Neanderpundit

Clickety click.

Over here, I’m having a conversation wiht Mrs D about fiction and it’s effect on the culture. Specifically science fiction, or at least that’s the part of the conversation I’m trying to contribute.

Mrs D, not a geek, feels that there is a correlation between people who read science fiction and people who invent things, and that is a natural correlation. Sure, it is. She also feels that the fact that people invent things is generally not caused by reading science fiction. Well, not so much.

I’m not a mathemetician, but I am a reader, and I have watched the advance of science, and I can tell you, the idea that someone reads something in a science fiction novel or story and turns it into reality is a verifiable fact. I have independantly verifiable personal experience with several of these instances (and they are damned big ones, manufacturing wise).

I believe, though I’m not smart enough to prove, that the advancement of technology has a causational relationship with the popularity of science fiction. I’d be interested to see if anyone has any statistics on that.

I DO know, that in a lot of cases, the inventors of devices or processes or mechanisms have taken their inspiration from science fiction. I have met Joe Engelburger, who invented the industrial robot, and who was following the career of Asimov at the time he did. He makes it very clear that I Robot was the inspiration for the Unimate. I have also met Dr S Inaba, who brought industrial robotics to the state they are in today, and he named the special language robots speak “Karel” after Karel Capek, the man who first used the word Robot in his play RUR. Which Dr Inaba read in his youth.

And it’s not only huge ideas and incredible processes that begin as the fancies of SF writers. As I explain at Mrs D’s place, the TASER is an invention of a gentleman named Victor Appleton- or at least the name is. The Tom A Swift Electric Rifle was invented by a guy named Jack Cover after reading of it in “Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle”

These are simply places where causation can be proven beyond a shadow of doubt; each of these inventors will come right out and tell you they got their inspiration directly from a specific science fiction novel.

As for Victor Appleton, he himself is an invention. The books- or most of them- were written by Howard Garis, and they were popular enough (Tom Swift and his adjective noun) that they (the Stratemeyer syndicate) brought the hereo’s son back in a new series, back in the late 50’s through the 70’s, written by “Victor Appleton Jr”. The “Tom Swift Jr and his adjective noun” books are the ones I cut my teeth on, but I have gone back to read the originals too.

If you look down the list of these books, though they were children’s stories, they told of fantastic inventions. At the time. Today, they are mostly science fact. The motorcycle. THe electric locomotive. The deep tunnel. The sky warship. These books seem simplistic because they are full of what today is science fact. Don’t forget, when these books were written, none of this science existed. Correlation. Someone wrote it, and someone invented it. But: if you were to show me you could prove causation, that the folks who were working on these mechanisms took their inspiration from the pages of Tom Swift and his…., I would not be surprised. In fact, I expect it is true, if not of Tom Swift, than of something similar.

So thursday night I’m at my customer so late that I end up getting a room locally.

I sit in my room, looking at the PLC program for the device I’m installing, and get a sudden inspiration. I pack up my computer and the interface cord and head back to the customer.

When I get there I discover my inspiration is in fact meaningful, and I try it, and it works. I pack up my stuff, pleased with myself, and prepare to leave.

On the way out, i think “I could probably take a crap”. I put my computer in my truck and come back in to use the facilities.

The place is a ghost town at night, so I choose the handicapped crapper, giving me a bit extra space for the boys. I settle in, and begin to play freecell on the Palm.

Now, these crappers have the now-ubiquitous electronic flushers, once common in airports, now seen almost everywhere.
As anyone whyo has met me knows, I mostly wear black. This is not a fashion statement, I’m always working on something filthy, and black tends to hide the inevitable stains. The problem with wearing black, is that many optic sensors (the kind that are built into automatic flushers) don’t see it very well.

So mid-crap, the toilet thinks, “Well, I don’t see him anymore, he must be gone” and flushes.

I know that I have about twop seconds to move, or the boys will get dunked. SO I stand. And wait. Figuring the flush will soon be over and I can return to my business.

Except the crapper is clogged.

Now, this is one of those wall-hung crappers, and years of being abused has caused it to sag, it’s pointed front end now depositing my most recent bowel movement into my underwear like some demented, filthy gravy boat. I hop away, flip the filth from my drawers onto the floor, and watch as the last of the Mini Wheats from that morning run out of the bowl.

I pocket my Treo.

I put on my safety glasses, more to keep from dropping them than anything.

I cut off my drawers and shake the crap free in an adjoining stall

I use my drawers to clean the rest of the filth from my pants.

I toss the underwear out and zip up my damp jeans, and head back to the hotel. I was glad I’d checked in earlier, the idea of standing at the front desk damp and shit-smelling while checking in did not appeal to me. I washed my clothes in the bathtub and hung them on the towel rod to dry. I haven’t said anything about it till now, because only now do I have a spare pair of clean clothes to wear. Had I blogged this last night,. I might not have made it through friday unscathed.