Jules Verne: A Novelist Who Accurately Envisioned the Future

The future has been predicted by many people over the years, and some have been quite accurate in their predictions. In December of 1901, an article by Henry Litchfield West included his prediction that, “Aerial cars will ply between great centers of population, arriving and departing on fixed schedules and carrying their human cargoes (Hallion, pg.183).” Other people since and prior to West’s time have made accurate predictions, but very few have made accurate predictions within the framework of fiction like the visionary author, Jules Verne.

It was this world-famous French author, whose books have been translated into numerous languages, that has become known as the father of science fiction. Even today, the works of Jules Verne are popular and some of his books have been turned into movies, such as his books, Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth. In both of these books and in most of his other ones, Verne employs the use of vivid, scientific descriptions and technology that did not exist at the time his books were written. Such works of fiction fall into the genre known as science fiction, a genre pioneered by Jules Verne, who is known by many as the father of science fiction. Some might argue that H.G. Wells is also the father of science fiction. H.G. Wells started publishing his books in the 1890s, several decades after Jules Verne’s famous works (which were first published in the 1860s) appeared on bookshelves. Before H.G. Wells had penned his first published novel, Verne was taking his readers on strange adventures through uncharted territories and mysterious lands. His novel Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, published in 1869, explored the mysterious and hidden world beneath the sea, in a submarine: a vehicle that did not exist in the 1860s. In his novel From the Earth to the Moon, Jules Verne takes the reader on a journey through outer space in a space capsule, to visit the moon: something that would happen roughly a century later.

Unlike his other famous stories, which are more plausible, Jules Verne’s story about spelunking, Journey to the Center of the Earth, describes an underground cavern filled with a breathable atmosphere, huge mushrooms, a sea, dinosaurs, and giants. At the time of its creation, the geothermal gradient (the rate at which temperature increases with increasing depth in Earth’s interior) was not known and the technique of seismic reflection (the method of determining the density and type of material in the earth by means of creating an artificial seismic wave) had not been discovered yet. Today, the thought of sending such an expedition to the center of the earth is laughable and absurd, but not in Verne’s time. Despite breaking some scientific facts, Journey to the Center of the Earth still remains a well-read classic to this day. One might say, without making an overstatement, that Jules Verne was truly a creative genius who had a visionary and inventive mind that baffles us today with its phenomenal ingenuity and foresight.

His creative mind came up with ideas never thought of or penned down before: ideas which exist today as actual inventions. In an article titled In the Year 2889, published in 1889, he wrote about the future where people regularly communicated via a device that resembles the modern equivalent of video conferencing, where two or more parties can both see and hear each other live through computer or television screens. In this same article, Verne described a form of news that could be heard instead of read. Voices would replace newspaper print. This article was written several years before the first wireless transmission was made. It was on July 27, 1896 that the Italian inventor, Guglielmo Marconi, demonstrated to a small crowd wireless telegraphy for the first time.

Other fulfilled predictions Jules Verne has made include guns that can kill by means of electricity. In Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,  Captain Nemo’s men use guns that fire spheres charged with electricity.  On impact, the projectiles release a lethal dose of electricity. A similar technology exists today, which is used by law enforcement officers. The Taser is a small device which can stun by sending electricity through a pair of electrodes that are fired into the skin of a person or animal. Another of Captain Nemo’s impressive devices is a backpack for breathing, used by Nemo’s divers. It was many decades later that the SCUBA tank was invented. But, the most profound technology described in Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea was the Nautilus, a submarine that ran on battery power. At the time Verne had written his story, no battery-powered submarines existed.

Besides his accurate predictions about underwater technology, Jules Verne has also made stunning predictions about space travel. In his book From the Earth to the Moon, first published in 1865, Cape Canaveral is the launching place for the first manned mission to the Moon, and a bullet-shaped space capsule is fired from a huge cannon. The space travelers, who occupy this capsule, orbit around the Moon and return to Earth. In a manner similar to how the Apollo 11 capsule landed in the Atlantic, their pod splashes down in the ocean. An interesting fact is that it was 104 years after Verne’s book was first published that Apollo 11 was launched, in 1969.

This incredibly accurate ability of Verne to predict the future is not limited to his famous works. One of Jules Verne’s books, which has been in hiding for 131 years, was published for the first time in 1994. Well ahead if its time, Paris in the Twentieth Century is a story that includes descriptions of glass skyscrapers, gasoline-powered cars, and fax machines. The story was set in the year 1960 and portrayed a dystopian world with technology similar to what exists today. Verne’s editor, Pierre-Jules Hetzel, rejected the story as being inferior to his previous work. Hetzel wrote to Verne, saying, “No-one today will believe your prophecy (Bernstein).”

It was years later that Jules Verne was considered to be a kind of prophet and a man ahead of his time. Few men alive then (or today) could have accurately imagined the future and put it into a fictional form. His books include numerous technological inventions, many of which have come true in one way or another. His vivid descriptions and heroic adventures make his stories come alive and contribute to his enduring popularity. His influence has rubbed off on subsequent authors and a new genre of fiction has been formed: science fiction. Jules Verne’s legacy—his amazing foresight, realistic descriptions, attention to science, and sense of adventure—has acted as a springboard for other authors to dive off of into the world of science fiction where the imagination is free to explore the mysteries of the universe in a way that is scientifically plausible.

Works Cited

Hallion, Richard P. Taking Flight: Inventing the Aerial Age, from Antiquity through the First World War. 1st Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Print.

"Index Translationum." unesco.org. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2011.

Quinn, Ben. “Jules Verne, French science fiction pioneer, marked with Google doodle.” theguardian.co.uk. Guardian News and Media Limited, 7 Feb. 2011. Web. 27 Oct. 2011.

"Jules Verne Biography." notablebiographies.com. Advameg, Inc., n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2011.

"The Time Machine: An Invention." bartleby.com. Bartleby.com, n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2011.

Butcher, William. "A Chronology of Jules Verne." JV.Gilead.org.il. Zvi Har’El, 31 Jan. 2008. Web. 27 Oct. 2011.
"Science fiction." The American Heritage College Dictionary. 4th ed. 2004. Print.

"8 Jules Verne Inventions That Came True (Pictures)." nationalgeographic.com. National Geographic Society, 8 Feb 2011. Web. 27 Oct. 2011.

"Post Office: Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony." nationalarchives.gov.uk. The National Archives, n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2011.

Verne, Jules. Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Oxford: Oxford World's Classics, 1998. Print.

"Seismic Reflection." Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford University Press, n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2011.

"World of Earth Science." enotes.com. eNotes.com, Inc., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2011.

Verne, Jules. In the Year 2889. Rockville: Wildside Press, 2007. Print.

Dunne, Nora. "Is this sci fi - or the near future?" csmonitor.com. The Christian Science Monitor, 18 April 2011. Web. 27 Oct. 2011.

“Paris in the Twentieth Century.” Andres Vaccari. WordPress, n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2011.

Bernstein, Richard. "The New Jules Verne, Like '1984' but Older." NYTimes.com. The New York Times Company, 27 Dec. 1996. Web. 27 Oct. 2011.

"Jules Verne - the science fiction prophet." worldcolleges.info. worldcolleges.info, n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2011.

BOO!

Happy Halloween! This is one of the cartoons I posted before leaving for China on a university speaking tour sponsored by SIGNAL (the Sino Israel Global Network Academic Leadership).

I plan to return home to Israel on or about November 1st.

PANORAMICS

American Life

This Halloween cartoon is one of the cartoons I posted before leaving for China on a university speaking tour sponsored by SIGNAL (the Sino Israel Global Network Academic Leadership).

I plan to return home to Israel on or about November 1st.

Expert Opinon

This is one of the cartoons I posted before leaving for China on a speaking tour sponsored by SIGNAL (the Sino Israel Global Network Academic Leadership). I'll be the keynote speaker at the inaugural event of the first-ever Israel Studies Program in the history of China ...and am appearing at a number of other universities and think tanks.

I plan to return home to Israel on or about November 1st.

Are We In a Depression?

Are we in an economic depression? Are we unwilling to admit it? Those questions sparked today's offering, which is one of the cartoons I posted before leaving for China on a university speaking tour sponsored by SIGNAL (the Sino Israel Global Network Academic Leadership).

I plan to return home to Israel on or about November 1st.

[ SOLUTION ] Can't Change Desktop Background on Netbook using Windows 7 Starter Edition?

Unable to change your desktop background Windows 7 Starter!? I feel your pain.

Wouldn't it be great if you could change your desktop background using a basic Windows OS on a new computer like you could over 15 years ago? Well now you can. Microsoft apparently isn't making enough money to allow users the basic option of changing the desktop background on netbooks.

Thanks to some awesome people at Oceanis Software there is finally a simple solution after I have spent hours looking for "hacks" and what not. (Tested Today on my 2011 Acer Aspire One NAV50)

INSTRUCTIONS

Direct Download Link: http://dl.sevenforums.com/dl/Oceanis_Change_Background_W7.zip

Website with Over Detailed Instructions: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/47294-desktop-background-change-windows-7-starter.html

Just unzip the program and install, restart the machine, run the program and you're good to go.

Windows 7 starter background changer solution by Oceanis

Pretty simple from there with many options such as desktop slideshows and all sorts of stuff. It's just nice to not have that poverty Windows Starter background anymore.




Rob Leslie
http://www.lesliemedia.com

Mind Reading Technology is No Longer Fictional

The concept of mind-reading, telepathy, or the transference of thoughts from person to person without any direct communication between them, has been in existence for only a little over a century. The word ‘telepathy’ was coined by Frederick W. H. Myers in 1882 and has remained a concept with no scientific proof it could ever occur. During experiments, the subjects, who could supposedly communicate telepathically, would give subtle, nonverbal cues, such as tapping out Morse code with coins. Though Myers was wrong about mind-reading being possible through so-called psychic abilities, reading minds, nevertheless, is possible through the use of modern technology. Mind-reading is no longer fiction: it is a fact.

As a fanciful notion, mind-reading technology has been around a long time. In the year 1919, a whimsical article appeared in The Syracuse Herald entitled “This Machine Records All Your Thoughts”. The imaginary device would record one’s thoughts as fluctuating waves on a long roll of paper, similar to how a seismograph records earth tremors. What is more absurd about such a device is that a secretary had to interpret the waves scrawled on the roll and type out the corresponding words. It would seem more logical to simply dictate to the secretary the sentences one wanted to write.

Another early reference to mind-reading technology appeared in Isaac Asimov’s book “I, Robot”, which was published in 1950. A robot capable of reading people’s minds decides to only tell people what he knows they want to hear instead of answering truthfully. The scenario of the robot lying was used to demonstrate some of the possible ways Asimov’s three laws of robotics could be altered. These laws were his idea for general principles robots should be programmed to have.

Though Asimov’s mind-reading robot is fictional, mind-reading technology is not. In 2007, a team of neuroscientists performed an experiment using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner. Volunteers were asked to decide whether to add or subtract two numbers which were to later appear on a screen. Before the numbers appeared, each volunteer had a brain scan. Using the data obtained from the scans, the scientists could be used a special computer program to predict what choice each volunteer would make. The predictions were correct 70 percent of the time.

Another brain-scanning technology allows scientists to reconstruct images a person has seen. A team of researchers, at the University of California, Berkeley, headed by Jack Gallant, a neuroscientist, has conducted an experiment where they had participants view brief video clips from YouTube. Using advanced computer software, images seen in the brains of the participants could be reconstructed. A computer matched reconstructed images taken from the participants’ brains with images from the YouTube videos. Though the reconstructed images looked blurry and more like modern art, they did resemble the images from the YouTube videos.

Reconstructing images from the brain is just the beginning of the technological mind-reading trend. Mind-reading applications are being sold at the Apple App Store. One application (or app) called “W.I.L.D.” allows players to do activities such as extinguishing fires, walking through landscapes, and bending spoons. By using a special set of headphones that acts like an electroencephalograph (EEG) machine, brain activity is recorded and sent to a portable device, such as an iphone. The program can detect a change in brain activity, such as concentration or relaxation and used both states to control the games in the application.

Such technology, or similar technology, has potential for many other uses. One, in particular, is a wheelchair for disabled people who do not have the use of their arms. Toyota, a car manufacturer, and RIKEN, a research lab, have partnered to design and build an electric wheelchair that responds to thought commands. The user of the wheelchair wears a cap filled with sensors monitoring his or her brainwaves. By thinking a clear and straightforward command such as “turn left” or “turn right” the user can navigate the wheelchair without touching a single control. This mind-reading technology is now being applied to the auto industry.  (Continued on the next page)

Researchers at EFPL in Switzerland are incorporating the technology of a mind-controlled wheelchair they created into a new project to build a computer system that can anticipate an automobile driver’s intentions. If, for example, a driver wants to slow down for a turn, the car will begin to decelerate before the driver puts his or her foot on the break petal. According to José del R. Millán, a leader of the research project, the reason for the project is to harmonize the driver/vehicle relationship for better efficiency.

Where technology progresses from here remains to be seen, but there are many possible outcomes for the future. One possible outcome might be a mind-reading computer interface for personal computers, phones, cars, and household appliances. Imagine waking up from sleep one morning and thinking, “Turn on the light”. Instantly, the bedroom light glows to life. Once you have finished breakfast, you hop into your car and drive all the way to work without using the steering wheel, gas pedal, or breaks. As you step inside your office, you think, “Computer, turn on.” Your desktop computer boots up and once it is ready, you mentally log on.

Another possibility is that the internet itself becomes a virtual reality network connecting billions of minds and machines together. By simply wearing a special cap over your head, and closing your eyes, you may be able to see a three-dimensional construct in your brain. You could access a search engine, send messages, watch three-dimensional movies, and explore virtual worlds in your mind. The cap would monitor your brain activity while simultaneously stimulating certain areas of your brain, such as the visual cortex, to create the virtual construct in your brain. The cap would be connected to a wireless network of computers and other users. Thoughts and ideas could be shared instantly and with little or no difficulty. To leave the virtual world, you simply remove the cap and open your eyes.

The downside of such technology would be the likelihood that people would become addicted to it and would cease to function normally in the real world. Scientists are still learning about the brain and how it functions. Extended periods of stimulation by an electrical device and extensive amounts of time spent in a virtual reality simulation may have unforeseen, adverse effects on health. The implications of mind-reading technology may include a loss of mental privacy since your thoughts might be recorded and seen by many other individuals without your knowledge or consent. Whether this happens or not, mind-reading technology is being slowly introduced into society. It is no longer just the figment of a creative mind; mind-reading technology is a reality.

In summary, the concept of mind-reading technology has existed for a long time, but before the 2000s, mind-reading technology had been entirely fictional. Today, with modern computer software and brain scanners, scientists have developed mind-reading devices, or devices which read and interpret the activity of the brain. Such technology has much potential to enhance living standards, but also possesses the potential for causing harm. How scientists use their resources to effectively manage their creations will affect the future, positively or negatively. We can hope that they make wise decisions.

 Works Cited

"This Machine Records All Your Thoughts (1919)." Paleo-Future. 18 May 2007. paleofuture.com. 19 Oct. 2011 <http://paleo-future.blogspot.com/2007/05/this-machine-records-all-your-thoughts.html>.

“Telepathy.” skepdic.com. Robert T. Carroll. 12 Sep. 2010. Robert T. Carroll. 20 Oct. 2011 <http://skepdic.com/telepath.html>.

Clarke, Roger. "Asimov's Laws of Robotics: Implications for Information Technology." rogerclarke.com. 27 Jan. 1994. Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd. 20 Oct. 2011 <http://www.rogerclarke.com/SOS/Asimov.html>. 

"Bibliography: I, Robot." isfdb.org. No Date. Al von Ruff. 20 Oct. 2011 <http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?17201>.

Sample, Ian. "The brain scan that can read people's intentions." theguardian.co.uk. 8 Feb. 2007. Guardian News and Media Ltd. 19 Oct. 2011 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/feb/09/neuroscience.ethicsofscience>. 

Ritter, Malcolm. “Mind-reading technology reconstructs videos from brain.” theage.com.au. 23 Sep. 2011. Fairfax Media. 19 Oct. 2011 <http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/mindreading-technology-reconstructs-videos-from-brain-20110923-1ko5s.html>.

"Mind controlled apps hit the market." latimes.com. 14 April 2011. Los Angeles Times. 19 Oct. 2011 <http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/04/mind-controlled-apps-hit-the-market.html>.

Hornyak, Tim. "Brain-Controlled Wheelchair Is '95 Percent Accurate.'" news.nationalgeographic.com. 2 July 2009. National Geographic Society. 20 Oct. 2011 <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090702-brain-controlled-wheelchair.html>. 

Boyle, Rebecca. "Nissan Developing Mind-Reading Cars That Anticipate Drivers' Next Moves and Act Accordingly." PopSci.com. 28 Sep. 2011. Bonnier Corporation. 19 Oct. 2011 <http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2011-09/future-mind-reading-cars-will-anticipate-drivers-next-moves-and-act-accordingly>.

  

Non-Destructive Hard Drive Disk Partitioning Recommendation: Minitool Partition Wizard Home Edition v7.0

I only recommend things that have made me extremely happy in their use and software design. This is a very cool piece of software and amazingly enough it is absolutely FREE!

Free Partition Recovery Software for Windows XP, Windows 7

Tested Using Minitool Partition Wizard Home Edition v7.0

I tested this on my Acer Aspire1 Netbook running a garbage version of Windows 7 (so I can install Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux) and to my amazement it worked perfectly without affecting any files.


DOWNLOAD LINK: http://www.partitionwizard.com/download.html

Chances are that if you're familiar with disk partitioning then you don't need a tutorial. This software is incredibly simple to partition any unused disk space to your heart's content. For major changes such as partitioning the main operating system drive the program will need to restart as shown below.

Free Non-destructive Disk Partitioning at work after Restarting

Roundup Time

The Arabs have never been able to establish a coherent civilization uniting the lands of the Syrians, Phoenicians, Iraqis, Egyptians, Berbers, and the other nations and peoples across the Middle East that they conquered. The Ottoman Turks and the Persian Iranians are, however a different story.

The Arabs are now in turmoil and disarray ...and the Turks and Persians are moving to grab and control the pieces.

* * * Today's cartoon is one that I posted before leaving on my speaking tour of Chinese universities and think tanks. * * *
Tonight is Erev Simhat Torah.

Hag Sameah!!

Next cartoon on Monday, October 24.

Indian Elder's View on Why the US will Collapse from Within

 

Some interesting ways of looking at the progression of the earth since the first Europeans arrived in North America. I have say that I agree with this man.

How to Change Your Facebook Profile Picture

CLICK on your name on the top left corner

Mouse over your profile picture to reveal a box that says "CHANGE PICTURE" and CLICK on it

CLICK "BROWSE"

Then select your photo that is saved on you computer and it will take a little bit of time to upload depending on the file size of the photo. Easiest to save the picture to the DESKTOP to find it quickly.




(Recently someone asked me how to do this which is why I had this typed up, maybe it will actually help someone out there... who knows.)

the China Israel Connection

The modern State of Israel and the modern state of China were created within 15 months of each other in the 1948-49 period. But both Chinese and Israelite history go back through thousands of years before 1948-49, each in our own homeland.

The first-ever Israel Studies Program in the history of Chinese universities is about to celebrate the inauguration of its first Academic year. The program was created and established by SIGNAL (Sino-Israel Global Network & Academic Leadership) at the International Relations School at Sichuan International Studies University(SISU) in association with the Center for Jewish & Chinese Studies (CJCS) based at SISU.

I'm proud to have been asked by SIGNAL to be the keynote speaker at the inaugural event at SISU. I am also pleased that SIGNAL has invited me to lecture at universities and think tanks across China throughout the second half of October. If all goes right, as you read this, I'll be heading east to Shanghai, Beijing, Henan and Chongqing.

I expect to be back in Israel on Nov. 1st.

* * * I left some cartoons to automatically post while I'm away. Enjoy

Sukkot 5772

Hag Sameah!

Happy Holiday
to us all!!

(Next Cartoon on Monday October 17).

Sukkot (2004)

September 20, 2004

Today's Golden Oldie was published in 2004 ...but it was a rerun ...another one of the very few cartoons that I repeated a cartoon. So 2004 was the second time that I ran the cartoon, but I just can't find the original. 2004 was before I had the blog, which, for me, defines it as a "golden oldie". So here's one of my favorite cartoons! Again!

Tomorrow is Erev Sukkot, the eve of this week-long holiday. To browse my previous postings about Sukkot just click on the word Sukkot.

Wall Fairy

My girlfriend has this on her wall.

CERN

You probably blinked and missed two news items recently out of CERN.

The first item was that physicists at CERN had reported that they had observed neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light!! CERN is the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva, Switzerland and the speed of light is the fastest that anything can move, according to Einstein's theories.

That first CERN news item was discussed in a piece in the Chicago Tribune headlined "Was Einstein wrong?"

"...a cornerstone of Einsteinian theory is that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, about 186,000 miles a second.

If that is wrong, and something can outstrip light speed, then 100-plus years of physics — everything from the subatomic to theories of how the universe evolved — suddenly is up for revision. The universe doesn't work the way we thought it did. We don't really know what we thought we knew.

"It would be amazing, everyone would be jumping up and down like crazy," Cal Tech theoretical physicist Sean Carroll told us. "It would certainly be the most surprising discovery in the last 100 years." -more

* * * The second CERN news item that week was the news that the CERN project had officially made Israel the fifth associate member of the project, joining the United States, Russia, India, and Japan. According to the Jerusalem Post:

"Israel last week officially became a formal associate member of the Center of European Nuclear Research (CERN) particle accelerator project, lending the country significant prestige in the global academic and research community...

...Israel was named one of five countries recognized unanimously as “being worthy” of joining the project. CERN has even ordered parts from Israeli industry and sent experts to visit on a regular basis. It took two years for the final invitation to be received. Israel’s high level of theoretical and practical know-how – much greater than Israel’s proportionate size – was greatly appreciated at CERN and is responsible for Israel’s path toward recognition as a official member..." -more

Looking for new Music?

http://www.mtv.ca/music/video_type.jhtml?id=1296

Personally I'm getting sick of hearing mostly the same old jazz on the radio and listening to my overplayed unorganized MP3s so I was very happy to find the "SPANKIN NEW" section on the MTV website. Plays some annoying commercials every so often but still, great place to find some up and coming music and unique videos.

Ray Bradbury's Fulfilled Predictions for the Future

The origin of "Fahrenheit 451" started with Ray Bradbury's short story "Bright Phoenix," written in 1947. The short story was rewritten into the novella "The Fireman", and published in a 1951 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction, a periodical. Later, it was expanded and given the title "Fahrenheit 451".

The story is about a futuristic world in which firemen do not put out fires, but start them. These firemen are the law enforcement officers who were given the directive to burn books and to arrest those who own the books.

 

Most people do not read books. Rather, they watch TV and participate in interactive television shows where the audience can interact with the person in the TV screen. Surprisingly, the televisions take up most of a wall and seem strikingly similar to the large flat-screen televisions of today.

Other technological wonders in Bradbury's book include tiny radios that fit into one's ear. The wife of Montag, the main character of the story, constantly listens to music through tiny ear radios. This is hardly different from what we have today.

 

Montag, the protagonist of the story, is a fireman who has hidden away, in his house, books which should have been burned. Eventually discovered, he decides to flee from his home town. While out in the country, Montag ends up meeting a group of survivalists who have memorized books and are able to quote them verbatim.

 

Ray Bradbury has stated that "Fahrenheit 451" is not about the topic of censorship. Rather, he said, it is a story of how television destroys interest in reading literature, leading to a replacement of knowledge with "factoids": partial information devoid of context, such as Napoleon's birth date with no explanation of who he was.

 

Could this be somewhat prophetic of today? Without a doubt. Many people have ear buds connecting them to their ipods, massive plasma-screen televisions in their living rooms, and an addiction to watching TV. At the time the book was being written, televisions were a new technology and not everyone had one. Today, the average American watches four hours of TV per day, according to the A.C. Nielson Company. By the age of 65, a person would have spent nine years of his or her life watching TV. How beneficial was that time spent watching TV?

 

According to a study conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute of the University of California Los Angeles, 15- to 24-year-olds read for only, on average, 7-10 minutes each day, for their own pleasure. At the same time, this same category of young adults watches TV, on average, for 2-2.5 hours each day.

 

Sadly, it seems TV has a hold on the general population, just as Bradbury imagined it would. Some questions come to mind: 'Is there something that can be done to change this trend?' and 'Will fiction books become obsolete?'

 

Despite all this, a new type of book has come out of obscurity and has now surpassed traditional hard cover and soft cover book sales. The ebook is an electronic book that can be downloaded onto a portable device, such as a kindle, a smartphone, or a personal computer. Early in 2010, Amazon announced that it sold 105 ebooks for every 100 normal books. In July 2010, Amazon announced that the sale of ebooks had surpassed the sale of traditional books. According to Amazon, for every 100 paper books sold, 143 kindle ebooks were purchased. A new form of book has taken the stage. Part of this increase was due to the sales of Apple's new ipad with its kindle apps and Amazon's reduced price on its basic Kindle.

 

Where technology goes from here remains to be seen, but the future may hold many surprises: surprises that Ray Bradbury could not have imagined. Will ebooks completely replace regular books? Only time will tell.

  Works Cited


Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. Los Angeles: Ballantine Books, 1953. Print.

"About the Book: Fahrenheit 451." ebr.lib.la.us. East Baton Rouge Parish Library, n.d. Web. 30 Sep. 2011.

Johnston, Amy E. Boyle. "Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 Misinterpreted." laweekly.com. LA Weekly, LP, 30 May 2007. Web. 30 Sep. 2011.

Herr, Norman, Ph.D. "Television & Health." csun.edu. California State University, Northridge, n.d. Web. 30 Sep. ‎2011.

"Amazon.com Now Selling More Kindle Books Than Print Books." amazon.com. Amazon.com, May 19, 2011. Web. 6 Oct. 2011.

Miller, Clair Cain "E-Books Top Hardcovers at Amazon." nytimes.com. New York Times, July 19, 2010. Web. 6 Oct. 2011.

                                    

                                     

Yom Kippur (2004)

August 23, 2004

Today's Golden Oldie was published in 2004 ...but it was a rerun ...one of the very few cartoons that I repeated a cartoon. So 2004 was the second time that I ran the cartoon. That was before I had the blog, which, for me, defines it as a "golden oldie". So here's one of my favorite cartoons! Again!

Tomorrow is Erev Yom Kippur. Have an Easy Fast! Next cartoon on Monday.

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech

When I first stumbled upon these words in 2007 I barely knew who Steve Jobs was. After reading this commencement speech I was truly baffled at his incredible vision for life itself and immediately considered him to be my greatest role model. Steve Jobs has had such an incredibly beautiful path in his life and his vision for creation is something I will always look up to.

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 

CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now. This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Germany in the Eurozone

If Germany left the Eurozone, then Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the others would be in balance, the Euro would fall to its real value and the German Mark would be re-established as a stronger currency alongside the British Pound.

Or is there something that I don't understand?

3-day weekend (1980)

September 15, 1980

Today's Golden Oldie is from 1980.

Now, as back in 1980, we've just had a three-day Rosh HaShana weekend. Shana Tova!

Obama, Pollard, the Jews, and Joe Biden

The Story, breaking as I write this:

Biden: Pollard pardon over my dead body
"The NYT reported Saturday that in a recent meeting between Biden and 15 rabbis in Florida – meant to bolster the Jewish community's support of the presidential campaign – the vice president was asked about the Obama administration's reluctance to release Pollard, who was imprisoned in 1986, after he was convicted of spying for Israel.

“President Obama was considering clemency, but I told him, 'Over my dead body are we going to let him out before his time,'" Biden reportedly told the group. “If it were up to me, he would stay in jail for life.” (Ynet)

And more details here:

Biden prevented Pollard clemency, NYT reports
October 2, 2011
(JTA) -- "President Obama was considering clemency for convicted spy for Israel Jonathan Pollard until Vice President Joseph Biden prevented it, the New York Times reported.

“President Obama was considering clemency, but I told him, ‘Over my dead body are we going to let him out before his time,’ ” Biden said during a meeting with rabbis in Boca Raton, Fla., according to the newspaper. “If it were up to me, he would stay in jail for life,” he reportedly added.

Pollard was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for spying for Israel. He is scheduled for mandatory parole in November 2015. In recent months, Obama has received a flood of appeals from Congress members and former government officials to grant Pollard clemency.

Pollard recently successfully underwent kidney-related surgery.

Obama is relying on Biden for help in his reelection campaign with American-Jewish voters, the New York Times article said." -more