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Arthur C. Clarke Talks With The Onion
sootman writes "The Onion has an interview with Arthur C. Clarke in this week's issue. My favorite line: 'The asteroid [named after me] is number four thousand and something, and the International Astronomical Federation, which deals with these sorts of things and numbered it, apologized to me because number 2001 wasn't available, having been given to somebody named "A. Einstein."'" Reader ronys point out that Despite the source, the interview is not a spoof or satire."
2001: A Space Odyssey came out in 1968 if memory serves, isn't Clarke getting a bit old?
Next they'll be conducting an interview with Philip K. Dick by Ouija Board. Not that this wouldn't be any weirder than The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch or Radio Free Ablemuth...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
he first created the popular axiom "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magick."
Which of course leads to the corollary: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
Actually it was the SF author Stuart Hardin that coined that term. Clarke was more famously known for his book "The Time Machine" than anything else.
God damn I'm a nerd.
I think the Onion has enough bandwidth to cope with a slashdotting. I call Karma whore! Quick, someone better put up a mirror of www.yahoo.com given the previous story.
Let's just mix and match:
How about:
"Any sufficently advanced violence is indistinguishable from magick."
or
"any sufficiently advanced technology is the last refuge of the incompetent"
Or my personal favorite:
"Any sufficiently advanced incompetent is indistinguishable from magick violence."
Nice try at trolling, btw.
CMDRTACO CHECK YOUR EMAIL!
I pity the fool who doesn't name an asteroid after one of The Onion's previous interviewees, Mr T.
Local $mundane_occupation $funny_verb about $common_event.
$mundane_occupation = "pipe fitter";
$funny_verb = "stunned";
$common_event = "finding inspection sticker in underpants";
Print it, boys!
Anonymous Kev
Proudly posting as AC since 1997
you've written two autobiographies
maybe NASA vexed him in some way, and it's his way of getting his revenge, by getting the tin-foily sci-fi crowd to endlessly send FOIA requests for the Mars vegetation photos...
"We know you have those veggie Mars photos! Dont lie to us! Arthur C. Clark *saw* them!"
we should treasure the elderly, there is much knowledge there to be gained, but all too often we simply shuffle them to the side like a pair of worn shoes
Old people don't need companionship. They need to be isolated and studied so it can be determined what nutrients they have that might be extracted for our personal use.
perhaps he had some other 'Star' topic in mind when he said 'Federation'. Hmmm...
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Black magic? Its behaviour is certainly often incomprehensible.
What's his address? I'll mail him the damn DVDs.
I've met people involved with leaves and stems and things that seemed a bit odd, but knew an awful lot about hydroponics.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
"Any sufficiently advanced incompetent is indistinguishable from magick violence."
And there, in a nutshell, lies U.S. foreign policy.
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
Um... is the lesson that all old people have the same two stories that they tell to their grandkids? I heard those two from my father AND my grandfather, as things THEY did as kids....
Mars is the Dalmation Planet!
Table-ized A.I.
Clark has his own set of laws, most of which you have mentioned. He reportably created the first three because Isaac Asimov had three, however over time, a 4th has been added. ACC Laws
1) "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."
2) "The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."
3) "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
69th) "Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software."
Time for the Obligatory Simpsons Quote!
Abe Simpson: I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. 'Give me five bees for a quarter,' you'd say.
Now where were we? Oh yeah - the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...
My patience is infinite, my time is not.
And here I thought the comic book store owner on the Simpsons was only an animated character.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
That's probobly because they mistook it for another giant slug ;) Or maybe they thought it was Tonya Harding...
I always liked H. Beam Piper's variation -- Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent because only the incompetent wait that long to use violence.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
70) ??? 71) Profit!
"Do not drill any holes in your cat - it will not like it."
-- Nick Davies
They don't come here because the Milky Way is zoned industrial.
Better hope there're no accidents. Just look at what happened in M87.
Or about 90% of New Zealand when it comes to Rugby...