If you've never seen the '50's Topper TV sitcom or any of the three Topper movies, this may not mean much to you. The premise is this.
George and Marion Kerby are killed, become ghosts, haunting stuck-in-his-ways, Cosmo Topper. I watched the first movie, 1937's "Topper", as recent as yesterday on TCM. Well done with special effects ahead of the time. But I've never thought much more about the concept until now. George and Marion can communicate with anyone they wish while choosing to limit themselves primarily to Topper. In that way, they and Topper are bridging the gap between the living and the dead. Raymond Quinn did so too with those he would have known in alternative lives he would have lived had he made different choices. We all have memories of friends, family, and acquaintances no longer mortals. And whether or not we realize it, we all have relationships with people we would have known had we made different choices. It doesn't take much, just a little imagination, to connect on some level with both.
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How could I not read an article (or attempt to read since I am not a physicist, a computer scientist, or anything remotely close to either) with a title such as that?
The title of this post comes from a December 10 article in Techcrunch regarding Google's latest quantum computer chip, Willow. It quotes from an article written by Hartmut Neven, Founder and Lead, Google Quantum AI, entitled, "Meet Willow, our state-of-the-art quantum chip". Given what Dr. Neven had to say, an understated title if there ever was one. Is Willow fast? According to Neven, yes, you could say it is fast. "Willow’s performance on this benchmark is astonishing: It performed a computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 1025 or 10 septillion years. If you want to write it out, it’s 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years. This mind-boggling number exceeds known timescales in physics and vastly exceeds the age of the universe. It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse, a prediction first made by David Deutsch." When it comes to proving/disproving the existence of universes parallel to the one in which we live, the debate continues. However, that wasn't and isn't my concern. The Unlived Lives of Raymond Quinn, and soon to be sequels, asks the reader to imagine what their infinite lives in the multiverse might be like. Think about yours. ![]() "There's something about old cars that bring you back to a place and time when things were just better." Mark Towle, Owner Gotham Garage Should the theory of parallel universes be disproven, there are other ways to transport to earlier places and times, unlived lives included. One of the better ones is old cars. My first was a then (1966) thirteen-year-old Studebaker Commander. Cost, $300, just under $3,000 in today's money. I loved that car! I pushed it more than drove it. I couldn't afford the gas and insurance, not to mention major repairs, of which it needed many. But it was mine, I loved it, I'll never forget it. It took me on dates to drive-ins, with friends to the beach, to interviews for jobs I rarely got for money I needed to keep it. My car looked everything and nothing like this one. In my opinion, a design way ahead of its time in 1953, 1966, and beautiful even today. Nothing like this one because of everything my car needed, very little of which I could afford. And one day, less than a year after buying it, I faced reality and sold it to a man who told me he would take good care of it. And he did too, returning less than a year later to show me what he had done. Engine rebuilt, interior, which was in good shape when I had it, refreshed, new tires, brakes, and shocks. No more pushing. Everything I wished I could have done for it. There is much more about 1966 I don't recall than there is that I do. However, there's little about that Studebaker that does not come rushing back to me whenever I think about our way too brief time together. I'm living the life I chose, no regrets, occasionally in mine and my first car's lived and unlived lives. Online book reviews, particularly those on Amazon, the undisputed giant of book marketing, are indispensable. But the tsunami of fake reviews could change all that.
So what is Amazon doing to correct the problem? First consider what the US Federal Trade Commission has done. This past August, the FTC announced a new policy meant to identify and punish those publishing fake reviews. I hope it works, but it will come down to how effective is law enforcement. Amazon knows this is a problem they must address as well, which I assume they believe they are doing with a recent revision to their review policy. The following is the lead statement of that policy, you can review it all by clicking on the link. "How We Keep Reviews Trustworthy and Useful To ensure only genuine customers post reviews, we have submission requirements. Only customers who have spent at least $50 on Amazon in the last 12 months can submit ratings and reviews." That will help by only allowing reviews from those who have bought something on Amazon. But how it prevents those who buy anything other than the book or product they wish to review is beyond me. The Situation in Australia A woman living in Australia bought The Unlived Lives of Raymond Quinn from Amazon Australia. She contacted me, to say she enjoyed it, tried to review it, and was prevented from doing so because she was less than two dollars Australian from the fifty dollar minimum requirement. So she bought a second copy to be used as a gift, and tried again to leave a review, and again was prevented from doing so. She called Amazon and was told she had two accounts in her name, neither of which had the amount required to enable her to leave a review. In total, the two exceeded the fifty dollar minimum, separately they did not. She requested that since both accounts were in her name, they be combined. Amazon refused siting "policy" as the reason. I benefit from an additional book sale, but the value of that woman's review would have been much greater. She's not happy, I'm not happy. Amazon, are you sure you don't want to take another look at your entire fake review policy? |
AuthorIn addition to writing, William Matthies' accomplishments include earning a lifetime ban from Catalina Island at 13, viewing Earth from 80,000 feet during a Mach 2.5 flight in a supersonic Russian aircraft, and remaining an absolute beginner after “playing” guitar for more than three decades. Archives
February 2025
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