Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Jodi Foster does origami (Follow up to a link on Franks page, II).

About the 10 dumb scifi moments, Superman turning back time absolutely belongs there.

I have a problem with the "Contact" thing, the last one on the page. Maybe it's because I read the book and never saw the movie, but it seemed perfectly rational to me. Maybe the alien race you're communicating with has naturally evolved radio signal receptors, and maybe the technology you're trying to communicate is potentially disastrous if misunderstood. An I.Q. test first seems perfectly reasonable then. So you send a simple message from space, and the more a species can analyze it, the more puzzles peel off like an onion until they get to the blueprints.

And if it's just because you're the kind of race who just likes being enigmatic, why would you stop right when you get to the good stuff?

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