From a book printed way back when

From the book "Intro to Data Processing"  by Carl Feingold c.1971, 1975:    Page 41...

“Computer hardware will continue its trend towards miniaturization. The era of the complete circuit is just beginning. It is reasonable to assume that within the next ten years we will see a complete computer on a single chip. A “Microcomputer” with about 8,000 to 16,000 words of storage, an instruction set of 64 to 96 commands, about 16 general-purpose registers, and input-output bus on a single chip will be a reality within the next two to three years. In ten years, such a chip will probably sell for under fifty dollars. The impact of this type of microcomputer will be felt in all walks of life.

P.42 “...Every home could have a built-in communications system similar to cable television, which would allow the user to have the world's information at his immediate disposal without having to leave his home. If we allow our imagination to work on all potential uses of computers, there will be no end.”

p.44 “...Automatic programming to continue to improve, improvement in input and output devices, greater use of video displays, continued miniaturization of computer hardware, computers that can respond to the spoken word, integrated network of systems to transmit data from one system to another, the possible elimination of the paycheck, are just a few of the new innovations being developed. The appearance of the 'microcomputer', a complete circuit on a single chip may affect all aspects of society...”

Hell yes. 
 

Once again convenience rules

How dependent we become on modern convenience - like home Internet always on.   Nine days ago my dial tone and DSL disappeared.   At first, my inquiry found a recorded message about a cable cut.  So I waited, and waited...and finally figured I should call again after a week.  I did, and this time they scheduled a technician to come out, two days later.   They must have found the problem, because today when I got home from work, there was a strong dial tone  (what a sweet sound).    Meantime I had used wi-fi with a tablet at my local library.  

     It was an educational hiatus for sure.  A way to get used to mobile Internetting and computing.   My only limitation is the one-finger typing you do on a virtual keyboard.  But I understand you can get Bluetooth keyboards and such for tablets.  No need for that now, but good to know just in case.   The near-pervasiveness of Wi-Fi is a godsend when things go down at home.  But all of the once-in-awhile sites I visit will finally get re-visited.   Lots of junk mail to delete.    Happy Netting, wherever you access it from.  (In the near future it will probably be hardwired into our brains anyway.)

Some choice selections

Here they are:

www.createspace.com/4281639   - A Strange Enterprise

www.createspace.com/3859469    - Future Property

www.createspace.com/4661301  - The Osmotics

www.createspace.com/3633147  - Mirror Worlds

All science fiction collections for your enjoyment, they are also listed on Amazon.com, and all should currently be available in Kindle e-book form.    Enjoy  :-)

Iowa not-so-secret

Go ahead,

mock yourself with corny bacon humor,
frighten the outsiders with tales of overwork,
tasselling, baling, sweating, shoveling manure
out all over the place for 50 cents and a laugh.

Coat that luscious spring beauty with

bacon grease and tales of woe,
but you won't fool me. I've been around,
seen the beautiful spots, taken in fragrance
of sheer growth surges and color displays.

You hide your secrets well,

your brightened tourist depots,
sunny bike trails and laughing youth,
polite guides charmed to have a visitor,
ready with answers to most questions.

Your picnic tables overflow with

delicious home cooked abundance,
Your river valleys can awe with the
best of the mountain ranges...

All the more so,

since they can be driven to,
no ropes or parachutes required.
Just a bicycle, for the best views.

Go ahead and

throw your manure elsewhere,
your secret is safe with me.


-end

The ol Space Poet

Years have disappeared in the white-hot dust, yet somehow I still remain. The flights are several a day now. Sometimes I still marvel at the growth, but more often I just cover my ears. Why are so many eager to get off this beautiful blue orb hanging in the sky, I wonder. Young men in their hard prime, young women in their comely loveliness shelled by hard exteriors. They can't wait to go out into the void, be pummeled by weightlessness and radiation sickness. The future beckons, and nothing can stand in their way.

I suppose I was that way once. But I was too old before space became a destination for the masses. Birthed along with Sputnik, my hopes soared along with the rest of our generation. A lifetime of survival followed. Space was for the astronauts. Fans like me sat back and watched, waited for the wonders that were supposed to follow, but never came. Finally, in my 50's, I moved to New Mexico, to a desolate strip of desert that held out hope. Hope that someday, regular commercial space flights would happen.

The first few years were pretty slow. A tourist flight one week. A NASA suborbital shot the next. But I hung around, finding odd jobs cleaning and driving a tour bus. And then a breakthrough in propulsion tech happened: someone found the perfect combination of electromagnetic and chemical reaction, and managed to contain it in a smaller vessel. And then the race was on to occupy the Solar System, before someone else got there first.

An inventor came out of nowhere. After his standardization of swappable L-ion battery packs for cars, and construction of a hundred exchange stations, he made his first billion. (Just pull in, swap out your Lion pack for a charged one, and off you go, juiced up for another hundred miles).Then, he set his sights on space. His system for paving America's roads with electric cars was not repeated with spacecraft – at least not at first. But he kept at it.

When he tested his first successful hopper-rocket with the new propulsion pack, everyone thought it was a stunt. The second time, the world was watching, and they were suitably stunned. The third time, he had to go into hiding afterward. The one who opened up space to the masses was arguably as popular as Jesus Christ for a time.

I was there, when the hoppers hopped. And when the tourist cruisers followed. An early crash disaster was horrible to witness. But that only slowed things down. When the first asteroid with a gold core was discovered, things really got crazy. Thank god they finally built a couple more spaceports on the coasts, and re-purposed Cape Canaveral and Edwards. Our routine here in New Mexico settled into a steady twenty or so flights a week.

Now, the once-deserted Spaceport is surrounded by glass and diamond coated skyscratchers, and I have my own little spot just off the main terminal. I get to spin poetry and song into an entertaining weave for the traveling masses. They throw coin, nugget and currency into my basket, along with cash-cards.

I was born when the whole space thing started, and I want to live until we reach the first Star. They keep saying the mission is just around the corner, but I am already pushing ninety. Wish they would hurry things up; I can't wait forever, people!

 

     - end

 

Thirteen stories about planets that really exist

It is still out there!

http://www.amazon.com/Keplers-Dozen-Thirteen-Stories-Distant/dp/1885093683

Check this out

A fellow writer and blogger.   Very prolific man.

Stephen L. Brayton
www.stephenbrayton.com
www.stephenbrayton.wordpress.com
www.braytonsbookbuzz.wordpress.com

Thanks for taking a look.

May Ride

Lather delirious purple mother,

and garden less trudge women,
never bed mess crush man juice...
Beneath beauty shadow smooth shine

The pedals churn,

breath flows in and out,
words tumble through the mind.
Cares pushed aside like so many
empty beer cans, useless concerns.

Nothing can be done,

so you might as well enjoy the ride –

Elaborate repulsive whisper friend diamond,

puppy picture sun apparatus frantic goddess,
sordid luscious want peach summer...

and always and ever anon,

I still love you.

-end

Future Present

Science Fiction has to race to stay ahead these days.   If someone made the movie  "The Terminator" in 2014 instead of 1984, that T-800 would not be quite so dumb.  While scanning the humans in infrared and so forth, it would be recording their every move in an onboard 10TB flash drive.  It would also be uploading hi-def video to Skynet.  In turn, Skynet would be doing massive calculations based on past observation of human subjects.  That poor fleeing woman would not have a chance.  The Terminator robot would be thinking three steps ahead, and re-calculating everything based on her current actions.  

     For todays readers, used to cellular everything at their fingertips, these things are not such a stretch.   A networked-in person, 'seeing' a live Net feed in part of their eye, would blink to snap pics, or twitch to upload them, or another action to record full video in a memory implant deep in their Cerebral Cortex.  They could share the pics, videos and documents with other people present, or lock them out, or route messages wherever they want.  All built-in, powered by the body's own metabolism.

     The whole terminology will change.  The Internet (a 1960's term) will morph into something else.   A "text" will become something else, like an e-thought.    Technological Telepathy will arise, and perhaps if we want, we can be hived into certain groups all the time, 24-7.   Or (hopefully) we can decline the implant, or lock out the hive feature, and forestall becoming too Borg-like too soon. 

     Change is happening already.   Perhaps evolution will favor offspring with faster thumbs for a time - until the implant culture takes off.   Then, the fast thumb crowd might be left twitching by the side of the road, passed by a more thoughtful crowd.   Who knows where it will  end up.   My theory is that we will end up becoming tightly organized bundles of pure energy, and nothing will be withheld from our purview.    Unless, of course, we destroy ourselves in some nuclear stupidity first - or some superior race does us in.  But the Sci-fi crowd seems to need to keep running shoes on to keep up with some of this.  At least the older ones like me do  ;-)    Thanks for reading.

Pillaged We Are Defeated

Cut those good jobs and jack that profit up,

flesh and blood people are expendable;
For the boardroom set nothing is off-limits,
as long as drastic moves stop short of their offices.

Do they ever pause in their ugly harvest

and think of the greater cost to society?
How hellish an America they are creating,
as they cut and destroy every job opportunity?

How long will it take for the US to surpass

various “third-world” countries in misery?
Immigration may reverse itself once awareness
of how meager an existence is afforded our citizenry.

Huge corporations, especially high tech, better

wake up and invest in all of us, or we falter
and fail and drop to the bottom, easy fodder
for a superior nation to walk in and conquer.

     - end

 

Musings on a Technological Tuesday

The comm tech chatted about his latest desire,

a projector app attached to his Galaxy phone;
Already surrounded by computing devices,
He wanted still more of them at home.

Outside his work office, many bays and lineups

wink and hum, all busy transporting terabytes...
New management tours the techno-wonderland,
catching up to a speeding train of data transport.

On other floors fibers in bundles move light,

narrow beams modulated to carry gigabytes;
E-mails, videos, photos, faxes and even voices,
all crowd together and ride the same beam-flight.

Humans who work around the speedy transports

are glacial by comparison, architects though they be.
Mountains gave rise to forests, then swift wildlife.
Ultimate life gives rise to ever faster cyber-entities.

Perhaps someday the cyber-life will birth something

even faster, some trans-light particle beings?
The cycle continues, and we flesh-and-blood types
will be left behind with our crude analog droppings.

 - end