Posted on 08/03/2011 6:46:27 PM PDT by stolinsky
Chris Kraft told me to "watch for small computers". I did. And, well, things worked out pretty good. In the early 90's I met another guy, online, who had an impact on me. He was working on something interesting. He called it "Leeenocks":)
What a fantastic country we live in. Unfortunately, it seems that younger people don't get the work ethic thing. I was at a wine bar recently and found myself surrounded by 20 somethings. Several worked for Starbucks and outfits like that. They were bitching and complaining about all sorts of things. A couple of them kind of had an attitude like they deserved to be handed whatever they wanted. This place was on the water and I was in one of my boats. I took several of them out on it. Oddly enough the females were more manly than the guys. I'd have expected that the guys would have asked about engines on the boat, etc. But they did not. And one was kind of freaked out when we were moving along at 60 mph+. It was after 11 PM but that is safe with some moonlight and I know the waters like the back of my hand. It was fun but I went away feeling sorry for most of them because they seemed so stuck in place. I don't think a one of them could have started any kind of business or even had the want to. They seemed like a kind of a waste and when one noticed the watch I had on I thought he was going to barf when he figured out it cost more than he makes in a year. I tried to explain that nobody ever gave me a thing and that anyone can make it in America. Just find something people need, provide it to them and charge money. He looked at me like I was insane. Or a bug:)
I'm not saying all people in this age group are like this. Certainly not the young ones like those that Heinlien was speaking to. The kids in the military I have met are aces.
Sorry for the rant.... Back to Heinlien. I wish I could have not only met him in person but fenced with him. In my dreams I guess....
“RAH is quite unfair to Dr. Johnson”
Yes, he didn’t say patriotism is only the last refuge of a scoundrel. Let it be that and the primary instinct of decent men.
“a fat, gluttonous slob who was pursued all his life by a pathological fear of death”
Maybe so. I don’t know much about the death obsession, but he certainly was fat, judging by the picture on the cover of my book. He was also a genius and one of the great prose stylists in English. It saddens me to know how woefully unread Johnson is at present. Chances are that if you know of him you know him through Boswell. Which is fine for Boswell, as his book is a classic, but bad for Johnson, as he’s every bit as good, if out of fashion.
Incompetent people are likely to be just as incompetent at violence as at everything else.
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress was, at least in my opinion, his version of the American War of Independence and Heinlein's greatest novel. AI in 1965 was pretty forward-looking, but when the girls died in the fighting at the ramp it was pretty obvious he was talking about something else entirely. That was his version of patriotism, the real one.
My bottom line has been and probably will remain “Starship Troopers”. read it in the early 1960’s as “space rangers against the galaxy” and thoroughly enjoyed it. Read it less than a decade later as a political science text and wondered “Why not?” Went back to the same book 30 years later as a conceptual framework for USAF manning in 2030.
Same book.
Very interesting.
BTW the ultimate RAH book is “The Notebooks of Lazarus Long” - one of his quotes appeared on my retirement shadow box; “You can have peace or freedom. Don't ever expect both.”
TANSTAAFL Bump
“Moon” is a great book, and was in fact the first Heinlein I ever encountered. If nothing else, it deserves remembrance for popularizing the phrase “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”
Oops, I see you beat me to mentioning TANSTAAFL. Oh well, you can’t say it enough, really.
By the way, not to beat a lively horse, but I’d like to mention I once saw a clever T-shirt that read “I grok TANSTAAFL.”
I’ve read so many of Heinlein’s quotes on FR that I decided to read some of his books. I started with “Stranger in a Strange Land”, the uncut version. Based on your post, maybe I should have started with something else. The other one I have is “JOB: A Comedy of Justice”. Maybe I will give that a go later this month. After “Stranger”, I was not going to read anymore of his books because of the “hippie” factor.
Robert Heinlein old-fashioned? Never! He’s been ahead of us all for decades.
Knittnmom - Stranger in a Strange Land was the 1st book Heinlein wrote after his stroke. His books got progressively more ‘odd’. Read his early books. I read ‘Podkayne of Mars’, about a teenage girl, when I was 14. Perfect introduction to science fiction! ‘The Moon is a Harsh Mistress’ is his best work. I consider it undervalued, and one of the best books of the 20th century.
I’m a huge RAH fan but I confess that I just skip his books from the 70’s on. Too much sex and woo-woo stuff for me. But his earlier stuff is gold! As already noted, THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS may be his best book, and it’s well worth reading. I also love STARSHIP TROOPERS (a very good book turned into a wretched movie that had nothing to do with the book except the name), HAVE SPACESUIT, WILL TRAVEL, and just so much of his early stuff. Worth another look!
Thank you both for the additional information and advice. I will give his books another read. Probably won’t be for a month or so though - got a lot of stuff going on in August.
“After ‘Stranger’, I was not going to read anymore of his books because of the ‘hippie’ factor.”
If you want to wash the hippie out of your brain, check out “Starship Troopers,” which is infinitely better than the travesty of a movie it spawned. The absolute best, however, is “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress,” my favorite libertarian novel.
Thanks - I will.
BTT
bttt
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