They Both Begin With "A"

As August begins...so does another Ansible!

Chris Foss remembered the joys of working on the film A.I.: '"Kubrick used to come in with a page of script and I'd visualise what he was doing. I told him that he'd got me started on my science fiction career when he made 2001: A Space Odyssey. He said 'Yeah and I'll finish you too' and he damn nearly did. He was a hard taskmaster. I put a sign saying Prisoner Cell Block 8 on my office door." Still, things weren't all bad during that period: "I was bonking [Kubrick's] god daughter at the time, unbelievably. She was this naughty model".' (Interview by Matilda Battersby, Independent, 29 July) [SG]

Memories of the Space Age. 'Email from someone who worked on the Shuttle Trajectory Server for Atlantis: "[Navigation Co-worker] shut down the Traj Server for the final time this morning. I'm told that before doing so he added to the messages the final words of Hal 9000, and then 'Will I dream?' Someone took video of this, and if they get it up to YouTube I'll let you know."' (Jonathan Clements, 21 July)