Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Arthur C. Clarke's predictions in his SF have been eerily prophetic. I would love it to be Rama.

But it's probably not ... :-(

Sift of the week anyway.

esoog, ever read rendezvous with rama? Great series of books that deal with humans and interstellar travel much like this (although no gravity/wormhole travel). A simular situation happens there so it was not unfamiliar territory to me. Space travel is simply not friendly if you try to anchor yourself in a certain time and place.

Interesting.
Perhaps a medium density asteroid could be used and 'wrapped' in a future, super Kevlar net to hold it together against centrifugal force? I can't recall how, or if they ever said how the aliens created Rama.
If it's an O'Neill, we must only be able to see one portion, since it should rotate in both directions.
Thanks for the links.

It looks like an O'Neill colony (or A.C.Clarke's Rama), but on Erik Wernquist's web page, it says this is a large asteroid hollowed out (7 km internal diameter) and spun up to provide artificial gravity. It would need to be a strong asteroid to hold together - but that would also make it hard to hollow out. Interesting concept. Who knows what wonders may be possible in the future?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O'Neill_cylinder

http://www.erikwernquist.com/wanderers/gallery_terrarium.html

Is that Rama at 2:15?

I always thought it was as long as the puck keeps moving forward. Are there some of the better moves you've seen that have videos that, if you have the time, could post links too if they exist? Huge hockey fan, love the mess that the shootout sometimes is. Note: bored of the spin-a-rama move (way more questionable move than the one in this video).

Indeed, haven't been as active these days. I pretty much decided to completely avoid all the political threads as I wasted to many brain cells of that kind of worry. I spend most of my days now indulging in nuclear science, as I am trying to head back to school for Nuclear Engineering. At any rate, hope your holidays go well sir, and have a happy Christma-Hanu-Rama-Ka-Dona-Kwanzaa!

Voyager sucked hard. Seven of Nine ruined it - it became all about her all the time, and she wasn't even an interesting or unique character. YAWN-o-rama.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

But to care about SF, it has to be about how it relates to human beings. In some sense we have to put ourselves in the shoes of the people who are experiencing the wonder. Otherwise it's dry and boring.

When I think about SF movies without good character, I think of Transformers. Style over substance.

Contact on the other hand had a great central character that let you feel the wonder of what she was experiencing through her eyes. That's vital.

>> ^gorillaman:

>> ^dag:
Hmmm. Examples? I guess Dave Bowman was pretty flat, but HAL as a character definitely wasn't. Deckard in Bladerunner was not flat, very tortured nuanced performance by Harrison Ford. I think I'd have to disagree with you gorillaman. The best SF, like all stories, is character driven.
Well there's Rama, where Clarke correctly focuses on the ship. I feel like people who complain about the humans' characterisation just aren't reading the book right. I read Schild's Ladder recently - the characters have intellectual disagreements but not much else, to the point of lacking differentiated sexes, and it still paints a compelling portrait of future civilisation. I hesitate to mention Ayn Rand's Anthem, but she understood if you detail your protagonist too explicitly then you lose your universality of meaning.
It's not often an author can write SF in its purest form and still get published, so it's easier to find examples where too much emphasis on the human elements detracts from the work. Like Asimov's Foundation, one of my favorites. The characters in that book are downright intrusive on what's otherwise an exploration of events on a galactic scale. After the reader gets his introduction to the wonderful concept of psychohistory, the characters start to drive the plot and everything falls apart. The rest of the book and the subsequent books in the series become just Some Stuff That Happens. Well stuff happens every day, I don't need to read about stuff. Just like Rama's sequels, no good can come from watering down high literature with narratological cliches.
Good SF communicates to the reader a single idea as clearly and elegantly as possible then ends. Characterisation, even plot, are distractions.
It's an educational experience. How would you feel if your maths textbook gave the number two a quirky personality, and the equals sign a terrible secret to hide? That's fine if you just want to be entertained, but not if you want to learn something. I use SF as a kind of zen meditation, projecting my consciousness into a construction of a future I won't visit in person, in order to become enlightened.

>> ^dag:
Hmmm. Examples? I guess Dave Bowman was pretty flat, but HAL as a character definitely wasn't. Deckard in Bladerunner was not flat, very tortured nuanced performance by Harrison Ford. I think I'd have to disagree with you gorillaman. The best SF, like all stories, is character driven.

Well there's Rama, where Clarke correctly focuses on the ship. I feel like people who complain about the humans' characterisation just aren't reading the book right. I read Schild's Ladder recently - the characters have intellectual disagreements but not much else, to the point of lacking differentiated sexes, and it still paints a compelling portrait of future civilisation. I hesitate to mention Ayn Rand's Anthem, but she understood if you detail your protagonist too explicitly then you lose your universality of meaning.

It's not often an author can write SF in its purest form and still get published, so it's easier to find examples where too much emphasis on the human elements detracts from the work. Like Asimov's Foundation, one of my favorites. The characters in that book are downright intrusive on what's otherwise an exploration of events on a galactic scale. After the reader gets his introduction to the wonderful concept of psychohistory, the characters start to drive the plot and everything falls apart. The rest of the book and the subsequent books in the series become just Some Stuff That Happens. Well stuff happens every day, I don't need to read about stuff. Just like Rama's sequels, no good can come from watering down high literature with narratological cliches.

Good SF communicates to the reader a single idea as clearly and elegantly as possible then ends. Characterisation, even plot, are distractions.

It's an educational experience. How would you feel if your maths textbook gave the number two a quirky personality, and the equals sign a terrible secret to hide? That's fine if you just want to be entertained, but not if you want to learn something. I use SF as a kind of zen meditation, projecting my consciousness into a construction of a future I won't visit in person, in order to become enlightened.

>> ^dag:

For Rama, I'd stick with the original. I'm not a fan of the sequels, especially after Gentry Lee got involved in Clarke's dotage.
Speaking of SF remakes, I'd love John Varley's Titan series to be done on the big screen. I think CGI would now make it more than possible.

Maybe it's just me, but I honestly can't remember any events of significance happening in the original book. It's like almost all Clarke books, it's got a great idea as a set piece, but the characters are flat as pancakes, and the plot doesn't really go anywhere either.

I tended to like Clarke's collaborative books better, because they usually had better characters and plot, but were still wrapped around an awesome Clarke idea.

I haven't read the Titan series, but again, that's a Hugo-award winning sci fi novel post-1970. It's also annoying because if you go and check, some major movie house already owns the movie rights on all these novels. Clearly someone has the foresight to go and acquire it, but it never percolates up to the bigwigs to green light an actual film.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

For Rama, I'd stick with the original. I'm not a fan of the sequels, especially after Gentry Lee got involved in Clarke's dotage.

Speaking of SF remakes, I'd love John Varley's Titan series to be done on the big screen. I think CGI would now make it more than possible.


>> ^NetRunner:

@dag supposedly Ender's Game is too, but it's been a few years away for about a decade now.
I'm sorta iffy on how they can make a movie based on Rendezvous interesting. I think they almost have to transplant the events & characters of Rama 2 into Rama's first visit to make it a decent film.
Even then, to make it true to the series, they'll have to instill a deep interest in solving the mystery of who the Ramans are, why they sent the ship, why there's so much weird stuff in the ship, and then pointedly provide zero answers, and zero hints.
Then after 4 books give you a completely stupid answer to all those questions that almost makes you sorry you read the books in the first place.

@dag supposedly Ender's Game is too, but it's been a few years away for about a decade now.

I'm sorta iffy on how they can make a movie based on Rendezvous interesting. I think they almost have to transplant the events & characters of Rama 2 into Rama's first visit to make it a decent film.

Even then, to make it true to the series, they'll have to instill a deep interest in solving the mystery of who the Ramans are, why they sent the ship, why there's so much weird stuff in the ship, and then pointedly provide zero answers, and zero hints.

Then after 4 books give you a completely stupid answer to all those questions that almost makes you sorry you read the books in the first place.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Totally with you here. I would love to see some more classic SF made. Rendezvous with Rama is coming! >> ^NetRunner:

>> ^Farhad2000:
The closest I can think of as a completely positive spin on the future was 2010. Since it was all Cold War bullshit but the scientists worked together and that whole THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXPECT EUROPA ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE.

Star Trek is sorta the gold standard of positive futures for humanity. It's really the only sci-fi universe in which humanity really seems to have advanced as a culture.
Most other stories assume we'll be essentially the same as we are now, or worse.
Also, a Mars colonization story wouldn't be that hard. Just adapt Kim Stanley Robinson's Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy.
Considering how conservative Hollywood is these days, you'd think they'd have started to do adaptations of some Hugo Award-winning sci-fi novels that're newer than, say, 1970 or so.
Even sticking to apocalyptic themes, there are some really good ones that haven't been tapped yet. It's almost a crime that they haven't made a movie out of Larry Niven's Footfall, for example.

via Google Translate:

if the police passes by, yes! yes
I then stop only at times, yes! yes
ne of the box from participating Ziese, yes! yes
and harmless to play on schematic f, yes! yes
they have been drinking, yes! yes
The police asked me, yes! yes
I scream out loud, no, yes! yes
I'm thirsty animal, yes! yes
they have taken drugs, yes! yes
but since I have an idea, yes! yes
home on the couch, yes! yes
I'm all there, yes! yes

a policeman with elf-Ohrn, yes
with these elves Ohrn what he writes on ..
a policeman with elf-Ohrn
with these elves Ohrn what he writes on ..

my name is Garfield, yes! yes
I've always been there, yes! yes
and now I'm here, yes! yes
and you are there, yes! yes
we are both there, yes! yes
together in the universe, yes! yes
together with the police, yes! yes
I tell him what he of sage, yes! yes
eucalyptus and menthol, yes! yes
I am innocent, yes! yes
manitu like, yes! yes
that's the killa, yeah! yes

a policeman with patterns on it, yes
with these patterns on it, he looks good ..
one policeman, with patterns on it yes
with these patterns on it, he looks good ..

`I'll help arrested, yes! yes
I just stick it there, yes! yes
shiva help me, help me to goa, yes! yes
psytrance help me, yes! yes
goa goa goa mpu, yes! yes
u u u u u goa-dwarf, yes! yes
goa goa goa mpu, yes! yes
u u u u u hara rama, yes! yes
suddenly lit me a pig, indeed! yes
in your face in, yes! yes
far too bright the sunshine, yes! yes
I hurry up to the eyes, yes! yes

a policeman with a laser sword, yes
laser sword with which he writes on this .. ahh
with a police laser sword
laser sword with which he writes on this ..

a smile comes from the heart high, yes! yes
yes by a ridiculously tuenchamun,! yes
ick bin tuenchamun, yes! yes
tut tut tut tut, yes! yes
I stick, yes! yes
I stick with doing nothing, yes! yes
tut tut tuenchamun, yes! yes
I've found it, yes! yes
Last night in the car, yes! yes
since I'm looking at you, yes! yes
I need urgent help, yes! yes
in the car always runs goa, yes! yes

cop off with one claw, yes
with these claws turn what he stands for ..
a policeman, so off with claws
cling to it with this, even what he stands for ..

Parchim gibts ne police, yes! yes
I only go driving times, yes! yes
mentally I'm already there, yes! yes
moon by the time the liquid shiva, yes! yes
of the full moon up to the Baltic Sea, indeed! yes
of the reeperbahn back home, yeah! yes
in the hall eingepennt shit, yes! yes
the problem in the system, yes! yes
is the system, yes! yes
the system is the problem, yes! yes
the system has no egg, yes! yes
the system is in the system, yes! yes
I have no problem, yes! yes
I'm schizophrenic, yes! yes
I am the system, yes! yes

a policeman standing there with his parents
with his parents (because) he wants to go home ..
one policeman stands with his parents since aaahhh ...
uuuhhh with his parents ... He wants to house ..

I'm strapped in, yes! yes
I weggeknallt I am, yes! yes
I have a crush me, yes! yes
I'm not there, yes! yes
ick'm uh .. mirage, yes! yes
all the stupid pig, indeed! yes
All the boring pigs, yes! yes
walk on a leash, yes! yes
boring all the pigs, yes! yes
hear no goa, yes! ahh ..
goa goa .. hhh, ahh ..
hare hare rama, yes! a..
hare hare goa, yes! aahh ..
hare hare rama, yes! ahh
goa goa hare,
hare