I watched the movie “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” last night. It’s been a long time since I read the book (mid 80s, I think!), so I’m not too sure how closely the movie follows the book. One thing I don’t remember from the book is the Point of View Gun. You can watch the scene where it shows up on YouTube.
Wikipedia probably has the best description of the Point of View gun:
When used on someone, it will cause them to see things from the point of view of the person firing the gun (the Guide says that it “conveniently, does precisely as its name suggests”). According to the Guide, though the gun was designed by Deep Thought, it was commissioned by the Intergalactic Consortium of Angry Housewives, who were tired of ending every argument with their husbands with the phrase: “You just don’t get it, do you?”
In a moment of serendipity, I was reading a presentation from a guy named Matt Webb, I think it’s about design, and he gives a really cool quote in there:
when people start learning something new, they perceive the world around them differently. If you start learning how to play the guitar, suddenly the guitar stands out in all the music you listen to. […] as more and more people have access to things like iMovie, they begin to understand the manipulative power of editing. Watching reality TV almost becomes like a game as you try to second-guess how the editor is trying to manipulate you.
The quote comes from this site, but that seems kind of rambling to me, so just stick with the quote above!
Anyways, I thought that was kind of cool, AND after seeing the Point of View gun in the movie last night, it got me thinking — learn something new, and you’ll see things from a different point of view. Kind of cool, and I wish I was deep enough that I could make that seem cosmic, but I’ll leave that for someone more philosophical than me.
Anyways, I highly recommend reading through that presentation, and even reading the blog post that took me there, talking about the 100 hour challenge.
