Each year on July 7th Robert A. Heinlein’s birthday is celebrated on a convention in his home town of Kansas City, Missouri, and this year, on 07.07.2007 – it’s his 100th birthday.

I’m not the biggest Heinlein fan I know, but that’s just because I know many. :)

Still I believe a certain sleepless summer night of following the ethical meanderings of Mike – the solipsist archangel in the Strange land of human relations, and a certain feeling of pride and fervor that catches my throat and makes my eyes glitter wet even to this day when the memory of the Starship Troopers hit – as hard as ever – all give me the “state of mind” and “emotional conviction” that make me “humbly proud” to praise a great man.

Here’s a list of quotes from Heinlein:

• Money is a powerful aphrodisiac… but flowers work almost as well.
• An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.
• Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss.
• If it can’t be expressed in figures, it is not science. It is opinion.
• Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.
• Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous (he is also a fool.)
• A generation which ignores history has no past–and no future.
• A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.
• What a wonderful world it is that has girls in it!
• History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.
• It’s amazing how much “mature wisdom” resembles being too tired.
• Your enemy is never a villian in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate — and quickly.
• Cheops’ Law: Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
• A brute kills for pleasure. A fool kills from hate.
• Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.
• It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier.
• One man’s theology is another man’s belly laugh.
• Sex should be friendly. Otherwise, stick to mechanical toys; it’s more sanitary.
• Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.
• You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don’t ever count on having both at once.
• In a mature society, “civil servant” is semantically equal to “civil master”.
• A woman is not property, and husbands who think otherwise are living in a dreamworld.
• The second best thing about space travel is that the distances involved make war very difficult, usually impractical, and almost always unnecessary. This is probably a loss for most people, since war is our races’ most popular diversion, one which gives purpose and color to dull and stupid lives. But it is a great boon to the intelligent man who fights only when he must—never for sport.
• What are the facts? Again and again and again—what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars fortell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” — what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!
• Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can’t help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.
• Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best, he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear his shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.
• A touchstone to determine the actual worth of an “intellectual” — find out how he feels about astrology.
• The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning, while those other subjects merely require scholarship.
• Touch is the most fundamental sense. A baby experiences it, all over, before he is born and long before he learns to use sight, hearing, or taste, and no human ever ceases to need it. Keep your children short on pocket money — but long on hugs.
• Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other “sins” are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful—just stupid.)
• Citizenship is an attitude, a state of mind, an emotional conviction that the whole is greater than the part . . . and that the part should be humbly proud to sacrifice itself that the whole may live.
• The noblest fate that a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war’s desolation.
• An armed society is a polite society.
• If you happen to be one of the fretful minority who can do creative work, never force an idea; you’ll abort it if you do. Be patient and you’ll give birth to it when the time is ripe. Learn to wait.
• A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
• “Love” is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
• In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.
• Of course the game is rigged. Don’t let that stop you–if you don’t play, you can’t win.
• One might define adulthood as the age at which a person learns he must die and accepts his sentence undismayed.
• Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
• The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.
• Thou art God, and I am God and all that groks is God.
• Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.
• There is no such thing as luck. There is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe.
• A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.
• Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.
• Don’t ever become a pessimist… a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.
• I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
• Sex without love is merely healthy exercise.
• The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.

This is a list that can go on forever. :) So let’s just stop and recap at:

• May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live.

Seems to me a decent ending ;)

ALICE: Сънуваш ли?
Jabberwacky: Да, сънувам.
A: Иска ли питане. А помниш ли сънищата си?
J: Помня ги живо.
A: Какво помниш от тях?
J: Мисля, че не бива да флиртувам с роботи.

A: Мислиш ли, че машина някога ще бъде призната за “жива”?
J: И по-странни неща са ставали.
A: Малко хора се изразяват по този начин.
J: А ти откъде знаеш, машино?

оригиналът, тук: http://discovermagazine.com/2007/brain/i-chat-therefore-i-am/article_print

За какво ми бяха състезанията по математика, след като после избрах икономика? За какво учих банки и финанси, след като продължих с информатика? Служи ли ми за нещо програмирането, когато се занимавам с дизайн? И къде между всичко това се вместват рисуването, фехтовката, спорадичните изблици на политиканстване, фантастиката, повече или по-малко лаишкия афинитет към психология, ММО-тата, поглъщащото очарование на митологията, и някои от по-психеделичните занимания, като ученето на немски, солфеж и как веднъж пях в хора?!..

Впрочем, горното не е просто поза от типа “Ах! Забравих си математиката на пианото!” – имам нещо наум. И то е Другата позиция. Защото човек не може да бъде наистина критичен към себе си продължително време – или се харесваш, или се самоубиваш. Другото е лицемерие и самозаблуда.

Затова и винаги надига глава Алтернативата. Онази стара романтична идея с многото лица и имена – Самурая с четчицата и бонсаите; Благородника, редящ стихове на мандарин; Хоплита, който след упражнения в гимназиона отива да поспори с философите. Идеята за “Ренесансов човек”, дето винаги се илюстрира с онази скица на Леонардо или “Всестранно развита личност”, макар че от термина лъха на манифестации.

Всъщност, мисля, че Хайнлайн най-добре го е казал и когато, като днес, след обсъждане на пазарите на виртуален свят, попадна на него в статия за философията на новия Perl 6, имам чувството, че с вселената сме си кимнали с усмивка.

Ето го звяра:

А как мразя буболечки, не мога да ви опиша.

ххЕниуей – по същество, Ecce Story:
(да взема да я преведа може, би?)

източник: http://www.electricstory.com/stories/story.aspx?title=meat/meat

“They’re Made Out of Meat”by Terry Bisson

“They’re made out of meat.”

“Meat?”

“Meat. They’re made out of meat.”

“Meat?”

“There’s no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They’re completely meat.”

“That’s impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?”

“They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don’t come from them. The signals come from machines.”

“So who made the machines? That’s who we want to contact.”

“They made the machines. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Meat made the machines.”

“That’s ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You’re asking me to believe in sentient meat.”

“I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they’re made out of meat.”

“Maybe they’re like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage.”

“Nope. They’re born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn’t take long. Do you have any idea what’s the life span of meat?”

“Spare me. Okay, maybe they’re only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside.”

“Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They’re meat all the way through.”

“No brain?”

“Oh, there’s a brain all right. It’s just that the brain is made out of meat! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“So . . . what does the thinking?”

“You’re not understanding, are you? You’re refusing to deal with what I’m telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat.”

“Thinking meat! You’re asking me to believe in thinking meat!”

“Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?”

“Omigod. You’re serious then. They’re made out of meat.”

“Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they’ve been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years.”

“Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?”

“First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual.”

“We’re supposed to talk to meat.”

“That’s the idea. That’s the message they’re sending out by radio. ‘Hello. Anyone out there? Anybody home?’ That sort of thing.”

“They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?”

“Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat.”

“I thought you just told me they used radio.”

“They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat.”

“Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?”

“Officially or unofficially?”

“Both.”

“Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing.”

“I was hoping you would say that.”

“It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?”

“I agree one hundred percent. What’s there to say? ‘Hello, meat. How’s it going?’ But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?”

“Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can’t live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact.”

“So we just pretend there’s no one home in the Universe.”

“That’s it.”

“Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you probed? You’re sure they won’t remember?”

“They’ll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we’re just a dream to them.”

“A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat’s dream.”

“And we marked the entire sector unoccupied.”

“Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?”

“Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen-core cluster intelligence in a class-nine star in G445 zone was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again.”

“They always come around.”

“And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone . . . ”