Time again for another Long-Winded - I mean - Long AWAITED NewsLetter!

Thrilled, aren't you? I can tell that you are.

Here is my new word for the day:
sybarite \SIB-uh-ryt\, noun:
A person devoted to luxury and pleasure.

That could be me! But as you may have heard, my duties at the University are keeping me pretty busy! Ah, yes, back to the forty-hour workweek. But I am enjoying my new responsibilities (and a paycheck comes in handy!). UF’s a great place to work!

Employment, however, has cut into this sybarite’s leisure time and consequently my creative writing now consists primarily of these Newsletters...

Well, I take that back, because last night I got back to work on my much-anticipated new book (keep those title suggestions coming!), i.e. the SEQUEL to my best-selling blockbuster of a first novel: Endless! (note the self-fulfilling prophecy?)

Whew...

I started writing late in the evening. Even though I was tired I kept writing. At some point I apparently began to sleep-write. Not sure what I may have come up with. Guess I'll find out next time I boot up the laptop! I do, however, remember working on the ending. At some point I'll have to go back and write the part that comes before the ending. Once I get that part figured out. Once I can stay up past 10:30 again.

== BOOK SIGNING NEWS! ==
So be sure to mark your calendars for September 25. I am scheduled for a book signing at Goering's Bookstore on that Sunday afternoon. For the next several weeks you may be seeing your inbox crammed with reminders of this gala event! I may even remember to tell you what time it starts, once I actually confirm the time and date with Goering's! (I think it’s after lunch).

== RECENT ARTICLES! ==
For all you Alachuannians and High Springsians and Newberrians out there, (and everybody else) be sure to check out the upcoming High Springs Alachua Magazine. In the next couple of weeks some of my articles should be appearing within those pages. If all goes as predicted there will be an article about the History of the Railroad of High Springs, Newberry and Alachua, as well as my New Column. I think my column will be called Different Note or Albert's Attic or Village Idiot - or some combination thereof.

Thanks again to those of you who made suggestions for the column's title! I enjoyed reading them.

Both of them. Ha!

== OLD NEWS (but NEW NEWS to You) ==
Speaking of articles: I'd like to leave you with something I had come across last year on the Internet. For those of you who have not yet read my book, fear not, this won't give much away.

While working on possible titles for my book Endless, I Googled various ideas and combinations of titles and found something entirely unexpected: an article about some British Scientists who are predicting the End of Death in the next few decades; an article about a chip in your head that records memories, tastes, experiences - basically the concept upon which my entire story is based - a concept that I had described in the late 70's when I first wrote the short story that eventually became my book.

Whew, that last sentence seemed endless!

Here's what I saw:

The End of Death:
'Soul Catcher' Computer Chip Due...
By Robert Uhlig
The Electronic Telegraph (England)
(From CNI News)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This article not only encompassed my story, but it had some of my potential titles as well.

So much for my titles - to the garbage bin they went!

As if that wasn’t enough, the article goes on to say:

"A computer chip implanted behind the eye that could record
a person's every lifetime thought and sensation is to be
developed by British scientists."

And so there I sat, staring at this article and I hadn't even finished my book yet. Talk about a reality check! Life was copying Art, even if by mere happenstance, and Science Fiction was becoming Science Fact, or so it seemed to me. It was fantasy on the fast track to non-fiction - straight to reality.

It was also a great motivator! I was compelled to finish the book, before it became old news. I know that in recent years there have been stories aplenty about chips in the head, but I had not seen very many in the mid-seventies. And none in a so-called scientific article.

How bizarre is that?

Check this out:

"This is the end of death," said Dr. Chris Winter, of
British Telecom's artificial life team. He predicted that
within three decades it would be possible to relive other
people's lives by playing back their experiences on a computer.
"By combining this information with a record of the person's
genes, we could recreate a person physically, emotionally
and spiritually."

Hmmm. I should have finished my book 25 years ago, eh? Yeah! If I had, now I would be a true Sybarite living comfortably off my Royalties, especially since by now the book would have surely been made into a blockbuster Academy Award Winning Motion Picture starring some really cool 70'- 80's actor like Harry Dean Stanton. Ha, that's funny.

"An Instant Classic," the media would exclaim! "Ripped From the Headlines!"

I am getting a bit carried away... The fact is I realized that sooner or later someone would write a book or movie so similar to my story that mine would no longer be worth finishing.

But, things happen in their own good time, I suppose. It's finished now, and that's what counts. True success comes from simply having completed the project. And I fully intend to complete the sequel, regardless of monetary gain.

That being said, I still want you all to go out and BUY THE BOOK! Yes, Ha ha!! And don't forget that Christmas is right around the corner!

At any rate, as I navigate the uncharted waters of Freelance writing and new employment opportunity, I thank all of you for your words of encouragement, as well as your commendable fortitude for having read through another one of my ramblings!

And now it's time for someone else's ramblings:

Here is the site: http://www.rense.com/political/weapons/soul.htm
Here is the article if you are curious:

SIGHTINGS


The End of Death:
'Soul Catcher' Computer Chip Due...
By Robert Uhlig
The Electronic Telegraph (England)
(From CNI News)

A computer chip implanted behind the eye that could record a person's every lifetime thought and sensation is to be developed by British scientists.

"This is the end of death," said Dr. Chris Winter, of British Telecom's artificial life team. He predicted that within three decades it would be possible to relive other people's lives by playing back their experiences on a computer. "By combining this information with a record of the person's genes, we could recreate a person physically, emotionally and spiritually."

Dr. Winter's team of eight scientists at BT's Martlesham Heath Laboratories near Ipswich calls the chip the 'Soul Catcher.' It would be possible to imbue a new-born baby with a lifetime's experiences by giving him or her the Soul Catcher chip of a dead person, Dr. Winter said. The proposal to digitize existence is based on a solid calculation of how much data the brain copes with over a lifetime.

Ian Pearson , BT's official futurologist, has measured the flow of impulses from the optical nerve and nerves in the skin, tongue, ear, and nose. Over an eighty year life, we process 10 terrabytes of data, equivalent to the storage capacity of 7,142,857,142,860,000 floppy disks.

Dr. Pearson said, "If current trends in the miniaturization of computer memory continues at the rate of the past 20 years - a factor of 100 every decade - today's 8-megabyte memory chip norm will be able to store 10 terrabytes in 30 years."

British Telecom would not divulge how much money it is investing in the project, but Dr. Winter said it was taking 'Soul Catcher 2025' very seriously. He admitted that there were profound ethical considerations, but emphasized that BT was embarking on this line of research to enable it to remain at the forefront of communications technology.

"An implanted chip would be like an aircraft's black box and would enhance communications beyond current concepts," he said. "For example, police would be able to use it to relive an attack, rape, or murder from the victim's viewpoint to help catch the criminal."

Other applications would be less useful but more frightening. "I could even play back the smells, sounds, and sights of my holiday to my friends," Dr. Winter said.


BAH! I say to Dr. Winter! Bah! How dare they mettle with the building blocks of nature! That’s my job!

Albert