Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for December 10, 2013

I hope Calvin doesn’t report his Dad to the NSA.

More of a prophecy

Dad should get a Kindle.

And while literacy rates are improving, poverty is decreasing, hunger is (slowly) going away, the earth is being wrecked less quickly, and humans are sending almost-magical hunks of metal to other worlds, we also have to remember that some aspects of the past are better than their future counterparts.

This could have been written today.

I do all of that today with recent innovations: Amazon offers hardcovers, accepts payment with gift cards, and delivers to a local Amazon Locker. Thought-provoking, lasting, and anonymous. Non-trivial to do, though. Dad is averse to something more specific than “the future”.

tl; dr

I know just how he feels! There’s something sensual about abook that no computer can match. Computers can do marvellous things [when they work properly!], but it just isn’tthe same, somehow. Before I retired, I used to collect 78rpmshellac phonograph records. Many of them have been reiss-ued on CD, but it’s not the same as holding the actual 78 inyour hand, putting it on your turntable, putting in a new needlein and setting it on the record. Some magic is lacking. Simil-arly, steam locomotives and piston engined aircraft have some magic — even call it sex appeal — that diesel and electric locomotives , or jet aircraft completely lack.

Nowadays, it is difficult to find anything at any price with a sewn binding. Even the best of contemporary Bibles and reference books have glued bindings, and thus hardly can be passed from one generation to the next. Indeed, I think that this consequence — namely, abrogation of the possibility of inheritance — explains the phenomenon.

The turning is running!

Calvin’s Dad would easily fit into the conservative movement today. I like him.

It’s easy (for me at least) to forget all the ways in which this strip is from a different era. When it ended 18 year ago, Calvin’s family had somewhat grudgingly gotten a computer, but was evidently not connected to the Internet. Calvin’s Dad wouldn’t get an “online account” because “it’s bad enough we have a phone.” The computer was mentioned at all in only a few strips.

Until my techie stepson bought himself a newer model andgave me his old one [around 2007] , I was probably the onlyperson in this country over the age of five, who had not got amobile phone. As it is, I use it maybe once a month, ifthat often, and I rarely even keep it charged unless I’m ex-pecting visitors from abroad.

Yes: telephones are a pain; and I miss letters in the mailbox.

I fit right in with Dad.

Kicking and screaming…

just as long as those electrical sockets continue to provide the ability to charge up those gadgets…but nothing to worry about there. Our power grid is secure and strong and everlasting ;(

_………

Just get a Kindle Dad and keep up with modern times.

This is one of my favorites. I can completely identify with Calvin’s Dad on this one! :D

Hooray for subversive dads!!!

One sad look at my junk-filled mailbox, and it’s amazing how prescient Watterson could be… Go, Bill!!!

I’m a throwback who still prefers books to eReaders and held out on buying a Kindle until last year, but I’m glad I got one. I bought the standard b/w no-frills edition and have been loading it with free books and documents from the Gutenberg Project site, which I HIGHLY recommend. I’ve almost filled it and now have stored over 1,100 books and documents (mostly classics) that cost me nothing. Think of how much money and room you’d need for that many books on your shelves.

A good strip will be a good read in 20 or more years. I still get a chuckle out of Pogo. There is no need to lock them in the period when they were created. It is a mark of genius on the part of the creator if you can find contemporary meaning in an old strip.

Bill was years ahead of his time…so many of his comics are 100% relevant on the rerun date years later.

Dad would’ve hated Amazon drones…

I like paper books, but who wants to lug L. Ron Hubbard’s “Mission Earth” series (10 books) or other massive tomes on an airplane with him?

There is an international treaty about the use of nuclear weapons in space. Kind of a pity as this is about the only good use of a nuclear explosion I can think of.

When it comes to addressing the issue of world hunger, it’s best to first stop and consider the problem of moral hazards. IOW, will your proposal actually improve the situation, or just delay it and put even more people at risk in the future. Far too many give-away schemes do the latter.

I’ve had the best time on Amazon replacing all my paperback books of a favorite author, and finishing off the collection, with hardbacks. I’ve gotten some beautiful books, some with sewn bindings, many that were ex-library and in pristine condition even though 30 or 40 years old and many of them for under $10. There was one new one from a small publisher that was a limited printing special edition. It is a gorgeous book that even included a card from the publisher on how to properly initially open a book. Talk about book lovers! I’m moving on to another favorite author.

While using nuclear power for spaceships is a good choice, putting nukes in space is just more arms buildup. I worked on the Chemical Weapons Disposal Project. When we asked the designers what fail safes they had, so we could exploit them, we were told that they just figured they would use them. When you make a weapon of mass destruction, you really need to know how to disarm it safely.

Sometimes the old fashioned way is best and a lot more preferable.

xxx

uh-oh better call the firemen from fahrenheit 451

Re: purchase tracing — the shoes I bought online last night have been popping up on my screen all day — do they think I’m going to buy another pair?

I have head that 85% of all the water in the US, is polluted.No wonder they throw the trout back!

Dad would never survive into today’s world…

Which reminds me Bill, please bring Calvin back as an adult with a kid.

Poor, poor Mr. Calvin’s Dad. If he thought it was bad twenty years ago….

Calvin got his genes from his dad.