Encyclopedia Britannica to Stop Printing Encyclopedias

[Coito ergo sum]

Wonders never cease!

I recall that when I took a job out of college in 1989, my employer had just recently started using a fax machine in general usage. Nobody emailed anybody, and the word "email" was not even a word. It wasn't until about 1994 that it became more common than not, I think, for office professionals (as opposed to their assistants/secretaries) to have computers on their desks. In the late-1990s, people often used "pagers," and cell phones were uncommon enough that seeing a person using one was met with scorn because it seemed as if that person was showing off - "oh, look at me I'm so cool talking on my cell phone." Now, people are always on their phones and it is weird NOT to have a cell phone.

To put some of this in perspective -- remember the movie "You've Got Mail" with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. When I think about that movie, it seems so archaic now, in that they were using dial up and that the idea of logging on to your "AOL" account. That was 1998. The idea of broad band connections at T1 speeds and whatnot would have seemed amazing. It was not considered abnormal to boot your computer, then click the AOL button and go make some coffee or something while it took a couple of minutes to "connect."

[klr]

Foundation's Edge was written in 1982.

Yes, 30 years ago. The CD was already a viable product by then, it was just a question of getting it into production, and (maybe more importantly), making the drives affordable for sound systems and then computers. The latter just took a very long time.

[Coito ergo sum]

Foundation's Edge was written in 1982.

Yes, 30 years ago. The CD was already a viable product by then, it was just a question of getting it into production, and (maybe more importantly), making the drives affordable for sound systems and then computers. The latter just took a very long time.

Well, he can hardly be held to have done much "foreseeing" of a product that was already viable.

[klr]

Foundation's Edge was written in 1982.

Yes, 30 years ago. The CD was already a viable product by then, it was just a question of getting it into production, and (maybe more importantly), making the drives affordable for sound systems and then computers. The latter just took a very long time.

Well, he can hardly be held to have done much "foreseeing" of a product that was already viable.

Actually, I thought that as well. But if you try and predict something that's so "out there" that no-one can even relate to the concept, then you might lose the reader.

[Coito ergo sum]

Foundation's Edge was written in 1982.

Yes, 30 years ago. The CD was already a viable product by then, it was just a question of getting it into production, and (maybe more importantly), making the drives affordable for sound systems and then computers. The latter just took a very long time.

Well, he can hardly be held to have done much "foreseeing" of a product that was already viable.

Actually, I thought that as well. But if you try and predict something that's so "out there" that no-one can even relate to the concept, then you might lose the reader.

Most of Asimov's predictions are overblown or simply incorrect.

He did "predict" robots, but again, that is not much of a prediction, since there were many other writings about robots and the science of robotics was beginning. He merely extended the technology a bit.

Many of his writings are misses -- like his references to "book films" - which are sort of vaguely like a Kindle, only he totally misses the idea of an internet or some other global/universal data exchange. Basically, thousands of years into the future, Asimov has robots and space travel, but there are no pocket phones or pocket computers, and folks need to travel from planet to planet to visit libraries where information is stored on devices similar to microfiche projectors. Even in the book Foundation and Earth, written in the mid-1980's, the protagonists need to travel to Aurora, where there is an ancient library that may have some information they are seeking. They go in and have to use indexes and power up a book-film projector.

While I love the Foundation series, I have always thought that his vision of a future 10 or 20 thousand years from now is a bit of an underestimation. But, I think it's kind of natural -- human imagination can't really fathom what is coming in the future, which is why 50 years ago the big predictions involved living in domes, high speed transportation and flying cars. None of that came true, but what did come true was never accurately predicted -- internet - cell phones - pocket computers - etc.

[Clinton Huxley]

Arthur C.Clarke once made the point that if you showed Leonardo Da Vinci something like a helicopter, he would get it. Show him an iPad and he would think it possessed of the Devil.

[Coito ergo sum]

Arthur C.Clarke once made the point that if you showed Leonardo Da Vinci something like a helicopter, he would get it. Show him an iPad and he would think it possessed of the Devil.

Yep. I believe he put it that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I think that is where he was coming from with 2001 A Space Odyssey's black obelisk. That represents some technology that we simply are not equipped to understand other than as a mysterious power. Even he, the writer of the story, couldn't conceive of the technology that could do what the obelisk did -- so, rather than make an insufficient attempt, he just made it a placeholder -- a representation of "that which is so far ahead of us, we just can't get it."

[Clinton Huxley]

Maybe the Foundation series could be rewritten with more lolcats.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Maybe the Foundation series could be rewritten with more lolcats.

The Lolpedia?

[Coito ergo sum]

Maybe the Foundation series could be rewritten with more lolcats.

I think that ceiling cat would certainly make a number of appearances at key moments.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Maybe the Foundation series could be rewritten with more lolcats.

I think that ceiling mule would certainly make a number of appearances at key moments.

[Coito ergo sum]

Maybe the Foundation series could be rewritten with more lolcats.

I think that ceiling mule would certainly make a number of appearances at key moments.

That was unforeseen....