hey, pretty cool quote. I like that.

sorry, nothing useful to contribute. How are the sapient gurrillas coming?

So, sour, and best served cold. Alfred Hitchcock said "Revenge is sweet and not fattening," and Juvenal said it was "Sweeter than life itself -- so say fools."

Any other culinary metaphors for revenge? Can we figure out what kind of food this is? Perhaps some kind of low-cal lemon meringue.

The Village Voice fired Robert Christgau? That's insane. That's like the New Yorker booting John McPhee, which would obviously never happen.

The weird thing for me is that Voice owners the New Times were the first entity to pay me for writing--back when the New Times were a scruffy Tempe, Arizona "underground" headquartered above a package liquor store on Mill Avenue, rather than the evil corporate masters of a nationwide chain of "weekly entertainment papers". (It was a review of Barry Malzberg's Herovit's World. I liked it. They paid me $10. I was 15.)

Sweet, sour, best served cold, not fattening. I'm thinking some kind of fruit-based sherbet.

Maybe Christgau should apply for the latest vacancy in the culture-writing world...

Annalee, if by "sapient gorillas" you mean Grease Monkey, it's doing just fine, and thanks for asking.

Calorie-free sherbet? Maybe one of those Mexican fruit ices, where all it is, really, is fruit juice and a little sweetener? (Well, some of them have milk. Bananas are a bit low in juice.)

I would have thought sour and cold was more like frozen lemon juice, needing a little help to be really enjoyable. But I'm not really good at revenge.

as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also.

It's interesting to note that people seem quite capable of believing (for some sense of belief) that they are impotent or at least oppressed and powerless when objective fact suggests otherwise. For an example I cite the Christian right in this country, which appears to believe that its faith is being politically and socially harrassed and demeaned and that Christians are powerless victims of a gross, grotesque secular culture -- while polls and such regularly report that Christianity is this country's dominant religion.

Revenge is grapefruit.

Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me
there lie they and here lie we
under the spreading chestnut tree

It's amazing how often "answers have not been provided" really means "I didn't get the answer that I wanted".

Is it wrong of me to see discussion about revenge as food and think of Titus Andronicus?

Good to hear about Grease Monkey. I should probably learn to spell at some point.

Lizzy L, I think part of that is justification. They're not 'bullying,' they're 'fighting back.' Casting oneself as the victim is easier than taking responsibility for one's actions. But that's not really powerlessness so much as childishness: "Everyone in this country isn't willing to validate my belief system for me so that I can feel better about being a mindless sheep, so I'm going to throw a hissyfit and say they hate Christianity instead of growing up and acting my age."

Yes, Anaea, yes it is. Because that would make an especially horrible sherbet.

On the other hand, that new UK film about the prez being offed (heard of it on tonight's national news) could strike a lot of people as wish-fulfillment fantasy -- at least until they remembered all those handlers and advisers behind the scenes.

Lizzy, the Christian Right has an odd problem. They are, indeed, politically powerful, yet they are living in one of the most materialistic times and places in history, as well as one when social and technical change has altered many of the assumptions on which they based their social order. And no amount of temporal power will every implement some of their program; their children will never meet their expectations, regardless of threats of hellfire. They are, in fact, powerless against these things, but no amount of bitching about the government is going to fix that. Makes 'em ornery.

Sweet, sour, best served cold, not fattening.

Perhaps mango slices dipped in a mixture of sugar, salt, and chilies. Yum!

When I find this George Orwell person, I'll make him regret saying that.

Revenge is like holding a grudge. It surely does not do anything for the person holding the desire for revenge except to raise their blood pressure and leave them sour. And if it's something you are powerless to change, one should just let it go. I've seen people ruin their life to one-up or get revenge on someone and in the long run it just did not matter and was not worth the effort expended.

I pretty much try to hold to the Serenity prayer, because I do have high blood pressure (medicinally controlled but I know when I get pissed it goes up because I have a little mole by my ear that gets harder when the bp is up). If it's something I can do anything about, I do what I can and that helps all around.

Just a few late-night thoughts, ymmv.

that is a terrific and true quote. thanks for sharing it.

in other news, i too am reading grease monkey and liking it a lot.

In case anyone hasn't seen this yet:

An image of a neuron vs. an image of the universe

File under "Separated at Birth?"

Sweet, sour, best served cold

Morning after the night before Chinese food?

not fattening

Oh. Not, then.

Speaking of the psychology underlying the Christian right ...

My current pet hobby-horse/hypothesis to explain human behaviour is that most of us don't subjectively feel our age internally: we're children or adolescents role-playing our way through adulthood, with greater or lesser degrees of success, guided by the experience we've picked up from observing other people. That is, we do what we're expected to do by those around us, even when it doesn't feel right. And folks who are compelled to conform to the expectations their family and friends and neighbours impose resent the hell out of the imagery all around them of people who aren't conforming. ("Why are they allowed to behave that way when I'm stuck here earning bread for my family?")

It takes a certain amount of self-confidence to strike out for your own, and fire-and-brimstone religions promising all the answers in return for conforming to the one true lifestyle don't give their followers self-confidence; rather, they try to instil a neurotic dependency on the behavioural/ideological safety-blanket, which is not the same thing at all.

And folks who are compelled to conform to the expectations their family and friends and neighbours impose resent the hell out of the imagery all around them of people who aren't conforming.

this is why i still get asked "you're really sure you don't want children?" kill me now

#20: As above, so below.

Universe = neuron.

What stimulus would cause it to fire?

What would happen if/when it does?

Also, what is the use of an isolated neuron?

Makes you wonder who's doing the thinking.

Samantha Joy (#20):

Wow -- that's rather startling, even spooky.

(Of course, I have a difficult time imagining any plausible underlying reason for the apparent similarity, since the formation mechanisms are so completely different. But it's a lovely coincidence, if nothing else.)

Lila (#25): To be slightly pedantic, it's "galaxy cluster = neuron".
Unless FTL communication is possible, the Universe is going to be thinking v e r y s l o w l y . . .

Makes you wonder what's going on in our neurons.

Makes you wonder what's going on in our neurons.

Let's see: galaxy cluster collapses --> million-degree, X-ray emitting gas + massive black holes and quasar ignition in central galaxies... I hope that's not happening in my neurons!

Straw poll of Civilisation and Alpha Centauri players: How many of you have ever given a nuclear weapon unit to an ally?

Have you given or sold nuclear technology to another nation, other than being intimidated into it?

Sweet, sour, best served cold, not fattening. I'm thinking some kind of fruit-based sherbet.

Revenge Sherbert.

(A refreshing and satisfying treat.)

Ingredients:

Appropriate fruit. Grapes for dissapointment, Blood Oranges for family issues, tomato if you really want to confuse them. You'll want about a cup of juice, and some bits.

juice of 1/2 lemon
2 cups water
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. gelatine, soaked in 1tsp cold water

Boil the sugar and water for 20-30 minutes. Add in the gelatine, cool. When cold, mix in the selected fruit juice. Freeze using your partcular method of creating frozen deserts.

Serving. Place into serving glass, insert spoon, hurl at ~50 meters a second through your victim, top with cherry.

Caution: Can be messy. Suggest having hoses and drains handy for cleanup.

I see no one has gone with the other metaphor for revenge, Bacon's 'revenge is a kind of wild justice'. When I first heard that I wondered why anyone would regard the formal institutions of justice as tame (well, I was 13). Now, having acquired a bit of knowledge on the way, I wonder if I could make any money marketing videos under the rubric 'justice gone wild'.

Charlie Stross #22: Back when I was in grad school, one of our neighbours in the grad student residential community in La Jolla was a Mor(m)on economist who happened to have the same surname as my then wife. We had children of about the same age, he having a daughter a little older than my older son.

One day his daughter wondered aloud why she had to spend Sundays 'serving the lord' while Roger, my son, did not. I'd suspect that was the beginning of a long resentment.

NelC#30: no, I've never done that, and don't think I would. Too much chance they'd actually use them, and I prefer to finish with a world that isn't utterly wrecked.

I think the Mafia, and similar, would disagree with Orwell about revenge. Revenge is something that you do because you are powerful; you cannot let an insult, or injury, or perceived disrespect go unpunished because that would diminish your status.

And to what extent have the policies of the USA (supposedly the world's most powerful nation) over the last five years been shaped by a desire for revenge for 9/11?

I think the Mafia, and similar, would disagree with Orwell about revenge. Revenge is something that you do because you are powerful; you cannot let an insult, or injury, or perceived disrespect go unpunished because that would diminish your status.

But if your hold on power is so tenuous that it can be undermined by perceived disrespect, how powerful are you, really?

Chad, I can imagine you asking Tony Soprano that, and living to tell the tale, but only if it was a good day for him. On a bad day, he'd say something like, "Powerful enough to do this," followed by a scene of graphic violence. Then he'd go and agonise about it, in a very circumspect way, with his analyst.

Chad Orzel #37: You're right. A revenge ethic tends to be associated with fragile power structures -- as in those of gangs or criminal associations like the Mafia.

If I had to pick a food to represent the emptyness and "is that all there is" feeling of revenge it would be:

Sugarfree (insert favorite not typically anything remortely deserving the title of sugarfree dessert here). An example would be the sugarfree Key Lime Pie I was recently served. One bite, a bite where you are expecting a lush tart and sweet mouthful and instead get an acidic and diffident "eh?".

When I was younger revenge was something I thought was not only meaningful, but neccessary to balance wrongs. I got over that.

Web-neepery time: Is there a reason that Making Light uses <div class="excerpt1"> instead of <blockquote> (or possibly <blockquote class="whatever">)? The DIVs don't show up indented in RSS newsreaders like NetNewsWire.

One of most interesting books I've read this year is William Ian Miller's Eye for an Eye, which discusses the law of talion in ancient cultures. His thesis is that the threat of violent retribution was actually a way to facilitate negotiation and compensation. He argues that in such a culture, life isn't cheap--it is in fact very expensive because the victim gets to determine the cost of his own injury.

Although some of his reviewers would have you believe otherwise, Miller's not really suggesting that we all go back to the world of saga Iceland. However, the book really makes you see bloodfeud and vengeance in a different light, which is really nifty for worldbuilding.

Peter Erwin: Unless FTL communication is possible, the Universe is going to be thinking v e r y s l o w l y . . .

So, God does exist, but he's very slow. He probably thinks he did it (create the earth) in seven days.

Well, God is vaster than empires.

#38: Chad, I can imagine you asking Tony Soprano that, and living to tell the tale, but only if it was a good day for him. On a bad day, he'd say something like, "Powerful enough to do this," followed by a scene of graphic violence. Then he'd go and agonise about it, in a very circumspect way, with his analyst.

Oh, absolutely.
It doesn't really change the point, though. The really big proponents of revenge as a means of retaining power tend to be, like Fragano Ledgister says in #39, fairly fragile criminal enterprises, or governments that are just hanging on.

I thought it was vegetable love that would be vaster than empires? But the "more slow" would be apropos.

John M. Ford #44: So the love of God is a vegetable love?

Fragano 347

Yes. Specifically, an aubergine

#32 - I see no one has gone with the other metaphor for revenge, Bacon's 'revenge is a kind of wild justice'. When I first heard that I wondered why anyone would regard the formal institutions of justice as tame (well, I was 13). Now, having acquired a bit of knowledge on the way, I wonder if I could make any money marketing videos under the rubric 'justice gone wild'.

Folks are making a fair piece of change with videos of beheadings under the rubric "justice done".

There are those

- obs SF David Drake's Northworld trio with his own discussion of Venegeance and Justice under those titles (Baen. TOR has Fortress of Glass current and Drake's take on the Anabasis - Forlorn Hope - in reissue) -

who distinguish blindfolded Law with fine balances and Justice with a sword. Drake wrote " a highly-devloped legal system in Dark Age Scandinavia....Courts, compromise, and the reduction of injuries to money payments were the tools of the Law. But that was the Law. Laws are made by society and applied by society......Unlike our own civilized place and time, the Vikings also had a system of Justice....."

Mr. Blair is, I think, more right than wrong for a right/wrong culture - sadly the desire for what I might call revenge and another might call justice never goes away in an honor/shame culture. From time immemorial to Dumas to Hammett to Bester to Drake revenge makes fine stories so I'd say revenge is a force of nature.

#45 - The really big proponents of revenge as a means of retaining power tend to be, like Fragano Ledgister says in #39, fairly fragile criminal enterprises, or governments that are just hanging on.

In retrospect I suppose all governments "are just hanging on." I wonder how to classify The Grave of the Hundred Head? Recessional was surely coming but nobody was turning down invitations to the Widow's parties at the time. Just hanging on at Lidice? Maybe. Certainly just hanging on at Oradour sur Glane

Granted governments today have moved beyond decimate to devastate and dragged the language along but I wouldn't call the government that hung circa 6,000 crucified bodies along the Appian Way just hanging on in 71 b.c.e. though I have my doubts about the morality.

abi #48: Indeed miraculous! Like the face of Einstein that I sometimes see in the shadows of my bedroom ceiling.

Fragano #51

Einstein? Lucky you. All I have is a beaver and assorted goblins.

Clark E. Myers #49: Hmm. That's what one calls a thorny philosophical problem (or even, what a friend in grad school called a 'horny problem'). The idea that justice requires condign punishments rather diminishes it as a concept. The idea that one can take revenge in the name of justice isn't simply a matter of honour/dishonour versus right wrong it is also about me (or any individual) having the right to make judgments in my own case. That can only work when society is fragile. It cannot work if we want a society more complex than one made up of chieftains and followers.

abi #52: It's the 'popcorn' on the ceiling. It does a magnificent job of producing an Einsteinean mane. Beavers and goblins sound fine to me.

Fragano #54

We have Artex, which gives more swirls, points and shadows. Thus the goblins. The beaver is a mystery.

abi #55: Perhaps a visiting Canadian spirit....

John M. Ford #44: Well, God is vaster than empires.

I owe you an incalculable debt of gratitude, sir, since in searching Google for the source of "vaster than empires and more slow"* I found (once I'd scrolled past all the links to U.K. LeGuin) a link to Langford's 1980 TAFF Report, the first-time perusal of which (some 26 years after the events recounted, if not quite so long after the publication of the report) has given me hours of pleasure and amazement (60-cent subway fares in NYC! long lines at customs!) and done much to assuage the week-old pangs of Worldcon-withdrawal.

*I'd read the original poem of Marvellous coyness many times but the brain was temporarily off-line

abi #48: I had one once, but the wheels fell off.

RE: John, #35

(eek- that looks too Biblical for my taste)

OBMorgenstern: Well, you can't afford to make exceptions. Once word goes out that a pirate's gone soft, it's nothing but work, work, work.

I suspect it's not just those who rely on revenge to assert their dominance who are locked into mandatory violent responses - it's everyone who relies on a violent reputation. Speculation on the current administration is welcomed.

#41: Because we're incompetent. We probably ought not be running a fucking weblog.

#59 I suspect it's not just those who rely on revenge to assert their dominance who are locked into mandatory violent responses - it's everyone who relies on a violent reputation. Speculation on the current administration is welcomed.

Tit for Tat is the dominant strategy in an iterated prisoner's dilemma (and we all know what dominates a one-off) - there is some belief that life as we know it has much in common with an interated prisoner's dilemma. Compare mutually assured destruction with assured survival and consider the warm - even hot - reception given to the strategic defense initiative.

"It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both." Niccolo Machiavelli.

#47: So the love of God is a vegetable love?

OBLyric: No love's as random as God's love.

Ariella - thanks for the book recommendation; I can suggest a leap further past. Try Frans De Waal's Our Inner Ape; the bulk of it is about the group politics of (our nearest evolutionary cousins, the) chimpanzees and bonobos. He makes an extended argument about how revenge and reconciliation, war or peace, are inseparable.

The photos of neuron and universe are v. kewl, but I wonder if their similarity doesn't have more to do with an inherent sameness in evolution of amorphous-into-functional structures.

Oh, lord, what an awful mouthful.

What I mean is, assume that universe and brains both started out as undifferentiated masses of stuff.

The universe coalesced as it had to, given the laws of physics as humans understand them, around mass. So you would have pinpoints of stable matter trailing streamers of matter that lack enough mass to coalesce.

The brain evolved as it had to, given what humans understand about brain function, around connective and conductive junctions. The trails are bits that enable the function but aren't part of the main, uh, processor parts.

H'mm. Maybe the awful mouthful was better...

I'm pretty much winging it here, since my knowledge of cosmological physics and brain structure/function are definitely lay level. Feel free to take pot shots.

Sweet, sour, best served cold, not fattening

Gazpacho

Patrick Nielsen Hayden fumed:
#41: Because we're incompetent. We probably ought not be running a fucking weblog.

Although it's doubtless going to sound somewhat snide, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one feeling this way tonight. My mitigation involved gin-and-tonic, a hot bath, and 'The Life of Pi'.

It being an open thread, any suggestions on books reminiscent of 'The Life of Pi' or 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'? I forsee a number of days ahead which could use the same balm as today - and have an irrational desire to not associate them with science fiction or fantasy.

Reminiscent in what way? Magical realism? (I've read 100 Years, but not Pi.)

Just about anything by Jorge Amado, though my favorite is Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands.

Ditto Isabel Allende - fiction that is. Her nonfiction is also excellent, but I try to avoid reading about the Pinochet coup because it leaves me shaking with anger.

#60: Oh, all right. As long as there's a reason.

RE Clark, #61:

The Machiavelli quote that sprung to my mind was (and I'm paraphrasing here, because I'm bone lazy and my copy of Il Principe is in a box somewhere):

If you have to knock someone down, make damned sure they won't get up again. Also, take out their allies with threats or bribes, depending on your means and inclination.

That said, I've decided on a whim that I object to people calling dubya's regime Machiavellian - it doesn't have that sort of brainpower. It's not even CliffNotesMachiavellian. It's more ChickTractMachForDummies, without the illustrations.

If it were a Chick tract, the last page would show the Wïtless Crüe arriving at Check-In and Pitchfork Assignment,* turning in outrage to Scooter, who pulls off his people mask to reveal a happily leering** devil.

"Told you you guys were going to resent shafting me. Speaking of which . . ."

*"Put all the liquids in the fumarole. NOW."
**Ever notice that the Insidious Missions Force demons in Chick's holy hentai are the only characters who are actually ever happy about anything?

#61: Thus Hillel the Elder is the first game theorist.

Actually, I couldn't remember Hillel's name (what'd you expect, being raised by heathen Baptists and all,) so I had to google the "reciting the Torah while standing on one foot" story that I first read in Karen Armstrong's A History of God.

So "reciting the Torah while standing on one foot" is the first instance of a Nash equilibrium?

Well "reciting the Torah while standing on one foot" is certainly not a Rambler.

#42 However, the book really makes you see bloodfeud and vengeance in a different light, which is really nifty for worldbuilding.

Speaking of Machiavelli and worldbuilding the courtroom scene in That Share of Glory builds a world in transition from weregild toward civil order and says something about the justice of violence nicely.

As Hillel also observed:

That which is hateful to you, don't give me any mishegas about special rendition.

Strange. While flicking backwards to find where I stopped reading, I repeatedly read the quoted expression God is vaster than empires as God is faster than vampires.

I don't know what this says about me.

God is faster than vampires.

Except Spike. He drives like a you-know-what out of you-know-where.

What? Like a Serge out of Heck?

You saw the "With Glowing Eyes We See Thee Rise" episode?

The moment when Xander shows up nickedly-timedly in a crow suit, announcing, "I got your freakin' daylight right here, who wants a piece?" makes up for way too many tuque jokes.

Now the Europeans are skipping stones[*] along the surface of the Moon.

[*] OK, ion-powered spacecraft.

Clark @ #74: Aha! the C.M. Kornbluth story. Like Tiptree's "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" (& several more of his/hers), one I read some decades ago in my teens and which stayed in memory despite the name & author slipping away until the wonders of teh intarwebs restored them.

Nothing apropos to add, but an hour ago I woke up from the-anxiety-dream-to-end-all-anxiety-dreams. Beat this: I was in the airport in London, reading, when I heard myself being paged. I realized I was going to miss my flight and that I didn't know where my son was. Then I realized I had neither my ticket nor my passport with me. Then my son came running up all bloody, having gotten into some horrible trouble and been set upon by thugs. I realized I'd inadvertently packed my ticket and passport in the bag I'd checked, and since I hadn't gotten on the plane I knew they'd take the bag off and blow it up. It went on from there...

("Why are they allowed to behave that way when I'm stuck here earning bread for my family?")

That imagery can have a life of its own, without a fact to back it; witness how far Reagan got with his lies about "welfare queens". cf the Ambrose Bierce(? H. L. Mencken?) definition (of what, I've forgotten) as the fear that somebody somewhere is having fun.

Fragano, Chad: if the Mafia is so fragile how come it's still around? I suspect all societies -- the Mafia, modern first-world countries, even Eric Frank Russell's Gands (see "And Then There Were None") depend on a combination of mutual agreeement about performance and sanctions for non-performance. Possibly the answer to my question is the higher rewards for performance?

#64: I suspect your analogy is faulty. The little I know of neurology suggests that the wispy bits \are/ the important part, because they're what make the connections -- the more connections, the better the function. More materially, the brain doesn't coalesce out of chaos; it grows by input from outside, where AFAIK all the non-fringe models of the universe figure it started with all the matter it's going to get.

#74: That's an ... interesting ... reading of the Kornbluth; I would have said that it showed the \limits/ of civil order (cf the end of the evaluation, -"despite indoctrination in nonviolence, candidate showed he could kick ass when needed"-). It also shows the disadvantage of dropping weregild, cf the complaint about jailing the rich being less healing than fining them to fix the damage. (Probably Kornbluth was unaware of what we've since seen, that jail requires a more shame-controlled society; the leaders of violence (who usually haven't committed any themselves since forever) can maintain control from their cells.)

CHip #83: It isn't that the Mafia is fragile, it is that power in the Mafia is fragile. That's because a lot of power in organisations like the Mafia, or ghetto gangs, or, for that matter, Achæan kingdoms, is based on the appearance of strength and might. If you lose that semblance, then others will take you down. That's why you face any threat of disrespect, dishonour, or violence, with the maximum force you can muster.

Hi all. "Open thread" means you can say whatever, right? Well, I came across a recipe that sounds like it would be good, but I need help translating it into American from Australian. Specifically, "caster sugar" and "raw linseed." The rest isn't too mysterious, as most of it is standard GF baking ingredients. I feel a little silly, as I know I used to know what caster sugar was, but AKICIML, and people enjoy sharing, so...

#83: Fragano, Chad: if the Mafia is so fragile how come it's still around?

Pretty much what Fragano said in #84. The phenomenon of organized crime is still with us, but the specific people running things change much more quickly.

Power based on fear and intimidation is fragile, but it's relatively cheap, so there's an endless supply of people using that path to power. As soon as you knock one off, another pops up somewhere else.

Real enduring power is a harder thing to establish, but tends to be based on more positive emotions than fear. I'm thinking here of things like major religions and the US government. Those are insitutions that (the disparaging comments of atheists and anarchists aside) maintain themselves more through the positive feelings of their subjects than through fear and intimidation.

#66: Well, I have always loved Moacyr Scliar. The Centaur in the Garden being one of my favorites.

#82: Scary dream. When we were returning from Alaska (via Vancouver and Toronto) last week I got a TSA guy in Toronto who decided my diabetes kit and accompanying stuff needed to be pawed through. On their website they say that the passenger opens their own meds, but this guy with his grubby, gloved (having pawed through countless other things) hand, proceeded to open the little box and poke at my unsealed bottles of insulin. I admit it's my own fault that I never clean with rubing alchohol either myself or my bottles, but it was icky. He also found a bottle of childrens liquid benadryl I forgot to put in the checked bags. So while your dream was scary, I can easily see being in a hurry and not paying close attention to what went into checked and what into carry on.

The last thing he went through was my knitting in progress. For you knitters out there, it was socks on #0 DPNs (bamboo). He held them and flexed them for a good 30 seconds while telling me they could be dangerous. It was all I could do not to laugh. I suppose that if someone stayed perfectly still I might be able to hurt them, but these are half the length of bamboo skewers, thinner and less sharp. He made a show of "letting" me keep them and the benadryl.

Anyway my waking nightmare is that we live now in a bizarre state of panic where travelling becomes fraught with needless anxiety. This is the first time I had to carefully think about everything I took onto the plane. Oh and the inconsistancy from one airport to another is negative (yet variable) reinforcement at it's best. My ice pack (to keep the insulin cool) was fine until that last leg of the return flight and then it was removed.

#85: "Caster Suger" is sugar run through your blender/moulinex/cuisinart/+5 Vorpal Sword: http://www.ochef.com/580.htm.

"Raw linseed" I would think is flaxseed; try a health-food place.
"Caster sugar" is either super-fine or powdered sugar; I understand that it's finer than regular granulated sugar but not as fine as powdered sugar. (Not having a blender or a food-processor, I can't speak to the vorpal sword bit.)

CHip said (#83):
That imagery can have a life of its own, without a fact to back it; witness how far Reagan got with his lies about "welfare queens". cf the Ambrose Bierce(? H. L. Mencken?) definition (of what, I've forgotten) as the fear that somebody somewhere is having fun.

Mencken, I think, on Puritanism. ("Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.")

#64: I suspect your analogy is faulty. The little I know of neurology suggests that the wispy bits \are/ the important part, because they're what make the connections -- the more connections, the better the function. More materially, the brain doesn't coalesce out of chaos; it grows by input from outside, where AFAIK all the non-fringe models of the universe figure it started with all the matter it's going to get.

Yes. Another way of looking at it is that neurons start out as blobs (cells) which grow dendrites and synapses ("wispy bits") as connections between them; this is also the result of many, many generations of natural selection designing them to do this.

With the universe[*], on the other hand, what you're seeing is the spontaneous growth of local concentrations of matter via gravity, condensing out of an initial near-uniform state. The "tendrils" form about the same time as the "blobs" (galaxy clusters and superclusters), and both grow thicker/denser over time as more nearby stuff falls into them and as some of them merge, as can be seen by looking at images made from earlier stages of the simulation (down at the bottom of the page).

[*] Or the simulation thereof.

Patrick #60 --

I had a dream the other night wherein I read on Making Light that you had gone on a time-traveling quest to find a rare first edition. You'd blundered all the way back to 1900, and posted from 1900 fuming that your source wouldn't be good until 1973.

If you're competent enough to post to a weblog from the year 1900, I think you're qualified to run one....

#84 & #86: Perhaps the tendency toward revenge even in holders of real enduring power (neither the United States nor the Church being notable for eschewing its use) can be attributed to the difference between institutions and individuals. Institutions go on, their power changing in tiny increments, untroubled by thoughts of revenge; individuals and small cabals gain or lose power at a dizzying pace, and hence have that Mafia-like interest in showing the power is still there.

I'm reminded of a long-ago column by some op-ed writer (George Will, maybe?) who noted that in a few years, no one would remember who some at-the-time-important-and-Ozymandias-like Presidential aide was. I don't recall who it was, though.

Re #85/88/89

Linseed is most definitely flax seed. I think we call it flax because linseed oil is viewed as a wood treatment, whereas flax oil is a health food. You can also get flax seed for baking and such at Whole Foods, or a local co-op market. It's usually sold refrigerated because it has a high tendency to go rancid.

Me, I'd leave it out or find some other flavorul, seed-like thing (e.g. poppy seeds).

Here on the West Coast, C&H sells Superfine (a.k.a. Caster) Sugar, at the same price as regular sugar by weight in a nifty 4-pound milk carton container - far and away the best retail packaging for sugar I've ever seen.

#87: Paging Bruce, Amysue nails it:

Anyway my waking nightmare is that we live now in a bizarre state of panic where travelling becomes fraught with needless anxiety. This is the first time I had to carefully think about everything I took onto the plane. Oh and the inconsistancy from one airport to another is negative (yet variable) reinforcement at it's best. My ice pack (to keep the insulin cool) was fine until that last leg of the return flight and then it was removed.

There's we've gone beyond theater, there's a spectacle at every TSA checkpoint.

#85 Ailsa: in that recipe, using normal American granulated sugar won't make a noticeable difference. You don't need to bother seeking out superfine sugar or pulverizing regular. In a custard, it might make a difference.

The thing is, they don't have the American texture of white sugar in Brit areas, not often, just caster and icing (confectioner's) sugar, so caster sugar is often specified where it isn't of critical importance.

And yes, linseed is flax seed. Bleah.

Flax is what linen is made of. Just connecting them linguistically.

Thus far Clark E. Myers (#61):

Tit for Tat is the dominant strategy in an iterated prisoner's dilemma

Actually, I recall reading (I think in The Selfish Gene) that the dominant strategy is a variant of Tit for Tat that gives the other player a second chance - Nice twice, then as standard after that. That breaks cycles that most of the Nasty strategies get locked into, and still pays off well on average.

Larry #93 : Now why does the milk container work so well for both superfine and regular granulated sugar, but really not work at all when it's containing milk? By "not work", I mean "can't open the stupid thing in the first place".

Bacteria are a much bigger problem for milk than for sugar, so milk needs to be sealed a lot better than sugar. I think. (I sometimes end up using a knife to separate the layers on milk cartons.)

I haven't been around in a while, so I may be missing something. What does "AKICIML" stand for? Please?

Lin, the traditional initialism is AKICIF which means All Knowledge is Contained in Fandom.

All Knowlege Is Contained In Making Light, a variation on AKICIF (... Fandom).

And I believe part of the purpose of flax seed in GF recipes is texture, and it's supposed to have lots of lovely nutrients, too (which is a good thing, since a lot of GF flours don't have too many). So I guess flax seed is next on my list of acquisitions. Sooner or later, I want to get some mesquite flour too.

It is a fascinating* fact that caster sugar, so called because it can run through a caster (sprinkler), is at least as commonly known as castor sugar, which implies it will run through a beaver.

This may well be true, but it probably violates some wildlife law or other.

*As such things go.

Re: #103: That implies diabetic beavers, which leads to the question of their insulin supplier as well as their HMO.

joann - That's a good point - although these days I buy fancy-pants organic milk with the screw cap on the side of the carton. Works much better, and the city still says to put it in with the recycling.

The basic carton does work great for sugar, though.

Alisa Ek - Personnaly, I take flax oil in capules every day (as per my eye doctor and nutritionist), seek fiber elsewhere, and eat stuff that tastes good, unlike flax seed. For me, flax seed = yuck.

395 Rikibeth -- ordinary granulated sugar is perfectly available everywhere in Britain and everywhere in Canada I've tried to buy it, which would be Ontario and Quebec. The thing with caster sugar is that it's finer, and therefore you get more air in the cake. It's about half way between sugar and powdered "icing" sugar -- and in my experience, impossible to make in a mixer without making icing sugar by mistake. You can make it in a mortar and pestle though. But you don't need to, as you don't need caster sugar but more air, and so this can be compensated for when using ordinary sugar by beating it some more, and/or by using melted butter/marge/whatever and using a balloon whisk rather than creaming fat and sugar. Likewise, when using recipes that call for "brown sugar" and only want the density and not the flavour, you can use granulated sugar and beat a bit less.

I don't use sugar except for cooking, and was surprised at one point by a friend asking for sugar for his tea. I said I was sorry, I only had demarara or vanilla sugar. He opted for vanilla sugar without hesitation, and then was astonished to find his tea actually tasted of vanilla -- he'd heard "vanilla sugar" meaning "plain, mundane, ordinary sugar" instead of "vanilla sugar" meaning "sugar kept in a gladd jar with vanilla pods for long enough for them to get friendly".

#95 Rikibeth: They don't have American-style sugar in Brit areas? Is US sugar more like UK granulated sugar then (ie coarser than caster)?

And as it's an open thread, and AKICIML: can anyone recommend any books/textbooks as an introduction to economics, markets, and game theory (or one of the above)? I've an engineering degree, so maths-heavy is OK. I've been reading a fair bit of stuff that touches on these areas recently, and would like to know more.

I'd guess that our esteemed hosts have had enough of HTML tinkering this week... but if they keep a list of suggestions for future work: How about a thingy on the comment numbers that puts something like "Re: #108" in the Write here box when you click on it?

If you wanted to get really fancy, it would put in "Re: <a href="[comment #108 url]">#108</a>" i.e. a link back to the original comment.

Mary #82: I've missed flights before, and they didn't blow my checked bags up. (Er, come to think of it, that was probably produced by the dream. Carry on.)

amysue #87: That sounds horrible. And you're right on about the variable reinforcement. It was maybe understandable on the day they put the ban into action, but they've had weeks now and they still don't have their stuff together. Even the signs at different airports say different things, possibly because they date to different eras in the restrictions.

Thus far (seven flights since the liquid ban, all inside the US, one on the day itself -- I'm on the road a great deal for work) I haven't had any TSA experiences out of the ordinary with regards to the security checks. I have yet to have them check my bags when I'm getting on a plane. For the first six flights I also didn't see them checking bags during any boarding process, but then last week flying out of Indy I saw them check a few people at random from another flight, so I guess they must be doing it sometimes. I've traveled with my knitting needles (2.5 mm bamboo sock needles) and my asthma inhaler and they have yet to notice either one.

My guess is that they'll leave the ban in place until after the elections. There's too much about this that seems designed to produce fear.

Re #97

Tit for Two Tats is the most dominant class of strategy. However, allowing mutations in a series of iterated dilemmas leads to a dominant variation being a TF2T which also takes advantage of players that don't retaliate on defectors.

So, in the simplified world of Prisoners' Dilemma, the winning strategy is to co-operate, forgive and then exploit other players that are too good-hearted.

It is a fascinating* fact that caster sugar, so called because it can run through a caster (sprinkler), is at least as commonly known as castor sugar, which implies it will run through a beaver.

Is that really true? Sounds like a load of Pollux.

John M. Ford (#79): You saw the "With Glowing Eyes We See Thee Rise" episode?

What? Huh? That's not the title of any Buffy eps that I know and I have zero memory of any Buffy/Canada crossovers. More info, please!

Jakob: On game theory, see The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod. That's the book from which I learned about the subject.

Warning to all and sundry: the "Stan Lee's Watchmen" sidelight is evil and will make your brain hurt.

"Stan Lee's Watchmen" makes me nostalgic for the good old days of 1963: the Red Brain and those epic battles between N-Man and Comrade Cockroach.

OMGWTFBBQ-on-a-stick!!!
I thought I'd seen some weird things on offer as comestibles at the Sydney Royal Easter Show, but this stuff is just on another level. The fast food industry has quite surpassed itself here, mostly by ingenious use of deep-fryers it appears. It has also surpassed my glancing knowledge of food varieties. Some of the items mentioned are opaque to my understanding, but, like Sherlock Holmes, I jealously hoard my neural space for use on pertinent subjects, and am not going to research them. One hopes the reporter recovers. One also hopes most of these are not coming here.

re #109: That's what was so odd. All the other flights (including one 10 days earlier coming through Toronto) no one asked about anything, not the knitting, the medicine or supplies, the legos or anythings else. I honestly don't have a problem with security and the like, but not when it's so random and meaningless.

The reality is everything looked at was handed back to me. If something were wrong with any of those items looking at them wouldn't have told you that.

re: #79, #112: Wait, Xander was in that Bonnie Tyler video?

--
re: the Orwell quote. Does the desire for revenge disappear, or does it just mutate into vindictiveness once the powerlessness is gone?
---
re: sugar. I buy evil bleached granulated in the paper bag. Recently, the same company started producing these plastic tubs with a snap on lid which I like for its functionality. So I bought one, and then buy the paper bags to refill it to mollify my sloppy environmentalism. I got a kick though when I first opened the plastic one. The sugar was sealed behind a plastic barrier that said something like "Sealed for your protection." Made me wonder why the paper bags don't say "Not sealed for your protection because you didn't but the plastic container."

debcha: That was, well, a joke, following on abi's line about "Serge out of Heck," which followed on . . . well, we could be here all night.

I could describe the whole plot of the episode, but that's what I do, and I suspect so could anybody else here.

Though it's pleasant to have it taken that seriously.

Epacris @ 116 - That stuff doesn't count - it's State Fair Food (SFF). All SFF must be easily portable, so sticks are encouraged. SFF must be dramatic looking so people will seek out your booth. SFF must demonstrate the basic value prop of your business the other 51 weeks of the year, but still conform to the above.

Besides, that guy's colleagues did give him a bottle of fiber tablets.

FWIW, my favorite fair food is very New York - a bag full of zeppoli, a sort of quickbread Italian donut pulled fresh from the fryer, plopped into a brown paper lunch bag and sprinkled heavily with powdered sugar. Mmm, zeppoli. A bagful of coronaries gobbled out of a hot translucent paper bag, but delicious.

Epacris: It has become a particular wossname at the MN State Fair to have more varieties of Food Onna Stick than even C.M.O.T. Dibbler might dream of, and this has resulted in people finding ways to stickulate foods that do not greatly benefit thereby. Some last a year or two and fade, some hang on. A good number, like the fried walleye filets (which are usually excellent) are available either impaled or in a conventional cardboard tray.

And what items are novel to you? I certainly haven't eaten most of the things served at the Fair . . . and wouldn't . . . but I've seen most of them from a safe distance.

Clearly I was mistaken about availability. I guess I was influenced by all the Brit baking recipes I've seen, which seem ALWAYS to call for caster sugar, with never a mention of standard granulated.

I have never been able to turn granulated sugar into icing sugar in a food processor, but caster sugar is easy. A few short pulses and you're there.

Since I always cream butter and sugar very thoroughly (20-quart Hobarts are good for that, put it in and ignore it a while) I have never felt that caster sugar made a serious difference in final texture. I mainly think it's useful for dissolving more quickly and thoroughly in cold liquids.

If a supplier offered me 50-pound sacks of caster sugar, I might be willing to see if it truly did improve things. I've noticed appreciable differences between brands of "all-purpose" flours that have slightly different gluten contents, and will specify brand if I get a chance.

Nutritional value of raw flaxseed put into a baked good: less than you might think, as many of the good omega fatty acids will oxidize during baking. Still gives you fiber, and some flavor, but not so much with the nutrition. To get its benefits, you really have to eat it raw.

No one so far has spoken up in favor of flax seed so it must devolve upon me--I quite like its bland whole-grain flavor and add it to various things (started out putting it in oatmeal).

The seed coat is resistant to digestion, so those of us who don't chew each mouthful 100 times are advised to grind it first. I don't know what that says about it as a whole seed addition to bread, although you see that a lot.

Would not have thought it capable of inspiring intense liking or misliking, but it does have a mildly grassy undertone which I can picture might be one of those tastes (like bitterness in cole vegetables) for which there's genetic/physiological variation between individuals.

No one so far

Sorry, Rikibeth; surprising how long it took to get #123 typed. I was talking about raw flax, which I add eg. to oatmeal after cooking; possibly the reference to a grassy flavor implied that.

I have read that the omega-3 oils are more stable in the seed than after they're isolated, for what I now realize is an unstated value of "more."

And hempseed's really better anyhow, if it's Omegas that you're cruising for. (Though it's infuriatingly--albeit predictably--expensive.)

Flaxseed has this funny gelatinous coating on it, which, when activated with water, can sub for eggs in a fair pile of recipes. The way I learned it was to grind a tablespoon of flaxseed and soak in a quarter-cup of cold water, but this variation sounds promising as well. Won't make meringue, but it WILL yield pumpkin bread you can feed to your vegans.

Nick Fagerlund - I solve that problem by not even trying to bake for vegans. The egg issue is important, but so is the fat issue. I won't use hydrogenated vegetable fat (Crisco, margarine) and butter is dairy, so all that's left is various oils. There goes just about every baked good produced by the muffin method. I suppose snickerdoodles would be possible - but I don't like them and I won't make food I don't like.

If I'm expecting to feed vegans, I'll make all vegetable foods, and possibly my tofu/mushroom chili (which is pretty amazing, BTW). I'll also get a basic bread (no eggs or butter) and hope that yeast hasn't somehow been elevated onto the no-go list as well.

Years ago, I had a vegan co-worker with celiac disease. She didn't like raw vegetables, either. I have no idea how she survived.

Back in the old days when I worked as a bartender, we had caster sugar behind the bar for drinks which needed sugar to be dissolved in them. We also had some other kind of large crystal sugar to add to the rims of glasses.

American granulated sugar is much smaller-granuled than British granulated sugar. I generally find that I can use American granulated sugar where in the UK I use caster sugar.

Fly fishers and magicians favour caster sugar, of course, but that's neither here nor there.

Larry, #126

If you ever want a vegetable fat which in its natural state is solid-ish at room temperatures, look at palm or coconut oil. You can find the food-grade versions at natural/health food stores.

Of course, like any other specialty item, they Aren't Cheap.

Epacris #116: The photographs of boat-type presentations somewhere in the middle of day 10 go