Blogroll addition: Roger Ebert

While I disagree with Roger Ebert on gaming I am a fan in general and was quite happy to learn about his new blog.  One of his earlier posts actually touched on a common bit of history involving the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.  He'd gotten his start in reporting there and my Dad got his undergrad degree there as well.  It was one of the places I applied to and I got to go on a rather awesome campus visit for Cyberfest.  Here's Ebert's description:

I wrote earlier about going to a speech in Urbana given by Sir Arthur C. Clarke. He spoke about earth satellites, but the key element is: The speech was in Urbana. Years later, it was with tingles tangling on my spine that I heard HAL 9000 announce that he had been born in the computer lab at the University of Illinois in Urbana. So far as I know, Clarke had never been to Urbana and never returned, but I assume that while he was there he visited Illiac, one of the first big computers, and its gradually-developing successors. When he was writing the "2001" screenplay, the Urbana connection made itself.

That's been my theory. It didn't hold water with Clarke, however. In March of 1997 we held a birthday party for HAL 9000 at the University, called "Cyberfest," which also considered Artificial Intelligence in general. For the climax, we screened "2001" in 70mm, and had a cybercast interview with Sir Arthur via the net from Sri Lanka. He loomed for 20 feet above us, his image and voice dominating the room via a signal carried by one of the satellites he wrote so much about. Of course I asked him about the Urbana connection but alas he did not remember giving a speech in Urbana and doubted it had much to do with the movie.

That took the wind out of my sails. So did a message from Stanley Kubrick. Since HAL clearly says in the movie that he was born in 1992, we came up with the 1997 date because that's HAL's birthday in Clarke's novel. The 1992 date had passed largely ignored, and we were determined not to miss our second chance to gather a roomful of geeks singing him "Happy Birthday."

Him? She? It? "You'll have to ask HAL," Sir Arthur said. What Kubrick said was, if we didn't have a birthday for HAL in 1992, it was too late to have one now. How did the birthday get moved five years between book and movie? Maybe Clarke could see that progress on the A.I. front was moving more slowly than he anticipated. So was progress in general. As a comment to my Clarke item on this blog noted, Clarke often said he would be aboard the first passenger shuttle to the Moon. That date has been pushed >i< way >/i< back.

There are two heirs to Cyberfest, however. It inspired Ebertfest the following year. And the University is now the home of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. It houses "the Cave," a room whose walls, floor and ceiling are created by virtual reality. You can float through outer space. Clarke could have walked on the Moon there. I wish he had.

While Ebert had a few disappointments, I've got to say that I had a terrific time.  Going with my Dad was perhaps one of the most memorable events of that year.  On a similar note, if you ever get a chance to see 2001 or other classic cinema in 70 mm it really is well worth it, the upgrade is similar to that when you catch an movie that's also been filmed for IMAX.  Anyways I figured this was a good time to advertise Ebert's blog as my little way of saying thanks for Cyberfest.