Computers Beyond the Final Frontier

Me and Jamie (Jamie the housemate, to be sure) made an interesting observation today. We were sat watching Star Trek the Next Generation, as we often do these days since our friend Nevitt decided it would be a good thing to download every single episode. Being a computer geek, what always interests me in TV shows is how computers are represented... I remember laughing a lot when I saw an episode of "A Touch of Frost" a few years ago where all the computers appeared to be running DOS... maybe the Police still use it? Is the public sector really that bad? Probably. Anyway, but needless to say, Star Trek's representation of computers is a bit more enlightened, its much more of a HAL type figure, an omni-present servant who they can issue verbal commands too. There were a few things however, that clearly dated this vision of what computer's roles in our future will be.

The first one I noticed, was the complete lack of security. OK, so sometimes it seems they have to verbally speak some kind of pass code before they can execute certain commands, such as self destruct and blocking all other users commands, but that seems to be it. Anyone seems to be able to create force fields, teleport themselves anywhere and request any information they want from its memory banks. OK, so right now I suppose I could look up whatever I wanted on Wikipedia or Google, and on the USS Enterprise, asking the ship's computer a question is pretty much the same thing. However, Wikipedia does not know everything, obviously, and doesn't contain sensitive data: most the data on Wikipedia is common knowledge, simply collected in one place. The Enterprises computer, however, has the whole crews personal data on it, schematics of their entire ship, including its weapons systems, and ultimately the computer controls their life support systems. So your'd think they might be a bit more touchy about letting any bugger who comes aboard do whatever he wants to it. I suppose, this fits in with Gene Roddenberry's vision of future human society, without money or any real crime, I suppose to the crew of the Enterprise, access privileges and encryption might seem draconian. They all trust each other with their information, unlike we do (see the xxx million Facebook stalker scare stories and headlines).

Its interesting, because I remember, about a year ago, reading about a man who for a short period was being followed by the FBI. He had absolutely no idea why, but once when returning from holiday, he nearly got refused entry back into his native land, the US, and since that point he was follow, calls monitored, cars followed etc. I think he might have been Muslim, I'm not sure. But, the part that interested me was, his reaction to this, was to buy a really smartphone, get a website, and take a photo of himself every few minutes, and upload it to the website, for the world to see. He kept complete logs of his every action, and had himself constantly tracked by GPS on his phone, then uploaded live onto his website. Quite an odd idea really, but he argued that after doing this for a few weeks, the FBI stopped following him. He claimed, the idea behind it was simple, if you make your privacy public, then it becomes worthless. No body is hacking into your phone to listen to your voicemail or tapping your phone, because they already have access to them because you make them available yourself, to show you have nothing to hide. He argued the more you try and hide your actions, the more secretive you are, the more you try and lock things away, the more people will assume you have that they must want, so they'll try harder to get at it. Maybe that's how the USS Enterprise works... they all know everyone knows everything about them, so they don't care, they don't have to protect it. Its an odd idea, and perhaps it could work on a personal level, obviously on a corporate level, I can't really see that idea taking off. But since there are no companies in Star Trek, might work for them.... bloody commies.

But anyway, me and Jamie talked about the security thing, and he pointed out that its probably just because the show was made in the early nineties, pre-Internet, so people were a lot less scared about privacy and security on computers. The idea that someone would remotely access or abuse the Enterprises computer system didn't seem to occur to the writers of the show. You try suggesting to people today that they have to carry their mobile phones attached to them all the time, anyone can ask their computer where someone else and their computer will tell them, and the computer always knows where everyone is, and people start irrationally screaming "big brother" at you. I guess the writers just didn't see the cons of everyone sharing their information in one big computer with no access levels or user accounts or other security checks. That's the other point I would make as well.... there is only one main computer! In this day and age, were we all have our cameras, mp3 players, phones, laptops etc. the idea that we would all just have one, all powerful computer, just seems bizarre. I suppose its like that famous speech of Bill Gates or the head of IBM or whoever it was, who said that maybe one day the world might need 2 computers. The idea of personal computers clearly hadn't taken off when the series was being written, everyone just has terminals and panels that connect to one big computer. If that goes down, I seem to recall them saying the only other computers they could have was a bunch of tri-coders linked together! Wheres their DRP? Whose their IT manager? Imagine working in an office where if the main sever goes down, you have to hot wire a bunch of calculators together to check your email....

Clearly the ideas of peer to peer networks and the Internet, were just a long way off.... which is odd, considering its the future. lol.

Stressed

Urgh I really should be asleep right now... my first lecture isn't until 10am, but I just can't sleep. I really think its the stress, I don't seem to be doing anything other then working most the time, because every time I try and do something else, I can't do it because I feel like I should be working. Every time I try to play a game, watch a DVD, sleep, eat, go out, anything, I just feel like I should be sat here working. And when I try and sleep, I just lay there staring at my computer screen, thinking about all the work I should be doing. I just can't switch off my guilt. I think Hazels having the same problem. Hmmm. Oh well, only a few months left.

So, what have I been up to... Not a lot. I got really drunk on my birthday with a lot of strangely dressed friends and family. Bought quite a few good DVDs for myself, mostly for my birthday. I got the original Star Wars trilogy, because I realised it was only 15 quid, and came with bonus discs that has the original, un-remastered versions on, which I thought was quite cool, since they were the versions I grew up with. I should watch them, compare them to the remasters, which Ive already watched through once. I forgot how amazing Star Wars really is, id sort of written it off in the last few years because of the lack-luster prequels, but the originals are still solid gold when you watch them now. I don't know where I stand on the agreement that their kids films, and to show them to an adult whose never seen them before is a waste of time, they won't get it. Its hard to me to judge, since I was brought up on them, but id imagine since a lot of adults liked them when they came out, they still won't have lost their appeal (so long as you don't see one of the shitty prequels first). The remasters aren't bad either, I remember being disappointed with them when they first came out, but watching them now, I'm still left wondering how George Lucas managed to screw up the prequels. Oh well, at least I still have the originals. I also got some other films I haven't seen for a long time but remembered liking: Scarface, Platoon and I, Robot. Ive watched Platoon and Scarface, their as gory and great as I remember them being. I haven't watched I, Robot, because Ive seen it quite recently. It was really underrated when it came out, I thought it was really good. OK, it didn't cover any new Sci-Fi ground, and maybe considering the source material it should have been better, but its still a pretty good film if you just look at it for what it is, rather then what its not, if that makes sense.

This leads me to the other DVD I got, South Park Series 2, which I was surprised by. I remember the early seasons of South Park as being very primitive compared to the latter ones, a lot more vulgar and a lot less clever. I suppose I still agree with that, apart that makes the early South Park episodes sound not good, and that would be incorrect. I would called Matt and Trey, its creators, geniuses, because the fact that they have churned this cartoon out for ten years now, and its only got better (unlike the Simpsons), and it wasn't bad to start with, and the ten year old episodes are still funny, just shows how incredibility perceptive they are. They make really amazing observations about modern society, and poke fun at such odd things, and the humour is so edgy, I still can't believe some of the things they said. When you compare South Park to most the stale crap TV that comes out of America, it truly is a gem. I shall have to expose more people to this.... Its like Pulp Fiction, once you get past the swearing and the obvious jokes and references, it has a lot more depth too it.

I also got a pleasant surprise, that Jamie (my brother Jamie, that is) gave me a few DVDs as well, but these were films I have not seen, which is good. All the films Id bought myself, Id already seen, because I don't buy films I haven't seen in case I don't like them (even though there about the price of a cinema ticket these days anyway). So that gives me some new things to watch that come with a recommendation from Jamie, which is good. So when I'm in the mood for something new and not falling asleep half way through, ill have to give them a watch. Musically, I bought myself one CD for my birthday, which was from a band I hadn't heard before, so I suppose that was a bit daring, but not really, since Id heard other things from most the members of the band in other bands, so I had a good idea what to expect. It wasn't bad, a bit repetitive though, but one or two good tracks.