Grace Hopper beside a massive computer that could store 72 words!
Google just honored Grace Hopper with a doodle and once you see her in action, you’ll know why.
Grace Hopper was an accomplished naval officer/computer scientist with a wry sense of humor and a down to earth style of communicating.
One of the first programmers on the Mark I Computer (IBM’s Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator or ASCC), Grace Hopper once described the Mark I as having ” 72 words of storage and could perform three additions a second.”
In comparison, the cell phone in your pocket has more computing power than NASA’s first moon launch, so if you are using your phone to send lol cats…. think about it.
It’s not the power, it’s what you do with it.
The early behemoths Hopper worked on were as large as 51 feet long and 8ft high. She also worked on Harvard’s Mark II and III computers as well as the UNIVAC I computer.
Affectionately known as “Grandma Cobol,” because she lead the team that invented COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language). She was one of the first computer scientists to campaign for “coding” as a computer language rather than strings of numbers. In many ways, that tendency defines Hopper. She had a no nonsense approach to computers that was eminently practical, always taking into account human nature and trying to find ways to make abstract concepts clear to the layman as well as the aspiring computer programmer.
One of the most famous Grandma Cobol stories was about the day her enormous computer was acting up. She traced the problem to a dead moth inside a sensitive area and was forced to debug the computer. The idea stuck and now we have computer bugs.
Here is Grace “Grandma Cobol” Hopper explaining the the nanosecond.
Grace Hopper beside a massive computer that could store 72 words!
Google just honored Grace Hopper with a doodle and once you see her in action, you’ll know why.
Grace Hopper was an accomplished naval officer/computer scientist with a wry sense of humor and a down to earth style of communicating.
One of the first programmers on the Mark I Computer (IBM’s Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator or ASCC), Grace Hopper once described the Mark I as having ” 72 words of storage and could perform three additions a second.”
In comparison, the cell phone in your pocket has more computing power than NASA’s first moon launch, so if you are using your phone to send lol cats…. think about it.
It’s not the power, it’s what you do with it.
The early behemoths Hopper worked on were as large as 51 feet long and 8ft high. She also worked on Harvard’s Mark II and III computers as well as the UNIVAC I computer.
Affectionately known as “Grandma Cobol,” because she lead the team that invented COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language). She was one of the first computer scientists to campaign for “coding” as a computer language rather than strings of numbers. In many ways, that tendency defines Hopper. She had a no nonsense approach to computers that was eminently practical, always taking into account human nature and trying to find ways to make abstract concepts clear to the layman as well as the aspiring computer programmer.
One of the most famous Grandma Cobol stories was about the day her enormous computer was acting up. She traced the problem to a dead moth inside a sensitive area and was forced to debug the computer. The idea stuck and now we have computer bugs.
Here is Grace “Grandma Cobol” Hopper explaining the the nanosecond.
Dystopia. The word hisses off the tongue with sibilant ease, a slow slide into the dark cellar of the collective psyche. The black regimes of our fears, the fascism, the rage, the oppression which mirrors our inner shades, often realized in nightmarish reality.
Conversely, Utopia sounds so hopeful, so inclusive, like a suspended note of a celestial choir. A future where technology is used compassionately to further creative pursuits, knowledge and collective awareness.
What’s it going to be?
One of the great tasks of Science Fiction is to explore humanity in the context of earth shattering change. In the case of Ray Bradbury’s Farenheit 451 with its mechanical hound or George Orwell’s 1984, the startling portrait of the darker probabilities of the future, shaped the minds of a generation. The word “Big Brother” is now part of our lexicon of ideas.
On the Utopian side, Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek inspired cell phones, interactive computers and has scientists noodling over the possibility of matter transfer and warp drive.
Because I’m writing a dystopian novel, I research gadgets and technological trends and lately I’ve been struck by the accelerated pace of technology. Our society is on the verge of a sea change. This has happened before, when planes and tanks and telephones were invented and changed how we communicated, fought wars, lived and died.
Again, we find ourselves living in times of massive technological upheaval. The changes are happening all around us, every second of every day. We’ve already experienced the powerful transformation of our lives due to the internet, but in labs around the world strange inventions are preparing to shift our collective experience of reality in dramatic ways.
Here in Los Angeles, the DMV is working out regulations for driverless cars. Amazon is considering drone delivery technology, so is UPS who already has 3D printers in some locations. Anyone who feels like scoffing at the reality of these ideas, let me draw your attention back to the first days of the Internet when people said it would never work.
The new military drones coming down the assembly line will make the old ones look primitive. They will reach speeds of 460 mph with vertical take off and landing capability. They will be armed with hellfire missiles.
Drones: Big Brother is watching.
In labs around the world, scientists are making concepts once considered fringe science, into reality; mind reading machines, invisibility cloaks, laser weapons, microwave, acoustic and electromagnetic weapons, cloning extinct animals, crowd tasers, robots that can run you down or defuse bombs, insect droids, artificial DNA, artificial organisms built with a kill switch, 3D organ printers, anti-matter bombs, bio weapons and various ways to bio-enhance the human body including brain implants.
Our wired world has also introduced Orwellian levels of pure paranoia, since it is technically possible to spy on anyone or track them through their televisions, cellphones and computers.
From the Sci Fi writer’s point of view, the interesting part of the equation is always the human aspect. How will people react to technology? How will they enhance it or abuse it? Will they create dreams or nightmares?The United States Constitution did not predict the effect of phones, television, airplanes and atomic bombs, so a lot of that power over foreign affairs fell into the hands of one man, the president.
How will society react to mind reading and artificial organisms? Will we have a Star Trek style Utopia or a 1984 Dystopia? Sadly, the military industrial complex is pretty predicable. The amount of times my research has led me to a DARPA project is chilling. We also have the spooky revelations of Edward Snowden and Julian Assange as we watch the blow by blow information wars and disinformation campaigns play out.
After Jeff Bezos revealed his Amazon Air drone program on 60 minutes, UPS also admitted to having a drone program in the works. Within 24 hours a backlash of paranoid consumerism was unleashed. Naysayers waved regulation books and postulated the nefarious intentions of corporations, who now have the human right of free speech.
A paranoid reaction.
Which is good.
Because paranoia in this case is healthy. It’s the healthy side of fear. And probably the one thing that will save us. Because for every noble and beneficial act, there is a second possibility, that technology will serve the more hideous, destructive aspects of human nature.
As the ancient Greeks knew, Pandora can let every crazy ass demon out of that box, but inside there’s still hope. After all, the minute we had an internet, people used it to tell jokes and send stupid cat pictures.
Dystopia. The word hisses off the tongue with sibilant ease, a slow slide into the dark cellar of the collective psyche. The black regimes of our fears, the fascism, the rage, the oppression which mirrors our darkness, often realized in nightmarish reality.
Conversely, Utopia sounds so hopeful, so inclusive, like a suspended note of a celestial choir. A future where technology is used compassionately to further creativity, knowledge and collective awareness.
What’s it going to be?
One of the great tasks of Science Fiction is to explore humanity in the context of earth shattering change. In the case of Ray Bradbury’s Farenheit 451 with its mechanical hound or George Orwell’s 1984, the startling portrait of the darker probabilities of the future, shaped the minds of a generation. The word “Big Brother” is now part of our lexicon of ideas.
On the Utopian side, Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek inspired cell phones, interactive computers and has scientists noodling over the possibility of matter transfer and warp drive.
Because I’m writing a dystopian novel, I research gadgets and technological trends and lately I’ve been struck by the accelerated pace of technology. Our society is on the verge of a sea change. This has happened before, when planes and tanks and telephones were invented and changed how we communicated, fought wars, lived and died.
Again, we find ourselves living in times of massive technological upheaval. The changes are happening all around us, every second of every day. We’ve already experienced the powerful transformation of our lives due to the internet, but in labs around the world strange inventions are preparing to shift our collective experience of reality in dramatic ways.
Here in Los Angeles, the DMV is working out regulations for driverless cars. Amazon is considering drone delivery technology, so is UPS who already has 3D printers in some locations. Anyone who feels like scoffing at the reality of these ideas, let me draw your attention back to the first days of the Internet when people said it would never work.
The new military drones coming down the assembly line will make the old ones look primitive. They will reach speeds of 460 mph with vertical take off and landing capability. They will be armed with hellfire missiles.
Drones: Big Brother is watching.
In labs around the world, scientists are making concepts once considered fringe science, into reality; mind reading machines, invisibility cloaks, laser weapons, microwave, acoustic and electromagnetic weapons, cloning extinct animals, crowd tasers, robots that can run you down or defuse bombs, insect droids, artificial DNA, artificial organisms built with a kill switch, 3D organ printers, anti-matter bombs, bio weapons and various ways to bio-enhance the human body including brain implants.
Our wired world has also introduced Orwellian levels of pure paranoia, since it is technically possible to spy on anyone or track them through their televisions, cellphones and computers.
From the Sci Fi writer’s point of view, the interesting part of the equation is always the human aspect. How will people react to technology? How will they enhance it or abuse it? Will they create dreams or nightmares?The United States Constitution did not predict the effect of phones, television, airplanes and atomic bombs, so a lot of that power over foreign affairs fell into the hands of one man, the president.
How will society react to mind reading and artificial organisms? Will we have a Star Trek style Utopia or a 1984 Dystopia? Sadly, the military industrial complex is pretty predicable. The amount of times my research has led me to a DARPA project is chilling. We also have the spooky revelations of Edward Snowden and Julian Assange as we watch the blow by blow information wars and disinformation campaigns play out.
After Jeff Bezos revealed his Amazon Air drone program on 60 minutes, UPS also admitted to having a drone program in the works. Within 24 hours a backlash of paranoid consumerism was unleashed. Naysayers waved regulation books and postulated the nefarious intentions of corporations, who now have the human right of free speech.
A paranoid reaction.
Which is good.
Because paranoia in this case is healthy. It’s the healthy side of fear. And probably the one thing that will save us. Because for every noble and beneficial act, there is a second possibility, that technology will serve the more hideous, destructive aspects of human nature.
As the ancient Greeks knew, Pandora can let every crazy ass demon out of that box, but inside there’s still hope. After all, the minute we had an internet, people used it to tell jokes and send stupid cat pictures.
Remember The Jetsons? The cartoon about the future where the Jetson family had a plethora of wacky, futuristic gadgets to make life easier? Well it looks like CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos took that show seriously.
Just when you’re getting used to an irobot vacuum scooting around the floor, Amazon just revealed the next level of droid services.
First Amazon created automated warehouses and now flying drones will deliver packages in under 30 minutes.
The drone delivery service is called Amazon Prime Air:
Remember The Jetsons? The cartoon about the future where the Jetson family had a plethora of wacky, futuristic gadgets to make life easier? Well it looks like CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos took that show seriously.
Just when you’re getting used to an irobot vacuum scooting around the floor, Amazon just revealed the next level of droid services.
First Amazon created automated warehouses and now flying drones will deliver packages in under 30 minutes.
The drone delivery service is called Amazon Prime Air:
With Gravity topping the box office, pushing special effects to the edge, I’m posting my favorite space clip, starring astronaut Chris Hadfield.
After attending the premiere, Hadfield tweeted about the film: “Good morning! Gravity was fun last night. Fantastic visuals, relentless, Sandra Bullock was great. I’d fly with her.” When asked about his own tour of duty, Hadfield said, “Fortunately, the five months that I spent on the space station went way calmer.”
In fact, his tour of duty was a bit more rock and roll.
Here is the supremely musical Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield saying goodbye to the International Space Station with this mind-blowing version of David Bowie’s Space Oddity.
I am going to miss the amazing videos from Commander Chris Hadfield, the Canadian astronaut who streamed his odd missives from the International Space Station with an earthiness that was both hilarious and informative.
Many of his videos are practical demonstrations about the reality of our physical bodies meeting a gravity-free environment like space. Watching these videos will change your perspective of gravity.
Hadfield’s experiments create a visceral understanding of the fact that everything we do from moving to eating and everything we experience around us is in a complex dance with gravity. Our very existence depends on gravity.
What better way to show it than to wring out a wash cloth in space?
Hadfield demonstrates crying in space:
Chris carries out student experiment by wringing out a wash cloth in space then waxes philosphical:
Chris talks about “space vision” and testing eyeballs in space:
Hadfield talks to William Shatner AKA Captain James T. Kirk:
I am going to miss the amazing videos from Commander Chris Hadfield, the Canadian astronaut who streamed his odd missives from the International Space Station with an earthiness that was both hilarious and informative.
Many of his videos are practical demonstrations about the reality of our physical bodies meeting a gravity-free environment like space. Watching these videos will change your perspective of gravity.
Hadfield’s experiments create a visceral understanding of the fact that everything we do from moving to eating and everything we experience around us is in a complex dance with gravity. Our very existence depends on gravity.
What better way to show it than to wring out a wash cloth in space?
Hadfield demonstrates crying in space:
Chris carries out student experiment by wringing out a wash cloth in space then waxes philosphical:
Chris talks about “space vision” and testing eyeballs in space:
Hadfield talks to William Shatner AKA Captain James T. Kirk:
Sub atomic particles may be pixels in a simulated reality.
Computers and the Internet have changed the way we conceive of the universe. Complex systems, algorithms, programming, pixels, data-mining, viral propagation and virtual realities are new additions to the vocabulary of modern thought. These concepts have migrated to books, films and TV and to the single most powerful way we create models of our universe, scientific hypothesis.
Welcome to The Simulation Theory, because without computers, this theory couldn’t exist.
If you’ve seen The Matrix, you already know a lot about this theory. Neo is trapped in an extremely compelling artificial reality. He wakes up in the real world which is nowhere near as seductive or addictive as the illusory Matrix.
The theory was first proposed by the futurist Hans Moravec (Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University) and was elaborated on in a paper by Professor Nick Bostrom (Oxford University) who theorized we could all be living in a simulation. But Bostrom doesn’t stop there. He goes on to say it is likely we are already in a simulation being run by a “post human” civilization in our own future. Simulation Theory continues to ignite excitement in the scientific community, recently being championed by NASA/JPL’s Rich Terrell and turning up in scientific papers.
Are we living in a bubble?
Could a technically advanced society simulate a reality indistinguishable from actual reality? Could the universe we perceive be such a simulacrum? What about our conscious minds? Are we simulated too?
Could the rules of physics be changed from world to world?
It may be possible for simulated civilizations to become posthuman. They may then run their own ancestor-simulations on powerful computers they build in their simulated universe. Such computers would be “virtual machines”, a familiar concept in computer science. (Java script web-applets, for instance, run on a virtual machine – a simulated computer – inside your desktop.) Virtual machines can be stacked: it’s possible to simulate a machine simulating another machine, and so on, in arbitrarily many steps of iteration. If we do go on to create our own ancestor-simulations, this would be strong evidence against (1) and (2), and we would therefore have to conclude that we live in a simulation. Moreover, we would have to suspect that the posthumans running our simulation are themselves simulated beings; and their creators, in turn, may also be simulated beings.
According to Bostrom, life could be a vast computer program with a complex set of rules accounting for growth, reproduction and death. Our senses could be an illusion. We could be simulacra.
Are we simulacra?
Is God a computer programmer?
The sticky little issue The Simulation Theory ultimately creates, is the idea of God. Creationists sometimes latch onto the theory as a potential way to prove there is a creator. Scientists usually propose the simulation is generated by an advanced society or our future selves. Physicists like Stephen Hawking have sold a lot of books using the God trigger. But whether the universe is an organic phenomena or a simulation, the rules of science are the ultimate tool to perceive it.
Rich Terrell, of the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena appeared on Morgan Freeman’s Through the Wormhole and discussed this very point. “What are the requirements for God? He’s an inter-dimensional being, connected with everything in the Universe, a creator, responsible for everything in the Universe, and in some way can change the law of physics, if he wanted to. I think those are good requirements for what God ought to be.” The definition is awfully close to what computer programmers do, when building simulated environments. Terell offers a thought equation as proof, “Look at the way the Universe behaves, it’s quantized, it’s made of pixels. Space is quantized, matter is quantized, energy is quantized, everything is made of individual pixels. Which means the Universe has a finite number of components. Which means a finite number of states. Which means it’s computer.” And Rich Terrell estimates that we will be able to create a “photo real simulation of all that we see around us” in ten years. Ten year may sound astoundingly quick, but according to Moore’s law, the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every two years. Although Terrell believes that’s a slow estimation and that in a decade computational power will increase by 500.
Will computers create a photo real simulation in 10 years?
Holy Moore’s Law!
Anyone who has played The Sims knows that creator Will Wright, somehow codified the ordinary rules of life into an artificial reality. Just like a Phillip K. Dick’s novel, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, where Martian colonists project themselves into avatars to play Perky Pat. The Sims allows players to operate a community of humans. The Sims even has a form of simulated karma. I once played an early version of The Sims where if you neglected the game the house caught on fire!
Even though virtual reality is only a crude shadow of a simulated reality, programmers like Will Wright are still able to create physics for their world. Will Wright’s game Spore, takes the idea further, allowing the player to act as a god and play with the virtual world’s physics, creating lifeforms that evolve from microscopic organisms into complex animals, then intelligent beings. Once a species reaches planetary mastery, it ascends into space to interact with alien species across the galaxy.
Does reality assemble for our consciousness?
Holy Schrödinger’s Cat!
Some scientists are proposing ways to prove the Simulation theory. Rich Terrell points out that the famous double slit experiment involving interference and diffraction of particles is evidence that the universe may be assembling itself only when we observe it, and disassembling when we aren’t paying attention… sort of like a computer game. “The experiment shows something really rather extraordinary, that matter, even though it behaves when you are looking at it, measuring it, as individual particles, when you are not looking at it, matter is diffuse. It spreads out, it doesn’t have a finite form in the Universe… The Universe gives you what you are looking at when you look at it,” Terrell says.“When you are not looking at it, it’s not necessarily there.”
How can we prove we are in a simulation? Researchers Silas R. Beane, Zohreh Davoudi, Martin J. Savage propose we look for signs of “constraint” in the Universe. “The numerical simulation scenario could reveal itself in the distributions of the highest energy cosmic rays exhibiting a degree of rotational symmetry breaking that reflects the structure of the underlying lattice.” So if we measure the highest-energy cosmic rays known in the universe and find out those cosmic rays are constrained in some way, we may be living inside a bubble.
Anybody got a million dollars?
Rich Terrell talks about The Simulation Theory on Through the Wormhole:
“Whatever distinctly human qualities war calls upon—honor, courage, solidarity, cruelty, and so forth—it might be useful to stop thinking of war in exclusively human terms. After all, certain species of ants wage war and computers can simulate “wars” that play themselves out on-screen without any human involvement. More generally, then, we should define war as a self-replicating pattern of activity that may or may not require human participation— Barbara Ehrenreich
I was watching TV pundit/editor of Mother Jones Magazine David Korn commenting on Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld’s botched Iraq war when he said, “…it’s almost like saying if we had an army of a million giant flying robots things would have turned out better. It’s denying reality… it’s all a giant experiment for them…” Those two ideas struck me; irresponsible, inexperienced leadership and a million robot army. A scary proposition, fast becoming a very real possibility.
DARPA is slowly crafting robots around the art of war. What is DARPA? The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency . DARPA funds an array of inventors and Scientists for the US government, developing high-tech weapons and machines such as drones. Some of the best robots under development are being created by Boston Dynamics who just unveiled The Atlas, a new humanoid robot. They also developed the Cheetah which holds the land speed record for robots and the Big Dog pack robot.
These robots may seem crude and awkward as they move through tunnels, trek up mountains, throw bricks, climb steps and fly in formation, but they represent the adaptation of technology to a disturbing purpose, navigating war zones, delivering payloads, entering enclosed structures and zapping the earth from the safety of the clouds.
Should we call a moratorium on the creation of lethal autonomous robotics? Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, thinks so when he suggests, “Machines lack morality and mortality, and as a result should not have life and death powers over humans.”
Then there is Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics.
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
But could Asimov’s law be enforced? How can we stop a robot from being hacked or reprogrammed? And what about robots who learn, the classic SkyNet scenario from the Terminator movies where artificial intelligence develops its own agenda? Whether used creatively or destructively, Robot technology will no doubt be a perfect reflection of our own dreams and nightmares.
If you’ve never read David Mamet’s memo to the writers of The Unit, prepare to be amused.
The author of 50 plays and 25 screenplays, Mamet is a study in why playwrights often dazzle when it comes to screenwriting. They learn to move the plot forward dramatically, scene by scene, through character and dialogue, without the help of Lizard men descending from the ceiling or massive car chases.
Known for his witty, acerbic style, staccato musicality of dialogue and ability to render the dynamics of complex human emotion into nuanced, yet dramatic turns, Mamet’s writing is sometimes surprising and often lovely. His dialogue is so distinctive, it spawned the slang phrase Mamet Speak.
But in 2006, Mamet was working in the Hollywood Dream factory at the breakneck pace television demands, as executive producer on a weekly drama for Fox called The Unit, based on his co-producer’s book Inside Delta Force: The Story of America’s Elite Counter terrorist Unit. The show ran for four seasons.
In this letter, David Mamet’s frustration with his writer’s is apparent, but between the lines his love for them, the written word and the process of writing is clear. Enjoy!
TO THE WRITERS OF THE UNIT
GREETINGS.
AS WE LEARN HOW TO WRITE THIS SHOW, A RECURRING PROBLEM BECOMES CLEAR.
THE PROBLEM IS THIS: TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN *DRAMA* AND NON-DRAMA. LET ME BREAK-IT-DOWN-NOW.
EVERYONE IN CREATION IS SCREAMING AT US TO MAKE THE SHOW CLEAR. WE ARE TASKED WITH, IT SEEMS, CRAMMING A SHITLOAD OF *INFORMATION* INTO A LITTLE BIT OF TIME.
OUR FRIENDS. THE PENGUINS, THINK THAT WE, THEREFORE, ARE EMPLOYED TO COMMUNICATE *INFORMATION* — AND, SO, AT TIMES, IT SEEMS TO US.
BUT NOTE:THE AUDIENCE WILL NOT TUNE IN TO WATCH INFORMATION. YOU WOULDN’T, I WOULDN’T. NO ONE WOULD OR WILL. THE AUDIENCE WILL ONLY TUNE IN AND STAY TUNED TO WATCH DRAMA.
QUESTION:WHAT IS DRAMA? DRAMA, AGAIN, IS THE QUEST OF THE HERO TO OVERCOME THOSE THINGS WHICH PREVENT HIM FROM ACHIEVING A SPECIFIC, *ACUTE* GOAL.
SO: WE, THE WRITERS, MUST ASK OURSELVES *OF EVERY SCENE* THESE THREE QUESTIONS.
1) WHO WANTS WHAT? 2) WHAT HAPPENS IF HER DON’T GET IT? 3) WHY NOW?
THE ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS ARE LITMUS PAPER. APPLY THEM, AND THEIR ANSWER WILL TELL YOU IF THE SCENE IS DRAMATIC OR NOT.
IF THE SCENE IS NOT DRAMATICALLY WRITTEN, IT WILL NOT BE DRAMATICALLY ACTED.
THERE IS NO MAGIC FAIRY DUST WHICH WILL MAKE A BORING, USELESS, REDUNDANT, OR MERELY INFORMATIVE SCENE AFTER IT LEAVES YOUR TYPEWRITER. *YOU* THE WRITERS, ARE IN CHARGE OF MAKING SURE *EVERY* SCENE IS DRAMATIC.
THIS MEANS ALL THE “LITTLE” EXPOSITIONAL SCENES OF TWO PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT A THIRD. THIS BUSHWAH (AND WE ALL TEND TO WRITE IT ON THE FIRST DRAFT) IS LESS THAN USELESS, SHOULD IT FINALLY, GOD FORBID, GET FILMED.
IF THE SCENE BORES YOU WHEN YOU READ IT, REST ASSURED IT *WILL* BORE THE ACTORS, AND WILL, THEN, BORE THE AUDIENCE, AND WE’RE ALL GOING TO BE BACK IN THE BREADLINE.
SOMEONE HAS TO MAKE THE SCENE DRAMATIC. IT IS NOT THE ACTORS JOB (THE ACTORS JOB IS TO BE TRUTHFUL). IT IS NOT THE DIRECTORS JOB. HIS OR HER JOB IS TO FILM IT STRAIGHTFORWARDLY AND REMIND THE ACTORS TO TALK FAST. IT IS *YOUR* JOB.
EVERY SCENE MUST BE DRAMATIC. THAT MEANS: THE MAIN CHARACTER MUST HAVE A SIMPLE, STRAIGHTFORWARD, PRESSING NEED WHICH IMPELS HIM OR HER TO SHOW UP IN THE SCENE.
THIS NEED IS WHY THEY *CAME*. IT IS WHAT THE SCENE IS ABOUT. THEIR ATTEMPT TO GET THIS NEED MET *WILL* LEAD, AT THE END OF THE SCENE,TO *FAILURE* – THIS IS HOW THE SCENE IS *OVER*. IT, THIS FAILURE, WILL, THEN, OF NECESSITY, PROPEL US INTO THE *NEXT* SCENE.
ALL THESE ATTEMPTS, TAKEN TOGETHER, WILL, OVER THE COURSE OF THE EPISODE, CONSTITUTE THE *PLOT*.
ANY SCENE, THUS, WHICH DOES NOT BOTH ADVANCE THE PLOT, AND STANDALONE (THAT IS, DRAMATICALLY, BY ITSELF, ON ITS OWN MERITS) IS EITHER SUPERFLUOUS, OR INCORRECTLY WRITTEN.
YES BUT YES BUT YES BUT, YOU SAY: WHAT ABOUT THE NECESSITY OF WRITING IN ALL THAT “INFORMATION?”
AND I RESPOND “*FIGURE IT OUT*” ANY DICKHEAD WITH A BLUESUIT CAN BE (AND IS) TAUGHT TO SAY “MAKE IT CLEARER”, AND “I WANT TO KNOW MORE *ABOUT* HIM”.
WHEN YOU’VE MADE IT SO CLEAR THAT EVEN THIS BLUESUITED PENGUIN IS HAPPY, BOTH YOU AND HE OR SHE *WILL* BE OUT OF A JOB.
THE JOB OF THE DRAMATIST IS TO MAKE THE AUDIENCE WONDER WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. *NOT* TO EXPLAIN TO THEM WHAT JUST HAPPENED, OR TO*SUGGEST* TO THEM WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.
ANY DICKHEAD, AS ABOVE, CAN WRITE, “BUT, JIM, IF WE DON’T ASSASSINATE THE PRIME MINISTER IN THE NEXT SCENE, ALL EUROPE WILL BE ENGULFED IN FLAME”
WE ARE NOT GETTING PAID TO *REALIZE* THAT THE AUDIENCE NEEDS THIS INFORMATION TO UNDERSTAND THE NEXT SCENE, BUT TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO WRITE THE SCENE BEFORE US SUCH THAT THE AUDIENCE WILL BE INTERESTED IN WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.
YES BUT, YES BUT YES *BUT* YOU REITERATE.
AND I RESPOND *FIGURE IT OUT*.
*HOW* DOES ONE STRIKE THE BALANCE BETWEEN WITHHOLDING AND VOUCHSAFING INFORMATION? *THAT* IS THE ESSENTIAL TASK OF THE DRAMATIST. AND THE ABILITY TO *DO* THAT IS WHAT SEPARATES YOU FROM THE LESSER SPECIES IN THEIR BLUE SUITS.
FIGURE IT OUT.
START, EVERY TIME, WITH THIS INVIOLABLE RULE: THE *SCENE MUST BE DRAMATIC*. it must start because the hero HAS A PROBLEM, AND IT MUST CULMINATE WITH THE HERO FINDING HIM OR HERSELF EITHER THWARTED OR EDUCATED THAT ANOTHER WAY EXISTS.
LOOK AT YOUR LOG LINES. ANY LOGLINE READING “BOB AND SUE DISCUSS…” IS NOT DESCRIBING A DRAMATIC SCENE.
PLEASE NOTE THAT OUR OUTLINES ARE, GENERALLY, SPECTACULAR. THE DRAMA FLOWS OUT BETWEEN THE OUTLINE AND THE FIRST DRAFT.
THINK LIKE A FILMMAKER RATHER THAN A FUNCTIONARY, BECAUSE, IN TRUTH, *YOU* ARE MAKING THE FILM. WHAT YOU WRITE, THEY WILL SHOOT.
HERE ARE THE DANGER SIGNALS. ANY TIME TWO CHARACTERS ARE TALKING ABOUT A THIRD, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.
ANY TIME ANY CHARACTER IS SAYING TO ANOTHER “AS YOU KNOW”, THAT IS, TELLING ANOTHER CHARACTER WHAT YOU, THE WRITER, NEED THE AUDIENCE TO KNOW, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.
DO *NOT* WRITE A CROCK OF SHIT. WRITE A RIPPING THREE, FOUR, SEVEN MINUTE SCENE WHICH MOVES THE STORY ALONG, AND YOU CAN, VERY SOON, BUY A HOUSE IN BEL AIR *AND* HIRE SOMEONE TO LIVE THERE FOR YOU.
REMEMBER YOU ARE WRITING FOR A VISUAL MEDIUM. *MOST* TELEVISION WRITING, OURS INCLUDED, SOUNDS LIKE *RADIO*. THE *CAMERA* CAN DO THE EXPLAINING FOR YOU. *LET* IT. WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERS *DOING* -*LITERALLY*. WHAT ARE THEY HANDLING, WHAT ARE THEY READING. WHAT ARE THEY WATCHING ON TELEVISION, WHAT ARE THEY *SEEING*.
IF YOU PRETEND THE CHARACTERS CANT SPEAK, AND WRITE A SILENT MOVIE, YOU WILL BE WRITING GREAT DRAMA.
IF YOU DEPRIVE YOURSELF OF THE CRUTCH OF NARRATION, EXPOSITION,INDEED, OF *SPEECH*. YOU WILL BE FORGED TO WORK IN A NEW MEDIUM – TELLING THE STORY IN PICTURES (ALSO KNOWN AS SCREENWRITING)
THIS IS A NEW SKILL. NO ONE DOES IT NATURALLY. YOU CAN TRAIN YOURSELVES TO DO IT, BUT YOU NEED TO *START*.
I CLOSE WITH THE ONE THOUGHT: LOOK AT THE *SCENE* AND ASK YOURSELF “IS IT DRAMATIC? IS IT *ESSENTIAL*? DOES IT ADVANCE THE PLOT?
ANSWER TRUTHFULLY.
IF THE ANSWER IS “NO” WRITE IT AGAIN OR THROW IT OUT. IF YOU’VE GOT ANY QUESTIONS, CALL ME UP.
LOVE, DAVE MAMET SANTA MONICA 19 OCTO 05
(IT IS *NOT* YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO KNOW THE ANSWERS, BUT IT IS YOUR, AND MY, RESPONSIBILITY TO KNOW AND TO *ASK THE RIGHT Questions* OVER AND OVER. UNTIL IT BECOMES SECOND NATURE. I BELIEVE THEY ARE LISTED ABOVE.)
Below the thunders of the upper deep; Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea, His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee About his shadowy sides: above him swell Huge sponges of millennial growth and height; And far away into the sickly light, From many a wondrous grot and secret cell Unnumbered and enormous polypi Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green. There hath he lain for ages and will lie Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep, Until the latter fire shall heat the deep; Then once by man and angels to be seen, In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die. — Alfred Lord Tennyson
Remember those spooky artists renderings of sperm whales battling Giant Squids? Or the 19th century illustrations of boats being pulled down into the depths by tentacled arms?
Well, it turns out, those stories were true.
Image from Discovery/NHK funded mission
A crew of Scientists, funded by Discovery channel and Japan’s NHK TV, just filmed a bus sized Giant Squid in its natural habitat for the first time. As a writer, this intersection of mythology and reality is particularly fascinating. Writers deal in myth and story and we rarely get to see a creature emerge from the crucible of legend into cold, hard reality.
For 3000 years, the giant squid was mythology; codified by sailors, deified as The Kraken, dramatized by Jules Verne in 20,000 leagues under the sea and sung into existence by Alfred Lord Tennyson. The slumbering giant moved with us through history, glimpsed in pieces, with no more substance than a dream. But now, recorded in digital perfection, the Giant Squid, Architeutis dux, is visible and unquestionably real. “Then once by men and angels to be seen,” Tennyson wrote. And now we can see the creature for ourselves, not red and decomposing, rising to the surface in its death throes, but vibrant and alive, clothed in silvery beauty and otherworldly strangeness, tentacles snaking out beneath the ocean’s surface— Lovecraft’s Cthuthu come to life.
Of course, people have seen this creature all along. The Giant Squid was recorded by Homer’s Odyssey as the Scylla, in Viking legends as The Kraken and was sighted by Aristotle and Pliny the Elder. The threads of the legends came from real encounters. This fact alone should make us wonder what other mythological creatures in this world are true. With the rise of Zoology in the 18th and 19th century, evidence began to mount about the reality of the Giant Squid’s existence: Squid Sightings
With the advent of movable type and newspapers, Squid sightings were being reported by sailors. Beached squids were measured, beaks, tails and tentacles were preserved in alcohol or honey and sent to scientific societies around the world. By the 19th century, a few European Zoologists speculated the creature might actually exist. Still, despite the evidence, there was enormous resistance in the Scientific community. In 1857, Japetus Steenstrup, a Danish zoologist at the University of Copenhagen, postulated the Squid was real, based on a beak and past sightings, “From all evidences the stranded animal must thus belong not only to the large, but to the really gigantic cephalopods, whose existence has on the whole been doubted.”
Japetus Steenstrup named the creature: Architeutis dux.
Giant Squid Sightings
In 350 B.C. Greek philosopher Aristotle first described greater and the lesser squid. He called the great squid teuthos. “The Teuthos is much larger than the Teuthis, for it reaches the length of five cubits. Some species are two cubits long, and the tentacula of the polypus are as long and even larger in size. The class of Teuthos is rare and differs in form from Teuthis, for the extremity of the Teuthos is wider; and again the fin is placed round the whole abdomen, but it is wanting in the Teuthis. ” So Aristotle had seen a Squid the size of a man or longer.
Pliny the Elder, living in the first century A.D. described a gigantic squid in his Natural History, with the head “as big as a cask”, arms 30 feet (9.1 m) long, and carcass weighing 700 pounds (320 kg).
With the onset of the Industrial age and steam ships, Giant Squid sightings changed in tone. Instead of being beached or washed ashore, men not only encountered the animal on the seas, they were no longer subject to the capricious winds.
Illustration of the Alecton’s encounter with a Colossal Squid.
In 1861, the French dispatch steamer Alecton, sighted a “sea-monster” off the Canary Islands. They pursued, harpooned and shot the animal then tied it with ropes and tried to haul it on deck. When the ropes sliced the monster in half, they managed to acquire the tail. (From the artists rendering of their eye-witness account, the monster was probably a Colossal Squid: Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni.) The Commander of the Alecton contacted the French consul and filed an account with the French Academy of Sciences, showing the spear-shaped tail as proof. A member of that august body, Arthur Mangin, summed up the Scientific response, saying no “wise” person, “especially a man of science,” would “admit into the catalogue those stories which mention extraordinary creatures like the sea serpent or the giant squid, the existence of which would be…. a contradiction of the great laws of harmony and equilibrium which have sovereign rule over living nature as well as senseless and inert matter.”
Baroque Pauline Squid Sighting
On January 8th, 1875, the Baroque Pauline sighted a Sperm Whale battling a “Monster Sea Serpent.” The crewman carefully described what he observed, making a rendering of the whale’s battle with the serpent.
“The weather fine and clear, the wind and sea moderate. Observed some black spots on the water, and a whitish pillar, about thirty-five feet high, above them At the first glance I took all to be breakers, as the sea was splashing up fountain-like about them, and the pillar, a pinnacle rock bleached with the sun; but the pillar fell with a splash, and a similar one rose. They rose and fell alternately in quick succession, and good glasses showed me it was a monster sea-serpent coiled twice round a large sperm whale. “
Size Matters
During World War II, a British Admiralty trawler was lying off the Maldives Islands in the Indian Ocean. One of the crew, A.G. Starkey, was on deck late at night when he saw something peculiar in the water. “As I gazed, fascinated, a circle of green light glowed in my area of illumination. This green unwinking orb I suddenly realized was an eye. The surface of the water undulated with some strange disturbance. Gradually I realized that I was gazing at almost point-blank range at a huge squid.’ Starkey walked the length of the ship finding the tail at one end and the tentacles at the other. The ship was over one hundred and seventy five feet long.”
On November 2nd, 1878 a Giant Squid was beached at Thimble Thickle Bay, Newfoundland. The dying squid measured 20 feet in length from tip of the head to bottom of the beak. The longest tentacles were 35 feet, making the creature 55 feet in length.
Giant Squid Attacks
The most remarkable account of a Giant Squid attack took place in 1874 in the Bay of Bengal and was reported by a number of Indian newspapers and the London Times ( a few years before Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the sea was published). The attack was also witnessed by a passing steam ship, the Strathowen.
Illustration from 1st edition of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, based on the Giant Squid attack on the Schooner Pearl
In 1874, three days out of Galle, the 150 ft long Schooner Pearl was attacked by a Giant Squid. A second ship, the steamer Strathowen, watched the Pearl go down. One passenger who witnessed the sinking testified,“As I watched, the mass was set in motion. It struck the schooner, which visibly reeled, and then righted. Immediately afterwards, the masts swayed sideways, and I could clearly discern the enormous mass and the hull of the schooner coalescing – I can think of no other term. Almost immediately after the collision and coalescence the schooner’s masts swayed towards us, lower and lower; the vessel was on her beam-ends, lay there for a few seconds, and disappeared, the masts righting as she sank, and the main exhibiting a reversed ensign struggling towards its peak.”
Captain James Floyd describes the attack, “a great mass rose slowly out of the sea about half-a-mile off on our larboard side, and remained spread out, as it were, and stationary; it looked like the back of a huge whale, but it sloped less, and was of a brownish colour; even at that distance it looked longer than our craft, and it seemed to be basking in the sun.”
“‘What’s that?’ I sung out to the mate. ‘Blest if I knows; barring its size, colour, and shape, it might be a whale,’ replied Tom Scott; ‘and it ain’t the serpent,’ said one of the crew, ‘for he’s too round for that ‘ere critter.’”
Crew member Bill Darling recognized the shape in the water closing in on the Pearl. Many historical sightings had taken place in his native land of Newfoundland. Darling identified the animal as a Giant Squid, warning the Captain not to fire on the creature. But Captain Floyd chose to ignore the warning and shot at the advancing Squid.
Floyd gave the following account, “By this time three of the crew, Bill included, had found axes, and one a rusty cutlass, and all were looking over the ship’s side at the advancing monster. We could now see a huge oblong mass moving by jerks just under the surface of the water, and an enormous train following; the wake or train might have been 100 feet long.
“In the time I have taken to write this the brute struck us, and the ship quivered under the thud; in another movement, monstrous arms like trees seized the vessel and she keeled over; in another second the monster was aboard, squeezed in between the two masts, Bill screaming ‘slash for your lives.’ But all our slashing was to no avail, for the brute, holding on by his arms, slipped his vast body overboard, and pulled the vessel down with him; we were thrown into the water at once, and just as I went over, I caught sight of one of the crew, either Bill or Tom Fielding, squashed up between the masts and one of those awful arms.”
Only four members of the crew and Captain Floyd survived.
This astounding attack influenced writer’s Jules Verne, Peter Benchley who wrote Jaws and Beast and Arthur C. Clarke who wrote a paper on the subject titled Reflections on Squid.
Giant Squid and Sperm Whale, the squid’s natural predator.
In the 1930′s, The Brunswick, a royal Norwegian Navy ship reported being attacked by Giant Squid at least three times. The Giant Squid pulled along side of the ship, pacing it with their jet propulsion, then suddenly rammed into the ship and wrapped its tentacles around the hull. Unable to keep a grip on the steel hull, the animal slid off and fell into the ship’s propellers.
During World War II (in 1941), survivors of the troopship Britannia sunk by a German raider The Thor, clung to the sides of the life rafts. Survivor Lieutenant R. E. G. Cox, told author of The Kingdom of the Octopus, Frank Lane, that on the first night a man was plucked from the raft by a large squid. Later that same night, Cox himself was attacked. A tentacle wrapped around his leg, then released him leaving painful scars.
In January 2003, French veteran yachtsman Oliver de Kersauson’s ship was attacked by a giant squid while ironically competing for the Jules Verne trophy. “I saw a tentacle through a porthole. It was thicker than my leg and it was really pulling the boat hard.” The squid released the boat once the motor stopped. “We didn’t have anything to scare off this beast, so I don’t know what we would have done if it hadn’t let go. We weren’t going to attack it with our penknives,” he said. Kersauson says the squid must have been 22 to 26 feet (7 to 8 meters) long. “I’ve never seen anything like it in 40 years of sailing,” Kersauson said.
(Don’t ask me what Giant Squid have against the French…)
The Giant Squid or Architeutis dux is the largest of all invertebrates, reaching lengths of 60 feet (18 meters) and possibly, if the WW2 witness is correct, 200 ft in length.
