Just thought I'd share the good news about the fabulous Mr. Ray Bradbury and how kind and wonderful he is. I've had the good fortune of meeting him a number of times and each time, his kind heart and incredible good energy inspires the creator in me to keep deliberately creating for myself what I want...which is, as Ray suggests, to "write, write, write! Love, love, love! Onward to the Stars!" I love Ray Bradbury. View a fab picture of him on my website: www.geocities.com/chaplainbarber/usaf
Ciao!

jtrising:

Hey, amazing life. What experiences!
Isn't it unthinkable...the 'internet'... Who would have thought of it? Not even the best science ficion writer even came close. Years ago I thought there has to be another form of media looming, besides TV, motion pictures, radio, telephone, newspapers, books, etc. There is going to be one that totally changes everything. Bam! Herre it is... Amazing....

Hey! Looked for your photo with Ray... didn't see it. 'Is I pushing the wrong key'?

Also, how long you been reading Bradbury?

And also again::
Fellow by the UserName of 'Mr. Dark' has a posting...I think it's like 129 in number or more (In "Resources")... that deals with Ray's ...'religious views'... garnered from his writings or meeting with him. If YOU have some views, Wow, like to hear them.....

Nard,

Actually, I think Arthur C. Clarke describes something very close to the Internet in Imperial Earth. As I recall, his hero looks up the location and other information about an old friend on some kind of centralized public access computer network. Correct me if I'm wrong, wouldja'?

Pete

pterran

Ah, but look at it this way:

I have on my desk a box, a small TV if you will (since I use an i-Mac, with integrated screen). Now, just how versatile can I expect this little TV box to be?

Well, I must walk into a fantasy world to explain to someone back in, let's say, the 1950's....(60's, too, I am sure...)

With this little TV box, I can...

... look at my home from outer space

I can listen in on radio stations all over the world

I can listen to pilots at major airports talking to the control tower

I can see little icons of airplanes that represent airplanes that are in the air over all the United states and find out their speed and altitude and where they are going and when they will get there

I can order tickets for travel thru this little box, or the theater, or the baseball game

I can purchase merchandise from a department store, and take a look at what I buy before I do

I can go into a Las Vegas slot machine and play the slots

I can play all sorts of computerized games, bowling, centipede, PacMan, Tamale Loco, etc.etc.

Can watch Motion Pictures, the movies

Can watch cartoons

I can go to streets all over the world and watch people walking by ....Live.

I can go into a restaurant in Paris and watch people ordering food or paying their bill at the register

I can purchase a car after looking it over inside and out

Can talk, via a picture phone technology, to my friend in Scotland. He can see me, and I can see him

I can store data that would fill multiple file cabinets, and retrieve anything I want in a second or two

I can listen to the greatest music in the world, by just typing in a name

This is a short list.

Who...who would believe it?

No one....

Who would believe it? Certainly not me. A man-made miracle, indeed.

Pete

[This message has been edited by pterran (edited 06-06-2003).]

In responding to Nard's list on what we get with the internet... One of my favorites are things like this forum (they exist for every other major author, also). People who share similar interests -- no matter where in the world they live -- can get on here and exchange information. I'm amazed at the locations of some of the people who log on here. We had some guy in the Chinese Military Academy asking questions about Farenheit 451. People come here from all over.

I still marvel at the telephone. I worked for Nortel for 13 years and Fujitsu before that, and even though I've studied, used and had this technology explained to me a hundred times, I'm still amazed that I can pick up my handset in Dallas, dial eleven digits, and talk live with my sister in Alaska. A small bit of electricity travels thousands of miles through wire/air/fiber optics, goes through hundreds of circuit packs and does it all so fast that our conversation is essentially real-time.

I still marvel at the audio CD. I have a collection of thousands of them -- all kinds of music. I can listen to symphonies in Europe to the Beatles and Corrs, to music created decades ago, to music created hours ago. I have these disks, and a small shelf CD unit and it produces music of any genre. I had an epiphany while in an art gallery. I was at the Dallas Museum of Art, looking through an exhibit on American Impressionist and Realist painters. Suddenly, while looking at a painting from the 1800's at a girl playing piano and some people listening, I realized that until electricity, all music had to be live. Except for local, relatively unsophisticated music, only the very rich could enjoy music. I have, at my fingertips, music that would never even have been dreamed of by the richest kings in Europe.

Arthur C. Clarke had a great quote: "Any sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic."

We live in an amazing age -- almost all of it foretold by science fiction writers.


[This message has been edited by Mr. Dark (edited 06-05-2003).]

Mr. Dark::

Then, there are the ghosts of TV.
And the ghosts of Radio..

This has to give you... 'shades' of the ether-worlds, of the beyond... Shades, I say...

As I sit here typing away, my room is filled with people talking, fights, car chases, animals loping about of all kinds, families of every description, little cartoon people, and thousands more oddities and familiarities, all happening right here in my room. And rooms everywhere, and in the streets, inside churches, upstairs, downstairs, in the quiet of the night or as I sleep....plus music, all kinds of music, tons and tons of varieties, and people talking back and forth, etc etc. and on and on...
But you know...if I explained this to someone a hundred years ago, hardly a soul would know what the heck I was talking about...
Yet it is all invisible, unknown, unless I have ther ability to ...to receive it all... a tuner, a Radio, or a Television....

As we get closer to some all encompassing crescendo of life, I believe science will more and more mimic and throw forth shadows on walls...of the 'always' reality of other worlds all about, the kind that for centuries was read in scripture, or found in the Torah, or discovered in etched stone on Greek walls or cave walls for that matter...

Like the flickering inuendos of what is, but not believed, is now seen, but not as easily dismissed...Everything is magic!

I talk on the phone to a piece of plastic that is vibrating to sound like someone I know... Sit down for a moment and try to understand THAT. Everything is magic.