http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/05/19/potd-filming-the-empire-strikes-backs-opening-crawl/

We went from black-and-white TV and movie credit crawls done with a board on 
the floor and ASCII line printer art, to Up and Avatar and real-time 
interactive movie-quality video games, all while I've been around to enjoy it.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>
http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/05/19/potd-filming-the-empire-strikes-backs-opening-crawl/
>
> We went from black-and-white TV and movie credit crawls done with a board on
> the floor and ASCII line printer art, to Up and Avatar and real-time
> interactive movie-quality video games, all while I've been around to enjoy it.

Great pics, especially of the cloud city showdown. Some of the comments are
priceless - the posters really showing their age, not to mention abject lack of
Star Wars knowledge!

Now, in the dagobah picture, which one's Yoda and which one's Kershner? ;-)

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
news:4bf616df$1@news.povray.org...

> We went from black-and-white TV and movie credit crawls done with a board
on
> the floor and ASCII line printer art, to Up and Avatar and real-time
> interactive movie-quality video games, all while I've been around to enjoy
it.

OTOH, software is as dumb as ever, without any credible hope of AI on the
horizon, humans have not visited the moon in my lifetime, lifespans have not
noticably increased and little progress has been made towards curing the
major killers like cancer. Entertainment and communication has come a long
way in my lifetime, but I'd rather to have lived 50-100 years later when I
suspect more significant advances will take place.

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somebody wrote:
> OTOH, software is as dumb as ever,

Oh, I disagree.

> without any credible hope of AI on the horizon, 

There never was. By the time it's credible hope, it's not AI any more.

> humans have not visited the moon in my lifetime, 

Of course we have. Just not in person. That's because we have excellent AI.

> lifespans have not noticably increased 

But quality of life has.

> and little progress has been made towards curing the
> major killers like cancer. 

I disagree.  Just because we don't have a pill to cure them all doesn't mean 
we made no progress.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

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somebody <x### [at] ycom> wrote:
> little progress has been made towards curing the
> major killers like cancer.

  Actually, AFAIK, currently certain cancers have a much better prognosis
than they had eg. 20 years ago. Many of the treatments (such as chemotherapy)
have got much better (higher chance of success, less side-effects).

  There's still no cure for AIDS, but with modern medication a patient's
lifespan can be extended quite significantly. Not so 20 years ago.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New escreveu:
> somebody wrote:
>> OTOH, software is as dumb as ever,
> 
> Oh, I disagree.
> 
>> without any credible hope of AI on the horizon, 
> 
> There never was. By the time it's credible hope, it's not AI any more.

At least now they can design cells (or just genome for now).  Someday, 
they'll design genetically-enhaced neural cells and hope those make them 
obsolete.

>> humans have not visited the moon in my lifetime, 
> 
> Of course we have. Just not in person. That's because we have excellent AI.

and there's plenty of people who've bought large areas in the moon 
already.  They're eager to get there and start the crops... :)

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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On 05/21/10 08:16, somebody wrote:
> lifespans have not noticably increased

	You're what, like 5 years old?

> major killers like cancer. Entertainment and communication has come a long
> way in my lifetime, but I'd rather to have lived 50-100 years later when I
> suspect more significant advances will take place.

	And I suspect you'd say the same then.
	
-- 
AD&D Famous last words: Me first.  Me first!

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> At least now they can design cells (or just genome for now).  Someday, 
> they'll design genetically-enhaced neural cells and hope those make them 
> obsolete.

Doubt it.

Currently they've figured out how to modify a genome and insert it into 
a suitible organism. Nobody has yet come up with anything remotely 
approximating "design a cell" - more like "make a minute modification to 
an existing cell" (usually to make it produce some single chemical 
substance of interest to us). And even that doesn't always work. 
Designing a whole cell would be a radically larger undertaking.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On 5/21/2010 11:59 PM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> At least now they can design cells (or just genome for now).  Someday,
>> they'll design genetically-enhaced neural cells and hope those make
>> them obsolete.
>
> Doubt it.
>
> Currently they've figured out how to modify a genome and insert it into
> a suitible organism. Nobody has yet come up with anything remotely
> approximating "design a cell" - more like "make a minute modification to
> an existing cell" (usually to make it produce some single chemical
> substance of interest to us). And even that doesn't always work.
> Designing a whole cell would be a radically larger undertaking.
>
Yeah. Most likely first step, now that they have managed to cobble 
together bits on a genome successfully, is, "lets see how much we can 
take out, before things stop working at all." In other words, what is 
the minimum you need for one of them to function. For example, recent 
re-examination of the human genome, and rechecking of a prior sequencing 
on it, seems to imply that most of the "junk" is **still** junk, with 
some rare exceptions, and that most of the previously detected "RNA 
encodings", where artifact errors. Cases where the prior method produces 
encodings where it wouldn't normally in a cell, or where positional 
errors resulted in a temporary activation of junk, which then didn't do 
anything anyway. From what I remember, there is a huge amount of that 
"junk" in human DNA, and like 20 times that in some microbes.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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