Julio Laredo wrote:
"Michael Baldwin, Bruce" wrote in message
ps.com...
Julio Laredo wrote:
"Michael Baldwin, Bruce" wrote in message
oups.com...
It was screening on TV the other night so I thought I'd watch it.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120647/
Man, talk about crap.

I happened to see only a few minutes of it, once. It's use of cliches
showed the thinking behind the writing was way too conservative for my
tastes.

I know what you mean. Almost every film made nowdays is formulaeic.

Starts off with some kid with with a ****ant little scope (not even a
Mead!) discovering a comet or assteriod. So what does he do? Calls
some turkey in Nevada who is laughingly supposed to be a professional
asstronomer.

It is essential in effective satire that the satirist have some modicum
of
knowledge of the subject be satirized. Let's see how you stack up.

Ah, so it was satire. Yeah, I can see how that makes sense now.

Most comet discoveries have been by amateurs, and one of the 2002 winners
of
the Edgar Wilson Award used binoculars.

They give out awards for this? A0L!

Yes, they sure do.

How dumb is that!

And not everyone would head right to CBAT, it would be
within the realm of possibility that an amateur would try to contact
someone
he considered a professional for verification.

To verify what? That he saw a comet?

Yes, there is a procedure. And it is a race to get your name on it.

The last thing I'd want is my name on a comet that's going to destroy
the Earth.

So, here, your satire was off the mark. Strike one.

That clown is sitting in what looks like a radio scope station
listening to classical music (what else?). After he's told, he looks
for it himself. Not sure how he gets an image of it the way he did
with a radio scope, but he does.

Radio telescope stations do have optical scopes for aiming the dishes,
and
are often used in
conjunction with the radio images. Here, too, your satire is off the
mark.
Strike two.

Are they located on top of mountains by themselves or in arrays? Did
the film show an optical scope being used?

I don't know what they showed in the film.

So your "strike one" was illinformed?

I tried to watch the part where
they were planting the explosives. Once I predicted almost every thing that
was going to be shown before it was shown, I got bored and changed the
channel.

Well, I watched it all. Its entertainment value was laughable. Which
was just what I wanted that particular night.

Then, get this, he transfers it to floppy disk! What the hay! Is he
using OS/2 or something? Let me guess. His crappy software is written
in FORTRAN too.

I guess you think that optical disks and XP have been around forever;
they have not.

The film was made in '98. The Internet had been around a while by then.

Doesn't matter. In the film the guy saved the information. Some people
save to the Internet, some don't. I don't save things to the Internet. Back in
1998 I saved to floppies and CDs. Now I save to thumbdrives.

Good for you. My point was that the plotline at that particular point
was ludicrous. So you're "strike two" doesn't hold water either.

If you were paying attention, the movie came out in 1998, which means
shooting would have begun at least 2 years before.

Are you sure about that? Don't forget these types of films are usually
set in the future. Would be kind of dumb to set something like this in
the past, don't you think?

Shooting still began in about 1996 with no regard to when the picture
was going to come out.

Since it came out at about the same time as Armageddon, I find that
odd. Why do these sorts of films come out in rapid succession? 2 years
is a long time to wait to cash in on the popularity of something else.

"Silent Running" was set in the future, and showed
hardwire programming. Who does that, now?

I set the registers on a PDP-11 not too long ago. Not very exciting.

While it is possible to predict what may happen, and could happen, you still
have to base it on what is known, now.

You mean like in Star Trek and Star Wars?

At the time the movie was being made,
the most popular way to save small files was by floppy. The movie audience
would immediately know what he was doing, and why.

You could also do a printout or write it to a mag tape. I'm sure the
audience would know about that too.

In that time frame nearly
all computers had floppy drives, and since the coordinates for the object
would be in a relatively small text file, a floppy would have been a very
reasonable method to store the information.

So would email.

Again, this isn't a particularly secure way, especially at a place of
employment.

Why? I don't follow your logic here. He also had a radio dish outside
he could have used.

All in all, I don't think the plotline leading up to his death was
well concieved or necessary.

Strike three. You have proven yourself to be inept and I can see no
reason
to go further since whatever you would have to opine would be of no
merit.

Sounds more like your batting average needs some work.

Note: no response.