Hugh Pickens was one of several readers to let us know that, according to a NY Times story, the 89-year-old Ray Bradbury hates the Internet. But he loves libraries, and is helping raise $280,000 to keep libraries in Ventura County open. "Among Mr. Bradbury's passions, none burn quite as hot as his lifelong enthusiasm for halls of books. ... 'Libraries raised me,' Mr. Bradbury said. 'I don't believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don't have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn't go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.' ... The Internet? Don't get him started. 'The Internet is a big distraction,' Mr. Bradbury barked... 'Yahoo called me eight weeks ago,' he said, voice rising. 'They wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo! You know what I told them? "To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the Internet." It's distracting. It's meaningless; it's not real. It's in the air somewhere.'"
There's a lot to be said for libraries. The other day, my wife came home with a new library card. Big internet a holic, but there's always something about halls of books.
I agree; what an idiot. There's more useful [mit.edu], educational [youtube.com] information [wikipedia.org] instantly available on the internet than any library in the world will ever hold. Just because he's too old and blind to find anything other than Yahoo games doesn't mean that the internet is distracting and meaningless. I'm sure Wikipedia alone has orders of magnitude more educational reading material than you could read going to the library three times a week for generations.
Until you write Fahrenheit 451, I wouldn't be so quick to call Ray Bradbury an idiot, no matter what he says about the internet. Or, are you starting out with the Martian Chronicle instead?
If anything, given the level of thought that the man has historically produced, you might find it instructive to understand what his criticisms are. If anything, it would only serve to improve the internet.
Farenheit 451 required a visionary. But I think that Bradbury simply lost his vision. It's not about the books. It's about the minds BEHIND the books.
What to say about sites like fictionpress.net? What about webcomics with a deep story? What about Anime music videos?
The internet is a primordial soup for art and culture. It doesn't matter if it's in the air, or the tubes, or whatever. People communicate with the internet. If the internet is a waste of time, that's because WE have turned it into a waste of time (mostly because media cartels are enforcing so many copyright policies that the internet is being stripped away from creativity world wide).
Oh, and by the way... by the way... I wonder what Bradbury would think of his books being available on thepiratebay.
The internet is indeed a great gestational pool for new work. It's also a huge distraction, and a difficult place to concentrate. And once the new work is done, it's a dangerous place for it to live, both because it might be vandalized, and because the place where it is stored might go away. Sure, if everybody makes a copy it might work out, but people only copy what's popular and what's known. A system that depends on repeated copying over millennia to preserve a work for millennia is very vulnerable. Can you imagine getting something like the dead sea scrolls off of a two-thousand-year-old hard drive?
But the thing is, the internet is censorable from a central location. (Well, several central locations, actually, but the point stands.)
Remember what W. Smith's job was in 1984? Now it's not necessarily. The information can be altered in situ without anyone having any awareness of it. Web pages are a re-writable medium, so you can't tell what's been censored, and what's just been updated. The fact that it isn't the same today as yesterday doesn't prove anything. And the wayback machine is no protection. They'll remove things on request.
That's a part of the message that *I* took away from Fahrenheit 451.
Exactly. Two of the ideas behind Fahrenheit 451 is that books should be preserved, and one way to preserve them is in the minds of people (literally, word-for-word memorization). So, how is putting books on the Internet, where they can be copied virtually infinitely, a bad thing?
And furthermore, putting a book on the Internet is like the ultimate preservation technique. Would that there had been some sort of Internet where books could be stored when the library of Alexandria burned!
F451 was misunderstood. I think Ray is more concerned with the balkanization of society where narrow-minded groups decide which book is valuable and which isn't. The Internet provides a perfect venue for t self-indulgent 'mind feedback'. A moon conspiracy enthusiast can spend all day on the web digging up research demonstrating the moon conspiracy, chatting only with other believers. A communist can carefully and efficiently filter the web to demonstrate that communism works. A library is too heavy, slow and solid for this to easily happen. Try to remove all books of a particular political flavor from a library, and you'll have to read nearly every book at multiple levels. Is "The Grapes of Wrath" pro socialist? Pro-communist? Is "Moby Dick" an environmentalist novel? Are modern biology or astronomy textbooks anti-Christian? You quickly run into the case where the whole library must be burned. The internet has enough noise that no one would notice 'the Firemen' pulling out content with depth beyond the shrill political zeitgeist. Right wingers can spend all day on foxnews.com, left wingers can happy choose from hundreds of news sources which feed them what they believe.
Ray has a point here. I've been working on a book which explains the problem with putting all our eggs in 'the Net' more clearly than I can explain here. Think of it this way, 30 years ago you could talk to your neighbor about what was on last night and chances are, you would've seen the same "All in the Family" or whatever. Now we have hundreds of channels on TV and on the internet, at least one 'channel' per individual. We can create our own reality and then find somewhere on the internet that will back it up. It is very fortunate that a library can't do that. Another thing a library can't do is make content disappear without anyone noticing.
Anyone so quick to dismiss the greatest communication tool man has yet devised as nothing but 'air' deserves harsh criticism, regardless of past accomplishments.
I'd really like to make some lofty comment on the grandiosity of the internet, and what a great driving force of intellectual progress it is, but I would be doing so on slashdot. I'm not sure the universe could take the irony.
Not to mention how sad it is for a science fiction writer to not understand the importance of the Internet.
Bradbury isn't an SF writer the way Clarke, Heinlein and Asimov were. His work always had the thinnest possible skin of technology surrounding a story about people. We was one of the more humanist writers of the day and the technology in his stories often made little sense.
I remember him ranting after the 2001 movie came out that it was 90% due to Clarke and 10% to Kubrick. His friend Clarke politely told him to shut up.
I think this is just Ray being Ray. His contemparories wouldn't have acted the same way. In fact, Clarke was a strong advocate of communications technology to the end.
Certainly not an idiot. Out of his element, yes, but absolutely NOT an idiot. I'm almost two decades younger than Bradbury, but I can sympathize with him. The internet can confuse even the young bright boys - just start a discussion on internet security, and see how many really smart young people get lost real fast.
Books. I find myself reading more and more of my favorites on the LCD screen, but books have something that the computer will never have. Books are solid, and real - the pixels on my screen are fleeting. A solid book and a cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter's night, listening to the storm blow outside......
Oh well, either you remember it and love it, or you don't.
But, don't call the old dude an idiot. Bradbury may not rank with Asimov and Clarke, but he a bright enough star in the SciFi and fantasy firmament. Never an idiot.
The really idiotic thing would be to take one quote out of context and assume this represents the world view of a very thoughtful writer. It's pretty clear from what he's said elsewhere, as in 'Bradbury on the Internet':
that he recognises the net's value as an information resource and commercial tool, and relishes the irony of using it to communicate his own criticism of the medium. His main concern is the danger of people 'playing their lives away with too many toys' by wasting enormous amounts of time on the trivial, a criticism that extends to the output of the other mass media, and which any reader of 'Fahrenheit 451' will understand.
I agree; what an idiot. There's more useful, educational information instantly available on the internet than any library in the world will ever hold. Just because he's too old and blind to find anything other than Yahoo games doesn't mean that the internet is distracting and meaningless
The library organizes information. It attempts to separate the meaningful from the meaningless. It is outward looking - not inward looking.
In following the threads here on the Thomas case - some things become painfully obvious:
The geek doesn't understand the most basic distinctions between civil and criminal law.
He doesn't understand evidence, the burden of proof.
He doesn't know how a jury is selected. He doesn't understand the roles played by the plaintiff and defendant, the judge, the jury, the court of appeals.
It is easier for him to find refuge in talk of conspiracies, in talk of corruption.
The geek has access to infinite information - or at least thinks he does.
But mostly he listens to himself. He tunes out dissenting voices. He doesn't ask the right questions - and again and again he makes the same mistakes.
I'm sure Wikipedia alone has orders of magnitude more educational reading material than you could read going to the library three times a week for generations.
But why are you sure?
The geek likes big numbers. The geek trusts big numbers. The number of apps in his distro's repository. The number of pages in his Wiki....
The reason for a book not found on the internet is people like Mr. Bradburry. Why his book isn't on the net? Because he didn't want it. What can i say about this? MEH. Your wish.
Eventually books will vanish, just like stone tablets did.
How do you know our civilization's ability to produce personal computers isn't going to vanish. At least a book is good for three centuries on proper paper, is our ability to produce hard drives so robust?
How do you know our civilization's ability to produce personal computers isn't going to vanish. At least a book is good for three centuries on proper paper, is our ability to produce hard drives so robust?
Well, as the number of computers dwindles from the billions to the millions and eventually the thousands, perhaps someone would be kind enough to hit 'Print' before things wind all the way down.
Laugh if you want, but keeping digital data is hard. Really hard. Once you've printed a book on acid-free paper with good quality ink, you can pretty much assume it'll still be readable in a hundred years. The lifetime of most computer media is measured in years, not decades. And most printouts fade quickly, because they're done on laser paper, which doesn't last very long.
So I wouldn't accuse Mr. Bradbury of being senile just yet. I agree he's a curmudgeon, but we need curmudgeons to keep us honest.
The point isn't how hard it is to store digital data, or how long a single instance of digital data can last. The point is how easy it is to copy it. Replicating print can be time-consuming and expensive. Replicating bits on a drive is fast and cheap.
"I'm not convinced a bubblejet or toner laser printer onto paper will produce a product with the robustness of a good printing press, ink, and acid free paper "
You'd be wrong then. Epson's pigment based inks are archival grade, are projected not to fade for over 100 years; I have a $99 printer that uses them (never mind it's $160 for new ink).
Brian Reid did a test where he printed two indentical pages onto (forget name of fancy acid free archival grade paper) and put one through the dishwasher. After a full cycle it looked the same as the original. He tore down darkroom after seeing this.
There are more books than you can imagine. The google books poeple say even if we ramp up increadably we won't even scratch the surface and there's zero chance all books will be digitized in our lifetime, or several lifetimes - there's that many.
Having said that I still think, and always have, that Bradbury is a moron. But am glad he's supporting libraries. They are, very very important.
How do you know our civilization's ability to produce personal computers isn't going to vanish. At least a book is good for three centuries on proper paper, is our ability to produce hard drives so robust?
I'll echo this sentiment w/ a reference to A Canticle for Leibowitz [wikipedia.org], by Walter Miller Jr., as well as noting that although I have documents stored on 720k, three and a half inch floppies within arm's reach, I've got no similarly handy way way to retrieve those docs.
Obviously the fact that they're orphaned on a media for which I have no required hardware is my own fault, but it does serve as an example to illustrate the temporal nature of contemporary storage. I have a hardcover book from the 1920's in great shape, very readable and physically robust; yet even a printout of my fourth year honours thesis (one of the docs stored on the aforementioned disks) would be in rough shape by now had I printed it using the 9-pin dot matrix printer I had 20 years ago.
I can guarantee that there will be *no* post-apocalyptic need for anything I cranked out in 1989. But I take Miller's central question to heart - how to preserve man's scientific knowledge so that we're not doomed to rediscover electricity (or whatever) again and again? Forever is a long, long time.
Open wikipedia in a tabbed browser. Go to a topic you're moderately interested in. Open every hyperlink you think you might like in a new tab. After about an hour, count up the tabs you have. If they're fewer than 10, something's very wrong with your sense of curiosity.
Make a list of the topics, then go to the library and lookup appropriate physical books that describe the same subjects. See how much you can learn by reading those while allotting yourself only the same amount of time you give yourself to read wikipedia. Compare how much you learn.
Just one example, there are many handbooks for the design, estimating, scheduling, and construction of buildings, roads and bridges that are not to be found on the internet. I have a shelf of those, and a good library will have them too. I have references for other fields for which internet resources are very scant except for popular general overview. Sure, CADD/CAE/CAM software can do some things, but not all. Most of man's knowledge is not on the internet, and it's tragic that young people think that because many popular things of the last ten years are there then most things are there.
Just because you can't seem to find your way out of the trashy romance novels, it doesn't mean that a particular "library" is complete trash.
That's rather the point of a library, is it not. The internet is not a library, because it does not have a librarian. The idea of a library is to have good material in it for a community to share in. The choices that the library makes are as much of a statement of humanity as anything else. When you use the internet, and filter noise yourself, you aren't getting the same level of service.
Just wanted to add that while the signal to noise ratio my be high, the signal is so incredibly strong that the noise is easy to filter out.
I could break down your arguments by saying things like, "Why rely solely on a book? If so inclined I could probably contact a few reputable PERL devs online and get real feedback and samples."
Books are great and have their place, but they pale very quickly when compared to the possibilities the internet offers.
Agreed, yet his anti-colleges and universities speaks from a liberal arts major espousing the virtues of being deeply knowledgeable by just reading books. Sorry, but the Hard Sciences need labs, mentoring, professorships, research and more.
It's in the air, somewhere; In some tubes, with rubes. It's not in the back of a truck, It's not in the flack of some shmuck, It's in the air, somewhere.
Old Man Ray is also a flaming Republican. Sad to think of it since his work is so enjoyable but that's the long and the short of it. He went apeshit over Fahrenheit 9-11. "No. 1, he didn't ask (permission), and, No. 2, he took it - period," Bradbury tells PEOPLE. "Even if he did ask, what he has done is a crime."
Speaking from his Los Angeles home Wednesday, the 83-year-old author says he never would have allowed Moore to use the name, "because it doesn't belong to him. It belongs to me. I have several new editions of the book coming out this summer. I have a new film version of Fahrenheit 451 with Mel Gibson starring, and it is going into production sometime in the next six months."
Bradbury says that Moore, 50, contacted him only last Saturday - months after the controversial movie started making headlines.
"He was embarrassed because he didn't want to call me," says Bradbury, adding that he felt Moore was "forced into" making the call and that the filmmaker hasn't offered to screen the film for him.
"He didn't want to face me," says Bradbury. "He is supposedly a big fan of mine and read my work years ago. Now suddenly he has to call someone he has been reading for most of his life and apologize for what he did."
Republicans weren't so bad way back when they believed in small gov't and fiscal responsibility. Even if one believed that gov't had a role to play in society beyond simply maintaining the courts and providing for defense, one could still get along with, and even appreciate the perspective of, the old Republicans. A lot of old folk who call themselves Republicans may not be whatever the fuck today's Republicans are.
Ray loves libraries but hates the internet... I love libraries and the internet... All we need now are someone who loves the internet and hates libraries and another who hates both libraries and the internet and we can have ourselves a fully populated 2x2 truth table.
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday June 20, @04:35PM (#28404517)
I don't believe in libraries. I believe in cave paintings because most students don't have any animal hides to cover their genitals. When I graduated from climbing in trees, it was during the first great ice age and we had no fire or language. I couldn't go to the library, so I went to the cave three days a week for 10 seasons. The library? Don't get him started. The library is a big distraction, Gieco Cavemen growled... The library called me eight moons ago, he said, voice rising. They wanted to put a calfskin of mine in the Library! You know what I told them? To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the library. It's distracting. It's meaningless; it's not real. It's in the dead trees somewhere with that soulless invention called language.
My girlfriend's mother is a school librarian, has been for decades. One day she was sorting through a stack of old books and came across a Bradbury book in which someone had scribbled across the title page in pen. I think it was actually as she was in the process of slamming her DISCARD stamp down on the book that she belatedly recognized the scribble as the author's signature.
She's normally got a good sense of humor, but she does NOT like it when you remind her about that dang Bradbury kid scribbling in her books.
A new aid to rapid - almost magical - learning has made its appearance. Indications are that if it catches on all the electronic gadgets will be so much junk.
The new device is known as Built-in Orderly Organized Knowledge. The makers generally call it by its initials, BOOK.
Many advantages are claimed over the old-style learning and teaching aids on which most people are brought up nowadays. It has no wires, no electric circuit to break down, No connection is needed to an electricity power point. It is made entirely without mechanical parts to go wrong or need replacement.
Anyone can use BOOK, even children, and it fits comfortably into the hands. It can be conveniently used sitting in an armchair by the fire.
How does this revolutionary, unbelievably easy invention work? Basically BOOK consists only of a large number of paper sheets. These may run to hundreds where BOOK covers a lengthy programme of information. Each sheet bears a number in sequence so that the sheets cannot be used in the wrong order.
To make it even easier for the user to keep the sheets in the proper order they are held firmly in place by a special locking device called a 'binding'.
Each sheet of paper presents the user with an information sequence in the form of symbols, which he absorbs optically for automatic registration on the brain. When one sheet has been assimilated a flick of the finger turns it over and further information is found on the other side.
By using both sides of each sheet in this way a great economy is effected, thus reducing both the size and cost of BOOK. No buttons need to be pressed to move from one sheet to another, to open or close BOOK, or to start it working.
BOOK may be taken up at any time and used by merely opening it. Instantly it it ready for use. Nothing has to be connected or switched on. The user may turn at will to any sheet, going backwards or forwards as he pleases. A sheet is provided near the beginning as a location finder for any required information sequence.
A small accessory, available at trifling extra cost, is the BOOKmark. This enables the user to pick up his programme where he left off on the previous learning session. BOOKmark is versatile and may be used in any BOOK.
The initial cost varies with the size and subject matter. Already a vast range of BOOKs is available, covering every conceivable subject and adjusted to different levels of aptitude. One BOOK, small enough to be held in the hands, may contain an entire learning schedule.
Once purchased, BOOK requires no further upkeep cost; no batteries or wires are needed, since the motive power, thanks to an ingenious device patented by the makers, is supplied by the brain of the user.
BOOKs may be stored on handy shelves and for ease of reference the programme schedule is normally indicated on the back of the binding.
Altogether the Built-in Orderly Organized Knowledge seems to have great advantages with no drawbacks. We predict a big future for it.
Ray Bradbury wrote some good books. One book in particular was truly great, providing a social commentary on the value of information and what it means to have open and free access. This makes him a man who was forward thinking for his time and perhaps means future societies will remember him.
Unfortunately, he's become a bit of a cranky old man. That's okay. I suppose he's earned the right to be one.
The value of his works shouldn't be diminished but certainly, time has passed him by.
Particularly ironic considering the events of the past week in Iran and the internet's enabling role in that continuing saga.
... young people today, with their loud hair and long music, and their propensity for lounging in a most insouciant manner upon his lawn.
At this point in the diatribe, well known sci-fi writer and self-proclaimed "Master Storyteller" Mr. Harlan "I don't take a piss without getting paid" Ellison mounted his soapbox, two milk crates and a folding chair, thus barely getting his eyes above the seated audience. "You tell 'em, Ray! Fuck the Internet!" Mr. Ellison sputtered in a cracked and whiney voice.
Mr. Bradbury inquired after the publishing date of "The Last Dangerous Visions", whereupon Mr. Ellison threw his false teeth at Mr. Bradbury, whereupon the two aged scifi writers began to box each other about the head and shoulders. The assembled crowd wagered upon who would be the first to fling the contents of their Depends at the other, while several witnesses used their iPhones to upload video of the struggle to YouTube. Others in the crowd were content to chant, "Codger Fight! Codger Fight!" at the geriatric combatants.
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday June 20, @04:22PM (#28404433)
He is right, its just a distraction. When my internet access goes down, I actually get something accomplished. All of our toys mean nothing. That said, I need to log onto warcraft and forget how sucky real life is.
Ray Bradbury, while one of the greatest living SF writers, is actually something of a technophobe. Not a luddite, as far as I know, just someone who doesn't care for technology outside the scope of fiction. He doesn't know how to drive a car (while living in LA!), and he was... oh, I don't remember, but old when he first travelled by airplane. So most likely, he doesn't understand the internet much. Or he understands it differently.
It makes changes too easy, makes hiding what was there before too easy, and it makes telling what's an actual, factual authority and what is lies and deception too easy. I mean, come on -- if the guy actually believes what he wrote in F. 451, then how does this NOT make sense for him to believe? But then again, the Internet's ability to edit information for forge reality has been a major boon for the population of African elephants...
I mean, come on -- if the guy actually believes what he wrote in F. 451, then how does this NOT make sense for him to believe?
The point of Fahrenheit 451, like the point of Brave New World before it, is that people choose an easy lie over complicated truth. They prefer their entertainment and their illusions.
When I look at the internet, I see a lot of illusions, but very little that approaches the factual power of a good book. And I am a content publisher who has made the choice to put future writings into books, because I see how the internet has been progressively turning into television since 1996.
I will still love those resources, including Slashdot, which are useful. But I'll pick a real encyclopedia over Wikipedia, ignore those forums and blogs, and pick up a quality textbook for factual information.
To make an obvious point: You can ban books, you can burn books [wikipedia.org], but try to remove a literary work from the Internet and see how far you get.
Sorry for the typo in the second sentence. My girlfriend sat down in her bra and panties in front of the air conditioner as I was writing that. Yes, that's just as distracting for us as for you, guys. -_-
God Bless Him (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a lot to be said for libraries. The other day, my wife came home with a new library card. Big internet a holic, but there's always something about halls of books.
Re:God Bless Him (Score:5, Funny)
Who are you? Who's talking? Are you in the air somewhere? I'm confused!!!
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Re:God Bless Him (Score:5, Insightful)
Technically, the internet is the largest library of information ever known to man. To dismiss it only shows his inability to truly grasp it.
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Re:God Bless Him (Score:5, Insightful)
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Hmmm.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree; what an idiot. T
Until you write Fahrenheit 451, I wouldn't be so quick to call Ray Bradbury an idiot, no matter what he says about the internet. Or, are you starting out with the Martian Chronicle instead?
If anything, given the level of thought that the man has historically produced, you might find it instructive to understand what his criticisms are. If anything, it would only serve to improve the internet.
Parent
Re:Hmmm.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Farenheit 451 required a visionary. But I think that Bradbury simply lost his vision. It's not about the books. It's about the minds BEHIND the books.
What to say about sites like fictionpress.net? What about webcomics with a deep story? What about Anime music videos?
The internet is a primordial soup for art and culture. It doesn't matter if it's in the air, or the tubes, or whatever. People communicate with the internet. If the internet is a waste of time, that's because WE have turned it into a waste of time (mostly because media cartels are enforcing so many copyright policies that the internet is being stripped away from creativity world wide).
Oh, and by the way... by the way... I wonder what Bradbury would think of his books being available on thepiratebay.
http://thepiratebay.org/search/ray+bradbury/0/99/0 [thepiratebay.org]
Not real anymore? Ray, I used to admire you, but you're losing touch with reality.
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Re:Hmmm.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The internet is indeed a great gestational pool for new work. It's also a huge distraction, and a difficult place to concentrate. And once the new work is done, it's a dangerous place for it to live, both because it might be vandalized, and because the place where it is stored might go away. Sure, if everybody makes a copy it might work out, but people only copy what's popular and what's known. A system that depends on repeated copying over millennia to preserve a work for millennia is very vulnerable. Can you imagine getting something like the dead sea scrolls off of a two-thousand-year-old hard drive?
Parent
Re:Hmmm.. (Score:5, Insightful)
But the thing is, the internet is censorable from a central location. (Well, several central locations, actually, but the point stands.)
Remember what W. Smith's job was in 1984? Now it's not necessarily. The information can be altered in situ without anyone having any awareness of it. Web pages are a re-writable medium, so you can't tell what's been censored, and what's just been updated. The fact that it isn't the same today as yesterday doesn't prove anything. And the wayback machine is no protection. They'll remove things on request.
That's a part of the message that *I* took away from Fahrenheit 451.
Parent
Re:Hmmm.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. Two of the ideas behind Fahrenheit 451 is that books should be preserved, and one way to preserve them is in the minds of people (literally, word-for-word memorization). So, how is putting books on the Internet, where they can be copied virtually infinitely, a bad thing? And furthermore, putting a book on the Internet is like the ultimate preservation technique. Would that there had been some sort of Internet where books could be stored when the library of Alexandria burned!
F451 was misunderstood. I think Ray is more concerned with the balkanization of society where narrow-minded groups decide which book is valuable and which isn't. The Internet provides a perfect venue for t self-indulgent 'mind feedback'. A moon conspiracy enthusiast can spend all day on the web digging up research demonstrating the moon conspiracy, chatting only with other believers. A communist can carefully and efficiently filter the web to demonstrate that communism works. A library is too heavy, slow and solid for this to easily happen. Try to remove all books of a particular political flavor from a library, and you'll have to read nearly every book at multiple levels. Is "The Grapes of Wrath" pro socialist? Pro-communist? Is "Moby Dick" an environmentalist novel? Are modern biology or astronomy textbooks anti-Christian? You quickly run into the case where the whole library must be burned. The internet has enough noise that no one would notice 'the Firemen' pulling out content with depth beyond the shrill political zeitgeist. Right wingers can spend all day on foxnews.com, left wingers can happy choose from hundreds of news sources which feed them what they believe.
Ray has a point here. I've been working on a book which explains the problem with putting all our eggs in 'the Net' more clearly than I can explain here. Think of it this way, 30 years ago you could talk to your neighbor about what was on last night and chances are, you would've seen the same "All in the Family" or whatever. Now we have hundreds of channels on TV and on the internet, at least one 'channel' per individual. We can create our own reality and then find somewhere on the internet that will back it up. It is very fortunate that a library can't do that. Another thing a library can't do is make content disappear without anyone noticing.
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Re:Hmmm.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone so quick to dismiss the greatest communication tool man has yet devised as nothing but 'air' deserves harsh criticism, regardless of past accomplishments.
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Re:Hmmm.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Hmmm.. (Score:5, Funny)
I'd really like to make some lofty comment on the grandiosity of the internet, and what a great driving force of intellectual progress it is, but I would be doing so on slashdot. I'm not sure the universe could take the irony.
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Re:Hmmm.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Not to mention how sad it is for a science fiction writer to not understand the importance of the Internet.
Bradbury isn't an SF writer the way Clarke, Heinlein and Asimov were. His work always had the thinnest possible skin of technology surrounding a story about people. We was one of the more humanist writers of the day and the technology in his stories often made little sense.
I remember him ranting after the 2001 movie came out that it was 90% due to Clarke and 10% to Kubrick. His friend Clarke politely told him to shut up.
I think this is just Ray being Ray. His contemparories wouldn't have acted the same way. In fact, Clarke was a strong advocate of communications technology to the end.
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Re:Hmmm.. (Score:5, Funny)
When 900 years old you reach, sound as smart you will not. Hm?
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Re:God Bless Him (Score:5, Insightful)
Certainly not an idiot. Out of his element, yes, but absolutely NOT an idiot. I'm almost two decades younger than Bradbury, but I can sympathize with him. The internet can confuse even the young bright boys - just start a discussion on internet security, and see how many really smart young people get lost real fast.
Books. I find myself reading more and more of my favorites on the LCD screen, but books have something that the computer will never have. Books are solid, and real - the pixels on my screen are fleeting. A solid book and a cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter's night, listening to the storm blow outside......
Oh well, either you remember it and love it, or you don't.
But, don't call the old dude an idiot. Bradbury may not rank with Asimov and Clarke, but he a bright enough star in the SciFi and fantasy firmament. Never an idiot.
Parent
Re:God Bless Him (Score:5, Informative)
'I agree; what an idiot.'
The really idiotic thing would be to take one quote out of context and assume this represents the world view of a very thoughtful writer. It's pretty clear from what he's said elsewhere, as in 'Bradbury on the Internet':
http://www.raybradbury.com/at_home_clips.html [raybradbury.com]
that he recognises the net's value as an information resource and commercial tool, and relishes the irony of using it to communicate his own criticism of the medium. His main concern is the danger of people 'playing their lives away with too many toys' by wasting enormous amounts of time on the trivial, a criticism that extends to the output of the other mass media, and which any reader of 'Fahrenheit 451' will understand.
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Re:God Bless Him (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree; what an idiot. There's more useful, educational information instantly available on the internet than any library in the world will ever hold. Just because he's too old and blind to find anything other than Yahoo games doesn't mean that the internet is distracting and meaningless
The library organizes information. It attempts to separate the meaningful from the meaningless. It is outward looking - not inward looking.
In following the threads here on the Thomas case -
some things become painfully obvious:
The geek doesn't understand the most basic distinctions between civil and criminal law.
He doesn't understand evidence, the burden of proof.
He doesn't know how a jury is selected.
He doesn't understand the roles played by the plaintiff and defendant, the judge, the jury, the court of appeals.
It is easier for him to find refuge in talk of conspiracies, in talk of corruption.
The geek has access to infinite information - or at least thinks he does.
But mostly he listens to himself. He tunes out dissenting voices. He doesn't ask the right questions - and again and again he makes the same mistakes.
I'm sure Wikipedia alone has orders of magnitude more educational reading material than you could read going to the library three times a week for generations.
But why are you sure?
The geek likes big numbers. The geek trusts big numbers. The number of apps in his distro's repository. The number of pages in his Wiki....
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Re:God Bless Him (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason for a book not found on the internet is people like Mr. Bradburry.
Why his book isn't on the net?
Because he didn't want it.
What can i say about this?
MEH. Your wish.
Eventually books will vanish, just like stone tablets did.
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Re:God Bless Him (Score:5, Interesting)
How do you know our civilization's ability to produce personal computers isn't going to vanish. At least a book is good for three centuries on proper paper, is our ability to produce hard drives so robust?
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Re:God Bless Him (Score:5, Funny)
How do you know our civilization's ability to produce personal computers isn't going to vanish. At least a book is good for three centuries on proper paper, is our ability to produce hard drives so robust?
Well, as the number of computers dwindles from the billions to the millions and eventually the thousands, perhaps someone would be kind enough to hit 'Print' before things wind all the way down.
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Re:God Bless Him (Score:5, Insightful)
Laugh if you want, but keeping digital data is hard. Really hard. Once you've printed a book on acid-free paper with good quality ink, you can pretty much assume it'll still be readable in a hundred years. The lifetime of most computer media is measured in years, not decades. And most printouts fade quickly, because they're done on laser paper, which doesn't last very long.
So I wouldn't accuse Mr. Bradbury of being senile just yet. I agree he's a curmudgeon, but we need curmudgeons to keep us honest.
OBTW... Get off my lawn!
Punk. :')
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Re:God Bless Him (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:God Bless Him (Score:5, Interesting)
"I'm not convinced a bubblejet or toner laser printer onto paper will produce a product with the robustness of a good printing press, ink, and acid free paper "
You'd be wrong then. Epson's pigment based inks are archival grade, are projected not to fade for over 100 years; I have a $99 printer that uses them (never mind it's $160 for new ink).
Brian Reid did a test where he printed two indentical pages onto (forget name of fancy acid free archival grade paper) and put one through the dishwasher. After a full cycle it looked the same as the original. He tore down darkroom after seeing this.
There are more books than you can imagine. The google books poeple say even if we ramp up increadably we won't even scratch the surface and there's zero chance all books will be digitized in our lifetime, or several lifetimes - there's that many.
Having said that I still think, and always have, that Bradbury is a moron. But am glad he's supporting libraries. They are, very very important.
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Re:God Bless Him (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you know our civilization's ability to produce personal computers isn't going to vanish. At least a book is good for three centuries on proper paper, is our ability to produce hard drives so robust?
I'll echo this sentiment w/ a reference to A Canticle for Leibowitz [wikipedia.org], by Walter Miller Jr., as well as noting that although I have documents stored on 720k, three and a half inch floppies within arm's reach, I've got no similarly handy way way to retrieve those docs.
Obviously the fact that they're orphaned on a media for which I have no required hardware is my own fault, but it does serve as an example to illustrate the temporal nature of contemporary storage. I have a hardcover book from the 1920's in great shape, very readable and physically robust; yet even a printout of my fourth year honours thesis (one of the docs stored on the aforementioned disks) would be in rough shape by now had I printed it using the 9-pin dot matrix printer I had 20 years ago.
I can guarantee that there will be *no* post-apocalyptic need for anything I cranked out in 1989. But I take Miller's central question to heart - how to preserve man's scientific knowledge so that we're not doomed to rediscover electricity (or whatever) again and again? Forever is a long, long time.
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Re:God Bless Him (Score:5, Insightful)
Open wikipedia in a tabbed browser. Go to a topic you're moderately interested in. Open every hyperlink you think you might like in a new tab. After about an hour, count up the tabs you have. If they're fewer than 10, something's very wrong with your sense of curiosity.
Make a list of the topics, then go to the library and lookup appropriate physical books that describe the same subjects. See how much you can learn by reading those while allotting yourself only the same amount of time you give yourself to read wikipedia. Compare how much you learn.
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Re:God Bless Him (Score:5, Insightful)
Just one example, there are many handbooks for the design, estimating, scheduling, and construction of buildings, roads and bridges that are not to be found on the internet. I have a shelf of those, and a good library will have them too. I have references for other fields for which internet resources are very scant except for popular general overview. Sure, CADD/CAE/CAM software can do some things, but not all. Most of man's knowledge is not on the internet, and it's tragic that young people think that because many popular things of the last ten years are there then most things are there.
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Re:I wouldn't be so quick to that. (Score:4, Insightful)
> Also, there's really not anything that approaches the value of a good textbook available on line.
????
All it takes is a single suitable PDF on some guys laptop plugged into his mother's cable modem to make that claim bogus.
Just because you can't seem to find your way out of the trashy romance novels, it doesn't mean that a particular "library" is complete trash.
The net just makes it cheaper and easier for ANYONE to publish.
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Re:I wouldn't be so quick to that. (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because you can't seem to find your way out of the trashy romance novels, it doesn't mean that a particular "library" is complete trash.
That's rather the point of a library, is it not. The internet is not a library, because it does not have a librarian. The idea of a library is to have good material in it for a community to share in. The choices that the library makes are as much of a statement of humanity as anything else. When you use the internet, and filter noise yourself, you aren't getting the same level of service.
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Re:I wouldn't be so quick to that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just wanted to add that while the signal to noise ratio my be high, the signal is so incredibly strong that the noise is easy to filter out.
I could break down your arguments by saying things like, "Why rely solely on a book? If so inclined I could probably contact a few reputable PERL devs online and get real feedback and samples."
Books are great and have their place, but they pale very quickly when compared to the possibilities the internet offers.
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Re:God Bless Him (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Location, location, location! (Score:5, Funny)
It's in the air, somewhere;
In some tubes, with rubes.
It's not in the back of a truck,
It's not in the flack of some shmuck,
It's in the air, somewhere.
Thanks Dr. Seuss!
And in other news, old man shouts at cloud (Score:4, Insightful)
Old Man Ray is also a flaming Republican. Sad to think of it since his work is so enjoyable but that's the long and the short of it. He went apeshit over Fahrenheit 9-11.
"No. 1, he didn't ask (permission), and, No. 2, he took it - period," Bradbury tells PEOPLE. "Even if he did ask, what he has done is a crime."
Speaking from his Los Angeles home Wednesday, the 83-year-old author says he never would have allowed Moore to use the name, "because it doesn't belong to him. It belongs to me. I have several new editions of the book coming out this summer. I have a new film version of Fahrenheit 451 with Mel Gibson starring, and it is going into production sometime in the next six months."
Bradbury says that Moore, 50, contacted him only last Saturday - months after the controversial movie started making headlines.
"He was embarrassed because he didn't want to call me," says Bradbury, adding that he felt Moore was "forced into" making the call and that the filmmaker hasn't offered to screen the film for him.
"He didn't want to face me," says Bradbury. "He is supposedly a big fan of mine and read my work years ago. Now suddenly he has to call someone he has been reading for most of his life and apologize for what he did."
Re:And in other news, old man shouts at cloud (Score:5, Insightful)
Republicans weren't so bad way back when they believed in small gov't and fiscal responsibility. Even if one believed that gov't had a role to play in society beyond simply maintaining the courts and providing for defense, one could still get along with, and even appreciate the perspective of, the old Republicans. A lot of old folk who call themselves Republicans may not be whatever the fuck today's Republicans are.
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So like... (Score:4, Funny)
How do you like L. Ron Hubbard's work then?
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To hell with Ray Bradbury. (Score:4, Funny)
We don't need libraries anymore. Let's just burn them all down.
The truth (Score:5, Funny)
Ray loves libraries but hates the internet...
I love libraries and the internet...
All we need now are someone who loves the internet and hates libraries and another who hates both libraries and the internet and we can have ourselves a fully populated 2x2 truth table.
Re:The truth (Score:5, Funny)
Loves the Internet, Hates Libraries: Most Ignorant Teenagers
Hates the Internet, Hates Librarites: MPAA
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Books are not real! (Score:5, Funny)
I don't believe in libraries. I believe in cave paintings because most students don't have any animal hides to cover their genitals. When I graduated from climbing in trees, it was during the first great ice age and we had no fire or language. I couldn't go to the library, so I went to the cave three days a week for 10 seasons. The library? Don't get him started. The library is a big distraction, Gieco Cavemen growled... The library called me eight moons ago, he said, voice rising. They wanted to put a calfskin of mine in the Library! You know what I told them? To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the library. It's distracting. It's meaningless; it's not real. It's in the dead trees somewhere with that soulless invention called language.
- Gieco Cavemen
A series of tubes in the air? (Score:5, Funny)
So the Internet is a series of tubes in the air somewhere...?
OMG... the Internet is in the Mushroom Kingdom!
Sort of related (Score:4, Funny)
My girlfriend's mother is a school librarian, has been for decades. One day she was sorting through a stack of old books and came across a Bradbury book in which someone had scribbled across the title page in pen. I think it was actually as she was in the process of slamming her DISCARD stamp down on the book that she belatedly recognized the scribble as the author's signature.
She's normally got a good sense of humor, but she does NOT like it when you remind her about that dang Bradbury kid scribbling in her books.
LEARN WITH B.O.O.K. (Score:5, Funny)
LEARN WITH B.O.O.K.
- R. J. Heathorn
A new aid to rapid - almost magical - learning has made its appearance.
Indications are that if it catches on all the electronic gadgets will be
so much junk.
The new device is known as Built-in Orderly Organized Knowledge. The
makers generally call it by its initials, BOOK.
Many advantages are claimed over the old-style learning and teaching
aids on which most people are brought up nowadays. It has no wires, no
electric circuit to break down, No connection is needed to an
electricity power point. It is made entirely without mechanical parts to
go wrong or need replacement.
Anyone can use BOOK, even children, and it fits comfortably into the
hands. It can be conveniently used sitting in an armchair by the fire.
How does this revolutionary, unbelievably easy invention work? Basically
BOOK consists only of a large number of paper sheets. These may run to
hundreds where BOOK covers a lengthy programme of information. Each
sheet bears a number in sequence so that the sheets cannot be used in
the wrong order.
To make it even easier for the user to keep the sheets in the proper
order they are held firmly in place by a special locking device called a
'binding'.
Each sheet of paper presents the user with an information sequence in
the form of symbols, which he absorbs optically for automatic
registration on the brain. When one sheet has been assimilated a flick
of the finger turns it over and further information is found on the
other side.
By using both sides of each sheet in this way a great economy is
effected, thus reducing both the size and cost of BOOK. No buttons need
to be pressed to move from one sheet to another, to open or close BOOK,
or to start it working.
BOOK may be taken up at any time and used by merely opening it.
Instantly it it ready for use. Nothing has to be connected or switched
on. The user may turn at will to any sheet, going backwards or forwards
as he pleases. A sheet is provided near the beginning as a location
finder for any required information sequence.
A small accessory, available at trifling extra cost, is the BOOKmark.
This enables the user to pick up his programme where he left off on the
previous learning session. BOOKmark is versatile and may be used in any
BOOK.
The initial cost varies with the size and subject matter. Already a vast
range of BOOKs is available, covering every conceivable subject and
adjusted to different levels of aptitude. One BOOK, small enough to be
held in the hands, may contain an entire learning schedule.
Once purchased, BOOK requires no further upkeep cost; no batteries or
wires are needed, since the motive power, thanks to an ingenious device
patented by the makers, is supplied by the brain of the user.
BOOKs may be stored on handy shelves and for ease of reference the
programme schedule is normally indicated on the back of the binding.
Altogether the Built-in Orderly Organized Knowledge seems to have great
advantages with no drawbacks. We predict a big future for it.
How real is the knowledge in your head? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or is that in the air as well?
Ray Bradbury wrote some good books. One book in particular was truly great, providing a social commentary on the value of information and what it means to have open and free access. This makes him a man who was forward thinking for his time and perhaps means future societies will remember him.
Unfortunately, he's become a bit of a cranky old man. That's okay. I suppose he's earned the right to be one.
The value of his works shouldn't be diminished but certainly, time has passed him by.
Particularly ironic considering the events of the past week in Iran and the internet's enabling role in that continuing saga.
Need a termometer (Score:5, Funny)
Mr. Bradbury then spoke feelingly about... (Score:5, Funny)
... young people today, with their loud hair and long music, and their propensity for lounging in a most insouciant manner upon his lawn.
At this point in the diatribe, well known sci-fi writer and self-proclaimed "Master Storyteller" Mr. Harlan "I don't take a piss without getting paid" Ellison mounted his soapbox, two milk crates and a folding chair, thus barely getting his eyes above the seated audience. "You tell 'em, Ray! Fuck the Internet!" Mr. Ellison sputtered in a cracked and whiney voice.
Mr. Bradbury inquired after the publishing date of "The Last Dangerous Visions", whereupon Mr. Ellison threw his false teeth at Mr. Bradbury, whereupon the two aged scifi writers began to box each other about the head and shoulders. The assembled crowd wagered upon who would be the first to fling the contents of their Depends at the other, while several witnesses used their iPhones to upload video of the struggle to YouTube. Others in the crowd were content to chant, "Codger Fight! Codger Fight!" at the geriatric combatants.
Re:Why does he like libraries? (Score:4, Funny)
He is right, its just a distraction. When my internet access goes down, I actually get something accomplished. All of our toys mean nothing. That said, I need to log onto warcraft and forget how sucky real life is.
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Re:Why does he like libraries? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ray Bradbury, while one of the greatest living SF writers, is actually something of a technophobe. Not a luddite, as far as I know, just someone who doesn't care for technology outside the scope of fiction. He doesn't know how to drive a car (while living in LA!), and he was ... oh, I don't remember, but old when he first travelled by airplane. So most likely, he doesn't understand the internet much. Or he understands it differently.
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Re:Internet (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, come on -- if the guy actually believes what he wrote in F. 451, then how does this NOT make sense for him to believe?
The point of Fahrenheit 451, like the point of Brave New World before it, is that people choose an easy lie over complicated truth. They prefer their entertainment and their illusions.
When I look at the internet, I see a lot of illusions, but very little that approaches the factual power of a good book. And I am a content publisher who has made the choice to put future writings into books, because I see how the internet has been progressively turning into television since 1996.
I will still love those resources, including Slashdot, which are useful. But I'll pick a real encyclopedia over Wikipedia, ignore those forums and blogs, and pick up a quality textbook for factual information.
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Re:Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Libraries (Score:4, Funny)
Sorry for the typo in the second sentence. My girlfriend sat down in her bra and panties in front of the air conditioner as I was writing that. Yes, that's just as distracting for us as for you, guys. -_-
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