wrt West Indian villains in Bond films: Fragano pointed out some time ago that Bond gives that as his address (Kingston, Jamaica?). I argued at the time that being presented as fact by a person in his position meant it was almost certainly false (although I suspect that Bond's definition of himself as a Scottish peasant may not have been relevant), but could he have been deliberately placed in a known nest of vipers to
- help clean them out?
- keep him on his toes?
- ?
(One mustn't underestimate Fleming's delusions about spies, after all -- not to mention his wish-fulfillment fantasies.)
Maybe I should just sit back and gape at some of the impressive? appalling? linkages other people are coming up with. Or can I point out that Calvin is also a cutting-edge biologist? (At least according to L'Engle, although she got so mixed up about times that I'm not sure she's reliable....) Possibly we know only the public face, and not the droids or golems that he pursued in secret. (Did Asimov conceal the truth because mechanicals were more plausible to Campbell than biologicals?)
Paula@912: -"Real Programmers do not play tennis, golf, or any other sport which requires one to change clothes. Real Programmers \do/ climb mountains, and wear their hiking boots to work in case a mountain should spring up in the middle of the machine-room floor."
David@916: Mikki Barry gets several hits on Google, several of which could be the same person; at least one of them (handle "ooblick") is the one I last saw at the 1994 Disclave, carrying a baby. I don't know whether that damped use of her skills; but the current citations suggest that she's a success in the dealing-with-the-world end of software that she was already moving toward when I knew her, despite "being told in 1995 that [she] was unemployable".
xeger@926: tunics were often short, and worn with trousers. wrt practicality, note that a female at MIT in the 1970's could even wear nominally-male clothing, getting better value and durability than was typical of female clothing.
Generally: MIT of the 1970's was not George Carlin's 1960's, but it was a different place; I'm not sure how many of the readers here grasp how different. It was enough of a recognizable personality type that people are sometimes surprised to find I \didn't/ go there. (It didn't even make the final cut, and I'm probably a lot saner and more functional for not having gone there.)
Terry@891: from the outside, as I watched the descriptions, I got the impression that "rebuilt" is an exaggeration; but I will not argue the point with a devotee, as I'm not one -- and the only place I've been since the work was behind home plate, singing, so I don't even have a good impression to argue from.
Terry@865: I never made it to Candlestick, but I did see a game at the Real Fenway.
? Where is there a Surreal/Imaginary/Counterfeit/... Fenway? And why?
C/abi@19/20: I can't remember the last time I fueled up at a place where there was a question of when to pay; in NE US, pumps that also read credit cards and print receipts are almost universal. I suppose there's still a question for people who pay cash -- but (until recently) credit cards were so easy to get that paying in cash seems uncommon for anyone who can afford a car at all. It's an interesting tradeoff for the gas companies, as many of them now have the cashier in an attached convenience store; the swipe box at the pump means fewer customers will make impulse purchases but reduces the personnel cost.
wrt distances, I remember discussing this with someone in the British naval museum in Greenwich and came up with a handy factoid: London to Istanbul (most of the way across Europe) is a little over half the distance across the US. It's not that Europeans necessarily think 100 miles is a long distance, but they have no flyover territory for a referent.
Paula@571: I heard that interview; IIRC it was done by the BBC (as relayed by WBUR), which offers a slight excuse (they might not be as familiar with U.S. loony-tunes presses) but not much -- especially since the BBC usually find \somebody/ to speak to each side of a question, rather than giving that whinger so much time with nobody answering his idiocies.
Anna@23: usps.com offers to sell stamps; I haven't worked through the pages but I would think that would mean mailing them, which they might even do internationally. Have you tried them?
@25: The fact that the number of people who want to write so much exceeds the number of people who want to read is sad.
Is it any sadder than the number of people who \want/ to play professional sports? i.e., how much of the unpublished stuff is worth reading? I know it's not 0% -- IIRC, Elizabeth Bear proved herself online before getting a hardcopy contract -- but I doubt it's a large fraction. (I've done some reading for amateur story contests, so I have a \little/ idea what I'm talking about; but I know I'm guessing about the extent of quality.)
FWIW, I've subscribed to F&SF for >15 years now, but it has been almost 40 years since I tried to write; I found that I couldn't come up with anything that was more interesting to me than what I was reading. (I also ran into another demonstration around then that I was more of a solver than a creator....)
Serge@509: I'll be at the Anticipation ML party, but not Westercon. I don't do severe heat (even dry heat); and while you're partying, I will be dreaming of riding an undersize raft down the Kennebec to The Forks, ME. (At least, I'd \better/ be asleep by the time you start partying, or it's going to be a more interesting ride than I had planned.)
inge@104: In Europe, protestantism as state religion made the governments safe(r) from catholic coups and cut the pope out of the country's policy decisions. The mostly catholic states had more trouble with sovereignity.
I think you're going overboard here. I've read that Verdi became a political atheist because he felt Roman Catholicism had deliberately kept the Italian peninsula fragmented -- but mostly-Lutheran Germany was also divided well into modern times, while the earlier fragmentation of France (until the end of the Hundred Years' War) reflected mundane power struggles that a quick read (background for Henry V) suggests RC was not strongly involved with.
Charlie@111: interesting that he was focused on attacking non-British; what I've seen in the U.S. is more random violence against Others and more planned violence against the state (cf Oklahoma).
Fragano@118 The Klan, as it existed from its founding in Atlanta in 1915
uh, which Klan? Regardless of whether it was actually founded by a Civil War general, the name was in use over a generation before that.
all: it's hardly surprising that modern thugs embrace the Wotan/Donner/Froh/Tir line; I've seen many descriptions of Nazi Germany involving a sort of Wagnerian polytheism. (No, I won't vouch for their accuracy; we're talking about people who seem to pick up whatever is shiny rather than looking in detail.)
janetl@374: over the Wiscons I've been to, I've seen several pictures suggesting that downtown Madison in general was "rather bleak" 25 years ago.
Janet -- in case you think abi is more acclimated than your daughter, I'll note I had no problems touring the Hague, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Leiden when I was over for ConFiction (1990 Worldcon). Amsterdam in mid-August was sometimes crowded with tourists, but nobody seemed to be stressing from the heat. The weirdest thing (to a USian) that I remember is the trolley fares being on the honor system.
Jacque, seconding Dave: IIRC the ICAO code was designed to be understandable when spoken and heard by people whose native language was not English; personal names are OK if you're sticking to native speakers, but that doesn't work for air traffic control. Dave wasn't kidding when he called his link remarkably complete -- it even has the RAF alphabet that I remember seeing pieces of in Clarke's Glide Slope
I find myself a little surprised at the title and the comments supporting it. Somehow I have some trouble with a little vandalism being called "violence"; there were no barricades, no one killed (and no cops even seriously injured), and AFAICT everyone in the initial sweep did in fact end up in jail that night. (There was certainly none of the threat referred to above, where King could say/imply "It's me or X.") From the various radio interviews today (and accepting some fraction of the Wikipedia headline), the main difference was that within a few months there was a visible movement. This in itself was significant, because there were a lot of gays who came out of the closet, showing up all of the bullshit about gays being (e.g.) -"incapable of normal emotions"-; people could filter all their perceptions of blacks based on immediate identification, where knowing someone and \then/ finding out they were gay can rearrange perceptual sets.
all: the discussion of anti-immigrant immigrants is reminding me of Tenn's "The Masculinist Revolt", in which a woman runs on the platform of being the \last/ woman to run for POTUS. (I still haven't figured out what he was thinking when he wrote this and am not sure he was either -- he may just have been fed up with doctrinists of any stripe.)
Alex@78: Aren't the Ulster "loyalists" mostly Scots-descended (hence the religious divide)? If so, a flag not honoring a saint who was there before they were makes a twisted sort of sense.
Diatryma@317: I forget whether Brin's execrable Glory Season is the only one of the world-without-men stories to not have men intrude. There is also a short-short in which the punchline is that a lottery for places in a 30-seat starship came up with 29 women, but I'm blanking on the title.
<advt>Edward@351 et al: if a 1972 paperback can't be found on the book services, see Works of Art from NESFA. Unfortunately, I don't recall the names of the other pantropy stories or whether they were included; "Surface Tension" is the most famous, but it's also the last chronologically of a short sequence.</advt>
Melody: rule 1 for Madison is to go to the capitol square (preferably early enough to tour the capitol, which is ... impressive ...) and look around. I'll second the Old Fashioned if you're looking for modest prices; they also had a lot of interesting local-produce plates that didn't look to fit a single stomach. High-end is right next to them: L'Etoile and Harvest(?), which sound like they're out of your budget (can run over $100 for a full meal), but do visit Cafe Soleil in the morning for pastries. (If you're there Saturday ask for Spice Girl Wheels, which weren't selling well enough on weekdays.) If you're interested in beer (and also good modest-priced food) go out the corner opposite State St. to the Great Dane brewpub; they have outdoor seating, which isn't nearly as noisy as indoors. Going down State St. gives you a spectrum; the capitol end has several expense-account places (cf above), but the further half is what you'd expect to see running into a state university. There's a good Japanese place partway down, a tapas place near the capitol end (close to the restaurant in the movie-theater lobby, which has some good stuff, not all well-executed), and a non-Spanish tapas place "Al Fresco" after ~8 on top of the art museum. (Regular-dinner prices looked a bit high, but I had 2 $5 plates and a $5 desert and was content.) There are also \two/ Himalayan places surprisingly near the capitol. Sorry to not have more names -- I get there just for Wiscon and tend to wander rather than targeting. Big point is that if you're not looking for specific ethnicities, there are a \lot/ of places, at all price ranges, that do local produce, a lot of it wonderful -- the cheese is nothing like what is labeled "Wisconsin" in the supermarket.
Mary Frances: Cadbury's case isn't the first. Moonwise author Greer Gilman has sometimes described herself as a forensic librarian, due to her reassembling enough pieces to convict somebody who did that on a large scale at the Harvard libraries. This was long enough ago (10 years?) that it's probably been forgotten, but it was a huge case at the time -- and I would be astounded if it were the first.
Lori@243: Debrett's may have authority on their side; Shakespeare may reflect what was used. And how far out of its time does Merlin seem to be? (No, I'm not going to watch it to estimate -- not after the comments it has gotten here....)
Steve@69: Stara Huta: my father in law's birthplace. it was in the Ukraine when he was born but it's in Poland now. Who moved it?
Could it be the same people who moved Koenigsberg? (I remember pointing out to David Friedman that the oblast on the "Empire Builder" board was actually site of the famous bridges.)
80-83: are you all still loafing around in here? Shouldn't you take your rye remarks out in the sun while it's available? -- or at least less unavailable that it is where Kevin and I are; the radio this morning said the strawberry harvest is threatened, which means you'll go on short cake rations....
Xopher@79: how sure are you that's wrong? Having just played a handful of parts in Henry V, I can attest that poets (at least) were much looser about forms of address in Tudor times; Henry is addressed as "highness", "majesty", "grace", and "lord" in just my scattering of lines.
linkmeister: remember, even the Beatles wore ties on the Ed Sullivan Show
IIRC, the Beatles wore ties \everywhere/ in those days, possibly because it meant they were no longer a Hamburg bar band. I've heard Ringo quoted that he was told he'd have to wear a suit if he joined the Beatles. (He had two from his then-gig, but IIRC they were a little ... loud ....)
re turkeys, Paula neglects to mention the ones that went courting on Deb's handkerchief of a front lawn. Deb describes it as the toms going "heybabyheybabyheybaby"; I hadn't realized that they literally go blue in the face when they're at full spread. Makes one think of all the cartoons and snide comments about men trying to impress women by sucking their expanded guts up into their chests. (John D. MacDonald had a particularly lovely example in The Lonely Silver Rain.)
Allan@33: Velveeta is the Vegemite of the dairy world.
Nonsense. Vegemite is relatively concentrated; my recollection(*) Velveeta is made up largely of water and ingredients to keep the water solid, which is why it has to be called "cheese food" (as in, you can still call the pink stuff "ham" as long as you inject no more than X %-by-weight of water)
(*) from digging through the appropriate CFR, 34 years ago when somebody asked "What is 'cheese food', aside from something you feed your pet cheese?"
Anyone who really knows both: can salad cream and Miracle Whip really be compared? What I've seen labeled "salad cream" has been more liquid -- it would actually drip off a spoon, where Miracle Whip comes off in chunks only.
Jules@534: I would be surprised to hear that Catholics as a group are better-off than average economically; my guess would be that they average fewer generations here (than Protestants), which IIRC has \some/ correlation to economic level. I could see an argument that Catholic almost-free education averages more rigorous than standard public education; possibly college education would be more in reach based on grades earning scholarships -- but that's an utter guess. (I also wonder how well that kind of rigorous training would do in a think-on-your-feet law school class, but I don't know how much class participation actually counts in the grade.) I also wonder whether it is as true now as when Scalito were school-age; the Boston archdiocese is steadily closing schools as well as churches, and I get the impression that other regions are in a similar situation given the insufficient-but-massive damages to those molested by priests.
It's been a long week and this computer is losing altitude faster than Carl Fredricksen's house at the end of Up. Anyone have some hard data?
Ken@414: You're correct about Episcopalians; the same NPR story that noted Sotomayor as Catholic #6 said that it would be the first time in history there were no E on SCOTUS, despite their now being <1% of the population. But even 5 of 9 C would be uncommon as a matter of chance when they're ~1/4 of the population, although my Pascal-fu has decayed too far to work out exactly how uncommon it would be.
All: fascinating response on my alleged-Clemenceau; drove me to the full-size Bartlett's, which does has 3 others from him but not this, and nothing like it in the index.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 65 |
Total: 65 comments. View all these comments on a single page.
The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by CHip:
Show all comments by CHip.