So when Gary returns to Anmar he'll have an unspecified number of SDHC cards. Now, most of these won't be of immediate use but you can be sure that a specification of the interface will be available - and all those chips will act as a sure incentive to find out what's on them.
You can take it for granted that among the contents will be movies. An average movie can be from 1Gb to 5Gb depending on length and bitrate so a single chip will hold many. So, what exactly might he have taken?
I would point out that for a movie to make sense in Palarand it will have to be fairly straightforward. Whenever an Earth person watches a movie they do so against a background where the audience understands many things that aren't explicitly described; it could be no other way, since most movies have to make money and therefore very little is explained unless essential to the plot.
Anything Gary takes either has to be purely educational or to make an important point. Documentaries will be fine, for example almost anything by David Attenborough is going to qualify. Romances might be in, if they are set against a background which the Anmarians would find interesting.
The two examples I have considered - not that I have spent any time on a selection at all - both happened to be war films. The first is the Buster Keaton movies "The General", with a depiction of railroad use during wartime. The second is "Saving Private Ryan", to be shown to the Council of the Two Worlds as a warning against modern warfare.
The last point is that most movies won't be seen for many years and some will never be circulated. Others, however, will probably be widely circulated and give rise to local sayings. I'm not sure "May the Force be with you" would qualify, since there is no way a local would be able to tell fact from fiction in any of the Star Wars movies.
So, what would you send to Anmar? Video only, and mostly movies but I would consider such series as "World at War". And don't just limit yourself to the output of Hollywood.
Penny
Comments
hard to choose
from films maybe Indiana Jones series
documentaries as "How it's made" and short Youtube videos describing how things work (~15MB ea at low res)
but i would certainly copy en_wiki and possibly congress library (if it's possible)
video
Historical? Victory At Sea series (1950s)
Instructional? College-level classes: chemistry, physics, AC/DC electronics ...
Tech training courses?
Hmm, lets see
For Movie Nights:
Lord of the Rings/Hobbit
Indiana Jones
MacGyver (Series)
Star Trek (Series and Movies)
Star Wars
Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill movies
War:
Band of Brothers
The Pacific
Henry V.
Pearl Harbor
Tora, Tora, Tora
The longest Day
Hitler – The Rise of Evil
Downfall
Black Hawk Down
The Patriot
Stalingrad
Fatherland
to show how the wars on earth were fought
End of Times:
Mad Max 1-4
Postman
to show what may happen if there is a war to end all wars
Martial Arts:
Ip Man 1-3
Jackie Chan (most of his Films)
Ong Bak
These to show what is possible with Martial Arts....and just for the fun of it....
Documentations:
Don't know specific docus but i would say there should be some about:
Industrial Revolution
Railroads and Mass Transport/Cars
Pollution
Medicine (vaccinations)
First and second World War
Martial Arts
Natur/Zoo Docus
Mix of History Docus to show how our history played out
as said above many "How to" videos
You missed some important movies
You missed some important movies.
History of the World, Part 1
Life of Brian and other Monty Python.
Černý Baroni (Black Barons)
Švejk
And others.
Comedy and satire can convey historical lessons, sometimes better than documentaries.
Jackie Chan?
Bruce Lee is a better choice.
I would go with videos of real masters who don't show off for the cameras. They can wipe the floor with most if not all of the movie 'masters.'
Movies selections
A lot of those in your list would make no sense whatever.
Lord of the Rings? How is an essentially alien society supposed to make head or tail of this? There is nothing at all there they could relate to.
The danger with sending stories that are pure fantasy or pure science fiction is that the viewers will not know how much is believeable; as I mentioned in my blog, Earth audiences already know these are not real. An Anmar audience would have no clue.
I'll make a slight exception in the case of The Hobbit, since that does involve dragons/ptuvils and could be used to show a common mythical past but it would be a stretch.
I think many of the war movies could be chosen as the audience could relate to them, even if they know the technology is presently beyond them. However, I would make sure to cover all theaters by including something like, say, Memphis Belle and Das Boot. Different periods would also help - what about Waterloo or something from the Civil War or World War I, not to mention more recent conflicts.
I would not take Jackie Chan, I don't think, because most of what he did is almost 'fantasy' and the audience would never realize much of the action was impossible. Bruce Lee, perhaps or Chow Yun-fat would be better as being more realistic.
Penny
Historical stuff is a must have
Black and white movies are a lot more compact so you can take a lot of those. Stuff like 'World at War' or 'Victory at Sea' would be illustrative of 'The Bad Things' that can happen with rogue nations and stuff with modern armaments.
Since Gary is American, logically he would bring 'The Civil War' series by Ken Burns. Religious films are out for obvious reasons. Cosmos by Carl Sagan. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, documentaries.
We definitely need some kind of history series to illustrate societal evolution on Earth in order to provide cultural context. Selected cultural works would then illustrate the salient cultural points and turning points. Works about architecture can be both educational and culturally enlightening in terms of form, methodology and the rationale for its creation.
This is no different then transferring knowledge to an Amazon Tribe, so an anthropological reference which discusses the methodology would provide a framework as to how one should do that and consequently, what to bring.
Of course if Gary had brought along Blu-Ray M-DISCS (50GB) each, then as long as the readers hold out, they can keep a reference, but oh well.
It is too bad there is only room for technological evolution stuff. Books of music for Merry would be great. There are some great musical works (NO RAP!) that deserve to go and that would not take much space at all unless we go for high definition formats. It is too bad works of art can't be brought as pictures make a very poor substitute but better than nothing I guess.
Blu-Ray M-discs are a plug for a laptop
Blu-Ray M-discs are a plug for a laptop.
The M-discs are rated for a thousand years. So, the laptop is dead in 10 to 15 years. When they advance far enough they'll be able to read the discs again.
Does not have to be.
Print out the plans for a optical disk reader. All you need is an external reader. They are a lot cheaper. This will match up with the laptop. M-DISC still has better endurance then the SD cards and with similar capacity.
They have a tablet
A lot of these rugged tablets (which for this story is what got sent over) have usb connections, perfect with external optical drives.
Also keep in mind information on an SD card will disappear
The M-DISC is still around and given the format of he disks is available, a technological reproduction of a disk reader (which is a logical form that would eventually come about anyway) say in 100 years or so will be able to read those disks again if need be. The most important thing is to really know the encoding and layout of the information (it is published as a standard) and a reader can be re-engineered anyway.
An SD card? No hope in hell.
I saw today that ...
... MIT have thrown out into the open all their coursework, some (much?) of which is on video.
Also, remember when the 'original' Royal Questor (Morlan) was murdered, Garia already thought of investigation and clue-gathering. Maybe a murder mystery (or two) which focusses more on the gathering and processing of clues.
Also, medical knowledge is, to our 'eyes', limited on Anmar. Maybe a (gruesome) video of a post-mortem, and also videos of 'standard' operations.
Dentistry, perhaps?
Instructional videos lead on to things like Bricklaying, Wiring, Plumbing ...
Which brings me onto a subject already mentioned in the stories - waste disposal and sewage treatment.
And water desalination.
And cement/concrete manufacture and use.
Paddle steamers? Steel ship-building.
But warnings about smog.
Weather forecasting/understanding/control ...
And then, going off the educational (but whatever it is, it will still be educational in some way!), what categories do we have:
Comedies
Dramas
Romantic
War
Thrillers
Documentaries
Mysteries
Sci-fi
Historical
Musicals
And I suppose sports coverage too.
Now I have to go through those categories and try to select actual titles.
Hmmm, give me a couple of hours, or days even ...
Oh - more stuff like agriculture and husbandry.
Dentistry, yes!
I did not notice any mention of dental hygiene at all in SEE.
I am surprised the King and Queen still have teeth.
Oh, books on nutrition, dangers of obesity etc.
Dentistry
Yes, there is dentistry on Anmar, but it isn't mentioned like so many other things.
I would imagine that it might be more based on prevention rather than cure (extraction!) but doubtless there is still a sizeable dentistry profession toiling away as a branch of the Healers.
Remember also that these people don't have a diet laden with sugar. Yet.
Penny
specifics
> Maybe a murder mystery (or two) which focusses more on the gathering and processing of clues.
Perry Mason ?
Murder She Wrote?
Dragnet?
Might as well go for a medical mystery
I suggest:
Bones
Quincy
A CSI show
Diagnosis Murder
House
One Russian author used this plot...
Of magically bringing video cassette deck with TV and collection of movies into other magical world. She had some fun with it. Cause you could invent any number of mixed references. For example, drama about something happening with passenger aircraft was considered pure fantasy as no one would want to sit in a metal tube above clouds for hours. And mistery about summoned demons was considered as documentary :-)
And in other episode when protagonist managed to bring some earth books to that world one of his friends said something to the effect of: "Does it matter what this book is about or who is an author? It is a book from the other world. That's its main value."
What could we teach them?
I notice in the story the absence of any of the GBLT issues. So, somehow Anmar has been spared to genetic drift that causes such issues? Not much is said about serious health issues, so can I assume that the incidence of such is lower?
In terms of human conduct, and in light of present day events, there is not much that earth could teach them.
I was thinking that "Sense and Sensibility" and such other stories could be fun. Lots and lots of education on how to extract vital resources without destroying the ecology. Perhaps strict limiting of population growth?
I would like to see the beings manipulate Anmarian genetics so that there is less aggression and war like behavior.
Aggressive Behavior
That is a problem for any society since it is the same drive that gets things done. I'm not saying that a society without such urges doesn't prosper but there would be less likelihood that someone might say, "I wonder what is over the other side of the ocean?" or something like that.
Like it or not, the only reason our society has developed the way it has is because of that drive and, yes, aggression. Almost everything in our modern world is a result of forced development during the two World Wars. Without it we might be a better people but might still be flying around in biplanes and using crystal sets.
As for LGBT issues, I have no personal feel for the way they are perceived. The known gender changers are Garia, Maralin and Ellika and each has their own personal reasons for concealing their change (or not). Julia has written about trans people in 'Alibi Omnino' but that was over a millennium ago (the story, not her writing it!).
Penny
The obvious ones.
The Princess Bride
Night of the Living Dead
Frankenstein
The Four Feathers
The Last Man On Earth
At least those would be the obvious answers to me. All of them are nicely contained, so that any major information needed is either provided or implied clearly enough to be understood, and all of them have clear themes and points to them. Also, they're all just plain ol' good movies.
Melanie E.
History of the World, part 1
History of the World, part 1
Yes, it's a comedy. Yes, Gary/Garia won't understand it all. Yes, Garia will take a lot of time to explain it.
The good part, it will be interactive. Garia provides background, answers questions from the audience, and explains what jokes she can. The audience asks questions, laughs at jokes, and then discusses, scenes and jokes. In the end the audience better remembers the historical lessons.
Connections TV series
How about the James Burke TV series Connections?
Michelle B
Minor tech note.... at VHS
Minor tech note.... at VHS quality, you can fit 2 hours of video on a 650 meg CD.
Call it 300 meg/hr. That gets you a *lot* of movies on those cards.
Anyway, not exactly movies, but I'd consider all 3 Connections series as well as the related "the Day the Universe Changed". Not only do they follow the evolution of various technologies in ways you wouldn't expect, but they also point out the unexpected side effects of inventions.
Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks
If you're ripping DVD's, and
If you're ripping DVD's, and you're trying to keep the resolution, then you're looking at 3 to 8 gigabytes per movie. (Or, the person doing it doesn't know how to compress things down).
For me, personally, I'd go back to the start of the film revolution, with some Rudolph Valentino. Then add a few talkies, and _absolutely_ put in three or four from Fleisher Studios. Animation is likely to be MUCH easier for them to get started with than full motion pictures (with sound). You can do animation with a bright light and flip cards. I build a nickleodeon at one point in college, for my animation class, but forgot to add the shutter, so it didn't work quite right. It took both I _and_ the instructor to figure that one out, and it was a week later. I still got an A on the project, however. (When you pass the picture in front of the lens, you have to _then_ open the shutter briefly, then close it until the next one is in place. Persistence of vision works with the 'light', not with the dark)
As for later works? I think most (not all) movies made after the 1980's would probably not be appropriate for Anmar for a generation or two. Casablanca, the Maltese Falcon, and other Humphrey Bogart would be excellent "Plays" to keep. WW-II propaganda shorts wouldn't be bad (Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips, for example), and later, then 1950's "Duck and Cover" shorts. (educational value AND to drive home where warfare had gone).
Oh - to answer an earlier post, all writeable media has a limited shelf life. Thousands of years isn't it. Electronic media players are also VERY short lived, due to deliberate bad design. Just the ejection belts alone tend to lose their friction within 8 years or so. If they're gear driven, they're plastic, and they break. The electronics are ROHS as well, which means that after heating/cooling for a while, the solder joints shatter. (The lead in solder allows the joints to stretch, rather than shear)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
For color movies yes
Black and White ones take quite a bit less.
But yes, it would all benefit from compression.
ROHS
Another failure mode with lead free solders is that they can grow fine whiskers which may create short circuits, thus rendering the device useless.
Also, in addition to the hardware required to access the memory cards, software will also be required in order to retrieve the data and then process it.
Thus my point that
Thus my point that photography will be very important, while also speeding up transferring the data to other formats. I can just see a Kinetograph suspended over a tablet, with a separate wire recorder running.
http://www.filmsite.org/pre20sintro.html
Look at the phonographic gun, used for "chronophotography". That's one way to shoot a film :)
(Note that early film was _not_ 35mm. It was 1.5 inches, which became 35mm by those who couldn't use imperial measurements)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Being a gamer...
I read that as lead-free soldiers at first. Back in the 80s, New York City outlawed the sale of lead figures for gaming which had several knock-on effects. But I've never known the 30mm pewter barbarians to grow whiskers. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
I have a box with lead
I have a box with lead figurines in it. They've grown weird whiskers. Lead corrosion is STRANGE stuff.
They go along with the White Box that I have - Fantasy Role Playing With Miniatures.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Chemistry
The whiskery growths are usually tin, if I remember correctly. So your figures, if lead, are likely a lead-based alloy which might contain tin, bismuth, arsenic and/or zinc to harden it. Modern figures, since about 1986 are a bismuth-based pewter with enough tin to make them hard enough not to bend easily. This is why they went from 25mm "lead" to 30mm pewter; the pewter will not hold as fine of detail as the lead with the manufacturing process used. These will probably whisker overtime. Lead does not whisker as fast as tin but you can stop it almost completely in pewter with the addition of a tiny amount of copper or nickel.
Bizarrely, what is actually going on in the growth of these whiskers is not known for sure. Where does the metal come from and how does it get out to the end of the whiskers? It happens both in the presence and in the absence of electromagnetic fields and currents and in alloys and in pure metals. This is different from etching or ferning but no one is quite sure how. No materials science engineering grad students were harmed in the writing of this note.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
But that was my point. Even
But that was my point. Even on my 37" TV the resolution of the 350 meg episodes of TV programs is perfectly adequate. Sure, you can do better, but for a lot of things you don't *need* the high resolution.
As long as the info gets across, that's good enough.
Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks
I would add
I would add videos from You-Tube with the music of Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and as many of the classical and renaissance composers as possible.
Westerns
Westerns translate well to other cultures because they are mostly simple morality tales.
The list could be as long as you like but starting with John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Yul Brynner, James Garner and even this list could be arbitrarily long. :) Don't forget TV shows like Maverick, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, etc.
You could change it up with some samurai movies, many of them have interchangeable plots with the westerns. :)
P.S. Don't forget the musicals. Oklahoma. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Paint Your Wagon. Original Family Band. Annie Get Your Gun.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Clint Eastwood?
Who's he? (Must have a 'Back to the Future' quote somewhere here :) )
No, noooo, you can't seriously suggest we subject Palarand sensibilities to the horror of Spagetti Westerns?!!!!
*shudders*
^_^
Yes, seriously
Spaghetti westerns are morality plays par excellence, with firecrackers and dusters. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Westerns are good
Aside for the fact that everyone carries guns, not swords, an Anmar audience would instantly understand almost all westerns. The scenery, the modes of transport, the clothing, all would be almost familiar to them.
Yes, they are almost all morality tales and that also is a good thing. Samurai movies are also good because they show a totally different society but the problems are exactly the same.
Hmm. Not sure about Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Do we want to encourage mass abduction? All the rest are fine.
Penny
Then you'd want, what was it
Then you'd want, what was it - The Seven Samurai? That used swords, and was later used to be a western.
You could toss in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court. Maybe some of the Danny Kaye movies. (the medieval ones)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
modern classics
like Kinky Boots and Mama Mia?
Madeline Anafrid Bell
bridge and dam failures
show videos of bridge and dam failures due to building too cheap or not designed to handle problems caused by mother nature like flooding and earthquakes(anmarquakes) . i know there is a documentary about the golden gate bridge having to be painted all the time to keep it from rusting.
I wonder if that was already planned for?
I am guessing a highly corrosion resistant steel would cost quite a bit more so they opted to go the maintenance route instead. Still, having to start painting at the other end as soon as you have finished painting the other end must be boring though good job security.
Are movies a good use of the cards?
In my opinion, if Gary (as he was at the time) was thinking, he wouldn't have taken any movies (maybe one to demonstrate the principle). The amount of data that is held in a movie is minute compared to the amount of data held in text format. The cards could hold hundreds of books in the space occupied by a single movie. Which would be more useful to Anmar - A David Attenbororough documentary or 500 school and university biology textbooks?
Furthermore, the movies will be in the languages of Earth, not of Anmar. Garia is one of the two people on Anmar who understand English well enough to create usable subtitles, and this wouldn't be good use of her time. Silent films are more likely to be understood on Anmar the films that rely, in part, on a language that virtually nobody speaks. Furthermore, the technology shown in 'modern' films is far more alien to Anmar than the turn of early 1900s that is seen in silents.
For the one movie I'd take, I'd go for Keaton's Steamboat Bill or Chaplin's City Lights. Alternatively, if Garia wanted to warn/scare the rulers of Anmar, then Fritz Lang's Metropolis could be educational.
Well given that the knowledge is in English form
It is best to learn it in its original language. Like it or not, that is how it is going to be. Denmark did that by making English the lingua franca of their university system.
I can foresee the time when Federation ships make contact with a worn out and crappy Earth and they will will say hello by saying Gooday Mate :)
Visual information is multi-dimensional. It conveys sound, imagery, movement, emotion: humanity, better than mere dry words. It is not wasted space.
First Contact
I can assure you it doesn't happen quite that way :)
For details, you'll have to wait for the next chapter.
Pictures, oh, yes. Imagine trying to describe a mid-Victorian gown to somebody who has never seen one? Or a suspension bridge? Or a modern ocean liner? Like they say, a picture is worth at least a kiloword.
Penny
Movies are an excellent use
Movies are an excellent use of the cards. They're likely to have more impact to people, and be more accessible. (mentally) I can see a number of Sesame Street episodes, teaching counting or the ABC's. (Schoolhouse Rock for the Win!)
Remember, the point is NOT to make Anmar a copy of Earth. It's to give it a head start so that it can catch up _to_ Earth while avoiding the mistakes. Two books on biology should be plenty - and a book on reprocessing toxic waste, or 'the top 100 most toxic processes and their current less toxic replacements'.
At least with Palarand, they should be able to avoid tapping into aquifers too much. They should have a number of valleys that can be sealed off and turned into hydroelectric dams and potable water reservoirs.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
hydroelectric
Actually, they could build quite a number of hydroelectic plants all along the Sirrel without building tall dams or even disrupting river traffic. Look up the plant at Parker, Arizona, where they redirect only a small channel of the Colorado River to run up to three turbines. It works with just the head pressure of the flow that leaves Hoover/Boulder Dam.
Well, my focus was on the
Well, my focus was on the reservoirs. Hydroelectric power was secondary.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Start with.....
Carl Sagan's Cosmos, and go from there. Pretty much anything by National Geographic would work as well.
Perhaps Judgement at Nuremberg?
I would look for some of the classics as well - throw in some Shakespeare. There would probably be plenty of parallels for the people of Palarand to relate to The Bard.
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Shakespeare
Much though I like Shakespeare, I think the inclusion of any at this time could present a problem. The language is sufficiently different to English that you could probably found a whole college on Anmar just trying to make head or tail of the plot.
While many of the stories stand alone, like Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet, most of the ones set during the Wars of the Roses and those set in the Mediterranean require some kind of background knowledge. What could someone without the right cultural information make of The Merchant of Venice, for example? It requires an appreciation of the Venice of the time, with Jews being the moneylenders and their relationship to everybody else.
Penny
Other suggestions
Archive footage - both of WWII (for the Council of Two Worlds) and early cinematography (e.g. the various clips taken of London and Paris).
An Anglo-centric historical film or two - since even if they can't understand the language, a monarchy, nobility, social ranks and using animals for locomotion will be very familiar (even if the species aren't).
Heck, try a Gilbert & Sullivan musical or two, since they were often satires of Victorian society.
Oh, and if Gary can find an adaptation of Beowulf for the Einnlanders... :)
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
hurray
Gary might as well have brought a 1911A1 and a Springfield M1A1. They'll see enough detail in the footage to make them.
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