Hello. We're back with another vlog. 
We'll be continuing a series of "classic" books. 
This week, it's "Fahrenheit 451."
What's Fahrenheit 451? You probably already know; it's supposed to be the temperature at which books burn. 
But not really. The author himself said he made it up. 
But the story itself is, of course, interesting. 
It takes place in the future. Books and reading are banned. If someone finds out his neighbor owns books, he can call the fire department.
The fire department will come -- not to put out a fire, but to start one. 
They'll burn all the books. Houses are fireproof so they can't burn, but books can -- and so can people. 
The story follows one fireman who's worked for years. He has a normal wife, who listens to a radio in her ear so she can follow the news and various shows. 
Their house has a large wall that's basically a TV, which allows you to really get involved in shows. 
They'll send you a script, and you can speak the lines and feel like you're part of what's going on. 
It's interesting, how they developed different kinds of entertainment to distract people. 
So the firefighter is working along, until one night he meets a strange young girl from the strange family next door. 
They've made him suspicious, but he hasn't found any evidence. 
She asks him all sorts of questions that challenge his assumptions about their society in general,
and the story just moves right on from there. 
It's fascinating! And it makes some interesting points about the importance of information. 
I won't say books alone -- the story was written before the Internet existed. 
But at that time, books were really the only reliable source of information, both archival and research.
Now, of course, we have the Internet, which is a little different. 
I'm not saying books are obsolete at all! But the real key here is information. 
Governments oppress their populations by keeping them ignorant; this lets them run unchecked. 
In the past couple of months, for instance, a new law was nearly passed until the public spoke against it. 
Ostensibly, it was about piracy and preventing people from copying software. 
But really, the object was to allow various companies to shut off your Internet connection, which invited a lot of fear and paranoia. 
After all, would YOU want some random profit-seeking company to cut you off from the Internet?
That would shut off your access to information, and force you to rely on that company for it. 
So there's still a lot of relevance to today, it seems. 
The book itself is interesting. It's written in a style that's very clean, very plain. 
It lets you feel both that this is a strange world, but also that so much more feels normal than you would think. 
So yes, strongly recommended. If you haven't already read it, it's your own fault. Shame on you. 
Okay, that's it. So long!
