The more things change...

This train of thought began as I watched Adobe Photoshop go through a complicated scripting sequence without any assistance from me... I began thinking of Rick Deckard's wonderful photo-processing "Esper" machine. (Yes, I want one.)

So, I'm thinking about Blade Runner and the fact that, in an unscientific poll of science-fiction fans, I'm one of the few viewers who prefer the theatrical release to the director's cut. (Voiceover, less uncertain ending, and all).

I'm not going to debate the merits of the two versions here, though it has occurred to me that it is the theatrical release that made Blade Runner one of the classics of SF film (and made it possible to produce a director's cut release, before DVDs made such releases common).

However, the discussion of the versions made me think about how we revise things in our heads. I watched hours of the old Robotech series last weekend, but used the remote to skip over the dull, boring, or actually painful parts. (Yes, I'm referring to Minmei.) The Internet produced the "Phantom Edit" version of Star Wars Episode I - in many opinions, a superior film. Douglas Adams himself wrote multiple variants of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - all official, and all contradictory.

Then, while looking up information on Apple's "Final Cut Pro", I found this web page that compares such revisions to the Bible itself, where the Gospels contradict each other and concentrate on the parts that the individual writers found interesting. And I realized that people have been arguing about this for nearly two thousand years.

So, the next time I go to a con and find an earnest discussion of how Enterprise has re-written the established history of the Star Trek universe, I'll be less likely to jump in with both feet. If we've been revising our most sacred texts to personal taste for this long, Kirk and Picard don't have much of a chance. *grin*

Dang, I dropped the Library of Congress again

Researchers at IBM have developed technology which uses dents in thin plastic film to store information. It's a bit like the punch cards of computing history, except the dents are 10 nanometers in width. (A nanometer is one-millionth of the width of a piece of paper-clip wire.)

The researchers estimate that with this technology in practical use, a common multifunction digital wristwatch could contain 15 gigabytes of data... that's about 23 CDs, or 2 or 3 DVD movie discs.

"I've backed up the ship's computer core in this small MDM memory chip!" Brion Fields, Space Rogues