2001: experience the future, again.

Here is another link from our good friend Slashdot. The link is to this Independent online story that starts with the following:

It is the missing part of a cinematic classic. Almost four decades ago, Stanley Kubrick gathered the world's scientific minds and asked them to predict the future. Their thoughts would then form the opening sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey, his epic about a mission to Jupiter which becomes a life or death battle between the space crew and their on-board computer HAL 9000.

But the interviews were never screened and the collective thoughts of 21 eminent men and women of science appeared to have been lost for ever.

Now the musings are to be made public for the first time when they are published next month, giving Kubrick enthusiasts an insight into his ultimate vision for the classic film.

The names in the list of interviewees read like the who's who of the world circa 1965: Isaac Asimov, Margaret Mead, Freeman Dyson, ...

I loved this stuff from mathematician Jack Good:

Some of the interviewees have looked back at their original comments. Professor Good stood by his, including his suggestion that computers might have personality traits: "My Windows 98 computer tells lies and often forces me to shut down improperly. Such behaviour in a human would be called neurotic."