Comments on: Isaac, Part 4, and some other guys

By: Johnny Pez

Johnny Pez — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 04:12:18 +0000

Fred doesn’t mention it, but his collaboration with Isaac resulted in a book called Our Angry Earth. It is — unfortunately — even more relevant now than when it came out in 1991, so go ahead and get a copy and read it (though not from Amazon, because they suck).

By: Michael Walsh

Michael Walsh — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:52:34 +0000

Jeff,

If you were to click the link for John Diebold at the beginning of the article you would get his NY Times obit, with this correction:

“An obituary on Dec. 27 about John Diebold, a businessman and engineer who helped shape modern industrial development in America, misstated a business venture of John Diebold Inc., an investment firm he founded in 1967. It did not finance Diebold Election Systems, a maker of polling machines that, despite its name, has no connection to John Diebold.”

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:38:51 +0000

Would that be the same Diebold as was previously in the business of making unverifiable, easily-hacked electronic voting machines?

It’s a vastly different corporate world out there. I’m not certain that your predictions wouldn’t have turned out right, had things continued as they were going. But at some point, the bean counters took over because American industry discovered it could make more money gambling on wall street than making things people want to buy.

By: Giles B

Giles B — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 07:45:03 +0000

Isaac Asimov mentions having several whisky sours forced on him by his lab partners following his successful PhD. defence. It’s in one of the volumes of The Early Asimov.

I’m delighted to be posting to the blog of an author that I really admire. Thanks for your reminiscences!

By: John Armstrong

John Armstrong — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 06:47:44 +0000

I’ll bet that conversation with Lindsay sounded a bit like some passages in Years of the City, which I just read. You have no idea how happy it makes me to find a book of yours that I’ve yet to read. You’re going to have to start cranking them out a little quicker though - I’m catching up.

Also, “friendlily” is about the ugliest word I’ve ever read. Why would you use it - sheer pity? You felt sorry for it?

Best wishes,

John

By: Derek L

Derek L — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 22:47:26 +0000

The first soft landing (which was also the first American landing) was in 1976, not 1971, and wasn\\\’t carried live or even capable of imaging its descent anyhow.

Mars 3 (which reached Mars on Dec 2 1971) also had no capability to image its descent, as its cameras were housed until after its (hard) landing.

Martian craters were discovered in 1965 by Mariner 4.

By: steve davidson

steve davidson — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 21:57:06 +0000

Mr. Pohl,

I’ve been greatly enjoying this series - thank you very much for working on it.

Just a quick note about Bell Labs. I was working there when they replaced the head of the division (think it was Penzias) - a research scientist - with someone who came from the marketing side. We were all appalled to hear them discuss how they were going to concentrate on ‘results-based research’; the sub text was ‘not gonna waste any more money on pure research’. Those of us familiar with the history of the labs were quick to point out that most everything the labs had excelled at had its origins in ‘pure research’, but the mental climate had changed. It was the beginning of thinking about short term profits ahead of long term growth.

By: Matt McIrvin

Matt McIrvin — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 20:35:25 +0000

Viking 1 landed in 1976. The originally scheduled landing date was July 4, for the Bicentennial; it was delayed slightly to July 20, the seventh anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing.