The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Nyrath the nearly wise:

I was just reading an anthology entitled SCIENCE FICTION OF THE 30'S edited by Damon Knight. He mentions that moving sidewalks appear in the 1932 short story "Slaves of Mercury" by Nathan Schachner (Astounding Sept. 32)

That anthology also contains my favorite example of why an SF story should not try to go into technical details: "Into the Meteorite Orbit" by Frank K. Kelly.

It starts out so good. It predicts air-traffic controllers, the 22nd century as being dominated by the energy crisis, it even has the hero finding a recorded message on his video-telephone.

Then the reader's willing suspension of disbelief crashes and burns as the hero pulls the wax cylinder out of the video-telephone, puts it in the replay unit, and places the needle on the groove.

A friend of mine mentioned a Van Vogt story where there were slide rules connected to the ship's computer by radio, but I do not know which story that appeared in.

Another friend is trying to revive the SF universe with Heinlein-esque atomic rockets. He calls the genre "Rocket-Punk"
http://rocketpunk-manifesto.blogspot.com/

I've heard the Republicans described as "the party of privilege". If my memory isn't playing tricks, the word privilege comes from roots meaning "private law" or "a law affecting one person". In other words, the aristocracy is subject to a higher law than the law which applies to the great unwashed masses. Aristocratic lawmakers do not think twice about passing draconian laws for which they personally have an immunity.

Such aristocrats tend to freak out when they find themselves in danger of suddenly becoming subject to said draconian laws.

Teresa said: We're doing a great job of teaching the less powerful nations that the last thing they ever want to do is disarm.

There are few here who agree with the views of noted conservative Jerry Pournelle, but he did make a remarkably similar observation:

First, anyone not blind will see that the West has been teaching powerful lessons over the years:

The first lesson is: if you are a dictator, or part of an unpopular government structure, get nukes, get them quick, get them in any way you have to. Get nukes and get them now.

The second lesson is, don't let go. Even if you are a reluctant dictator, even if you hate dictatorship and wish peace and democracy to your country, do not relax your grip, and do not contemplate retirement. That way lies persecution of yourself and your family, and you will probably die in a foreign jail. If you are lucky you may be put under house arrest or seek asylum in a foreign embassy.

If you are a dictator, your only chance of survival is to hang on and get nukes. Nothing else works.

Those are the lessons we teach, and anyone with sense has learned them well.

Outstanding rant! You give me hope.

However, the current situation mysteriously reminds me of C.M. Kornbluth's "The Marching Morons."

A possible tactic:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/07/blue_state_to_reds/

From NIGHT WATCH by Terry Pratchett:

There were plotters, there was no doubt about it. Some had been ordinary people who'd had enough. Some were young people with no money who objected to the fact that the world was run by old people who were rich. Some were in it to get girls. And some had been idiots as mad as Swing, with a view of the world just as rigid and unreal, who were on the side of what they called 'the people'. Vimes had spent his life on the streets, and had met decent men and fools and people who'd steal a penny from a blind beggar and people who performed silent miracles or desperate crimes every day behind the grubby windows of little houses, but he'd never met The People.

People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn't that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people.

She quotes from a couple of interesting articles by Jeff Kirvin:

http://www.writingonyourpalm.net/column020128.htm
http://www.writingonyourpalm.net/column020218.htm

You have my condolences.

Meanwhile, I was given furiously to think about [a] how much of my life and work exists on my 40 gig hard drive and [b] what happened to you. Later that day I was at the local computer store, purchasing a second hard drive to back everything up. And a CD-ROM burner to back everything up on a different kind of media.

Thinking further about my city's near miss with Hurricane Isabel, I believe that sometime in the near future I'll be renting a safety deposit box for backup CD-ROM storage.

I had been abstractly worried about my lack of back-ups before, but it took your tale of woe to galvanize me into action.

Thanks!

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