Well my first thought actually was, "is this a joke?"
Not that I'm not enthused by everything Obama stands for. He has lots of great ideas. But they shouldn't award this thing to someone for having great ideas. It should reward results, no?
And it's way too early for results, just like Abi says. Woodrow Wilson received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919, when he had been in office for six years.
So I've got to agree with Abi's analysis that there's more going on here than rewarding. Again, those were pretty much my thoughts: maybe they're giving this to him so early to support him, to give him leverage to turn his ideas into reality. Maybe it's the highest kind of moral support: yes, we need a world with as few active nukes lying around as possible, please continue working toward that goal.
Which, of course, raises the question: should they be doing this? And can it even work?
I'm sure you've all heard of this site? Not sure it's trustworthy and that your email address won't be minable by spambots, but in this day and age we all know a way or two around that.
(For what it's worth, I'm also dying to try out Google's shiny new toy)
Oooh, this could be good!
For what it's worth, the pierogi recipe my Polish grandma passed on to me is still one of my favourite things to cook, and once I figured out that frying the pierogi in butter after cooking them in water is not just what you do when you want to warm the dish up the next day, this recipe skyrocketed to the place of "tastiest thing I can cook".
Since I've been with my Polish girlfriend for half a decade now I've also had the chance to taste more authentic pierogi at HER grandma's place, and I must say I prefer my grandma's recipe. In short, what actual Poles put in their pierogi is "farsz", a mixture of shredded cabbage, mushrooms, and other vaguely communism-coloured things. My grandma's recipe calls for nothing but glorious minced meat.
In short, it goes a little like this: make dough from flour, water, eggs. I always improvise on the quantities. Roll out. Use very big glass to stencil out circular patches. Season minced meat to taste, put blob of same on each patch. Then close the patches, creating semi-circular pockets. You may need to wet the edges to make them stay closed. Plop in boiling water, cook. When they float they're done. And then, of course, comes the refrying, which previously I only used to do to warm them up. Wait for them to cool down / dry a little, then fry them in a pan. Serve with melted butter poured over.
My grandma also made sweet pierogi (with all kinds of jams or freshly picked berries or even with sweetened soft white cheese, "quark"), but for the life of me I cannot remember ever eating pierogi with farsz. It must be said that my grandma moved to Germany twenty years before I was born, so maybe her recipes had just become teutonified. If so, thank god for that.
This pierogi pizza here though does sound very interesting. Then again, if you place it before a Pole they'll probably just drown it in ketchup like they do to most pizzas.
No, really, I like Poles!
That dinosaur story in the sidelights? So many kinds of awesome.
If only something could be done about the Atlantic Ocean. I hope someone's going to film and upload "The Life and Work of John M. Ford". And "How does 'Creationist science' work?" And "The Ethics of Dollhouse"
And the entire con :/
This stuff sounds fantastically interesting. I am fantastically envious of everyone who gets to go.
Not going to weigh in on the school debate (the Twain quote about sums it up for me, and as for recreational strategy on my end, I'm going with Larkin), but I just wanted to say that the beginning of that short story was good, and good in the "I really want more of this and I'm now buying this book because it's been way too long that I read some seriously good short stories" way. Had I been exposed to writing of this calibre (from what I can tell so far, of course) at school, I would have been GRATEFUL.
Not on the agenda: threaded comments, personal avatars, or a quick sale to mobbed-up Russian “businessmen.â€
Aww, no avatars? Can't you at least allow signatures with animated gifs? Or the blink tag?
Congrats on diving into lake Upgrade. May it be as painless as can be (which is probably not much, but hey, as my old gym teacher used to say, pain is just your body getting better.)
I was going to say that you can't make this stuff up, but you CAN... only it would be very, very hard to get it this good. Also faking old newsprint this well might be time-consuming ;)
Yay for seriously weird local history.
Never met him (or any of you people), but I always imagined Jim Macdonald Jamie-ish. I mean there's the safety obsession, the number of manly jobs in their respective pasts, the impressive beard... yeah. That's pretty much it. Also I guess they both like explosions, but that's just because EVERYONE IN THEIR RIGHT MINDS LIKES EXPLOSIONS.
And yay for Dollhouse!
Dollhouse:
Nf sbe jub Gbcure chg vagb Fvreen, gung'f n ernyyl vagrerfgvat dhrfgvba, naq V'q yvxr gb nccebnpu vg sebz n fbzrjung zrgn cbvag bs ivrj.
Svefg bs nyy, erzrzore gung gur rcvfbqr vgfrys jnf nobhg n qrnq crefba "ergheavat sebz gur tenir" ol orvat chg vagb n qbyy. Vs guvf jnf jung Gbcure unq qbar nf jryy, V jbhyq unir rkcrpgrq vg gb or zragvbarq ng yrnfg vs abg qrirybcrq vagb n cnenyyry cybg.
Frpbaq, zl svefg vafgvapg juvyr jngpuvat gung rcvfbqr jnf gung ur unq perngrq sbe uvzfrys gur cresrpg tvey, hagvy V ernyvmrq gjb guvatf: n) ur pbhyqa'g unir xabja orsber-unaq jung qbyy jbhyq or tvira gb uvz, naq o) gung vs guvf jnf jung gur jevgref unq va zvaq, gurl jbhyqa'g unir hfrq Fvreen hayrff gurl ernyyl jnagrq gb znxr Gbcure vagb n qvfthfgvat ivyynva. Vg ghearq bhg gb or ragveryl aba-ebznagvp naljnl.
Guveq, gur gurbel bs Gbcure univat pbcvrq uvzfrys. V'z abg fher nobhg guvf bar rvgure. Ntnva, vg jbhyq or fhpu n fcrpvsvp pnfr bs vzcevagvat gung V'z fher gurl jbhyq unir mbbzrq va ba vg, aneengviryl fcrnxvat, n yvggyr zber. Unir gurz obgu fnl gur fnzr guvat ng gur fnzr gvzr be fbzrguvat znlor yrff purrfl guna jung V pna pbzr hc jvgu urer bss gur gbc bs zl urnq. Ng nal engr V qbhog gurl jbhyq unir yrg vg unccra jvgubhg fcrpvsvp pbzzrag.
Jung V oryvrir npghnyyl unccrarq naq jung frrzf gb or gur fvzcyrfg rkcynangvba vf gung Gbcure znqr n sevraq sbe uvzfrys, pbafgehpgvat guvf sevraq bhg bs favccrgf bs bgure crbcyr be rira jevgvat uvz sebz fpengpu. Gung guvf sevraq vf chg vagb n srznyr obql frrzf gb or veeryrinag gb uvz.
Ohg V jbhyqa'g zvaq gurz ergheavat gb guvf cybg cbvag, znlor va gur ynfg rcvfbqr be va gur arkg frnfba. Nyfb, ba gur gbcvp bs gur arkg frnfba, V jbhyq nyfb yvxr gb frr pbyq shfvba qvfpbirerq va zl yvsrgvzr, jbeyq uhatre fbyirq, naq ab zber jne. V'z whfg na bcgvzvfg yvxr gung.
John L at #16: Yeah, I was going to mention those guys as well. The company you can find at zeppelinflug.de right now offers flights around the Friedrichshafen area, which is the historical centre of all Zeppelin development. They offer zeppelin tours of the area for atrocious prices. Basically prices range from 200 euro per person for the half hour tour around Friedrichshafen, which is a really beautiful city by the way, to 730 euro per person for a two hour flight up the Rhine and back. Which is, to put it mildly, INSANELY EXPENSIVE.
Their Zeppelin NT (Neue Technologie, meaning, as you can probably guess, New Technology) is a semi-rigid airship, somewhat heavier than air. It's about ten times smaller than the Hindenburg, but I am still trying to find the money to go on one next time I'm in Germany to visit my parents (who live only, uhm, about 300km from Friedrichshafen, so that's practically next door!)
Cargolifter is indeed bankrupt. Much as I hate to admit it, zeppelins don't seem financial viable these days.
John Houghton at #18, #19 and Michael Roberts at #21: Fahrsteig! That's the word! I asked a friend to confirm my intuition about which verb to use here and tried to make a word for these contraptions in German, ending up with the unsatisfying Rollsteig. We agree that there's not really a verb for movement on these things (whereas "riding" an escalator I believe would be a generally accepted verb), but if you put a gun to my head and asked me to pick a verb, I'd use fahren. In actual usage you'd say you're standing on one, as in "Ich stehe auf dem Fahrsteig." And your sentences were indeed correct.
And re: docking on buildings. My Spirit of the Century session started with the characters boarding the LZ 127 from the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building.
Landing a zeppelin was a major undertaking, by the way. It required a large ground crew which held on to ropes thrown down from the zeppelin. The Zeppelin NT has fancy schmancy modern technology on board that automatically stabilizes it etc reducing the required ground crew to 3 people. As if that was a GOOD thing.
Maaaan. Don't get me started again. Having recently run a session of Spirit of the Century, the bestest pen and paper rpg ever, I did... too much research into zeppelins. I mean, Hugo Eckener was an NPC in that session. Okay, so I will try (and probably fail) to be brief.
Two reasons why there is no wide-spread Zeppelin industry today: the Nazis and the Americans.
First of all, YOU GUYS are to blame for the whole Hindenburg thingie. Well, mostly. You see, the Hindenburg was the first Zeppelin built to run on Helium, which has the marked advantage of not going up in a fireball when you sneeze. They made it bigger because you need more Helium than Hydrogen (I'm not sure why I'm capitalizing element names, except maybe because they're cool) to achieve the same sort of lift. Thing is, back then America was the only place on earth that could come up with enough Helium to fill the monstrously huge Hindenburg. You want numbers? Of course you want numbers. The LZ129 Hindenburg was big enough to contain 200,000 m³ of gas when fully filled. It was 246.7m long and its largest diameter was 41.2m. Sorry for the sciencey units, I'm pulling these numbers from the German wikipedia page.
So, America was the only place that could have supplied us with this much Helium, and originally, they were going to. (I'm saying "us" because achievements in science and engineering are the only thing that fill me with patriotic pride.) Now at some point, America changed its mind. You see, filling a zeppelin with helium instead of hydrogen would have made it less likely to go down in a giant ball of fire (kind of the idea here), which would have made it much more valuable in war.
What? War? Really? Turns out, yeah, really. Germany built a ridiculous amount of zeppelins for World War 1: 84 or thereabouts. The thing they were best at was reconnaissance, particularly at sea, but they were also used for bombing runs due to their awesome ability to carry a LOT of bombs. If we look the amount of crewmen tied up in defending against zeppelins, we could even argue that these raids were somewhat effective. For every man working on a zeppelin, the other side had to use... I forget the number, but way more people to effectively defend against the zeppelin. Beyond this, they weren't effective at all in war though.
Interesting aside: turns out just strafing a zeppelin with conventional aircraft guns didn't do much good. The hull design was such that holes self-sealed; not perfectly, but good enough that the escape of gas only meant a very gradual descent, usually slow enough that it allowed the zeppelin to fly home. (Linguistic aside: the verb you use with zeppelins in German is "fahren", not "fliegen". Apparently lighter than air crafts are considered ships, not planes, and so we use the verb you'd use with ships. In English they "fly" though, don't they?) However, incendiary ammunition could make short work of zeppelins.
All this was rather irrelevant by the time we were building the Hindenburg. Aviation had moved on. Zeppelins were so very obsolete in war. Still, America would not supply us with helium. So we used the additional space inside the hull to build a second level of passenger accomodations and make the whole thing truly luxurious. Here's pictures of the sitting room and the dining room.
No Helium, big boom at Lakehurst. Now, why do I hate the Nazis?
Well, we have to look at Eckener's DELAG to understand my hate for the nazis. (And possibly at the holocaust.) The Deutsche Luftschifffahrts AG was based on a certain philosophy. They wanted the world to be a smaller place. They wanted affordable long distance travel. They wanted us all to be friends. The Nazis didn't.
On that subject, the LZ 129 was named after this gentleman with the fetching moustache in an act of truly inspired political maneuvering. The Nazis tolerated the whole zeppelin business because it was good propaganda. There's a good chance the biggest zeppelin ever built would have been named the LZ 129 Adolf Hitler, and in order to prevent that, Eckener chose a much less politically charged name, but one that at the same time the Nazis could hardly reject. Hindenburg was essentially the guy who helped put Hitler in power (even though this is a difficult subject; he might have been senile, or outwitted, or pressured), and even though Germany lost WW1, Hindenburg's military achievements in that war somehow counted for something.
And so, after Lakehurst, even though the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin was perfectly alright, it was brought home to Friedrichshafen and put in long term storage. Eventually the Nazis had her dismantled and ended the era of awesome giant floating vessels.
Other countries tried building zeppelins too. Of particular interest are the USS Akron and the British R38. The Akron was actually filled with Helium and almost as big as the Hindenburg, and I must hand it to you: launching aircraft from a zeppelin? Fucking bad-ass. Unfortunately, she went down. (Do you use female pronouns with airships?) The R38 was the biggest airship in the world when launched, but she broke in half and ended the short flirtation the British admirality had with airship technology.
Uh. I guess that wasn't brief.
Not that I'd encourage borderline illegal activities, but there is such a thing as abandonware. And SCUMMVM. And a slow day at work. Combine, shake well, try not to draw your coworkers' attention too much by laughing, et voila: instant DOTT goodness.
Brought to you courtesy of open threadiness and mention of pointy hats upthread: the complete "Hoagie talks to the Mummy about its hat" dialogue tree from Day of the Tentacle.
(Context: Hoagie has been sent back in time in a Chron-o-John, to the year uh well 17 something, and he just entered the house where John Hancock and Thomas Jefferson are writing the Constitution. Well, so far it's only A constitution because they hit writer's block after the preamble. They have a suggestion box, in case you have an idea... but that's a different story. At the reception desk of the... hotel they're writing in stands an unmoving, unspeaking mummy wearing a Tricorne. Hoagie is supposed to find out the whereabouts of one Red Edison, but has the option to, uh, digress and talk about hats instead. Let's make him do that.)
(This is a dialogue tree. Every possible choice opens up a new layer of choices, represented by the amount of dashes preceding a line. It is finite, of course, so usually at four or five choices deep you run out of stuff to say. This is because while Tim Schafer's genius is infinite, time is not, so he had to stop at some point.)
(Also note that the mummy never says ANYTHING. At ALL. Hoagie doesn't mind and neither should you.)
(I omitted repetitions)
Great hat, man.
- I dig the three-corner idea.
-- It's like the pyramids, you know?
--- I heard pyramids are supposed to have weird energies.
---- Far out.
---- Whoa.
--- My friend Eddie told me the pyramids were built by aliens.
---- As if.
---- Way.
--- Hey, are you REALLY a mummy?
---- Gnarly.
---- Awesome.
-- It's so piratey, you know?
--- All's you need is an eyepatch and a hook.
--- Ever see the movie "The Secret of Monkey Island"?
---- Totally rad!
---- Wendell Finwinkle is awesome as the Guybrush dude.
---- Killer three-headed monkey effect, man.
--- Avast, me matey! Heh heh Heh.
---- Yo ho ho, dude.
---- Prepare to walk the plank, me bucko.
---- Stand back, ye scurvy sea dog.
----- Stop yer starin' and pass the grog.
----- Have at ye, o bilge rat.
----- Make haste, three sheets to the wind.
-- How do you know which side's the front?
--- Does a point always go forwards, or a flat side?
---- Personally, I'd wear the point forwards... that way, you never forget which direction you're walking.
---- Personally, I'd wear the flat part forwards... that way, if you bang your head on a wall, you don't ruin the hat.
--- Is there a tag in it, or what?
--- Or are there competing fashions of tri-corner wear?
---- Are there several manufacturers?
----- I'm interested in quality. (beat) I don't suppose you'd consider parting with yours, would you? (beat) Well, let me know if you change your mind.
----- Could I get a band logo printed on one?
----- Does anyone make them with propellers on top?
---- Would I need to go to a specialty store?
---- Do they come in a variety of designer colors?
- I know some dudes in a band who'd eat roaches for hats like that.
-- Of course, they'd probably eat roaches anyhow.
--- They're like that.
--- Maybe with a little chocolate sauce.
--- I once saw them play a whole set with grasshoppers in their nostrils.
-- They're called "Insensitive Spittoon."
--- Ever hear of them?
---- No, I guess you wouldn't have.
---- If you ever get to the 1990's, check them out.
---- They play at the Black and Blue Sound Pitt in the city a lot.
--- They play funk punk folk polka house grunge rock.
---- That's a new movement based in Tucson.
---- They're heavily influenced by bands like Limpid Harmonica and Howling Moon Rocket Limbo.
--- I helped name the band!
---- I thought of the "Spittoon" part.
---- They might sign with VGA soon.
---- I worked with them before I hooked up with Megabreth.
(none of this is relevant to the game at all)
In case you're still not convinced Tim Schafer's a freaking genius, I present to you: Brütal Legend Story Trailer
kid bitzer at #15: Was that in our world or in Boss Smiley's world?
Dollhouse!
Er: Juvfxrl. Bire ba gryrivfvbajvgubhgcvgl.pbz, guvf vf cerggl zhpu gur npprcgrq gurbel. Jbhyq or fhecevfrq vs vg jnf nalguvat ryfr. (Gung fvgr vf TERNG sbe znq fcrphyngvba naq qba'g lbh whfg ybir ENAQBZYL pncvgnyvmvat jbeqf va cynvagrkg gung lbh ner tbvat gb RAPELCG jvgu ebg13 fb gung gur plcure grkg jvyy ybbx GNAGNYVMVATYL rkcerffvir?)
Er: Gbcure'f zbenyvgl. Gur ornhgvshy guvat nobhg guvf frevrf vf gung gurl'er nyy bs gurz rivy onfgneqf va fbzr jnl. Gbcure npghnyyl chg vg irel avpryl: "Rirelbar jnagf gb or evtugrbhf jura gurl pna nssbeq vg." V guvax gur ovg jvgu gur becuna tvey jnf n yvggyr... bss va gung vg jnf ehfurq, dhvgr yvxr gur rcvybthr va gur Evpu Byq Ynql Sebz Orlbaq Gur Tenir rcvfbqr ("Fb V jvyy jevgr n yrggre... fnlvat jub jvyy xvyy zr... jura gurl jvyy qb vg... naq ubj... naq V'yy nggnpu n arj grfgnzrag gb gung yrggre, terngyl snibhevat fbzr bs zl fheivivat snzvyl! Lrf, gung'yy jbex, ab jnl nalbar'q or fhfcvpvbhf nobhg gung!"). Hayvxr zbfg pbzzragngbef ba GIJbC V qvqa'g guvax gur Oevne Ebfr zrgncube jnf bireqbar be urnil unaqrq. Vg jnf n avpr pbzzragnel genpx, naq vg jnf ornhgvshyyl fhoiregrq ol gur eriryngvba gung *Nycun* jnf gur cevapr naq Fyrrcvat Ornhgl jnf, jryy, abg-Rpub.
Er: Nycun naq Onyyneq. Onyyneq sbhaq gur raivebazragf flfgrz fcrpvnyvfg guebhtu gur SOV. Ur tbg gur nqqerff sbe gur Qbyyubhfr ol genvyvat Zryyvr cbfg-erwrpgvba (naq jung n pbyq-urnegrq cynl gung jnf, ohg lnl sbe Onyyneq svanyyl orvat ba gur tvivat raq bs n pbyq-urnegrq znavchyngvba) naq gura tnir gung nqqerff gb uvf nyyl ng gur SOV jub zntvpnyyl chyyrq bhg gur anzr bs guvf thl jub znxrf ohvyqvatf qvfnccrne. V pna xvaq bs ohl gung Nycun jbhyq unir guvf thl'f anzr naq nqqerff, naq V pna nyfb xvvvvaq bs ohl gung ur jnf sbyybjvat Onyyneq pybfryl naq xarj jung Onyyneq jnf hc gb, ohg gur rknpg gvzvat, gung ur'q gnxr bhg Fgrcura jungfuvfanzr naq nffhzr uvf cynpr WHFG va gvzr sbe Onyyneq gb pbzr xabpxvat, gung erdhverq n jubyr gehpxybnq bs oraribyrag fhfcrafvba bs bu-ybbx-n-oveq!
Ohg V'z ybivat vg naljnl. Cyrnfr or erarjrq, fubj.
(I just love it that Re: becomes Er: in ROT13)
What's that you say, swine flu? "Fizzle"?
If I was still in Germany I'd make a point to barbecue a Schwenker (fun fact: the slab of meat, the free-swinging grill, and the person operating self-same are all "der Schwenker"), being a scrumptiously marinated piece of pig-neck.
To me, crackling is the name of the Zergling unit from Starcraft after all its speed upgrades. But hey.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 45 |
| 2008 | 76 |
| 2007 | 12 |
| 2006 | 42 |
| 2005 | 2 |
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