Wednesday, 1 July 2020

After Thirty Years II

See After Thirty Years.

Now we can all apply this to our own lives - the foundation on which fiction and literature are built. Even without either time travel or experience of alternative universes, everyone lives through time. Any blog reader who is now twenty was not alive thirty years ago.

In 1990, I was working a probationary year in Merseyside (see image) and my granddaughter had not been born yet. In 2000, I started to work in Lancashire and thus no longer needed to commute quite so far. In 2012, I retired.

So what was everyone else doing thirty years ago? - if they were alive then. A lot can happen, has happened, in three decades. Fiction reflects life and, sometimes, when reading fiction, we reflect on life. Holger lives through several decades - and so do we.

9 comments:

S.M. Stirling said...

Writing books... 8-).

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Of course. Lol, as they say.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

Ha! For me, one of the things I might have done in 1990 was writing another letter to Poul Anderson. I don't think so, but I'm pretty sure I did in 1989 or 1991.

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Me too.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

It's one of my pet hopes that someday the surviving letters of Poul Anderson will be collected and published, both TO and FROM him.

Ad astra! Sean

Nicholas D. Rosen said...

Kaor, Paul!

Thirty years ago, I was a graduate student at the Pennsylvania State University, still short of my M.S. in Materials. I had no idea that I would end up working for the U.S. Patent Office, examining applications in the field of business methods.

Best Regards,
Nicholas

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Nicholas!

Hmmmm, "...examining applications in the field of business methods" hardly seems to be what I would expect the US Patent Office to do! I usually think of the Patent Office as reviewing requests that patents be granted for inventions ranging from better mouse traps to space and rocket technology.

Ad astra! Sean

Nicholas D. Rosen said...

Kaor, Sean!

Don’t take this as in any way authoritative, because I am not representing myself as an authority on patent law or procedure, and am not speaking for the U.S. Patent Office, but inventions are supposed to be more than abstract ideas. A pure method of performing commercial interactions could be rejected as directed to an abstract idea, even if the inventor says, in effect, “have a computer do it.” However, non-trivial use of technology to implement the idea could make it significantly more than an abstract idea, and therefore be patent-eligible. We are guided by the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice Corporation v. CLS Bank a few years ago.

Best Regards,
Nicholas

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Nicholas!

Thanks for your explanation! Apparently, the work of the Patent Office is more complex than what I had ever hitherto thought!

Regards! Sean