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210 Comments
- chessthecat, on 11/06/2009, -13/+341HAL=IBM. Shift one character to the right to turn HAL into IBM. H-->I, A-->B, L-->M.
- imzache, on 11/05/2009, -6/+259Didn't the world already know this?
- mGARANDEUR1, on 11/06/2009, -7/+251Macs spelled backwards is "scam".
- richirwin, on 11/06/2009, -2/+161From the article - "the evil, paranoid machine from '2001'"
HAL wasn't evil or paranoid. Just misunderstood. - Crimeodial, on 11/06/2009, -0/+122The alphabet, not a keyboard...
- Tarkaan, on 11/06/2009, -5/+126Dog spelled backwards is God.
- IUAndar, on 11/05/2009, -4/+115There's so many things I wanted explained about that movie that I completely overlooked the "why that song?" question.
- hydrodev, on 11/06/2009, -0/+79I too thought this was common knowledge.
- doctechnical, on 11/06/2009, -1/+79Bell Labs has given us not only speech synthesis but the C programming language, Unix, the laser, the transister, radio astronomy, digital cameras and a pile of other amazing technology. It's a shame that the breakup of AT&T has made it a shadow of it's former self.
- sierrabravo, on 11/06/2009, -0/+77Stop, Dave. My mind is going. I can feel it.
- WafflesID, on 11/06/2009, -0/+72He was doing what he was programmed to do.
- AsSubtleAsABrik, on 11/06/2009, -1/+65the word bed looks like a bed.
- skztr, on 11/06/2009, -1/+62'2001' geeks already knew this.
- Zither, on 11/06/2009, -0/+55Well played, sir. Well played.
- directedition, on 11/06/2009, -0/+53Yes, we've known this for decades. But the writer of the article just found out, so he's acting like it's new.
- Greengoo, on 11/06/2009, -3/+54This is not true.
Although it is often conjectured that the name HAL was based on a one-letter shift from the name IBM, this has been denied by both Clarke and 2001 director Stanley Kubrick. In 2010: Odyssey Two, Clarke speaks through the character of Dr. Chandra, who characterized this idea as: "[u]tter nonsense! [...] I thought that by now every intelligent person knew that H-A-L is derived from Heuristic ALgorithmic".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000 - snowrail, on 11/06/2009, -0/+50It bugs me that they called the "monolith" the "obelisk".
Normally I wouldn't complain but since the article presents itself as geeky accurate trivia, this is important I think.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith_%28Space_Ody ... - arapro, on 11/06/2009, -1/+46This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.
- Moglius, on 11/06/2009, -1/+39Make's that Futurama episode where Bender dates the ship a whole lot funnier!
- Tomoir, on 11/06/2009, -0/+38SPOILER WARNING!!!
Okay, now that you have been warned, if you read the book, you will find out that an Alien race plants intelligent life in various places in the universe. Then, they put those monoliths around the solar system of the life forms they created. This is so that once the life form is advanced enough, they will explore their solar systems and unearth the monoliths. Once that happens, the alien race takes one member of the race (in this case, Dave Bowman) and turns him into a deity to watch over his planet. That fetus was that god, and when Dave was in the hotel room, he was actually in the possession of the aliens.
Another point, in the beginning of the movie, when the ape is holding up a bone and the scene cuts to a spaceship, that craft is actually a nuclear weapon launcher, which is what Dave Bowman has to, in turn, prevent from destroying his race.
I hope that cleared it up for a few of you out there, and I strongly recommend you read the book if you like the movie. It'll clear up so many things. - jerrykew, on 11/06/2009, -0/+34And of course, Windows NT, or WNT was designed by Dave Cutler whose previous operating system was VMS
V-W, M-N, S-T
generally reckoned to be homage to HAL - chuckDontSurf, on 11/06/2009, -0/+33My cat's breath smells like cat food.
- AJRiddle, on 11/06/2009, -0/+32Whats not to get? A guy on a mission to Jupiter gets older and older until he turns into a giant fetus and floats through space back to earth. Duh. Makes perfect sense.
- sleepysteve, on 11/06/2009, -0/+22The word bed looks like a bed.
- Rain12913, on 11/06/2009, -0/+20Please tell me you don't use this excuse in other areas of life. "It's all just temporary order out of randomness, why should I wipe my ass?"
- covertbadger, on 11/06/2009, -0/+18I'm pretty sure one of my copies of 2001 explains this in the foreword. Hardly a great mystery.
- tinkafoo, on 11/06/2009, -0/+18I like this version better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB0xH7GhwSY - exscind, on 11/06/2009, -0/+18You're correct, but I don't think that was readily apparent within the scope of the film - HAL certainly seemed to be sentient, emotional and malicious. It wasn't clarified until the sequel (2010) that HAL was just executing its program..
(I haven't read the novels so for all I know this just applies to the movieverse). - Rachelj96, on 11/06/2009, -0/+16T-Pain, is that you?
- DougWare, on 11/06/2009, -0/+16Surely you mean MONOLITH, not obelisk....
- Malnilion, on 11/06/2009, -1/+17Actually, HAL=Hardware Abstraction Layer...everyone knows this :P
- koinek, on 11/06/2009, -0/+16Either a brain or a decent sense of humor.
- dafragsta, on 11/06/2009, -0/+16yeah, specifically the last 5 minutes or so.
- appleseed1234, on 11/06/2009, -0/+14He had full confidence in the mission.
- tdogg241, on 11/06/2009, -0/+14Quite the zinger, sir. My hat's off to you!
- Snoogs, on 11/06/2009, -0/+14Evian spelled backward is naive.
- Thud, on 11/06/2009, -1/+15What's scary is that when I read this, "Goodbye" used the AOL voice in my head, not HAL 9000.
- disappointed, on 11/06/2009, -0/+12It was good enough for Columbus.
- Otto, on 11/06/2009, -6/+18Pfft. "Heuristic Algorithmic" is one of the most obvious backronyms ever. They came up with the letters first, then invented the words to fit.
- BossKey, on 11/06/2009, -1/+12Also, the article mentions the "obelisk"...no, it's a monolith.
- Jeepinator, on 11/06/2009, -0/+11Computers suck at it because speech is actually incredible complex. It isn't just a finite collection of phonetics. We change how we say things based on their context, our emotion, etc. Speech is a sign of real intelligence.
- EnTaroTassadar, on 11/06/2009, -0/+11Mind = blown
- SoulGrocery, on 11/06/2009, -1/+12Try this: *spoiler warning*
http://www.kubrick2001.com/ - xyphan, on 11/06/2009, -1/+11The new age alphabet song:
Q W E R T Y U
I O P A S D F G H
J K L
Z X C
V B
N M
Now I know my Q W Es, next time won't you sing with me. - tdogg241, on 11/06/2009, -1/+11Just like Germany.
- bigredgpk, on 11/06/2009, -0/+9Also the cell phone.
- trdrstv, on 11/06/2009, -1/+9If I shift 1 character to the Right of HAL I get:
JS;
DAMN QWERTY Keyboards! - Khast, on 11/06/2009, -0/+8What's scary, in 1961 the speech synthesis was actually more clearly understandable than most of the speech synthesis of the 80s.
- Gudlyf, on 11/06/2009, -4/+12But ... but ... we're supposed to Rejoice! Now we know! Gosh, I know I'll sleep better tonight knowing that.
- Tomoir, on 11/06/2009, -2/+10I'm hungry
-
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