Robert Heinlein

: A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. SpecializationIsForInsects. - LazarusLong

See:

The Robert A Heinlein Home Page: http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/

Heinlein Society: http://www.heinleinsociety.org

Heinlein on Yahoo!: http://dir.yahoo.com/Arts/Humanities/Literature/Genres/Science_Fiction_and_Fantasy/Authors/Heinlein__Robert/
A discussion on pros and cons of specialization, in programming and elsewhere: SpecializationIsForInsects and SpecializationIsForInsectsDiscussion

: "The body remembers." - Joan Eunice Smith in IwillFearNoEvil?

Probably the worst book RAH ever wrote. Or at least a close tie with RocketShipGalileo?.

Oh, no, 'Glory Road', any day! -- TomAnderson

'Glory Road' is a reasonably good adolescent fantasy with a lot of nice fencing; if you read it in the context of Heinlein's juveniles, it's actually quite good fun. -- PM

Glory Road is one of his award winners, so, although taste varies, I can only conclude that you haven't read his very worst books (written during a period of reduced oxygen flow to his brain or something -- seriously).

What about the shockingly dreadful 'TheDayAfterTomorrow'? (also known as 'Sixth Column')-- KeithBraithwaite

Hello? "Sixth Column"? Deus ex Machina meets random racism. Easily his worst IMO. -- MartinDeMello?

I have never, ever read a book so amazingly bad as "Farnham's Freehold". -- EarleMartin

Discussion about Heinlein novels:

TheDayAfterTomorrow ("shockingly dreadful")
StarshipTroopers and StarshipTroopersTheBook (whether or not RAH is a Facist and whether or not ST provides evidence for such).
StrangerInaStrangeLand
TheNumberOfTheBeast
TheMoonIsaHarshMistress
IfThisGoesOn
TimeEnoughForLove
HaveSpaceSuitWillTravel?

: (to be made into a film see http://www.zap2it.com/movies/news/pstory/0,3382,16416,00.html)

Heinlein non-fiction:

Imagine my surprise at learning that there was a whole discussion of Heinlein's politics that somehow never raised mention of his book, TakeBackYourGovernment? (originally titled "How to be a Politician"), written in 1946 and republished in 1992. I'd never even heard of it, and I've read most of his fictional work.

Guess I have to go buy it now.

Robert Heinlein's characters also had a sick, twisted fetish for persons with red hair.

The red hair has been commented on, and some things in his books have been called twisted etc, but I hadn't heard the red hair obsession itself commented on as sick before...why do you think so? BTW his wife had red hair.

Recall also that RAH has contributed (at least) a number of words to various lexicons:

a 'waldo' (from "Waldo"; now part of engineering lingo), meaning a micromanipulator, a device for reducing a human's movements to a tiny scale, eg for carving life-size sculptures of mosquitoes
- Some company has trademarked waldo for their remote-presence hardware - although I saw this several years ago and they may be defunct now. -- PeteHardie
- If I recall correctly, in Heinlein's story a waldo was any telepresence device, not just micromanipulator. -- IanOsgood
ToGrok (from StrangerInaStrangeLand; part of the EnglishLanguage since the 1970s, according to dictionaries), meaning to fully understand something to such a degree that the dividing line between you and it dissolves.

-- TomAnderson

Waterbed: RAH is credited with inventing the concept by the guy who got the first patent on it. This is high profile. Lower profile is some information that suggests there was even earlier work on the subject.

It's the other way about, I thought. RAH's mention of the waterbed was the prior art that prevented it being patented. There may well have been other prior prior art, of course

I recall reading one of his essays that recounted how he had the idea for the hydraulic bed, which inspired the modern waterbed. His main additions to any previous designs included, an open boxed in platform, heating the water to near body temperature, and providing a method to adjust the firmness. He also stated that the first water manufatured was given to him as a gift, and at the time of the article, he had never installed the bed. The description on the hydraulic bed from Stranger in a Strange Land was used to deny a patent to someone else.

LazarusLong ( TimeEnoughForLove ) would have liked the freewheeling nature of Wiki, and the lucky and defiant order-from-chaos aspect. StarshipTroopersTheBook, however, as well as all RAH's 'heroic' works (Friday, Glory Road, TheMoonIsaHarshMistress, TheNumberOfTheBeast, TheMoonIsaHarshMistress, etc., ad naus.), offers a world view quite in contrast with the entire apologetics of Wiki. RAH might even go so far as to say that the fluid atemporal content of wiki is not knowledge at all but a very socialized sort of noise.

Does wiki create HeroicKnowledge? ?

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