How Old Are We? Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night?

How Old Are We? Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night?
EventHorizon1984
18 September 2013

 

"How old are you, Chiun. I mean really, you must be pretty old, right?"
"For an apricot, yes. For a head of lettuce, even more so. For a mountain, I have not even begun. For a man, just right." Chiun
Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985)

It's that irritating nagging feeling when real life mimics fiction; something forgotten was bothering me (Ed.)  This mental itch was the equivalent of Tommy Albright hearing singing towards the end of Brigadoon.  (Ed. no music, but you'll get the idea.)

The 'oh yea' light popped on after reading the story of a man claiming to be 160 years old.   (Ed. likely he's remembering WWII, not 1895).

Before that epiphany there was a late night viewing of The New Avengers part 1 and 2 of "K Is for Kill" episodes.  Briefly described as "1945 Russian soldier Stanislav stole the secret of longevity from a Tibetan monk."

Preceded by catching up on Red Dwarf season 10.  The trope being, "Lister can be safely released from stasis three million years later."  i.e. the character David Lister is chronologically over three million years old.

Before Red Dwarf there was the viewing of the films Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. (1966).  The television series Doctor Who will be fifty years old in November 2013.  The Doctor, the show lead, is over eleven hundred years old.

And more before.

"I worry. I mean, little things bother me. I'm a worrier. I mean, little insignificant details - I lose my appetite. I can't eat. My wife, she says to me, "you know, you can really be a pain."  Lt. Columbo

Eventually the 'subconscious' got through to the 'conscious mind', hence this short article.

One question we frequently receive is 'what happened to the [fill in the blank] article?'.  The short answer is 'they've been archived.'  Years ago, with over fourteen hundred articles, maintenance was a PITA.  They were archived because there was too much work involved in article management.  Also articles were archived because the subject matter was obsolete, or had been overcome by events.

Back then the plan was prune the number of articles down to a manageable one hundred.  That didn't happen, but we got close.  Today the number of articles is over two hundred on the TypePad main site, and twenty-some-odd on the WordPress mirror.

At this point you're thinking 'What does this have to do with age!?'.  It's relevant in the context of another question we receive, 'how old is this blog?'.  With other sites, that question is answered with a link and a comment 'here's our first article.'  We can't do that as our very first article was, well, archived.

"In the beginning there was darkness. And the darkness was without form and void. And in addition to the darkness there was also me."  Bomb #20
Dark Star (1974)

That article was published 2 June 2006 and briefly noted eBay's "expansion of item ID numbers to 12 digits", and eBay's advice to developers "to support eBay item IDs of up to 19 digits".  That change is a historical footnote, but is not relevant today.  The article was designated non-relevant, and (in haste) was archived and removed from public view.

Shrug.

"One little mistake ..."

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"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
Dylan Thomas

"Do not go gentle into .. into .. into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at .. at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
Thornton Mellon (Rodney Dangerfield) quoting Dylan Thomas incorrectly, but giving a magnificent reading.
Back to School (1986)

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