Ye another blow to a teetering house of cards. How many greats have we lost? The golden age of sf has gone the way of Zelasny, Heinlein, and now (tragically) Anderson.
There are still excellent sci-fi writers but their work is ignored in favor of the dross... coauthored novels where the big name is just a name on the cover, Dragonlance novels, and spoof fantasy...
You want proof of the decline of SciFi literacy? Witness Ballantine's decision to cancel midseries David Gerrold's War Against the Chtorr, the most maddening and intriguing series I have ever read.
I know he's basically fantasy but hopefully Orson Scott Card and a few others (Brin, Bujold, etc..) will keep the flame alive.
There was a time when the best literature being produced was sci-fi. Weep for those days and its' artists.
Does any patent office anywhere allow a provisional period where a possible patent can be challenged by other companies? I have a feeling that private industry would be more effective at discovering rotten patents than the government would.
Gotta disagree, guy. NASA is the equivalent of Ma Bell. A little competition would be good for cost efficiency and would promote innovation. Ya got a point re: the giant flying bomb element, so there'd have to be inspections safety guidelines etc. But a new non beuarocratic profit based perspective would be a good thing.
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So we had it coming? And now that 50,000 of our civilians are dead we will see the error of our ways? I respectfully disagree.
Ye another blow to a teetering house of cards. How many greats have we lost? The golden age of sf has gone the way of Zelasny, Heinlein, and now (tragically) Anderson. There are still excellent sci-fi writers but their work is ignored in favor of the dross... coauthored novels where the big name is just a name on the cover, Dragonlance novels, and spoof fantasy... You want proof of the decline of SciFi literacy? Witness Ballantine's decision to cancel midseries David Gerrold's War Against the Chtorr, the most maddening and intriguing series I have ever read. I know he's basically fantasy but hopefully Orson Scott Card and a few others (Brin, Bujold, etc..) will keep the flame alive. There was a time when the best literature being produced was sci-fi. Weep for those days and its' artists.
Does any patent office anywhere allow a provisional period where a possible patent can be challenged by other companies? I have a feeling that private industry would be more effective at discovering rotten patents than the government would.
I mean, they did hit the planet.
Gotta disagree, guy. NASA is the equivalent of Ma Bell. A little competition would be good for cost efficiency and would promote innovation. Ya got a point re: the giant flying bomb element, so there'd have to be inspections safety guidelines etc. But a new non beuarocratic profit based perspective would be a good thing.
Uh huh. Let loose the conspiracy crowd! I'll go first: It was Lenin! (It is a red planet.right?)