Life As We Don't Know It (Part 4)

» Car - Great set of articles Chris.

I was waiting for the conclusion before I started to comment. Great set of discussion articles there Chris.

I agree with you in a lot that Hollywood has taken many "liberties" with computers and technology in their films. But who can blame them with what types of information media hands out to the general public? Sometimes, the truth of the complexity of it would be too hard to grasp in a 2 hour movie.

My favorite mis-line has to be from Jurrasic Park where the girl sits down at this computer and says, "Oh! This is Unix. I know how to do this." Yeah, right! I watch my husband, a Unix SA work through problems with servers and programs. It's not simply knowing the operating system. There's a lot more to it!

I think a lot of it comes down to if the item or category is considered "hard science fiction" or "soft science fiction". It's not always easy to tell and I've heard a couple version of what each type is but for me "hard" means that there is some scientific truth or basis to the whole thing. Authors like Greg Bear, Carl Sagan, and many others are, in my mind, hard. Whereas things like Star Trek are soft, bending the rules and knowledge of science where they need to to make an interesting story.

Anyway, I thought I'd share another good, and what I believe to be close to reality, book by Greg Bear called Forge of God. I just finished it (though it's not a new book from him). It was literally wonderful trying to figure out what's going on. I think, if we have first contact, it would be very much like this... filled with confusion and misunderstanding and subject to various states of elation and mistrust. It was great that he didn't reveal a lot of information about the aliens... kept you guessing right along with the characters in the story.

-- posted by Car

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