We are gods!
David Johnston
habitually cynical "they promised us jet packs" jabs at the people who
claim that futurists and science fiction authors vastly underestimated
the future.
>I have a music library, film, and text library on my phone. The music library, at least, is larger than you could expect to find in a small record shop. I can buy anything from any country in the world almost instantaneously and have it in my hands in about a week. I can talk to people in Singapore for no more reason than that I'm bored and that we both enjoy the movie Blade Runner.
>
>We are not just wizards, my friend. We are gods.
I was irresistably reminded of that short story which described
extremely mundane mid-20th century technologies as wonders in mockery
of science fiction stories in which the future people are way too
impressed by stuff that should be entirely mundane elements of their
lives.
Oh, and needless to say, I'm not as impressed by his phone as he is.
Dorothy J Heydt
"Masters of the Metropolis" by Randall Garrett and Lin Carter.
It's in _Takeoff!_ and some other places:
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?41165
--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at hotmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.
Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.
Butch Malahide
> I was irresistably reminded of that short story which described
> extremely mundane mid-20th century technologies as wonders in mockery
> of science fiction stories in which the future people are way too
> impressed by stuff that should be entirely mundane elements of their
> lives.
YASID: I'm reminded of another story. I don't remember how it was set
up, just the punch line, which I'll try to paraphrase.
"Your tall tale about visiting the future would almost be believable,
if you'd been smart enough to pick a date farther in the future. The
year 19?? is only 50 years from now! Our *children* are going to be
*living* in that "future world" you describe! It might even be
possible for the marvels you've described to come to pass in such a
short time, but there's NO WAY PEOPLE WOULD TAKE THEM FOR GRANTED!"
Robert Carnegie
> In article <p8skj5952o9v2j0p6...@4ax.com>,
> David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
> >Somebody wrote this to me a couple of days ago in response to my
> >habitually cynical "they promised us jet packs" jabs at the people who
> >claim that futurists and science fiction authors vastly underestimated
> >the future.
> >
> >>I have a music library, film, and text library on my phone. The music
> >library, at least, is larger than you could expect to find in a small
> >record shop. I can buy anything from any country in the world almost
> >instantaneously and have it in my hands in about a week. I can talk to
> >people in Singapore for no more reason than that I'm bored and that we
> >both enjoy the movie Blade Runner.
> >>
> >>We are not just wizards, my friend. We are gods.
> >
> >I was irresistably reminded of that short story which described
> >extremely mundane mid-20th century technologies as wonders in mockery
> >of science fiction stories in which the future people are way too
> >impressed by stuff that should be entirely mundane elements of their
> >lives.
>
> "Masters of the Metropolis" by Randall Garrett and Lin Carter.
> It's in _Takeoff!_ and some other places:
>
> http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?41165
Oh yeah. (Google Books, heh.) Mind you, we twenty-first centurymen
can call international without waiting for our valve teleradio set to
warm up (literally, I guess), unlike _Ralph 124C41+_ who gets name-
tweaked in MOTM. Incidentally, the villains who show up at the end of
MOTM - I have to say "Huh?"
By the way, who promised us jet-packs, really? James Bond had a jet-
pack. Adam Strange, Man of Two Worlds, had a jet pack. Lots of guys
in Flash Gordon had jet packs, and you can have a jet pack yourself
but it is pretty expensive to run and it runs out of weird fuel in
thirty seconds of flight if you haven't killed yourself with it
already.
Mike Schilling
I know one you don't?
It's Richard Deming's The Shape of Things That Came, found in
Boucher's Treasury.
ZnU
We can travel faster than the sun, project our images and voices
instantly across vast distances, construct devices that mimmic life to
carry out our bidding, and occasionally even raise the recently dead.
And not only does our civilization have these capabilities, but access
to them is far more broad than access to similarly powerful magic is in
traditional fantasy worlds.
But of course nobody within our society is all that impressed with these
capabilities. People don't expend much energy thinking about solved
problems; they concentrate on unsolved problems, which are essentially
by definition the problems that our current set of capabilities can't
adequately address. So they spend far more time thinking about what we
can't do than what we can.
I was having a discussion with a friend a couple of weeks ago about US
policy in Afghanistan. One point I made was that our soldiers can
literally call down fire from the sky to rain upon their enemies, and
somehow that still isn't enough to accomplish very much. Fortunately I
have friends who don't buy into the mainstream view that occasionally
injecting this sort of big-picture perspective is somehow unserious.
--
"The game of professional investment is intolerably boring and over-exacting to
anyone who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it
must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll." -- John Maynard Keynes
Butch Malahide
wrote:
That's it, thanks! Memory is a tricky thing at my age, and things
drift in and out. One of these days I'm going to post a YASID query
for a story that I previously identified for someone else. In this
case, it's no wonder that I couldn't remember the author's name, but
you'd think I'd remember the title! I actually did remember the time-
nightshirt, but I left that out of my query because I wasn't sure if
that was from the same story, and my google search for "time-
nightshirt" didn't turn up anything useful.
Quadibloc
If we were gods, we would at least be immortal.
John Savard
Quadibloc
> By the way, who promised us jet-packs, really? James Bond had a jet-
> pack. Adam Strange, Man of Two Worlds, had a jet pack. Lots of guys
> in Flash Gordon had jet packs, and you can have a jet pack yourself
> but it is pretty expensive to run and it runs out of weird fuel in
> thirty seconds of flight if you haven't killed yourself with it
> already.
I think you can blame it on Buck Rogers. Although in his case, an anti-
gravity metal was used.
John Savard
Quadibloc
> But of course nobody within our society is all that impressed with these
> capabilities. People don't expend much energy thinking about solved
> problems; they concentrate on unsolved problems, which are essentially
> by definition the problems that our current set of capabilities can't
> adequately address. So they spend far more time thinking about what we
> can't do than what we can.
And this is not only so true - but in addition, it's a useful survival
characteristic.
John Savard
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
The Norse Gods weren't immortal. If they didn't get the Apples of Idunn
(if I recall the name right, which I probably don't) they aged, and did
so pretty darn quickly, presumably heading for the age that they
actually were. And they could be hurt by things that hurt ordinary people.
On average, we live to ages that only a select few did in many more
primitive societies.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
Szymon Sokół
Well, I am often impressed by stuff that is entirely mundane - when I recall
that only 20 years ago it *wasn't*. Stuff like netbooks, PDAs, cellphones,
digital cameras, multimegabit Internet access at home, online banking and
shopping, Google and Wikipedia... And I never really longed for jet packs
(teleportation would be nice, though).
> Oh, and needless to say, I'm not as impressed by his phone as he is.
Is that perchance an iPhone? If so, you are justified - Apple users are
always more impressed by their stuff than anyone else is.
--
Szymon Sokół (SS316-RIPE) -- Network Manager B
Computer Center, AGH - University of Science and Technology, Cracow, Poland O
http://home.agh.edu.pl/szymon/ PGP key id: RSA: 0x2ABE016B, DSS: 0xF9289982 F
Free speech includes the right not to listen, if not interested -- Heinlein H
David Johnston
<szy...@bastard.operator.from.hell.pl> wrote:
>On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:23:37 GMT, David Johnston wrote:
>
>> Somebody wrote this to me a couple of days ago in response to my
>> habitually cynical "they promised us jet packs" jabs at the people who
>> claim that futurists and science fiction authors vastly underestimated
>> the future.
>>
>>>I have a music library, film, and text library on my phone. The music library, at least, is larger than you could expect to find in a small record shop. I can buy anything from any country in the world almost instantaneously and have it in my hands in about a week. I can talk to people in Singapore for no more reason than that I'm bored and that we both enjoy the movie Blade Runner.
>>>
>>>We are not just wizards, my friend. We are gods.
>>
>> I was irresistably reminded of that short story which described
>> extremely mundane mid-20th century technologies as wonders in mockery
>> of science fiction stories in which the future people are way too
>> impressed by stuff that should be entirely mundane elements of their
>> lives.
>
>Well, I am often impressed by stuff that is entirely mundane - when I recall
>that only 20 years ago it *wasn't*. Stuff like netbooks, PDAs, cellphones,
>digital cameras, multimegabit Internet access at home, online banking and
>shopping, Google and Wikipedia... And I never really longed for jet packs
>(teleportation would be nice, though).
Yes, we have better computers. It's as big a deal as the steam engine
or electricity. It's just that having grown up with science fiction,
having better computers does not come as a particular surprise to me
and when people claim that the people of 1969 would boggle at the idea
that we could have our laptops in 40 years, they forget just how
absurdly advanced they actually portrayed the unimaginably distant
21st century as being.
James Nicoll
ObSF: AGE OF THE PUSSYFOOT, where the afterword addresses this
to some extent.
> they forget just how
>absurdly advanced they actually portrayed the unimaginably distant
>21st century as being.
Only advanced in certain flashy fields, though.
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
cryptoguy
<szy...@bastard.operator.from.hell.pl> wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:23:37 GMT, David Johnston wrote:
> > Somebody wrote this to me a couple of days ago in response to my
> > habitually cynical "they promised us jet packs" jabs at the people who
> > claim that futurists and science fiction authors vastly underestimated
> > the future.
>
> >>I have a music library, film, and text library on my phone. The music library, at least, is larger than you could expect to find in a small record shop. I can buy anything from any country in the world almost instantaneously and have it in my hands in about a week. I can talk to people in Singapore for no more reason than that I'm bored and that we both enjoy the movie Blade Runner.
>
> >>We are not just wizards, my friend. We are gods.
>
> > I was irresistably reminded of that short story which described
> > extremely mundane mid-20th century technologies as wonders in mockery
> > of science fiction stories in which the future people are way too
> > impressed by stuff that should be entirely mundane elements of their
> > lives.
>
> Well, I am often impressed by stuff that is entirely mundane - when I recall
> that only 20 years ago it *wasn't*. Stuff like netbooks, PDAs, cellphones,
> digital cameras, multimegabit Internet access at home, online banking and
> shopping, Google and Wikipedia... And I never really longed for jet packs
> (teleportation would be nice, though).
Exactly. Those of us old enough to remember The Olden Days *are*
impressed. I started a thread in rasff a couple years ago, asking
people to describe SF story scenes they now lived through.
I was prompted to do so after driving home in my new car one night. I
not only had a moving map pinpointing my location, but it was
continuously updated with current traffic information. I called my
wife, using a voice response system, without ever lifting my hands
from the steering wheel, and was asked to pick up some milk on the way
home.
After I hung up, I realized that the scene that had just taken place
would have fit into an SF story or film up through the early 80s at
least. GPS, Cellphones, and satellite links to cars (where the traffic
info came from) were all in the future then.
pt
Matt Hughes
> After I hung up, I realized that the scene that had just taken place
> would have fit into an SF story or film up through the early 80s at
> least. GPS, Cellphones, and satellite links to cars (where the traffic
> info came from) were all in the future then.
Today I wrote a scene on a laptop that has a wireless mouse and
keyboard. I backed up the ms so far on a memory stick. At one point
I had to pause and go google out the present location of Al Capone's
bullet-proof 1928 Cadillac. That took a minute or so. Wireless
modem. When the book's finished, I'll email it to the publisher.
I wrote my first novel in 1974 on a manual Remington typewriter
(rented) and used to do research via the card catalogue and
periodicals index at the local library. When I made revisions, I had
to retype the entire ms. Then I'd mail it and wait forever for an
answer.
Tonight, I'm going to watch tv via a satellite link that offers
hundreds of channels, several of them quite good.
This is the future I used to read about in the sixties and seventies.
Except for the colonies on Mars or the post-apocalyptic landscape with
the telepathic dog.
Matt Hughes
http://www.archonate.com
W. Citoan
Yet, today's computers are far in advance of what those old SF stories
actually portrayed we'd have in the 21st century. It seems to me that
your cherry picking your technologies.
- W. Citoan
--
To clip the wings Of their high-flying arbitrary Kings
-- Dryden
Wayne Throop
: Yet, today's computers are far in advance of what those old SF stories
: actually portrayed we'd have in the 21st century.
"Mike? Got an empty memory bank?"
"Yes, Man. Ten-to-the-eighth-bits capacity."
--- computing technology in 2075
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Ilya2
> impressed. I started a thread in rasff a couple years ago, asking
> people to describe SF story scenes they now lived through.
Could you put a link to that thread?
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> : "W. Citoan" <wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com>
> : Yet, today's computers are far in advance of what those old SF stories
> : actually portrayed we'd have in the 21st century.
>
> "Mike? Got an empty memory bank?"
> "Yes, Man. Ten-to-the-eighth-bits capacity."
> --- computing technology in 2075
On the one hand, that's not a very large memory bank these days.
On the other hand, he's talking to the computer in colloquial, accented
English. And it's understanding him and talking back -- not just word
recognition, not just command and context, it's UNDERSTANDING him.
Which is so far beyond anything we have now as to be incomprehensible,
since as of yet we're not sure how that COULD be done. (of course, in
part it was an accident of the design of MYCROFT, but the capabilities
still come from the tech)
Wayne Throop
:: "Yes, Man. Ten-to-the-eighth-bits capacity."
:: --- computing technology in 2075
: "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com>
: On the one hand, that's not a very large memory bank these days.
: On the other hand, he's talking to the computer in colloquial,
: accented English. And it's understanding him and talking back -- not
: just word recognition, not just command and context, it's
: UNDERSTANDING him. Which is so far beyond anything we have now as to
: be incomprehensible, since as of yet we're not sure how that COULD be done.
Yes. AI was considered easy compared to terrabyte capacities.
(And to say "that's not a very large memory bank these days"
is a brobdingnagian understatement, really. About 12 megabytes.
And sixty-mumble years from now.)
Then again... doing 3d realistic realtime graphics for rendering a
virtual scene a bit later in the novel was felt to be at the limit
of the technology, and in fact only accomplished by very very clever
programming (the hardware capacity just barely there). Whereas, we
threw hardware at the problem; many many gigaflaops of processing,
and it's nearly solved now (though one could question whether it'd be
across the uncanny valley, yet, at least, done real-time).
Which illustrates the issue; software is easy, hardware is hard.
Whereas, it turns out the reverse has been mostly the case.
And note, in the setting, even in terms of software,
no cellphones, no laptops, no digital media, no internet, no nothing.
Digital technology is too expensive for the proles. In 2075.
It's a curious mix of doing more than depicted, and at the same time less.
One might say Heinlein hit the mark a bit better with Door into Summer,
predicting the Roomba and ubiquitous use of CAD/DAM by the early 2000s.
But even then... fully articulated manipulators capable of doing
dishwashing or daiper-changing? Yow.
Might also say he hit a good mark in Rovolting 2100, what with space having
been abandoned and a repressive regime in charge of the US... but flyin'
cars autopiloted by discrete analog circuitry? Yow. (Um, that's discrete
components, not discrete states.) ("Auto"pilot. Heh.)
Always this mix of optimism and pessimism. Kind of peculiar.
Kind of interesting. Yesterday's Tomorrows are...
well, peculiar and interesting.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> :: "Mike? Got an empty memory bank?"
> :: "Yes, Man. Ten-to-the-eighth-bits capacity."
> :: --- computing technology in 2075
>
> : "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com>
> : On the one hand, that's not a very large memory bank these days.
> : On the other hand, he's talking to the computer in colloquial,
> : accented English. And it's understanding him and talking back -- not
> : just word recognition, not just command and context, it's
> : UNDERSTANDING him. Which is so far beyond anything we have now as to
> : be incomprehensible, since as of yet we're not sure how that COULD be done.
>
> Yes. AI was considered easy compared to terrabyte capacities.
> (And to say "that's not a very large memory bank these days"
> is a brobdingnagian understatement, really. About 12 megabytes.
> And sixty-mumble years from now.)
Well, no saying that the increase in storage will continue for those 60
years. But 12MB isn't very large, yes.
>
> Then again... doing 3d realistic realtime graphics for rendering a
> virtual scene a bit later in the novel was felt to be at the limit
> of the technology, and in fact only accomplished by very very clever
> programming (the hardware capacity just barely there). Whereas, we
> threw hardware at the problem; many many gigaflaops of processing,
> and it's nearly solved now (though one could question whether it'd be
> across the uncanny valley, yet, at least, done real-time).
Real-time? I haven't seen convincing CGI of HUMAN people yet even in
"we spent hours crunching at this one" movies. They keep playing at
fooling the Uncanny Valley with different tricks, but they're still not
quite making it, especially without human beings to do the input. With
non-human things, it's much easier because we may not have a reference
to know what they SHOULD be like.
Mike was creating completely convincing human video, generating
backgrounds, etc, WITHOUT someone doing the motion-capture for him. And
despite saying "this will take about all I have", it caused not a
hiccup, as far as we can see, in the operation of all the other systems
he was running.
>
> And note, in the setting, even in terms of software,
> no cellphones, no laptops, no digital media, no internet, no nothing.
Actually IIRC Manny was able to take a digital storage device with him,
built into his arm.
Cellphones might not have been of interest on the Moon, where you had
enclosed area and probably terminals everywhere. RAH certainly had
predicted cellphone-type things before, ranging from the implant-phone
of "Sam" in Puppet Masters to the miniature portable wireless phones of
Space Cadet.
>
> It's a curious mix of doing more than depicted, and at the same time less.
> One might say Heinlein hit the mark a bit better with Door into Summer,
> predicting the Roomba and ubiquitous use of CAD/DAM by the early 2000s.
> But even then... fully articulated manipulators capable of doing
> dishwashing or daiper-changing? Yow.
The manipulators aren't the problem per se, it's the sensors, feedback
and -- especially -- perceptual/decisionmaking systems that bite you in
the butt.
Spiros Bousbouras
thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote:
>
> Might also say he hit a good mark in Rovolting 2100, what with space having
> been abandoned and a repressive regime in charge of the US... but flyin'
> cars autopiloted by discrete analog circuitry? Yow. (Um, that's discrete
> components, not discrete states.) ("Auto"pilot. Heh.)
Is it possible to have non discrete (i.e. continuous) components ?
Wayne Throop
:: virtual scene a bit later in the novel was felt to be at the limit of
:: the technology, and in fact only accomplished by very very clever
:: programming (the hardware capacity just barely there). Whereas, we
:: threw hardware at the problem; many many gigaflaops of processing,
:: and it's nearly solved now (though one could question whether it'd be
:: across the uncanny valley, yet, at least, done real-time).
: "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com>
: Real-time? I haven't seen convincing CGI of HUMAN people yet even in
: "we spent hours crunching at this one" movies.
Well, I've seen several people say that Avatar breaks through the
Uncanny Valley... but then... those aren't humans, and the previews
I've seen look a bit stiff. But at 480i or similar video (which
may not have been explicit in tmiahm, but I got that impression
(was I wrong?)) you can fudge some of the details that I'm noticing
in the previews I've seen.
I would say it's really quite close. Only a handful of iterations of
Moore's Law away from Avatar-in-realtime (but I'm just guessing).
But again, the point is, we have more than enough hardware now, naict.
Not for the AI, but for realtime virtual scenes. What we don't have
is software, which is sort of the opposite of the way it's portrayed
in tmiahm.
: Mike was creating completely convincing human video, generating
: backgrounds, etc, WITHOUT someone doing the motion-capture for him.
I suspect that's not quite the constraint you imply, especially
if Mike has a large library of real video to crunch and analyze for
body language. But that too is more "software is easy" optimism
on Heinlein's part (or of SF in general's part).
: Cellphones might not have been of interest on the Moon,
Possibly. But they didn't exist on earth either.
And I don't see how laptops would be without interest.
: RAH certainly had predicted cellphone-type things before, ranging from
: the implant-phone of "Sam" in Puppet Masters to the miniature portable
: wireless phones of Space Cadet.
True... but wasn't Between Planets (iirc) set even further futurewards?
And of course Sam's implant was like Napoleon Solo's "channel D"...
doesn't really predict cellphone when there's only a few super-secret
agents running around with them. Specifically, it doesn't imply a
switching network taking up lots of multiplexed bandwidth, it only
implies a few dedicated frequences. Or am I misremembering, and
implant phones widely in use?
Space Cadet, I'll grant you. Clearly it wasn't a lack of imagination
on RAH's part that left cellphones out of the tmiahm setting. But still,
it seems pretty peculiar, and I conclude he threw them in or left them out
for reasons independent of verisimilitude.
:: It's a curious mix of doing more than depicted, and at the same time
:: less. One might say Heinlein hit the mark a bit better with Door
:: into Summer, predicting the Roomba and ubiquitous use of CAD/DAM by
:: the early 2000s. But even then... fully articulated manipulators
:: capable of doing dishwashing or daiper-changing? Yow.
: The manipulators aren't the problem per se, it's the sensors, feedback
: and -- especially -- perceptual/decisionmaking systems that bite you
: in the butt.
In short, the software. Yet Another Case of "software is easy" syndrome.
In fact, it's pretty explicit, what with the "Thorson Tube" handwave;
he packs a lot of impicit software in the "with variations" bit in his
explanation of how you train a housebot for tasks.
Feet they hardly touch the ground
Walking on the moon
My feet don't hardly make no sound
Walking on, walking on the moon
--- The Police
And earthworms don't know how to go down ramps. Motion isn't
running, isn't walking, isn't flying--is more a controlled dance,
with feet barely touching and simply guiding balance. A Loonie
three-year-old does it without thinking, comes skipping down in a
guided fall, toes touching every few meters.
--- tmiahm
Wayne Throop
: Is it possible to have non discrete (i.e. continuous) components ?
No, not quite. It is, however, possible to have integrated circuits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_device
A discrete device (or discrete component) is an electronic component
with just one circuit element, either passive (resistor, capacitor,
inductor, diode) or active (transistor or vacuum tube), other than
an integrated circuit. The term is used to distinguish the
component from integrated circuits and hybrid circuits, which are
built from several circuit elements in one package.
In some sense, one might suppose that the innards of an IC are
"continuous", in some metaphorical sense; certainly the boundaries
between various functions can get blurred, and there's no physical
packaging barrier between them. That is, each packaged device does
only one thing, it's discrete. If it does lots of things blanded
together, it's integrated. It's a fairly standard phrase.
( That would be why I clarified the otherwise-seeming-oxymoronic
phrase "discrete analog circuit". )
Howard Brazee
Nicoll) wrote:
> ObSF: AGE OF THE PUSSYFOOT, where the afterword addresses this
>to some extent.
I still think of this as the SF novel which is most likely to have the
future correct. (not counting the aliens)
--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."
- James Madison
David DeLaney
>And note, in the setting, even in terms of software,
>no cellphones, no laptops, no digital media, no internet, no nothing.
>Digital technology is too expensive for the proles. In 2075.
>Always this mix of optimism and pessimism. Kind of peculiar.
>Kind of interesting. Yesterday's Tomorrows are...
>well, peculiar and interesting.
Tvtropes reminds us that Douglas Adams (& John Lloyd) gave us a word for this
a while back: Zeerust, the particular kind of datedness which afflicts things
that were originally designed to look futuristic.
(Curiously, Wikipedia's entry for Zeerust is about a town in South Africa.)
Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
T Guy
On average, we live to ages that only a select few did in many more
primitive societies.
(T Guy):
You understate, if anything: ISTR that a hundred years ago in Britain
the male human life expectancy was 40 years.
T Guy
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
Not by that much, because IIRC the average includes a huge number of
deaths of very young children which aren't really good indicators of how
long adults could expect to live.
Wayne Throop
: Not by that much, because IIRC the average includes a huge number of
: long adults could expect to live.
Does any source graph the average lifespan of that subset of the
population that has reached 20 years of age? Male vs female would be interesting. Though maybe choose 15 years as the contingent age.
"I promise to love you until you die in childbirth."
--- Griffin Peterson to Lady Redbush (quote approx)
Ahasuerus
> : "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com>
> : Not by that much, because IIRC the average includes a huge number of
> : deaths of very young children which aren't really good indicators of how
> : long adults could expect to live.
>
> Does any source graph the average lifespan of that subset of the
> population that has reached 20 years of age? Male vs female would be interesting. Though maybe choose 15 years as the contingent age.
To quote James C. Riley's _Rising Life Expectancy: A Global History_:
"In France between 1740 and 1790 the life expectancy of males
fluctuated between 24 and 28 and of females between 26 and 30 years.
In some regions of the world expectancy at birth did not surpass 20
years. Low values are often an effect of high infant and child
mortality. Where life expectancy at birth ranged between 20 and 35
years, the life expectancy of young adults was often much higher, even
35 or 40 years." (Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-521-80245-8
(hardcover) and 0-521-00281-8 (paperback), p. 33).
Robert Carnegie
> On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 21:12:15 GMT, Wayne Throop <thr...@sheol.org> wrote:
> >And note, in the setting, even in terms of software,
> >no cellphones, no laptops, no digital media, no internet, no nothing.
> >Digital technology is too expensive for the proles. In 2075.
> ...
> >Always this mix of optimism and pessimism. Kind of peculiar.
> >Kind of interesting. Yesterday's Tomorrows are...
> >well, peculiar and interesting.
>
> Tvtropes reminds us that Douglas Adams (& John Lloyd) gave us a word for this
> a while back: Zeerust, the particular kind of datedness which afflicts things
> that were originally designed to look futuristic.
>
> (Curiously, Wikipedia's entry for Zeerust is about a town in South Africa.)
Oh, is this from _The Meaning of Liff_ then? The book of, mostly or
entirely, semi-familiar place names repurposed as meaningful words.
As far as I recall, an exeter is a component part of a complex machine
that may be redundant, and you'd like to know because you have re-
assembled the machine with the exeter still lying out on your
workbench; an ely is your first suspicion that your current project
has gone badly wrong (such as noticing, in the corner of your eye, the
exeter in its proud isolation); and the sense of rather disgusted
surprise upon sitting on a seat - bus, office, restroom - that is
warmer than expected because someone else was sitting in it till a
minute ago, is shoeburyness.
As for technology, the matter of constructing brand new gadgets with a
moderny-looking surface specifically designed to look shabby by the
time the next model is out (eighteen months? twelve?) ought to be
considered.
Robert Carnegie
I bounced off tmiahm, but it seems to me that with other things being
withheld from the man in the street, so to speak, cellphones also
might be. I mean, supposedly the sedition movement in Iran tries to
use cellphones to organise itself.
Now in _Space 1999_ you had a handheld video phone (video receiver
anyway, I think) which also functioned as a remote-control door key
and a ray gun. ...This is the thread that started out being
unimpressed with 2009 phones in real life?
David Johnston
More differently advanced than far in advance. For example what kind
of cybernetic technology did Isaac Asimov offer us? Well for a hint,
Susan Calvin started working at U.S. Robots two years ago. Sure, our
computers can do things his computers couldn't, but his computers
could do things ours can't. Arthur C. Clarke was offering us HAL as
of six years ago. James Hogan in 1977 had in our near future better
computers than ours when it comes to intelligently interpreting speech
built into the side of briefcases. A Logic Named Joe had personal
computers with internet in the 21st century. Stanislaw Lem had
something similar to PDAs in the hallucinated 21st century.
David Johnston
wrote:
>: "W. Citoan" <wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com>
>: Yet, today's computers are far in advance of what those old SF stories
>: actually portrayed we'd have in the 21st century.
>
> "Mike? Got an empty memory bank?"
> "Yes, Man. Ten-to-the-eighth-bits capacity."
> --- computing technology in 2075
Dude, that computer's _talking to him_.
cryptoguy
"SFnal moments in your life.", started Nov 29 2007
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.fandom/browse_frm/thread/6d99f353e112be49/631a1e76c7d001d0
pt
cryptoguy
In the context in which the term is used, yes. They're called
'integrated circuits'.
pt
Jerry Brown
wrote:
<snip>
>Always this mix of optimism and pessimism. Kind of peculiar.
>Kind of interesting. Yesterday's Tomorrows are...
>well, peculiar and interesting.
The TV critic Clive James once put it like this (in a review
contrasting 1970s Doctor Who with 1930s Flash Gordon):
"Nothing dates a period of time like its view of the future".
Jerry Brown
--
A cat may look at a king
(but probably won't bother)
Jerry Brown
The commlock and gun were separate devices:
<http://www.yourprops.com/view_item.php?movie_prop=5933>.
>...This is the thread that started out being
>unimpressed with 2009 phones in real life?
Jerry Brown
Quadibloc
> On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 20:21:23 GMT, thro...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
> wrote:
> >: "W. Citoan" <wcit...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com>
> >: Yet, today's computers are far in advance of what those old SF stories
> >: actually portrayed we'd have in the 21st century.
> > "Mike? Got an empty memory bank?"
> > "Yes, Man. Ten-to-the-eighth-bits capacity."
> > --- computing technology in 2075
> Dude, that computer's _talking to him_.
That is in advance of what we have. But for a computer to be capable
of that, and yet to have memory banks so tiny as 100 megabits... is
quite impossible.
John Savard
T Guy
an exeter is a component part of a complex machine
> that may be redundant, and you'd like to know because you have re-
> assembled the machine with the exeter still lying out on your
> workbench;
(T Guy):
Whatever you do, don't assume that an offog is an exeter.
T Guy
Ilya2
> :: "Mike? Got an empty memory bank?"
> :: "Yes, Man. Ten-to-the-eighth-bits capacity."
> :: --- computing technology in 2075
>
> : On the one hand, that's not a very large memory bank these days.
> : On the other hand, he's talking to the computer in colloquial,
> : accented English. And it's understanding him and talking back -- not
> : just word recognition, not just command and context, it's
> : UNDERSTANDING him. Which is so far beyond anything we have now as to
> : be incomprehensible, since as of yet we're not sure how that COULD be done.
>
> Yes. AI was considered easy compared to terrabyte capacities.
> (And to say "that's not a very large memory bank these days"
> is a brobdingnagian understatement, really. About 12 megabytes.
> And sixty-mumble years from now.)
>
> Then again... doing 3d realistic realtime graphics for rendering a
> virtual scene a bit later in the novel was felt to be at the limit
> of the technology, and in fact only accomplished by very very clever
> programming (the hardware capacity just barely there). Whereas, we
> threw hardware at the problem; many many gigaflaops of processing,
> and it's nearly solved now (though one could question whether it'd be
> across the uncanny valley, yet, at least, done real-time).
>
> Which illustrates the issue; software is easy, hardware is hard.
> Whereas, it turns out the reverse has been mostly the case.
>
> And note, in the setting, even in terms of software,
> no cellphones, no laptops, no digital media, no internet, no nothing.
> Digital technology is too expensive for the proles. In 2075.
I think this is because from viewpoint of 50's and 60's "hardware is
easy, software is hard" made for very difficult stories to write. If
you have a few sentient computers but little or no distributed
processing, society does not change much. People behave in
recognizable manner, they just have a few extra "people" to deal with
with. Who may behave different, but author has a free hand in HOW
different. Whereas distributed computation with every individual
constantly connected (what we have now), and with inanimate objects
responding and anticipating people's needs (what we are likely to have
within 20 years), people act very differently -- and in ways which
back then were very hard to imagine without leaving huge plot holes.
Who would have thought that 9/11 attack led to several divorces, as
women frantically called their husbands, and got breezy "Oh I am the
office!" (when office no longer existed)? Or that Iranian
revolutionaries would organize themselves via Twitter? (Try to even
*explain* Twitter to 1960 audience!) Or that Facebook+Google utterly
destroys privacy, but no one under 25 seems to care -- they never had
any privacy to begin with, and do not miss it?
Quadibloc
> ( Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> ):
> > that may be redundant, and you'd like to know because you have re-
> > assembled the machine with the exeter still lying out on your
> > workbench;
> Whatever you do, don't assume that an offog is an exeter.
But an offog isn't an extra thing you have lying about; it's a thing
you are supposed to have, but you can't find it and don't know what it
is to even go looking for it.
John Savard
Dimensional Traveler
--
"The Internet lied again!"
Dorothy J Heydt
Surely it wouldn't do that. It's too well-trained.
--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at hotmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.
Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.
W. Citoan
Your cherry picking again only this time on AI. If you take a walk
through a modern factory, you will see robotics much more capable than
the standard Asimovian biped.
> A Logic Named Joe had personal computers with internet in the 21st
> century. Stanislaw Lem had something similar to PDAs in the
> hallucinated 21st century.
These were rare though. The standard 40-60s projections were much more
limited.
- W. Citoan
--
If you think things are chaotic now, wait awhile and watch them get worse.
(One statement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.)
-- Anonymous
Howard Brazee
<ahas...@email.com> wrote:
>> Does any source graph the average lifespan of that subset of the
>> population that has reached 20 years of age? �Male vs female would be interesting. �Though maybe choose 15 years as the contingent age.
>
>To quote James C. Riley's _Rising Life Expectancy: A Global History_:
>
>"In France between 1740 and 1790 the life expectancy of males
>fluctuated between 24 and 28 and of females between 26 and 30 years.
>In some regions of the world expectancy at birth did not surpass 20
>years. Low values are often an effect of high infant and child
>mortality. Where life expectancy at birth ranged between 20 and 35
>years, the life expectancy of young adults was often much higher, even
>35 or 40 years." (Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-521-80245-8
>(hardcover) and 0-521-00281-8 (paperback), p. 33).
Again, how did they calculate this figure? By checking graves? Did
everybody - including all infants - have gravestones?
Quadibloc
> Your cherry picking again only this time on AI. If you take a walk
> through a modern factory, you will see robotics much more capable than
> the standard Asimovian biped.
Really? They have improved a bit over the early models back in the
'sixties, but while they have limited computer vision capabilities,
their flexibility is still minute.
John Savard
W. Citoan
> On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:15:13 -0800 (PST), Ahasuerus
> <ahas...@email.com> wrote:
>
> >> Does any source graph the average lifespan of that subset of the
> >> population that has reached 20 years of age? Male vs female would
> >> be interesting. Though maybe choose 15 years as the contingent
> >> age.
> >
> >To quote James C. Riley's _Rising Life Expectancy: A Global History_:
> >
> >"In France between 1740 and 1790 the life expectancy of males
> >fluctuated between 24 and 28 and of females between 26 and 30 years.
> >In some regions of the world expectancy at birth did not surpass 20
> >years. Low values are often an effect of high infant and child
> >mortality. Where life expectancy at birth ranged between 20 and 35
> >years, the life expectancy of young adults was often much higher,
> >even 35 or 40 years." (Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN
> >0-521-80245-8 (hardcover) and 0-521-00281-8 (paperback), p. 33).
>
> Again, how did they calculate this figure? By checking graves?
> Did everybody - including all infants - have gravestones?
Parish records would have been one source. Births and deaths were
recorded.
Wayne Throop
:: Your cherry picking again only this time on AI. =A0If you take a
:: walk through a modern factory, you will see robotics much more
:: capable than the standard Asimovian biped.
: Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca>
: Really? They have improved a bit over the early models back in the
: 'sixties, but while they have limited computer vision capabilities,
: their flexibility is still minute.
Didn't say "flexible", said "capable". Presumably, capable at some
specialized task, and it can outperform a positronic robot precisely
because they're non-anthropomorphic, and not general-purpose.
T Guy
> > On average, we live to ages that only a select few did in many more
> > primitive societies.
> > (T Guy):
> > You understate, if anything: ISTR that a hundred years ago in Britain
> > the male human life expectancy was 40 years.
( "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com>):
Not by that much, because IIRC the average includes a huge number of
> deaths of very young children which aren't really good indicators of how
> long adults could expect to live.
(T Guy):
Yes, excellent point.
I suspect that we've nowadays got a lower level of infant mortality
combined with a significantly higher life expectancy for those who
reach maturity in the West. It'd be interesting to see stats for both
figures for 1910 and 2010.
T Guy
Quadibloc
> Surely it wouldn't do that. It's too well-trained.
(In another forum in which I participate, there's a heated discussion
about James Cameron choosing to use a modified version of the all-too-
common and overused typeface "Papyrus" in the movie _Avatar_. Just
thought you might be... interested.)
Of course, if offog is used as a slang term, it might be applied to
other things than an officer's dog.
John Savard
Quadibloc
> Didn't say "flexible", said "capable". Presumably, capable at some
> specialized task, and it can outperform a positronic robot precisely
> because they're non-anthropomorphic, and not general-purpose.
If one uses that meaning of "capable", that would apply to factory
machinery that is non-robotic as well. The capabilities of today's
robots do not include the humanlike intelligence of Asimov's robots.
John Savard
T Guy
> >> Whatever you do, don't assume that an offog is an exeter.
(Quadibloc ):
> > But an offog isn't an extra thing you have lying about; it's a thing
> > you are supposed to have, but you can't find it and don't know what it
> > is to even go looking for it.
( Dimensional Traveler <dtra...@sonic.net>):
> Or even recognize it when it bites you on the ass.
(T Guy):
Failure to recognise it when it bites your arse literally leads to it
biting you on the arse metaphorically.
T Guy
Dorothy J Heydt
Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>On Dec 31, 1:10�pm, djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>
>> Surely it wouldn't do that. �It's too well-trained.
>
>(In another forum in which I participate, there's a heated discussion
>about James Cameron choosing to use a modified version of the all-too-
>common and overused typeface "Papyrus" in the movie _Avatar_. Just
>thought you might be... interested.)
Uh, don't think so. I just googled it and, curiously enough, I
don't recall seeing it used anywhere. One more example of how
Dorothy is just not with it.
>
>Of course, if offog is used as a slang term, it might be applied to
>other things than an officer's dog.
It wasn't an officer's dog. It was an off[icial] dog.
cryptoguy
> On Dec 31, 1:10 pm, djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>
> > Surely it wouldn't do that. It's too well-trained.
>
> (In another forum in which I participate, there's a heated discussion
> about James Cameron choosing to use a modified version of the all-too-
> common and overused typeface "Papyrus" in the movie _Avatar_. Just
> thought you might be... interested.)
One of the most nitpickiest sites I ever found on the net was devoted
to this, finding endless examples of signs in movies in anachronistic
typefaces.
> Of course, if offog is used as a slang term, it might be applied to
> other things than an officer's dog.
I'd have to check to be sure, but I think it was 'official dog'.
pt
David Johnston
I prefer to judge imaginary devices by what they are shown doing
rather than the numbers the author pulled out of his fundament based
on whatever sounded impressive to him at the time.
Quadibloc
> Uh, don't think so. I just googled it and, curiously enough, I
> don't recall seeing it used anywhere. One more example of how
> Dorothy is just not with it.
Don't feel bad. People say Helvetica is the most overused typeface,
but where I live, I hardly ever see it. On my trip home on the bus, I
see hundreds of signs belonging to stores, and maybe two or three use
Helvetica somewhere. (As it happens, the Edmonton Transit System uses
*Futura* as its standard typeface.)
If you were to pick up a free advertising-supported magazine for
pregnant women, or one for people with "New Age" interests, you
probably would see Papyrus in a couple of advertisements in it. It's
used wherever people want a font that says "mysterious" and "Eastern",
and consider a font with a blatant resemblance to Devanagari or
Chinese characters to be tacky. Since there isn't really another
typeface out there that does what it does as well - at least not from
the major, well-known suppliers (Ereshkigal is a possible alternative)
- I can't really blame those who choose to use it.
John Savard
Quadibloc
> One of the most nitpickiest sites I ever found on the net was devoted
> to this, finding endless examples of signs in movies in anachronistic
> typefaces.
I'll have to see if I can Google that up. It sounds like something I
would be interested in and amused by.
John Savard
Quadibloc
I found this:
http://www.ms-studio.com/typecasting.html
It seems to be a blog entry, not a whole site devoted to the topic,
though.
There's also
http://www.marksimonson.com/article/14/SonofTypecasting
but it seems to be empty now... linked to from
http://www.marksimonson.com/category/Son+of+Typecasting/
which does have additional examples.
John Savard
Dorothy J Heydt
And there's this, of course:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDiDATbIG-o
David Johnston
<wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote:
Is there something wrong with that? The interesting thing is the
difficulty I have in thinking of counter examples more recent that the
40s. Heinlein's future history with the slide rules, but of course
that was for a plot reason, so his mathematics prodigy would have a
point. Venus Equilateral.
If you take a walk
>through a modern factory, you will see robotics much more capable than
>the standard Asimovian biped.
No, I won't. I'll see robots much more specialized, and therefore
doubtless more practical in that they haven't been built with a
boatload of unnecessary abilities. But they are much more limited.
Asimov's 21st century certainly had the technology to duplicate the
limited intelligence and range of movement of our sessile mechanical
morons since all they'd have to do is remove most of the capability
from their machines to achieve it.
>
>> A Logic Named Joe had personal computers with internet in the 21st
>> century. Stanislaw Lem had something similar to PDAs in the
>> hallucinated 21st century.
>
>These were rare though. The standard 40-60s projections were much more
>limited.
Examples?
ZnU
<1de314c4-35f9-47e5...@e37g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> On Dec 31, 1:10�pm, djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>
> > Surely it wouldn't do that. �It's too well-trained.
>
> (In another forum in which I participate, there's a heated discussion
> about James Cameron choosing to use a modified version of the all-too-
> common and overused typeface "Papyrus" in the movie _Avatar_. Just
> thought you might be... interested.)
At least it wasn't Trajan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t87QKdOJNv8
(Actually, some of the marketing material for Avatar does uses Trajan,
though not for the movie title. Arg.)
> Of course, if offog is used as a slang term, it might be applied to
> other things than an officer's dog.
>
> John Savard
--
"The game of professional investment is intolerably boring and over-exacting to
anyone who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it
must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll." -- John Maynard Keynes
Gene Wirchenko
<rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
[snip]
>As for technology, the matter of constructing brand new gadgets with a
>moderny-looking surface specifically designed to look shabby by the
>time the next model is out (eighteen months? twelve?) ought to be
>considered.
...a crime.
Please finish your sentences.
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Gene Wirchenko
Heydt) wrote:
>In article <4b3cff76$0$1669$742e...@news.sonic.net>,
>Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:
>>Quadibloc wrote:
[snip]
>>> But an offog isn't an extra thing you have lying about; it's a thing
>>> you are supposed to have, but you can't find it and don't know what it
>>> is to even go looking for it.
>>>
>>Or even recognize it when it bites you on the ass.
>
>Surely it wouldn't do that. It's too well-trained.
Oh? ISTR it broke up under strain.
That admiral would have been about enough for anyone.
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Quadibloc
> And there's this, of course:
This reminds me of something I read where typographer Jan Tschihold,
who was a refugee from Nazism because the Nazis regarded him as a
leftist, after the war abandoned some of his earlier teachings on
typography because he saw in them disturbing parallels to the thinking
of Fascism.
John Savard
David Johnston
to technology just used as scene setting, (the door irised) the
technology we get to know the most about is the technology that
actually plays an important role in the story. You'll see this in
modern day stories just as much a science fiction stories. Let's take
a random example. I have been watching a year and a half's worth of
the Mentalist. Would it surprise you to learn that at no point during
that time, has it even been hinted at that you can play games on your
phone?
cryptoguy
It could be the first one, though my vague memories were of a richer
website. It's spot on topic though.
It's astounding what details some people pick up on, and care enough
about to post.
(us posters in this group probably resemble that remark, as well).
pt
Howard Brazee
<wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Again, how did they calculate this figure? By checking graves?
>> Did everybody - including all infants - have gravestones?
>
>Parish records would have been one source. Births and deaths were
>recorded.
One would think that would under-state deaths of non-parish members
passing through.
Howard Brazee
wrote:
>This reminds me of something I read where typographer Jan Tschihold,
>who was a refugee from Nazism because the Nazis regarded him as a
>leftist, after the war abandoned some of his earlier teachings on
>typography because he saw in them disturbing parallels to the thinking
>of Fascism.
I read that they found a work that made fun of Stalin, written from an
Eastern block SF author whose name is escaping me at the time - I
remember that I have at least one of his books (translated).
mazorj
"David Johnston" <da...@block.net> wrote in message
news:cv7sj5df8b751463b...@4ax.com...
No. Why would it deserve even a casual cameo mention? As one SF writer (I
forget who) put it, writing is mostly about knowing what parts of the story
to throw away. That's why until recent years, you never saw anyone use the
bathroom in movies and TV. Or, as I recall, you never saw the Lone Ranger
and Tonto fixing dinner around a campfire on the trail. You know that the
characters had to perform those functions with great regularity - more often
than the escapades of the plot! - but they are completely extraneous to the
story and would only get in the way.
OTOH, the "bump and run" mentions of technology in SF are there to flesh out
the setting of the story without digressing into story-stopping lectures.
They do perform a useful service by giving the reader a passing glimpse of
the story's milieu.
I find much more interesting the ways that technology has influenced story
telling. Where would all those fast-paced cops and CSI shows be without
cell phones? Every few minutes the plot turns on a dime after someone gets
a call from someone in a remote location with new information that points to
or rules out a suspect or crime theory. Before then, information traveled
at the snail pace of handset phones, personal interactions, and the
occasional radio call.
Then there is the instantaneous access to all that state-of-the-art
technology. How many law enforcement offices actually have access to all
this? Not many. Even for those that do have access, how many get results
for DNA matching and all the other sophisticated tests no later than after
the next commercial break? Hand-waving technology in the service of a plot
isn't limited to SF.
And then there are all those convenient "quantum plot jumps" where one of
the good guys casually announces that since the last commercial break,
he/she has analyzed some evidence, found an esoteric clue from it,
researched it, and discovered that, say, the crime could only have occurred
in that swamp on the map, or that the hostage is being held in *this*
warehouse in the satellite photo. In reality, this kind of work might take
days or weeks to produce results, if it realistically can be done at all.
You're quite right when you say that "the technology we get to know the most
about is the technology that actually plays an important role in the story."
That would be true for both SF and non-SF storytelling.
W. Citoan
> On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:22:13 +0000 (UTC), "W. Citoan"
> <wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >> Again, how did they calculate this figure? By checking graves?
> >> Did everybody - including all infants - have gravestones?
> >
> >Parish records would have been one source. Births and deaths were
> >recorded.
>
> One would think that would under-state deaths of non-parish members
> passing through.
I'm not sure why you think that traveling was such a hazardous ordeal
that it would make such a difference. The parish would still have
recorded the burial. Many times, the information would have traveled
back to the home parish & probably been recorded there as well.
- W. Citoan
--
This book is dedicated to my brilliant and beautiful wife without whom I
would be nothing. She always comforts and consoles, never complains or
interferes, asks nothing, and endures all. She also writes my dedications.
-- Albert Malvino
Dorothy J Heydt
Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
>On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:22:13 +0000 (UTC), "W. Citoan"
><wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>> Again, how did they calculate this figure? By checking graves?
>>> Did everybody - including all infants - have gravestones?
>>
>>Parish records would have been one source. Births and deaths were
>>recorded.
>
>One would think that would under-state deaths of non-parish members
>passing through.
>
happened to die in the parish and be buried there?
I'm thinking of Sayers's _The Nine Tailors_, in which a nameless,
faceless, fingerprintless corpse is discovered in a small
village, and he's buried in the parish churchyard, on parish
funds, and given a proper funeral and a (cheap) headstone and the
bells are rung for him. They don't know his name till the very
end of the book, but he would certainly be in the records, there
to be counted.
David DeLaney
>Quadibloc <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>> Quadibloc <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>> > cryptoguy <treifam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > > One of the most nitpickiest sites I ever found on the net was devoted
>> > > to this, finding endless examples of signs in movies in anachronistic
>> > > typefaces.
>>
>> > I'll have to see if I can Google that up. It sounds like something I
>> > would be interested in and amused by.
If either of you see Kibo there, tell him we miss him and want him to come home.
>> I found this:
>> http://www.ms-studio.com/typecasting.html
...
>> http://www.marksimonson.com/category/Son+of+Typecasting/
>> which does have additional examples.
>
>It could be the first one, though my vague memories were of a richer
>website. It's spot on topic though.
ObARK: Poor Spot!
>It's astounding what details some people pick up on, and care enough
>about to post.
>(us posters in this group probably resemble that remark, as well).
Dave "no, no, you're too kind" DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Robert Carnegie
> Howard Brazee wrote:
> > On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:22:13 +0000 (UTC), "W. Citoan"
> > <wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > >> Again, how did they calculate this figure? By checking graves?
> > >> Did everybody - including all infants - have gravestones?
> > >
> > >Parish records would have been one source. Births and deaths were
> > >recorded.
> >
> > One would think that would under-state deaths of non-parish members
> > passing through.
>
> I'm not sure why you think that traveling was such a hazardous ordeal
> that it would make such a difference. The parish would still have
> recorded the burial. Many times, the information would have traveled
> back to the home parish & probably been recorded there as well.
Assuming they found the body. But what if you're eaten by, say,
wolves?
Robert Carnegie
> On Dec 30, 9:02 pm, David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
> > On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 20:21:23 GMT, thro...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
> > wrote:
> > >: "W. Citoan" <wcit...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com>
>
> > >: actually portrayed we'd have in the 21st century.
>
> > > "Yes, Man. Ten-to-the-eighth-bits capacity."
> > > --- computing technology in 2075
>
> > Dude, that computer's _talking to him_.
>
> That is in advance of what we have. But for a computer to be capable
> of that, and yet to have memory banks so tiny as 100 megabits... is
> quite impossible.
Currently.
Anyway, maybe they're qubits...
Or maybe the computer can talk but isn't good with large numbers...
Dorothy J Heydt
They'd leave bones and other inedible materials.
Howard Brazee
<rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>> I'm not sure why you think that traveling was such a hazardous ordeal
>> that it would make such a difference. The parish would still have
>> recorded the burial. Many times, the information would have traveled
>> back to the home parish & probably been recorded there as well.
>
>Assuming they found the body. But what if you're eaten by, say,
>wolves?
Or lost at sea.
cryptoguy
> On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:22:13 +0000 (UTC), "W. Citoan"
>
> >> Again, how did they calculate this figure? By checking graves?
> >> Did everybody - including all infants - have gravestones?
>
> >Parish records would have been one source. Births and deaths were
> >recorded.
>
> One would think that would under-state deaths of non-parish members
> passing through.
I suspect the parish recorded the death of anyone they buried; its not
like bodies got shipped across the country in those days.
But for the purposes we are addressing (average life expectancy)
missing a few random deaths isn't going to skew the numbers).
pt
Kurt Busiek
> On Fri, 1 Jan 2010 20:35:14 -0800 (PST), Robert Carnegie
> <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>
>>> I'm not sure why you think that traveling was such a hazardous ordeal
>>> that it would make such a difference. The parish would still have
>>> recorded the burial. Many times, the information would have traveled
>>> back to the home parish & probably been recorded there as well.
>>
>> Assuming they found the body. But what if you're eaten by, say,
>> wolves?
>
> Or lost at sea.
Or eaten by wolves at sea!
kdb
--
Visit http://www.busiek.com -- for all your Busiek needs!
T Guy
> On 2010-01-02 09:02:42 -0800, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> said:
>
> > On Fri, 1 Jan 2010 20:35:14 -0800 (PST), Robert Carnegie
> > <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
>
> >>> I'm not sure why you think that traveling was such a hazardous ordeal
> >>> that it would make such a difference. The parish would still have
> >>> recorded the burial. Many times, the information would have traveled
> >>> back to the home parish & probably been recorded there as well.
>
> >> Assuming they found the body. But what if you're eaten by, say,
> >> wolves?
>
> > Or lost at sea.
>
> Or eaten by wolves at sea!
Rafael Sabatini refers (filmed with Errol Flynn).
T Guy
P. S. Possibly only in some alternate reality where it was an SF
novel...
Szymon Sokół
> On 2010-01-02 09:02:42 -0800, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> said:
>
>> On Fri, 1 Jan 2010 20:35:14 -0800 (PST), Robert Carnegie
>> <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>>
[----]
>>> Assuming they found the body. But what if you're eaten by, say,
>>> wolves?
>>
>> Or lost at sea.
>
> Or eaten by wolves at sea!
ITYM "eaten by sea wolves"...
--
Szymon Sokół (SS316-RIPE) -- Network Manager B
Computer Center, AGH - University of Science and Technology, Cracow, Poland O
http://home.agh.edu.pl/szymon/ PGP key id: RSA: 0x2ABE016B, DSS: 0xF9289982 F
Free speech includes the right not to listen, if not interested -- Heinlein H
Kurt Busiek
<szy...@bastard.operator.from.hell.pl> said:
> On Sat, 2 Jan 2010 10:02:30 -0800, Kurt Busiek wrote:
>
>> On 2010-01-02 09:02:42 -0800, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> said:
>>
>>> On Fri, 1 Jan 2010 20:35:14 -0800 (PST), Robert Carnegie
>>> <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>>>
> [----]
>>>> Assuming they found the body. But what if you're eaten by, say,
>>>> wolves?
>>>
>>> Or lost at sea.
>>
>> Or eaten by wolves at sea!
>
> ITYM "eaten by sea wolves"...
No, the wolves all drowned afterward. It's why they were unavailable
to testify.
David DeLaney
>Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> said:
>> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>>> Assuming they found the body. But what if you're eaten by, say,
>>> wolves?
>>
>> Or lost at sea.
>
>Or eaten by wolves at sea!
Oh, the embarrassment.
Dave "don't ask, don't tell" DeLaney
Lawrence Watt-Evans
<treif...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Jan 1, 12:33�pm, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
>> On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:22:13 +0000 (UTC), "W. Citoan"
>>
>> <wcit...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >> �Again, how did they calculate this figure? � � By checking graves?
>> >> �Did everybody - including all infants - have gravestones?
>>
>> >Parish records would have been one source. �Births and deaths were
>> >recorded.
>>
>> One would think that would under-state deaths of non-parish members
>> passing through.
>
>I suspect the parish recorded the death of anyone they buried; its not
>like bodies got shipped across the country in those days.
What days are we talking about? Because my great-great grandfather,
who died in Pennsylvania, was later exhumed and shipped to Maine to be
reburied on the family estate.
I don't remember the exact year, but it was upwards of 120 years ago.
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
I'm selling my comic collection -- see http://www.watt-evans.com/comics.html
I'm serializing a novel at http://www.watt-evans.com/realmsoflight0.html
Matt Hughes
> In article <16169ee1-ba3b-445c-9891-bcf920d67...@f5g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>,
> Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> >Assuming they found the body. But what if you're eaten by, say,
> >wolves?
>
> They'd leave bones and other inedible materials.
That's if they left them on the trail, instead of a hundred yards into
the forest where the guy ran trying to find a tree he could climb...
Matt Hughes
http://www.archonate.com
Matt Hughes
wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Jan 2010 10:02:30 -0800, Kurt Busiek wrote:
> > Or eaten by wolves at sea!
>
> ITYM "eaten by sea wolves"...
Or eaten by Jack London!
Matt Hughes
http://www.archonate.com
cryptoguy
> On Sat, 2 Jan 2010 09:09:45 -0800 (PST), cryptoguy
>
>
>
>
>
> <treifam...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Jan 1, 12:33 pm, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
> >> On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:22:13 +0000 (UTC), "W. Citoan"
>
> >> <wcit...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> >> Again, how did they calculate this figure? By checking graves?
> >> >> Did everybody - including all infants - have gravestones?
>
> >> >Parish records would have been one source. Births and deaths were
> >> >recorded.
>
> >> One would think that would under-state deaths of non-parish members
> >> passing through.
>
> >I suspect the parish recorded the death of anyone they buried; its not
> >like bodies got shipped across the country in those days.
>
> What days are we talking about? Because my great-great grandfather,
> who died in Pennsylvania, was later exhumed and shipped to Maine to be
> reburied on the family estate.
>
> I don't remember the exact year, but it was upwards of 120 years ago.
It's possible I'm wrong. However, I think we were mostly talking about
mid-18th C, not late 19th.
pt
Greg Goss
>On Dec 31, 7:08�pm, djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>
>> Uh, don't think so. �I just googled it and, curiously enough, I
>> don't recall seeing it used anywhere. �One more example of how
>> Dorothy is just not with it.
>
>Don't feel bad. People say Helvetica is the most overused typeface,
>but where I live, I hardly ever see it. On my trip home on the bus, I
>see hundreds of signs belonging to stores, and maybe two or three use
>Helvetica somewhere. (As it happens, the Edmonton Transit System uses
>*Futura* as its standard typeface.)
Isn't Arial a Helvetica rip-off? Since I hate Times Roman (always
looks 20% smaller than other fonts taking the same acreage), most of
what I do in my computer defaults to Arial unless I'm trying something
"exotic". Right now, I'm working in what my computer THINKS is Arial
14 point bold, though because of the super-fine screen it's actually
about an Arial 10 point bold.
--
Tomorrow is today already.
Greg Goss, 1989-01-27
Greg Goss
>Isn't Arial a Helvetica rip-off? Since I hate Times Roman (always
>looks 20% smaller than other fonts taking the same acreage), most of
>what I do in my computer defaults to Arial unless I'm trying something
>"exotic". Right now, I'm working in what my computer THINKS is Arial
>14 point bold, though because of the super-fine screen it's actually
>about an Arial 10 point bold.
I intended to include this in my "Arial is Helvetica" post.
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1908292
(which is apparently a sequel to
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1823766
but much better)
Stephen Harker
> Isn't Arial a Helvetica rip-off? Since I hate Times Roman (always
> looks 20% smaller than other fonts taking the same acreage), most of
> what I do in my computer defaults to Arial unless I'm trying something
> "exotic". Right now, I'm working in what my computer THINKS is Arial
> 14 point bold, though because of the super-fine screen it's actually
> about an Arial 10 point bold.
Yes, see <http://www.ms-studio.com/articles.html> _The Scourge of
Arial_. To quote one paragraph:
Arial appears to be a loose adaptation of Monotype's venerable
Grotesque series, redrawn to match the proportions and weight
of Helvetica. At a glance, it looks like Helvetica, but up
close it's different in dozens of seemingly arbitrary
ways. Because it matched Helvetica's proportions, it was
possible to automatically substitute Arial when Helvetica was
specified in a document printed on a PostScript clone output
device. To the untrained eye, the difference was hard to
spot. (See 'How to Spot Arial' After all, most people would
have trouble telling the difference between a serif and a sans
serif typeface. But to an experienced designer, it was like
asking for Jimmy Stewart and getting Rich Little.
--
Stephen Harker s.ha...@adfa.edu.au
PEMS http://sjharker.customer.netspace.net.au/
UNSW@ADFA
Greg Goss
>On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 21:12:15 GMT
>thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote:
>>
>> Might also say he hit a good mark in Rovolting 2100, what with space having
>> been abandoned and a repressive regime in charge of the US... but flyin'
>> cars autopiloted by discrete analog circuitry? Yow. (Um, that's discrete
>> components, not discrete states.) ("Auto"pilot. Heh.)
>
>Is it possible to have non discrete (i.e. continuous) components ?
In components, the opposite of "discrete" is "integrated".
Howard Brazee
>>Is it possible to have non discrete (i.e. continuous) components ?
>
>In components, the opposite of "discrete" is "integrated".
I try not to be indiscrete about integration.
Brenda Clough
> On Jan 2, 6:54 pm, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>> On Sat, 2 Jan 2010 09:09:45 -0800 (PST), cryptoguy
>>
>>>>> recorded.
>>>> One would think that would under-state deaths of non-parish members
>>>> passing through.
>>> I suspect the parish recorded the death of anyone they buried; its not
>>> like bodies got shipped across the country in those days.
>> What days are we talking about? Because my great-great grandfather,
>> who died in Pennsylvania, was later exhumed and shipped to Maine to be
>> reburied on the family estate.
>>
>> I don't remember the exact year, but it was upwards of 120 years ago.
>
> It's possible I'm wrong. However, I think we were mostly talking about
> mid-18th C, not late 19th.
>
You could look at THIS REPUBLIC OF SUFFERING by Drew Gilpin Faust. It's
a book about the Civil War, and she notes that the shipping of dead
bodies for burial at home came about at that time, mainly because of the
availability of railroads and embalming. Previous to that point, the
practicalities demanded that people mostly be buried where they died.
Brenda
William December Starr
David Johnston <da...@block.net> said:
> More differently advanced than far in advance. For example what
> kind of cybernetic technology did Isaac Asimov offer us? Well for
> a hint, Susan Calvin started working at U.S. Robots two years ago.
> Sure, our computers can do things his computers couldn't, but his
> computers could do things ours can't. Arthur C. Clarke was
> offering us HAL as of six years ago.
A bit longer ago than that:
Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became
operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th
of January 1992.
-- wds
William December Starr
thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) said:
[ re Heinlein ]
> Might also say he hit a good mark in Rovolting 2100, what with
That's an... impressive typo.
-- wds
William December Starr
David Johnston <da...@block.net> said:
> Somebody wrote this to me a couple of days ago in response to my
> habitually cynical "they promised us jet packs" jabs at the people
> who claim that futurists and science fiction authors vastly
> underestimated the future.
>
>> I have a music library, film, and text library on my phone. The
>> music library, at least, is larger than you could expect to find
>> in a small record shop. I can buy anything from any country in
>> the world almost instantaneously and have it in my hands in about
>> a week. I can talk to people in Singapore for no more reason than
>> that I'm bored and that we both enjoy the movie Blade Runner.
>>
>> We are not just wizards, my friend. We are gods.
What an idiot. Wake me up when I can have even _serial_ immortality.
-- wds
Ilya2
>
> What an idiot. Wake me up when I can have even _serial_ immortality.
What is "serial immortality"? Does it mean periodic rejuventaion?
Quadibloc
> In article <1262207...@sheol.org>,
> thro...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) said:
> > Might also say he hit a good mark in Rovolting 2100, what with
> That's an... impressive typo.
Yes, that's certainly a new way to misspell "If This Goes
On..." (Revolt in 2100 being only the title of the Signet paperback
which contained that novella along with Coventry and one or more other
short stories).
However, we all make mistakes.
John Savard
David DeLaney
It means you get to die every so often. Whether or not you remember dying the
next time you wake up depends on the serialization method. Either way it's
got nastiness twined into it. Possibly not enough nastiness to be worse than
what we have now, mind you.
Dave