I was surprised actually at the lack of comment about Arthur C. Clarke’s passing (at least in my rsses). Mostly known to me as a science fiction writer, he was rather prescient regarding “geostationary orbit”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C_Clarke#Concept_of_the_geo
As a kid I avidly read science fiction, but never Arthur Clarke. However, I can remember so well watching “2001: A Space Odyssey” and just getting such a buzz when the ape “got” it (that musical score didn’t hurt). Never really understood really what was going on, but Hal was cool; 2010 seemed anti-climatic and even more confusing really.
I decided to pick up “2061; odyssey three” and “3001: the final odyssey”(*) for some fun reading this weekend, and to pay tribute to a great mind.
Here’s a couple of quotes from page 15, “2016: odyssey three”:
“….the political tectonic plates were moving as inexorably as the geological ones….For in the beginning, the Earth had possessed the single supercontinent of Pangea, which over the eons had split asunder. So had the human species, into innumerable tribes and nations; now it was merging together, as the old linguistic and cultural divsions began to blur”
and
“With the historic abolition of long-distance charges on 31 December 2000, every telephone call became a local one, and the human race greeted the new millennium by transforming itself into one huge, gossiping family”
This was written in 1987!!!
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