“TO INFINITY …. AND BEYOND!“ or YOU GET TO CHOOSE THE NEXT JEOPARDY MOVIEQUOTES!
The NEXT JEOPARDY is already in the planning stages!! The Categories, such as “SkyNet”, “Altair 8800” and “Slide Rulers” will be my choices, but the Quotes will be suggestions from CHD Consultants!
I knew going in to the June Jeopardy this year … might … be a “Blast From MY Past”! And although many are well known Science Fiction movies … not so well known amongst our Consultants! 🙂
So next time, I will let ALL the CHD Consultants give me feedback on the movies quotes THEY want to try and guess … from THEIR generation! This is, to quote Robbie the Robot … “DANGER WILL ROBINSON! DANGER” time as I may not have seen any of the movies THEY have grown up with! LOL!
I created a Poll at MS:Office 365, using Forms, for all the Consultants to fill in. I guessed at some movies and also left room for ‘Others..’ and a text box for comments too! Not only did it refresh my skills at Polls (it had been a year!) but it will bring everyone together again and might even add a bit of competitiveness to Jeopardy next time.
And imagine the Consultants … the “Jeopary Shaming” if someone gets one wrong! OH, the horrors!
The actual Poll is below (screeen grabs) and each has a clickable link TO the Poll, but I have limited access to “Only people in my organization can respond“. Security reasons! A good test of settings too!
And it will eventually generate some stats and comments too, all part of Forms at MS:Office 365! Early results are in, below, but a long way to go! And if you haven’t noticed, I am a big fan of MS:Office 365! So much more is coming in the weeks and months to come! Make sure you check out the Microsoft Office 365 at UVic OAC Blog Page for all the latest stuff!
“DANGER WILL ROBINSON!“ or “I’m sorry Dave.
I’m afraid I can’t do that“ Famous Computer Quotes !
ANOTHER CALL JEOPARDY YESTERDAY FOR HELP DESK! The theme this time was ‘MEMES‘ and the movie quotes were all from famous SF computers, androids, robots, AI, replicants, ‘bots or even organics (people!) forthem!
Click On Jeopardy ‘MEMEs R US” to go to a PDF version in another Tab
I sure had fun creating this new updated version, which included all kinds of memes and .gifs that are Computer Help Desk related! So, for a new feature here, will identify EACH QUOTE in EACH CATEGORY below, with a link to the IMDB movie page too! And as most of them are potentially ‘older’ movies, many Consultants have not SEEN these awesome movies! So a quick way to go to EACH MOVIE that I referenced! I will call this .. CHDMDB for Computer Help Desk Movie Database!
(Click Character-for IMDB profile / on Movie/TV Show- more info)
Next Jeopardy (October 2021??) will involve Movie Quotes, again, for the categories, but … the CATEGORIES will be based on a Poll in Teams that I will create soon! So they will be more current i.e. released AFTER most of our Consultants were BORN! Some of the movies I referenced, some of the PARENTS of our CHD Consultants .. might not even have seen!
With the help of all my fellow Penguins (Benguins too!) in The Tigloo (you know who you are!) I attempted a High Risk High Reward demo at our CHD meeting yesterday, while I was IN CALL!
AND IT WAS SO WORTH IT! Cool technology with CART2D2 (C2D2 for short) from myprevious post and … well, just some photos for now of the setup as I am working on documentation on how to set up C2D2 for mobile broadcasting and recording! SO COOL! TAK TAK PENGS!!!!
Instructor Station – Source of Video Side View of Setup Behind View of Setup Back View Other Side Student View of Screen Instructor Vantage Point
Clearihue has … SECRETS? Well, maybe not … secrets …. exactly! More like HIDDEN GEMS that many students might not know about! So I will list a few of what I consider to be Clearihue’s Hidden Gems! And … Spoiler Alert … the VERY BEST ONE IS AT THE END! [Double Spoiler – shameless product placement on my part!]
The Computer Help Desk! What, how can CHD be a Hidden Gem? Well, why not ask someone … how to get there! We are located in the A-Wing of the BASEMENT of Clearihue! Simple enough, but only 2 stairwells with twists and turns, or ONLY ONE elevator with MORE twists and turns … will get you to the front counter of The Computer Help Desk!
And did you also know there are TWO MORE satellite CHD locations in Clearihue? At the entrance to all the Computing Classrooms in A-wing, first floor and …. in The CALL Facility too! I’ll bet you didn’t know that!
Computing Classrooms! The actual computing classrooms, 1st Floor of A-Wing … AND in the Lower Floor of A-Wing too!. Many students do not know that there are 4 classrooms (3 WIN / 1 MAC) and a Multi-Media (WIN & MAC) alcove for drop-in use upstairs! AND that there are 3 MORE classrooms and Multimedia computers in the basement! Rooms ARE booked for scheduled classroom use, but are fully drop-in outside of those posted times. And when Covid is over, hopefully we can go back to just dropping into the computer labs!
During Covid, all other rooms in all other buildings are unavailable. We strictly adhere to UVIC Covid guidelines in ALL our Computing Facilities and The Computer Help Desk in Clearihue.
Clearihue A102Clearihue A030 (Click photo for more pictures)
And if you have not been to our newest upgrade classroom in Clearihue A030 in the basement of Clearihue, just down the hallway from The Computer Help Desk CLEA037. It is a really SPIFF CLASSROOM!
BEC Bookable Rooms
And it gets even BETTER! Ever want to book a room for a study session or a group project and nothing is available at the Library? Well, check out BEC and their Rooms that you can book! AND THAT INCLUDES A ROOM DEDICATED TO VR TECHNOLOGY! Okay, so technically, not in Clearihue, but let’s call it a HIDDEN HIDDENGEM, eh! Bet you didn’t know THAT!
And there are a few other locations in Clearihue that might warrant a bit of a scavenger hunt on your part ……
Clearihue Corner (CLE B001b)
And this is a highly guarded, super secret, need to know basis location ….. NOT! But it is just as hard to get to as The Computer Help Desk! Either from the pictured elevator in B-Wing, or the stairwells at the groundlevel corners of B-Wing. Spacious, quiet, comfy sofas and plugins too! There are even recycle bins to put your organics, plastics, refuse and paper! BE GREEN! There are classrooms, office space and meeting rooms, so just remember to be quiet and polite in this section of Clearihue please.
CLE B001bCLE B001b
Clearihue Inner Courtyard
What a great hidden gem .. hidden in plain site! Quiet, accessible from literally every corner, with sun and shade for all! Even some steps to sit on for a group lunch! Hidden in plain site! the photo below is actually available as a Virtual Background for Zoom! Oh, and … remember … no smoking anywhere inside Ring Road!
And, I saved the BEST for the last! And no apologies for .. WORKING IN THE CALL FACILITY! Shameless promotion! CALL has been around since the Fall of 1989 … and so have I! I have given countless demos, orientations, workshops, projects and assistance to countless students, staff, faculty and guests. And I am amazed each year how many people DO NOT KNOW WE EXIST! I have done many CALL OAC posts and I have a PAGE that is always available no matter what Post you are reading, listing all the Pages too. It is only current to January of 2020 … because … well … Covid. As soon as we are back, I will update absolutely EVERYTHING!
The CALL Facility CLE A025
What is VERY exciting is that just after everyone started to work from home .. NEW FURNITURE ARRIVED IN THE CALL FACILITY! I wrote a post about it here and a few of the photos are below! Click here to see all the new furniture!
New CALL FurnitureNew CALL Furniture
And could it get BETTER? YES, OF COURSE!
At the back of CALL are 2 new large screen monitors and desk space for 6 people at each one! Want to preview your group project in PowerPoint? Want to watch a movie for class? Want to see your Word document SUPER SIZED? Then use this area!
CALL Facility Large ScreensCALL Facility Large Screens
And CALL has USB headsets, optical media, Dual-Boot computers, study space and … The Computer Help Desk BUILT IN TOO! The CALL Facility is the LARGEST COMPUTING CLASSROOM ON CAMPUS!! And yeah, I have been working there since 1989 and it is SO MUCH FUN! Great learning environment and best of all … GREAT UVic STUDENTS AND FANTASTIC COLLEAGUES AT THE HELP DESK!
True story – a student wandered into CALL one day, asking if she could find a computer to charge her iPhone. I said sure, she could use one of the iMacs for either WIN or MAC or just to charge! She asked what ‘this place‘ was. I then asked her what her degree/major was. She replied ‘Linguistics and Italian’. I told her that CALL was HER lab to use, not only for her courses, but at any time she wanted!
And then she said that she was ABOUT TO GRADUATE AND HER PROFS HAD NEVER TOLD HER ABOUT THE CALL FACILITY!
That definitely qualifes The CALL Facility as a Hidden Gem!
I hope you investigate and look for all these Hidden Gems in Clearihue!
The Computer Help Desk – 3 locations in Clearihue
Computing Classrooms – Upstairs and Down
Clearihue Corner – So quiet
Inner Courtyard – Hiding in Plain Sight
The CALL Facility – You can check out, but you can never leave
Bold Italics Comic Sans . . . or . . . Word Processors Through the Years
Typewriter! Whiteout! Ribbon! Carriage Return! That was MY technology when I was writing term papers back in 1975-1982 at the University of Calgary!
Those late nights AND early mornings, pounding away, literally, on my Smith Corona typewriter – trying to balance SPEED with ACCURACY! There was no such thing as DELETE or UNDO … unless you count going through gallons of whiteout! BUT, I had a very HI-TECH version of correcting mistakes!
Basically, it was a dry ‘tape’, with dryer white ‘chalk’ on one side, and a more inert opposite side. But first, you had to recognize that you did INDEED make a typo, AS YOU WERE TYPING! There were no spellcheckers back then! And then, backspace manually TO THE MISTAKE, insert the correction tape, powder side TOWARDS the error, TYPE THE ERROR AGAIN to literally WHITE OUT the mistake, backspace AGAIN, and manually type in the corrected letter! Good times, good times! All this with a single, ORIGINAL, piece of paper in the typewriter! ARGH! And no automatic page feeds so I often ran out of room on my PRISTINE and ORIGINAL PIECE OF PAPER! DOUBLE ARGH!
And then I took my first computer science course! Although technically NOT a word processor, a massive desk with a punched card reader could be consider an early form of a word processor! Every mistake in code (FORTRAN!) I made, took about 30 minutes to actually DISCOVER from the Punch Card Elders who took my deck and ran it into the giant Punched Card Monsters! Then I had to dig out the SINGLE CARD that had a typo or bad code, and type it in again!
The day I discovered the ‘Function Switches’ feature, which would mirror all the text was like a miracle! I would press the copy button, then STOP, type in the corrected command or typo, then continue with copy and the card would appear at the end! Reinsert, hand over the deck and … ANOTHER TYPO FURTHER INTO THE DECK! Repeat as many times as necessary! Good times, good times!
Commodore SX-64
And then, I graduated, not only from U of C, but onto SUPERIOR TECHNOLOGY! Well, at least, at the time, it certainly WAS superior technology! My first teaching gig was not only teaching a Beginner Computer Science course, but DESIGNING IT AS WELL! I earlier posted about Desktop Publishing, but … it was really just basic Word Processing with Apple and Commodore Computers!
Yes, that is the manual for my own Commodore SX-64 that I used for some Grad courses at U of C! And I used the worlds best FREE word processor at the time … SPEEDSCRIPT! A future post will discuss just how amazing the SX-64 computer was! AND IT STILL WORKS!
SpeedScript was free, had a spell checker and even had a PREVIEW of the final page, which was YEARS ahead of anything else out there! And did I mention it was … FREE! YES FREE! And amazingly, it used a markup language that is INCREDIBLY SIMILAR TO WHAT HTML IS NOW! Commodore computers were definitely ahead of their time!
And then a commercial word processor –PaperClip came along and … well, due to budget cuts, only 1 copy was purchased for me! Free is free, right!
And the first ever ‘office suite’ was actually a cartridge based system for .. you guessed it … my SX-64! It was called VIZASTAR and had … EVERYTHING you ever needed for what is now considered an ‘Office Suite’ – Spreadsheet, Database and Graphics … but no word processor sadly!
Why here? A future post will be about my SX-64 AND the cool software I still have, including one of he worlds first ever … LIGHT PEN called Flexidraw! VERY COOL even by today’s standards!
I brought up my Commodore SX-64 to our Systems Open House a few years ago! The theme was ‘Time Travellers – Meet the Team:Systems Through Time‘ Click here to see some photos from a previous post! (Yes, always, more Product Placement!)
And then .. progress marches on. The next generation of hardware and software was WordPerfect on a Commodore IBM clone. What? I bet you didn’t know that Commodore made IBM clones! THEY DID!
And I might start an argument, but I always preferred Corel WordPerfect (MAC) to pretty much any flavour of Word through the years! Okay, so maybe now Office 365 is better! But when I was helping to publish our CALL Proceedings, I made WordPerfect the recommended application. Of course, everyone ignored it, but WordPerfect did Word, BETTER THAN WORD back then! AND IT WAS CANADIAN TOO!
And then there is another package that I have briefly used, and is free for both current WIN and MAC platforms called Libre Office, which was once known as Open Office. I have only used it sparingly, basically enough to answer basic questions about it, and I am not sure it is installed on any computers at UVic anymore, with Office 365 kinda taking over … for free for students and staff! Which, by the way is a VERY GOOD THING!
And then there are now Text Editors – basically a blend of raw ASCII text with minimal word processing features. So, yeah … they are word processors! There are SO many of them, we all have our favourites and they are quick and dirty to see CONTENT as far as I am concerned. If you are using a text editor for word processing …. then let’s talk! LOL!
Old School Cat
And if you think about it, creating a post here on OAC is a perfect blend of word processing AND text editor! I can switch to Text if I want to change some nuts and bolts thing with HTML, or just use the New Post and … see what happens! YAY FOR OAC! Many thanks to “mvh” for his patience whenever I have an OAC question for him!
Some interesting links to tickle your funny bone or perhaps feel compelled to put pen to paper – in a manner of speaking! Remember, I am old school!
I Excel at PowerPoint . . . or . . . Computer Puns and Jokes
Taken
I don’t know who you are or why you stole my copy of Microsoft Office …. but I will find you. You have my .. WORD! I hope I have ‘Taken‘ your attention away from whatever you were doing! Just when you thought it was safe to blog again … COMPUTER PUNS AND JOKES!
CALL Facility Klingon
I always try to sneak in jokes, puns or riddles into many of my CALL Facility orientations and handouts too! I once included ‘Klingon‘ in a handout of languages that The CALL Facility had resources for! And it is still at ZOHO!
Soothsayer Cat
And then UVic goes and offers a course in Alien Languages (Klingon & Sindarin!)! That makes me a soothsayer! I wonder if that means a pay raise or not! My guess …. NOT!
The best part of puns are when they are impromptu and happen instantly! All too often, my eyes widen or roll about and that is an early warning system for colleagues … PUN ALERT! PUN ALERT! People know me all too well! I would be horrible at poker! LOL!
I found one site where a computer was programmed to CALCULATE the funniest puns and it came up with the following….. and …. yeah, NO! Even I have lines I do not cross … and they are often … lines of code! LOL!
I often say that if I am having fun, then the students are having fun too! There is so much stress nowadays that humour IS good medicine! I won’t bother telling you my absolutely favourite jokes and puns other than …
… it is always my NEXT ONE!
Some interesting links to tickle your funny bone, or perhaps, seek medical attention afterwards!
Think Different . . . . . . or . . . Apple Commercials Through the Years
Think Different
Think Different. As iconic as the ‘1984’ Mac commercial is, this may be one of the most remembered Apple campaigns … EVER! Well, at least for me. I have this poster in my office at home. I uncovered a bunch of them years ago, doing an annual cleanse of some closets we once used as storage! Serendipitous for me!
There is no question that Apple has one of the best marketing programs … in history! This post is predominantly about their ads in video format, which range from poignant and dramatic, to humorous and sometimes silly! They truly do …. Think Different …. all the time!
The BEST ads are cast with actors who don’t take themselves too seriously and actually parody their on-screen presence … and blend it with their off-screen personality!
The Rock x SIRI
Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson did this perfectly in his ad for Siri a few years ago. I doubt Apple could afford him now!
What Will Your Verse Be?
My absolute favourite commerical of ALL TIME is probably not what you might think. Oh yes, I do like the 1984 commercial (Directed by Ridley Scott – Gladiator, The Martian, Thelma & Louise, Blade Runner, Alien .. yes THAT Ridley Scott!) but my favourite is for the iPad Air with Robin Williams narrating his poetry speech over some amazing world moments. Do you remember which movie this came from? HUDDLE UP!
As a summer project many years ago, I decided to find as many Apple Commercials on YouTube as I could and learn how to create movies and burn a DVD, dedicated to only Apple Commercials!
YouTube was relatively new and it might not have even been bought by Google yet! Still, I learned how to create and edit movies, burn DVDs and improve my knowledge of various video formats, editing techniques and making movies!
iMovie HD 2005
A future post, once we return to UVic, will be about using iMovie HD! What? You have never heard of that version? That doesn’t surprise me!
iMovie HD was one of the very first versions (2005!) and can only
MovieBox DV
run under a macOS that is named after a kitty! But it is surprisingly robust, has simple and intuitive editing controls and works with some old hardware called MovieBox DV (2003!) that can digitize VHS cassettes! Sometimes you can teach an old dog new tricks!
And one more thing … Apple has long been the target of parody ads! There is one for a new iPhone at the very end of the videos below. But the BEST one is called ‘The Power to Crush the Other Kids”. It is nowhere to be found on the internet and YouTube has pulled it due to copyright infringement concerns, by NBC’s ownership of Saturday Night Live. If you can find it, it is truly hilarious!
Some interesting links below with even more background to Apple’s numerous ads throughout the years!
As long as there are words out there, there will be a site that Google finds for each of us!
This will be my list of my favourite computer/AI voices from Movies and TV shows that I have seen and grew up with! They can be human or actually computer generated. So some of them will no doubt be VERY obscure for many of you young folks! LOL! But that does not mean you should disregard them! They might prove to be dated, but they have all influenced how we percieve computers and AI, to this day!
The voice of EVERY computer in every episode and movie of Star Trek is Majel Barrett, who was married to Gene Rodenberry! She even voiced the computer in the Star Trek:The Animated Series too! Outside of Michael Dorn (Worf), Majel Barrett has appeared in more episodes than ANY OTHER ACTOR!
Robocop morphed a critically injured policeman with state of the art technology to enforce police protection. What could go wrong? Well, more than you can imagine, including a horrible remake of this classic movie!
And at the time, TRON was the greatest computer movie OF ALL TIME! The graphics were amazing, the storyline was new and amazing and I remember watching it multiple times!
And then they made a reboot of it TRON:Legacy .. and I liked that one too! It got bad review, but I still liked it! And the graphics were amazing too!
And how could ultimate cuteness and the end of the world combine any better than in WALL-E! Eve and WALL-E have instant chemistry, albeit confrontational at first, but it is still one of my favourite animated series and WELL ahead of its time in terms of environmentalism!
And probably the most iconic computer/AI interface, at least recently is the combined character of Vision in theMCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe). Vision is ‘powered’ by the Mind Stone, one of the Infinity Stones.
And … if you got this far, then you have seen the movies! Vision is a weird blend of the personality of Tony Stark (Iron Man), Ultron (his ‘Frankenstein-like AI), JARVIS (his own AI ‘butler’) and the power of Thor to kick-start him! Yeah, you had to be there … multiple movies and multiple personalities … what could go wrong! Actually, he is a pretty good character and very strong too!
And the rebooted series is fantastic too! The new robot, although not named Robbie, is unique, integral to the storyline and has amazing graphics! And it is filmed in Vancouver too! But only one season left! Sigh …… I remember building a model of this robot too!
Another TV show ahead of its time was Knight Rider! A virtually indestructible AI car (K.I.T.T. – Knight Industries 2000) guided by a secret organization dedicated to fighting injustice! Whoa, wait … NOT ELON MUSK! LOL! It kind of looked like a cross between Elon Musk and a Cylon! And we don’t want to go THERE either!
And having mentioned HAL 9000 above, did you realize that there was a SEQUEL to 2001? 2010: The Year We Make Contact featured SAL 9000 (voiced by Candice Bergen) as the upgrde to HAL that did not quite meet factory specifications! LOL! The most obvious difference (no spoilers here!) is that SAL is a blue orb’!
And coming up to just a couple more examples! There are SO many, that I really did limit myself this time! I had previously written posts about favourite computers in all kinds of media at “Shall We Play a Game . . . or Fictional Computers” but that did not focus on anything but the computers themselves. This post is on their actual voices used! Okay, a small distinction! So that does mentioning a previous post count as … Product Placement or what! LOL!
War Games! Just go find it somewhere and have a great popcorn time! A young hacker breaks into a High Security computer, unknowingly trying out a ‘game’ called Global Thermonuclear War and … well, the use of the modem is hilarious! But the voice of WOPR is amazing! If it makes you think of Stephen Hawking …. no spoilers here! A great, great movie!
And I will never hear the end of it from all my colleagues if I don’t include those two wacky robots from a relatively unknown cult classic … C-3PO and R2-D2. Did you ever wonder WHY they are called … R2-D2 and C-3PO?
Perhaps the quintessential use of voice to convey language! C3PO is designed to be able to talk to ANYONE with his linguistics programming and R2D2 happily whistles, clicks, bings and we can all understand exactly what is going on! The classic straight man out of vaudeville humour and it works so well! Arguably the best parts of Star Wars are those two! Note: Yoda is NOT a computer! LOL!
All the voices mentioned above are in YouTube videos below. I hope I got them all! I might even do a sequel to this in a future post – there were many I have left off and they deserve a listening to as well!
I’ll Take WIN WIN WIN for $200 Alex . . . or . . . CALL JEOPARDY REBOOT!
CALL Jeopardy is one of my favourite parts of working for The Computer Help Desk!What could be better – a captive audience, a fun way of training current, new and returning Consultants and … brekkie and lunch provided!
I realized that the MOST RECENT version of CALL Jeopardy: ReBoot, had not been made available for anyone to try! It is based on the very first CALL Jeopardy, a few years ago, but updated with new information, yet a bit of a retro feel to it!
Unfortunately, it did not really work out the day we tried it online/remote! Somehow, I had an echo, it literally stopped opening up each slide and it fizzled out spectacularly! Oh well, if you are not trying, you aren’t learning!
The original format is PowerPoint but OAC WordPress does not permit PowerPoint files. But the versions here are all in .pdf format, which works equally well, except for some animation and other whiz bang effects that I usually include! Why put a Fireworks option into software without any disclaimers about … design! LOL!
CALL Jeopardy: REBOOT VERSION
The most recent version is clickable on the images beside and below, and your browser should download a .pdf version or present the .pdf in a new browser tab. Either way, you can meander through using the menu or just going through slide by slide. That way, you are assured of seeing each ‘Question’ and ‘Answer’.
I always have a ‘Twist’ to each Category and question. This time, the categories are “OSX …. but not Cats”, “WIN WIN WIN”, and “CALL Stuff”.
In true Jeopardy fashion, each ‘answer’ must be phrased in the form of a question, identifying which movie each quote came from! No, it has nothing to do with ANYTHING at CHD, but the next slide does!
CALL Jeopardy: Famous Movie Quotes
And all of the previous Jeopardy versions are below and all you have to do is click on any image and it will do what your browser does best – either download it or present it in a new Tab to try.
And the first training session below is a history of CALL. It is NOT in ‘Jeopardy’ format, so just ‘slide’ through it if you want to find out a bit more about CALL over the years.
And I am all for accepting any questions you think should be included in any future version of Jeopardy!
And thanks to Tomoyo and Scott for ‘driving’ for me – actually running the computer & PowerPoint file, while the rest of us have fun with CALL Jeopardy in our training sessions!