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Ray Bradbury Loves Libraries, Hates the Internet
Hugh Pickens was one of several readers to let us know that, according to a NY Times story, the 89-year-old Ray Bradbury hates the Internet. But he loves libraries, and is helping raise $280,000 to keep libraries in Ventura County open. "Among Mr. Bradbury's passions, none burn quite as hot as his lifelong enthusiasm for halls of books. ... 'Libraries raised me,' Mr. Bradbury said. 'I don't believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don't have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn't go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.' ... The Internet? Don't get him started. 'The Internet is a big distraction,' Mr. Bradbury barked... 'Yahoo called me eight weeks ago,' he said, voice rising. 'They wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo! You know what I told them? "To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the Internet." It's distracting. It's meaningless; it's not real. It's in the air somewhere.'"
There's a lot to be said for libraries. The other day, my wife came home with a new library card. Big internet a holic, but there's always something about halls of books.
This is my sig.
To hell with you and to hell with the Internet. It's distracting. It's meaningless; it's not real. It's in the air somewhere.
It helps drive the economy forward. It helps people keep in touch. It allows people to access resources (such as Bradbury's works) they otherwise wouldn't be able to.
It's a shame how foolish and ignorant his remarks are.
Amnesty International
It's in the air, somewhere;
In some tubes, with rubes.
It's not in the back of a truck,
It's not in the flack of some shmuck,
It's in the air, somewhere.
Thanks Dr. Seuss!
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
Old Man Ray is also a flaming Republican. Sad to think of it since his work is so enjoyable but that's the long and the short of it. He went apeshit over Fahrenheit 9-11.
"No. 1, he didn't ask (permission), and, No. 2, he took it - period," Bradbury tells PEOPLE. "Even if he did ask, what he has done is a crime."
Speaking from his Los Angeles home Wednesday, the 83-year-old author says he never would have allowed Moore to use the name, "because it doesn't belong to him. It belongs to me. I have several new editions of the book coming out this summer. I have a new film version of Fahrenheit 451 with Mel Gibson starring, and it is going into production sometime in the next six months."
Bradbury says that Moore, 50, contacted him only last Saturday - months after the controversial movie started making headlines.
"He was embarrassed because he didn't want to call me," says Bradbury, adding that he felt Moore was "forced into" making the call and that the filmmaker hasn't offered to screen the film for him.
"He didn't want to face me," says Bradbury. "He is supposedly a big fan of mine and read my work years ago. Now suddenly he has to call someone he has been reading for most of his life and apologize for what he did."
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
He is right, its just a distraction. When my internet access goes down, I actually get something accomplished. All of our toys mean nothing. That said, I need to log onto warcraft and forget how sucky real life is.
We don't need libraries anymore. Let's just burn them all down.
Ray loves libraries but hates the internet...
I love libraries and the internet...
All we need now are someone who loves the internet and hates libraries and another who hates both libraries and the internet and we can have ourselves a fully populated 2x2 truth table.
So instead of an intelligent point of view you are projecting a frightened and ignorant POV onto this man. Why? Because he is old.
I don't believe in libraries. I believe in cave paintings because most students don't have any animal hides to cover their genitals. When I graduated from climbing in trees, it was during the first great ice age and we had no fire or language. I couldn't go to the library, so I went to the cave three days a week for 10 seasons. The library? Don't get him started. The library is a big distraction, Gieco Cavemen growled... The library called me eight moons ago, he said, voice rising. They wanted to put a calfskin of mine in the Library! You know what I told them? To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the library. It's distracting. It's meaningless; it's not real. It's in the dead trees somewhere with that soulless invention called language.
- Gieco Cavemen
So the Internet is a series of tubes in the air somewhere...?
OMG... the Internet is in the Mushroom Kingdom!
It is truly a shame that he feels that way and that he believes in such a false dichotomy. If he was a little less antagonistic about the subject he'd see the massive influx of new people into the libraries that the internet has helped spur. The poor especially benefit from free access to computers and their children are put in touch with a wealth of learning (books AND electronic information) that is truly unprecedented. Library usage is up across the board, from what I can see.
The man is almost 90 years old, but he's younger than my grandmother who regularly uses email and praises it as a wonderful way of keeping in touch with her mobility-impaired friends. Age and stubbornness are not excuses for a man of his intelligence to hold such a myopic view of the world which HE HELPED CREATE. It makes me wonder if he has been to a library recently during business hours to see the throngs of people using the internet there to find jobs and better themselves.
My girlfriend's mother is a school librarian, has been for decades. One day she was sorting through a stack of old books and came across a Bradbury book in which someone had scribbled across the title page in pen. I think it was actually as she was in the process of slamming her DISCARD stamp down on the book that she belatedly recognized the scribble as the author's signature.
She's normally got a good sense of humor, but she does NOT like it when you remind her about that dang Bradbury kid scribbling in her books.
How do you like L. Ron Hubbard's work then?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Ray Bradbury, while one of the greatest living SF writers, is actually something of a technophobe. Not a luddite, as far as I know, just someone who doesn't care for technology outside the scope of fiction. He doesn't know how to drive a car (while living in LA!), and he was ... oh, I don't remember, but old when he first travelled by airplane. So most likely, he doesn't understand the internet much. Or he understands it differently.
Technically, the internet is the largest library of information ever known to man. To dismiss it only shows his inability to truly grasp it.
Hmmm, no, I would not be so quick to dispute that statement at all.
There is so much crap on the internet that it undermines all the information that is out there. Conversely, if you go to the 500 and 600 sections of the library, you can be somewhat assured that you are getting at least -something- that is accurate.
Also, there's really not anything that approaches the value of a good textbook available on line. Seriously, how much will you google around before you spend a few bucks and go out and buy Steven's books before doing some sockets works. Would you monkey around with Perl and a bunch of fanboi sites with terrible examples, or why not just go out and buy the Camel book. Or, if you were doing Windows SDK work, would you wade through MSDN and all the Microsoft fanboi sites, or would you just go and get the Petzold bible.
If there's any problem with libraries, its more a lack of funding and a lack of societies attention to pay librarians seriously and to respect the field. A good librarian is a skilled position, somebody who can reach into all the various fields and find what's good, and gather it up into one spot.
This is my sig.
I agree; what an idiot. T
Until you write Fahrenheit 451, I wouldn't be so quick to call Ray Bradbury an idiot, no matter what he says about the internet. Or, are you starting out with the Martian Chronicle instead?
If anything, given the level of thought that the man has historically produced, you might find it instructive to understand what his criticisms are. If anything, it would only serve to improve the internet.
This is my sig.
LEARN WITH B.O.O.K.
- R. J. Heathorn
A new aid to rapid - almost magical - learning has made its appearance.
Indications are that if it catches on all the electronic gadgets will be
so much junk.
The new device is known as Built-in Orderly Organized Knowledge. The
makers generally call it by its initials, BOOK.
Many advantages are claimed over the old-style learning and teaching
aids on which most people are brought up nowadays. It has no wires, no
electric circuit to break down, No connection is needed to an
electricity power point. It is made entirely without mechanical parts to
go wrong or need replacement.
Anyone can use BOOK, even children, and it fits comfortably into the
hands. It can be conveniently used sitting in an armchair by the fire.
How does this revolutionary, unbelievably easy invention work? Basically
BOOK consists only of a large number of paper sheets. These may run to
hundreds where BOOK covers a lengthy programme of information. Each
sheet bears a number in sequence so that the sheets cannot be used in
the wrong order.
To make it even easier for the user to keep the sheets in the proper
order they are held firmly in place by a special locking device called a
'binding'.
Each sheet of paper presents the user with an information sequence in
the form of symbols, which he absorbs optically for automatic
registration on the brain. When one sheet has been assimilated a flick
of the finger turns it over and further information is found on the
other side.
By using both sides of each sheet in this way a great economy is
effected, thus reducing both the size and cost of BOOK. No buttons need
to be pressed to move from one sheet to another, to open or close BOOK,
or to start it working.
BOOK may be taken up at any time and used by merely opening it.
Instantly it it ready for use. Nothing has to be connected or switched
on. The user may turn at will to any sheet, going backwards or forwards
as he pleases. A sheet is provided near the beginning as a location
finder for any required information sequence.
A small accessory, available at trifling extra cost, is the BOOKmark.
This enables the user to pick up his programme where he left off on the
previous learning session. BOOKmark is versatile and may be used in any
BOOK.
The initial cost varies with the size and subject matter. Already a vast
range of BOOKs is available, covering every conceivable subject and
adjusted to different levels of aptitude. One BOOK, small enough to be
held in the hands, may contain an entire learning schedule.
Once purchased, BOOK requires no further upkeep cost; no batteries or
wires are needed, since the motive power, thanks to an ingenious device
patented by the makers, is supplied by the brain of the user.
BOOKs may be stored on handy shelves and for ease of reference the
programme schedule is normally indicated on the back of the binding.
Altogether the Built-in Orderly Organized Knowledge seems to have great
advantages with no drawbacks. We predict a big future for it.
Sorry for the typo in the second sentence. My girlfriend sat down in her bra and panties in front of the air conditioner as I was writing that. Yes, that's just as distracting for us as for you, guys. -_-
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I can curl up in my easy chair with my dog(thank god he's a small dog) and a good book. It's incredibly awkward to do the same with a laptop. I do realize that smaller and probably far less awkward technology exists for reading e-books, but why would I purchase some piece of tech to do what the books I already own do. True, I could always just use it for new books, but I wouldn't. To be honest I prefer the way that an actual book feels in my hands.
:)
/. are far more ridiculous....
People talk about reading books online or on a computer and I just don't get it, probably a lot like Mr. Bradbury. I'm not slamming the alternatives and most people would know that just from reading what I have taken the time to write here, but on Slashdot there are some really dim people, so I'm stating this for them
I am curious as to why Mr. Bradbury is being ridiculed for his opinion though. Some of the opinions that I see on
Some people are only alive because it's against the law for me to hunt them down and kill them.
Give the man a Kindle preloaded with more books than his library. All that, in the palm of your hand.
I am. A lot of people are scared by things they don't understand. Why should he be any different?
Or is that in the air as well?
Ray Bradbury wrote some good books. One book in particular was truly great, providing a social commentary on the value of information and what it means to have open and free access. This makes him a man who was forward thinking for his time and perhaps means future societies will remember him.
Unfortunately, he's become a bit of a cranky old man. That's okay. I suppose he's earned the right to be one.
The value of his works shouldn't be diminished but certainly, time has passed him by.
Particularly ironic considering the events of the past week in Iran and the internet's enabling role in that continuing saga.
At how much Farenheit degrees a Kindle burns?
... young people today, with their loud hair and long music, and their propensity for lounging in a most insouciant manner upon his lawn.
At this point in the diatribe, well known sci-fi writer and self-proclaimed "Master Storyteller" Mr. Harlan "I don't take a piss without getting paid" Ellison mounted his soapbox, two milk crates and a folding chair, thus barely getting his eyes above the seated audience. "You tell 'em, Ray! Fuck the Internet!" Mr. Ellison sputtered in a cracked and whiney voice.
Mr. Bradbury inquired after the publishing date of "The Last Dangerous Visions", whereupon Mr. Ellison threw his false teeth at Mr. Bradbury, whereupon the two aged scifi writers began to box each other about the head and shoulders. The assembled crowd wagered upon who would be the first to fling the contents of their Depends at the other, while several witnesses used their iPhones to upload video of the struggle to YouTube. Others in the crowd were content to chant, "Codger Fight! Codger Fight!" at the geriatric combatants.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
Until you write Fahrenheit 451, I wouldn't be so quick to call Ray Bradbury an idiot, no matter what he says about the internet.
Bradbury also wrote The Veldt. The first significant story about the hazards of deep immersion in interactive entertainment: particularly for children.
Writers of Bradbury's generation have some very interesting and perceptive things to say about "cocooning -" social isolation and a pathologically extended adolescence reinforced by the new technologies of instant communication.
There are some important tradeoffs between paper and digital media. I'm assuming we're talking about original works here and that e.g. transcribing a newpaper article doesn't count.
* Books aren't just rugged, they're also non-ephemeral in a way that web sites aren't. Much of the efficiency of the internet comes from cheap communication with centralized storage. But this means that whoever controls the storage has the power to change history. You can't change a million books in people's houses but old web pages can be lost or altered much more easily. When I go through my old del.icio.us bookmarks I often find 404s, which never happens on my bookshelf.
* The time and money needed for paper publishing creates an incentive for basic quality control. There are precious few copy-editors working on the net. Spelling, grammar, and basic comprehensibility all suffer as a result.
* Many popular formats on the internet (such as blogs) are inherently chronological. The focus is always on the latest information, and there's little incentive to improve or correct old content. Longer content is released a chapter (or section!) at a time. This is most visible (although less important) in webcomics, where the early art and storytelling can be orders of magnitude worse than the latest material.
* Books have total control over layout and formatting. Web content, which has to be viewed on everything from PCs to cell phones, doesn't. Formats such as PDF are much clumsier to use than HTML. Read Edward Tufte to find out why this is important.
* There is very little long-format content on the internet. A page or two of text is considered "long" for most purposes (in the context of Slashdot, how long is this comment? how long would it be on a printed page?). Several pages is huge, and a couple dozen pages is gargantuan. Meanwhile, even small books for children and short works of nonfiction are usually at least a couple hundred pages long. Short content is convenient (and thus popular), but there are ideas and levels of detail you simply can't reach in a few pages.
There are some exceptions to all of this, but the general trends still drive the way we communicate. And in general, books are longer, more expensive, better edited, and more thought out in advance, while web content is shorter, faster, cheaper, more accessible, more diverse, and lower quality. The net's advantages work better in shorter formats -- it's telling that the first (and most successful) things to be digitized were the letter/memo and the casual conversation, followed later by the want ad and article.
Will web content ever equal books? I don't know. Collections of related blog essays have been pulled from blogs, cleaned up, and published as books (Joel Spolsky's, for instance), which is a start. The Wiki might be a viable format, although I suspect open-content sites will never quite make it. Taking an idea from Fred Brooks, it may be that conceptual integrity is the most important factor in the quality of a written document, and it's hard to achieve that when you have a thousand editors. Good luck talking about it, though, since the net has a giant persecution complex vis-a-vis top-down control of publishing.
Here's an example of where I'm coming from: Recently I decided I don't know enough about biology. I took a class in high school when I was 15 and that's it (I'm 27 now). So I bought what appears to be the standard intro level college textbook (Campbell and Reece) and was blown away. Despite being full of detail, the explanations are clear, and nearly every page has one or more full-color pictures or diagrams. There are many asides that link the topics to everyday life. Each subsection has about as much content as an average blog post. The book is 1,400 pages long. It cost $140 and I consider it worth every penny.
There is nothing like this on the internet. But
Visit the
Your way would win easily, until you consider how many of those wikipedia articles are what, 5-20 paragraphs? And how disjoint are your interesting tabs after an hour of browsing? It's mind-boggling how disparate the topics are after an evening of browsing. Then consider a single book, good luck finding one under 200 pages, and even a moderately focused book will bind your mind to a depth of thinking quite unlike most (though certainly not all) web pages.
There is much to be said for your way of reading, just as there's much to Mr. Bradbury's. There's also room for people whom do both, and I prefer a world where such variety runs rampant.