durn it...
Well I was mucking around with the code to this page and I got my previous post and archive section off down at the bottom instead of on the side bar where they were. Just one little click, something erased in the wrong place.
Reminds me of a sci-fi story I read as a kid, must have been in one of the first compilations of such material I ever saw. I think it was written by one of the greats but I cannot remember which one. In the story people were traveling back in time and hunting dinosaurs for sport. They could only kill a dinosaur that was about to die from some other means, because if they killed one whose end was not imminent, the future would be changed. The company sponsoring these trips did meticulous research to insure the correct reptile was slain. So what happens is a guy gets off the prescribed path and steps on a moth, kills it. When he arrives back to the present everything from who the president is to the spelling of common words is different. That one small change compounded over centuries of time made a huge difference.
So my mistake on this web page won't change the president. But do you ever get the feeling that the more you know, the more you study stuff, the more knowledge gained, the dumber you are? I have that feeling a lot, but I am not advocating ignorance or stagnation. I am just observing and hoping that the future is changed for the good by something I strive for.
Reminds me of a sci-fi story I read as a kid, must have been in one of the first compilations of such material I ever saw. I think it was written by one of the greats but I cannot remember which one. In the story people were traveling back in time and hunting dinosaurs for sport. They could only kill a dinosaur that was about to die from some other means, because if they killed one whose end was not imminent, the future would be changed. The company sponsoring these trips did meticulous research to insure the correct reptile was slain. So what happens is a guy gets off the prescribed path and steps on a moth, kills it. When he arrives back to the present everything from who the president is to the spelling of common words is different. That one small change compounded over centuries of time made a huge difference.
So my mistake on this web page won't change the president. But do you ever get the feeling that the more you know, the more you study stuff, the more knowledge gained, the dumber you are? I have that feeling a lot, but I am not advocating ignorance or stagnation. I am just observing and hoping that the future is changed for the good by something I strive for.
posted by Carl at 5:30 AM
2 Comments:
The SF story sounds like "A Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury which I, too read at an early age. Appearantly it was made into a movie last year, although I don't recall hearing anything about it at the time.
I have always remembered that story, I can honstley say it had an influence on my thinking.
Interesting thing though is that I have not read the story again in all these years, and I know there is bound to be a Bradbury collection around here. I don't think that story is in it.
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