The future.....

[SloopJonB]

I remember I liked "Welcome to the Monkey House" the best of Vonneguts works.

[LarryHoward]

Larry,

That's a great idea!! I'm sure we can automate it with an App that shows the spot price on space in real time. We'll make a killing!!

Beau

I would certainly predict killing.

[floating dutchman]

I bumped into this picture at the head of an article I was reading... It was describing the dystopian future of a tech-ruled world. Of course we sailors don't worry about this, we go sailing. But I was genuinely struck by the juxtaposition of Mark walking confidently down the aisle while the audience was submerged in the slop of virtual reality.

We need to get more people out sailing - where an iPad is just for navigation and there isn't any use for these VR "glasses".



Here's the article if you're interested: http://medium.com/@DavidRainoshek/this-image-of-mark-zuckerberg-says-so-much-about-our-future-a3953bb22ae0#.j1k06xi46

That guy in the middle, looks like he's about three cheese burgers away from a heart attack and doesn't look very happy about it.

If that's the future you can have it.

Jeroen.

[floating dutchman]

I have a couple of theories about music, paintings and books....

First, there is a great filtration process that goes on. People throw away the bad stuff and keep the good stuff. So, on average, if you're reading older stuff that folks are still interested in - it's probably "good stuff" and not "bad stuff". One of the great failings of any contemporary art, no matter what era is your contemporary era, is that folks haven't yet tossed the garbage out. For this reason, we (or at least I) think all of those European composers from the era of Back, Beethoven, and Chopin are wonderful and our current crop of contemporary composers suck. We simply haven't filtered out the bad stuff yet. In 200 years, maybe folks will realize that Gershwin or The Cream are actually brilliant. Who knows.

Second, I believe that often the first break-through piece of art, music, painting, poetry that someone produces is better than much of the rest of their work. To break into the market, they needed something really wonderful. Once they're famous and appreciated... not so much. So Player Piano, Vonnegut's first book, is really wonderful; as is Nightfall (Asimov's first short story published). Some of their later works... not so much.

Interesting observation.
On the first point. A few months back I picked up a hitch-hiker coming home from work (a 1 3/4 hour drive. I do that sometimes, gives someone a ride, gives me someone to talk to) the guy was in his early 30's, kind of hippy type and "into his music" seemed to have worked at some garage type radio stations. an interesting character. one of the things he pointed out was that a lot of the 60's and 70's music was making a big comeback among the younger listeners mainly due the the fact that is freely available on the internet. I never really thought about the fact that nobody would bother uploading the crap music from the 60's and 70's. Your first point makes a lot of sense.

I don't think your second point is valid though, yea there are a lot of good one hit wonders (music) like Ram Jam's Black Betty but for my taste Pink Floyd's earlier music was not as good as their later music. I prefer their 70's stuff to their 60's stuff, they grew.
Lots of examples in movies too, Star-wars has never got old and I've enjoyed the hunger games series, I'm yet to see the Mockingjay part 2 but I'm sure I'll enjoy it like the rest of the movies. The Hangover, well that was fun, neat concept but once it's done it's done, I didn't even bothered with the sequels.
Oh and if you ever come across the movie called the "Hangover Games" It's entertaining in a very crass kind of a way. (maybe best avoided)
Too many examples either way on point two for me.
Jeroen