I've been involved in the banking and investing systems of our country a lot over the last few weeks. It occurred to me that several science fiction writers, those who bothered to have an economic system in their futures, envisioned systems quite like what we have today, but none of them went as far as reality has gone.
Many stories contained credit systems whereby ordinary folks carried only a card, which they used to pay for everything, from a pack of gum to an airplane ticket, to a hover-car, to a home. Several predicted a future where everyone got a basic living from the government, and could earn more by doing jobs only humans could do - creative tasks, etc. (Tea-partiers, take note!) Of course, that supposed that all non-creative tasks would be done by machines. The plots usually revolved around individuals who were not in the system, for some reason or another, and couldn't get food or shelter.
These people were uniformly capable and ingenious, and managed to bring the economic system down, while living in the cracks - thereby causing worldwide society to collapse. They usually wound up in positions of power in the new order. Humanity was naturally better off as a result, too.
The reality is that we have banking and investing systems today which allow us to do everything via the internet. In the stories, terminals were placed in businesses, street corners, etc. and allowed the citizens to transact their business or purchase goods there. No one thought we could do everything from the computer in our home, or on the street or other public place. Wi-Fi was not a concept in most of these stories.
If we take this to the extreme, we have Asimov's universe of the "Pebble in the Sky" group of stories. In them, he envisioned a future where habitable planets were so plentiful that people could each inhabit one of their own; and became so isolated, communicating via his version of video chat, that they became unable to be together at all; remaining isolated from childhood until death. Note that he failed to describe how new children came about!
I'm waiting for machines to take over all the mundane business of everyday living, so that I can sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labors.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Reading, Writing and Machinery
I've been writing a series of SciFi stories about the new Diaspora of the children of Israel into the universe. At first, I submitted them to a couple of traditional print publishers, with laughable results. I did learn a bunch and proceeded to make several revisions, though. This time, however, I have decided to publish electronically, using the new site, Smashwords (https://WWW. Smashwords.com/) to publish and distribute them.
This brings me to the subject of today's blog. You have probably seen the ads on TV for various book reading devices, Kindle, Nook, etc. Most of today's books are available in electronic format, some are only available that way. Science Fiction writers of the mid-twentieth century predicted that we would be reading our books, magazines, and especially our newspapers electronically, although some thought we would be printing them on our home or office devices to read them. No one that I can remember foresaw book devices, let alone for $129 or less. Technology outstripped the best imaginations in SciFi. I guess us poor, unimaginative techies have some imagination after all!
Print newspapers are being supplanted by on-line versions, print books are losing to electronic, magazines are starting up with no print versions, think of the trees we will save.
My mother is getting up there in years, and her eyesight is pretty poor. She had to give up reading. But now, with a Kindle or Nook, she can set the font to humongous and read the paper or magazine. Now if I could just get over her fear of technology. Any ideas?
BTW, my page on Smashwords is: https://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=solon+ben+earl
I write fiction under my pen name - (as is customary in my tribe, I am named after my paternal grandfather, Solon, and my father's first name was Earl, hence Solon Ben Earl, or Solon, son of Earl.) I'm also known as Shipwreck Sam, for blogs and comments on internet articles. If you come across my stuff, I'd appreciate it if you would let me know.
This brings me to the subject of today's blog. You have probably seen the ads on TV for various book reading devices, Kindle, Nook, etc. Most of today's books are available in electronic format, some are only available that way. Science Fiction writers of the mid-twentieth century predicted that we would be reading our books, magazines, and especially our newspapers electronically, although some thought we would be printing them on our home or office devices to read them. No one that I can remember foresaw book devices, let alone for $129 or less. Technology outstripped the best imaginations in SciFi. I guess us poor, unimaginative techies have some imagination after all!
Print newspapers are being supplanted by on-line versions, print books are losing to electronic, magazines are starting up with no print versions, think of the trees we will save.
My mother is getting up there in years, and her eyesight is pretty poor. She had to give up reading. But now, with a Kindle or Nook, she can set the font to humongous and read the paper or magazine. Now if I could just get over her fear of technology. Any ideas?
BTW, my page on Smashwords is: https://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=solon+ben+earl
I write fiction under my pen name - (as is customary in my tribe, I am named after my paternal grandfather, Solon, and my father's first name was Earl, hence Solon Ben Earl, or Solon, son of Earl.) I'm also known as Shipwreck Sam, for blogs and comments on internet articles. If you come across my stuff, I'd appreciate it if you would let me know.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Are There Aliens Among Us?
Some say we have been visited by aliens, even that they are living among us. Lots of stories have been written with that premise. Let's take a look at the obstacles aliens would have to overcome to get here, why they would bother in the first place, where they might come from, and how they could conceal themselves from us while living among us.
Getting here. For aliens to get here, they would either need to travel in a generation ship or exceed the speed of light. Everything we know about physics tells us that the latter is impossible. A generation ship large enough to last thousands of years would be way ahead of our abilities, but still it would be possible. But why here? The odds of coming here are infinitesimal. It looks like "V" is not too likely.
Why Bother? What do we have that another race would be interested in? Why go to all that trouble for little or no return? Our planet was explored only when there was profit to be had. What about "Pilgrims" in a generation ship running from wars or persecution? Wouldn't they make themselves known and hope to be taken in? It is really far-fetched to think that our resources are so valuable that another race would mount a planet-draining effort to steal our poop.
Where are they from? It seems that this is the only planet in our solar system inhabited by intelligent(?) life, so any aliens would have to be from another star. The nearest stars with planets are many light years away, but even if we concede that Alpha Centaurus has habitable planets, it's over four light-years away and would take many years to get here. Again, why bother?
What do they look like? It would be the height of arrogance to assume that aliens would look anything like us. Any planet they came from would be unlikely in the extreme to be exactly like ours, and even if it were, evolution might take any number of different paths. Aliens probably would not be able to even survive on the Earth.
However, even though we most likely never have and never will be visited by aliens from outer space, we have living next door to us a race which may be smarter than we are - Cetaceans! They, at least, have never destroyed their environment, they don't fight wars, and they are even nice to their neighbors, us.
Getting here. For aliens to get here, they would either need to travel in a generation ship or exceed the speed of light. Everything we know about physics tells us that the latter is impossible. A generation ship large enough to last thousands of years would be way ahead of our abilities, but still it would be possible. But why here? The odds of coming here are infinitesimal. It looks like "V" is not too likely.
Why Bother? What do we have that another race would be interested in? Why go to all that trouble for little or no return? Our planet was explored only when there was profit to be had. What about "Pilgrims" in a generation ship running from wars or persecution? Wouldn't they make themselves known and hope to be taken in? It is really far-fetched to think that our resources are so valuable that another race would mount a planet-draining effort to steal our poop.
Where are they from? It seems that this is the only planet in our solar system inhabited by intelligent(?) life, so any aliens would have to be from another star. The nearest stars with planets are many light years away, but even if we concede that Alpha Centaurus has habitable planets, it's over four light-years away and would take many years to get here. Again, why bother?
What do they look like? It would be the height of arrogance to assume that aliens would look anything like us. Any planet they came from would be unlikely in the extreme to be exactly like ours, and even if it were, evolution might take any number of different paths. Aliens probably would not be able to even survive on the Earth.
However, even though we most likely never have and never will be visited by aliens from outer space, we have living next door to us a race which may be smarter than we are - Cetaceans! They, at least, have never destroyed their environment, they don't fight wars, and they are even nice to their neighbors, us.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
The Future(?) of Transportation
Back in the 1950's, several Science Fiction writers "predicted" the future of transportation. Most of the predictions were way off base.
Robert Heinlein wrote a story called "The Roads Must Roll," in which the premise was that the US would be criss-crossed with belts which rolled on track-like devices. There would be a series of belts, each one going a bit faster than its predecessor, so riders could step from one to the next until they were travelling at high speed. At the slow edge, where pedestrians entered the system, they built businesses, such as restaurants, dry-cleaners, shops and theaters. The story centered on the underside of the roads, the machinery and the workers who kept them running. Except for airports, this never happened.
There was another story in the '50's which I have been unable to identify, but it predicted that the need for high-speed transportation would become so great that the Interstate highway system would be roofed over and improved so that the lower speed limit would be 600 miles per hour (lots of new technology in the cars, since 600 was the top speed of jet fighters then) and it took years of study and practice to get your driver's license. The story revolved around a driver trying to get and then keep his license. This obviously never happened - the technology and the reflexes aren't there.
Several writers thought that sub-orbital rocket liners would be here by now. They used them to shuttle characters around the world at high speed, in order to facilitate their action. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't get on one of those for a million dollars!
Then there were mag-lev trains. These are trains which are "levitated" over the rails by magnetic force. This almost eliminated the friction of traveling along and the drag of wheels turning on axles, making the train much more efficient. We have the technology, and mag-lev trains are currently in use in several countries - alas, not the United States.
Finally, there were predictions of personal flying devices. Think of the Jetsons, etc. Strap-on rockets and helicopters, flying cars, hovercraft, inertia-less drive devices and so-on were used in countless stories. Some of them were actually invented and found to be highly impracticable. The jury is out on hover craft and inertia-less drives, although it looks like hovercraft will have limited utility due to the wind - although they are in use over water in several places. Inertia-less drives await the technology.
Can you think of any others?
Robert Heinlein wrote a story called "The Roads Must Roll," in which the premise was that the US would be criss-crossed with belts which rolled on track-like devices. There would be a series of belts, each one going a bit faster than its predecessor, so riders could step from one to the next until they were travelling at high speed. At the slow edge, where pedestrians entered the system, they built businesses, such as restaurants, dry-cleaners, shops and theaters. The story centered on the underside of the roads, the machinery and the workers who kept them running. Except for airports, this never happened.
There was another story in the '50's which I have been unable to identify, but it predicted that the need for high-speed transportation would become so great that the Interstate highway system would be roofed over and improved so that the lower speed limit would be 600 miles per hour (lots of new technology in the cars, since 600 was the top speed of jet fighters then) and it took years of study and practice to get your driver's license. The story revolved around a driver trying to get and then keep his license. This obviously never happened - the technology and the reflexes aren't there.
Several writers thought that sub-orbital rocket liners would be here by now. They used them to shuttle characters around the world at high speed, in order to facilitate their action. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't get on one of those for a million dollars!
Then there were mag-lev trains. These are trains which are "levitated" over the rails by magnetic force. This almost eliminated the friction of traveling along and the drag of wheels turning on axles, making the train much more efficient. We have the technology, and mag-lev trains are currently in use in several countries - alas, not the United States.
Finally, there were predictions of personal flying devices. Think of the Jetsons, etc. Strap-on rockets and helicopters, flying cars, hovercraft, inertia-less drive devices and so-on were used in countless stories. Some of them were actually invented and found to be highly impracticable. The jury is out on hover craft and inertia-less drives, although it looks like hovercraft will have limited utility due to the wind - although they are in use over water in several places. Inertia-less drives await the technology.
Can you think of any others?
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Science Fiction and the Computer Revolution
Science Fiction of the fifties and earlier missed the computer revolution! Yes, there were a few writers who foresaw computers, but only one or two saw small, desktop or laptop, miniaturized computers.
Isaac Asimov, for example, had a galaxy populated by humankind and filled to the brim in the Foundation series. Even though he had a "positronic" robot, there were no computers to speak of in any of the stories. Ray Bradbury never used computers in any meaningful way, although he had wall sized TV screens and space ships to Mars. Not to mention some way for fire starters to calculate the precise amount of fire to burn books in "Fahrenheit 451."
There were many other top early writers, such as "Cordwainer Smith", Anne McCaffery, A. E. Van Vogt, John Campbell, and even Ted Sturgeon in "Dune", who created Galaxy-spanning futures yet never addressed the impact of computers on society. I always wondered how their spaceships were navigated without computers, and how their economies could work with only pencil and paper.
I think it was because most people didn't understand computers and thought (or hoped) that they must be a passing fad. When I first got into the computer business, I read an article by a "pundit" who believed that a computer programmer had to have a specially wired brain, and the rest of the populace never would understand the things. Even the CEO of IBM, Tom Watson, announced that the total market for computers worldwide would be no more than 50 units! They would have been amazed by the way computers have permeated society.
Can you think of any technological advances that changed our society to the same degree that computers did? Except for cell phones, I guess.
Next time: Science Fiction and Transportation.
Isaac Asimov, for example, had a galaxy populated by humankind and filled to the brim in the Foundation series. Even though he had a "positronic" robot, there were no computers to speak of in any of the stories. Ray Bradbury never used computers in any meaningful way, although he had wall sized TV screens and space ships to Mars. Not to mention some way for fire starters to calculate the precise amount of fire to burn books in "Fahrenheit 451."
There were many other top early writers, such as "Cordwainer Smith", Anne McCaffery, A. E. Van Vogt, John Campbell, and even Ted Sturgeon in "Dune", who created Galaxy-spanning futures yet never addressed the impact of computers on society. I always wondered how their spaceships were navigated without computers, and how their economies could work with only pencil and paper.
I think it was because most people didn't understand computers and thought (or hoped) that they must be a passing fad. When I first got into the computer business, I read an article by a "pundit" who believed that a computer programmer had to have a specially wired brain, and the rest of the populace never would understand the things. Even the CEO of IBM, Tom Watson, announced that the total market for computers worldwide would be no more than 50 units! They would have been amazed by the way computers have permeated society.
Can you think of any technological advances that changed our society to the same degree that computers did? Except for cell phones, I guess.
Next time: Science Fiction and Transportation.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Dick Tracy and the Smart Cell Phone
Many years ago, the 1930's I think, (maybe the '20's, even) there began a comic strip called Dick Tracy. It was characterized by weird looking villains, a jut-jawed cop, wildly colored cars - like the ones on the street today, and a contraption Dick Tracy and the rest of the cops used for communication, the wrist radio. It was a watch type contraption with a band which they talked into like a walkie-talkie, or cell phone.
Note that radios at that time used tubes, not even transistors, and two-way radios weighed in the tens of pounds at their lightest. Chester Gould, the author, anticipated lightweight circuitry and private use of the electromagnetic spectrum not 20 years after the first public radio stations went on the air - my dad had one of those early radios - it was about four feet tall and weighed 55 pounds!
Not content with radios, in the 60's, Gould created the wrist TV, a two-way television for the wrist. It actually operated pretty much the same as our current smart phones, only it was smaller. I'll guess the next generations of smart phones will be equally small - I've seen one prototype that fits into a pair of glasses. (Anyone who builds one can buy the idea from me cheap! See my previous blog.)
Sad to say, Gould died before the cell phone explosion, so he never saw his brainchild become reality. I read somewhere that the wrist radio was intended to be a joke and he never expected it to come true. What do we know about the future, anyway?
____________________________
Next time I will discuss some of the things we take for granted in our daily lives, that the writers of the fifties, and before, completely missed.
Note that radios at that time used tubes, not even transistors, and two-way radios weighed in the tens of pounds at their lightest. Chester Gould, the author, anticipated lightweight circuitry and private use of the electromagnetic spectrum not 20 years after the first public radio stations went on the air - my dad had one of those early radios - it was about four feet tall and weighed 55 pounds!
Not content with radios, in the 60's, Gould created the wrist TV, a two-way television for the wrist. It actually operated pretty much the same as our current smart phones, only it was smaller. I'll guess the next generations of smart phones will be equally small - I've seen one prototype that fits into a pair of glasses. (Anyone who builds one can buy the idea from me cheap! See my previous blog.)
Sad to say, Gould died before the cell phone explosion, so he never saw his brainchild become reality. I read somewhere that the wrist radio was intended to be a joke and he never expected it to come true. What do we know about the future, anyway?
____________________________
Next time I will discuss some of the things we take for granted in our daily lives, that the writers of the fifties, and before, completely missed.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Who invented communication satellites?
Back in the mid forties, (that's the 1940's) a science fiction writer named Arthur C. Clarke - you may remember one of his more famous stories, "2001" - wrote a short story which included the use of an orbiting communications platform. Clarke's platform was manned, since while he foresaw the use of orbiting broadcast satellites, he missed the computer revolution completely. Most of his contemporaries missed it, too.
Clarke had operators recording programs on tape, and replaying them when they passed over a particular area of the earth. The action of the story revolved around one country trying to prevent another from broadcasting programs while over its territory.
All of the story would have been made moot by use of computers - there would have been no-one on board, so no spies or intrigue. I suppose he could have had the action take place in the ground station, but that wouldn't have been nearly as interesting.
Another thing he missed was the capability of a network of synchronous satellites to broadcast the same material to the entire earth simultaneously. Later authors jumped on this - and we see it in reality today. Is there anyone who hasn't heard of the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and the demonstrations in Bahrain, Iran and Yemen? This would have been impossible a few years ago in places where the news is censored.
By the way, Clarke actually got a patent on communications satellites! Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for the rest of us, he was unable to enforce it.
Next time, I will discuss the influence of the Dick Tracy comic strip on our technology and our very lives.
Clarke had operators recording programs on tape, and replaying them when they passed over a particular area of the earth. The action of the story revolved around one country trying to prevent another from broadcasting programs while over its territory.
All of the story would have been made moot by use of computers - there would have been no-one on board, so no spies or intrigue. I suppose he could have had the action take place in the ground station, but that wouldn't have been nearly as interesting.
Another thing he missed was the capability of a network of synchronous satellites to broadcast the same material to the entire earth simultaneously. Later authors jumped on this - and we see it in reality today. Is there anyone who hasn't heard of the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and the demonstrations in Bahrain, Iran and Yemen? This would have been impossible a few years ago in places where the news is censored.
By the way, Clarke actually got a patent on communications satellites! Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for the rest of us, he was unable to enforce it.
Next time, I will discuss the influence of the Dick Tracy comic strip on our technology and our very lives.
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