mgr's weblog

Earth

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 11:23:54 GMT

"Funny, funny word play! … I'd like to tell them, 'Look, madam, why the hell should we be interested in your damned world? We don't want to be hanging on the outside of any planet and waiting to fall off or get blown off. We don't want raw air puffing at us and dirty water falling on us. We don't want your damned germs and your smelly grass and your dull blue sky and your dull white clouds. We can see Earth in our own sky when we want to, and we don't often want to. The Moon is our home and it's what we make it; exactly what we make it. We own it and we build our own ecology, and we don't need you here being sorry for us going our own way. Go back to your own world and let your gravity pull your breasts down to your knees.' That's when I'd say."

Isaac Asimov, The Gods themselves, 1972, pp. 233/234.

Nice and well written book. Physics, science fiction, sex education / facts of life, emancipation of women. Really a book of the seventies!

Thanks, Johann, for the recommendation and for lending it to me!

The English Wikipedia mentions an interesting comment by Isaac Asimov concerning the middle section of the book:

Read the whole article.

Vortrag:
Geschichte des Schriftsatzes und des Buchdruckes

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 12:10:01 GMT

Ui, so lange Zeit kein neuer Eintrag! Na, es gibt einfach zu viele Dinge. Ich m��te mal etwas �ber meine Atmel-Forth-Spielereien mit amforth und (color) avrforth berichten, meine (z�gigen) Matrizen-Libraries f�r Common Lisp, Delphi 2007 und Free Pascal ver�ffentlichen und zig B�cher erw�hnen… Achja!

In den letzten Wochen habe ich einen Vortrag vor unterschiedlichem Publikum gehalten: einem kleinen Typographie-Seminar an der Hochschule f�r Gestaltung (5.11.2008), dem Entropia (16.11.2008) und dem Institut f�r Betriebs- und Dialogsysteme, Forschungsbereich Angewandte Geometrie und Computergraphik unter der Leitung von Herrn Professor Prautzsch, der so freundlich gewesen ist, gleich eine Einladung an die Mitarbeiter der Fakult�t f�r Informatik vorzuschlagen. Dieser sind — sehr zu meiner Freude — Mitglieder und Leiter verschiedener Institute gefolgt:

Geschichte des Schriftsatzes und des Buchdruckes

Read the whole article.

The single most important truth about mankind

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:55:29 GMT

"I'm not sure that if I hadn't met people from Tarnover I would believe you. If I can judge by them, through . . ."

"Be assured they're typical. They've been systematically steered away from understanding of the single most important truth about mankind. It's as though you were to comb the continent for the kindest, most generous, most considerate individuals you could find, and then spend years persuading them that because such attitudes are rare, they must be abnormal and should be cured."

"What most important truth?"

"You tell me. You've known it all your life. You live by its compass."

"Anything to do with my reason for getting interested in you in the first place? I noticed how hard you were trying to conform to a stock pattern. It seemed like a dreadful waste."

"That's it. One charge I made against Freeman which I won't retract: I accused him of dealing not in human beings but in approximations to a preordained model of a human being. I really am glad he decided to give it up. Bad habit!"

"Then I know what you're talking about. It's the uncertainty principle."

"Of course. The opposite of evil. Everything implied by that shopworn term 'free will.' Ever run across the phrase 'the new conformity'?"

"Yes, and it's terrifying. In an age when we have more choice than ever before, more mobility, more information, more opportunity to fulfill ourselves, how is it that people can prefer to be identical? The plug-in life-style makes me puke."

"But the concept has been sold with such persistence, the majority of people feel afraid not to agree that it's the best way of keeping track in a chaotic world. As it were: 'Everybody else says it is—who am I to argue?'"

"I am I."

"Tat tvam asi."

John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider, 1975, pp. 233/234.

Tolles Buch. Am Anfang bin ich nicht gut reingekommen, aber nach vierzig, f�nfzig Seiten hat sich das gegeben, und im Gegenteil hat das Buch angefangen, mir sehr zu gefallen.

Read the whole article.

Fettered with too great a range of possibilities

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:32:55 GMT

"I recall a point made in one of the Disasterville monographs. I think it was number 6. Stripped of the material belongings which had located them in society, a lot of refugees who formerly held responsible, status-high positions broke down into whining useless parasites. Leadership passed to those with more flexible minds—not only kids who hadn't ossified yet, but adults who previously had been called unpractical, dreamers, even failures. The one thing they had in common seemed to be a free-ranging imagination, regardless of whether it was due to their youth or whether it had lasted into maturity and fettered them with too great a range of possibilities for them to settle to any single course of action."

"How well I know that feeling. And wouldn't an injection of imagination be good for our society right now? I say we've had an overdose of harsh reality. A bit of fantasy would act as an antidote."

John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider, 1975, p. 233.

Ich hab's zus�tzlich mal ins Deutsche �bersetzt:

"Ich entsinne mich einer Sache aus einer der Disasterville-Monographien. Ich glaube, es war Nummer 6. Entledigt aller materiellen Besitzt�mer, die Ihre gesellschaftliche Stellung bestimmt hatten, sind viele Fl�chtlinge, die ehemals verantwortungsvolle Positionen von hohem Status innehielten, zusammengebrochen zu wimmernden, unn�tzen Parasiten. F�hrung ist auf jene mit beweglicherem Geist gefallen — nicht nur Kinder, die noch nicht verkn�chert waren, sondern Erwachsene, die zuvor unpraktisch, Tr�umer oder gar Versager genannt worden waren. Die eine Sache, die sie gemeinsam hatten, schien eine freilaufende Vorstellungskraft zu sein, unabh�ngig davon, ob dies an Ihrer Jugend lag oder ob sie in die Reife �berdauert hat und sie eingeschr�nkt hat durch eine f�r sie zu gro�e Welt an M�glichkeiten, als da� sie sich auf einen Weg f�r Ihr Tun h�tten festlegen k�nnen.

"Wie sehr ich dieses Gef�hl kenne. Und w�rde nicht eine Dosis Vorstellungskraft unserer Gesellschaft im Augenblick gut tun? Ich sage, wir hatten eine �berdosis rauher Realit�t. Ein bi�chen Phantasie w�rde als Gegenmittel wirken."

Read the whole article.

"I'd like to be a desert plant."

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 02:39:54 GMT

The Intercessor said, "I am here to take you away. Where would you like to go, Seth Morley? What would you like to be?"

"An illusion, you mean?" he said. "Like our polyencephalic worlds?"

"No," the Intercessor said. "You will be free; you will die and be reborn. I will guide you to what you want, and to what is fitting and proper for you. Tell me what it is."

"You don't want me to kill the others," Seth Morley said, with abrupt comprehension. "By opening the vents."

The Intercessor inclined his head in a nod. "It is for each of them to decide. You may decide only for yourself."

"I'd like to be a desert plant," Seth Morley said. "That could see the sun all day. I want to be growing. Perhaps a cactus on some warm world. Where no one will bother me."

"Agreed."

"And sleep," Seth Morley said. "I want to be asleep but still aware of the sun and of myself."

"That is the way with plants," the Intercessor said. "They sleep. And yet they know themselves to exist. Very well." He held out his hand to Seth Morley. "Come along."

Reaching, Seth Morley touched the Intercessor's extended hand. Strong fingers closed around his own hand. He felt happy. He had never before been so glad.

"You will live and sleep for a thousand years," the Intercessor said, and guided him away from where he stood, into the stars."

Philip K. Dick, A Maze of Death, 1970, p. 187.

Read the whole article.

"Nicht gl�cklich sein, h�chstens zufrieden"

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 15:08:50 GMT

"Hast du denn kein Verlangen nach Gl�ck, mit anderen zusammen?"

Die Frau: "Nein. Ich m�chte nicht gl�cklich sein, h�chstens zufrieden. Ich habe Angst vor dem Gl�ck. Ich glaube, ich w�rde es nicht aushalten, da im Kopf. Ich w�rde wahnsinnig werden f�r immer, oder sterben. Oder ich w�rde jemanden ermorden."

Franziska: "Willst du denn dein Leben lang so allein bleiben? Gibt es keine Sehnsucht nach einem Menschen, der mit Leib und Seele dein Freund w�re?"

Die Frau rief: "O ja. O ja. — Aber ich m�chte nicht wissen, wer er ist. Auch wenn ich immer mit ihm zusammen w�re, wollte ich ihn nie kennenlernen. Nur eins h�tte ich gern", sie l�chelte wie �ber sich —, "da� er ungeschickt w�re, ein rechter T�lpel; ich wei� selber nicht, warum."

Aus Peter Handtke, Die linksh�ndige Frau, 1976.

(Siehe auch Hesses Steppenwolf �ber das B�rgertum.)

Read the whole article.

"Warm on the outside"

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 00:34:06 GMT

"We have worked together on this a long time," Donna said in a moderate, steady voice. "I don't want to be on this much longer. I want it to end. Sometimes at night, when I can't sleep, I think, shit, we are even colder than they are. The adversary."

"I don't see a cold person when I look at you," Westaway said. "Although I guess I really don't know you all that well. What I do see, and see clearly, is one of the warmest persons I ever knew."

"I am warm on the outside, what people see. Warm eyes, warm face, warm fucking fake smile, but inside I am cold all the time, and full of lies. I am not what I seem to be; I am awful." The girl's voice remained steady, and as she spoke she smiled. Her pupils were large and mellow and without guile. "But, then, there's no other way. Is there?"

Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly, 1977, pp. 256/257.

Read the whole article.

Wahnidee Wirklichkeit

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:30:42 GMT

Wie bereits angedeutet, ist der Glaube, da� die eigene Sicht der Wirklichkeit die Wirklichkeit schlechthin bedeute, eine gef�hrliche Wahnidee. Sie wird dann aber noch gef�hrlicher, wenn sie sich mit der messianischen Berufung verbindet, die Welt dementsprechend aufkl�ren und ordnen zu m�ssen — gleichg�ltig, ob die Welt diese Ordnung w�nscht oder nicht. Die Weigerung, sich einer bestimmten Definition der Wirklichkeit (zum Beispiel einer Ideologie) zu verschreiben, die "Anma�ung", die Welt in eigener Sicht zu sehen und auf eigene Fa�on selig zu werden, wird immer h�ufiger zum "think-crime" in Orwells Sinne abgestempelt, je mehr wir uns dem Jahre 1984 n�hern.

Paul Watzlawick, Wie wirklich ist die Wirklichkeit? — Wahn, T�uschung, Verstehen, 1976.

Read the whole article.

"I see only murk. Murk outside; murk inside."

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:24:27 GMT

He paid the driver, got out his door key, and entered the house.

Immediately he felt something watching: the holo-scanners on him. As soon as he crossed his own threshold. Alone—no one but him in the house. Untrue! Him and the scanners, insidious and invisible, that watched him and recorded. Everything he did. Everything he uttered.

Like the scrawls on the wall when you're peeing in a public urinal, he thought. smile! you're on candid camera! I am, he thought, as soon as I enter this house. It's eerie. He did not like it. He felt self-conscious; the sensation had grown since the first day, when they'd arrived home—the "dog-shit day," as he thought of it, couldn't keep from thinking of it. Each day the experience of the scanners had grown.

"Nobody home, I guess," he stated aloud as usual, and was aware that the scanners had picked that up. But he had to take care always: he wasn't supposed to know they were there. Like an actor before a movie camera, he decided, you act like the camera doesn't exist or else you blow it. It's all over.

And for this shit there are no take-two's.

What you get instead is wipeout. I mean, what I get. Not the people behind the scanners but me.

What I ought to do, he thought, to get out of this, is sell the house; it's run down anyway. But . . . I love this house. No way!

It's my house.

Nobody can drive me out.

For whatever reasons they would or do want to.

Assuming there's a "they" at all.

Which may just be my imagination, the "they" watching me. Paranoia. Or rather the "it." The depersonalized it.

Whatever it is that's watching, it is not a human.

Not by my standards, anyhow. Not what I'd recognize.

As silly as this is, he thought, it's frightening. Something is being done to me and by a mere thing, here in my own house. Before my very eyes.

Within something's very eyes; within the sight of some blink. What does a scanner see? he asked himself. I mean, really see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does a passive infrared scanner like they used to use or a cube-type holo-scanner like they use these days, the latest thing, see into me—into us—clearly or darkly? I hope it does, he thought, see clearly, because I can't any longer these days see into myself. I see only murk. Murk outside; murk inside. I hope, for everyone's sake, the scanners do better. Because, he thought, if the scanner sees only darkly, the way I myself do, then we are cursed, cursed again and like we have been continually, and we'll wind up dead this way, knowing very little and getting that little fragment wrong too.

Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly, 1977, pp. 184/185.

(Wer gerade nichts mit dem Namen anfangen kann: Die Filme Blade Runner (1982), Total Recall (1990), Minority Report (2002), Imposter (2002), Paycheck (2003), Next (2007) — und A Scanner Darkly (2007) basieren allesamt auf Romanen beziehungsweise Kurzgeschichten von Philip K. Dick.)

A Scanner Darkly ist nicht gerade leicht zu verdauen, doch wer will schon nur Gepl�tscher lesen. In der englischen Wikipedia gibt es eine ziemlich brauchbare Kurzbeschreibung:

A Scanner Darkly (1977) is a bleak mixture of science fiction and police procedural novels; in its story, an undercover narcotics police detective begins to lose touch with reality after falling victim to the same permanently mind altering drug, Substance D, he was enlisted to help fight. Substance D is instantly addictive, beginning with a pleasant euphoria which is quickly replaced with increasing confusion, hallucinations and eventually total psychosis. In this novel, as with all Dick novels, there is an underlying thread of paranoia and dissociation with multiple realities perceived simultaneously.

Read the whole article.

mgr's weblog

Earth

Vortrag: Geschichte des Schriftsatzes und des Buchdruckes

Geschichte des Schriftsatzes und des Buchdruckes

The single most important truth about mankind

Fettered with too great a range of possibilities

"I'd like to be a desert plant."

"Nicht gl�cklich sein, h�chstens zufrieden"

"Warm on the outside"

Wahnidee Wirklichkeit

"I see only murk. Murk outside; murk inside."

Vortrag:
Geschichte des Schriftsatzes und des Buchdruckes