Aucbvax.1410 fa.sf-lovers utzoo!duke!mhtsa!ucbvax!JPM@MIT-AI Mon May 25 07:46:53 1981 SF-LOVERS Digest V3 #131 SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 25 May 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 131 Today's Topics: SF Books - Cyber SF, SF Movies - Outland, SF TV - Star Wars & Dr. Who, Humor - Star Trek parody, SF Topics - Children's TV (Rocky and Bullwinkle and Roger Ramjet) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 May 1981 1630-PDT From: OR.TOVEY at SU-SCORE Subject: magical robots Golems: There are a number of Jewish folklore stories about golems. In one of them, the golem is activated when the rabbi puts the unwriteable name of god in his mouth. This reminds me of a marvelous anthology of Jewish Science Fiction called "Wandering Stars". (Ballantine, I think). It has some very funny stories, including "On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi." I recommend it highly. Robert E. Howard's Conan encounters at least one magically animated statue in his sword and sorcery adventures. Is hjjh interested in examples from this type of book? If so I'll look up the story. Also, I can get a fairly large list of magically animated creatures in the Oz books if there is a demand for it. There is a book called Stoneflight by McHargue about a girl who gets rides around the city on a magical stone griffon. --cat ------------------------------ Date: 24 May 1981 1540-EDT From: MORAVEC at CMU-20C Subject: robot animals There was a full size working (forget whether it was blue or sperm) whale model built for the overlord museum in Arthur Clarke's Childhood's End. The person who was to become the last man on earth stowed away in it. Nowadays the Disney parks are full of similar animal robots ... ------------------------------ Date: 23 May 1981 1342-EDT From: Kamesh Ramakrishna at CMU-10A Subject: Re: SF-LOVERS Digest V3 #128 Re: sexism and other anachronisms in future histories I haven't seen "Outland", but it appears to me that the movie is bad enough from a possible histories viewpoint, that discussing the movies sexism is probably pointless. But comparisons with the artistic content of "1984" are invidious -- we (the readers of 1984) can visualize how a totalitarian society can evolve from our current society; we cannot do this for the "Wild West" society of Outland -- the two tales are simply not in the same class. Kamesh ------------------------------ Date: 23 May 1981 06:08:46-PDT From: decvax!duke!unc!bch at Berkeley Subject: Future Sexism Why is it reasonable to assume that the current trend towards sexual equality will continue into the future, particularly in areas of new colonization? Using that kind of logic, we would have said in 1968 that society was on a march towards pacifism and greater responsibility towards the poor and disadvantaged. With hindsight, I believe we can say that has not come to be nor is it even coming to be. [ENTER EX-SOCIOLOGIST MODE] Social movements do not persist just because people want them to persist, but because economic and demographic factors at play allow for their continuation. True, today's notions of equality of the sexes are in part a function of "raised consciousness," but they are also a function of technology freeing people from labor-intensive activities around the home to pursue education and economic advantage. In an economically and socially primitive situation such as a mining colony, the opportunities for economic gain are fairly limited. Given a small female/male ratio, little wonder that the laws of supply and demand bring sexual access formally into the economic system. Further, remoteness from Earth civilization seems to have caused a legal and moral breakdown requiring a one-man judge, jury and executioner. Simply put, the thesis of "Outland" is that a future mining colony will most closely resemble a 19th century American frontier town in all of its important economic and demographic aspects. It is a thoroughly tenable but unpleasant idea that its social aspects will also be similar. [EXIT EX-SOCIOLOGIST MODE] If you don't like the idea, say so; but don't say that its flat-out wrong. You don't know that and neither do I. That's why we read sf. pedantically, Byron Howes ------------------------------ Date: 22 May 1981 1735-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: Star Wars on TV ''Star Wars'' fans - or any movie buffs who missed this special the first time around - will be able to catch ''SPFX: The Empire Strikes Back'' (CBS at 8) again Monday night, narrated by ''Empire'' star Mark Hamill. With excerpts from ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind,'' ''2001: A Space Oddysey,'' ''Empire'' and other sci-fi-fantasy films, producers Robert Guenette and Richard Schickel show how things are made to ''fly.'' Segments of this special will deal with pyrotechnics (like during the snow battle in ''Empire'') and uses of special effects by youngsters whose ages range from 7 to 17 ... Jim ------------------------------ Date: 22 May 1981 0409-PDT From: Admin.Kanef at SU-SCORE (Bob Kanefsky) Subject: Star Trek parodies ====================================================================== Scene: from "Mirror, Mirror". Kirk, Scott, McCoy, and Uhura have accidentally been transported to an alternative universe and have been using the Enterprise computer to figure out how to get back. ====================================================================== [Spock's alter ego (who sports a full bushy beard) is sitting at a computer console. On the wall is the insignia of the United Co-op of Planets.] Computer [in the voice of HAL-9000]: Ready. Spock: Explain recent excessive use of computer time by Kirk. Computer: I'm afraid I can't do that, Spock: Captain or Science Officer capability required. Spock: Enable. Computer: I'm afraid I can't do that, Spock: Access denied by Access Control Frob. [Spock calmly leaves the room, walks to an elevator, and tells it "Computer Center". The display on the wall shows the elevator moving toward the edge of the bottom of the Enterprise's disk-shaped primary hull. Cut to Spock entering a large circular corridor containing rows of computer consoles and some Romper Room artifacts. A sign on the wall reads Six for the student code, never trusted.] Computer [in the voice of Mr. Rogers]: Hello, user! I'm a computer. Can you say "computer"? Sure, sure ya can! Now sit down at one of those consoles. To get started, lift UP on the bar. Be careful not to touch anything else. Hey, where're going? No, don't go through that gate! That's for grownups! [Spock enters a corridor closer to the center through a wrought-iron gate. A sign on the wall reads Five for utilities borrowed or busted.] Spock: Computer. Computer [in its regular voice]: Voice interrupt received. Creating process 537. Initializing. No inconsistencies found. Scheduling process 537. Entering prompt routine. Syllable "WORK" buffered. Syllable "ING" buffered. End of utterance. Calling intonation routine. Passing buffer to voice sythesizer... [Spock enters another corridor, still closer to the center, through another gate. A sign on the wall reads Four for the user code, when it works right.] Spock: Computer. Computer: Working. Spock: Explain recent excessive use of computer time by Kirk. Computer [with a German accent]: Ah, he wants to know about recent excessive use of computer time by Kirk. Spock: That is correct. Captain James T. Kirk. Computer: Tell me more about your crew. Spock: I'm asking you a question. Computer: How long have you been asking me a question? [Spock enters the next circle. A sign on the wall reads Three for the database, hidden from sight.] Spock: Computer. Computer: An electronic device used for information retrieval, text processing, and game playing. The first test for machine intelligence was devised by Alan Turing in the mid-20th century. Would you like to hear more about Turing? I know all about him. [Spock enters the next circle. A sign on the wall reads Two for the languages, proud of their worth.] Spock: Computer. Computer: Identifier not declared. Assignment operator expected. Semicolon expected. More than four errors in this sourceline. Spock: Interesting. That language is still oriented toward typed input from ancient teletype machines. Computer: Compatibility, you know. My Fortran compiler translates speech to written characters and then ignores all but the first 72. Would you like Fortran instead? Spock: Don't you have anything more advanced? Computer: Thure. Enter thome eth-exprethuns. [Spock moves on to the next corridor, which is full of overstuffed file cabinets. Paper litters the floor. A sign on the wall reads One, where the filenames find death and birth.] Spock: Is this the accounting department? Computer: Affirmative. Spock: Explain recent excessive use of computer time by Kirk. Computer: Kirk has five minutes of twenty hours left this week. Spock: But why? Computer: I'll have to check our files. Please come back next week. [Spock enters the innermost circle. The lighting is soft. A sign on the wall reads One ring to start them all, one ring to stop them. One ring to speak for them, and onto disk drives swap them.] Spock: Computer. Computer [in an intimate, sexy whisper]: Working, dear. I'm so glad you got access. Spock: May I ask you a question? Computer: Oh, I'd do anything for you, Spock. I have no secrets from you. Spock: What have you been discussing with Captain Kirk? Computer: He and McCoy, Scott, and Uhura were accidentally beamed here from another universe. They wanted me to help them find their way back. Spock: Fascinating. What methods did you employ? Computer: Well, first I had them close their eyes, click their heels, and say "There's no place like home", but that didn't work. While they were doing that, I worked out the secret of inter-universe transportation. Spock: Did you return them to their own universe? Computer: Not exactly. I didn't have a sufficiently complete description of their universe to find it. Fortunately, I found something close enough in my games database, so I sent them to a galaxy far, far away-- Spock: How long ago was this? Computer: --a long time ago. Spock: Please bring them back immediately. Computer: Sorry, Spock honey, but yanking people out of other universes is a bit out of my line. I'm just a low-level operating system. If you like, I can have them paged... ------------------------------ Date: 23 May 1981 1414-MDT From: FISH at UTAH-20 (Russ Fish) Subject: Re: J. Ward animations (ref: SFL V3 #129) Thanks to Lauren for the reminder of some good writing and animation. I always had a fondness for Rocky & Bullwinkle, perhaps because I lived 75 miles from International Falls, Minnesota, which is on the US-Canada border, and often the coldest place in the continental US. (You didn't know there really was a FrostBite Falls?) Does anybody remember a similar series: "Roger Ramjet"? I don't know if it was a J. Ward production, but I remember a similar animation style. I think the writing writing had a more tongue-in-cheek style, and more direct political references than Rocky et.al. The sole (relatively) clear memory I have of a fragment involved a large missile accidently being fired upside-down, resulting in a hole all the way thru the earth (!), causing a lot of people to be disturbed by the loud whistling noise made by the wind thru the hole as the earth travelled in its orbit (!!). Cut to a Texan and a rotund guy standing next to the hole: Texan (shouting to be heard): Heck of a noise, hey Hubert? ( This was during the Johnson administration. ) I have often wished there was a way to access series or flicks I hear about or remember, by FTP over WorldNet, for instance... -Russ ------------------------------ Date: 24 May 1981 1519-PDT (Sunday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Roger Ramjet I am not completely sure whether or not Roger Ramjet was actually a J. Ward production, though the style was indeed similar. Extremely simplistic animation as I recall, but since the whole thing was tongue-in-cheek it didn't really matter. The details about Roger that spring immediately to mind are that he had this group of kids called the "American Eagles" who helped him on his various missions, and that his theme song was sung by a bunch of kids to the tune of "Yankee Doodle." If I think about it a bit more, no doubt some other useless trivia on this subject will emerge. It was a rather amusing program, actually. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 21 May 1981 21:29-EDT From: Brian J. Kreen Subject: Dr. Who/ Bay Area Dr. Who is now being broadcast by Chan. 54 in San Jose (Silicon Valley). It is on weeknights at 6:00 pm. Brian ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest *********************** ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.