Well, if we're talking alternate history, what if the Khazar-Umayyad wars in the VIIth century had not disrupted the Silk Road? It is possible that if trade were assured, we would have seen a world where Indian mathematics spread to Europe, and the Scientific Enlightenment began in England/France/Germany instead of Asia Minor.
The area in question could have been a major center of learning, possibly lending its name to modern scientific terms. We might even call the science underlying the Internet "Al-Kharizm"s.
(yuzz) Those that are read in a sing-song voice to children.
Abiwulf
Lo, praise of the prowess of poet-kings,
of the word-armed Dutch, in posts fast sped,
we have heard, and what honor the netlings won!
...
Famed was this Abiwulf: Far flew the boast of her,
one of the skalds, in the Scandian lands.
So becomes it a mod to meter well,
with her hosts' guests, by trochee and dactyl,
that to aid her, beset in other threads,
come warriors willing, should troll-war draw nigh,
lay-men loyal: by lauded words
shall a bard have honor in every land.
Ah yes, "Big Bad" John.
David@926:
Gur ovg jurer gurl rkcynva ubj gur Bylzcvnaf perngr n "sngr" -- vg erdhverf nyy 4 cnenqvtzf gb haznxr, naq cerfhznoyl gb znxr, ohg cerivbhfyl gurl fnvq gung gur Bylzcvnaf naq Npunrnaf rnpu hfrq n cnve bs cnenqvtzf.
On another subject entirely:
I noticed that this week's free Tor ebook is "Orphans of Chaos" by John C. Wright. Odd coincidence, as I had picked up that book in the bookstore this past weekend and liked it so much that I bought - and read - the entire trilogy this week.
Thoughts: Fantastic trilogy. The first two books were a bit stronger than the third, which I found occasionally muddled (and slightly inconsistent with the magical paradigms established in the first two).
PS: Teresa, are you aware of the cover misprint on "Titans of Chaos"? At least in the paperback copies I saw, the spine read "Fugitives of Chaos" (which was the title of the second book).
The planes in Spain fall mainly on McCain?
This past Sunday, I sat down in a bookstore, read Little Brother cover-to-cover, and bought a copy. And then I immediately turned over my copy to my mother, a once-and-possibly-future grade school teacher.
I didn't find Marcus' voice jarring, at least no more so than many of the Heinlein juvies, or many of the other books I read and enjoyed as a YA. Yes, he's got a bit of Stereotypical SFnal Hero's Disease (super-competent, didactic, lantern-jawed... you know). But again, that's pretty common in this sort of literature.
As to the characterization of the DHS people -- I found it fairly believable. It could be my sense of paranoia, but I could easily buy a top-level discussion like the one in the DHS video Marcus gets from Masha.
Speaking of Masha: I like the way Cory played up the fact that the only difference between Masha and Marcus is that she's a little more self-centered, slightly more amoral. And made one bad decision, under extreme stress.
Dave@40: And as also seen here, and elsewhere on that site :-)
DavidS@217: The multiple identity issue is something of a problem at
Wikipedia as well, and they handle it pretty well via IP logging. You
could add a rule that not only the author of an entry/edit is
prohibited from voting, but so are any other accounts at the same IP.
Furthermore, if you ever buy points for your account, there's a
credit card number tied to the account which provides a further level
of contributor collision checking.
I've been thinking about Wikipedia, both some of the ways people game the system and some features I wish it had.
First, I think Wikipedia should have a better subversion control
system -- one that doesn't allow Mods to just erase articles or edits
and have them disappear into the ether. (I think Wikipedia is fairly
good about edits -- but not so much about articles).
Second, I really like the way you can look up almost anything on
Wikipedia, but... you're not guaranteed to find anything if you look.
How do you get around that? Well, in Wikipedia, you can set up an
article stub, and hope someone gets around to it sometime. I was
thinking that there should be a way to put a bounty on an article you
really want -- something like the way InnoCentive does with tech
problems.
This was what I came up with (obviously Wikipedia would never
implement this, but some future project might). Everyone who creates an
account gets 100 points, which they can use to place bounties on new
articles, edits, etc.
Once someone writes an article/does an edit with a bounty on it,
everyone who contributed to the bounty gets a msg asking them to vote
on awarding this person the points (except for the editor himself). If,
say, 75% of the pple agree (counting by points), he gets the bounty.
Further points can be purchased (at ~100 points/$1, with the
exchange ratio going up as inflation sets in). The money goes mostly
towards site maintenance. There are a large number of other fillips
I've considered (mostly to patch problems), but this is the basic idea.
What do people think? Please shoot holes in this idea, add things you think could be accomplished by this mechanism, etc.
Woohoo! Second International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day!
Rejoice!
PNH@87: I still haven't read Scott's Pretties/Uglies/Specials books yet... but I did read Fine Prey about a decade ago (and repeatedly since then). I wasn't crazy about his Dread Empire books, but Fine Prey is something special.
And yes, I am waiting eagerly for Little Brother.
Stephan@16:
Newsweek is kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful magazine I've ever known in my life.
Jo@32: Ok, chalk one up for the Anachronisms-to-Avoid list. Altho I do note that Wikipedia says that playing cards were known in Europe slightly before the Gutenberg press and in China in the 12th century -- but as you said, they only really took off in Europe in the mid-to-late 15th century (i.e., after woodcut technology made them more affordable).
David@12, memory palaces are significantly older than the Tarot, altho perhaps not older than cartomancy in general (did the Romans have playing cards?). It dates back to the ancient Roman schools of rhetoric (there are three main classical references, one is a brief comment by Cicero, the others are what remains of the "Ad Herennium", and something by Quintilian). One of the most definitive works of scholarship on the memory palace tradition is "The Art of Memory" by Frances Yates (which I happen to be reading piecemeal right now).
One thing I've noticed about explicitly libertarian science fiction is that all of the settings presuppose a post-scarcity economy. In some cases, the author claims that this is a natural outgrowth of Progress, as fueled by libertarian policies (I have my doubts, he said dryly).
However, in other cases, the authors make it explicit that their setting is only enabled by a post-scarcity economy, and in some cases, hard AI. (Charlie, I get the sense that your Eschaton-era Earth works that way, with the UN having a very limited political role/authority outside of WMD-related issues. Am I reading it right?).
Does anyone know of counter-examples?
Teresa, in regards to the cheap generics link you posted on the front page, you might want to read this.
Basically, it claims that generic long-lasting Wellbutrin is not as good as the brand-name long-lasting Wellbutrin because it is not properly formulated for extended release. It then goes on to speculate that that might be an issue with other generic long-lasting/extended-release/24-hour drugs.
Done. Come on, let's make this the longest thread in the history of ML!
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