Collateral Damage

← Me & John McCain — proof of my bipartisanship Headline of the Day: “Crucifixion can be bad for your health” →

A monolithic moment of silence for one of the greats … Arthur C. Clarke

March 19, 2008 · No Comments

Rendezvous with Rama and Childhood’s End are just flat out great novels. Got that? The short story “The Sentinel” that the movie 2001 was based on was better than the book 2001 that was based on the movie. Got that?

It is odd — as a friend noted just last weekend — how the great humanist Clarke will always be inextricably linked with Kubrick who seemed to value distance above all else. I like to think that it was the opposition of their temperaments that made 2001 such a great movie. Just as Terry Southern’s joi de vivre was Kubrick’s balance in Strangelove.

Clarke was credited with inventing the concept of communications satellites in 1945, decades before they became a reality. Geosynchronous orbits, which keep satellites in a fixed position relative to the ground, are called Clarke orbits. … an RAF memo he wrote in 1945 about the future of communications described the possibility of using satellites to revolutionize communications — an idea whose time had decidedly not come. Clarke later sent it to a publication called Wireless World, which almost rejected it as too far-fetched.

monolith

Categories: A moment of silence for one of the greats
Tagged: , ,

0 responses so far ↓

  • There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.

Leave a Comment