And EJO also maintains that Blade Runner and nuBSG share a universe.
Which I find rather compelling.
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Toaster Reference- Star Trek vs. BSG
- Thread starter Ro_Laren
- Start date
And EJO also maintains that Blade Runner and nuBSG share a universe.
Which I find rather compelling.
No.
The only other reference I can think of is Talkie Toaster from Red Dwarf. Howdy doodly do...
Yes, but would you like some toast?
^ I don't want any toast, and he doesn't want any toast. In fact, no one around here wants any toast. Not now, not ever. No toast.
In Alien IV they also refer to the android as a toaster.
It doesn't make sense in TNG as they make toasted bread with a replicator, they don't need a toaster. In fact, it makes about as sense much as for us to refer to a computer as a catapult or a crossbow or some other primitive mechanical device.
Though I have seen people comment on badly shot videos as being recorded with a potato, so go figure.
In fact, the word "computer" is a much older term than people realize. It was used as far back as the 1600s to refer to a person who computed, and in the 19th and early 20th centuries it was often a job title for people (frequently women) whose job was to do the grudge work of performing calculations (such as the lead characters in the movie Hidden Figures). The word was also frequently used to refer to handheld calculating aids with sliding or rotating pieces printed with numbers that could be aligned to facilitate calculations, the sort of thing often used to aid in aiming artillery or compute courses or the like. What we call "computers" today were originally called "electronic computers" or "digital computers" to distinguish them from the more traditional varieties. Once they completely supplanted the traditional varieties, the modifiers were dropped and people forgot that "computer" had ever meant anything else.
Similarly, the word "car" predates the automobile by centuries, having previously been used to refer to horse-drawn carriages, mine cars, train cars, and the like. And when we speak of "firing" a gun or a laser, we're using a word originally used to refer to lighting the fuse on a cannon or touching an ember to a flintlock. A number of obsolete terms survive in new contexts. So there's no reason it couldn't happen in the future too.
And we still talk of handing over the reins of power . . . although people too often confuse this with "reigns." Perhaps because the average person has less experience with horses and carriages these days?
Hell, don't people still use the term "horsepower" when referring to engines?
And let's not forget Kirk joking about dipping little girls' pigtails in inkwells? Or Bones deriving his nickname from "sawbones"--even though I suspect Starfleet has better ways to amputate limbs in the future.
Language is full of weird, vestigial remnants.
Hell, don't people still use the term "horsepower" when referring to engines?
And let's not forget Kirk joking about dipping little girls' pigtails in inkwells? Or Bones deriving his nickname from "sawbones"--even though I suspect Starfleet has better ways to amputate limbs in the future.
Language is full of weird, vestigial remnants.
Not to mention "give free rein" being misspelled as "give free reign." Which doesn't hold up to scrutiny, because reign isn't something people are given; either they're born into it or they seize it by force. (Unless they're from Naboo, I guess.)
For that matter, to talk about "driving" a car is a leftover term from chariots and carriages, where you would drive (impel) a horse or horses to pull the vehicle. If you think about it, "drive a car" and "ride a bike" are backward. You don't drive a car, the engine does, while you ride inside it. And you do drive a bicycle with your legs. But we use "ride" for bikes by analogy with riding a horse.
I still don't see why a "toaster" would be the preferred reference to people who likely never use one. It certainly wouldn't be mine and yet I actually use toasters on a daily basis!
BTW: In Ghostbusters II, they also use a toaster to make their "psychic-slime" experiments. It seems someone in Hollywood has an obsession with toasters.
BTW: In Ghostbusters II, they also use a toaster to make their "psychic-slime" experiments. It seems someone in Hollywood has an obsession with toasters.
I suspect that very, very few of the people who refer to a "loose cannon" have ever been anywhere near an unsecured cannon on a sailing ship. It's not about individual use, it's about the familiarity of the phrase in the overall language.
The difference is that a "loose Canon" or a "brass monkey" or "nail" and a "coffin" or "ax" or "hatchet" etc... are part of ACTUAL expressions/simile/figures of speech. I've never heard "toaster" used other than in fictions and never in an expression.
People who promise to do something "come hell or high water" may well have encountered neither in their personal lives. But the expression is still in use.
Maybe expressions involving "toasters" pop up in time for the 23rd century. (Just wait until somebody on DISCO talks about "swiping left"--even though few people in the future actually know where the term derives from.)
Or maybe we just assume that robots were called "toasters" in classic twentieth-century SF shows like "Battlestar Galactica" and "Captain Proton."
Maybe expressions involving "toasters" pop up in time for the 23rd century. (Just wait until somebody on DISCO talks about "swiping left"--even though few people in the future actually know where the term derives from.)
Or maybe we just assume that robots were called "toasters" in classic twentieth-century SF shows like "Battlestar Galactica" and "Captain Proton."
Hmm. Among organ geeks, "toaster" is a derogatory term for electronic substitutes, especually crude ones.
What's an "organ geek"?
Ever heard of the Video Toaster? It was the innovation that made Babylon 5, SeaQuest, and a lot of other '90s SF/fantasy TV shows possible. It was a breakthrough in low-cost video editing and computer animation that was relatively quick and easy to create, so it enabled TV producers or low-budget or amateur filmmakers to create effects shots that would've previously been too expensive to create outside of big-budget films. Essentially, it democratized CGI effects and video production, and it was presumably called the Video Toaster because "toaster" is an archetypal term for a commonplace, inexpensive, everyday appliance. That's how the word is used as an expression -- as a synecdoche for a simple or basic mechanical/electronic device as opposed to a more complex or rare one. Which is why SF uses it as a derogatory term for robots or computers, as a way of denigrating their sophistication or value.
From context, I'd assume fans of pipe organ music. Again using "toaster" as a symbol for a simple electrical device of minimal value.
That's the general idea, Mr. Bennett. That, and the fact that the vacuum tube models put out a lot of waste heat, and even had slots (for ventilation).
And I'll also point out that even some jazz artists have found that the world doesn't begin and end with Laurens Hammond's Noisome Little Noisemaker (tm): Barbara Dennerlein, Germany's jazz Hammond queen, has recorded three "all real pipes" CDs, and a fourth that's part Hammond, part real pipes, and she now does perhaps a bit over a third of her concert appearances playing jazz on real pipes. (And she is quick to point out that Fats Waller was playing jazz on real pipes back when Hammond was still learning how to make electric clocks.)
(Oh, and BTW, it was only a few minutes ago that I realized what "BSG" was. <shrug> I always just used the title Mad Magazine's writers came up with: Cattlecar Gigantica.)
And I'll also point out that even some jazz artists have found that the world doesn't begin and end with Laurens Hammond's Noisome Little Noisemaker (tm): Barbara Dennerlein, Germany's jazz Hammond queen, has recorded three "all real pipes" CDs, and a fourth that's part Hammond, part real pipes, and she now does perhaps a bit over a third of her concert appearances playing jazz on real pipes. (And she is quick to point out that Fats Waller was playing jazz on real pipes back when Hammond was still learning how to make electric clocks.)
(Oh, and BTW, it was only a few minutes ago that I realized what "BSG" was. <shrug> I always just used the title Mad Magazine's writers came up with: Cattlecar Gigantica.)
