Science outstrips Science-Fiction. Again.
Feb. 16th, 2009 09:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gridloreA few weeks ago we picked up all five seasons of Babylon 5 at CostCo. I've been reveling in them a few episoides at a time (Great Maker, I need to do a Centauri costume) and have reached Season 3.
Where I found a funny.
Passing Through Gethsemane is one of the strongest of the stand-alone episodes of B5, in my opinion. The story concerns the order of monks who have come to B5 to study alien religions. Specifically, Brother Edward, who experiences a series of events that make him question who he really is.
The funny comes when Edward asks the computer to do a search on the following parameters: A black rose, the phrase "Death Walks Among You", the name Charlie or Charles, and a murdered woman. The computer announces that the search will take four hours.
I guess Google went out of business.
Speaking of Google, go there and enter the following: Zodiac, Benicia, San Francisco Chronicle
What comes up, how many hits, and how long did it take? Assuming that B5 has a complete library database, the phrase alone should have led Edward to the answers he was seeking.
Just amusing that they would put up with four-hour searches.
Where I found a funny.
Passing Through Gethsemane is one of the strongest of the stand-alone episodes of B5, in my opinion. The story concerns the order of monks who have come to B5 to study alien religions. Specifically, Brother Edward, who experiences a series of events that make him question who he really is.
The funny comes when Edward asks the computer to do a search on the following parameters: A black rose, the phrase "Death Walks Among You", the name Charlie or Charles, and a murdered woman. The computer announces that the search will take four hours.
I guess Google went out of business.
Speaking of Google, go there and enter the following: Zodiac, Benicia, San Francisco Chronicle
What comes up, how many hits, and how long did it take? Assuming that B5 has a complete library database, the phrase alone should have led Edward to the answers he was seeking.
Just amusing that they would put up with four-hour searches.
no subject
Date: 16 Feb 2009 19:39 (UTC)In story terms, of course, it's a way of dealing with Yet Another Damn Annoying Advance by Science that Gets In The Way Of My Plot. Even when B5 was made you could not really have justified that time lag for a future society if you assumed reasonable extrapolation of capabilities. But you NEED some lag for the story. It's similar to the Pain In The Ass of Cell Phones.
In a related vein, I loved the search sequence in Torchwood: "I'm searching for references on 'I shall walk the Earth and my hunger shall know no bounds' and I keep getting redirected to Weight Watchers!"