Posted on 12/31/2021 5:25:04 PM PST by LukeL
Just watched this episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater and it is shocking how on the mark he was about the way society was going.
“While he didnโt handle it well and went nuts,Ted Kazinsky did too.”
Who went nuts?
One thing they missed, as did everyone else, was the GUI. Each function had a separate button on the console.
Yes, although the first GUI was probably the CRT-"light gun" assembly that was used in the SAGE system's airspace battle computers; this was an aimable photoelectric cell that picked up variations in pixel intensity as the image on a computer-driven radar display was continuously re-painted, using data stored on rotating drum memory. Vacuum-tube electronics correlated the photocell brightness measurements with knowledge of where the beam was at any given instant to estimate what point on the screen the operator was aiming the "light gun" at.
They were called "light guns" because they had an incandescent bulb and lens assembly in the nose (where the barrel would have been if it it was a real gun); this projected a red dot on the screen at the point the photocell was aiming at. You superimposed the red dot over the blip you wanted information about, pulled the "trigger" on the gun's pistol-like handgrip, and within a second or two alphanumeric data about the blip would pop up on a smaller CRT adjacent to the main one. This was in 1961 or 1962, a few years before Star Trek TOS appeared on television.
This equipment was classified, so perhaps the writers hadn't seen it. In any event, it was kind of a stretch between the ANFSQ-7 Air Force computer system and the GUI technology of today, apparent only with the benefit of hindsight.
*Yeah I think it was kind of a low-budget movie.* That fire engine Montag rode around in was all you needed to see. Goofy hats.
*Ever read Atlas Shrugged?*
All 1100 pages. “The Giver” was excellent. Then there was another where the pregnant English woman was left behind in a tribe to raise her son alone and when going back the kid couldn’t handle what society had become and hung himself I believe. He wasn’t allowed to grieve over his mother’s death.
๐๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ฏ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ธ๐ข๐ด ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฐ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ณ ๐ธ๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ฑ๐ณ๐ฆ๐จ๐ฏ๐ข๐ฏ๐ต ๐๐ฏ๐จ๐ญ๐ช๐ด๐ฉ ๐ธ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ข๐ฏ ๐ธ๐ข๐ด ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ง๐ต ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ฉ๐ช๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐ช๐ฏ ๐ข ๐ต๐ณ๐ช๐ฃ๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ณ๐ข๐ช๐ด๐ฆ ๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ณ ๐ด๐ฐ๐ฏ ๐ข๐ญ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ฆ ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐ธ๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ฏ ๐จ๐ฐ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐ฃ๐ข๐ค๐ฌ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ฌ๐ช๐ฅ ๐ค๐ฐ๐ถ๐ญ๐ฅ๐ฏโ๐ต ๐ฉ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ญ๐ฆ ๐ธ๐ฉ๐ข๐ต ๐ด๐ฐ๐ค๐ช๐ฆ๐ต๐บ ๐ฉ๐ข๐ฅ ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฆ ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐ฉ๐ถ๐ฏ๐จ ๐ฉ๐ช๐ฎ๐ด๐ฆ๐ญ๐ง ๐ ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ญ๐ช๐ฆ๐ท๐ฆ. ๐๐ฆ ๐ธ๐ข๐ด๐ฏโ๐ต ๐ข๐ญ๐ญ๐ฐ๐ธ๐ฆ๐ฅ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐จ๐ณ๐ช๐ฆ๐ท๐ฆ ๐ฐ๐ท๐ฆ๐ณ ๐ฉ๐ช๐ด ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ณโ๐ด ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ข๐ต๐ฉ.
Brave New World, which I am currently rereading, and it seems more unnerving now.
Ray Bradbury wrote a short story, published in 1950, โThere Will Come Soft Rainsโ based on the Sara Teasdale anti-war poem I remember reading an illustrated version of it in the 60s or early 70s. I canโt remember what anthology of his work it was in.
Here is the story,
https://www.btboces.org/Downloads/7_There%20Will%20Come%20Soft%20Rains%20by%20Ray%20Bradbury.pdf
And the earliest animated version of it I could find.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oxP3TyuQx0
While it is an anti-war story, his adaptation of the poem shows his philosophy on technology and the path to dependency we are going down.
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