Null references (oh no, not again!)

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Georg Wrede" <georg.wrede at iki.fi> wrote in message 
news:gos8d3$imj$1 at digitalmars.com...
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> Georg Wrede wrote:
>>> At my company we even had a data entry machine that used 8 inch floppies 
>>> (and not the 5 1/4 ones). Bet not many of you guys have even touched 
>>> one. :-)
>>
>> I still have a box of them, for my long-gone PDP-11.
>>
>> I saw "2001" when it first came out. I was in total awe.
>
> Me too. I was under age, but Mom talked me into the theatre with her.
>
> The coolest shot was of this guy walking in the round corridor, and then 
> turning upside down to go in the next corridor. Of course it was obvious 
> (to a technically minded geek, at least) how they shot it, but I really 
> thought they were cool for having got the idea.
>
> The ending was a bit too abstract for me at the time. But the opening 
> scene with the apes and the monolith, it was actually religious.
>
> I never got the technophobia that I believe the flick was trying to 
> instill. Heh, I can stay up alone at night with only computers around.
>

Sometimes, when I'm in a particularly pessemistic mood, I get the feeling 
that regardless of its intent, 2001's biggest contribution to society was 
the creation of what to become one of science fiction's biggest plot 
cliches: People being put into danger by their own creations (2001, Matrix, 
Terminator, Battlestar Gallactica...and probably a whole ton of others I 
can't think of right now.)