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Re^2: Global warning is an act of:
by bangers (Pilgrim) on Nov 20, 2008 at 10:53 UTC
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Picky, but I think Terence Stamp and Zod turned up in the second movie, but awesome indeed.
Also Michael Crichton was a fiction writter. Whatever you think about global warming and its cause, it is better to reach your conclusion reading factual works by scientist. | [reply] |
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Even more picky...:). Zod was indeed in the first movie, but only briefly. The beginning of the movie saw Zod and his crew banished to the 'Phantom Zone' (patent-pending)
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There was a lot of footage shot while shooting the first film, which turned up in the sequel.
Of course, it's not far from that to "I told you before, and I'll tell you again -- NO MORE FUCKING ABBA!"
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Although I acknowledge that Crichton was a fiction writer, and that State of Fear was a work of fiction, it did reference many, many published, academic works. I'm guessing you haven't read this book, right?
Alex / talexb / Toronto
"Groklaw is the open-source mentality applied to legal research" ~ Linus Torvalds
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I actually did just read Michael Crichton's State of Fear, and while I did briefly feel a sort of giddy relief while thinking that maybe, just maybe, my daily activities were not contributing to the destruction of the planet, the feeling did not last long. Funnily enough, the reasons for the good feeling's demise were prompted by Crichton's own comments, to read more about the problem before deciding whether abrupt climate change was in fact real.
In doing so, I came across many quite compelling articles outlining where Crichton himself went wrong, and/or graphs at least as convincing as those in Crichton's book and pointing — quite literally — in the opposite direction. I simply offer several of them for those who may wish to pursue further:
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Wrong, I have read it. Not one of his better books, by some distance.
Good science fiction writers (and Crichton was very good) research the science underpinning their work, but it is still a work of fiction. Science fiction is a wonderful tool for looking at social implications of theories, but it is not very useful in helping test the truth of a theory.
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Crichton was the same guy who "warned" the world about the dangers of metal fatigue in Airframe, with the underlying tenet that the engineers were too stupid to notice.
Rather insulting to an airframer (at the time, a group which included me), especially as every engineer in the aviation world had known about the dangers of metal fatigue since this report. I didn't notice Crichton's name in the list of investigators.
Early in my career I worked with one of the engineers responsible for fixing the Comet, and by extension, keeping 707's and DC-8's from having the same problem.
Information about American English usage here and here. Floating point issues? Please read this before posting. — emc
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Re^2: Global warning is an act of:
by swampyankee (Parson) on Nov 21, 2008 at 17:59 UTC
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I got completely turned off to Crichton after his book Airframe, which was touted as the "shocking truth about what airframers don't know about metal fatigue" Since I was an airframe maker, and we had known about (and designed around) airframe fatigue issues since before Crichton first put pen to paper, being lectured to by a no-better-than-second-rate novelist was highly offensive. Maybe I should have lectured him about plot.
Information about American English usage here and here. Floating point issues? Please read this before posting. — emc
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