Contact

[sptmet]

Last week I decided I wanted to read Contact (Carl Sagan novel). I couldn't find my copy so Friday I picked up a new one. When I read it I was stuck by a number of things. The first was how the world changed on Dr. Sagan. The novel was published in 1985 and set in 1998 running through to 2000. Like everyone else, he missed the collapse of the

Comments

[confusiontempst]

What, you mean like the idealised through the looking glass pictures of the 50s we get?
Go out, work 8 hours with a paid lunch break, come home and spend some time with the wife and kids, go out to the local lodge of the Royal Water Buffalo?

Yeah, that shit sounds good, but I wonder if it was truly like that.
And even if forced to concede that it was, I'd have to point out that it wasn't like that for long, and that it wasn't a happy existence for all.

Personally I'll settle for a 9 till 5 somewhere, if I can find it, which ought to come to about 45-50 hours a week once you factor in the commute. And then I might be able to quietly imitate a real writer.

I wish that Warren Ellis hadn't banned unsolicited short stories on his posts, I've so caged myself with my own perceptions of myself and my place in the social strata that I don't want to dabble in fiction there.

[sptmet]

I bet you could get paid for it though.

[sptmet]

I'm not sure I agree with that. Is the whole Internet not a big enough discovery? I know it's technically not "new", but still.

There's a revolution in biotechnology warming up as well. Should hit pretty soon I'm thinking.

I will agree that the last few years have been pretty dull for art, at least as I see art (which is music mostly). Lots of re-mixes and remakes.

[confusiontempst]

Lets not forget the largescale stagnation of film and television.
WHat's the only "innovation" I can think of in TV?
"Reality TV" TM and Contest shows like American Idol.
That's it, that's the only thing thats changed, at least as far as I can tell, oh, and bikinis are a lot more itty bitty than they used to be.

[sptmet]

I stopped watching TV in '99, but from what the people talk about at work, what you say seems to be true.