robinbloke: (feathers)
[personal profile] robinbloke
Possibly one of the finest error messages ever produced by a computer, that, right up there with my two other personal favourites; typing
Renumber 500,500
on the BBC series of old micros would report "Silly".
And the unix command of
rm god
reporting that "god does not exist."

I work with these things every day and it still amuses me at that essentially although the computer is a logic based device everything it is and everything it does is designed by humans and therefore has an underlying error factor.
It's all going to end in automated movies.

Look at CGI now, "we" can automatically generate characters that are fully animated and backdrops that are photorealistic; are we are approaching the point where there will be no new stories, no actors, no sets, no hollywood? Just a keyboard on a directors desk hooked up to his laptop PC that simply says "Enter genre, previous film references, target audience/certificate maximum run time and any two amusing quotes." they hit a key and bingo, we suddenly have a varient on bladerunner and aliens spewing forth onto the screen, automatically generated and edited, scripted and set all ready for release.
It'll happen.

Because films aren't about entertaining, not the big ones, not 'anymore' (were they ever?). It's all about the green, the money, the moolah, the cash, the wonga. Look at the music industry, it's realised this and streamlined the whole process down to almost an art form, with the actual selection process for the whole band generating money as well, it's a win win situation.
Pick your ideal market/target audience (given record sales and market of audience and best age category for purchasing singles) = teenage girls. Select your ideal 'beautiful people' from the line up of ever eager applicants begging for their 15 minutes before they return back to being hairdressers and pimps; select a previous hit single thats no longer under copyright or can be bought cheap, and the obligitory "thump thump thump" backtrack, make a dance move, dub and presto. You have your winners.

How long until they do this with films too? Line up a list of people for their first starring role, use the audience to determine genre from the directors ideal audience type, spin the wheel of fortune for the movie type (teen splat/highschool/sex-comedy/etc) slap together some scenes and dialog from the audience suggestions and bam. We have our hit.
Curtain call please.

Date: 2002-10-16 04:02 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] davywavy.livejournal.com
I used to type 'renumber 1,100' myself.

Odd how the same discoveries are made spontaneously by many, isn't it?

Date: 2002-10-16 05:25 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jonnyargles.livejournal.com
If that kind of thing floats your boat, then you'll love the new Al Pacino film, SimOne.

Al plays a film director who literally creates a new star out of computer imagery, but when her popularity threatens to overshadow his, he can't convince anyone that she never actually existed.

http://home.online.no/~bhundlan/scripts/Simone.txt if you just want to read the script.

Date: 2002-10-16 05:29 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] robinbloke.livejournal.com
Very prophetic indeed.

Re:

Date: 2002-10-16 05:49 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jonnyargles.livejournal.com
Oh, and are the toons on CD? If so, then I'll bring my little player, and if not, then we'll need a 'pooter.

Date: 2002-10-16 05:58 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] robinbloke.livejournal.com
Burned onto a CD for you, I'll scribble a track listing for you.

Re:

Date: 2002-10-16 06:00 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jonnyargles.livejournal.com
And instrumentals, or will I just have to sing louder?

Date: 2002-10-16 06:24 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] robinbloke.livejournal.com
Sadly just the original songs, which were quite hard enough to find as is!

Date: 2002-10-16 06:53 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] robinbloke.livejournal.com
Incidentally I also suggest "Glory box" by Portishead.

Re:

Date: 2002-10-16 06:57 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jonnyargles.livejournal.com
Oh, but I'm so tired of playing with this bow and arrow.

Re:

Date: 2002-10-16 07:41 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jonnyargles.livejournal.com
I thenk yeow

Date: 2002-10-16 06:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] duncanneko.livejournal.com
What always worries me is that "Keyboard missing - press F1 to continue" makes perfect sense to me. The computer wants you to plug the keyboard back in so you can press F1 for it :) Guess I'm just strange.

There's a whole list of funny computer error messages around.. wish I could remember where. Google time :)

Date: 2002-10-16 11:46 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] karohemd.livejournal.com
I ran out of resources on my work computer last week and Excel gave the following message in a dialog box with a white cross in red circle:

Not enough

Date: 2002-10-16 07:41 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] davywavy.livejournal.com
This reminds me of the error message haiku thing that went round a few years ago; I entered the competition in "Computing", but didn't get anywhere. When I asked (I worked for the company that publishes it at the time) I was told my entry was "too derivative"

This program has performed
An illegal operation
And will be shut down

I mean, what's their problem? It conforms to all the rules of writing Haiku!

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