Stormbringer's Thunder

"It takes an awful lot of people, working together at an awful lot of jobs, to keep a civilization running. Smash the installations and kill the top technicians and scientists, and the masses don't know how to rebuild and go back to stone hatchets. Kill off enough of the masses and even if the planet and the know-how is left, there's nobody to do the work. I've seen planets that decivilized both ways." from The Space Viking, by H. Beam Piper Interesting how this comes along while I'm looking at material on simplifying and on minimalism. In this far future story, the survivors of a planet's war devolved into barbarism. This came about because nobody was able to take care of what was needed to keep the technology going. In times of power loss, we realize how dependent we are on technology that is driven by electricity. Once the power is restored, we can watch television, make telephone calls and go online. Some people are only slightly inconvenienced from t...

Buona sera. Cowboy Bob really hates the moving process, and that's what I'm in the middle of right now. There was the search process (which is frustrating and irritating enough), and I came through that in one piece. After the elation of finding a new place to go, there's the very tedious and stressful process of getting everything over there. Sure, the boys in the crew are more than willing to be pals and help drag furniture and boxes. But I have to put the stuff in the boxes, pack fragile items carefully, mark the boxes correctly ("Where the hell did I put the spare clip for the P-99?") -- and sort things. The older we get, the more we need (and often want) to simplify. When moving day comes, you regret being a pack rat for all those years because you have to carry things that you haven't looked at in years or even forgot that you own in the first place. When the moving process is not hurried, you have time to sort through things and get rid of stuff. (Whe...