I think the Doctor was summoned by River Song because she was leading the expedition and thought she'd need his help. Of course, the timing of the expedition might have been because the Lux chap knew the computer needed a service, it was entirely unclear.
On the screen, the problem was apparently caused by Miss Evangelista explaining the set up, but it was implied that CAL had had this explained to her before without over-loading so *phzzt*.
I'm probably being too computery here. But IIUC (which I possibly didn't because of the gabbling) the solution was to reboot CAL, the problem was you couldn't reboot CAL without losing the people in memory. If they were on the hard drive then they'd still be there after CAL was rebooted.
I agree about the gods of flange.
The matrix thing is interesting. Lots of Dr Who geeks are reporting confused girlfriends but these are confused long-term girlfriends (astonishing as that may sound) so presumably these poor women have had the Matrix inflicted upon them as well. Of course familiarity with this sort of fiction might be why I didn't think the Matrix was particularly profound, deep or ground-breaking. I guess if you found the matrix mind-bending then Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead's much more matter of fact assumption of VR may have appeared opaque. It's quite a feat, in a way, to do something which is criticised as being both mind-numbingly obvious and unnecessarily complex and opaque - it suggests there was something equivalent to a genre jargon being used.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-17 09:12 am (UTC)On the screen, the problem was apparently caused by Miss Evangelista explaining the set up, but it was implied that CAL had had this explained to her before without over-loading so *phzzt*.
I'm probably being too computery here. But IIUC (which I possibly didn't because of the gabbling) the solution was to reboot CAL, the problem was you couldn't reboot CAL without losing the people in memory. If they were on the hard drive then they'd still be there after CAL was rebooted.
I agree about the gods of flange.
The matrix thing is interesting. Lots of Dr Who geeks are reporting confused girlfriends but these are confused long-term girlfriends (astonishing as that may sound) so presumably these poor women have had the Matrix inflicted upon them as well. Of course familiarity with this sort of fiction might be why I didn't think the Matrix was particularly profound, deep or ground-breaking. I guess if you found the matrix mind-bending then Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead's much more matter of fact assumption of VR may have appeared opaque. It's quite a feat, in a way, to do something which is criticised as being both mind-numbingly obvious and unnecessarily complex and opaque - it suggests there was something equivalent to a genre jargon being used.