Dandelion: I had been wondering about Arthur Clarke! Thanks. I recently listened to (in your link Mr. Clarke refers to the event) a several disc collection - Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883, by Simon Winchester.

Amazing how it depicts the complexities that brought about the decades long physical growth of the mountain, the geo-political ramifications of the event (not at all unlike the recent tsunami!!), and the effects it had on cultures, trade, and humanity around the world for a very long period of time. The religions in the area blamed it on the Western influx of commerce and lifestyle changes that were becoming more evident. It was the sign that all was wrong with the Imperialists.

Mr. Winchester does the reading of his own book on this collection. Magnificent yet always interesting in his intonation and delivery. He has appeared on the Book TV (C-Span 2) on several occasions.

I remember first reading AC Clarke and being intrigued (way back then) that he wrote from his home in Sri Lanka and electronically submitted everything (via computer hook up to a satellite, I would think) to his publishers in London(?) without ever touching a piece of paper. Though today such a feat is commonplace. Quite a different approach than RB!

[This message has been edited by fjpalumbo (edited 01-11-2005).]

The other day on the radio was a fascinating account of the largest natural disaster of the 20th Century, an earthquake in 1976 in China which killed more than the tsunami (at least by current count.) One of the most interesting parts was that scientists had warned for some time prior of an impending earthquake and were ignored by the government. Yet when the San Francisco earthquake of the last decade occurred, it was asserted that earthquakes just happen--the signs are there, but the time is IMPOSSIBLE to predict! Do Chinese scientists know something Americans don't? Anyhow, in China these huge quakes precede some big event, and right after that Mao Tse Tung died.

This is an amazing thing. Food for the science-fiction writer. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0502/12outcast/

Have we forgotten that this...<br /><br />...was supposed to be the catch all... where all the crazy, somewhat crazy and misc. topics went here? Seems it has leaked lately.<br /><br />Anyway. My posting for this 'miscellaneous' post:<br /><br />Have we all read about the flash in the sky last few weeks that could've obliterated all life on earth if it were a lot closer? See the following link, if not, then return: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4278005.stm <br /><br />Here is my 'theological' take on this. Listen... I think it is pretty interesting if I don''t say so myself.<br /><br />Light travels roughly 7 times around the world in 1 second. So you shoot a rocket out into space at that speed, it takes '''50,000 years''' to get there, (think in terms of Earth's civilized history and that mile wide spinning object. Can you imagine this thing, so small, just 20 miles wide, so far away, exploding, and lighting up the sky on Earth brighter ( in X-Rays ) than the full moon at night.? THAT is ...incomprehensible. <br /><br />Now scientists say that if this happened with something closer (and they are all throwing out different numbers)...but let's settle on 2000 light years away. Some scientists say 500 light years would have done the job. Some as little as 10. What job? Damage Earth's atmosphere enough to destroy most of all of life. Okay, ready? Proceed:<br /><br />Put aside free will for a moment (because it isn't relevant to what I want to say, and anyway notable theologians write that free-will and pre-destination run side by side, like rails on a train. What that means is...You can do as you wish, but it has already been predetermined. They are a happy pair, these both.) Okay, now to continue...so, when John was thrown on the island of Patmos, and wrote his famous 'Revelation', what did he prophesize? Well, bascially, the end of all things? What exactly was he doing, making it up out of his imagination? No. The thinking is that he was 'seeing' something that already occured. <br /><br />Christ even states in scripture that he saw...Satan thrown from heaven for all time. Well, that has not happened yet. Satan still has access to heaven. Like in the book of Job. Also, where he is said to continually accuse the brethern (believers) before heaven. So what did Christ see? He saw something that already happened, but not yet happened...here! And that's the point. It happened, but not in our present time of here! One of the most amazing scripture passages deal with this statement: that Christ was crucified before the foundation of the Earth. It goes on to say that it is now, thru his life, it has been demonstrated for us to see what has already been done before the foundation of the Earth. Now come on! This has to put goose bumps down your neck. <br /><br />If you think about it in this context, everything that may destroy the earth and all of us, has already happened. If the Sun were to go out, we would continue to enjoy life exactly as it is this very moment, and not know anything differently had happened. For 9 minutes! <br /><br />If that star that collapsed on itself was 2000 light years away, and someone said that in 2000 years Earth would be destroyed, and he knew that somewhere, 2000 light years away a start exploded just then...and would destroy Earth 2000 years later, well, would he prophesizing, or knowing something far beyond normal human intelligence?<br /><br />I know, a stretch. But, again, not that much of a stretch. The fact we knew nothing about the delayed time frames of space, but know it now, adds a great piece of the puzzle to many many things, including scripture.<br /><br />Thanks for listening, and now we return you to regular programming.<br

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Nard Kordell,

WHAT!?!! A LOUSY 78 posts, when there are 380 left on the old board, AFTER 300-some were relegated to a far corner of cyberspace? If Infopop addresses my other concerns, this is the next one I'll raise! We *might* have replaced the 300-odd, maybe, if everyone understood and cooperated, but over 600? FORGET it! Wonder what else may have been lost in the move?

dandelion:

WhOa there !! Here's one:
Don't try to edit your "old" postings...like I did in the one right above yours. I saw a couple phrases that I could re-write to read better, and LO! All the 'editors' marks for typesetting...in this case, electronic reading...are there! I thought surely it only appears in the new window for editing. Yeah sure!
As to all those old posts... I'd venture to say Harper-Collins still have them, and may still be working on putting them on some sort of 'archival forum', something they had previously mentioned. Did they decided to still go ahead with this project? Find out next week.

Now, this is SERIOUS and I am SERIOUS about what we ALL need to do as soon as possible! I mean, EVERYONE who has found their way here, whether you contributed to the "Ruled Paper" thread or not!

I want you ALL to go to these forums, of which you will already be members as soon as you've logged in here on the new board.

http://community.infopop.net/eve/ubb.x

Right now I can't post there due to my supposed abusive language, but all the rest of you should, in your own words, convey the following information. The most effective way would be for the first person to do so to post this ONCE on EVERY FORUM THERE, then everyone following find those posts and reply to them restating or simply agreeing with the information. If EVERYONE will do this, MAYBE someone will listen! (The site also has a Feedback Form and a Support Form. I couldn't get them to work, but if you want to try, you're welcome to try those as well.)

1. On the original Ray Bradbury board, the "Ruled Paper" thread had over 600 posts!

2. The original thread can be viewed here: http://www.raybradbury.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/000087.html

3. Sometime around August 26, 2004, the thread went missing, then turned back up, missing around 300 posts!

4. The missing posts dated to March 29, 2004. The thread resumes on August 26, 2004.

5. By way of Google, the moderator, Dandelion, was able to find an old version of the thread, including all the posts prior to March 29, all the missing posts, and possibly a few posts from after when the missing ones disappeared. That thread can be viewed here. http://www.raybradbury.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/000087-3.html

6. After failing to find any way to return the missing posts, Dandelion tried contacting both Infopop and the publisher maintaining the Bradbury site, HarperCollins, regarding enlisting a computer whiz to reinstate the missing posts. (Since at that time Dandelion had moderating capabilities, she didn't mind if they put the whole earlier thread into the later one, duplicating some posts, as she could delete any duplicates.)

7. After months of non-response from any quarter, Dandelion figured the only way for each of our posts to appear under our own identities was for members to go in turn to the archived thread and copy and paste their own posts into the current thread.

8. We were all set to do this when the old board disappeared. When it reappeared, we were too busy adjusting to think about pasting from the archived board to the old board.

9. On viewing the new board, TO OUR HORROR, we found that the 380 remaining posts were reduced to only 80!

WE ARE NOW MISSING OVER 600 POSTS FROM THIS THREAD! WE REFUSE TO STICK THEM ALL BACK IN OURSELVES THROUGH CUT-AND-PASTE! PLEASE FIX THIS BY ENLISTING AN INFOPOP COMPUTER WHIZ TO REINSTATE ALL THE MISSING POSTS INTO THE CURRENT THREAD, ASAP!!!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: dandelion,

Bonus assignment for board devotees who are also math whizzes.

1. Go here http://www.raybradbury.com/ubbcgi/Ultimate.cgi?action=intro&BypassCookie=true and add up the number of posts on the old board.

2. Now go to the new board and add up the number of posts there.

3. Subtract the number of posts from both the old board and the new board made since the new board began, to arrive at the true difference between the two boards.

I want to determine at least the number of what else may have been lost in the move! As for finding which exact POSTS they may be is another whole matter!

While the loss of opinions people put their sweat in to is a real loss, the thread had gotten too cumbersome for me, anyway. Because it was off-topic, I just kind of drifted away from it. The number of postings on that thread was large, so obviously, my opinion does not represent many others.

Oh, come on! SOMEBODY! Please?

Okay, Miss Dandelion! Now, I'm not much at math--so this is beyond me. (Yep, I'm a lot of help, aren't I?) Okay, I admit, I'm just too darn lazy to go through the messages from the past week to see how many additions there have been since the new board has started. (In total, as of this writing the new board only contains 38 more messages than the old board, and I'm sure that more than 38 posts have been made over the past few days.) But perhaps someone who is a bit better at numbers than I am could give it a go....Looking at the huge number of messages that have been preserved, I would guess that perhaps only a few hundred are missing? While that's a lot, considering the alternative--that perhaps everything could have been lost--it doesn't seem so bad. I don't know whether it would be worth the effort to go through the entire contents of the old board, comparing it to the new, to restore those lost messages through cut-and-paste.

Sorry I'm not being more helpful, here! It is good to see the board back, though I don't quite have the hang of it yet...

Thanks for answering. You are thinking along the exact same lines as I--that would be nice to do, but a lot of work, and people are so dazzled by the new board as to scarce be able to contemplate what may have been lost, until it may be too late (should the old board eventually disappear.)

What I mean by PLEASE, is--
Will someone at least post the information given to the forums mentioned, so that others can keep moving it to the top by replying?

It's obvious that our community has fallen into the hands of an indifferent and oblivious lot of cyber clods, and to get ANY action to have even the main number of posts restored, we have to make ourselves heard a la "Horton Hears a Who"! and drown out "Boil that dust speck, boil that dust speck, boil, boil" with "We are here we are here we are here we are HERE!"

There have been some good points made here. I can see the need for a place to post topics that may not be directly to Ray or his works, because, when you think about it, where can go to do so. Sure, there are the specific web sites for specific thought tracks, but who would want to go there?

I have always tried to remain neutral in my comments not wishing to upset anyone. Perhaps that it the cowardly thing to do, but I think that the over all atmposphere of this web site should be positive, allowing one to speak their thoughts, but not to lean on someone who has differing opinions.

We have a neat, new, and exciting board to work with. Let us all maintain the flavor and appropriateness (is that a proper word?)of the Ray Bradbury site!

How dumb am I? I posted a reply to Mr. Dark that, unfortunately, I now realize that the post I was responding to was posted last year. I failed to see the pages listed on the bottom right of the posting box. Although here is an instance where all of the "old" posts were "save" to the new board.

EXCUSE ME?

No, they weren't! Read my post just a few spaces up, and the request contained therein, which I WILL keep repeating until someone kindly DOES what it ASKS!