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Have a look your self. http://davidszondy.com/future/futurepast.htm]Over here
Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
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Have a look your self. http://davidszondy.com/future/futurepast.htm]Over here
*That's an excellent web site. Sure brings back memories (and I'm not even 40...yet).
Today is so pathetically brain dead by comparison. :down:
I'm glad I have a good memory, to recall the optimism and "go-get-'em" spitfire attitude of latter days of the Space Age.
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
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Waddaya mean "latter days of space"? I remember all that futuristic rubbish, but read it for what it was: Escapist reading about The World Of What If. Almost nothing turned out as imagined, including George Orwell's "1984," monster computers and helicopters in every garage. What actually happened (is it 2005, already?) was what never could be imagined: Good stuff like PC's, GPS, DNA crime detection, hot-air balloning, paragliding, snowboarding, snow scooters, dry Venus, wet Mars, planetary satellite diversity, billions and billions of Galaxies...and bad stuff like, you know, all too well.
We've acquired the ability only recently to go into orbit, some knowledge of what is and isn't out there to exploit , and hardly even begun to figure out how to thrive and procreate out there! Latter days? Don't be silly--the days of space have just begun!
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To me, 1984 seems pretty much to have happened and become our reality. At least if we speak metaphorically.
The site is hilarious, but there is a deeper sense to it. Maybe here's a good place to fill in with a certain dictum?
A tormenting thought: as of a certain point, history was no longer real. Without noticing it, all mankind suddenly left reality; everything happening since then was supposedly not true; but we supposedly didn't notice. Our task would now be to find that point, and as long as we didn't have it, we would be forced to abide in our present destruction.
- Elias Canetti (as reproduced by Baudrillard).
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Dicktice: Waddaya mean "latter days of space"? .... We've acquired the ability only recently to go into orbit, some knowledge of what is and isn't out there to exploit , and hardly even begun to figure out how to thrive and procreate out there! Latter days? Don't be silly--the days of space have just begun!
*Actually I was referring to the efforts of the 1940s - early 1970s. Otherwise, I sure hope you are right.
Gennaro: To me, 1984 seems pretty much to have happened and become our reality. At least if we speak metaphorically.
Nice to see you again. Orwell seems to have underestimated human vanity, LOL. Seems most people desperately want to be watched. Of course there's a difference between voluntary and forced.
--Cindy
P.S.:
A tormenting thought: as of a certain point, history was no longer real. Without noticing it, all mankind suddenly left reality; everything happening since then was supposedly not true; but we supposedly didn't notice. Our task would now be to find that point, and as long as we didn't have it, we would be forced to abide in our present destruction.
Maybe the old French philosopher, Denis Diderot, was right: The human mind and spirit seeks out something, finds it, grasps it...then wonders why it did so, lets go and sinks back down into melancholy.
I'm not that way and I *don't* mean it as a collectivist/all-inclusive statement (I'm sure most folks here are not that way either)...but it came to mind. :-\
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
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Funny stuff, I've been looking it over as I find the time.
To me, 1984 seems pretty much to have happened and become our reality. At least if we speak metaphorically.
I tend to agree. From doublethink to constant surveillance, we hit it almost point for point. Just more subtle, less brutal and a little late.
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
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Nice to see you again. Orwell seems to have underestimated human vanity, LOL. Seems most people desperately want to be watched. Of course there's a difference between voluntary and forced.
Thanks, for welcoming me back. The pleasure is all mine.
Voyeurism is an ancient human trait. Maybe it's a particularly French trait? Anyway, it's one of those words, like reflection, orbit and object that philosophers like Baudrillard seems to like using a lot... wait, I'm now getting confused.
Diderot?
I tend to agree. From doublethink to constant surveillance, we hit it almost point for point. Just more subtle, less brutal and a little late.
Two words: Ministry of Truth and Doublethink. The grease that keeps the wheels of a hypocritical system rolling. As for late, everything seems to be late nowadays. There is only one question that remains, will King Thèoden eventually awake from his delusionary state of mind and take to the field with the Riders of Rohan?
Sorry, if all my posts appear to have become obsessive lately. That's because I nowadays usually feel obsessive, I guess.
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There is only one question that remains, will King Thèoden eventually awake from his delusionary state of mind and take to the field with the Riders of Rohan?
Interesting metaphor. I generally believe so, already I've seen signs of a chipping away of our self-destructive illusions. We may yet turn it around, our best days may well still be ahead.
Otherwise, there will be enough who see clearly to make it an end worthy of remembrance.
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
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http://davidszondy.com/contest.htm]Does it say contest?
1500 words is flash fiction, something I have been thinking about lately. Maybe I need to offer a small prize for the best NewMarsian story entered in this contest. The picture looks like Mars, no?
George C. Scott as Space Admiral Patton zapping those nasty bug-things?
Give someone a sufficient [b][i]why[/i][/b] and they can endure just about any [b][i]how[/i][/b]
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I dunno, the creators of that site seem to have a tenuous grasp of reality. I was thumbing through the section "Future Flight," avoiding the urge to pound my head painfully against the keyboard. "Believe it or not, flying used to be romantic, adventurous..." blah blah, the same old rubbish. Am I the only one that still thinks flying is really wicked awesome!? Probably. The next time you're on an airliner (I'm lucky, I'll be on several this summer. I've only been on heavy metal flights a handful of times in my life) just pause for a moment and think about what's going on. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of thrust propelling hundreds of people riding half a million pounds of aluminum and composites miles upward into the sky. Riding in shirt-sleeve comfort at 39,000 feet with nothing more than some bleed air and a nice pressurization system. I don't care if I'm not pampered with extravagant luxuries, the flight in of itself is the attraction.
Moreover, why were any technical assides labeled "boring technical details?" The technology and the details are what make it fun! You skip that and there's no point in discussing the matter in the first place. Sure a picture of the whirlpool galaxy from the Hubble is nice eye candy even to a layman, but if you truly understand what's going on in there it becomes an awe-inspiring miracle of nature, not just a pretty picture. Details are everything. Maybe I just like getting brain candy more than most people.
At any rate, that site annoys me. Sorry if I'm ruining your tomorrow (I wrote this at 11:53, so probably no one's going to read it today).
A mind is like a parachute- it works best when open.
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You're so right: Commercial flight is awesome, but "wicked" only if made so by folks who don't intend to land in one piece. Sorry to tease you about your use of modern slang. Aerodynamics is what it's all about, and wing-lift still so misunderstood, by almost anyone you'd care to ask at an airport (!) as to seem almost magical. The trouble is, if you express an interest in anything going on in and around an air terminal these days, you risk being detained and interrogated. That's where the romance has gone out of flying: The Airports.
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"Believe it or not, flying used to be romantic, adventurous..." blah blah, the same old rubbish. Am I the only one that still thinks flying is really wicked awesome!? Probably.
Well, my take on it this. Somewhat echoing some of Dicktice's sentiments, I'm impressed every time I see a 747 take off but I have no romanticised feelings about actually flying on one. Wait around, check for weapons, get some stupid thing confiscated, mutter something about "underqualified federal idiot drone..." it's all so routine.
Of these old pulp predicitons of the future some have panned out roughly and we have other advancements they didn't conceive of, but actually having these things can't help but take the romance out of it. The "cool" wears off quickly.
For example, I bet that if commercial travel to the Moon opened up tomorrow everyone on this board would be thinking something along the lines of "Holy shit, I'm going to the friggin' Moon, this is gonna be awesome!. But then flying to the Moon becomes like flying to Maine, a bit of a hassle and kinda boring. Accepted reality.
But it doesn't mean the takeoff isn't worth watching.
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
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Well, maybe "romantic" isn't quite the right word. Let's see, "wicked awesome" has already been used, how about "captivating?" Personally I've never had any problems at all with security at the metal detectors or watching the planes, but again I don't fly very much. I love to just watch the whole proccess, to see the mechanics buzzing around the plane before boarding, the pilots running over checklists inside the cockpit, the feel of the slightly damp aluminum of the fuselauge (I always make sure to touch the outside of the plane as I enter, sort of a habbit of mine). There's a great adrenaline rush when the attendants slam and latch the door shut and the cabin subtlely (sp?) shifts to bleed air, then begins to taxi away. Last November when I went to New Mexico I had brought along a book and some homework thinking I would be bored out of my mind after a little while at the airport, but I was so excited I never even touched either. Then again, this is the kind of stuff that gets me pumped (and ranting), most people just don't see the attraction I suppose.
Since my family never really goes on vacation anywhere I've decided to do it myself this summer. I'm paying for the bulk of a 10-day trip to England and Scotland chaparoned by my history teacher. That's four flights within ten days of each other (we'll first be flying to either Chicago or New York before going to London and the same on the way back from Glasgow), w00t (more modern slang)! I really don't understand why some of the other expedition (I prefer that term over "trip") members are so worried about the trans-Atlantic flight, I can't wait! Just imagine, nothing but ocean and some clouds for thousands of square miles to the horizon. I imagine it helps one get a better grasp of the concept of infinity. Whenever I fly I am absolutely glued to the window, so I'll be very happy if the rest of the group fights over the isle seats. I always go for the windows. Anyways, that's my rather inexperienced, romantic (do'h! I'm not supposed to say that!) take on the matter.
Another part of that website that bothered me was the comparison between the Saturn V and the SASSTO. Right at the top of the page it bore a picture of an exploded view of the Saturn V staging with a note that "everyone (who exactly is that?) knows REAL rockets aren't SUPPOSED to look like this..." That's just plain insulting to everyone who was involved in the development of one of the greatest pieces of engineering in the history of the human race, IMHO. Rockets aren't supposed to look like that!? It's real! What else do you want? I just happen to get highly offended at art for art's sake, art that is created design priorities first, asthetics later (ie Saturn V) is far far far better. Reality rules. I just don't get why everyone tries their darndest to get away from it. Just look at some of the top images from the Hubble. No artist in the world has ever created something that comes near approaching the awe-inspiring beauty of those images, because reality is far better than any fantasy world we can create. I for one like this world.
Well, that's just my venting for today. I of course wouldn't try to impose any of my opinions on you. I'm just stating them excessively vocally.
-(Brushes self off. Straightens hair and collar. Gets back to work)-
A mind is like a parachute- it works best when open.
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I can match your impressions of commercial flight: Flying home from a family reunion in Georgia (the family dropped me off at Atlanta International, glad to get rid of their embarassingly outspoken Canadian relative a.s.a.p. (They live in the middle of the Bible Belt, having immigrated from California, and trying mightily to become assimilated in their community.) So, what did I see first, but a tall black policeman, even taller on his Segway HT, smiling and waving at the few of us just entering the entirely unsupervised hall where the baggage carousels are, smiling and waving with one hand on the steering handgrip, and continuing silently down the row of ticketing lineups to disappear in the distance, a head taller'n anyone else. I caught an earlier flight than scheduled, bound for New Jersey, recommended because of a thunder storm brewing over Atlanta, which would likely delay my ticked flight that afternoon in late June. Well, we didn't weight around much before taking off, lickiddy-split, and once in the air (it was Continental, a 737-500 and about half-full) we were zig-zagging in bright sunlight between towering cumulus clouds that were building as fast as we were climbing, and you know how fast those babies can climb! I was able to change from side to side, as the tremendous cloud castles blocked out more and more of the lush green countryside, until we were alone in the sky surrounded by the growing cu-nimss, their anvil tops developing high above even as we climbed in the narrowing spaces between, wings touching the misty outer edges and the moving shadow of our plane was surrounded by a circular rainbow. It took almost 20 minutes to reach our cruising altitude of alround 30-thousand feet, which I'm pretty sure was determined by the tops of the cu-nims, and as we leveled out perhaps a thousand feet above and off to one side of the nearest anvil (in absolutely smooth air) I saw for the first time in my life (I' m pushing 80) the totally flat top of the city-sized anvil that topped that towering cloud. After landing, and before going through all that post 9/11 security hassle, I found myself walking behind the pilots of the plane, and shouted my question, if they had been as impressed as I with the beauty of that flight. They smiled and nodded, after looking surprised at my cheekiness (which was foolish, considering the times). My regular flight was delayed, filled with late-arrivals for this flight, which left ahead of time to avoid the storm, and while waiting around for hours for my regular flight departure back to Nova Scotia, I heard it was rough as hell, and no fun at all. That was in 2002, and I've not flown commercial since because of the border security mess, but it sure was a beaut.
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