To Hell With You And To Hell With The Internet!

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Ray Bradbury, science fiction writer extraordinaire, had a few things to say about the internet the other day. At his age, I think Mr. Bradbury has earned the right to say what he wants about the internet…especially when it is as funny as this:

“Yahoo called me eight weeks ago,” he said, voice rising. “They wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo! You know what I told them? ‘To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the Internet.’
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“I remember being born. I remember being in the womb, I remember being inside. Coming out was great.”

umm...no you don't.
 
I think this is a pretty good example of how changes are coming and there's a lot of people resistant to them because they don't understand the benefit.

Shame really.
 
Maybe he just doesn't like the internet. I for one think it's 95% full of idiots hooked up to a grid that amplifies idiocy (myself included lol).
 
"Damn You Dirty A...." Oh. Wrong crazy old man.

RIP Heston. RIP.

But there's sound reasoning in avoiding the internet. I know a few musicians who refuse to take part in any of their online street teams, website operation, etc. out of plain annoyance and anonymous douchebaggery. Can't say I blame them.

Dallows said:
I think this is a pretty good example of how changes are coming and there's a lot of people resistant to them because they don't understand the benefit.

Shame really.
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Or they see what the internet has become. A pop-up ad city of revenue streams, that creates addicts of the young generation, training them that consume over create is the American way. Instead of the information superhighway our forefounders of the net envisioned, we ended up at Al's Diner.
 
“Bo Derek is a really good friend of mine and I’d like to spend more time with her,”

looks like the man has his priorities straight, I'll give him that ;)
 
Kuromizu said:
Maybe he just doesn't like the internet. I for one think it's 95% full of idiots hooked up to a grid that amplifies idiocy (myself included lol).
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ZDPhoenix said:
But there's sound reasoning in avoiding the internet. I know a few musicians who refuse to take part in any of their online street teams, website operation, etc. out of plain annoyance and anonymous douchebaggery. Can't say I blame them.

Or they see what the internet has become. A pop-up ad city of revenue streams, that creates addicts of the young generation, training them that consume over create is the American way. Instead of the information superhighway our forefounders of the net envisioned, we ended up at Al's Diner.
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Yeah, I'd agree. The internet has mostly become a place where everybody shouts and nobody listens; mouth is working, ears are disengaged
 
The Internet? Don’t get him started. “The Internet is a big distraction,” Mr. Bradbury barked from his perch in his house in Los Angeles, which is jammed with enormous stuffed animals, videos, DVDs, wooden toys, photographs and books, with things like the National Medal of Arts sort of tossed on a table.

“Yahoo called me eight weeks ago,” he said, voice rising. “They wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo! You know what I told them? ‘To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the Internet.’

“It’s distracting,” he continued. “It’s meaningless; it’s not real. It’s in the air somewhere.”
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Wow, I don't suppose it occurred to him that an internet store would help sell physical books and net him physical money.
 
ZDPhoenix said:
Or they see what the internet has become. A pop-up ad city of revenue streams, that creates addicts of the young generation, training them that consume over create is the American way. Instead of the information superhighway our forefounders of the net envisioned, we ended up at Al's Diner.
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IMO, that shit will more or less even out with time. You seem to forget how new this all really is.

The internet still plays a very important role in the distribution and increased availability of information, however. Not having your book on the internet makes you worse off as the distribution and audience is vastly limited.
 
Azhar said:
Wow, I don't suppose it occurred to him that an internet store would help sell physical books and net him physical money.
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You mean like using the Yahoo store that links to other online retailers for buying his books? They already have that. I would suspect that this was more about Yahoo wanting to put up Mr. Bradbury's works for free than them selling his books :p And if that's the case, I don't blame him one bit.
 
Do any of you people happen to know who Ray Bradbury is? You know, before looking him up on Wikipedia?
 
Dallows said:
I think this is a pretty good example of how changes are coming and there's a lot of people resistant to them because they don't understand the benefit.
Shame really.
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Kind of like how some people still thing vinyl is better than CDs? :D
 
The internet needs Ray Bradbury, but he doesn't need the internet. His books are classics, his fame is assured, and he would rather spend his time on Bo Derek. This man has his stuff together.
 
DarthV said:
You mean like using the Yahoo store that links to other online retailers for buying his books? They already have that. I would suspect that this was more about Yahoo wanting to put up Mr. Bradbury's works for free than them selling his books :p And if that's the case, I don't blame him one bit.
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That may be true but Ray didn't say that. He hated the internet entirely.

Besides, he went on and on about how cheap or free books were in libraries and how ridiculously expensive colleges and universities were, that not everyone could afford it. It'd be a little backwards to preach about Yahoo putting books up for free in one breath and praising the libraries on the next breath.
 
Ray Bradbury is one of my favorite authors I remember reading his short stories in school when I was little and it was so cool to have to read that instead of some litterary BS. He predicted so many things includeing reality television in just his book farenheit 451. That is a pretty cool quote though.
 
Perhaps his attitude comes from years of dreaming about potential futures and what's to come, and those dreams (more likely nightmares) portend a future that we haven't been able to see yet but maybe he has and his comment about "to hell with you and to hell with the Internet" are just a warning of sorts.

That's how I read it...
 
I have to agree with him on some points. Lets just hope that the internet wont become what he fears.
 
“I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.”
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Good for you. I do that much research in a day in addition to college . . . I'm all for self-learning . . . but someone really just doesn't get it . . .
 
I don't think he realizes the Internet is the greatest library of them all...but it will be a sad day when the written book gets completely taken over by the internets...
 
fps4ever said:
I don't think he realizes the Internet is the greatest library of them all...but it will be a sad day when the written book gets completely taken over by the internets...
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I hope it never happens, I really do.

I can't read more than a dozen pages on a computer screen without getting bored and distracted.
 
fps4ever said:
I don't think he realizes the Internet is the greatest library of them all...but it will be a sad day when the written book gets completely taken over by the internets...
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No it's not. There's all kinds of data out on the internet. How much of it is actually useful? Big difference between huge amounts of raw information without context and a well run library with knowledgeable staff :p
 
Dallows said:
The internet still plays a very important role in the distribution and increased availability of information, however. Not having your book on the internet makes you worse off as the distribution and audience is vastly limited.
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While true, I can't recall the last time i ever saw someone going into a library and saying "too long; didn't read."
 
It's easy to see how someone like Bradbury could become disillusioned with the Internet,when you think of what a brilliant sci-fi author must have envisioned the net could be,and what it's become.
 
thewooster said:
Good for you. I do that much research in a day in addition to college . . . I'm all for self-learning . . . but someone really just doesn't get it . . .
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Read the rest of the article. The fact that the internet is a distraction is TRUE.

I can't even read an entire wikipedia entry. Know why? I see a link for something else I don't understand in the damn article so I end up opening that up too in another browser tab to read on that.

In 2 hours I've wound up going from reading on Marvel superheroes to fictional elements to nuclear power to whatever random celebrities were in a superhero movie, and never really got to absorb anything I read on what I originally set out on, which was learning more about the Marvel Universe. My head was filled with all sorts of random facts about everything, but not the entirety of what was in the articles themselves. That isn't useful at all when your focus is supposed to be on one aspect of things.
 
SamuraiInBlack said:
While true, I can't recall the last time i ever saw someone going into a library and saying "too long; didn't read."
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When was the last time you went to the library? For me it's been ages. I'm sure not everything is available online... but soon it will be and it will be accurate. As time goes on the information available via the internet becomes larger and more accurate. I mean I think if you look in the right places most of the stuff is accurate enough.

Besides, what makes a book more accurate than an online article?
 
SamuraiInBlack said:
Read the rest of the article. The fact that the internet is a distraction is TRUE.

I can't even read an entire wikipedia entry. Know why? I see a link for something else I don't understand in the damn article so I end up opening that up too in another browser tab to read on that.

In 2 hours I've wound up going from reading on Marvel superheroes to fictional elements to nuclear power to whatever random celebrities were in a superhero movie, and never really got to absorb anything I read on what I originally set out on, which was learning more about the Marvel Universe. My head was filled with all sorts of random facts about everything, but not the entirety of what was in the articles themselves. That isn't useful at all when your focus is supposed to be on one aspect of things.
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It's called multi-tasking. Obviously some can do it better than others. Especially with this new generation being brought up on computers. Their computer ability outweighs the average 40 year old's by a wide margin.

Also, I wouldn't be so quick to generalize you're lack of focus with others. I don't have a problem reading one article on a webpage and moving on. Usually if they link someplace else I'll open it in separate tab or something and check it out later.
 
SamuraiInBlack said:
Read the rest of the article. The fact that the internet is a distraction is TRUE.

I can't even read an entire wikipedia entry. Know why? I see a link for something else I don't understand in the damn article so I end up opening that up too in another browser tab to read on that.

In 2 hours I've wound up going from reading on Marvel superheroes to fictional elements to nuclear power to whatever random celebrities were in a superhero movie, and never really got to absorb anything I read on what I originally set out on, which was learning more about the Marvel Universe. My head was filled with all sorts of random facts about everything, but not the entirety of what was in the articles themselves. That isn't useful at all when your focus is supposed to be on one aspect of things.
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It actually disturbed me a tad the other day when I got on the net to try and read about the specs/tech info regarding IMAX, and in a single click went straight from IMAX technical specs to (not a chance) a listing of porno done in IMAX...

Talk about getting inaccurate information... But I must admit I was a bit surprised (but never shocked) to go from IMAX info at a credible source to porno in a single click...

Then again, there's just too much sex on the internet. The other day I was trying to read about different visual impairments, and see a video describing the symptoms of each. One was showing how it can affect your ability to read. It was a serious video. But the article underneath that they were using to simulate the visual impairment was an article/story of some sort about gang rape!? I mean, come on, WTF?
 
Tolyngee said:
It actually disturbed me a tad the other day when I got on the net to try and read about the specs/tech info regarding IMAX, and in a single click went straight from IMAX technical specs to (not a chance) a listing of porno done in IMAX...

Talk about getting inaccurate information... But I must admit I was a bit surprised (but never shocked) to go from IMAX info at a credible source to porno in a single click...

Then again, there's just too much sex on the internet. The other day I was trying to read about different visual impairments, and see a video describing the symptoms of each. One was showing how it can affect your ability to read. It was a serious video. But the article underneath that they were using to simulate the visual impairment was an article/story of some sort about gang rape!? I mean, come on, WTF?
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Really curious how you managed that. Any recollection of what the IMAX info site was that directed you to porn?
 
We should save the libraries. Some communities have that as there only source for any information whether digital or in paper form. Books should never stop being published. I want a damn paper manual when I buy stuff. I like to look a pictures and if I freaking need help its right there.
 
VA Supremacy said:
We should save the libraries. Some communities have that as there only source for any information whether digital or in paper form. Books should never stop being published. I want a damn paper manual when I buy stuff. I like to look a pictures and if I freaking need help its right there.
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I don't really think print will go away.
 
Dallows said:
I don't really think print will go away.
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Only if we say to hell with books and stop preserving them. If everything starts to solely exist on the Internet then we lose. Its also preserve heritage and culture when it comes to books.

He thinks its going there in a realm where Books won't ever matter as they have before.
 
Print will evolve, instead of actual paper it will be those thin flexible OLED displays you carry around with you, I for one look forward to progress.
 
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