January 11, 2002
Untitled
In most cases, I’ll admit when I’m wrong. And I’m especially given to admitting that I’m wrong when the evidence outweighs my ability to obscure the details. Case in point, friend Ian shook a metaphorical finger and conveyed that today, the 11th of January, is not HAL’s birthday. The twelfth day of January is. Had a bother to refer to one of my several copies of 2001: A Space Odyssey, I could have confirmed that particular mundanity. But no, a rather ill-timed brain fluff had me convinced otherwise. Regardless, my previous post has been edited for accuracy and an aversion to public humiliation. I would now like to address another issue that Ian brought to light, that being Hal’s age. Ian insisted that Hal would be turning nine years old this year, not five as previously mentioned. I still hold fast to the latter, with the following excerpt from this historic press release:
“All HAL fans should note that the movie version of “2001: A Space Odyssey” says that HAL was born January 12, 1992. Clarke’s original novel says January 12, 1997 however. Clarke comments that this discrepancy “may have been a fluff by one of the actors.” It also would be illogical, he says, to use a 10 year old computer made in 1992 for a major space mission in 2001. But Kubrick may have changed the date from Clarke’s novel so HAL’s death at the end of the film would be considered more poignant.”
Well, whatever. I would like to think that Mr Clarke probably has the best grip on the details of the story, but then again we are talking Kubrick here. Happy birthday HAL, wherever you are and whenever you were.
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