The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Rob Rusick:

Show all comments by Rob Rusick.

Posted on entry Open thread 132 ::: November 17, 2009, 09:21 PM:
#138 ::: Xopher @138: Also, possibly appropriate for the NaNoWriMoOThread.
Posted on entry Open thread 131 ::: November 13, 2009, 11:31 AM:
Erik Nelson @832: I posted a comment with links to all of Teresa's earlier WWI threads. Ironically, too many URLs — it should show up once it clears the moderation queue.
Posted on entry Open thread 131 ::: November 13, 2009, 11:26 AM:
Erik Nelson @832: We just had November 11. So I am just writing in to say I was hoping for another annual World War I link roundup and I didn't see one.

No reason we couldn't revisit one of the past ones. And no reason not to add new comments.
Posted on entry And furthermore, the Anaconda Plan didn't actually take place on the Snake River ::: November 09, 2009, 09:28 PM:
Wasn't the title of Gone with the Wind originally Mules in Horses Harness?
Posted on entry Technically American ::: November 06, 2009, 09:09 PM:
John Mark Ockerbloom @87: And I can fully understand that many folks would not want to take an oath renouncing their original citizenship, if they want to keep it, even if their original country considers the oath non-binding.

That is exactly me. As has been said here on occasion, the words you use are important (words mean something).
Posted on entry "Radical Presentism" ::: November 06, 2009, 01:35 PM:
Earl Cooley III @92: Do big-name authors get paid to include product placements in their fiction?

Don't know about that, but on another thread Teresa describes publishers editing authors works to include product placement.
Posted on entry Technically American ::: November 04, 2009, 08:12 AM:
Debbie @38: [..] for a long time, the US did not allow dual citizenship, but now it does. But the country I'm living in, Germany, does not. For various personal and familial reasons, I'm not willing to renounce my US citizenship [..]

What you describe is pretty much why I have kept my Canadian citizenship despite 40+ years living in the US. I am interested to hear that the US is now more liberal with regards to dual citizenships; regretfully, I have never been able to afford any hobby that involves hiring lawyers.
Posted on entry And furthermore, the Anaconda Plan didn't actually take place on the Snake River ::: November 02, 2009, 08:25 PM:
Columbina @6: I don't know that I would ever buy a Civil War history written by a non-American. Sometimes home terrain DOES matter.

One of the more interesting books about the Civil War I recall reading in high school (albeit independent reading) was written by Winston Churchill.
Posted on entry Open thread 131 ::: November 02, 2009, 04:27 PM:
Serge @359: The funny part is that I had to calculate it for the store.

How much money did they end up owing you?
Posted on entry Happier Halloween ::: November 01, 2009, 05:37 PM:
Serge @69: By the way, did you recognize Tom Baker as the captain of the ship that takes them to the North Pole?

I recall an interview talking about roles he didn't get or didn't work out, where he expressed regret that he hadn't got the role of the monster.

He also said his part in the TV movie about King Tut's curse had been bigger, but Raymond Burr had most of it edited out.
Posted on entry Why I won't be doing steampunk this Saturday ::: October 23, 2009, 09:16 AM:
Lee @183: And yes, I read very fast compared to a lot of people... though not as fast as I used to, I'm starting to think.

If you stop to think, it slows down the process :)
Posted on entry $9,695 New Age sweat lodge session kills 2, injures 19 ::: October 21, 2009, 09:28 PM:
Carol Kimball @611: Avoid MSG? Then I'm fine. Naturally-occurring unami doesn't do it, just the synthesized stuff. Anybody got insight on that?

A speculation, not an informed opinion.

Compounds coming from organisms usually have a preferred symmetry, while synthesized compounds will contain an equal mixture of 'left-handed' and 'right-handed' forms.

This was a plot-point in The Documents in the Case (by Dorothy L. Sayers and Robert Eustace).

This is relevant in the body's ability to digest sugars and proteins, and as we get our sugars and proteins from organisms we have some kinship with, instead of factories, it doesn't present a problem. There have been science fiction stories where our heroes have landed on a planet which has life based on the opposite form of protein, and therefore cannot live off the land.

I have no idea whether MSG has this kind of molecular form.
Posted on entry Open thread 130 ::: October 21, 2009, 08:52 PM:
Mary Aileen @812: I just read the Recent Comments list as saying "Seasonal Poetry kills 2, injures 19". Time for a nap?

I thought the thread on 'Sweaty Poetry' sounded interesting.
Posted on entry $9,695 New Age sweat lodge session kills 2, injures 19 ::: October 16, 2009, 06:08 PM:
John Houghton @170: What I envy, I think, is the idea that the universe is being personally benevolent to them.

There was an SF short-short story titled Narapoia (google tells me it was authored by Alan Nelson).

In it, a patient tells his doctor that he is suffering from 'narapoia', an inverse of paranoia. He believes that complete strangers are out to do nice things for him. And he thinks he is following someone, but he doesn't know who.

I've always enjoyed that notion that people are conspiring to do nice things for me.
Posted on entry Open thread 130 ::: October 07, 2009, 09:11 AM:
Serge @203: Things said in Scott Wegener & Brian Clevinger's Atomic Robo and the Dogs of War...

It was one of the Free Comic Book Day's edition of one of those stories (the one you were quoting) which got me interested in the character.
Posted on entry Boing Boing commenters party like it's October 2001 ::: October 02, 2009, 07:51 PM:
Xopher @257: [..] it occurs to me that Dutch culture, rather than American, would be the best model for space-station culture in science fiction.

"God made the Earth, but the Dutch made Holland."

I had thought there might be something in a metaphor between creating a habitat in the hard vacuum of space, and the Dutch wresting land from the sea.
Posted on entry Massive Anglo-Saxon hoard found ::: September 30, 2009, 08:58 AM:
At first glance my misfiring brain suggested the title of the post was Massive Anglo-Saxon word hoard found. It sounded intriguing; did someone find a cache of new words?

The true story is more interesting. At least, it lends itself to better photographs.
Posted on entry A wild and crazy idea: giving the public access to public data ::: September 27, 2009, 10:00 PM:
Mark @32: The east coast cities with which I am familiar [..] are European-style hub and spoke waterfront layouts, the hub typically being the original wharf/harbor/transportation center of vital importance.

Rochester NY has a hub and spoke layout, although the center of the city is not its lake port, but its river waterfall; the location was selected to use the waterfall for a mill. Not an east coast city though; at one time it was considered the western frontier. The addition of the Erie Canal provided the means to transport the mill's production. One of the notable features of the city was an aqueduct carrying the canal over the Genesee River.

Later the canal was relocated, and the original canal bed was repurposed for a subway (and even later, parts of the subway system were incorporated into expressways currently in use). Although defunct for years, the subway still has fans (here is a might-have-been map as if it had never been shut down).

Here are some pictures of the aqueduct as it looks today, next to a library built on the foundations of an old mill race. Currently, there are proposals to restore the aqueduct back into a canal park!

Pardon the links... I am not employed by the local government...
Posted on entry Open thread 130 ::: September 27, 2009, 08:43 PM:
Stefan Jones @21: I had a chair I was fond of turn on me and try to kill me. Broke apart and pitched me face forward into the corner of a substantial end table. It was like being punched in the jaw; I was lucky it didn't go for an eye.

I felt I had always treated it fairly... but some furniture is just built bad.
Posted on entry More bikeblogging, and related subjects ::: September 23, 2009, 08:43 PM:
joann @159: In 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', I was always struck how insignificant and ineffectual parents were. I think we saw Willow and Zander's parents once in the run of the series. We saw Buffy's mom a few more times, but apparently her opinions how she thought her daughter should be spending her time didn't count for much.

Which I imagine was part of the appeal of the series. Vampires, demons, and the supernatural were all real; parents did not exist.

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