Arthur C. Clarke has died...

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EternalDarko said:
Is that from the blu-ray? You don't have a 1080p res version do you?
Would love to use it for my background but the resolution is out of proportion.

I made the image from scratch in photoshop. I don't have the original here right now. If I get the time, I could edit it when I get home.
 
It's always so sad when such a popularizer of science passes ... they are truly few and far between. And we need a cultural interests in science more now than we ever have before :[
 
Feral Youth said:
I always forget the fact everybody admits to their crimes.
According to that Sunday Mirror "interview" with him you posted, he obviously admitted to his crimes, no? But then he decided to vehemently deny them?

Also, kids they interviewed in the same article later came forward saying that they were paid by the tabloid to lie about it. Sri Lankan police which investigated the whole thing and interviewed same boys found the accusations to be baseless.

Not to mention Clarke was 80 years at the time of accusation, and was bound to a wheelchair, not exactly a likely candidate for what he was being accused of.

I don't know what else could possibly anyone do to prove they're not guilty of something like this once they're accused, and if you follow your logic, you'll always think everyone is guilty of something like this if a tabloid accuses them, no matter what the eventual outcome, and their defense is.
 
Marconelly said:
According to that Sunday Mirror "interview" with him you posted, he obviously admitted to his crimes, no? But then he decided to vehemently deny them?

Also, kids they interviewed in the same article later came forward saying that they were paid by the tabloid to lie about it. Sri Lankan police which investigated the whole thing and interviewed same boys found the accusations to be baseless.

Not to mention Clarke was 80 years at the time of accusation, and was bound to a wheelchair, not exactly a likely candidate for what he was being accused of.

I don't know what else could possibly anyone do to prove they're not guilty of something like this once they're accused, and if you follow your logic, you'll always think everyone is guilty of something like this if a tabloid accuses them, no matter what the eventual outcome, and their defense is.


I never said he was guilty. I said it could be true or might not be.

I may as well say he is guilty if people have selective reading though.

My logic is it's best to be open minded about things, hence why I'm not jumping up and down worshipping the man like a God.

For a Clarke fan you're turring out to be very narrow minded.

I suggest you read slow.
 
Feral Youth said:
I never said he was guilty. I said it could be true or might not be.
OK then replace "you'll always think" with "you'll always suspect" in the last paragraph of my previous post if that changes the meaning of it to be in line with what you're arguing. I'm just asking at what point would you stop being suspicious - what more could a person do to prove their innocence once accused of something like this.
 
I so wish this thread didn't contain any fail of any kind. Thank goodness it is only at 15% fail. It is on days like this that I kind of hate the internet and its powerusers. People researching, digging up old news stories etc (which I had no idea about despite being a loyal Arthur C. Clarke fan). Stuff like that sucks if it is coming from a person who is only researching the "criticisms"

Anyway - internet research horse manure about Arthur C. Clarke is totally lost on me today.

In short - too soon.
 
Marconelly said:
OK then replace "you'll always think" with "you'll always suspect" in the last paragraph of my previous post if that changes the meaning of it to be in line with what you're arguing. I'm just asking at what point would you stop being suspicious - what more could a person do to prove their innocence once accused of something like this.

No one has to prove their innocence to me in the big picture. And you know what I don't really care, I liked the guys books....but, there is a "but" and a "maybe" about the guy and not much that can take that away now.. Hysterical fans like the guy above this post isn't going to do much to change my mind about it, a mind which is undecided because there are no proofs as such just heresay.
 
Feral Youth said:
No one has to prove their innocence to me in the big picture. And you know what I don't really care, I liked the guys books....but, there is a "but" and a "maybe" about the guy and not much that can take that away now.. Hysterical fans like the guy above this post isn't going to do much to change my mind about it, a mind which is undecided because there are no proofs as such just heresay.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/despatches/75819.stm

You are entitled to your opinions, but that doesn't mean you have to be asshole.
 
oh crap I saw this thread but didn't realize who it was till I heard it on the radio.

One of my favorite quotes: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

:(
 
Guys, I just conducted an interview with Feral Youth over PMs.

Select quotes:

"Well, yeah, maybe I'm just jealous of ACC and bring up the baseless claims and false quotes that finger him as a pedophile because I myself am a closet pedophile."

"I like to felch little boys."


edit: I'm sorry, I retract these statements *wink wink*
 
adamsappel said:
One of my favorite authors. But, yeah, I don't know if I can go with the "Great Man" title, considering some of the unsavory rumors about him.
Marconelly said:
Also, kids they interviewed in the same article later came forward saying that they were paid by the tabloid to lie about it. Sri Lankan police which investigated the whole thing and interviewed same boys found the accusations to be baseless.
Glad to know this. Retractions never get the same attention as accusations.
 
I enjoyed Rendevous with Rama, but I couldn't finish the second book in the series. This was a long time ago though, maybe now I would like it as well.

I remember reading a book that Clarke co-wrote with somebody named Gentry Lee in the early 90s called Cradle. It had graphic sex scenes in it, which I certainly wasn't expecting after reading Rama. For a kid in junior high in a small town, before the internets, this was a nice lagniappe. I remember one passage that went: "They had tomato sandwiches for lunch. Love-making was the dessert."
 
Guileless said:
I enjoyed Rendevous with Rama, but I couldn't finish the second book in the series. This was a long time ago though, maybe now I would like it as well.

I remember reading a book that Clarke co-wrote with somebody named Gentry Lee in the early 90s called Cradle. It had graphic sex scenes in it, which I certainly wasn't expecting after reading Rama. For a kid in junior high in a small town, before the internets, this was a nice lagniappe. I remember one passage that went: "They had tomato sandwiches for lunch. Love-making was the dessert."

The later Rama books were filled with that kind of stuff. That, among other things, really turned me off to everything past Book 2 and even that was a step down from the first one.
 
Great Rumbler said:
The later Rama books were filled with that kind of stuff. That, among other things, really turned me off to everything past Book 2 and even that was a step down from the first one.
Really. Cradle was awful too.

I can't imagine a scenario other than Arthur C. Clarke losing some kind of weird bet with Gentry Lee and being forced to write a series of shitty novels with him.
 
Guileless said:
I enjoyed Rendevous with Rama, but I couldn't finish the second book in the series. This was a long time ago though, maybe now I would like it as well.

I remember reading a book that Clarke co-wrote with somebody named Gentry Lee in the early 90s called Cradle. It had graphic sex scenes in it, which I certainly wasn't expecting after reading Rama. For a kid in junior high in a small town, before the internets, this was a nice lagniappe. I remember one passage that went: "They had tomato sandwiches for lunch. Love-making was the dessert."

It's hilarious that you mention Cradly and the fact that Gentry Lee cowrote them but don't seem to realize that the reason you couldn't finish the second Rama book is because it was ALSO 'co-written' by Gentry Lee.

Incidentally, Gentry Lee wrote those books himself. Clarke has been quoted as saying he just provided input and Gentry 'wrote' them. Good god he's so terrible. My suspicion is the reason Clarke was ok with it is that Clarke respected the guy's work with NASA. It's certainly a low point in his career though.
 
maharg said:
It's hilarious that you mention Cradly and the fact that Gentry Lee cowrote them but don't seem to realize that the reason you couldn't finish the second Rama book is because it was ALSO 'co-written' by Gentry Lee.

Incidentally, Gentry Lee wrote those books himself. Clarke has been quoted as saying he just provided input and Gentry 'wrote' them. Good god he's so terrible. My suspicion is the reason Clarke was ok with it is that Clarke respected the guy's work with NASA. It's certainly a low point in his career though.

Okay, now it all starts to make some sense. I read Book 1 and thought that it was an absolutely stellar book, loved it in every way. Book 2 was a big step down and all kinds of things were going on that made it almost nothing at all like the original. Instead of being about science and exploration and the wonder of alien worlds, it became about betrayal and murder and sex and secret plots and all kinds of ridiculous stuff.

I can't remember whether it was Book 2 or Book 3, but the part where the woman is trapped on Rama with the two guys was just...freakishly bizarre. I honestly don't know why I didn't stop there, but somehow I plowed through it and made to the absolutely weird part where they arrive at some kind of alien research station or something. By the time I got to the part where the humans built their own Rama ship, I just quit because it was just getting worse and worse and I couldn't take anymore.

I really need to go back and read the first one to cleanse my palate.
 
I did not realize than Lee also "co-wrote" the later Rama books. He had quite an impact on me though. After reading Cradle, I really wanted to have afternoon sex with a woman who would hum bars of classical music to herself during coitus, after we had eaten tomato sandwiches together. He made it sound so damn glamorous.
 
Great Rumbler said:
The later Rama books were filled with that kind of stuff. That, among other things, really turned me off to everything past Book 2 and even that was a step down from the first one.

Yeah, lots of the rama trilogy was just plain "wha...??" The funny thing, though, is that they still had those really interesting "big questions" that Clarke's books were filled with. It's just everything connecting them together seemed to be written like a script seen from behind a bottle of beer.

I think the ending of the final Rama book is really good; definitely one of the best - if not the best - attached to Clarke's name, but it's a hell of a slog to ever get that far. Most people will probably still be angry at the incomprehensible behavior of characters in the pages up to that point.
 
Crazymoogle said:
The funny thing, though, is that they still had those really interesting "big questions" that Clarke's books were filled with. It's just everything connecting them together seemed to be written like a script seen from behind a bottle of beer.

Probably because the "big questions" came from Clarke and the rest was lovingly provided by Gentry Lee.

Even with the faults that it had, 3001 was better than the later Rama books.
 
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