have less meaning for what reason?
as a man who has a blog, and posts his thoughts on the internet, don't consider yourself too technologically conservative.
Yahoo as a business is in trouble, so it's trying everything it can think of to stay in the game. and that means forcing/harassing its users into using as many of their services as possible. i've seen the yahoo mail stuff, its very annoying. you get what you pay for. (google isn't as bad with that sort of stuff IMO).
Ok, my memory on this is pretty bad, but I believe Daisy was the first song that a computer actually vocalized. So, when Dave is pulling out HAL's memory cartridges (or whatever), HAL deteriorates to the first thing he ever "knew".
If you think about it, it could be symbolic of what happens to the human conscious as we age, although that could be stretching.
Also, supposedly HAL is named because it is one letter off IBM. Don't know if that's true either.
Re: your yahoo account -- that's yahoo's way of trying to keep up with Facebook/Myspace, both of which have a status thing at the top that say something like "What are you doing?" or "What's on your mind?" This would be an appropriate place to post something like "Carl is thinking that it's not anybody's damn business what he's thinking."
Louise, you nailed it. Bruce Higgins, for some weird reason, actually had a recording of that computer singing that song. I guess it was considered quite an accomplishment for the time.
>that's yahoo's way of trying
>to keep up with Facebook/Myspace
No, I'm convinced "Hal" is behind this!! [g]
Yes -- Louise is correct - the artists used a Moog Synthesizer to make a computer-like voice singing Bicycle Built for Two. Bruce made one from a Heath Kit and won the HS Science Fair. He did well every year in this event. One year he made a Tesla Coil from a Heath Kit that easily stole the show. You could see it "radiating" electricity from across the gym and everyone was gathered around it.
Linda and I have been amused with the robots that have subliminally become part of our lives. There is the robotic vacuum cleaner, Wall-e, and the talking GPS, Eva. The voice on Eva is particularly spooky when she seems to get upset at a wrong turn.
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and another thing....
The search engine "spying" is interesting. I was using Yahoo to look for dentists down here in Florida. The next day when I logged onto Yahoo mail there were lots of ads for dentists in FL and in Oldsmar FL, where I live.
One was for Dr. Phil and Dr. Jill, a husband-wife cosmetic dentistry team. They had a number of pictures of them in their formal wear, etc. They claimed that they could "brighten your smile".
One difference I have noted between FL and Falls Church relates to "the people". Folks are much more superficial and materialistic in Oldsmar than in Falls Church. I always felt that DC must be the nerd capital of the word - so we fit in better up there. (We also realize that when we visit Ohio and Roanoke.) For example, Linda is dismayed at the lack of interest in recycling in Oldsmar. I am amused with how preoccupied everyone seems with how they look. Hence, lots of cosmetic dentists and lipo suction clinics. Not that I am complaining- neighbors are friendly and helpful. It is just different.
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