James Cooke Brown, American sociologist and author (b. 1921)
James Cooke Brown (July 21, 1921 – February 13, 2000) was an American sociologist and science fiction author. He is notable for creating the artificial language Loglan and for designing the Parker Brothers board game Careers.Brown's novel The Troika Incident (Doubleday, 1970) describes a worldwide free knowledge base similar to the Internet. The novel begins with the belief that the world is on the eve of self-destruction, but then it presents a world about a century from now which is a paradise of peace and prosperity, all based on ideas, movements, and knowledge presently available in the world. In its metafictional structure, the novel is a call for social change, not through revolution but through free education and the resilience of human ingenuity. Long out of print and relatively rare, an e-book version (Amazon Kindle) of the novel was released in 2012. The novel envisioned all books and periodicals being viewed on portable electronic devices called "readers" in the year 2070, when it is set.
Among his other achievements, Brown designed, and had built, a three-hulled sailboat, called a trimaran. He utilized this boat to sail to many parts of the world.
While on a South American cruise with his wife, Brown was admitted to a hospital in Argentina, where he died at the age of 78.
2000Feb, 13
James Cooke Brown
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Events on 2000
- 14Jan
Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina
A United Nations tribunal sentences five Bosnian Croats to up to 25 years in prison for the 1993 killing of more than 100 Bosnian Muslims. - 3Apr
United States antitrust law
United States v. Microsoft Corp.: Microsoft is ruled to have violated United States antitrust law by keeping "an oppressive thumb" on its competitors. - 2May
Global Positioning System
President Bill Clinton announces that accurate GPS access would no longer be restricted to the United States military. - 22May
Sri Lankan Tamil people
In Sri Lanka, over 150 Tamil rebels are killed over two days of fighting for control in Jaffna. - 26Nov
United States presidential election, 2000
George W. Bush is certified the winner of Florida's electoral votes by Katherine Harris, going on to win the United States presidential election, despite losing in the national popular vote.