Discover the taste of Olde English

I suppose that'd help if I ever had to eat your words.

I love texts like this because my eyes won't scan them, but if I say it aloud phonetically, the words magically resolve themselves into something familiar. A delightful form of code-cracking - thanks!

* It was from the poem from which Kipling took that title, by seventeenth century bishop Corbet, oddly, that I first learned the world 'slut'...

Farewell, rewards and fairies,
Good housewives now may say,
For now foul sluts in dairies
Do fare as well as they.

-----
* It is a little-known fact that the war started with the forcible annexation of the word "liefer".

I did a little googling, and this was one classic toxic waste dump of a community.

It's always a fun party trick to pull those lines out. But I can't say that I go to many parties where I manage to work it into casual conversation.

[0] apologies for the lack of accents - I've eaten all my memory

It's odd how easily movies influence how we visualize characters in books. And hoe easily those of us who follow politics are influenced by current events.

I guess it's only natural that we reach for a familiar face but still, I've tried picturing Snape as someone other than alan Rickman and all I get are soft focus faces.

Also, I think my next story has to be called "Aliens That Speketh Strangelych."

Anyone else going to NASFIC?

Bonus: one of those rare evil spoiled little shit performances in which Hugh Grant is not annoying.

Warning: neck and neck with Breaking the Waves and Limbo as movie you really, really don't want to watch if you're feeling at all vulnerable.

It is, duh, about the man behind the liquid soap that comes in bottles whose labels are packed with bizarre religious ranting.

Doctor Bronner was nuts. Certifiably crazy. In fact, he was committed to an asylum in the late 40s. (In his delusional universe, it was a communist concentration camp.) He got away (when his sister checked him out for a few hours so they could have lunch) and left his kids behind (well, they were in orphanages and foster homes anyway) to go to California and start his soap company. Apparently, his work ethic was as strong as his desire to rant, and his liquid soap became a hit with counter-culture types.

Bronner's kids and their families eventually took over the business. They're an interesting bunch too; hard working and off-beat.

The real star of the show is Ralph Bronner, who is the company's goodwill ambassador. He's kind of nuts too, but in a really nice way. He travels around putting on a one-man tribute show to his dad, dispenses free samples of soap, and offers hugs. He is unworldly, saintly nice. Like a Health Store guru version of Mister Rogers.

Part of me is like, oh, yeah, I can totally see that, he could totally pull that off, but then the other part of me is gonna be all, "No, Cadet Kirk! Don't trust him! He's going to chop off the top of your head and steal your special powers of self-righteousness and sexual atavism!"

I can already tell it's gonna be at least as weird as when Sarah Michelle Gellar was a Dead Dumb Blonde in I Know What You Did Last Summer, and I kept going, "God, Buffy, you know you shouldn't have just run up those stairs. Seriously! Just stake him, for frack's sake!"

It is really good soap, and you can do your laundry (hand-washing, anyway) with it, as it says on the label. The label also has instructions for using it as a contraceptive douche, but I never tried that (and don't recommend it, not least because "contraceptive douche" is a contradiction in terms).

Too small for the rants, and the skipped the Essene birth control directions, but it does suggest using it to wash your car.

ALL-ONE! ESSENE MORAL ABC BRINGS TOGETHER ALL PEOPLE OF ONE-GOD SPACESHIP EARTH!

You might have ended up with that mental-imagery combination even without having seen the trailer. I read the books a few years ago and was flipping back and forth between Ann and Nicole in my mind; that one bit of casting alone got me really excited about the movie.

I think it's the descriptions of Mrs. Coulter which add up to, roughly "this person *should* be beautiful, according to society's standards, but is terrifically creepy anyhow" that does it.

(And with the trailers and preview stories for The Dark is Rising convincing me that they won't get my money even if they offer to show it to me free, I need something to look forward to. Of course, The Golden Compass looks awesome, and that will be out first.)

People don't use the words "lief" and "liefer" in everyday conversation? Are we supposed to be paying some sort of import duty or tariff in each instance of use?

::wails:: Why didn't anyone tell me??

On other topics, I too had to learn parts of Canterbury Tales in the original. However, I've always been jealous of the Italian exchange student that was in the class with me, and she shared that back at home, she had to read Dante and Boccaccio in the original. I quit feeling sorry for myself over a little bit of memorization.

He's having flashbacks of Sheena Easton right now. Ooo, now he's walking out on the blonde girlfriend, who is wearing a headscarf in the same pattern as her dress.

Girlfriend (hollering): "You think you can just turn me on and turn me off whenever you feel like it? After I slept with Nicky and helped you take out the old man you think you can just walk out on me?" (Throws pillow)

Oooh, now there's a car blowing up! And a different blond girl running to Sonny's rescue. I wonder if being knocked out by the explosion will have any affect on his amnesia?

If anyone else is going to be there and wants one (and hasn't already responded), let me know NOW, preferably by e-mail to the mailto link on my name. We leave on Wednesday, and the next few days are going to be very busy. The buttons will be available at the Instant Attitudes table in the dealer room. We'll have some extras, of course, but so far the response has been limited.

Teresa R., #16: I can still do most of the opening to the Prologue and the naughty bit from the Miller's Tale (starting with "The nicht was black as pitch or any coal..."). I adored my college Chaucer teacher -- he had what I, at least, perceived as a very good Middle English accent.

JESR, #20: Coolness!

Bruce, #43: Even more coolness! If anyone can do justice to that character, it's Depp.

"Fluorescence" derives from "fluorspar", which in turn derives from "fluorine", which does not, in point of fact, have anything in particular to do with light.

Of course, habit and custom being what they are, it is no doubt Too Late to change or modify. Still.

Phosphorosphere, anyone?

Incidentally, I was browsing the online OED, looking for the earliest citations of "sphere". While the earliest is 1300, I also found this, which seemed appropriate somehow:

c1340 HAMPOLE Pr. Consc. 4867 Alle þe fire þat es in þe spere, And under erthe, and aboven erthe here.

And speaking of appropriate citations, I went looking for the earliest ones the OED had for light, and found these:

c1000 ÆLFRIC Gen. i. 3 God cwæð þa: ʒeweorðe leoht, and leoht wearð ʒeworht.
c1250 Gen. & Ex. 44 Al was ðat firme ðrosing in niȝt, Til he wit hise word made liȝt.
1398 TREVISA Barth. De P.R. VIII. xxviii. (1495) 339 Lyghte shedyth itselfe fro the hyghest heuen anone to the mydle of the worlde.
c1460 Towneley Myst. i. 23 Darknes from light we parte on two.

Hm. This character—"ᵹ"— should be an "insular g". Does it work at all for anyone? I get a question mark (Firefox on Windows). I wanted to use it above, but ended up going with the ezh, because insular g failed.

SF writers as high school student/cliques

That I haven't heard these 14 years in Edinburgh. Ken, kirk, and kist, yes. I missed out!

I seem to recall that there was an exception written into the Treaty for Scots dialect, in honour of the Dutch gables in the Kingdom of Fife.

Tania @44
People don't use the words "lief" and "liefer" in everyday conversation? Are we supposed to be paying some sort of import duty or tariff in each instance of use?

Yes; the rate is calibrated by the size, importance and average cubic volume of hair (uncompressed) of your listeners. It is denominated in guilders, however, which are no longer valid currency since the Euro came to the Netherlands. I doubt anyone will be around your place to collect.

4. As teach astronomers Abraham-Israel-Moses-Buddha-Hillel-Jesus-Spinoza-Paine-Sagan & Mohammed, inspired every 76 years, 6000 years by the Messenger of God's Law, the Messiah, Halley's Comet: WE'RE ALL ONE OR NONE!

3. More good is caused by evil than by good, do what's right!

2. Don't Drink Soap! Dilute! Dilute!

1. All-One! All-One! Exceptions eternally? Absolute none!

Yoghs fixed. This is my favourite comment of all time, anywhere.

I saw a talk by David Cornwell (aka John le Carré) which had been carried on CSPAN. He said that after Alec Guinness had played his character George Smiley in the TV adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, he was not able to visualize Smiley as anyone but Guinness.

Apparently they became good friends. During his talk, Cornwell slipped into an credible imitation of Guinness.

Thanks, Nina. I think it's a mistake not to reboot, and it's not like the public wouldn't have accepted it. They did it for James Bond. They'd have done it for James Kirk. Hmm... Daniel Craig as Kirk... What a concept.

Julia #13:

Great story. I'm just amazed that more of that sort of thing doesn't happen. In many ways the internet is just a high-tech bathroom stall.

Lisa #28:

Keep an eye out for the mug.

Re liefer: it's spelled liever these days in modern dutch. Me mum always said liever koekjes worden niet gebakken ("rather cookies" won't be made) when we were whinging for something.

"Ripper" may finally get filmed. Joss Whedon said yesterday at Comic Con that things look good for filming "Ripper" in 2008 as a 90 minute TV-movie for the BBC.

("Ripper" being a BtVS spinoff movie focusing on the character of Rupert Giles.)

Whan that Aprille with hys shoures soote
The droughte of March hath perced to the roote,
And beythed every veyne in swich liquoure
Of which vertu engendred is the floure,
Whan Zephyrus eek with hys sweete breethe
Inspired hath in every holte and heethe
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram hys halve course yronne,
And smale foules maken melodye
That slepeth all the nyghte with open eeye
So nature priketh hem in hir corages,
Thanne longen folke to goon on pilgrimages.

(my pronunciation is worse than my spelling, though, so not much good at parties)

Bruce @#43, I did NOT know that and I am GOBSMACKED! I used to run home from school in the 4th grade to catch Dark Shadows! Thank you for the heads-up.

Since this is an open thread, I present this random comment: my new favorite word is "toerag". Thank you, J.K. Rowling.

A sequel will be coming to the big screens this October.

It's going to focus on the Spanish Armada, with a side-order of infatuation with Ralegh (Clive Owen)

When I watched the concluding naval battle in POTC3, I thought it was about time for a big-screen version of the Armada battle.

"Tavares took leave from his post as a weapons systems operator at the AEGIS Training and Readiness Center in Dahlgren, Va...."

Holy cow. Al-Qaeda is apparently ignoring a vast untapped resource: easily tweaked unstable nerds with access to useful military intelligence.

From Dahlgren's website:
The AEGIS Training and Readiness Center (ATRC) is staffed and maintained by a team of professional military and civilian instructors and technicians who provide training to both enlisted and officer personnel in the skills they will need to operate the United States Navy's most sophisticated warships, the Ticonderoga class cruiser and the Arleigh Burke class destroyer, both equipped with the AEGIS Combat System and the AEGIS Weapons System.

Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap: scent of my childhood, bane of my stinging eyes and dry skin. Dad still gets the giant gallon jugs and can't believe that my sister and I use - o heresy! - body wash.

Although the movie poster is pretty awesome.

Doesn't that give preference to the tribe of the hair-inflating? Not that I imagine they'd make all that much use of it, but still.

A material is fluorescent if it absorbs light, then emits light at a different wavelength.

Granted. Yet consider that phosphorescence is an extension of the phenomenon of fluorescence; hence phosphorosphere.

Do we stop making light when not on Making Light?

I too had to memorize that passage in college, though the only bit that really stuck is the opening, about showers and drought. Teresa, as an Arizonan did you want to update that a few months so it would fit monsoon season? It has been very soggy here lately, though Prescott's mostly too hilly for actual flooding.

I too had to memorize that passage in college, though the only bit that really stuck is the opening, about showers and drought. Teresa, as an Arizonan did you want to update that a few months so it would fit monsoon season? It has been very soggy here lately, though Prescott's mostly too hilly for actual flooding.

Let's not forget that ML is sometiems refered to as the flourosphere.

With many the jape about Baking Light, too. "I got this excellent set of croissant recipes from the flourosphere."

Think of us as the light that comes on only when you open the fridge door. (Does that mean there are elements in ML's hidden corners that's turning into horrible biological experiments, the equivalent of that bow of potato salad?)

(Does that mean there are elements in ML's hidden corners that's turning into horrible biological experiments, the equivalent of that bow of potato salad?)

You mean like the spammers and young punks who use old threads (and sometimes new threads) as their own personal graffiti walls?

If the movie The Golden Compass looks as good as the material on the website, it's going to be f*cking awesome.

Laura, I like chromosphere...

BTW, I saw Sicko last week. If there's anyone left who hasn't seen it, go thou and do so. It's tremendously entertaining, and you get to see some great footage of Richard Nixon, with subtitles.

Or, OK, maybe if it's that good, I could handle it. But I don't have nearly the faith in JJ Abrams that I do in Ron Moore.

Remember the following episode of The Outer Limits?

The Mice
Original Airdate: 01/06/64

"In dreams, some of us walk the stars." - narrator

Henry Silva pops up again, this time as a prisoner who is given two choices: life imprisonment on Earth or the chance to take part in the so-called "inhabitant exchange" with the planet Chromo. Of course he chooses Chromo, but it seems the Chromoites have a slightly more devious plan in mind, and only Silva can potentially save the day. Dabney Coleman has a supporting role in this episode.

"Jim McDonald's post on emergency tracheotomies had quite a photoelectric effect on me"

"It's quite fascinating how an idea will propagate through the luminiferous æther of Making Light."

OK, I just wanted to use the 'ae' ligature there.

I was pondering other light-related compound words like "luminasphere", but I think that sounds like something vaguely steampunk. Which I suppose isn't entirely inappropriate either.

"Luxosphere" makes me think of vacuum cleaners. I would prefer not to associate Making Light with sucking.

Our group is studying coherent population control of electrons in atoms. We are developing analytic methods to understand how to move electrons from one state to another in an atom when we want, where we want, as completely as we want, as fast as we want, keeping it there as long as we want, using simple mathematics.

I don't know how to answer your question.

"Ripper" may finally get filmed.

Oh, crap, another chance for Joss Whedon to xvyy n snibevgr punenpgre.

I have gathered that Tipler is or was a fairly respected physicist, but that does not preclude barking mad. I think he started out by drawing some interesting conclusions that if certain conditions were met or assumptions made as to physics principles, then information would be conserved over the lifetime of the cosmos, including in the Big Crunch which occurs for some ranges of the cosmological constant. He then went on to argue this meant there would be a kind of apotheosis at the end into an omniscient intelligence, or ultimate Singularity. It now sounds like he is taking that conclusion as an article of quasi-religious faith and arguing that therefore physical constants and laws must meet the requirements for it to be true. Current discoveries in physics, however, seem to be pointing the opposite way. So, yeah: if not barking mad, meandering in that direction.

I followed the link to the head researcher's web page...

In a compelling example, he illustrates how the God depicted by the Jews and Christians is completely consistent with the Cosmological Singularity, an entity whose existence is required by physics. His discussion of the scientific possibility of miracles provides an impressive, credible scientific foundation for many of Christianity's most astonishing claims, including the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, and the Incarnation.

I suspect his work is a bit on the fringe.

I mean, he talks about Jesus's DNA and asserts that an analysis of the Shroud of Turin can be used as evidence for what he claims, with not a footnote in sight... Nuh-uh.

Grumble... one accent and the French title would have perfectly worked.

Sadly, indeed, I have to echo what you said. Tipler was in fact a very well-respected physicist; he published a paper in the early '70s which was the first* to show that closed timelike curves were possible in an Einsteinian universe in which General Relativity applied. In other words, that time travel is at least theoretically possible. This is quite orthodox physics, these days.

Reading the first couple of chapters of "The Physics of Immortality" was extremely painful for me, because it was clear that much of it was written as a result of emotional trauma, not from rational thought. Some of the physics is fascinating, but has a highly questionable basis in observed fact. Some of the later conclusions are, to be kind, shakey.

Since then, Tipler and his work have become the basis of a cult related to the Extropians: they believe in the resurrection and subsequent immortality of all intelligent beings, as the work of beings resulting from the evolution of intelligence through something like the Singularity. It sounds to me a lot like a sort of scientific cargo cult based on a retelling of the Christian myth of the Resurrection and the Final Judgement.

"Barking mad" is a little too harsh, I think, but Tipler and his followers are not what I'd call sane.

* Actually, I believe Gödel did some work on this towards the end of his life, but I don't believe he published it.

I have to confess to not having followed the evolution of the Tiplerite cult, any more than I've paid much attention to the Extropians in the last 10 years or so. If anyone in the Fluorosphere has had more recent contact or at least knowledge of them, please let me know, by email if you think it offtopic enough. I've been thinking about writing a story based on some of the Tiplerite mythology, and I'd appreciate an additional objective view of their current beliefs.

Holy cow. Al-Qaeda is apparently ignoring a vast untapped resource: easily tweaked unstable nerds with access to useful military intelligence.

What makes you think this firebombing wasn't an Al-Qaeda plot?

Tonstant vigiwance is the pwice of fweedom!

Well, we were originally hosted on Panix.

Now if only I could remember the other phrase, the really good one that's a variant of, "Well, I guess we're going to die, then."

I think in England 'slut' means 'lazy housekeeper'.

It occurred to me that I could check that.

The first def in the OED says "A woman of dirty, slovenly, or untidy habits or appearance; a foul slattern."

Random thought: Could a shining magic crystal ball on Discworld also be called an octarine phosphorosphere? ("Bloody useless thing's been stuck on 'Reply Hazy, Try Again' for nearly a year. I think it might be traumatized from when the Librarian sat on it.")

But as I said upthread, yeah, the guy's bonkers. Wacko. Three queens short of a deck.

(I'm not looking forward to one of the tasks I have tomorrow, which is asking the editor of a volume of essays what persuaded her to include a collection of apodeictic assertions about Greek myth in the volume -- I'm copyediting/critiquing the thing.)

I need to wear my reading glasses more regularly, although they only solve the smaller of my posting problems.

Ahem, sorry.

<a title="Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare þe ure maegen lytlað.">
<div class="description">Language, fraud, folly, truth, knitting, and growing luminous by eating light.</div></a>

There are similar issues with the boilerplate code.

Thinking about Frank Tipler later today, I was reminded of Fred Hoyle (astronomer, cosmologist, and SF author) and his "constant creation" or "steady state cosmology" theory which involved cosmological expansion through continuous slow creation of new space and particles. IIRC at the time he proposed it, there was no conclusive evidence in favor of the Big Bang, and his theory was an intriguing alternative. However, within a few years the evidence for the Big Bang started turning up in spades - microwave background radiation was recognized as red-shifted emissions from the Big Bang, different populations of stars when you looked back in time far enough, etc. I believe Hoyle never managed to retreat from his theory and say "Oh well, it sounded good at the time but I guess it was all wrong."

With the growing recent evidence for accelerating expansion of the cosmos, I think any theory which hinges on a final singularity, aka "Big Cruch", is now in the same shape.

It's been a good weekend for finishing knitting projects in the debcha household - I sewed the buttons on a sweater that was complete except for that (this is the sweater that prompted the question about how to pick up and knit over on Open Thread 87) and I finished everything on a second sweater except the buttons - I plan to drop by my Local Knitting Shop tomorrow and buy buttons to finish it, together with yarn for the next project.

Lisa (28): allas, no hope of it. New job, major deadline.

Ethan (37), I know the feeling. It's when you want to say "Guys, that's not an evil mind-controlling alien god from another dimension; that's Zoe Washburne, and you're in real trouble."

The one there's no help for is when you get your first look at Lethe's Bramble, shake your head, and say "No, Statice limonium."

Mary Dell (38), I've seen it recommended by some sex techies for removing nasty-tasting substances from prospective tasting areas, but they're careful to recommend the almond, not the peppermint, for use on sensitive tissues.

Tania (44), some of us do. Then we get looked at funny.

Lee (48), is there any way to get a fluorosphere button without going to the convention?

Owlmirror (50), where were you when the word was being invented? But yes: too late.

Scraps (56), that's beautiful, is what that is.

Adrian (72), you get a gold star pasted to your forehead.

Chip (74), vide JEGP, passim.

Faren (76), I gave up on expecting literature to match Arizona's climate when I started school and was told that leaves turn bright colors in the fall. Britain came as a surprise: it not only matched the literature, but the language.

Except in the Canterbury Tales, at least according to one of my instructors. He explained that Chaucer was picking up the weather sequence from Italian models, and that it wasn't correct for GC either.

The heart rejoices.

That's what happened. I understand now!

Perhaps Lethe's Bramble is just one of the names for statice limonium. Wouldn't be the first time magical practitioners called a plant by a different name.

Those are all valid production reasons to use that plant material for that series of shots, but when you've got a mind that runs to botanical Latin, the end result is a small rift in the third wall.

Giles is sexy enough just as Giles. But the absolute dead-sexiest moment in the series was when he reverted to the Ripper persona in "Band Candy"! When he broke the shop window to get Buffy's mom that coat she wanted, my hormones went nuts. (My brain wasn't so impressed, but my body wasn't listening.)

Teresa, #132: Drop me an e-mail with your mailing address, and I'll send you a couple once we're done with the Two Weeks From Hell. (Cons in St. Louis and Louisville on successive weekends, and we have to drive back to Houston in between. Not Fun. I'd rather take a week's vacation in Nashville, but that's not feasible.) I assume you want at least two.

Xopher, #137: Teaberry and wintergreen are the same plant.

Wow, a decades-old mystery solved! Some kids' book that I read involved a character who loved teaberry (gum? candy?), and I never could figure out what it was. Thanks!

Did y'all know that Blair Underwood wrote a book with Tananarive Due and Steve Barnes?

Over on the Harry Potter thread, I was talking with some folks about Harry Potter and the way the story employs the use of force at various stages. Seeing the use of force, violence, war, and similar concepts presented in fiction in a unrealistic manner is a personal pet peeve of mine. Which caused me to not like some plot turns in the Harry Potter series.

The gist of it is that the whole thing got me to thinking about the fictional portrayal of violence/force/war in sort of the same fashion that one might study the phenomenon of what is a "Mary Sue".

I think think what it basically boils down to is a term someone already came up with called "war porn", although it doesn't have to be limited to a fictional war. Force, violence, and similar acts would qualify.

Anyway, I wrote up my own attempt to describe war porn and came up with a sort of litmus test to see how close a work of ficiton is to being pure war porn or just gratuitous violence.

Anyone interested can read it here.

If anyone knows of similar discussions on the web, litmus tests, etc for war porn, I'd be very much interested.

Thanks.

As I say, they, especially Tipler, are not at all sane. I just feel sorry for Tipler himself (his followers AFAIK are generic acolytes from Cults R Us, a dime a dozen to anyone who's had to deal with Ufologists, Flat Earthers, or Extropian Singularitarians). His reasons for believing are made amply clear in his book, and they have to do with emotional pain that he could not square with his physicist's view of the world. Maybe it was because I wasn't expecting anything like that in a book ostensibly about eschatalogical physics, or because not long before I had finished reading* his and Barrows' "The Anthropological Principle" which I thought a tour-de-force of mathematical reasoning, however much I disagree with the conclusions. For whatever reason, I was primed to be hurt by his pain, and I still feel sad that the classic Problem of Pain is so hard for some people to deal with.

* I doubt there are very many people who did finish reading it.

Oh, and JESR? Don't worry about dropping the terminal "e" -- even my boss forgets and does it sometimes.

Why can't children's book publishers standardise the sizes of their books?

URGH

More seriously, I know there are traditional (quarto 8vo etc.) book sizes; how widely were they adhered to?

Terry #134 pat # 146: I hear from reliable sources involved in the production that the lad can *sing*. Apparently there was some worry about this as Depp wouldn't let anyone hear him until his first day on set...

Teresa #132: 'sex techies'? Not a coinage I am familiar with - is this similar to theatre tech? It certainly sounds like advice to heed...

To whom it may concern: eye-of-partridge sock heels in super-stripey handpainted yarn are made of awesome.

Link to photo(s) please?

Do they have a helpline?

"...OK, well, have you tried getting completely out of bed and then getting back in again? That sometimes works..."

I liked clove chewing gum better, though.

My solution for all problems of this type is to assume that the thing I'm reading is set in an alternate universe. It works amazingly well.

But alas, I am a total Sentinel slut. The anthro howlers pass right by me, but having Peru look just like Cascade was hard to take.

Teresa #132: 'sex techies'? Not a coinage I am familiar with - is this similar to theatre tech? It certainly sounds like advice to heed...

Once you move beyond basic organic practices, the proceedings can become astonishingly technical.

Yeah, it occurred to me this morning that there shouldn't be any reason the test could not be applied to alleged non-fiction as well as fiction. I'll add that next time I do an update.

Need to add some stuff about good intentions, and whether the world follows good intentions or whether the world is more like reality and good intentions don't mean a damn.

I think you have to be very careful tarring people with the same brush. Not all those are the same wicked folk, and not all those believe in nonscientific ideas.

My mother's doctoral thesis was the generative phonology of Danish. Come by any time if you'd like to have a look at my copy.

There are no small number of Germans who report the first tastse of chocolate they ever knew was from a C-rat Hershey bar. I recall one which was incredibly poignant (though it was a French child) becaues he went on to become a chocolatier.

That same sense of liking kids was seen in Korea and Viet-nam. I think part of the outrate about the water-bottle incident in Iraq was that it violated this mythic-trope, that no matter how battle hardened and brutal our guys might be to adults, they were nice to kids.

re the suspension of disbelief: I have a number of things which shock me out of acceptance. Weapons, military relationships; and a bunch of things which relate to social interactions at a cultural level. The whole "social justice" subplot/text of Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, which was put in Christian Slater's mouth bothered me more than anything else; though the witch in the garret pulling all the strings came a very close second.

OLD WITCH: You must seek help. Hire the men of the North.
ALAN RICKMAN: The Scots?
(curls lip, sneers)
ENTIRE FEMALE AUDIENCE: squee!
ALAN RICKMAN: (in disgust) But they drink the blood of their dead!
ENTIRE SCOTTISH AUDIENCE: Hurrah!

And the big howlers make me regret the inability to dope slap the writer through the internet: there's one long story that, after a promising start, devolves into a long digression on how dangerous it is to take women on anthropological expeditions, at all, ever. The sheer offensive wrongness of that assertion is given a particularly strong odor of irony by the fact that the lead up to the discussion has pretty much pinpointed the expedition's territory as the same part of Melanesia that Margaret Mead was working in in the 1920s. The fact that this also violates Blair Sandberg's characterization (re his mother) is also special.

The Sentinel canon has a botanical blooper to end all bloopers: an episode where a big deal is made of a gun runner's dedication to his orchids, with several scenes shot in a "greenhouse" which has not even one orchid. Not even a few stems of silk orchids stuck in the Deiffenbachia and Arum to lend versimillitude to an otherwise unconvincing story.

And Serge at #148, you are an evil, evil man.

And the big howlers make me regret the inability to dope slap the writer through the internet: there's one long story that, after a promising start, devolves into a long digression on how dangerous it is to take women on anthropological expeditions, at all, ever. The sheer offensive wrongness of that assertion is given a particularly strong odor of irony by the fact that the lead up to the discussion has pretty much pinpointed the expedition's territory as the same part of Melanesia that Margaret Mead was working in in the 1920s. The fact that this also violates Blair Sandberg's characterization (re his mother) is also special.

The Sentinel canon has a botanical blooper to end all bloopers: an episode where a big deal is made of a gun runner's dedication to his orchids, with several scenes shot in a "greenhouse" which has not even one orchid. Not even a few stems of silk orchids stuck in the Deiffenbachia and Arum to lend versimillitude to an otherwise unconvincing story.

And Serge at #148, you are an evil, evil man.

Flattery will get you nowhere. So says General Zod.

I am working on a story and the chapter I just finished has a scene to that effect. The thing is that individuals often natually want to help, to do the right thing, and so on. So I don't have a problem showing it. The next combat scene will show the same protagonist have to shoot a different kid because the kid's got a gun and is shooting at the protag and his unit. And there's a whole lot of ugliness that comes with that action which I think disqualifies it as war porn.

Even adults can have good intentions. It's whether or not those good intentions are what controls the story, or whether good people end up committing terrible things because, well, that's what a war really is.

(wipes spittle off monitor...)

You're right, they're not all the same. I was referring to the ones in all those groups who really believe, for whatever reason. I've met enough of them to feel sympathy for the some of those reasons, and to not want to make fun of them (except in the most gentle and understanding way, the way I hope people make fun of me). The con artists and control freaks are another story entirely.

Patrick, your comment about Ellen Tauscher shows how ignorant you are of how Washington works. *TAUSHER* didn't write that letter; some 19 or 20-year-old intern did (It's summer time and we flog the interns with having to do this crappy job). The issue isn't Tausher's intelligence (which I know nothing about one way or the other) but the operation of her office staff. Who is supervising the interns who are doing the mail-answering scut work? Anyone? Bueller?

Letters had to go through at least two other layers of scrutinity in the two Congessional offices I worked in -- and you can be sure that my principal -- the Senator or the Congressman I worked for -- had no idea of what letters I *ever* wrote.

Tauscher is guilty of having a problem on her staff, or with her staff, or with the organization of her office; a letter like that should have *never* been mailed out.

And until the blogosphere makes her staff aware of it, um, she won't be aware of it. Nor will her staff be.

Letters to Congresscritters don't mean much, folks -- not most of the time. (That's the subject of a couple of thousand words on techniques of what works and what doesn't...) And that's why the interns are doing it, when they're in the offices on the Hill during the summer. The LA's get to foist their letter-answering job (done in addition to their core job) off on the interns. A learning experience! Heh.

A particularly fun game, if you're a real geek, is to spontaneously fic about the turning points where the Earth you're reading about or watching diverged from Earth One. If you're a botanist, for example, try to figure out what evolutionary events could have made something look just like plant A, but behave like plant B.

You can apply the same technique to unrealistic human behavior, too. After reading a review of Star Trek: TNG that pointed out how stupid the humans of that future are, Hub and I went on to therorize that some kind of mutation occured between TOS and TNG that removed everyone's natural agression and sex drive, and reduced their overall intelligence, so that they constantly let people shoot at them and so forth.

Well, that might also explain the Klingons and the Romulans.

This might be a useful thing for cons other than Nasfic, ala the rasfc cat-vacuuming pins. Perhaps a larger supply could be envisioned?

ISTR "slut's wool" as an earlier locution for dust bunnies. Which would certainly go along with the slovenly housekeeping thing.

I can understand emotional pain driving people to religion, in much the same way that it drives some people to drink or drugs.

Amen. I gave up on packing the silly things and transported them in bags.

Jakob @ 149
I was about to say "pretty widely" until I remembered the b**** of a time I just had packing, esp my academic works. Those boxes were the worst- what standardization I have in my older works is completely abandoned with anything published in the last 15 years. I think some fields have managed it, but in my library they've just become catagories meaning These Books Don't Fit on That Shelf.

And now I get to go experience the joys of home ownership. Roof bids, fixing plumbing, and unpacking boxes.

Teresa? I have the Collected Proceedings of the Pseudo Society to mail to you once I dig it out of the box- I'll need a snail mail and I'd been planning on sending it in to Tor. ;) drop me a mailing address at dimmi004 at umn dot edu?

Therorize? Is that what Klingon academics do? If so, it gives an interesting meaning to the phrase publish or perish...

Tim Kyger at 178, thank you also, and could you, would you tell us what techniques work to get one's Congresscritter to pay attention? I call DiFi's San Francisco office when I want to let her know what I'm thinking. The staffer on the other end of the phone always asks for my zip code. I e-mail Boxer and George Miller in the House. What should I be doing? I don't have random wads of cash to donate to anyone's campaign -- and I shouldn't have to donate money to get my representative to listen to me. Right? Right?

Just substitute a batlef for the ruler. Otherwise, it's the same experience.

I figure if people I know are still using them, they are in current usage, and not archaic. Hah!

abi - I don't have any guilder, but I might have some kroner on hand. Would that work? I'd liefer pay now rather than later.

ah crap. cut and paste error.

I'll fix it as soon as I can log in.

tnx

There's a reason it's called a thesis defense

"Religion is the opiate of the masses", no? More seriously, that is the purpose of a person's religion, to clarify the relationship between self and universe. If that relationship involves great pain, acquiring simple convictions from others who profess no doubt is often an easy way to relief, and it is quite understandable why someone might choose that. What that says about the morality and character of those offering the relief is left as an exercise for the reader.

We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated The Chantry Guild (Dorsai/Childe Cycle) by Gordon R. Dickson have also purchased Steiner, Marx and a New Paradigm: Technological Progress as the Way of Following Christ and Concretization of the Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception. by Vladislav Stanko. For this reason, you might like to know that Steiner, Marx and a New Paradigm: Technological Progress as the Way of Following Christ and Concretization of the Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception. is now available. You can order yours for just $29.99 by following the link below.

This is certainly one of the more interesting suggestions Amazon has offered.

Amazon's suggestion for me today is to upgrade from Adobe Photoshop to the new Adobe Production Suite: "You can order yours for just $779.99...."

Already grafted on, I'm afraid...have I not mentioned that I'm an I.T. middle manager?

Various people: No sock heel pictures, alas; my camera is misbehaving. The effect is a lovely pointillist blending, if that helps at all.

ROASTED SUCKING-PIG.
AIR--"Scots wha has."

Cooks who'd roast a Sucking-pig,
Purchase one not over big;
Coarse ones are not worth a fig;
So a young one buy.
See that he is scalded well
(That is done by those who sell),
Therefore on that point to dwell,
Were absurdity.

Sage and bread, mix just enough,
Salt and pepper quantum suff.,
And the Pig's interior stuff,
With the whole combined.
To a fire that's rather high,
Lay it till completely dry;
Then to every part apply
Cloth, with butter lined.

Dredge with flour o'er and o'er,
Till the Pig will hold no more;
Then do nothing else before
'Tis for serving fit.
Then scrape off the flour with care;
Then a butter'd cloth prepare;
Rub it well; then cut--not tear--
Off the head of it.

Then take out and mix the brains
With the gravy it contains;
While it on the spit remains,
Cut the Pig in two.
Chop the sage, and chop the bread
Fine as very finest shred;
O'er it melted butter spread--
Stinginess won't do.

When it in the dish appears,
Garnish with the jaws and ears;
And when dinner-hour nears,
Ready let it be.
Who can offer such a dish
May dispense with fowl and fish;
And if he a guest should wish,
Let him send for me!

Kip W @ #212: That is wonderful!

Rikibeth, #152: I don't think so; my memory of this is really hazy, but it seems to me that the story was set in England. However, I looked at your link for the teaberry gum, and damned if I don't remember that commercial with the Tijuana Brass music!

Mary Dell, #154: That's exactly how I handle the dichotomy between Kathy Reichs' books about Temperance Brennan and the Bones TV series. Reichs has said that TV!Brennan is an earlier version of book!Brennan, but I just don't see any way for that to have happened -- Bones is never going to be as diffident as book!Brennan, no matter how old she gets. So I think of them as being in different universes.

Faren, #165: This is actually a different advertising mechanism, called "babysell". The idea is that when the viewer sees a picture of a smiling baby or a cute kid, the critical-analysis part of their brain is supposed to shut down cold, leaving the path wide open for the advertiser's message. When you're childfree, you really start noticing just how many things are sold using babies and kids in the ad, even for products (and ideas) that have nothing at all to do with children.

JESR, #171: ...to lend versimillitude to an otherwise unconvincing story

Don't you mean, "to lend artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative"?

Joann, #184: They're easy enough to make, now that we have the design. Perhaps we should just keep the leftovers in with our stuff for future cons.

Julia, #187: Interesting -- is that usage of "dowd" related to "dowdy" meaning unfashionably dressed?

pat @ 215: I saw HP&tOOtP at a drive-in theater a couple of weeks ago. During the intermission, the radio station that was playing our soundtrack switched to oldies music, and we turned around and watched Transformers playing on the other screen while listening to "Monday Monday" and such. It was like a kind of surreal music video. It may have made just as much sense that way.

Hm, I'm not sure that was my intended effect for writing a war pr0n litmus test. Are you saying I've encouraged the watching of bad movies?

;)

They ran out of bandwidth at the end of last month. So they switched to a new provider. Unfortunately, the script they use to serve the pages overloaded the new provider's server. So they switched back to the old provider...which ran out of bandwidth again. On top of that, this last weekend was the big Comic Con in San Diego, which both the Foglios attended. Plenty of people have offered to help them get a new provider and/or improve their script; with luck, now that the con is over they can turn their attention to making things work.

One example which comes to mind is Michael Palin's disturbing baby faced torturer mask from the movie Brazil.

Well, their society is (IIRC) ruled by a Chancellor.

Hmm. Presumably his role is largely ceremonial; the day-to-day running of the empire is the responsibility of the Klingon Vice-Chancellor. And a hierarchical society where reputation is the most important asset does sound pretty much like a university. Sports are also fairly important in both Klingon and university culture. As is Beer.

* mostly they're bad movies, but sometimes they're just ones we haven't seen and they turn out to be good.

"Now I have a machine gun, Ho Ho Ho."

But I did find something that might interest you. (Ready for this, JESR?)

Bruce Lee in "Here Come the Brides"

Caution: It'll start singing after a couple of seconds. Brace yourself.

The bluest sky you've ever seen, in Seattle.
And the hills the greenest green, in Seattle.
Like a beautiful child
Growing up, free and wild.
Full of hopes and full of fears,
Full of laughter, full of tears,
Full of dreams to last a year
In Seattle.

When you find your own true love you will know it
By his smile, by the look in his eyes.
Some set pine trees in the air
Or some stand around and stare
Look out everyone, Here Come the Brides.

I also added some text at the intro, and two new sections called "Meat Puppets" and "The High Road Bypass on the Road to Hell", with scoring rules for each.

is that usage of "dowd" related to "dowdy" meaning unfashionably dressed?

I am not julia@#187, but I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that when she had "dowd and malkin" in conjunction with "slattern", we were meant to infer "Maureen Dowd and Michelle Malkin".

But perhaps I am overly catty. Meow?

I wonder if it's a coincidence that one of Harry Potter's professors is named McGonagall?

And YOW: Bruce Lee!

(Not awake, and in a bad way with the words, which have dried up to a trickle)

Well, it seems reasonable to me.

Yours probably beats the Amazon mail I got yesterday, touting the large print edition of Robert Service (this likely also links in to the McGonagall citation further down the thread) just because I'd rated an M.M. Kaye book.

(On seeing the subject line, I'd figured it was because I'd bought my husband some Sandburg a year or so ago.)

"Now I have a machine gun, Ho Ho Ho."

"You'll shoot your eye out, kid!"

I've been meaning to reread His Dark Materials for a while now: would any of you be interested in discussing it over at my livejournal?

We could set something up - maybe have finished reading The Golden Compass by a certain date, and I can set up a post for it for everyone to comment on. I could put in a cut so that it's not spoiling anyone.

We could also go chapter by chapter, at an agreed upon reading rate, if that would be preferable.

For many years, one of New York City's local stations ran "King Kong" every Thanksgiving.

If you want to save the time, the movie pretty much boils down to this:

Mr Addison: I'll be home soon. Love you.

(Snape drilling into safe.)

Mr Addison: I'm just a fly in the ointment, a monkey in the wrench.

Snape: I'll take it under advisement. ... Hit it again.

Hans: Shoot the glass!

Mr Addison: Yippie-kai-yay, mother f****r!

I'm doing practice tests for the GRE/English Literature exam, and the questions that I consistently get wrong are the horrible "which of these words is used in a sense that is archaic or no longer idiomatic" ones.

Does anyone have a hack for that? It doesn't really address it in the study guides. It seems a bit rude, really, to expect someone to immerse themselves in the canon and not absorb the speech patterns.

Maybe the thing to do is to re-cast the question for yourself thusly: "Which century would this phrase be most at home in?" or even "Which author can you imagine using this phrase?"

That might jog hidden parts of your memory so if you think "Aha! Mallory!" or "18th century!" you can figure it's probably not contemporary.

Another trick is to picture a typical denizen of our century saying the phrase aloud, to see if it seems to fit. *Typical denizen,* not bookworm, so think TV anchor or store clerk, not the folks you've been spending your time with while getting edumacated.

Yes! Also, the vocabulary, and some of the really wonderful words that deserve to be in regular and customary use.

I'm not good at identifying archaic words. My grandmother uses liefer. I use nought. I would cynically say, if it is an interesting word, it is probably an archaic word. Or try the "Have I heard this on PBS? Archaic. On network TV? Not archaic." test.

Vocabulary and appropriate usage depend on the audience. Dang it, the people writing the tests should realize that.* You have my sincere sympathies.

*And it makes me glad my grad work was in project management.

Yes, but when, oh when, will Hammer's Moon Zero Two be released?

As for myself, I am hoping for the day when the following non-turkeys are realeased on DVD... Scarecrow, with Patrick McGoohan as Father Syn.... Master of the World, but what can I say? Vincent Price's flying ship looked so great... Robinson Crusoe on Mars, where, if you look beyond the title, you find a neat little movie about being stranded on an alien planet and surviving by one's wits...

You know, it's been two days since I first read this comment, and the usage still squicks me.

Scared the buggars out of me as a kid.

It was the idea of a middle-school civics class, to change the back of the one dollar bill -- replacing the current masonic symbol and Great Seal with a condensed version of the U.S. Constitution.

I blogged this back in 2003, complete with a photo of the proposed design and a link to a news article about the project. Unfortunately the official site that I linked to is down, but it's still a cool concept that I'd support.

Frankenstein meets the Spacemonster

It is also known as

Duel of the Space Monsters (UK)
Frankenstein Meets the Space Men
Mars Attacks Puerto Rico
Mars Invades Puerto Rico
Operation San Juan

Jeez.. What does Mars have against Puerto Rico?

Oh, sorry. Those noisy critters are an invasive species out here. They're not admired.

I'm not sure what the latest word is on this, but they're a serious problem for people who live on the Big Island. Google "Hawaii + coqui frog" and you'll probably find a bunch of links.

I managed to impress my youngest son by identifying Optimus Prime before it identified itself. And it could have been much worse: Yugi-Oh!:The Movie and Pokemon 2000 were both pretty atrocious. (The original Pokemon movie was not that bad.)

OOps for the introduction. That can be a very bad thing for the ecosystem.

http://www.thecinemalaser.com/hammer-warner.htm

Lizzy L @ 267, the fluorospheric Buffy discussion spurred me into renting the series. (Available for $2/week/disc on Bargain Thursdays at my local place.) At a rate of a half-season every 2-3 weeks, I'm up to the first half of the third season out of seven. Looking at the non-declining & substantial price of the DVDs, there's no way I'll buy them new, and am not sure I'll even want to have them to keep second-hand, though much of it is quite enjoyable so far. My two Quatermass sets, tho', are keepers!

As for used things on Amazon, I've never had a problem, but you are buying from individuals, not the company, so there's probably less recourse if there is one. I'd do it, if that means anything.

If you go here, you'll see the xkcd archive. If you hover your mouse over the entry that says "Blagofaire", you'll see a little popup text that shows the date of the comic to be "2007-03-23". (The individual comics do not seem to be dated, this seems to be the only way to figure out when an xkcd comic came out.)

Cory dressed up at the 2007 EFF Pioneer Awards, which according to this, took place on 2007-03-27.

So, it looks like the comic came out, and then a few days later, Cory dressed in a cape and goggles.

When I spotted Homer's Odyssey, it had been long enough that it was worth checking out (so to speak) but it was an off brand company.

I'm leery of them as the "actors" often are dull or histrionic.

This one is read by Derek Jacobi, translation by Allen Mandelbaum. I all but ran to the check out with it.

Which interpretation of Quatermass do you prefer? I'm familiar only with Brian Donlevy's and with Andrew Keir, as I've never been exposed to any of the TV versions. I definitely prefer Keir, whose Quatermass is a more compassionate scientist than Donlevy's.

To "John C. Lindsay II"

Subject: Re: Introducing Dimensional Layout Services, Inc.

I have a very jaundiced, as in negatively prejudicial, view of any organization claiming positive expertise and excellence in "quality control" which seems to have failed at some of the most basic QC/QA concepts.

That is,
1. What don't you understand about "unsolicited commercial email," aka spam, and the abhorrence of it?
2. Your spam--and it is spam--is spam because:
a. You fail to identify the reason WHY the recipient is getting this email, that is a VALID reason to send email, as opposed to lowest common denominator ads for pharmaceuticals, scams, unwanted financial services, sleaze, etc., in either or both the subject line and the From address
b. You fail to provide any valid plain text or even formatted human-readable in Web browser email reading, information about your company and why anyone should think you have ANY competence for anything except annoying people,
3. You do NOT comprehend WHY people from especially places like MIT, DESPISE html etc. email and find it completely obnoxious.
4. You didn't even send the email from a corporate domain address--how credible is any "Quality Control" organization which uses {handle}@comcast.net for promotional purposes? and which MAIL BOMBS them? These are characteristics of an organization totally UNCONCERNED with customer needs, interests, and quality concerns!
5. You are a bandwidth hog and email box bomber-- 784 kilobytes of unsolicited email can and DOES bomb out end user systems from people on slow connections with older computer systems.
6. Why should I believe that someone who fails Technical Cognizant End User Marketing Concepts 101 (starting with, Do Not Tick Off Potential Customers by spamming them with mailbombs and failing to identify who you are and why the annoyed recipient is getting this--actually I suspect that people who have Bayesian spam filters your email goes directly to the bit bucket with!) has ANY credibility whatsoever and is anyone I would want to do business with?!
7. Your mastery of written English is poor, which lacks quality control.

And if you are a front for "work done in Bangalore, Roumania, Uzbekistan, Kiev, Vladivostock, Slovenia, the Phillippines, etc.," I've been entirely too polite here....

----- Original Message Follows -----
> This is a text part of the message.
> It is shown for the users of old-style e-mail clients
>
>

DIMENSIONAL
LAYOUT SERVICES, INC.

1200 DEGURSE AVENUE

MARINE CITY, MI 48039

Telephone: ( 810 ) 765-3619, Fax:
1-810-765-3805

Website: http://www.dimensionallayoutservices.com

E-Mail: dimensional01@comcast.net

Dimensional Layout services, Inc. is a quality control
inspection service, we perform 100 percent layouts, Capability studies, Gage R
& R's, Gage verifications, Digitizing, Scanning, Surfacing, and Reverse
Engineering. D.L.S.I. became accredited source to ISO/IEC 17025 1999 to
satisfy ISO 9002 back in 1999, our pricing of world class performance will
surprise and satisfy you. Prices are competitive or better than most
unrecognized or unaccredited competitors, call us for a quote on your next
job.

Remember, your company can not be world class without
world class suppliers.

Try our services to experience world class
performance:

Look us up at http://www.a2la.org

Sincerely

John C. Lindsay II

> [Attachment: A2LA2.jpg]

Owlmirror, I was in fact amused to find that two writers with so much in common 'shared' a name as well. That they're writers who are professionally, to say the least, un-rigorous gave it a nice note of irony.

Is that the catty reaction you were referring to?

Thank you both; I think that will be a much better way to frame the questions in my head. It makes sense that they would test whether you can recognize the feel of Chaucer or Wordsworth; I don't know why I got so hung up on "well, I use that word, so..."

Sometimes I worry that, even if I do get accepted anywhere, I will have used up my entire brain on this exam. Sigh. Really, I just want to read Jewish diasporan literature and have a nice discussion about it.

Huh. I thought that the use of the words was based on the people whose names they are, but now that I have checked the OED, I see that the primary definition for "malkin" is indeed a "lower-class, untidy, or sluttish woman". Although the British meaning of malkin seems to overlap with the American meaning of slut; Chaucer says: "It wol nat come agayn..Namoore than wol Malkyns maydenhede, Whan she hath lost it in hir wantownesse."

But "dowd" is not synonymous with malkin, is it? Although way down the page, there is the cant phrase "malkin-trash": "a person dressed in dark gloomy clothes." Which I suppose is close enough to "dowd".

I see that another definition for "malkin" is a Scottish term for the female genitals, but I am not sure that that is quite applicable, since the Scottish word is pronounced "maukin".

E

To be fair, Hoyle was actually a brilliant physicist -- probably one of the most important astrophysicists of the 20th Century, particularly for his work on the nucleosynthesis of chemical elements in stars. Some people suggest he ought to have received received the Nobel prize for his work in that area (as his collaborator William Fowler did).

But Clifton Royston is quite correct, in that Hoyle refused to give up on the Steady State theory long after the evidence had ruled it out, adding increasingly elaborate and unlikely features to try to reconcile it with the evidence.

So he wasn't just losing his marbles as he got older, he was deliberately championing wacky, unlikely causes like germs from space, Steady State theories and Archaeopteryx frauds.

Make sure the program you choose has a strong focus on the study of primary texts. Seriously. I went to IU, which was great for undergrad, but at the grad level was trying to compete with Duke and, I dunno, U-Nanterre-France for hugest amount of intratextual wankery. We read about 500 pages of philosophy and lit crit a week, and maybe 50 pages a week of primary text. Feh.

That sounds like "October the First is Too Late". An interesting book, which I took to be a response to the mildly social Darwinist and species expansionist bent of people like Heinlein. The "we must go to the stars because it is our Destiny, and anything we suffer to do it is worth it" philosophy.

Unfortunately, not his best book, IMHO; IIRC (I read it more than 40 years ago), it falls apart towards the end; the revelation of the mystery behind the jumbling of time leaves everything else pretty much an anticlimax.

I enjoyed the book, particularly for the tone and atmosphere. It's been some years since I read it, but I still have it.

His "panspermia" idea was, I think, actually tied in to the Steady-State theory. He had argued that it would take an insanely long amount of time for random molecular collisions to produce a living cell[**], so there was no way for life to have started on the Earth in just a few billion years -- or anywhere in the Universe, if it was only 10 or 20 billion years old, as the Big Bang theory suggested. But if the whole Universe was infinitely old, as the Steady State theory asserted, then life could still get going somewhere during the past infinity of time, and then [somehow] waft through space, infecting newborn worlds.

(There were some interesting/amusing papers in the early 1980s from him and a collaborator, Chandra Wickramasingh, claiming that certain mysterious features seen in newly acquired infrared spectra of interstellar gas and dust clouds were due to dessicated bacteria....)

[*] As you may know, he's responsible for labeling the rival theory with the name "Big Bang"; this was the dismissive nickname he gave it during a British radio program about cosmology.

[**] He famously compared it to a tornado going through a junkyard and spontaneously assembling a Boeing 747. I believe his calculation was technically correct -- except that it completely ignored how chemistry actually works.

Alas, it turns out that he is some of the time. (See the discussion here, which mentions a creationist site flogging Hoyle's statistical argument.)

(Though they mostly ignore the fact that he and his collaborator Wickramasinghe would hardly have agreed with the "Earth is 10,000 years old" crowd!)

Right. Powerful, influential United States Representative Ellen Tauscher doesn't exercise any control over her staff; they don't have regular meetings in which they get their story straight. The entire practice of "message discipline," as practiced by a million and a half tech startups and entertainment-industry marketing operations, is wholly alien to her, so we can't possibly hold her to the words she allows to go out over her name.

Also, the reason windows fog up when it's cold is because of all the fish in the atmosphere.

You are one of my oldest friends, but I keep getting the sense that I'm supposed to clutch my heart and cry out to God when you point to my dread ignorance of "how Washington works." Instead, I keep saying, yes, that's extremely hypocritical and undemocratic; remind me again why I'm supposed to have any respect for it?

I'd be more impressed if you ever weighed in to call me naive for failing to understand something good about how Washington gets business done. So far, though, not.

Odd piece of my brain: the Beatles' song It's All Too Much is synaesthetically tied up with that novel. I always get a little flash of it when I listen to the song.

I want to expand on something you said, but I think it belongs in the "We're not led, we're kept" thread*, so I'm going over there.

* I'd like us to keep one thread clear of politics, so there's someplace to go where I don't have to feel depressed. My personal reaction, I know, but I'm not dealing well with the knowledge of our new fascist overlords just now.

That's a good point, thanks. I'm meeting with an old professor* next week to talk about programs I should look at; I'll make a note to bring that up with him. I've been out of school for long enough now that I feel totally ignorant of the current academic memes.

*That'd be a professor I had as an undergrad, way back when. Not, y'know, an old professor. Probably not that much older than me, really.

all right...

damn. I can never get those two right.

the text background of Wikipedia articles is colored according to a value of trust, computed from the reputation of the authors who contributed the text

They are going to calculate "trust" via a computer algorithm. The explanation is that "trust" is based on how long someone's text lasts on wikipedia. But unless they take into account the level of user activity on an individual article, contributing absolute crap to a seldom visited article would still give you a great "trust" score. Even contributing sentence rewrites about topics you know nothing about in seldom visited pages would up your "trust" score.

Oh my head.

He's an awkward pain in the ass sometimes. He also has some bad qualities.

"KY"

And my immediate thought was:

"Ohmighod, she's been disemvoweled!"

I too value Greg as a regular poster. (God knows *I've* never posted anything here that anyone found annoying!)

re gaming Wikipedia: "If you don't measure what you value, you end up valuing what you measure."

Yes, Greg can be a PITA—and boy is that helpful sometimes! He's truly one of the Good Guys.

"If you don't measure what you value, you end up valuing what you measure."

That neatly sums up the entire discussion of the acquisition of power on the "We're not led, we're kept" thread. Where is that quote from?

Serge @ 324

We should never go without saying good things about people who are close to us.

Thanks.

Well, it was used in a 2004 blog entry by Rob Styles, but it sounds more like something The Sphinx would say from the movie "Mystery Men". heh.

Sometimes we need that. (We=people, not just we=this blog.)

I saw this sign today, in downtown Boston, which I imagine would amuse/dismay most of the architects that I know.

I'm thinking they should have gone with 'Marc Truant and Associates.'

OTOH, then there's the (five-star!) review that's titled, "Just jealous...they cant afford the fabulous", and then continues, "What a fabulous book - just because it says to use Trendsetter Yarns doesn't mean you would have to use them - I have been in plenty of yarn shops and seen comparable yarns that you could use with this book and have an identical item." (...thus presumably enabling more affordable fugly? O joy.)

Here's Hares on the Mountain, one of my favorites. This is a duet with Liam Clancy...Tommy Makem is the second voice to come in.

Sigh.

But the boggle was the actor playing the guy who Holly Hunter's character was investigating. About half way through I finally realized that it was James Marsters. I knew he could change his voice that much (not just accent, but also pitch, cadence, timbre, and breath), but it didn't look that much like him. And the body language was very different from any other character I'd seen him play, most especially Spike. Very impressive.

On the other hand, Torchwood is coming.

"for all I know there *is* some way to knit a silk purse out of them sows' ears."

Yes, apparently:

http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/purse/index.html

"Jerry Was A Man" airs August 18, and a Harlan Ellison script August 25.

Link here.

Based on the evidence presented on ML and elsewhere, I can only conclude that it's sadly overused.

Do you know if that first episode will be shown again?

That thought from the report's conclusion should be remembered everywhere:

Things that everybody thinks he knows only because he has learned the words that say it, are poisons to progress. The only way to get ahead is to dig in, to study, to find out, to reason out theories, to test them...

The definitive Quatermass is Andre Morell, from the original TV serial of Quatermass and the Pit. Well worth seeking out: one of the best pieces of TV SF ever made.

It's the synthesized voice that Stephen Hawking uses, since his own voice doesn't work anymore, but it's still annoying. There have been better sounding voices for a long time now; if Hawking doesn't want to change because he considers it an identifying feature, that's fine, but for the show to use it is clearly an attempt to identify the show with him. And I personally would much rather thay didn't; the sound is very grating to me.

I just checked the guide on my recorder; it looks like they're only showing Masters of SF at 10 PM on Saturday. Now I wish I had recorded it, I could burn a DVD and ship it to you, thus becoming a member in good standing of the pirate class. Unfortunately, we watched it live because we were staying up late anyway.

Maybe someone else recorded it, and hasn't deleted it yet?

I honestly didn't see that emphasis on the atheism of the villain. I'm going to see if I can catch that again and look more closely; I would be disturbed if they meant to say that. My impression was that they were saying, for instance, that Holly Hunter's character was not an atheist, that she believed but her belief had been badly damaged by having to clean up in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing.*

* Graphic description of violence: Svfuvat gur obqvrf, be cnegf bs obqvrf, bs qrnq puvyqera bhg bs jerpxntr is very likely to disturb your belief in almost anything.

"And give us our daily dread."

Maybe it's because I'm one - an atheist, not a villain - that I saw the emphasis. If his atheism was not a factor in his being a Bad Person, why was it brought up at all? If they truly wanted to use dramatic shorthand to indicate his being a misfit, they might as well have said that he reads comic-books, which is also one of my pecularities - but my lips don't move when I read. Honest.

I believe you, about the lips for sure, and I'm willing to take your word that you saw a disrespect of atheism in the show. I just want to go back and see why I missed it. Being completely non-standard on religion (God refuses to tell me his plans; She'll talk to everybody else, why not me?), I tend to be sensitive about it.

;)

Jules... Of course this here atheist was raised as a Catholic and even did the altar-boy thing at the nearby nunnery so of course my criteria for what is right and wrong are based on that. I mean, on being a Catholic, not on having the nuns rap me on the knuckles with the rod. And, yes, the guilt complex still works big time.

Other than the one Thomas the Tank Engine bit, it's all Harry Potter, all the time.

And now I'm stuck wondering why they call a train engine a "tank". Odd.

Or maybe it's just that the entertainment industry has figured out that we're a good way to make money.

Yeah, that's it.

It's interesting that the recent (2005) live-to-TV movie was a remake of the first series. Perhaps because of its last episodes being missing, people "needed closure" :) I would have thought that some of the themes in the third (Q & the Pit/5M Miles to Earth) were more pertinent to contemporary issues. But perhaps that would have been too challenging. Because I was unprepared for the The Q Conclusion (Q4) when I saw it this year, it made a strong impact, so John Mills has stayed with me most so far, but this might change with time. My DVDs are of the 4 TV series, with scripts of the lost episodes, and I haven't seen the film versions to compare for a long time.

BTW, just looked at Wikipedia please, DON'T read the 'Character' section if you want to avoid some very nasty spoilers. Even the rest of it has some giveaways that I would prefer not to know if seeing a film or series for the first time.

The Knowing vs. showing thread last year had quite a good discussion of Quatermass & related subjects, including a nice contribution from Mike Ford.

If they screw up Stardust they will deeply regret it. That's one of the finest fairy tales I've ever read. And you know, Disney to the contrary not withstanding, it can be done; fairy tales can be filmed. Have you ever seen Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast?

The Golden Compass looks like they've done a good job with it, though.

I like the books an awful lot, despite what I may or may not have said here about epic good v. evil struggles boring me.

I thought I had another good example of a filmed fairy tale working well, but it's slipped out of my mind. They're few and far between, to be sure.

Does Freeway count? That's a damn fine movie, though it's probably not in the spirit you were talking about.

Which doesn't make wrong his calculations about whether a virus could survive aero-braking.

A lot of his later stuff is in that borderland between hard SF and hard science, but he decided not to include dragons in his panspermia theory.

No one has said that, Greg. Not even me.

Watching Star Trek TNG once, I imagined some class in the far future looking back at our time (as we look back at Columbus) and discussing that while our early spacefaring society expected black holes, cosmic strings, and space-time anomalies, we totally failed to anticipate the dragons.

Greg, leaving aside whether anyone actually said that, why are you trying to start that fight AGAIN over here?

Back where this started on Tipler's description of his work, I now know what it reminded me of - someone trying to explain the concept behind a Greg Egan or Stephen Baxter novel. (And similarily, if you ask "Is that real science?" about it, the answer is "Yes - if you include scientific speculation about what we may find out after we get the answers to what we're looking at at the moment, and then attempt to put half a dozen of these speculations into a semi-coherent whole".)

I'd be happy to hear it gets better as it goes along, especially if it winds up dealing with the issue of theodicy on a deeper than Hallmark-card level, though I find myself disinclined to put the effort into finding out for myself firsthand. (Well, okay, I confess that I'm torn now wondering if James Marsters would make it worthwhile. But based on the premier, well, Dogma it ain't.)

I didn't even know they were making the movie until I saw a "three from the circle, three from the track" icon on a hpknitting community. At which point I tried to figure out who (of the Ministry Six) were 'from the circle' and who were 'from the track'. Then my brain clicked in, and said "that's not HP, you silly".

After reading more about the movie, I think it's going to be one of those 'hey, that's a cool idea for a movie. But the hero needs to be older. and needs some family conflict. and scrap the Arthurian themes. and we need snakes.' type things. As far as I can tell, people who like the books will hate the movies, and vice versa.

Let's hear it for Alannis Morrisette. Oh, wait. she's silent thru all of Dogma. By the way, it seems that every time that movie is on, I almost always catch it at the scene where Alan Rickman explains why angels aren't allowed to get drunk.

Hmmm...

You know what, Dan? I'm going to have to ask my wife for that DVD for my birthday.

"It's Armaggedon with acne!"

Sorry, Marsters just had a guest appearance in Saving Grace; no long-term benefit there.

I had a similar reaction going in; I'm not happy at all with the way religion is depicted in the mass media, but I'm used to being out of step with the world in general on religion. I thought that the characters were treated with enough respect (with the exception of the one played by Laura SanGiacomo, who really ought to be left off the leash for awhile, I think she would surprise the producers), that it was worth watching some more. And the second ep featured a wrestling match (greco-roman style) between Holly Hunter and the angel, which ended in a draw due to exhaustion. They both cheated.

The jury's still out on this one, I think, and I still have hopes. So maybe I'm just a foolish optimist.

(Mind you, today's Cheesy Crap would in almost every way be considered remarkable when I was growing up in the SF&F starved early 70s.)

Ah, the 1970s cheese... Ah, At the Earth's Core...

Risks in Research

Note the following sentence toward the end of the article:

Whatever discussion led up to that approval is hidden from the public because of a federal rule change in 2000 that placed most such follow-on studies under confidential FDA review rather than a public NIH process.

I don't know for sure that this rule change happened under Bush's watch, but somehow it seems likely...

Bruce @375: I'm not Ethan, but based on what I've seen about Dark is Rising as a movie (mostly the production company and the director), it seems as though they're making into one of those 'Xtians all good, all the time; everybody else must bow down before our glory, etc'.

Looking at the Wikipedia page for the movie*, it seems that may not be the case. It looks absolutely unforgivably crappy, but at least I'm not seeing any Christian Supremacism. Call it an upside.

* Yeah, I know, but I don't have any film-specific sources bookmarked, nor time to go dig any up.

Yay!

The reason for her silence in these parts is that her new home doesn't have an internet connection yet.

Glad to hear the issue is technical, not other.

When Worry Hijacks the Brain

Even the '70s had high-budget cheesy crap. If you remember Towering Inferno, for instance, you have my sympathy.

Anyone have any insights into why the Democrats in congress caved in on the warrantless wiretaps? I'd like it if I could have the Repubs and Demos competing for which one could *win* my vote, not for which one could *lose* my vote.

Back in the Clipper-wars days, there was a common story about the NSA/FBI giving Congress the "If you knew what we know...." presentation (claiming all kinds of amazing evils that had been prevented by free use of wiretaps). The common joke was that the rest of that sentence was filled in as "If you knew what we know about what you and that 19 year old blonde chick were doing at the Motel Six...."

I wonder what the current version of that briefing looks like, with several years of massive warrantless wiretaps done on a "trust me" basis. That could genuinely be, say, stories of two or three really gut-wrenching attacks foiled by wiretaps, or it could be really nasty blackmail material collected on various important politicians.

I should also note that for years now, "three from the Circle, three from the track" is a major earworm for me. Fortunately, I have three versions of the song on my hard drive. Unfortunately, these days it's taking all three to get the song out of my head. (But on the gripping hand, I'm not so sure I want it out, right now :-)

But they never did show us what he did with that kitty afterwards ... or what revenge the cats took:

im in ur gloves killin yr wife and her friend to frame u.

Just goes to show about the best laid plans of cats.

You're not the only one wonderign about that. The current thought is that they were shown pages from their NSA files ....
(I'm also wondering what Shrub gives his guests that they don't know about, since they seem to come back with opinions that they didn't go in with.)

I read the Dems concession on the recent surveillance bill as being basically a tactical decision to refight the issue in six months, in the belief that they'll be on stronger ground then.

The extent to which this was a good tactical decision is a separate question...

But why give in at all? I can think of three reasons, but they're all pretty damning:

a. I can see this as insurance--some congressional Democrats think there may be an attack between now and the Presidential election, and don't want a vote against anything that might have prevented the attacks.

b. Perhaps some kind of agreement has been reached to make sure both Democrats and Republicans have access to the wiretapping power.

c. Perhaps Bush is acting on principle (the principle that the state ought to have near unlimited power, I guess) and the Democrats are anticipating a future in which they will have access to that wiretapping data, after winning the 2008 presidential election.

None of this suggests highly principled guys who are going to reverse the Bush administration's moves toward a police state. Instead, it looks like the Democrats are about as happy with a police state as the Republicans, and only differ on which people should be at the top.

- one of those afraid of Klaatu in The Day The Earth Stood Still

What we need is some good ROBOT candidates. Three laws, no libido, honest as the day is long.

It isn't quite enough to guarantee good robot behaviour. I proposed a few ammendments to the laws. (I think you have to scroll down a bit.)

Of course, this assumes that the notion of robot slavery is acceptable. If not, then the three laws need some work.

;)

I'm against your amendments. I think if we're going to have robotic politicians they can't be owned by anyone (other than perhaps The People), or we're in the same situation we're in with our current lot. Or maybe slightly better, since the robots will stay bought.

I think a sufficiently sophisticated and influential robot politician would obey First Law, and the exclusions in the other two would make them virtually irrelevant.

I posted the ammendments on somerightsreserved, but the site has been down and the guy who runs it hasn't fixed it in a while. One of these days I'll post it on my homepage.

I think the three laws could work with a robot overlord. I think the government, in general, should serve it's constituents. And the three laws are all about robot subjegation.

Of course, there's still the problem of finding a robot with a conscience.

In order to govern, our robot overloards would have to break rule #1, constantly. There's no way to enforce rules without harming at least one human. Even positing a war-free world, how would you punish a murderer without harming him in some way? Depriving someone of freedom is harmful. Making him eat institutional food is, arguably, harmful. Merely giving him a good talking-to could, gosh, damage his self-esteem.

And as for the "through inaction" clause...for our own good, they'd have to outlaw fun in just about every form, from erotic comic books to Gnostic masses to recreational drugs.* Who'd want to live in a country like...oh, right, never mind.

*like cylert, if your recreation consists of staying awake and/or paying attention to things, you bad, bad hedonists

I prefer to think of myself as the puppetmaster behind the throne, manipulating events. You could call me an overlady if you want, but don't call me late to dinner.

I think it could be done, if you add the "ammendments" I had proposed, and then define "owners" to be the public as a whole.

If someone breaks the law, you can arrest them and put them in jail and that doesn't qualify as "causeing harm" in a strict interpretation of "harm" being "physical or emotional harm".

Incarceration could be implemented such that it isn't physical or emotionally harmful.

Then the issue is the law that says a robot has to do whatever a human tells it to do, as long as it doesn't violate #1. This is where you would have to define the robot's "owner" to be the population as a whole, and the only way to tell the robot a command is through voting or something. Otherwise the robot puts the bad guy in jail, the bad guy says "let me go", and the robot complies. Then the rest of the public says "put him back in" and the robot complies, repeat ad nauseum.

It still has the achilles heal of dealing with potential mob rule, but theoretically, it wouldn't have to be any worse than it is now. With the potential benefit, as Xopher pointed out, of no libido to satiate and no ego requiring chest pounding.

so it might be a net win.

"A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm"

This allows for all kinds of nifty workarounds without putting the robot into a tailspin. Of course it helped that some of the robots were telepathic.

I'm afraid we know how that comes out.

My eyes! My eyes!

I think that version is actually made of evil!!

I think that may be the vilest thing that I, as an art historian, have ever seen. What *do* you recommend as an antidote?

Just slimy monsters won't do it. You have to have an absolutely brutal style. I'm not sufficiently familiar with painters of that sort of thing, so can anyone else make a suggestion for the Cthulhu side?

(To a certain extent, almost all the Robot stories by Asimov deal with edge cases, or, to put it another way, all the cases that would have gone to the Robot Supreme Court).

Though it's another kind of horror, ever saw that, by any means ?

My bet is on "yes", but still. ^_^"

On a different note, I have no idea how interested any of you would be in this, but Lee Hazlewood has died. People never take him seriously, but he's one of my favorite musicians of all time, and even though this has been coming for a while now, I'm not sure what to do with myself now.

What I suspect happened is that enough Dems from conservative districts/states were worried about recessing without a vote that the leadership in both houses felt that they needed to allow a vote.

(I would not be at all surprised if an implicit promise to support a tougher line next February was part of the package.)

Keep in mind that the Democrats are a coalition party. While the leadership has actually done a fairly good job keeping things organized on most issues, they still have to mediate among the various factions. It isn't like the top-down GOP where the leadership can just issue orders and everyone obeys.

A bit of reassurance, perhaps in what Ed Kilgore said back on May 30:

"Such divisions are inevitably going to happen in a coalition party, and for all its sometimes maddening disadvantages, it's still better than a party whose unity and ideological rigor can sometimes lead it down the road to perdition, with no road back (viz., a Republican Party still chained to its conservative base and its domestic and international delusions."

Now, where's that rhodomagnetic beam ...

Part of me wonders how they figured that out.

Part of me is imagining the top shelf in Walgreen's feminine hygiene aisle containing teeny weeny pastel-colored packages for the convenience of the occasional bat customer.

Cthulhu is too busy with his day job as Those Annoying Post Brothers' cabana boy to be overtaking worlds at the moment.

TexAnne will be visiting Portland this weekend and next week, and we're trying to organize a get-together. The current (tentative) plan is to go see Stardust on Sunday afternoon, then go out to dinner (seafood, if that's a problem for anyone). Anyone who's interested in joining the fun, please email me and I'll put you on the list to get the final details.

The KinKade is called "Almost Heaven" so this version is, of course, "Almost Hell."

Nicely done. You beat me to it; I have some free time tomorrow morning and I was going to try that out, but you beat me to it. I might anyway; I'm strongly tempted to have Cthulhu bite that guy's head off :=)

On the other hand, I'm typing this on a computer I bought a month ago, and I just bought some new software for it, so maybe I'm not taking the lesson seriously enough?

So, I'm fine with anyone grabbing and using this image, with the understanding that it's not really mine to give, which is why I didn't put a CC license on it.

Oh, and I'm glad everyone liked it. Bruce (and anyone else), I'd love to see your take on it...I kind of cheated and took his wings away so he's not as Dread as he could be.

I hears a recent cover of These Boots Are Made for Walking, and when the song got to the part about "You keeping playing when oughts not bet", I thought about Bush. Now, Hazlewood couldn't have had that in mind when he wrote that song, all those many years ago (I am old enough to remember seeing the proto-music video made for the song on The Smothers Brothers Show), and I doubt the band covering the song was thinking of that. But still, it came into my head...

Wow. I'm always amazed when people do photoshop type stuff, get really cool results, and do it in a short amount of time.

And that picture is fricken hilarious.

I don't know why, but this just keeps making me chuckle.

Somehow, an outfit named after the three-headed dog that guards the entrance to Hell doesn't make me feel comfortable.

Down, Fido!

fidelio #462: Since you mention it, I did write something on my silly little blog that's mostly a collection of some of Lee Hazlewood's songs, by himself and with/for others. Not trying to blogopimp or anything, but it's there for anyone who wants to poke around and hear some of the beauty he made.

As far as the "You keep playin' when you oughta not bet" line, I doubt he was thinking anything like that when he wrote it, but I bet it occurred to him after. As he says in "Anthem," from his pre-humous (is there actually a word that's the opposite of posthumous?) album Cake or Death, "I always did what my mama told me/But I never did vote republican."

Think of the flavor name possibilities...

Dagon Punch
Yuggoth Berry Blast

I'm too tired to come up with anything actually clever.

According to wikipedia's list of current flavors, quite a a few of them are already pretty chock full o' nameless dread. Eerie Orange and Scary Black Cherry, particularly.

The only thing close to clever I can come up with right now is "Mi-Go Mango."

Oh and thanks, everyone, for the compliments.

I think you mean Squamous Squawberry.

http://tunteella.dy.fi/1607.jpg

I'd like to believe that, but I don't. I expect to see the Democrats in the white house and in the majority in both houses of congress in 2008, and think the probability that they'll give up massive warrantless wiretaps is just a little better than the probability that I'll win the lottery.

I would really like to be wrong here. Please gloat at me in a couple years, if I turn out to be wrong. But what action on the part of the Democrats in congress in the last six years makes you optimistic here?

Tentacles swiped from this cute wallpaper.

YOMANK alert!

Every time I start thinking they'll do the right thing, I get squashed by them doing the wrong thing, so I'll take 'none of the above' for $0.02.

To paraphrase Serge, "Mary Dell... Heads off to you".

Scream, all! Dread Cthulhu demands that you scream for Ice Cream!

That is AWESOME. *applause*, particularly for the flying blood.

Aside from anything else, the fact that the bill WAS for six months is a strong indication that the Democratic leadership did not support the idea of making the powers permanent.

What will happen in February is another question. That's the real fight. Six months to mobilize.

(Post 9/11, the Dems have only had a real ability to act since thCe new Congress was seated in January 2007. For much of 2002, Bush was still riding a 9/11 blank check. And after the 2002 elections, let's just say that congressional minorities without the backup of a President have very little power when the majority party is as unified and unscrupulous as the GOP has been. The Dems have been cautiously moving to confront Bush since they gained a fragile majority. A lot of what they've been doing is renewing oversight. Which has had at least some results.)

Because names can't be copyrighted, I suspect.
(Haven't you heard of Dr Spock? Predates ST by more than a decade.)

Because names can't be copyrighted, I suspect.
(Haven't you heard of Dr Spock? Predates ST by more than a decade.)

Mary Dell, those are wonderful! If it gets to be as easy as you say after a while, I'll have to AVOID getting PhotoShop™; I would spend all my time playing with it.

Moral of the story: I want to say there should be a flavor of Cthulaid called "Shadow Fruit over Innsmouth," and I'm not sure if the dubious reality of shadow fruit itself makes it less or more appropriate.

Of course!

"Where reality ends and fiction begins in the stomach-turning novel Amok is the central task before the jury in Poland’s trial of the decade. Four years after he published his bloody bestseller, Krystian Bala has found himself on trial for the same torture and murder that he detailed in his novel."

/relurks

(note, that guy is Krystian B with a Y, not me)

Crazy.

Since Abi isn't here to give us a sonnet, may I offer a villanelle for the topic at hand?

Drink not the liquor born of shadow fruit
If you yet value heart and soul and mind -
Those grapes were trodden by no human foot.

Too late, too late, to kill the cursed shoot
Already is the wholesome tree envined;
Drink not the liquor born of shadow fruit.

With notes of death and madness, blood and soot,
(Pray that it will only leave you blind)
Those grapes were trodden by no human foot.

A single drop sets madness in pursuit:
Dread, formless shapes loom behind.
Drink not the liquor born of shadow fruit.

And worse - within your dreams, some brute
Whispers secrets: a terrible blasphemous kind.
Those grapes were trodden by no human foot.

Though risen horrors render caution moot
--From deep R'lyeh will Dread Cthulhu climb--
Yet, drink no liquor born of shadow fruit;
Those grapes were trodden by no human foot!

Serge #516: Gah! I hope it's just sickly liquor...I drank some of it!

Paula Lieberman #517: If that stuff can eat away styrofoam, maybe waste management people should know about it...

i.e. someone probably has a "Spock" trademark for a pointy-eared, green blooded, so and so in the Star Trek universe.

Which would not conflict with a "Spock" trademark for a search engine.

Probably.

See also, "Apple(tm) Computers" and "Apple(tm) Music" to see how real life fits (not) theory.

IANAL, TINLA, ETC

"It's the Loooooove Craft..."

Ouch! My brain hurts now....

I've got this mental image of The Love Boat with tentacles sticking out the portholes, waving in time to the theme song. And Isaac offering you a nice glass of something trod by no human foot.

Probably Ricardo Monteban will have to fight it off when the boat reaches Fantasy Island.

De pain! De pain

Ricardo Montalban, wearing his corinthian leather, no doubt. I suppose Fantasy Island is enroute to R'lyeh. It would only make sense.

(Pray it will only leave you blind.)

I'd have suggested Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, but Irwin Allen's fertile mind had already populated it with stranger monsters than Lovecraft ever conjured. There were the lobster men, and the goldfish given too much of an hormone treatment that turned it into a giant humanoid fish-thing...

Wikipedia's Love Boat entry contains the trivia item, "A 1994 episode of Saturday Night Live featured a parody entitled Love Boat: The Next Generation, featuring host Patrick Stewart playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard, who, with his crew, gets involved in Love Boat-type adventures on a starship. Bernie Kopell made a surprise appearance, reprising his role as 'Doc'."

Combine that with the Star Trek manga I've been seeing in stores lately, and someone may have to splice a stylized version of William Shatner into The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife (NSFW 19th-century woodcut warning).

I think I'll suggest that to my wife's agent as the theme for an erotica anthology.

I would recommend Call of Cthulhu Bear, myself.

Flood Map

My pleasure...here you go.

I didn't do anything to whatsername's face because she clearly already drank the Cthulhaid.

Her mouth was filled with teeth of no earthly origin.

That's really - confounding.

Well, now I certainly know how to spell "weeoow," don't I? Maybe it should be added to the spelling list?

viking kittens ... mumblemumble ... ia! ia!

The great Cadillac Escalade review

(All the parenthetic editorial comments are sic.)

A fairly typical excerpt:

Cadillac’s brand manager says, “Cadillac research showed that there was a real need for the EXT.” A real need for a Cadillac pickup? Really? If so, then here are a few things that I really need: An air-conditioned front yard. Iguana-skin patio furniture. Stigmata. Mint-flavored Drano. Gold-plated roof gutters. A 190-hp MerCruiser SaladShooter. A dog with a collapsible tail. An office desk that converts into a Hovercraft. Chrome slacks. A lifetime subscription to Extreme Fidgeting. A third arm. A fourth wife. A smokeless Cuban Robusto. Reusable Kleenex.

Xopher, please warn when there's loud music. My upstairs neighbor is an elderly man. He's getting hard of hearing, but I don't want to take chances at waking him up this late in his night.

That was, um, interesting. Seriously, I liked your villanelle a lot, but I'm having trouble finding an appropriate adjective. I mean, would you say you had fun at a production of Hamlet, or really enjoyed ("got joy from") a production of "Death of a Salesman"?

Hmm ... cute, yet squamous. I especially liked the "humongous shrine".

The style was a sort of mashup of Lovecraft and Jim Buthcer ("The Dresden Files"). Exemplius gratuitus:

"The entire cosmos reverberated to a nameless dread that froze the very soul, and it wasn't my fault!"

Does anyone know of any good Star Trek fiction, pro or fan or anywhere in between, that deals in-depth with the horror (non-Cthulhu related, I hope) of being Yeoman Janice Rand? I've been thinking about her a lot recently.

from "The Dream-Quest of Pooh Corner"...

I am forced into speech because Rabbit and other Organdized People have refused to follow my advice without knowing why. I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and so it is altogether against my will that I tell my reasons for opposing this contemplated Expotition to the East Pole - with its vast Woozle hunt and its wholesale boring and excavation of Heffalump Traps. And I am the more reluctant because my warning may be in vain...

..."It's All Right," said Eeyore, looking into the dark waters again. "This Sort of Thing was Bound to Happen. Just a question of the Stars being Right, I suppose."
"I mean," he continued, as the surface of the water was torn asunder and a mass of hideous, churning flesh rose into view, "what else was I supposed to Expect?"
"There's Rabbit," he said, as the blasphemous mouth of the being from the depths opened in a scream. "He's Energetic, Rabbit is, but he will Meddle in the Forbidden Arts. And then there's Owl. Owl is very intelligent, but I'm afraid that in some of the older and more unsettling texts in his house he may have seen things that have driven him into shrill unreasoning madness. And then there's Tigger. No earthly creature could possibly Bounce quite so much as Tigger."

Well, yes... I hadn't thought it was deliberate. It's just that it's often amusing when something easily misinterpreted goes out on a package design.

Vincent Price is today's Star of the Day on Turner Classic Movies.

And Flash Gordon premieres on the SciFiChannel tonight.

http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/2007/08/07/stardusts_chances.html

I'll be at the Edinburgh Fringe just too late to catch the UK premiere (and oh, how I tried to get up there earlier! Fingers crossed it'll make best of the fest)and I don't think we get it properly 'til October, but lucky USians get it this weekend.

If Matthew Vaughans description of the movie as a "mashup between The Princess Bride and Midnight Run" doesn't grab and, uh, utterly confuse you, you're better people than me. Well, I knew that anyway, but still...

Ok, I'll be quiet now :D

"This luminous, magical movie, based on the Neil Gaiman novel, will dazzle even the fantasty-film phobic."

So says Stephanie Zacharek in Salon.com. Sounds promising. And I understand that Gaiman is happy. Definitely sounds promising.

ethan @#544: You should write it! I always knew there was something evil about her basket-weave hairdo, but I could never quite put my finger on it.

Had you done so, you'd have found that her 'hair' really was a lovecraftian horror with lots of sharp teeth and tentacles. (Thus do we veer back into Cthulhu Country by way of John Waters.)

Thanks! I did once have fun at a production of Hamlet, but it had gratuitously-placed rousing fight scenes entirely out of keeping with the play itself. Because, you know, what Hamlet really needs is *more* bloodshed.

One of the reasons I was asking was that I didn't want to be redundant if I did try to write it.

...of course, that's not the kind of horror I meant. I meant more along the lines of "Captain! Look at my legs!"

Marilee 540: My apologies. I will.

ajay 546: I'm in awe. But you know, we could rewrite a whole Pooh story as Lovecraft would have told it, without actually changing any of the events.

Epacris 547: OK, that works. Fragano, never mind.

As I have mentioned before, another memorable Road and Track article in 1985 covered the crawler that transports Space Shuttles to the pad.

The text is not online, but long ago I wrote a summary:

Kids, you want to go find a copy of *Road & Track*, I'm pretty sure it's the April 1985 issue, page 192. (If I messed up, look at other issues that year.) Every once in a while, as a sort of April Fool's thing, *R&T* would run a deadpan road test of some exotic vehicle like the Goodyear Blimp or the Gresley A3 Pacific Locomotive. Well, in 1985 Ted West, Engineering Editor, reported on "The KSC 554,756 Hardtop: Longer, Lower and Weirder for 1985."

If you have any interest in the crawlers, you *must* read this. West has lots of tongue-in-cheek fun with it, but I've never seen more technical information on the vehicles. There's lots in the article, and even more figures in long tables accompanying it, in the manner of auto-magazine tech evaluations. Some quotes to get you galvanized and headed down to the library:

"If you're looking for traditional, massive American *horsepower*, the KSC 554,756 is yer kinda car. Its raucous 554,756 cc are packaged in no less than six different containers. And 350,342 of them are enclosed in a pair of 2750-bhp 16-cylinder Alco diesels. An additional 180,070 cc come wrapped in two 1075-bhp 8-cylinder White diesels. Finally, 24,344 cc reside in a pair of very pedestrian 6-cylinder Cummins truck diesels. There is also a paltry 7.5-bhp Onan compressor-drive-- but the less said about that little wimp the better."

"...Speaking of steering, we found the KSC's just a trifle, dare we say it, heavy. However, directional stability was exemplary, we felt no buffeting whatever in stron sidewinds and thought nothing whatever of hands-off steering for long periods while running flat out. More top marks."

"There was a great *Cluuunk!* and not quite a *lunge*. We said we'd bet our left shoe the thing would be geared too tall, but, to our great surprise, the 554,756 got off the line smartly and was up to cruising speed in just under no time, leaving our left shoe behind at a steady, smooth 1.0 mph. The 554,756 is said to be capable of a brisk 2.0 mph flat-out-- `and maybe more'-- but we were told that, somewhat like the *Queen Mary's*, the 554,756's true top speed is known only to God and a certain electrical engineer (`poor soul') living in seclusion for the past 20 years in a small auto court outside Marion, Ohio."

I will be, for the first time in many years, in Portland tonight with no family to visit and a chunk of time to kill. Does anyone have advice for what to do/where to go with two adults and a night-owlish toddler? We'll likely get in around 5:00 and will stay overnight in NE.

Can you bring children to any of the McMenamins theatres, maybe?

Yeah, looks like a bunch of white ladies to me.

That sounds like a great show. My fun Hamlet was a student production that passed over from bad to funny. I think they were trying to show the effects of violent society on impressionable youth or something, but it didn't work.

My friend and I did have a great time during intermission guessing who Hamlet would try to gut next, though.

Nice video.
The morphing is amazing.

Epacris #547: Thanks! My link-fu is weak. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Clifton Royston #545: Indeed!

Coming soo to a theater near you, Quentin Tarantino's Hamlet!

don't be a fanboy don't be a fanboy don't be a fanboy OH MY GOD THAT WOULD BE AWESOME shit shit shit shit shit you were a fanboy

Yeah, I must admit that seeing those words strung together caused a Pavlovian response over here too.

Poor Mr. White! I knew him once, Mr. Pink. He was hilarious. Where are you tricks, jokes, or songs now that made everyone laugh? Not one left?

Also, picturing Christopher Walken giving a monologue about, oh, who the hell cares, it's Christopher Walken giving a monologue!

No Quentin Tarantino in sight, though.

Most of my old stuff is still there, from the serious and the factual to the silly.

I left for the same reason that people leave Wikipedia - watching any narrow power structure deal with work one has done for a wider audience is dispiriting. Not that they did it to me; it was worse than that. They did it to my Mom.

I miss it sometimes.

(I am still on stolen* bandwidth here, so my postings are going to be infrequent for a while yet. I'm like that poster on A Fire Upon the Deep who keeps thinking the number six is significant to humans...fundamentally out of touch.)

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† One thing I like about Making Light is that we are not trying to achieve anything