MY TOP TEN FAVORITE SCI-FI PHILOSOPHERS

ALSO: TOP SCI-FI BOOKS HERE

1.0 Jules Gabriel Verne (February 8, 1828 – March 24, 1905)

Notable work(s)
"Voyages Extraordinaires"
From the Earth to the Moon (1865
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,  
A Journey to the Center of the Earth,
Around the World in Eighty Days,
The Mysterious Island,  
Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen





2.0 Herbert George "H.G." Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946)




Notable work(s)
The Time Machine 
The Invisible Man 
The Island of Doctor Moreau 
The War of the Worlds 
The First Men in the Moon 
The Shape of Things to Come






3.0 Hugo Gernsbacher (August 16, 1884 – August 19, 1967) A.K.A. Hugo Gernsback

Notable work(s)
Ralph 124C 41+ 
Science and Invention — formerly Electrical Experimenter; published August 1920 to August 1931 
Science and Mechanics — originally Everyday Mechanics; changed to Everyday Science and Mechanics in 1931. "Everyday" dropped as March 1937 issue, and published as Science and Mechanics until 1976





4.0 Isaac Asimov (January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992)

Notable work(s)
The Foundation Series,
the Robot Series, Nightfall,  
The Intelligent Man's Guide to Science,  
I, Robot,  
Planets for Man





5.0 Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008)


Notable work(s)
Childhood's End
2001: A Space Odyssey
Rendezvous with Rama
The Fountains of Paradise




6.0 Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) A.K.A. George Orwell,

Notable work(s)
 Homage to Catalonia (1938)
Animal Farm (1945)
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
essays

 








 7.0 Ray Douglas Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012)

Notable work(s)
Fahrenheit 451,  
The Martian Chronicles,  
Something Wicked This Way Comes







 8.0 Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982)

 Notable work(s)
 Ubik,
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,  
The Man in the High Castle,  
A Scanner Darkly,  
VALIS trilogy,
Second Variety

 





 9.0 Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr. (October 8, 1920 – February 11, 1986)

Notable work(s)
Dune and its five sequels



 





 10.0  John Michael Crichton (October 23, 1942 – November 4, 2008),

Notable work(s)
Jurassic Park 
The Andromeda Strain 
Congo 
Travels 
Sphere 
Next (the final book published before his death),  
Pirate Latitudes (published November 24, 2009)
Micro (final unfinished techno-thriller)

RIP Ray Bradbury!

Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury in 1975
Born	August 22, 1920 Waukegan, Illinois
Died	June 5, 2012 (aged 91)[1] Los Angeles, California
Nationality	American
Period	1938–2012
Genres	Science fiction, fantasy, horror fiction, mystery fiction
Notable work(s)	Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes

Philip K. Dick, Sci-Fi Master & the I CHING

Born	Philip Kindred Dick December 16, 1928 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	March 2, 1982 (aged 53) Santa Ana, California, U.S.
Pen name	Richard Phillips Jack Dowland
Occupation	Novelist, short story writer and essayst
Nationality	American
Genres	Science fiction Speculative fiction Postmodernism
Notable work(s)	Ubik, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Man in the High Castle, A Scanner Darkly,VALIS trilogy
Influences Heidegger, Flaubert, A. E. van Vogt, James Joyce,[1] Balzac, Kant, Marcel Proust, Carl Jung, Samuel Beckett, Dostoyevsky, John Sladek, Nathanael West, Jorge Luis Borges,Jack Spicer, Herbert George Wells
Signature

The I Ching is prominent in The Man in the High Castle; having diffused it as part of their cultural hegemony overlordship of the Pacific Coast U.S., the Japanese — and some American — characters consult it, and then act per its replies to their queries. Specifically, "The Man in the High Castle", Hawthorne Abendsen, himself, used it to write The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, and, at story's end, in his presence, Juliana Frink, queries the I Ching: "Why did it write The Grasshopper Lies Heavy?" and "What is the reader to learn from the novel?" The I Chingreplies with Hexagram 61 ([中孚] zhōng fú) Chung Fu, "Inner Truth", describing the true state of the world—every character in The Man in the High Castle is living a false reality.

Jules Verne: The Enigma 1,800 Miles Below Us

Reporting recently in the journal Nature, Dario Alfè of University College London and his colleagues presented evidence that iron in the outer layers of the core is frittering away heat through the wasteful process called conduction at two to three times the rate of previous estimates.

The theoretical consequences of this discrepancy are far-reaching. The scientists say something else must be going on in Earth’s depths to account for the missing thermal energy in their calculations. They and others offer these possibilities:

¶ The core holds a much bigger stash of radioactive material than anyone had suspected, and its decay is giving off heat.

¶ The iron of the innermost core is solidifying at a startlingly fast clip and releasing the latent heat of crystallization in the process.

¶ The chemical interactions among the iron alloys of the core and the rocky silicates of the overlying mantle are much fiercer and more energetic than previously believed.

¶ Or something novel and bizarre is going on, as yet undetermined.

“From what I can tell, people are excited” by the report, Dr. Alfè said. “They see there might be a new mechanism going on they didn’t think about before.”

Researchers elsewhere have discovered a host of other anomalies and surprises. They’ve found indications that the inner core is rotating slightly faster than the rest of the planet, although geologists disagree on the size of that rotational difference and on how, exactly, the core manages to resist being gravitationally locked to the surrounding mantle.

Miaki Ishii and her colleagues at Harvard have proposed that the core is more of a Matryoshka doll than standard two-part renderings would have it. Not only is there an outer core of liquid iron encircling a Moon-size inner core of solidified iron, Dr. Ishii said, but seismic data indicate that nested within the inner core is another distinct layer they call the innermost core: a structure some 375 miles in diameter that may well be almost pure iron, with other elements squeezed out. Against this giant jewel even Jules Verne’s middle-Earth mastodons and ichthyosaurs would be pretty thin gruel.

Core researchers acknowledge that their elusive subject can be challenging, and they might be tempted to throw tantrums save for the fact that the Earth does it for them. Most of what is known about the core comes from studying seismic waves generated by earthquakes.

As John Vidale of the University of Washington explained, most earthquakes originate in the upper 30 miles of the globe (as do many volcanoes), and no seismic source has been detected below 500 miles. But the quakes’ energy waves radiate across the planet, detectably passing through the core.

Granted, some temblors are more revealing than others. “I prefer deep earthquakes when I’m doing a study,” Dr. Ishii said. “The waves from deep earthquakes are typically sharper and cleaner.”

RIP Carlos Fuentes

Carlos Fuentes, Constancia y otras novelas para vírgenes (fragmento)

“(…) ¿No he aprendido nada, entonces

Estamos rodeados del enigma 

y lo poco que entendemos racionalmente 

es la excepción a un mundo enigmático. 

La razón es la excepción, no la regla. 

El enigma nos nutre, nos sostiene, porque nos asombra; 

y el asombro –maravillarse- es el mar que rodea la isla de la lógica, 

o algo por el estilo, me digo sentado en el aire a treinta mil pies de altura. 

Recuerdo a Vivien Leigh en Anna Karenina,

Recuerdo el recuerdo de una puesta en escena 

de El último emperador por Piscator en Berlín, 

evocada por mi vecino el actor, 

y entiendo por qué motivo el arte es el símbolo más preciso 

(y precioso) de la vida. 

El arte propone un enigma, 

pero la solución del enigma es otro enigma”

Carlos Fuentes, Constancia y otras novelas para vírgenes (fragmento)

Long Life "Bob" Moog

Robert Arthur "Bob" Moog (pronounced /ˈmoʊɡ/ mohg) (May 23, 1934 – August 21, 2005), founder of Moog Music, was an American pioneer of electronic music, best known as the inventor of the Moog synthesizer.

Bob Moog's innovative electronic design is employed in numerous synthesizers including the Minimoog Model D, Minimoog Voyager, Little Phatty, Moog Taurus Bass Pedals, Moog Minitaur, and the Moogerfooger line of effects pedals.

Global rulemakers

[Suggested soundtrack: Jane's Addiction: Been caught stealing]


GLOBAL RULEMAKERS, OR HOW NWO HAS TAKEN US TO THE NO-RETURN POINT - THE SO-CALLED SIGULARITY -

-Eeh,eh,eh, espere un momento ¿Adónde me lleva? 

- Hey, wait a fucking minute: where the fuck are you taking me?

 

-Al mundo,como ud. me dijo. 

- To know the world, as you ask me

 

-¿Eso es el mundo? Ay, Dios.Pare, pare aquí mismo, que me bajo y me vuelvo caminando. 

- Shit!!  Is this the world?  Jesus fuking Christ!  Stop!  I get off right here and go back by walking!

 
 

-

Pero,oiga, ¿y los progresos? ¿las comodidades? 

¿energía, telecomunicaciones, cultura,arte? ¡Miren dónde van todos los demás!  

- But, tell me: what about progress?  amusement? energy, telecom, culture, art?? Take a fucking look where people is going!!

   
 

-Están todos contaminados de sangre,dolor e injusticias. 
- Everybody is infected with blood, pain, and injustice

 
 

-Y los que verdaderamente mandan están controlados para que sigan así de manchados. - Real global rulemakers are under controlled just to justify everybody get bloody stained!

 
 

Nikos Kazantzaki's Zorba The Greek:

Zorba the Greek is a 1964 film based on the novel Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis. The film was directed by Cypriot Michael Cacoyannis and the title character was played by Anthony Quinn. The supporting cast includes Alan Bates, Lila Kedrova, Irene Papas, and Sotiris Moustakas.

==========================

Alexis Zorba: Damn it boss, I like you too much not to say it. You've got everthing except one thing: madness! A man needs a little madness, or else...
Basil : Or else?
Alexis Zorba : ...he never dares cut the rope and be free. 

==========================

Basil: I don't want any trouble.
Alexis Zorba : Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and *look* for trouble. 

==========================

Alexis Zorba: Am I not a man? And is a man not stupid? I'm a man, so I married. Wife, children, house, everything. The full catastrophe.  

==========================

Alexis Zorba: You think too much.That is your trouble.Clever people and grocers, they weigh everything. 

==========================

Alexis Zorba: How can I not love them? Poor weak creatures... and they take so little, a man's hand on their breast, and they give you all they got. 

==========================

Basil:- Zorba, don't start. 

Alexis Zorba: Listen. God, who is a clever devil, today put in your hands a gift from paradise.
Basil: - Don't be silly. 

Alexis Zorba: Boss. Why did God give us hands?
Basil: To grab. 

Alexis Zorba: Well, grab.

End This Depression Now!

 

It is an honor and a pleasure to have Paul Krugman at the Lake this afternoon for a conversation on End This Depression Now! Dedicated “To the unemployed, who deserve better,” the book is a condemnation of the policies and mind-set that have produced the worst economic depression since the 1930s. And unlike the Great Depression, which contemporaries did not understand, we know what to do; the current depression is entirely self-inflicted. The broken homes and ruined lives are not attributable to acts of God or the inscrutable logic of the market, but are the direct consequence of public decisions that have amplified the inherent risk of private credit by deregulating financial operations and the attempt to balance the budget when aggregate private demand is collapsing. The central message is that none of this suffering is necessary, and none of it is justified.

http://fdlbooksalon.com/2012/05/19/fdl-book-salon-welcomes-paul-krugman-end-this-depression-now/


REVIEW:

Paul Krugman: End This Depression Now!

This is a passionate book. Beyond the wonkery (very limited) it meets the obligation to tell the truth. Part of that truth is the simple macroeconomics of aggregate demand; in the short run it is the truth that counts most, because lack of demand is wrecking the lives of millions of people. The deeper truths about politics and the nihilism of contemporary mainstream macroeconomics are more disturbing. They go to the heart of what we are becoming as a people and (to be parochial) as economists. Paul has peered into the abyss; it isn’t pretty. There are a lot of things that are wrong with our economic organization. This book argues for doing first things first. The first thing is to get people back to work in productive jobs. This can be done immediately. The impossible takes longer.

On the principle that pictures are worth thousands of words, I have copied several graphs from the book plus one from elementary macroeconomics to provide reference points for discussion.