[HN Gopher] Space Truckin' - The Nostromo (2012)
___________________________________________________________________
Space Truckin' - The Nostromo (2012)
Author : exvi
Score : 141 points
Date : 2025-11-26 02:31 UTC (20 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (alienseries.wordpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (alienseries.wordpress.com)
| sho_hn wrote:
| You know, I'm sort of frustrated that all the recent entries in
| the _Alien_ franchise have been nostalgia bait. At this point I
| 've seen those corridors so often I'm tired of them. A most
| unwelcome dilution.
| echelon wrote:
| Cameron doubled down on the aesthetic in _Aliens_ , he just
| changed the genre from horror to action. Both films were "peak
| 80s" (Alien was '79) and just ooze with what must be the
| absolute pinnacle of science fiction vibes.
|
| If you haven't seen these two films, you need to fix that this
| week. It'll change your life.
|
| Scott tried to expand the aesthetics with _Prometheus_ and
| _Covenant_. I felt the films did a great job of refreshing the
| look and feel while remaining faithful to the 80 's.
| Unfortunately, the writing was trite and Scott's directing is
| averaging .200 at bat these days.
|
| _Romulus_ was not bad, though certainly not a masterpiece. At
| least it was better written and had better character arcs than
| Scott 's recent films.
|
| I'd rather have the performance of this series than whatever
| Jurassic Park or Star Wars have become.
|
| Predator, oddly enough, has strangely been improving if you
| don't count Shane Black's entry.
|
| I'm happy they keep making these, and I hope the writers and
| directors at the reigns keep experimenting rather than
| conforming to "safe" or "understandable by a general audience".
| the_af wrote:
| Alien and Aliens were masterpieces, but I've been
| consistently disappointed by everything after.
|
| Let's agree to ignore the awful VS Predator crossovers for a
| second. I'm not sure they are canon anyway, and they are
| obviously cash grabs and not made with the same care of even
| the worst Alien movies.
|
| Alien 3, while it has a cool idea (prison planet), is a mess
| as a result of executive meddling (the story can be read
| online). And they killed Hicks and Newt... bastards!
|
| Resurrection was awful and awfully badly acted. I like
| Jeunet, but this was a hard miss. It has some cool visuals at
| times, typical of Jeunet, but the movie itself was
| embarrassing.
|
| Prometheus was atrocious. Badly acted, badly scripted
| (characters making the dumbest of choices at every turn,
| professionals who don't know their profession --
| xenobiologists who pet alien snakes, geologists who get lots
| at the first turn -- this has been discussed countless
| times). And the loss of mystery... nobody needed to know
| _more_ about the Engineers /Pilot aliens, that's not how good
| storytelling works. Aided by technology, Scott "pulled a
| George Lucas" and forgot the cardinal rule of scifi
| horror/mystery: less is more.
|
| After this, I exercised the good sense of avoiding Covenant
| (the plot summary seems bad), and Romulus, and now the new TV
| show.
|
| I think overall the gravest sin is that the Alien universe
| was meant to be sketched in the broadest strokes, and details
| and mystery kept, not overexplained.
|
| I wish they had let the first two awesome movies rest in
| peace.
|
| Extended universes suck.
|
| P.S. same applies to Blade Runner. Then again, I didn't even
| like the sequel, so I'm sure I'll dislike the upcoming show
| :(
| loudmax wrote:
| I tend to agree with your take on these movies, but I find
| I can enjoy some of them to a greater extent by rejecting
| the notion of what's "cannon".
|
| For instance, I like the bleakness of Alien 3 opening with
| Newt and Hicks both dead. That doesn't spoil my enjoyment
| of Aliens, which ends on a triumphant note. These are
| _different_ stories, and they can be treated on completely
| different planes. If you want, you can imagine the movies
| as representing alternate branching universes, where one
| branch led to Newt and Hicks dying in hibernation, and in
| some other branch that 's too uninteresting to be put to
| film, they live happily ever after.
|
| I also liked Blade Runner 2049, but I don't need to
| retroactively reevaluate the original Blade Runner in light
| of any of the questions that are settled in the sequel. In
| Ridley Scott's original film, Deckard's humanity is still
| open to question, regardless of what's presented in
| Villeneuve's version.
|
| Of course when the sequel is complete trash, it's easy to
| ignore entirely. Terminator 3 being the obvious example.
| havblue wrote:
| While I agree that you can just mentally split the
| continuity and thus spare Newt from her fate, in doing so
| it means that the continuity after is meaningless. I did
| something similar with Star Trek Nemesis. It wasn't a
| great movie so I just rejected that Data died at the end.
| Everything else after is fan fiction and it's irrelevant
| whether there's some other android who carries his
| memories and returns.
|
| I think there's a similar issue with Marvel after Thanos.
| Not as much that Endgame was a bad movie, just that the
| continuity was derailed and never grounded itself. Did
| Vision come back? Did Loki? Is the Fox Quicksilver canon
| now? Eh, who knows, the "real" state of the world has
| moved so much that it doesn't matter anyway.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _I think there 's a similar issue with Marvel after
| Thanos. Not as much that Endgame was a bad movie, just
| that the continuity was derailed and never grounded
| itself. Did Vision come back? Did Loki? Is the Fox
| Quicksilver canon now? Eh, who knows, the "real" state of
| the world has moved so much that it doesn't matter
| anyway._
|
| In a way, I feel like this makes it the comic-book movie
| that's spiritually closest to the comics.
| user____name wrote:
| > And the loss of mystery... nobody needed to know more
| about the Engineers/Pilot aliens, that's not how good
| storytelling works.
|
| Yeah, remember when the network forced Lynch and Frost to
| reveal the killer of Laura Palmer. Broadcast executives
| typically don't get it, scenarists often get too infatuated
| with their own worldbuilding.
| evelant wrote:
| Romulus was pretty good actually. If you want great newer
| aliens universe play the game Alien: Isolation. It's the
| best piece of media in the aliens universe since Aliens.
| It's an amazing experience and blows all of the later
| films/shows out of the water in regards to keeping the
| original "vibe" of the setting.
| the_af wrote:
| Oh yes, Alien Isolation is quite good. I must finish it
| some day!
| NoGravitas wrote:
| You are right about everything from Alien 3 through
| Covenant. However! Romulus was pretty okay. It has some
| questionable plot decisions, and it's kind of soft
| continuity compatible with the two Prometheus-era movies.
| But it does work as an action-horror in the shared universe
| of the original films. Alien: Earth was also pretty good,
| it explores the setting without breaking it too badly, and
| it's fun with dangerous aliens that _aren 't_ THE Alien.
| There are some plot points that require very smart
| characters to be holding the idiot ball.
| spankibalt wrote:
| > At this point I've seen those corridors so often I'm tired of
| them.
|
| Heh, I can't get enough of them; it's a great visual design
| template to work from. And visual consistency of properties
| within a diegetic timeframe has to be taken into account, even
| if the newer entries' writers' rooms could profit from better
| talent...
|
| That said, _Alien: Isolation_ is still the best modern infusion
| into that universe, and one of the best games in my lifetime.
| vkazanov wrote:
| True, a brilliant and extraordinary game. We completed it
| with my kid a couple days ago, tons of fun.
|
| A perfect replika of Alien the original movie and its
| retrofuturism.
| the_af wrote:
| Thanks for reminding me: I need to finish that game. Visually
| it's a masterpiece.
| evelant wrote:
| Alien: Isolation truly is an under appreciated masterpiece.
| One of the best video games ever made IMO. Aesthetic, sound
| design (put on headphones and watch the reactor purge scene
| or the spacewalk near the end it's phenomenal sound design),
| emotional design, storytelling, it captures the setting in a
| way I don't think anything has done since the first two
| films.
| VectorLock wrote:
| Have you watched Alien: Earth?
| sho_hn wrote:
| Yes, that and _Romulus_ is what I was thinking of. _Alien
| Earth_ has that whole fanfic-style flashback episode.
| speed_spread wrote:
| I love the franchise and my will to suspend my disbelief was
| strong yet the writing, acting and editing were soooo bad
| that I couldn't make it past the second episode. And that
| rock song ending entirely killed whatever was left of the
| vibe. I'm not even sure who to blame for this mess.
| evo_9 wrote:
| I always loved Alien and Blade Runner because of this shared
| aesthetic. It gave the sense that the doomed ship Nostromo
| departed Blade Runner earth.
| ggm wrote:
| Owners of Frank Lloyd Wright homes licked their lips with glee
| when Bladerunner fans made the bricks-and-mortar movie-famous.
|
| How Deckerd can afford to live in one post economic meltdown is
| a bit unclear. And those whisky glasses are worth a mint now
| too.
|
| "Enhance" indeed.
| sorokod wrote:
| Many go off-world to create real estate opportunities?
| balamatom wrote:
| >How Deckerd can afford to live in one post economic meltdown
| is a bit unclear.
|
| He's part of a precarious minority of semi-technical
| functionaries, armed bureaucrats afforded generous promotions
| and great inner leeway amidst the post-meltdown order of
| things, in return for their unquestioning allegiance to the
| same
| ggm wrote:
| Retconning 2049 into that was.. Hard.
|
| Personally I prefer the PKD book. It was more nuanced. But
| the aesthetic of the first film was just wondeful. If
| somebody had sold cold cathode flouro umbrellas when the
| movie came out they would have cleaned up.
| balamatom wrote:
| >Retconning 2049 into that was.. Hard.
|
| After Deckard did an exemplary job, everyone liked it so
| much that they they replaced his entire cadre with
| simulacra.
|
| >Personally I prefer the PKD book. It was more nuanced.
|
| Oh absolutely! Just recently bought a fake animal and
| pondered it. Love PKD for selling various angles on the
| same trip for decades; wonder if his OG exegesis can be
| read anywhere...
| dboon wrote:
| I have a copy. Send me an email and I'll upload it
| somewhere for you. It's not a great read, but it's
| interesting in places. You can use rob.crimedoer at
| gmail.
| the_af wrote:
| In the "Deckard is a replicant" version that Scott has
| defended for years, I assume he's simply living in someone
| else's place (unaware that it's not his own).
| ggm wrote:
| That certainly makes sense. Everyone else is mostly
| occupying leftover spaces.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Also see, but not to be confused with, Space Truckers:
|
| https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0120199/
| stronglikedan wrote:
| An equally great movie! :ducks:
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| It's up there with Waterworld and The Fifth Element, in that
| they're un-ironically some of my favorite films.
| gorfian_robot wrote:
| people brush their teeth three times a day???
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| In space everyone can smell you scream
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| I thought the article was great, but I couldn't get that
| sentence out of my head!
| Mistletoe wrote:
| Yeah three seems insane but less than two also seems insane.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Why? Brushing your teeth after each meal doesn't sound insane
| at all to me. It actually seems quite logical.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| How often do you do it?
| the_af wrote:
| Two?
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| The recommendation on how many times to brush daily varies by
| country. In most spanish-speaking countries, for example , it's
| thrice. (My unscientific poll: I googled for "tres veces al
| dia" and found media from a handful of countries promoting this
| frequency).
| the_af wrote:
| Latin American here: my coworkers used to (note: I'm remote
| now, that's why the past tense) brush their teeth after
| lunch, so if they also brushed in the mornings and before
| going to bed, that'd make it three times.
|
| I didn't though, I'm not taking my brush & toothpaste to a
| public restroom at the office.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| It's okay if you don't, like, dip your brush in the toilet
| or place it in a dirty counter, and miles cheaper than
| paying for dental treatments. And it's not like you're
| taking your everyday brush and paste with you daily, right?
| You keep a secondary set at the office?
| the_af wrote:
| Like I said, I didn't brush my teeth at work. When I went
| to the office, I tried to go in and out of the restroom
| as fast as possible, touching as few things as possible,
| and didn't linger to do things like brush my teeth, eat
| or play chess.
|
| I didn't keep _anything_ at my office, there were no
| lockers, no drawers, and the desk itself was messed with
| by the night cleaning crew.
|
| > _and miles cheaper than paying for dental treatments_
|
| You don't need to brush your teeth after _every_ meal,
| that 's a cultural thing. As long as you brush when you
| wake up and before you go to bed, that's ok.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I've been in some dirty public bathrooms, but those were
| typically in the expected places like bars and the like.
| However, this is starting to sound like you just have a
| mental thing about public restrooms. Not that I'm a
| therapist or even play one on TV.
| the_af wrote:
| Just because I won't brush my teeth thrice a day?
|
| Wow... calm down, armchair therapist. Just do your thing
| and let others live their lives.
|
| Most people do NOT brush their teeth after lunch. It's
| just a cultural habit. See the comment that sparked this.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You said this, "When I went to the office, I tried to go
| in and out of the restroom as fast as possible, touching
| as few things as possible"
|
| which really comes across as you work in a disgusting
| place, or you might have a bit of an overreaction
| the_af wrote:
| Brush your teeth three, four or as many times as you
| like! As I said, beyond the minimum it's just a cultural
| habit. I knew one person who wouldn't consider her tooth-
| brushing complete if she didn't also brush her tongue,
| then removed "stuff" from her inner cheeks with a
| spoon... _each_ time. (It 's not a common practice,
| before you ask). She wasn't a dentist or a doctor either,
| I think she was a school teacher.
|
| The overreaction thing is just your own baggage. Seems
| like a lot to extrapolate from so few words.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Keep it up until you're 20 or so until the enamel is properly
| hardened.
| stack_framer wrote:
| I always loved how the Nostoromo looked futuristic, yet cramped
| and dirty. The narrow halls and small rooms reflect the
| minimalism you would expect from a greedy corporation that
| considers its crew expendable, while the clutter and disrepair
| reflect what you would expect from the apathetic, disgruntled
| employees.
| phrotoma wrote:
| In one of the myriad making of / behind the scenes docs I've
| watched over the years, they described how after the first set
| was built it was decided it should be more cramped, so they cut
| a horizontal swath out of big chunks of it and lowered the
| ceiling forcing the actors to crouch and duck as they moved
| around.
|
| Fantastic decision, the claustrophobia really adds to the creep
| factor IMO.
| Bleedblood wrote:
| It actually is a pretty accurate reflection of the internals of
| blue ocean vessels.
| le-mark wrote:
| I've read it described as "used future" aesthetic.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| The computer terminal with an annoying box jammed up against
| your right hand, but also enough space for an ashtray:
|
| https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQwxhqR...
|
| I kicked myself on the second read for missing why the title
| mentions trucking: it's in the article, buried a little, but
| Ridley Scott called this the "truck driver" version of sci-fi.
|
| "Bachelor pad" sci-fi is another great description, and this
| subreddit uses the equally fantastic term "cassette futurism":
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/cassettefuturism/
|
| I think it's why I love the _Technology Connections_ YouTube
| channel too. A lot of the devices are like 1980s science
| fiction! (The article in this discussion mentions the set
| designers using rotary mechanical switches to automate blinking
| light patterns so, in a way, they were living in their own
| futurism.)
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| There's an actual Space Truckers movie! (Dennis Hopper,
| square pigs... it has it all)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Truckers
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| I loved this movie. I wonder how well it still holds up. I
| bet pretty well, if you go into it with the appropriate
| expectations.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| I agree that the aesthetic made for an excellent film but I
| always thought that if they had sufficient power for FTL travel
| (e.g. massive fusion reactors or something) they could have
| powered a few extra light bulbs.
|
| Although the ship in Dark Star wins the space-grunge contest
| hands-down.
| nkrisc wrote:
| Even today the brick and mortar stores of multi-million
| (billion) dollar companies have dirty bathrooms and broken
| lights.
|
| The justification for the light situation in the movie is
| simple: corporate greed and human laziness (which fits nicely
| in the narrative as well).
| stef25 wrote:
| > Even today the brick and mortar stores of multi-million
| (billion) dollar companies have dirty bathrooms and broken
| lights.
|
| Last place I worked at (10M investment) the men's pisser
| didn't flush and the toilet paper was brown sandpaper that
| smelt like shit even before you used it. Horrible TL lights
| though, so not quite a horror scene.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| With all the back and forth over the props, also with Ridley
| Scott scrapping loads of spaceship footage in order to reshoot
| everything after repainting the models, I get the impression that
| communication was quite bad in the production. I'm sure we've all
| encountered this in industry to some degree but having months of
| work tossed because it ain't look right must sting somewhat.
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| Sometimes you can't predict what will work until you see what
| doesn't. I'd say that if you're really developing something new
| you should have that experience at least once of having
| something you've worked very hard on scrapped because it just
| isn't right.
| Neil44 wrote:
| I was taken by how freely they spent months of man hours on
| things to go 'meh' and casually throw them away. Different
| world. Quite holistic with their production costs
| throwup238 wrote:
| Once production starts the costs for many roles are locked in
| and they work till it wraps, often due to union rules and
| contracts. Anyone working in parallel with the film crews
| just does whatever the director/producers prioritizes since
| they're not getting sent home.
|
| It's definitely a different world though because you're not
| supposed to go under budget. If investors give you $100mil to
| make a movie, they want to maximize the return on that
| $100mil, so if you're $5mil under budget, they want you to go
| and spend that money to make it even better (usually in post
| production now, but back then it was less of an option).
| Neil44 wrote:
| That's a great explanation thanks. There are many types of
| customers around and not many spend like that. They're
| treating it as an investment in a very direct way I guess.
| vitaflo wrote:
| This is just part of working in art and design. 90% of all my
| design work never made it to production. It's the epitome of
| "the journey is the reward". You need to find your satisfaction
| in doing the work not getting it released or you won't last
| long.
| Animats wrote:
| This look all comes from Silent Running (1972).
| usrusr wrote:
| Yeah, weird how that seems to never come up. I sometimes have
| trouble keeping the movies apart in memory (Silent and Dark).
|
| But Alien being barely more than a higher budget Dark Star
| remake that somehow got stuck in the elevator scene (and lost
| all of the original's lightheartedness in the process), that
| absolutely is my favorite piece of scifi movie trivia.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > But Alien being barely more than a higher budget Dark Star
| remake
|
| granted, but this wasn't a Point Break remake either. Dark
| Star is pretty much a student film turned into a blockbuster.
| Even El Mariachi->Desperado wasn't as different as Dark
| Star->Alien was.
| kazinator wrote:
| What a weird coincidence; I made a "Space Truckin'" comment under
| a YouTube vid less than 24 hours ago:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWDsSDNpS8c&lc=UgyEogAS5P_Hm...
|
| Double coincidence: it was I who posted this ten years ago:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9254748
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Tangential: Alien(s) brought H.R. Giger to my attention, for
| which I shall ever be thankful. My parents visited Gruyeres in
| Switzerland a couple of years ago, and whilst they didn't tour
| the museum[0] (his art isn't their thing) they did take a couple
| of photos of the sculptures outside for me.
|
| I'll get there one day.
|
| [0]: https://www.hrgigermuseum.com/en/
| e40 wrote:
| That website was really frustrating on iOS, had to close it
| before seeing much.
| ChrisGreenHeur wrote:
| Swiss people can't ever grasp html
| omnicognate wrote:
| HTML was invented in Switzerland, albeit by an Englishman.
| ChrisGreenHeur wrote:
| yes, that's the joke :)
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| Strictly speaking it was invented in France, although
| I'll grant you that depending on exactly when TimBL had
| the idea for it, it may have depending on which side of
| the office he was sitting on.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Giger art should only be enjoyed rendered on a CRT in a
| damp dark cave for that in-universe feel.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Actually Giger's sculptures are rather interesting. But I
| agree about the print and paint work. It's too deep in
| the uncanny valley - in a bad way.
| user____name wrote:
| Cerntenly not.
| kakacik wrote:
| His cafe just opposite the museum is also quite something,
| chairs and tables from spine-infested shapes.
|
| And when in Gruyeres then one should taste meringues double
| creme, or fondue in colder months.
|
| And last but not least - its a region of Swiss pre-alps,
| mountains up to cca 2000m high, lovely hikes all around in
| picture-perfect nature and fields (government pays farmers to
| keep it looking nice) and even nearby very nice via ferrata on
| Moleson peak which I did 2 weeks ago, this time with some snow.
| It overlooks the castle and whole area from avove. That was
| interesting and intense experience while being alone on whole
| mountain.
| moffkalast wrote:
| My dad took me there as a kid a long whole ago when Giger was
| still alive, it was really something. The bar is amazing and
| the museum is... oppressively dark in a very unique way, like
| anything Giger ever did I suppose.
|
| There's several lifesize necronomicons/xenomorphs, some earlier
| and later variants, Sil and the skull train, a lot of art that
| was never used in Alien and sequels but some made it later into
| Prometheus.
| virtualritz wrote:
| There is is, Spielberg spelled wrong as "Speilberg" four (all)
| times in the article.
|
| Does anyone know why Americans do this regularly, swapping i and
| e especially in words of German origin?
| 867-5309 wrote:
| perhaps due to ignorance for the mnemonic rhyme "i before e,
| except after c"
| dogman1050 wrote:
| It's wrong in Einstein's name, twice.
| 867-5309 wrote:
| heh, every rule has exceptions
| ralfd wrote:
| Maybe because Anglos sometimes pronounce e like i and ei is
| more common in english spelling for a long vocal?
|
| To be fair, German "ie" and "ei" is one of the few special
| rules which make no sense (or lost their sense in time). The
| 'e' in 'ie' is Dehnungs-e for elongation, just a notation that
| the i is longer pronounced (like Wiese, Biene). (Special rule:
| if ie is at the end of a word like familie (latin familia)
| often it is a diphtong and both vocals are pronounced).
|
| "ei" is a bit stupid, because it is not pronounced "ei" but
| like "ai" or "ay" (eg Mayer).
| Sharlin wrote:
| The weirdest dipthongs in German are definitely "eu" and
| "au". I mean, /oi/? Wtf?
| 0xEF wrote:
| I'm not sure the generalization is accurate. Most of us can
| remember the 'i before e' rule we were taught as kids, but the
| English language is a celebrated mess of borrowed words and
| guidelines masquerading as rules. It is admittedly confusing
| for native and non-native speakers alike, but if we throw a
| reliance on spell check into the mix, which does little to help
| with spelling a person's name, we just create more opportunity
| for degradation.
|
| That said, it should be a pretty hard rule when writing about a
| person to, at the very least, check to make sure you spelled
| their name correctly.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Right, I before E except after C, except when you run a
| feisty heist on a weird beige foreign neighbor. Caffeine
| strung atheists are reinventing protein at their leisure.
| Plebeians may deign to forfeit either that or seize the
| language and reinvent it
|
| Has anyone actually counted whether that rule is more often
| true than wrong?
| zimpenfish wrote:
| Brief mention on Language Log back in 2009[0] says 'They
| are saying that teaching the list of "-cei-" words directly
| is a better strategy than teaching the rule: it is not
| sufficiently general to pay its way.'
|
| Which is basically saying the rule is worthless?
|
| [0] https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1525
| 0xEF wrote:
| It might be silly to impose rules on the English language
| at all.
|
| And yes, I realize by putting that in an HN comment to
| live on the Internet forever, the ghost of every English
| teacher I had growing up in the US is going to haunt me,
| one by one, until I am mad and rendered unable to
| communicate because the anarchic amalgamation that is the
| English language has lost any shadow of sensibility.
|
| In fairness, I find it a perfectly wonderful language to
| get creative with, but I really do believe its evolution
| as a sort of Frankenstein's Monster, composed of parts
| borrowed from German, Latin, French, etc, has allowed it
| to transcend into something that broke free of any rules
| we tried to impose upon it. We're taught different ways
| to write an essay "correctly" for the sake of appeasing
| specific branches of academia, grammatical structures
| that are often awkward and completely at odds with how we
| actually speak, inducting more and more colloquialisms
| and slang into the accepted dictionary authorities each
| year as the stodgy old guard, once considered rebellious
| and fresh, passes on to the next generation.
|
| English is dynamic and alive, in that way, leaving our
| educational curriculum running to catch up. Believing
| that, I cannot blame even the most eloquent native
| speaker for getting things "wrong" from the perspective
| of a non-native speaker. It's likely that they learned
| different and flimsy rules at different times from
| different sources.
| songshu wrote:
| The rule only applies to vowel sounds like the ones in
| believe/receive. There are versions of the rhyme that
| attempt to include this caveat.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| > Does anyone know why Americans do this regularly, swapping i
| and e especially in words of German origin?
|
| You should see what they do to place names like Edinburgh.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| It's a good thing - at least we know it was not written by AI
| user____name wrote:
| It's a curious thing. Nowadays if I post online, I don't even
| bother anymore with fixing typos or small mistakes.
| rob74 wrote:
| What has always bothered me about this "interstellar mining" plot
| device (which is not only used in Alien, but also in e.g.
| Avatar): is it really somehow plausible to find minerals in other
| solar systems that can't be found much cheaper in our own solar
| system? Of course, you need some kind of McGuffin to justify your
| heroes going to other planets, but "to seek out new life and new
| civilizations" is much better IMHO than "just looking for
| substance XYZ that for some reason can't be found in our own
| solar system or synthesized much cheaper than the cost of
| ferrying it over several light years"...
| SJMG wrote:
| In Avatar they are literally mining a room-temperature
| superconductor. If you had to think of a way to make
| interstellar mining plausible that certainly would be a
| candidate.
| dylan604 wrote:
| This has always been a sticky thing for me as well. These kinds
| of McGuffins lean towards physics are different in other parts
| of the galaxy/universe if there are minerals found only in
| certain parts of the galaxy. That would also imply there are
| other elements that we do not have on our periodic table.
| Unless someone has become able to stabilize some of the
| unstable elements to keep them around long enough to make some
| sort of material out of them, there's only so much unobtanium
| or dilithium nonsense I'm willing to accept.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _These kinds of McGuffins lean towards physics are
| different in other parts of the galaxy /universe if there are
| minerals found only in certain parts of the galaxy._
|
| Or the local conditions are such that they produce different
| chemical compounds.
|
| I'm not going to strike gold in my backyard, but people in
| Colorado might. There's not a lot of diamond production
| happening within reach underneath my location, but there's
| plenty in parts of Africa.
|
| If we want to take it to space, there's not a lot of Helium-3
| to be easily extracted on Earth, but apparently there's quite
| a bit more on the Moon.
| anyonecancode wrote:
| I think you have to assume that faster-than-light travel is
| both possible and economical. At that point, far-flung supply
| chains across the galaxy really aren't any more surprising than
| the far-flung supply chains across the globe of our current
| reality. When distance becomes less economically relevant,
| other factors (like labor availability and costs, regulations,
| ease of access, security, etc) become more important.
| hamdingers wrote:
| FTL isn't even necessary. Consider the majority of tanker
| ships travel at bicycle speeds[1]. If you're transporting
| sufficiently profitable nonperishable goods in extremely high
| quantities, and have enough automated ships, you could have a
| functional interstellar supply line at a fraction of light
| speed.
|
| Of course, this isn't how it's usually presented in science
| fiction, but that's because a sci-fi story about a non-
| sentient fully automated mining machine wouldn't be very
| interesting. Gotta get humans out there.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_steaming
| usrusr wrote:
| And they said five year plans struggled with predicting
| demand ;)
|
| I'd rather go with "for any delta in mining convenience
| between solar systems, there exists a level of FTL magic
| where shipping would become economically feasible"
|
| Perhaps space slow steaming might be an option if your goal
| was to make a Dyson sphere exist before the star inside
| burns out?
| hamdingers wrote:
| Hogwash! We can do it much faster than that. With a
| machine in Alpha Centauri capable of flinging rocks full
| of rare earth metals back towards the solar system at
| 1/10th the speed of light, we could be up and running in
| <150 years.
|
| This feels about as realistic as most of the spacetech
| proposals I hear.
| usrusr wrote:
| I'd imagine insurance premiums to get quite ugly with all
| those 0.1c rocks passing by
| hamdingers wrote:
| Not my problem, I'll be long dead.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Well if you put yourself in the perspective of a time period
| where something like _The Nostromo_ actually exists - our
| scientific understanding is literally lightyears ahead of where
| it is right now. Meaning, our periodic table as it stands today
| is 1/10th the size of the future table. So it's reasonable to
| conclude that there are large swaths of never before even
| imagined materials out in the universe.
| hearsathought wrote:
| If interstellar travel is possible then it probably means
| intrastellar travel had been possible for a long time. Which
| means most readily accessible minerals had already been mined
| in the solar system. Not to mention humans probably have
| settled throughout the solar system. Which means solar
| ecological movements have gained momentum throughout the solar
| system. After all, who would want mining near their vacation
| properties on the moon or mars.
|
| The fact that interstellar mining is happening is evidence that
| it's cheaper than mining locally. Otherwise it wouldn't happen.
|
| What a bizarre take. It's not a mcguffin. Both Alien and Avatar
| were based on economic/historical realities of their times and
| throughout history. Why do you think companies mine or drill
| for oil all over the world. Why not just stay within their
| national borders? You exhaust resources locally and you look
| for resources elsewhere. It's just common sense.
| joha4270 wrote:
| And the fact that superman can fly is evidence that people
| are lighter than air. Otherwise it wouldn't happen.
|
| The costs (in money and energy) of the infrastructure to mine
| another solar system would pay for _a lot_ of R &D to
| synthesize whatever it is here in our solar system.
|
| Unlike the other poster, I don't think interstellar mining
| needs finding, I'm perfectly happy to lean back and enjoy the
| show. But whatever they mine would have to be very magical
| indeed to not be cheaper from any other process.
| hearsathought wrote:
| > And the fact that superman can fly is evidence that
| people are lighter than air. Otherwise it wouldn't happen.
|
| Is this a serious response? What is your point?
|
| > The costs (in money and energy) of the infrastructure to
| mine another solar system would pay for a lot of R&D to
| synthesize whatever it is here in our solar system.
|
| Sure. Just like infrastructure to mine another continent
| would pay for a lot of R&D to synthesize whatever. And yet,
| we mine other continents. Not only that, in the not too
| distant future, we are going to mine the moon, asteroids,
| etc. I wonder why we don't just synthesize gold rather than
| mining for gold in south africa or some far distant place?
|
| > But whatever they mine would have to be very magical
| indeed to not be cheaper from any other process.
|
| And yet, history, science, economics and reality says you
| are wrong.
|
| You do realize that costs come down right? Just because
| intercontinental travel was expensive in the past doesn't
| mean it is expensive today. In a world of engineers and
| xenomorphs, it's the least crazy aspect of the film that
| simpletons are hung up about.
| pipes wrote:
| But seeking out new civilizations etc is a noble cause, mining
| is dirty industrial space trucking types with an evil mega corp
| trying to make a buck out deadly aliens. Well that's my guess
| anyway!
| alexjplant wrote:
| For those interested Deep Purple apparently originated the term
| "Space Truckin'" with their identically-titled song [1]. I'd be
| astounded if there weren't a copy of "Made in Japan" lying around
| somebody's apartment when they made "Aliens".
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wv1ij7KxWc
| wiz21c wrote:
| I'm happy to see they talk about Chris Foss. I saw an exhibition
| of him in Guernsey last year. Alhtough it's a bit dated, it's
| really nice to see his vision for Dune...
| shon wrote:
| I just bought this vintage magazine on eBay. It's too good not
| to.
|
| There are a few more out there if you want to thumb-through the
| deal thing
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