h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's the "real" in "Real Life" that makes the misconception that RL Friends are "real" and internet friends are not.

My real friends are on h2g2. I don't have very many "real life" friends, and very few of them are better friends than the friends I have on h2g2.

Come to think of it, most of my facebook friends are just h2g2 people I've connected up to.

Wow, SpaceCadette, you've been here as long as I have.

I'm correcting a long overlooked problem and have added you to my friends list.

I don't check FB every day, maybe a couple of times a week, if that. I'm trying to like it, but truthfully find it irritating.

I took to h2g2 immediately, absolutely loved it because the combination of the Guide and the community made it unique and the folks here were such a cross section of ages, interests, occupations, and nationalities. h2g2 has been a very positive experience for me. I haven't been here since '99 like some of you, but I've been here long enough to feel like one of the old timers.

Gnomon is right. I should use a more accurate descriptive than real life. I have 'in person' friends, e-mail friends, h2g2 friends, long-distance 'old' friends, work friends, etc. Come to think of it, I'm pretty darned blessed to have so many friends.

I like the term "meat-space".

Sounds like a sci-fi porn film to me...

Yes, William Gibson came up with meat-space, right? Was it in Count Zero? But it's handy for the categories, meat friends and net friends...

Oh, god... it's been so long since I've read that I have no idea...

A quick search would indicate that it was probably in limited use before then. It did get entered into the OED in 2000.

It's been around long enough tht even I know what it means.

Speaking of being around for a while, I'm old enough to remember the brouhaha in the scifi community when established writers started adding romance to their novels. Remember when Heinlein came out with Friday? Not really much sex/romance there, but it was roundly criticized.

And it would be Heinlein.

But hasn't sex in sci-fi been around for quite a while? In the Flash Gordon teevee series back in the dawn of television, Flash's girlfriend was always being kidnapped, usually by the Evil Emperor Mongo. And the jeopardy was that Mongo intended to ~~~marry~~~ her!

I remember Saturday mornings in front of the television, watching Flash Gordon, Mighty Mouse, and those hoary old cartoons with stick figures. Black and white. An announcer who came on and said "And now this."

The established "golden age" sci-fi writers did not have sex or romance in their novels. It was considered distracting. And it was why they were considered "safe" for kids to read. Old Flash Gordon features were another story. I loved them, too. When I lived in Jefferson City in the early 70s, I could pick up KMOX (now KMOV) out of St. Louis. They showed Flash Gordon on Saturday afternoons. All my friends knew not to call me between 1 and 2 on Saturday afternoons.

Rememeber when Barbarella came out? Racy!

As A kid I watched the Roy Rogers/Gene Autry Hour after school on weekdays. Howdy Doody and Pinky Lee. The Micky Mouse Club. In bad weather, of course. In good weather, kids played outdoors after school.

I read Friday when I was in my late teens. I loved it. I loved all of Heinlein's later books. I bought every Heinlein book I could get my hands on, mostly in paperback from the Half Price Book Store. I still have them today even though the local humidity stuck many of them together by their covers. I believe I've read nearly every story Heinlein wrote with the exception of a few that never appeared in his anthologies. The first book I read of his is still my favorite though; Job: A Comedy of Justice. But Friday was nice. I liked that he could write a good strong female lead character, something he rarely did with the exception of Podkayne of Mars. Of course, the cover art for Friday was definitely a factor in my esteem for the book.

Speaking of ravishing SciFi heroins, I first saw Barbarella on cable TV in my teen years as well.... OoofTA!

My mom was a charter member of the Science Fiction Book Club, back in the late fifties, and had a ticket to the . So I got to read all the Heinleins and Poul Andersen (Three Hearts and Three Lions!) and Clifford D. Simak (Way Station!) and Alfred Bester, A. E. Van Vogt, Phillip K. Dick, Asimov, and on and on. You can't beat that stuff.

Count, I am so sorry to hear that your books are stuck together.

Hyp, I had forgotten the Mickey Mouse Club. Today is Anything Can Happen Day.

No big deal, Lil, they're 30 year old paper backs. They're worthless, but they're still readable. (wonder how much the entire works of Heinlein would be electronically? )

Probably a small arm and half a leg, CZ.

I love Heinlein and Ray Bradbury. Just found 'A Graveyard for Lunatics' after I've finished re reading my Joe Abercombie's (in anticipation of 'Heroes') I'll give that another punt.

please excuse misplaced apostrophe. I'm a little 'over refreshed'

So, did you misinterpret Fahrenheit 451 like apparently everyone else did? I know I did. It's not about censorship, ya know. You did know that, right?

http://www.raybradbury.com/images/video/about_freeDOM.html

http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/

http://www.journalinquirer.com/articles/2011/01/20/page_one/doc4d385d61a73c6632830994.txt

I do like hootoo. I like the anonymity of it. I like the people on it. I have noticed increasingly less activity, and so don't drop by as frequently as I used to.

While I'm fond of all my friends here, what I notice the most, is how the posts on my space seem to drop to almost nothing when Hypatia is away. Hypatia, you make it worth while coming back. Here's to you

Censorship, whether or not it's the focus of Fahrenheit 451 or not (although...author should know), is a topic Bradbury talks on frequently. Back about 10 years ago when police chases became a macabre cliché in Los Angeles, he had proposed that we'd have a lot less of them if we censored the name and grievance of the chased. These days, they're almost never covered, and guess what? We almost never have them anymore. Bradbury has always had a hate for TV, for all that he writes about it.

Lil, I used to love Simak. I think I've read everything he ever wrote. He did a lot of pastoral-type short stories in addition to his novels. Way Station is classic, as is City. I also liked Cemetery World very much. Ah, innocent days when books actually had plots and character development and didn't depend on shock value of one sort or another. I think that's why I still like to read cozies.

Thanks, Taralome.

As to Bradbury's intention when he wrote Fahrenheit 451, it is rather beside the point now. It is seen as a book about censorship. The book itself is on the banned and challenged books list. The story about it that I love is that Bradbury didn't own a typewriter when he wrote it. He paid 10 cents an hour at his local library to type the manuscript.

I don't doubt that Bradbury hates television. From some studies I've read about brain function while watching TV, he is right to hate it. Our brains are more active while we're asleep than when we're watching TV. It really does make us dumb. That's probably why it literally puts so many of us to sleep while we're watching.