My nominee for "item in the Middle English canon most likely to have been written while drunk."

"Dronken, dronken, dronken"

What was your first clue?

(Hah! First posting in an Open Thread. Do I win something cool?)

TNH @1:

It does rather remind me of In Taberna Quando Sumus in that regard.

Certainly, it was probably sung by people too inebriated to count the repetitions of "dronken" and "stille".

Continuing the spoiler discussion from 116:

[Andrew M.:]
But in that case what is the criterion for considering it spoilery? If the authors are happy to let the audience know it in advance, they presumably don't see it as a surprise or the answer to a puzzle. So in what way are we spoiled by knowing it is going to happen? Some works depend on surprise and revelation for their effects; but others don't. I suppose there might be a work whose entire effect turned on a surprise, and yet the author hadn't noticed this; but I can't imagine this happens very often.

I think you're using a rather more limited version of "spoiler" than I'm used to using. You seem to be defining it as something like "a piece of information that the author intends to be a surprise, such that if the reader/viewer has that information before it's revealed in the story they'll have a substantially different reaction to and interaction with the work than the author intended," while the way I'm defining it is more audience-oriented, something like "a non-background piece of information that could be significant to readers/viewers, within reason." So "characters X and Y kiss/confess their feelings of True Love to one another!" would be a spoiler to people watching a show mainly for the romance, even if the part that was Really Important to the actual producers of the show was who killed character Z or how the cast solved a problem or whatever.

It's a common observation in media fandom that we're not all watching the same show (/reading the same book, whatever). One person might be tuning in to Torchwood to watch the Jack and Ianto Show while another's watching the How Can Gwen Screw Up This Time? Show and another's watching the Tosh Is Awesome Show. I'm watching the Everyone/Everyone (Possibly Including Aliens!) Show and the Nifty Gadgets Show, and I even know one person who's watching the Alien-Fighting Show. (She says she wishes they didn't have all the [particularly same-sex] romance.)

Which means that what one person Doesn't Want To Know About before it happens is another person's screentime-waster that they don't care about at all. To use another example, I pretty much don't read non-Snape HP fic; I could care less who's snogging whom in HBP or how the Harry-Hermione-and-Ron love triangle resolved in DH, but there were other plot points in those books which were important to me, and if I cared about spoilers I'd probably have gotten annoyed at anyone who told them to me before I'd had a chance to find them out myself.

And what various portions of the fanbase consider important and what the actual authors of the works consider important are just as different as you'd expect. JK Rowling was writing Harry Potter and the Random Plot Devices, so it made sense to her to be coy about what the Deathly Hallows were; she didn't know people were reading Severus Snape and the Slash Fest of Angst, so "Dumbledore was gay" was such an insignificant plot point to her she didn't even bother writing it in canon. If, in Deathly Hallows, all or some of the Slytherins joined forces with the other houses in the Hogwarts Resistance and/or Battle for Hogwarts, would talking about it in the months after DH's release be spoiling? I'd think so, yes. Rowling...probably wouldn't. I would not be surprised to see something about it in the book-flap description.

To summarize: people watch/read for different things, so different plot points are significant to them, and authors/producers in particular often think they're writing/producing an entirely different story than their audience is in fact consuming, so it's my opinion that any reasonably-significant (i.e., not "Luna mentions Nargles!"-level) plot point that's not background/story-classification information (i.e., "Harry Potter finds out he's a wizard!") should probably be considered a spoiler. Whether it's a spoiler that rates a cut/ROT-13-ing, of course, is an entirely different matter, mostly dependent on the expected audience and the age/popularity of the work.

Jacque @ 2 ...
(Hah! First posting in an Open Thread. Do I win something cool?)

You'd actually have to be first, wouldn't you...

Knitting question... I'm knitting in the round, and appear to be roundly incapable of knitting anything other than stockingknit, even when I don't alternate between knit/perl. Does this sound like a familiar problem to anybody?

xeger, to knit anything other than stockinette when working in rounds, you need to purl some of the rounds. (Garter stitch in the round: knit one round, purl one round; repeat until it's long enough.)

My uncle brought a CD to Thanksgiving and played one song, which everyone could tell was a drinking song though no one could tell from where. Mongolian, and we started doing the HEY! parts along with it.
It kind of confused the family who came in late that we were bouncing along to it.

Per the request of Marilee, I have added albatross to "Making Light and Faces", with a tasteful caption of course.

xeger: Okay, okay, first person that wasn't Teresa. Phmph. I'm just delighted to have gotten in on the single-digits.

(Slouches off, sulking theatrically.)

#8: Doesn't look like an airship ...

Jacque #9:

Melancholy Jacque?

That first part reminds me of the opening of Rawhide, "Rollin' rollin' rollin'."

Gwen, #4: One person might be tuning in to Torchwood to watch the Jack and Ianto Show while another's watching the How Can Gwen Screw Up This Time? Show and another's watching the Tosh Is Awesome Show.

I'm watching the "worst paranormal investigators ever" show.

It's hard to believe anybody lets Torchwood investigate anything. You can't trust that bunch to get a cat out of a tree... at the end of the day the cat would be dead, your next-door neighbor would be tied to a chair tasered unconscious, and two random Torchwood agents would be having sex on your couch.

This, is, oddly, why I enjoy the show.

Middle French psychedelia:

Fumeux fume par fumee,
Fumeuse speculacion.
Fumeux fume par fumee,
Fumeuse speculacion.
Qu’antre fummet sa pensee
Fumeux fume par fumee.
Quar fumer molt li agree
Tant qu’il ait son entencion.
Fumeux fume par fumee,
Fumeuse speculacion.

-- Solage, c. 1390

This is wonderful! I'm trying to read it aloud - which of course I would only ever do after a few glasses of wine - and I can't pick a language. My mind just goes into a tailspin as my accent bounces all over the show.

I sent it to my mother (German but has lived in the US for 40 years) and told her to try.

"The only thing that works for me if I roll my rrrs - otherwise it is indeed difficult to decide if it should be German, Dutch or English - which I guess is Middle English, isn't it?"

While there's Middle English in the air, would anyone like to talk about why Chaucer squishes the women in his 'The Legend of Good Women"? Is the whole poem an ironic monument to bad reading (as in, people reading only on a surface level)?

Just got that final paper back and had a discussion with my prof about it. BTW, if anyone thinks that Chaucer is easy, they're not thinking hard enough. :P

Re TNH's particle on _Crafting Handmade Shoes_: Folks interested in obtaining a copy don't have to pay the high prices shown at used book resellers; the author will send you a reprint personally for $25 (which includes shipping). See

http://simpleshoemaking.com/

for details. (That said, it would still be cool to have it back in print.)

the only line of the drinking song that is not clear to me is
"Ant ichulle eke."

Erik #18: I dunno, in my youth, after a night of too much drinking, I'm pretty sure I occasionally made just those sounds. I wouldn't classify them as music exactly, though....

joann @11: "Melancholy Jacque?"

Oh dear. *sniff* *sniff* I detect a dreadful pun. Or perhaps an Obscure Reference.

(Hangs head) I must plead ignorance. Pray, enlighten? (Doe eyes)

(Why do I have this feeling I'm setting myself up for more of the same?)

...googles...

Oh, GAWD.

*thud*

Serge, #8: And the "nobody ever looks like you imagine them" phenomenon is in full force. I had pictured albatross as significantly older, physically smaller, and with glasses.

Open Threadiness: As of today, I have been living in Houston with my partner for 10 years. They've been good years, and I hope for many more to come.

Around here (Ealdormere) SCA folk are/were fond of

Who's the Fool now

Martin said to his man, fie, man, fie
Martin said to his man, who's the fool, now
Martin said to his man, Fill thou the cup and I the can
Thou hast well drunken man, who's the fool now

I saw the mouse chase the cat, fie, man, fie
I saw the mouse chase the cat, who's the fool now
I saw the mouse chase the cat, Saw the cheese eat the rat
Thou hast well drunken, man, who's the fool now

plus various contemporary reference verses

(One source I found - DigiTrad - claims the song to have been published in 1588 in a compilation called Popular Music of the Olden Time.)

I'm watching the Netflix show, so anything you all say about anything on television will be spoilers, but I'll forget it all if/when the time comes that I finally see it.

#21

my google found this on the first page of results:

"Buy or sell Cruelty of Depression"

and I read the "of" as an "or" and thought of shorting Depression, as the stock is surely overvalued at the moment. Of course, if Gitmo closes, Cruelty stocks will surely fall through the floor.

#16 Avedaggio: Oh, totally. Chaucer's treatment of Medea especially demonstrates that he's playing with inattentive readers. In one breath he mentions that she has to murder her children, and in the next he declares piously And trew to Iasoun was she al her lyf / And ever kepte her chast, as for his wyf. I can't take the combination seriously, anyway.

#18 Erik Nelson: It's "And I shall also" [drink deep, presumably]. Ichulle is the first person pronoun squeezed together with the verb form -- say "I shall" fast and you'll hear it.

I'm hunting for an Anglo-Latin poem I read once about an abbot and a prior getting drunk and vomiting all over their monastery garden, but I can't find it. I'm sorry, because it's a classic worth sharing.

Lee: The glasses part, at least, is right, though I only need them for distance.

A single maple leaf is hanging on

in dumb defiance of the dying year,

on this calm street the autumn's plain and drear.

This change of seasons is time's greatest con:

from bright and colourful to deadly sere;

a single maple leaf is hanging on.

Age teaches us to reach a rapprochement

with all those forces in their fast career

that push us forward, but one thing is clear:

a single maple leaf is hanging on.

Jacque #21: Ducdame, ducdame!

Allan Beatty @24: This, truly, is the one advantage of having a bad memory. It also makes re-reading much more enjoyable!

On spoilers: Did anyone catch the recent House where Greg gives away the end of The Usual Suspects? I boggled at that until I remembered that House is produced by Bryan Singer. (I figure either someone on the show was having a joke at his expense, or he assumes it's been over a decade and nearly everyone who's going to has seen it by now, or already knows.)

Me, I have to object to the idea that if it's been out for a year it's fair game; I can't get to everything I'd like to within a year of publication, and there are secrets worth preserving. I just finished Use of Weapons over the weekend, and if anyone had told me beforehand that, by the way, at the end Zakalwe is erirnyrq gb or gur Punveznxre, I'd've clocked 'em one.

Of course, OTOH, there's also a lot of stuff out there that relies on you knowing how it turns out for much of its impact. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are, eventually, dead; Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader. There are interesting games to be played with the path taken towards a known ending. (Not that you couldn't spoil a work like that as well, though it seems to me that the important things to keep unrevealed are not whats but hows.)

P J Evans @ 6 ...
xeger, to knit anything other than stockinette when working in rounds, you need to purl some of the rounds. (Garter stitch in the round: knit one round, purl one round; repeat until it's long enough.)

Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case (or there's something strange going on, at any rate):

(1) Knit all rows == stockingknit on the outside
(2) Alternate knit one round, purl one round == stockingknit
(3) Purl all rows == stockingknit on the inside instead of the outside

I'm rather baffled!

The highly entertaining TV Tropes wiki calls this phenomenon It Was His Sled -- spoilers or story twists that everyone is assumed to already know. Although The Usual Suspects is listed at... The Usual Suspect Ending. -- seems as if with this House episode, it should be filed under 'Sled'!

I actually spoiled someone for the Anakin-is-Vader twist in 1997. She was an exchange student from Romania, and she'd only ever seen A New Hope. As we were going into a movie theatre for the reissue of Empire Strikes Back (I think), I misquoted, "Luke, I am your father" in my best James Earl Jones.

She'd had no idea, and was furious at me... but as an American child of the '80s, I'd totally forgotten that there were people in the world who didn't know Luke Skywalker's ancestry.

Xeger, I understand 1 and 3, but 2 only makes sense if you're working a Moebius loop (which is weird in its ways).
How many physical edges do you have (ie, is there one edge with a figure-eight shape, or two separate edges)?

Translation:

Drunk, drunk, drunk,
Drunk, drunk, rolling drunk;
Tabart is drunk
Tabart is drunk at the wine,
Hey!
You have all drunk too much,
Sister, Walter, Peter,
You all drank deep
And so shall I.
All stand still,
Still, still, still,
All stand still,
As still as any stone.
Dance a little with your feet
And let your body go.

ydronken is übergetrunken so I have translated it differently according to context.

The question on the French one though is what they were smoking in 1390. Columbus was in 1492 and Sir Walter Raleigh supposedly brought tobacco
to Europe in the 1580s.

Hmmm. From Wikipedia, "Solage was satirizing a group that called itself the 'Society of Smokers,' which included the nephew of Guillaume de Machaut. Since tobacco was not to be known in Europe for another two centuries, the substance being smoked has been variously speculated to be either hashish or opium."

How to waste an evening translating obscure drinking songs!

Working from PJ Evans's comment in 35 -- perhaps Xeger has unwittingly violated the First Law of Circular Knitting? That would be the one that goes, "Join, being careful not to twist stitches." Said violation would produce a Möbius loop whether you wanted one or not. I think.

#37
Yup. You make a Moebius scarf, in a ring, by carefully twisting the cast-on stitches only half a turn so that you join and knit into the bottom of the stitches, until you come back around to the beginning again (thus the figure-eightness of the round).

Jon Meltzer @ 10... I take it that you were expecting this Albatross.

Lee @ 22... Congratulations!

#35 ::: P J Evans @ 35 & Andrew Willett @ 37

I started out with a fairly normal 16" of stockingknit done on two separate, standard needles, and then moved on to circular needles, so I have a cylindrical shape... as formed by joining the two ends of the earlier knit piece, and continuing onwards.

It doesn't -look- like a moebius strip to me, and there's definitely no visible twist in the cylinder shape itself (it's supposed to be a sleeve, and it doesn't confuse the arm or twist through the body of the arm), although it's entirely possible that I did manage to somehow twist the stitches (or stitch into the wrong side?).

If I have managed a moebius strip, all unwitting, I'm fascinated... and haven't the foggiest how to duplicate whatever I've done for the other sleeve (and -really- don't want to unravel that hard won 8"...).

xeger, I don't think this mystery can be unraveled* in a text-only medium. I suggest that you hie yourself to your Local Yarn Store and let the good people there have a look at it in situ.

* No, I'm not ashamed of myself at all!

Xeger at #41: I once accidentally turned my halfknit sock inside out and continued knitting until I reached the heel. It looked strange. I believe it is stuffed, looped onto a spare pair of circulars, into a corner of a knitting drawer.

(sigh) I've also managed to reverse my knitting direction and knit counterclockwise for several inches before noticing. Some television shows are too exciting for me to knit and watch.

When I crochet hats, I often have to rip back one or two tries. One of the earlier steps is "make sure you haven't made a Mobius strip".

When I made the anemone hat, I had to rip back a lot.

What, no interesting facts about the number 117 yet? Here's one:

In Danish, the number 117 can be used to mean "a whole lot", as in "I have told you 117 times already.". When used in this way, it can also carry connotations of annoyance or irritation, in the sense that the unspecified number is unreasonably large. Curiously, 117 cannot be used in this sense when not embedded in a noun phrase: if someone asks "How many phone calls did we receive today?" and gets the response "117", it means exactly 117 calls, but in the statement "We've received 117 phone calls today.", it means some unspecified large number of calls (with an undertone of "more phone calls than I care to deal with in a day"). I don't know where this usage comes from, nor why it uses 117 instead of some other number.

xeger (#41): Possibly some other knitters here can help, but I'm baffled enough that I second Lee (#42) in suggesting you actually show it to experts. My first thought was that when you switched between knit and purl, the purl row was 'hiding' between the two knit rows (visible if you stretched the knitted piece apart), but I presume you checked that.

Incidentally, I consider getting stockinette stitch from only knitting (no purl) on circular needles to be a feature, not a bug; for some reason, I'm much slower when I purl than when I knit.

"Doodily ding dong tick tock"

Lee @ 42 ...
Ah, (bad) timing is everything :) I'm about to be (all things going well) most of a continent away from my local yarn shop, knitting in hand, to amuse me...

sara_k @ 43 ...
The 'UFO' drawer? :D

Diatryma @ 44 ...
Crochet is straightforward ... knitting, OTOH, is almost always 'featureful'.

debcha @ 46 ...
I also considered getting stockingknit stitch only from knitting on circular needles a feature... up to the point where I tried to make pretty stripes with garter and moss stitch...

All things considered, maybe my next project should be a moebius scarf or hat, which will doubtless succeed in eating my dpls and refusing to twist ;)

Lee, #22, look carefully at what's hanging from the V of his shirt. He wore them in, but didn't wear them at the table. And congrats to you and Russ!

I would love to see Carmina Burana staged the original way with the props and dancers and bells and whistles. "In Taberna" would, of course, feature the baritones getting utterly snockered as they pound their mugs on a table in time to the song. "The pope DRINKS, the bishop DRINKS, the tailor DRINKS, the nun DRINKS, the fisherman DRINKS, the farmer DRINKS, and whoever doesn't make it all the way to the end of this song pays the taaaaa-aaaaab!"

Unrelated question: What kind of specialist is the better choice for people who strongly suspect that there's something wrong with their brain chemistry- a psychiatrist or a neurologist?

Jacque@21

*thud*

What, the fact that your comment @20 now comes up as the fifth return when you Google for "Melancholy Jacque"?

I discovered during the middle of the run of Buffy that I was enjoying the episodes more when I avoided watching the trailers for next week's. Instead of waiting through the teaser thinking, "Hm, I wonder what's going to turn Giles into a demon," I would get to go, "OMG! Giles turned into a demon! What'll happen now?" Much more fun.

Yes, it's true that things which rely only on surprise aren't very good. But there are effects that stem from surprise, and those can be very interesting.

I find that the makers of Doctor Who and its spinoffs are way more spoiler-tolerant than I would like. I can even think of some cases where the episode title is a spoiler...I mean, what's the point of leaving John Lumic's robots offscreen or blurred out in the teaser if you're just going to go and call the episode "Rise of the Cybermen"?

Does the phrase "Middle English Rock and Roll" make anyone else think of Blackmore's Night?

the Little Mermaid vs the Martian Tripods

in renaissance drinking songs we have:

We be soldiers three
Pardona moy je vous an pree
Lately come forth of the low contry
With never a penny of mony.

Here, good fellow, I'll drink to thee
Pardona moy je vous an pree
To all good fellows wherever they be
With never a penny of mony.

Here, good fellow, I'll sing you a song,
Sing for the brave and sing for the strong,
To all those living and those who are gone,
With never a penny of mony

And he who will not pledge me this
Pardona moy je vous an pree
Payes for the shot what ever it is
With never a penny of mony.

On the shoe books - has anyone contacted the publisher? I can think of several people who should get copies for christmas...

Oh, yes, xeger, crochet is straightforward and simple. Knitting does weird things to yarn. I'd like to learn to knit, but haven't made the time to get to know the folks at the yarn store or take lessons there. With crocheting, I can do whatever I want and mostly repeat it-- this has resulted in a bit of invertebrate-themed winter wear. Knitting hides all the steps.
Which is a feature, yes.

Raphael @ 51: Either will probably do you fine. A psychiatrist (as an MD) can direct you to a neurologist for organic diseases, and the neurologist (also an MD) can direct you to a psychiatrist for the non-organic diseases.

Raphael @51: I second Ginger's advise, although I'd be inclined to first eliminate organic diseases as the cause.

Serge @55: Martians with chain-guns?

Henry @ #23, Steeleye Span recorded a very similar verse with the title "Well Done Liar" on their album "Bedlam Born".

After a lot of years of book reviewing (if not quite 117), I think I can usually tiptoe 'round the spoilers, but sometimes the publisher's blurb gives something away -- in which case I might mention it. (Some of the Big Fat Fantasies I've been dealing with lately are so complicated, I may not grasp enough of the whole to spoil it anyway! There's always more to come.)

I always try and change channel at the end of a show to avoid the spoilers for the following week. It works quite well for catching the local weather on TWC.

David Goldfarb @53:

I had the exact same experience with Star Trek: The Next Generation. I used to watch the next episode trailer religiously, then one week I missed it by accident. I found the experience of watching the episode (the one where Pncgnva Cvpneq vasvygengrf n fuvc bs fzhttyref frnepuvat sbe na napvrag Ihypna negrsnpg) so much more enjoyable that I've sworn off spoilers ever since.

On Doctor Who, though, I look at it a little differently. I think that in situations like that, the production team are trying to make a show both for people who know the old programme, and people who don't. The episode title is for those of us who know what Cybermen are--the production team made the choice that "The Cybermen are back!!!" will be a more exciting viewing experience for that segment of their audience than "I wonder what Lumic is building in his lab" would be. (Some of us of course disagree with that choice, but it is a valid choice.) Keeping the Cybermen out of view and shrouding just what they are in mystery for most of the episode is for the benefit of viewers who don't know what they are, for whom the title "Rise of the Cybermen" has no more significance than "Rise of the Metaltrons" would. The same device was used for "Dalek" the year before.

In fact, while I have on occasion got annoyed with the Who production team for being too free with spoilers,* looking back on it, I think they've actually done a great job of only leaking what turned out to be "second-level" spoilers as a way of keeping the real twists under wraps. So when I got annoyed that there was no surprise in gur Plorezra ergheavat in "Army of Ghosts", the actual twist turned out to be jung'f va gur fcurer. Or when I was really annoyed at how Qniebf naq gur inevbhf ergheavat pbzcnavbaf had been all over the news media in the run-up to "Journey's End", the actual twist turned out to be the episode's cliffhanger.

The week after that cliffhanger aired, and the whole country was caught up speculating what its resolution might be, Russell Davies gave an interview where he talked about the need to keep spoilers secret, and pointed out that all the other dramas freely release spoilers and their ratings are dropping, but Doctor Who's ratings continue to rise. (Personally I don't think they expected quite the reaction they got from that particular cliffhanger, because otherwise I don't think its resolution would have been quite so ... underwhelming.)

*As opposed to Who fans, who I've found so obnoxiously spoiler-happy that I've largely given up on online Who fandom.

I rip out rows all the time when I knit. Sometimes I rip all of them and start over. It's one of the things that you have to do. ('If you've only knitted it once, you're probably doing it wrong.')

As far as 'how-to' information, I tend to recommend Knitting for Dummies for the basics, and for more advanced stuff Knitting Without Tears (wherein you learn improvisational knitting).

What's the best way to clean knit goods? I have a 40+ year old afghan (a chessboard composed of granny squares) that seems pretty sturdy, but I don't want to screw it up.

Xeger - are you switching direction when you purl a row? Don't do that. All rows are right-side rows in the round. (Front-left to front-right).

The only other thing I can think of is that you're working your purls from the inside of the piece instead of the outside - don't do that either. (But you'd probably have already figured out that you were doing that if that's what it is.)

Alternatively, do it flat and seam it - the whole beauty of working in the round is that you get to knit every row and don't have to worry about stupid purling.

Stevey-Boy @ 59... Considering what this turns out to be about, we're lucky they didn't use staple guns instead. No matter what, the tripods really looked neat.

re: sisuile #56: recorded by Trees as Soldiers Three on their 1970 album On the Shore, featuring the stunning Celia Humphris on vocals.

re: Tim Hall #54: why yes, that's very appropriate, especially considering the costuming, as seen on the Castles and Dreams DVD.

Earl @ 65 - what's the afghan made of? (Wool, acrylic, cotton?)

The afghan was made by someone who passed away many years ago and, thus, cannot answer that question. Given how many decades ago it was made, I kind of doubt it's acrylic, though. Is there a way to tell by visual inspection the difference between wool and cotton in this context?

Earl Cooley @70, the test-of-art is to pull a bit of fluff loose and set it alight: wool stinks of burning hair, cotton burns with the smell of scorched sugar. Rayon also burns readily, but smells of wood; various artificial fibers mostly melt, and you have to have a lab thermometer to distinguish them.

(Once again reaching into the "I did a demonstration on this in 4-H" knowledge base).

xeger,

It's also possible that your knit/purl garter stitch looks like stockingette. I have to look hard to tell mine apart sometimes. Is the inside of the tube the same as the outside when you do the knit/purl thing?

Earl Cooley (#70): You might not be able to tell the difference between wool and cotton by visual inspection, but tactile inspection should help. Again, taking it to local experts (ie a yarn shop) might make sense.

If you're feeling adventurous, you can also try a burn test.

Nancy C Mittens @ 72... knit/purl garter stitch looks like stockingette

Say that fast.
Fifty times.

Whether the afghan is wool or cotton, it should still be washable, right? Handwash, for sure, or gentle wash in the machine, and then air dry. Acrylic knits are machine dryable, if memory serves me.

My mother knits (quite well, having done it for about 50 years) and I have not only the usual sweaters, scarves, and hats, but also nice large (warm) afghans from her.

Years ago she made a nice warm pullover in an Aran style, with some unfortunately placed projections. My partner referred to it as my "nipple sweater", and in revenge, my mother made one for her. In her favorite color.

Good times, good times.

Earl @ 70 - It could be acrylic if it was made later than the mid-50s, and the closer it gets to the 70s the more likely it is. (In the burn test, acrylic will melt instead of really burning.)

Generally, care of large delicate items requires a bathtub, a lot of white towels, two big white sheets, and a dry, sunny day. Special wool wash is optional, but I like it because then you don't have to rinse. (I like Eucalan, and they carry it at Target now so it's easy to get. DO NOT USE WOOLITE. Its name is a lie.)

Fill the bathtub with lukewarm water and the appropriate amount of wool wash. Gently lay the piece in the tub, making sure it's completely covered. If you're working with wool, make sure not to pour any water over the piece - cotton/acrylic, don't worry. Let it soak for a few minutes, then gently press the suds through the piece - do not agitate, rub, spindle or mutilate. Let it soak awhile longer - 20-30 minutes, depending on how dirty it is, then let the water out of the tub.

(If the piece was really filthy, take it out of the tub and repeat the process. If you didn't use wool wash, take it out and repeat the process a couple of times to rinse, except without adding the soap, obviously.)

Lay the piece out on the towels and press gently but firmly, getting out as much water as you can without wringing, twisting, or rubbing in any way. If your washing machine will do a spin-only cycle, you can put it in and do that (make sure first that it won't spray any water on it at any point, and if you don't trust your machine, skip this step.) For sweaters, you can put them in a pillowcase and swing it vigorously around your head to get more water out, but I don't know that it'd work with an afghan. Once you've gotten as much water as you can out...

Lay out one white sheet somewhere flat in the yard; put the piece on top. Pat it gently into the size and shape it's supposed to be. (Acrylic won't care if you do this or not, but it's vital with wool or cotton.) Put the other sheet on top. Wait until it's dry.

A tip I learned from my brewing friends - you make a hop dryer by setting up box fans flat and putting a filter on top of them. It also works with knits, just use a sheet as the filter. (Again, maybe not so great with an afghan, unless you happen to collect box fans, but it's good for sweaters and socks.)

Earl #70: Give the decades it could have been made in, it could very likely be acrylic. My grandmother cranked out several acrylic ones in the 60s and 70s. (My acrylic afghan oeuvre dates from the 80s.) However, since you don't know what it is made of, I suggest the traditional bathtub method of hand-washing antique and vintage quilts. Warning: this is time-consuming, and a wet afghan can get very heavy. And it can tie up a bathtub for a couple of days.

You'll need a clean bathtub, a sheet or sheets, some large towels and/or a mattress pad, ordinary laundry detergent, Ivory, or a specialty hand-washing product such as Orvus paste, and several hours, spread over several days. Instructions such as these or these for handwashing antique quilts also work for afghans.

Remember to measure your afghan before you wash it so you can lay it out to dry in the same size and shape it started out. (Drying can take days, BTW). Some people say you can wash/soak your afghan in the washing machine as long as you take it our before it agitates, but this can deform the afghan when you take it out.

Good luck!

I rather like this modern take on the traditional granny square afghan.

Fragano Ledgister @29: "Go, Lemmings, Go!"?

I keep trying to fit that verse into the tune for "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty", and it doesn't -quite- go. Middle Ages rock and roll, however, brings to mind these settings of the Merseburger Zaubersprueche.
Also, out of curiosity, what does a post-preview CGI script have to do with the senate and people of Rome?

Gwen@4
I think you're using a rather more limited version of "spoiler" than I'm used to using. You seem to be defining it as something like "a piece of information that the author intends to be a surprise, such that if the reader/viewer has that information before it's revealed in the story they'll have a substantially different reaction to and interaction with the work than the author intended,"

Not quite, I think - my last sentence was meant to show that I don't think author's intention is absolutely paramount in every case. In general, a spoiler is a piece of information which, if revealed in advance, will spoil the effect. But what effect? As you say, people read for different reasons, and there are all sorts of different effects that might be spoiled for someone. So it seems reasonable to me that normally one should go with the intended effect. The cases of 'Rosebud' and Roger Ackroyd are clear cases where the intended effect would be spoiled; so in that case it's unproblematic that the information shouldn't be given away (or if there's a problem it's a different one, arising from how well-known they are). But that makes them an unhelpful analogy for stuff that's given away in trailers.

My worry is this: some people (not you) seem to think that it is always wrong to reveal any plot points in advance, since that is the only way of making sure one does not spoil any effect for anyone. But an author may be creating a work where the desired effect actually turns on something being known in advance, and I don't think it's right to object to her doing this, or to readers/viewers passing on the information she wants us to have.

Take, for instance, works written in the first person. Suppose there is a book beginning 'I, Mary Smith, am now sitting down to record the painful story of my life'. This gives away that Mary Smith will still be alive at the end, since otherwise she couldn't be recording it. There may well be situations in the book where some people's enjoyment would be enhanced by not knowing this; where 'Will Mary survive?' is a potentially gripping question. But it seems wrong to complain because the author has revealed this. (I don't suppose anyone would in precisely this case - if they couldn't bear knowing that Mary survives, they just wouldn't read it. But I've seen complaints in cases which come pretty close to that.)

Wet wool has a distinctive odor, which has the advatage of not requiring taking it apart.

Handwashing with a gentle detergent should take care of it, in any case (you may need to do it in a tub). The usual suggestion is something like Orvus quilt soap, but your local animal supply store will probably have Orvus WA, which is close enough. (Not Woolite, please.)

Andrew M @ 80: This gives away that Mary Smith will still be alive at the end, since otherwise she couldn't be recording it.

She could be dictating...

And of course there's the Doctor Who episode "Army of Ghosts" which begins with Rose Tyler explaining "This is the story of how I died."

Joel Polowin @ 82... Have you ever seen Sunset Boulevard?

Lila, #60: Aha, so that's why it sounded familiar!

Earl, #70: Anyone who's done fiber or textile work can probably tell by touch. I used to think it was weird that my mother could touch a piece of clothing and tell what it was made of, but now I can do the same thing with > 80% accuracy.

And FYI: When Cat @76 talks about "patting it gently into the shape it's supposed to be," the technical term for that is "blocking".

Ginger, #75: I would advise against washing wool in the machine at all due to the risk of accidental felting.

Was your partner's favorite color pink by any chance?

I'm reminded here of T.E.D. Klein's story "Black Man with a Horn," whose first-person narrator starts off saying "There's something reassuring about first-person narration, isn't there?" and goes on to tell a story that isn't reassuring at all.

Serge @ 83: No; my familiarity with movies and musicals is spotty.

O knitters and crocheters, I am in need . . .

To my utter amazement, my mother has volunteered to crochet a kippa for my daughter for her bat mitzvah next year. (Shock abounds)

I need to give my mom a pattern to use, but haven't the foggiest where to search to find one that's decent (there are zillions on the webz but not being a knitter/crocheter myself, I've no idea how feasible any of them are.

Requirements:
Not too heavy or dd will fidget (are there more openwork/netlike options rather than the frisbee-on-head version?)
No design or just a border--dd's tallit is this one http://www.jewishbazaar.com/shvotim-tzeva-prayer-shawl-gray.htm, so nothing that would clash (knowing my kid, the dress will likely be black)
Easy to work up. Mom has mostly been knitting lately (she makes baby blankets for a local hospital), so her crochet skills are probably a bit rusty.

Help, o glorious ones!

Lee @ 84: I suppose I'd better stop washing my sweaters in the machine then. Oops.

No, her favorite color is blue, but she loves blue and can't avoid wearing it, so she's forced to wear this sweater when it's cold* out. Well, not forced, really. It's a nice warm woollen sweater, and anyone would like to wear it. But you're right; it should have been pink. My mother is not quite that evil.

*Well, yes, she is cold. Not that anyone could tell, under that sweater, although I haven't really looked lately. Then again, she's been stealing my nice black Aran-ish sweater with a zipper and without the projections. (Is this what it's like to have a sister?) I've been reduced to wearing the sweater vests that Dad used to wear, until they shrank. I suppose Mom washed them once too often.

Joel Polowin @ 86... Then I should say no more.

Spoilers... It was possible for me to enjoy the movie Kiss Me Deadly knowing in advance what the big whatsit was, but I'd have prefered not being told.

#87
There's a set of instructions - probably for knitting - in the latest 'Mason-Dixon Knits' book (Outside the Lines). You might also try Knitting Pattern Central (they seem to have all kinds of things, and have a crochet section too) or Knitty (which actually does have some crochet patterns).

Mary Aileen on thread 116 wonders "why a wooden spoon?"

I pondered this for years, before realizing that when you get told to use a wooden spoon, it's usually in the context of *lots* of repeated stirring. It's so you don't scar up the surface of the pan/bowl with all the gouges or scrapes from a metal spoon.

joann, or sometimes because what you're stirring is very hot, and a metal spoon will burn you if you stir whatever-it-is long enough. Example: sugar syrup.

I see that this afghan cleaning project will take a bit of investment; I don't have any white towels, nor do I have a yard or large open area; a dry, sunny day is also a premium item at this point in time. I'll probably need to consult various familial resources for some of these items. Thanks for the advice, all.

Andrew @ 80:
Take, for instance, works written in the first person. Suppose there is a book beginning 'I, Mary Smith, am now sitting down to record the painful story of my life'. This gives away that Mary Smith will still be alive at the end, since otherwise she couldn't be recording it. There may well be situations in the book where some people's enjoyment would be enhanced by not knowing this; where 'Will Mary survive?' is a potentially gripping question. But it seems wrong to complain because the author has revealed this. (I don't suppose anyone would in precisely this case - if they couldn't bear knowing that Mary survives, they just wouldn't read it. But I've seen complaints in cases which come pretty close to that.)

Well, I'd consider that to be background information: the kind of information you need to know to know what sort of story it is at all. For instance, I don't think the identity of Spiderman should count as a spoiler for the first Spiderman movie (shock! The protagonist of an origin-story superhero movie is the title character!), but the identity of the Green Goblin and subsequent conflict would be. "Superhero origin story," "alien-fighting ensemble show," and "fictional autobiography" are all established classifications of stories, so it'd be impractical to consider things like "Mary survives!" and "there are aliens in Torchwood!" spoilers.

But an author may be creating a work where the desired effect actually turns on something being known in advance, and I don't think it's right to object to her doing this, or to readers/viewers passing on the information she wants us to have.

That should probably be considered not a spoiler, then--but wouldn't the author put that information in the work itself early on? (In voiceover narration in a movie, in foreshadowing or a prologue in a book....) Otherwise you'd end up with a work which you can't fully appreciate without having seen the publicity information.

I think the main problem with trailers (not all--some go the other way and "reveal" things about their movies that aren't true, which is annoying) is that studios are so eager to bring in viewers that they'll put information into the trailer to make the movie seem more exciting--and completely ruin any of the dramatic tension the reveal of the information in-movie was supposed to have. I mean, I wasn't alive when the first Star Wars trilogy came out, but I can well imagine trailers including the "I am your father" clip after "Shocking Twists!" if it came out today.

Apropos of nothing except open-threadiness, I happened to see this article title on my browser: Many in Tiny Town Have Rare Tumor.

Now, obviously, tumors aren't funny...but I have to admit that upon first reading, the only thing that came to mind was this.

I should probably be ashamed of myself...

Melissa Singer at 87,

If she does thread crochet, there is this:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=11321879

I have purchased it and am planning on making it for a friend.

There's a knitted pattern, very plain looking, here: http://www.joanneseiff.com/Designs.html
which is based on one from Interweave Knits - summer 2002. The designer says the one she is offering is improved.

Gwen, #94: Also, spoilers are significantly dependent on one's audience. To riff on your example, the identity of the Green Goblin wouldn't be a spoiler anywhere in my circle of friends -- we're all comics-geeky enough to be familiar with the major recurring villains in Spider-Man as well as with his origin story. (In fact, one of the things I liked best about the movie was that they made the robber/Uncle Ben thing significantly more plausible, in a way that wouldn't have been feasible in the 1960s.) But I wouldn't mention details like that in a group of non-comics-geek folks who were going to see the movie for the first time.

I'm looking for recommendations for a gift. It's a holiday gift, but I won't see the person 'til January so there's no big rush.

I have a friend who is a fan of "adventure/treasure hunt stories." His favorite series of books is Susan Cooper's Dark Is Rising books, with his favorite book in the series being the first one with the initial discovery and treasure hunt. Other movies/things he likes in this genre are the Goonies, Spiderwick Chronicles, and National Treasure.

I'm looking for some good crazy/magical/preposterous treasure hunt stories. They can be in any media form... books, movies, TV shows, video games. YA novels would be great, or short, punchy novels for adults - though honestly he seems to prefer the kids stuff.

Leah @ #98, you might give E. Nesbit's Five Children and It a look. It's like Susan Cooper filtered through Gilbert & Sullivan with a dash of Monty Python.

joann (91)/Xopher (92): Ah, that makes sense! I was thinking in terms of metal interacting with the ingredients in weird ways (although I cooked it in a metal pan, so that doesn't make much sense). I got so paranoid, I did all the stirring with a wooden spoon, even though wood was only specified for the end bit.

hedgehog @ 68: recorded by Trees as Soldiers Three on their 1970 album On the Shore, featuring the stunning Celia Humphris on vocals.

With a cheeky verse added at the end:

Charge it again, boy, charge it again
Pardona moy je vous an pree
As long as you have any ink in your pen
With never a penny of mony.

Gwen@94:

Well, I'd consider that to be background information: the kind of information you need to know to know what sort of story it is at all. For instance, I don't think the identity of Spiderman should count as a spoiler for the first Spiderman movie (shock! The protagonist of an origin-story superhero movie is the title character!), but the identity of the Green Goblin and subsequent conflict would be. "Superhero origin story," "alien-fighting ensemble show," and "fictional autobiography" are all established classifications of stories, so it'd be impractical to consider things like "Mary survives!" and "there are aliens in Torchwood!" spoilers.

Well, it seemed to me (though I don't know the movie in question, so I may be wrong) that the stuff Xopher was accused of 'spoiling' was of that kind - it's an 'aliens destroy earth' movie.

That should probably be considered not a spoiler, then--but wouldn't the author put that information in the work itself early on? (In voiceover narration in a movie, in foreshadowing or a prologue in a book....) Otherwise you'd end up with a work which you can't fully appreciate without having seen the publicity information.

I think Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix fits this description - we had been told in advance that someone was going to die, and she then plays games with us, trying to get us to guess who. I agree this isn't a terribly good way of doing things, though. But on the other hand, I have seen stuff that comes in prologues criticised as a spoiler.

There may not really be a radical difference between us, because I think the position that worries me is a lot more extreme than yours, but I assure you I have seen it expressed.

I mean, I wasn't alive when the first Star Wars trilogy came out, but I can well imagine trailers including the "I am your father" clip after "Shocking Twists!" if it came out today.

Well, of course, if you see the films in internal chornological order, as I believe you are meant to do, that won't come as a surprise anyway. Star Wars is odd.

Andrew M @ 80: This gives away that Mary Smith will still be alive at the end, since otherwise she couldn't be recording it.

She could be dictating...

"Look, if he was dying, he wouldn't bother to carve 'AAAAAAARRRRRGGGHHH", would he? He'd just say it!"

"Maybe he was dictating."

Or she could be an HP Lovecraft protagonist, doomed to finish the story with an immortal line like "Even as I write they are at my door!" or just "The knuckles! The horrible knuckles!"

Slightly connecting to the aspirin discussion (also started in Wuppertal, as it's now known), unhappy news for fans of Inspector Derrick, who retired aged 75 in 1998 (picture). I don't think it's a spoiler to report his widow said "It's sad but he had an exciting life", which is as good an encomium as I hope to have.

BTW, I can think of a work already mentioned where first-person narration is part of the surprise twist. I won't even ROT-13 it, but there are a few sf works and short stories in other genres where FPN is used that way. (In fact, one such 'surprise' story written as a dialogue utterly ignored, without explanation except for spoiling the surprise, a vitally involved third party, which as a woman I found profoundly revolting. I wish I remembered its name & author so I could criticise it.)

There's much more of a treasure hunt in the second of the Cooper books. One could always start with the classics like Treasure Island, but that might be cheating. Or a collection of Poe that included "The Gold Bug".

Apparently it's all over the Twitterverse that Apple will not be holding Macworld in SF after the one coming up in early January. I'm surprised I'm not seeing that information elsewhere yet.

If there's such a thing as Apocalyptic sf, is there such a thing as Diasporic sf?

Jacque #78: See Mr. W. Shakespeare's As You Like It.

Andrew M @102

if you see the films in internal chornological order, as I believe you are meant to do,

If I might ask, why? It's always seemed better to me to go in the order the author intends (with that presumably being the order of release if there's no other indication). Star Wars would seem a great example; also, in books rather than movies, pretty much any series by VC Andrews.

Statute of limitations for spoilers.

One set of books that I strongly recommend reading in publication order, as opposed to internal-chronological order, is the Mageworlds series. In fact, when I am recommending this series (which I do frequently), I warn people that reading the prequel first will seriously spoil the ending of the trilogy.

joann @ 91: Re: beating fudge with a wooden spoon, my guess is that the usual kinds of metal spoons would be more likely to have edges and corners on their handles which would make them uncomfortable to use for that kind of work. Wooden spoons are easier on the hands.

Bad news: my dad's tumor isn't operable after all.

Good news: it's not the really bad, common kind of pancreatic cancer.

Bad news: it was caught really late.

Good news: he was better tonight. Still in the hospital, but out of immediate danger.

It's been that kind of rollercoaster. I'm going out there sometime in the next couple of days.

Lee@110: Speaking as one of the authors, I wouldn't so much say that reading the Mageworlds series in temporal rather than publication order spoils the ending of the trilogy as I'd say that readers who approach the series from that direction are in some ways going to be getting a different story. Since things in actual life as it is lived tend to look differently depending upon where you're standing, I choose to think of this as a feature, rather than a bug.

When I was in high school, 117 was the nominal North American AC supply voltage. It's actually 117V RMS - root-mean-square, which is the usual way of converting AC volts to equivalent DC. The Wikipedia article Mains Electricity -- must have been originated by a Brit -- is full of neat factoids. The present standard is 120V +/- 5% - 114 to 126V.

Debra, #113: Your description of the effect is better than mine. But I was caught completely off guard by the revelation at the end of By Honor Betrayed, and then when I re-read the trilogy again with that knowledge in mind, I suddenly realized that the whole story was a classical tragedy. That re-envisioning caused me to up my ranking of the books from 4 stars to 5, and remains one of my most memorable literary experiences. I think that my experience, at least, would have been the poorer for having enough clues at the start to anticipate the ending, and I am loath to deny anyone else that possibility if I can avoid doing so.

Xopher: Yikes. Hugs offered.

Xopher, I hope things go well.

Now I'm going to defend acrylic afghans. You can machine wash and dry them, and since I mostly make them for cats and babies, this is really important.

Xopher: Oh. Best Wishes again.

Thanks, Ginger and Stevey-Boy.

Expansion on the Macworld comment upthread -- Apple's just withdrawn from participating after this year, and Jobs won't even be giving the keynote this year.

Cat Meadors @ 66 ...
Xeger - are you switching direction when you purl a row? Don't do that. All rows are right-side rows in the round. (Front-left to front-right).

Yargh, no! That would do very strange things for the knitting :)

The only other thing I can think of is that you're working your purls from the inside of the piece instead of the outside - don't do that either. (But you'd probably have already figured out that you were doing that if that's what it is.)

Hm... I might actually have been doing that unintentionally -- I've finally figured out a way to knit that doesn't involve dangling one needle in order to move the wool around, but it's very possible (in fact, as I think about it, entirely probable) that I'm doing that, and simply not noticing because my body (finger?) english is different from what it's always been. Hmmmm... Thank you!

Alternatively, do it flat and seam it - the whole beauty of working in the round is that you get to knit every row and don't have to worry about stupid purling.

Heh. Fair 'nuf -- I'm finding knitting in the round more friendly for constrained spaces than knitting flat, thus far ... and worth my absolute puzzlement :)

Dan Layman-Kennedy @ 31: "There are interesting games to be played with the path taken towards a known ending. (Not that you couldn't spoil a work like that as well, though it seems to me that the important things to keep unrevealed are not whats but hows.)"

ObSF: See, e.g., the structure of many of Cordwainer Smith's stories.

Oh, if you all are dispensing cleaning advice, I sure could use some help!

I have a carpet bought in Morocco which is a thin and firm weave in dark brown with white and red in the patterns. I actually had been using it as a tablecloth, folded over. The man who sold it to me told me it was "Cactus Silk" and I've seen been told that it is natural rayon.

The problem is that someone put a plant on the table and then watered it, making for a terrible round stain going straight through. I tried rubbing at the spot with a cloth soaked in cold water, but it made no difference to the stain and when I edged towards the pattern, the colours began to run.

I tried wiping it with a magic stain remover cloth (aimed at silk ties) which had zero effect.

I'm frightened to take it to the dry cleaners but as it is effectively ruined anyway, I'm thinking about that as an option.

Any bright ideas?

Xopher, best wishes once again to you and your family. That good news/bad news rollercoaster isn't nearly as much fun as the sign says.

Xopher, hang in there. Kind thoughts to you and your father from here.

Tracie @#77: Those aren't granny squares, are they? I thought granny squares were these, which are a lot more holey.

I have been meaning for some time to draw the attention of those of a fannish persuasion to what is possibly the only bronze statue of someone wearing a propeller beanie.

(The statue is of Richard Crosbie, pioneering balloonist.)

Ian Racey@108:

It's always seemed better to me to go in the order the author intends (with that presumably being the order of release if there's no other indication).

I agree; but in this case I think there is another indication, namely the numbering (with the original Star Wars now being Star Wars 4: A New Hope). (By 'you are meant to' I meant 'you are intended to', not 'you ought to'.) I think it makes more sense to see them in order of release, but Lucas apparently doesn't agree with me.

(This is one of the cases where I would agree author's intention isn't paramount. Though presumably the author's original intention here is different from his current intention; surely he meant 'I am your father' to be a surprise when he first put it in.)

#37, #38 -

You can't actually get a moebius by twisting at the cast on by accident, because if you accidentally twist at cast-on, you do a full twist, not a half-twist. (Of this, I'm pretty certain, because I tried it on purpose ages ago.) To get a moebius at cast on, you must cast on, twist halfway, and pick up stitches on the bottom side of the cast-on row, or something like that. Figuring out an easy way to cast on for moebius it is part of why Cat Bordhi's name is so famous among knitters.

#72, Nancy -

*boggles* Would you have any pictures of this phenomenon? I can't imagine it.

Nancy C. Mittens @ 72 ...
It's also possible that your knit/purl garter stitch looks like stockingette. I have to look hard to tell mine apart sometimes. Is the inside of the tube the same as the outside when you do the knit/purl thing?

Er, no :D I've very clearly got a stockingknit side (teardrop shaped smooth stitches) and a garter stitch side (more of a horizontally ridged texture). I agree with R.M.Koske though -- I'd like to see this :)

Thanks again, everyone.

Marilee 116: Now I'm going to defend acrylic afghans.

There's nothing wrong with the Afghans themselves; I just think they should be taught to grow healthier crops than acrylic, which just supports the Taliban. And you really should capitalize the name of a nationality...

What? Oh.

Never mind. :-)

I think the main problem with trailers (not all--some go the other way and "reveal" things about their movies that aren't true, which is annoying) is that studios are so eager to bring in viewers that they'll put information into the trailer to make the movie seem more exciting--and completely ruin any of the dramatic tension the reveal of the information in-movie was supposed to have.

Exhibit A: the trailers for Terminator II: Judgement Day. Every one I saw spoiled a plot point that the first half-hour of the movie is clearly setting up as a surprise. (Gur Neavr-obg vf n tbbq thl; gur jvzcl-ybbxvat thl vf abg bayl n onq thl, ur'f n zber nqinaprq ebobg guna gur Neavr-obg.)

T2 never did explain how the T-1000 managed to time travel, seeing as it is not made of flesh of any sort, but we'll let that go with handwaving about a sheath that burns off during transport or something.

Xopher #129: Have you and Serge ever been seen in the same place?

Leah Miller @98

I would recommend looking at Tamora Pierce's books. I'm a fan of both her worlds: for treasure hunts specifically, the Alanna book with the search for the Dominion Jewel.

Also, Lloyd Alexander's Prydain books, especially Taran Wanderer.

Andrew M @126

You know, I misread as your original statement as being that you think all movies should be viewed in internal chronological order, which was the source of my confusion. My bad.

IIRC George Lucas does indeed make a comment on the commentary for one of the original trilogy (it might be during Luke and Darth Vader's confrontation at the end of TESB) to the effect that he thinks the six movies should be viewed in the order the episodes are numbered; I had a real WTF moment when I heard that.

Wow, ianracey. GL really has absolutely no sense at all, does he? He used to be have some sense of what was entertaining, at least.

joann @91: Mary Aileen @OT116/945 wonders "why a wooden spoon?"

No earthly clue. My dad always used a metal slotted spoon (Xopher @92: it had a plastic handle). This had the additional advantage in that you can lift up and dribble the cooking fudge and guage how close you are to your target consistency.

Fragano Ledgister @107: Jacque #78: See Mr. W. Shakespeare's As You Like It.

Yes, yes, I know. (through the miracle of Google; wrt da Bard, I Am Only An Egg.) #78 was a vain attempt to riff on "Ducdame, ducdame!" In the immortal words of Emily Latella: "Nevermind."

Apropos of which, d'ya suppose Harriet Culvers's observation @52 constitutes my Fifteen Minutes?

Jacque (135): Hmmm. I wonder if my plastic slotted spoon would be good for that?

Well, this discussion seems to be about spoon materials, so let me put in my vote for wooden. My wife doesn't like wooden spoons (some sad associations with child abuse) but they're the bees knees.

But what I really came to an Open Thread to say is this: We may be moving back to Indiana! (Now that I'm a Blue Stater hahahahahahaha!)

The reason is quite simple, actually. The economy has now crashed so very much that we can buy a house in Richmond, where my Mom lives, for $7,900. Yes, you see that number of digits correctly. Yes, I have that much in the bank right now. Yes, I'm paying $1000 a month for rent here in Puerto Rico.

I called my sister (whose office is in Richmond) so she can do a drive-by. She said, "Man, at that price, what must be wrong with it?" And I said, "Who really cares?" At that price it really doesn't matter if it has walls and a roof. (But Google street view assures me that it does.)

It's an ill wind that blows nobody good -- in 2012, I plan to be dedisenfranchised. Actually, in 2010 for that matter. I can't remember if Lugar or Bayh is up for reelection. There's a slight chance of unseating Bayh in favor of an actual Democrat. (There's zero percent chance of unseating Lugar. Even I like Lugar. It would be like unseating God, except worse, because I believe in Lugar's existence. We'll just wait for him to die, then we'll see about getting somebody new in that seat.)

Also: public libraries. I heap scorn on Indiana, but ... there are public libraries. Those of you who live in places where you don't have to question the existence of public libraries? Feel blessed.

xeger & R.M. Koske,

I don't have any here at school or on my flikr stream. I will try to knit up an example sometime over the next few days, and post pictures.

xeger, the purl side will have horizontal ridges that are right up against each other.
With garter stitch, the ridges are farther apart, and you can see, in the bottom of the valley, the place where the rows meet.

Mary Aileen @136:

Jacque (135): Hmmm. I wonder if my plastic slotted spoon would be good for that?

::evil cackle:: Hee hee hee. I wanna be there when you try it. Mwa-haha....

I've very clearly got a stockingknit side (teardrop shaped smooth stitches) and a garter stitch side (more of a horizontally ridged texture).

Wait, what?

This should be impossible. The backside of garter stitch is just more garter stitch: horizontal ridges made from alternating purl rows with knit rows. The backside of stockinette knit (all 'v's) is stockinette purl (all bumps). Granted, stockinette purl can look like a series of horizontal ridges, but you sound like you know the difference.

What makes this such an inflexible law of nature is, the backside of a normal knit stitch is always a normal purl stitch. It's right there in the definition of knit and purl: it's all down to what direction the loop is pulled through the loop. From front to back: purl. From back to front: knit. A stitch that from one side looks like a loop pulled from front to back, looks on the other side like a loop pulled from back to front. It's all just interlocking zigzags, knitting.

(For the purposes of this discussion, I am ignoring such irregularities as increases, decreases, and knit/purl-thru-back-loop. Are you by any chance doing things through the back loop?)

Could you take pictures and flickr them or something? I'm fascinated by this conundrum.

Xopher

Yeah, that rollercoaster is not amusing at all. I hope the rest of the news from now on is good.

Jacque (140): That sounds like a 'no'.

I guess I should have bought the slotted wooden spoon while I was at it.

Mary Aileen: Hee. Yeah, sorry. Couldn't resist the snarkish. I have no clue how a slotted wooden spoon would work...if you try it, let me know what you think.

Not a critical factor, IME. Spoon should be (a) comfortable and (b) strong. Beyond that, nuance to taste.

Xopher @134

I really am loathe to make comments like "Successful millionaire director/writer/author X doesn't have anything like the understanding of storytelling that I do," and I'm always suspicious of people who do say things like that (I've seen too many posts on Doctor Who fora about what an idiot Russell T Davies is). But with Lucas, I'm at the point where I can't think of any explanation other than that he just doesn't get it. I don't know if this is a decline through age/success/not having anyone to tell him no, or if it's just that he had a run of luck in producing such good quality work early in his career (there is, after all, Harrison Ford's famous assessment of Lucas's dialogue during the filming of A New Hope). But I do think the worst decision made for episodes I-III was when it was decided Lucas would be writing and directing himself rather than farming out those jobs like he did for TESB and ROTJ.

It occurred to me to wonder what happened to Lanaia Lee. Guess what? She's still promoting Of Atlantis, recently on the radio.

ianracey @ 145: The impression I got from the DVD extras was that in the prequel movies, Lucas made exactly the films he intended to, and by extension, the original Star Wars was better because other constraints prevented him from doing that.

He has a wonderful visual imagination, but his lack of interest in character has been our loss.

re Pardonnez moi, je vous en pris the verses I know are:

We be soldiers three
Pardonnez moi, je vous en pris
Lately come forth of the low contry
With never a penny of money

Here, good fellow, I'll drink to thee
Pardonnez moi, je vous en pris
To all good fellows wherever they be
With never a penny of money

Here, good fellow, I'll sing you a song,
Pardonnez moi, je vous en pris
To those who are living, and those who are gone,
With never a penny of money

And he who will not pledge me this
Pardonnez moi, je vous en pris
Payes for the shot! whatever it is
With never a penny of money

Charge it again, boys! charge it again,
Pardonez-oi, je vous en pris,
As long as there is any ink in the pen
With never a penny of money

Mary Aileen and Jacque (#143 and #144) - Mary, since I'm assuming that when you say 'plastic spoon,' you mean one designed for cooking (not, say, something disposable), I don't think you can assume that it'd meet with a bad end. They are usually made of plastics with quite high melting temperatures (or else they decompose at even higher temperatures); my favourite spatula is plastic, so it spends a lot of time in hot oil, and it does just fine. So I think that Jacque brought the snark a little unfairly - your spoon isn't necessarily going to melt and give you plastic-and-chocolate marble fudge. I imagine that recommendations for wooden spoons are a holdover from when your alternative was metal, not polymer (as previously mentioned, metal is usually low on comfort and high on thermal conductivity).

So while there is a risk that your plastic spoon would fail, which is not the case for wood or metal, I don't think it's automatically excluded.

debcha (149): Yes, I've used this particular plastic (polymer?) spoon for cooking, including hot oil, for a while now. I'll probably stick with wood for the fudge anyway, though.

(it's 'Mary Aileen' not 'Mary' :)

re 80: There is in fact a semi-well-known first person narrative in that form in which the narrator is not alive at the end: Gvy Jr Unir Snprf by P. F. Yrjvf.

A batch of paper toys to make.

C Wingate: I know of a first person motion picture, in which the narrator/cameraman dies at the end. It's foreshadowed, but I suspect there are those who are surprised when he dies.

Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little @ 141 ...
Could you take pictures and flickr them or something? I'm fascinated by this conundrum.

I'll try to take some later tonight -- reading over what I wrote last night, the only thing I'm sure about is the sheer lack of sleep I was suffering from as I wrote.

For anyone else whose favorite Christmas carol is "In The Bleak Midwinter," here's a really nice version.

... or perhaps I'll "enjoy" an evening of stumbling around in a metaphorical maze of dependencies, all alike...

Katie tells me that she's received the fourth and last signature page, and that she should file her thesis tomorrow. At which point, she will at long last be done, and (modulo some time for the wheels of University of California bureaucracy to grind) will be a Philosophiae Doctor.

I'm really proud of her.

She tells me that one of her fellow group members filed his a few days ago, and they gave him a lollipop. (With "Ph.D" printed on the wrapper!)

Post Scriptum to the above: Anyone out there looking to hire a Ph.D in Physics with experience programming in C++?

#141, Nicole -

That actually parsed for me. I wouldn't probably have called it garter stitch, but I can agree that all-purl looks a lot like a dense, unstretched garter, because in garter the knit stitches frequently vanish between the rows of purl ribs.

#145, ianracey -

I haven't actually heard that famous assessment. Can you link/quote it/give me more info for searching?

#157, David -

I don't know if I've interacted with Katie here, but even if not, she has my congratulations. That's a heck of an accomplishment.

David Goldfarb @ 158: I don't think that most employers will object strongly to her Ph.D. in physics, as long as her programming skills are up to their needs.

The job market for chemists is very poor these days. I'm not sure if things are any better for physicists.

debcha @149: I will entirely cop to unfair snarkage. I tend to be firmly ensconced in the middle of the last century, and tend to forget about Scientific Progress.

Mary Aileen @150: If your spoon can survive hot oil, it will doubtless do just fine in hot fudge.

I'm just remembering a couple of spatulas I have that I unthinkingly modified by using in fudge. (Ew.)

(Okay, okay, so I'm not the brightest bulb in the box... ;> )

R.M. Koske @159,

The quote is, "George, you can write this sh*t, but you sure can't say it." I googled for a citation, but all the links I found were for blogs quoting it. So it's possible it's an urban legend; but on the other hand, it's also possible that if I wanted a substantive Star Wars-related result for searches involving "Harrison Ford", "George Lucas", "write" and "sh*t", I should have conducted my search before Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull went into general release.

#162 - ianracey -

I like the quote, but I like your summation of the problem finding it even more. *grins*

Many thanks.

Leah @98

I'd recommend M.T. Anderson's Game of Sunken Places, which is at once a plucky boys' adventure novel, a fantasy, and a dark, clever puzzle.

Another YA treasure hunt sort of novel is The Westing Game.

Treasure hunts of that ilk: _The House with a Clock in its Walls_ (Bellairs), if you don't mind some creepy mixed with funny.

_Alan Mendelsohn, The Boy From Mars_ (Pinkwater).

(I am pleased to see _Over Sea, Under Stone_ get some love; too often it's dismissed as a minor prequel to the series. It's not the same thing as _The Dark Is Rising_, and I'll even admit it's not as creative or powerful a piece of work. But it's a great treasure hunt that has just enough teaser for the more mythic books that follow it.)

I'd also recommend Diana Wynne Jones's Dalemark Quartet. Well, I'd recommend anything she ever wrote, but those particularly for this purpose.

Ralph Giles @147: The impression I got from the DVD extras was that in the prequel movies, Lucas made exactly the films he intended to, and by extension, the original Star Wars was better because other constraints prevented him from doing that.

There's a stupendously-researched SW fan(?) site here that delves into that issue from many different angles, though I'm not sure how much may've been taken offline because of recent print publication.

ianracey @162: "George, you can write this sh*t, but you sure can't say it."

Wrong verb; iirc the quote was originally cited in Dale Pollock's book Skywalking, originally printed in 1984. Google Books' version is a 1999 "updated" reprint which I haven't read, but it doesn't seem to've bumped up the original's non-prominence of Joseph Campbell as an influence, compared to Carlos Casteneda.

re 168: There's also the revisitation problem: it's very difficult to go back to something you did years back and continue consistently with what was done before.

Mary Aileen (#150): Yes, I've used this particular plastic (polymer?) spoon for cooking...

Materials science geekery: 'Polymers' are the raw materials, defined by their chemical structure (eg polyethylene, polytetrafluoroethylene, polystyrene etc). 'Plastics' are the end product, which will likely include additives such as pigments, fillers, and plasticizers. So I'd probably describe your spoon as 'plastic.' To be fair, that might be because I get annoyed by items in high-design catalogs being described as 'polymer' instead of plastic, which just seems really pretentious.

Jacque (#161): The soft rubbery spatulas (spatulae?) melt if you give them a hard look - were those the kind you destroyed in your fudge? I love the new silicone rubber utensils you can get now.

Damn. Majel Barrett Roddenberry died Thursday in Bel-Air, CA, of leukemia. She was 76.

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/ap/20081219/ten-obit-majel-roddenberry-5e343d7.html

#171: Oh my! Another of the Trek originals gone.

She was a guest at I-Con a decade or so back; my cousin was her driver. He had a high opinion of her. Nice to the fans and not affected.

I just came here to see if the news of Majel Rodenberry's death had reached the Fluorosphere. I know nothing of her as a person, but I know that Lwaxana Troi was and is an empowering figure for big noisy women like me.

Majel Barrett Roddenberry was a class act, as well as a classy actor. Here's to her memory, long may it shine!

David Goldfarb @ 157

I got one of those PhD lollipops too! The office staff in the filing office did a wonderful job of making a routine bureaucratic procedure feel special and celebratory.

Presidential Science Adviser John Marburger, replying to charges that Bush is anti-science:

"There are stupid and foolish things that have been perpetrated by employees of the federal government in the executive branch, but it doesn't mean that the president is anti-science," he said. "The president is getting blamed for every little thing that happens that people don't like in the administration."

Anyone have a shoe I can borrow? One with taps?

My new album, Ticker, is available for free download. Except for the occasional recorder, crumhorn, and bass guitar, it's done entirely with the audio programming language SuperCollider. The result is a bit like Mike Oldfield crossed with Venetian Snares. But only a bit.

Antiquarians may be interested to note that shiny five-inch discs are also available.

Those like David Goldfarb celebrating various events, might be interested to know one can order custom messages on M & Ms – One or two messages, each of up to 2 lines of 9 characters, or even just a simple “PhD” – on your choice of one or two of 17 standard colours, or one of several standard blends of up to 5 colours.

The new high-temperature-resistant silicone cooking implements & baking pan-things (& hot-thing holders) are Totally Excellent!! But there are times when I find both metal[lic] & wood[en] implements best for what I'm doing.

It's not good to hear of Majel Barret Roddenbury's leaving us. I worked my way through a friend's set of DS9 this year, having never seen more than one or two episodes before. It was nice to hear her occasionally as a familiar computer voice.

Tim (#177)! Conga-Rats & Good Luck! *wanders elseweb to chekkitout*

Two weeks ago, on the 4th December, I was in a car crash. All safety features worked as advertised, but I have assorted fractures, includng three vertabrae. no permanent damage. I was briefly unconscious, after the impact, and am very grateful for Jim's medical posts as an assurance.

no reliable email cantact.

give Nissan Micra S906DCT word-fame

Dave, YIKES! Congratulations on having survived mostly intact, and my best wishes for a rapid continued recovery.

Dave Bell @ 179... Best wishes for your recovery.

Dave Bell #179: Best wishes for your recovery.

Dave Bell: Oh, sorry to hear about the accident but glad you're on the mend.

Thanks for the good wishes.

Right now I am discovering just how paranoid this outfit is about just what is "suitable"

re #179, Dave Bell.

HE AINT DEAD.

So, for recovery, are you watching episodes of
Bones or listening to Traffic off the road?

Joel responds to David Goldfarb: "I don't think that most employers will object strongly to her Ph.D. in physics, as long as her programming skills are up to their needs."

Seriously, I recommend taking a crash course in some other language besides C++. It's bad enough she's got a Ph.D. in physics... if they find out she's a C++ programmer, too, then at best they'll put her to work on some crawling horror of code that originated as a prototype in 1992 and it's been a serial killer ever since.

Julie L. @ 168: Thanks for the pointer on the Star Wars stuff. There's a 'nature of the beast' essay in the same vein. Looks like an interesting book.

Dave Bell @#179: Yowch! Best luck for a full and speedy recovery!

Well, my wife and I made it to the Bay Area yesterday I might not be around to post this if we had not decided to stop in Arizona's Kingman on Wednesday instead of California's Bakersfield. Three hours of sleep before a long drive isn't a good idea when combined with a snow storm. On the bright side, besides our not dying, the hotel had TCM and we got to watch "Valley of the Kings".

By the way, remember that, tomorrow evening, a few people will be making light by the Bay:
http://serge-lj.livejournal.com/174820.html

I'm out here in Culver City CA at my brother's house. I should see my dad tomorrow.

Steve 171: Damn indeed. Another good one lost.

Tim 177: You go! I'll give it a listen when I'm not borrowing someone else's computer.

Mez 178: My friend Sharon tried to get ones that said "Eat 'til you choke" for our Thanksgiving that she hosted. They wouldn't do it, for obvious liability reasons.

Dave 179: Thank gods you're going to recover completely! Best wishes for it to be speedy and relatively painless.

Xopher: Have you means of transport? We are so close as to make the effort to meet someplace almost imperative.

Now what is P.D.Q. Bach doing next to the Girl Genius?
(“Playing his Engine.”)

Terry @ #191, you're there? I worked at Beverly Hills Country Club¹ on Motor Ave. for a year or so all told.

¹ Not really in Beverly Hills at all. In Culver City, but nobody had ever registered the name in California, which astonished and delighted us.

Linkmeister: No, I am in Pasadena. Given the usual distance between Xopher, and those of us who live in LA, he's practically in my living room.

j h woodyatt @ 186: Smart companies hire developers who can pick up new skills at need. Possession of a Ph.D. in physics is a good sign that she's bright enough to do this. Both my first two employers hired me to work in languages I didn't yet know. When I entered the job market I had a degree in mathematics and knew some C. I learned C++ in my first job, then (with far less effort) Java in my second.

Dave Bell: Best wishes for a full and speedy recovery!

and re: safety features working as advertised, that's why we got our current car (Ford Freestyle) after our last got totaled (in a low-speed accident with a hit-n-runner; the bumper took out the radiator and after that, there wasn't much to salvage.) Two months after we bought it we were rear-ended by a truck 50% greater than our weight and I was in the back seat... unscathed.

I really appreciate safety features and will take your recce under consideration should we buy a second car. Models that save lives are always a Good Thing™.

Heather Rose Jones@175: So did you eat the lollipop?

Dave Bell, #179, gracious, Dave! I'm glad you're still here, and I assume, getting better!

My net access over the next month or two is liable to be erratic, so if i vanish for a while, DON'T PANIC

I shall be entangled with the care services provded by the British NHS system, which has variable frnge features. such as internet access.

I am getting good care, here in ward 11 at Scunthorpe General, and my elderly parents are being well-supported by our horrific socalist market-distorting system.

At the moment I am out of bed, strapped up in a back support. One leg is in plaster. It is, with luck, just a matter of time.

I suppose air-bags are under the patronage of Santa Barbara. The 4th wasn't so bad a day to have a car crash, I suppose.

Dave @199:

I'm glad you're getting good care. I have kind of secret, shabby fondness for the NHS, and it makes me happy that they're treating you well.

About one comment there:
My net access over the next month or two is liable to be erratic, so if i vanish for a while, DON'T PANIC

Peoples, if you care about us here enough to consider us part of your life, mention it to folks you know in RL. Mention it so that if you win the lottery and dash off to some paradise without internet*, someone remembers to stop by here and post something in a comment thread.

I was in an online community with someone who killed himself†. His ex-wife saw that he had been online with us just before he died, figured out that we mattered to him, registered an account, and told us about it‡. Otherwise, we would never have known - he just would have vanished. Others did; I sometimes wonder how many of them died as opposed to just drifting away?

-----
* this is my standard replacement for "get hit by a bus"; I've been using it since I was an auditor checking fallback procedures.
† on September 10, 2001. We were already in shock before the planes hit the towers.
‡ I like to think that the support we gave her repaid her kindness. She later married someone she met among us.

In the weirdly warped spoiler department, there's the case where someone writes two versions of the same story, leading me to yell at the author when I read the second version without realizing that it was different, "That's not how the story goes!"

#201, abi -

I woman I was slightly acquainted with in the SCA recently resurfaced in my life, and her explanation as to why she'd stopped participating in the last three years was that she really, truly got hit by a bus.* I've been trying to purge the phrase from my vocabulary since. I think I'll use your substitution. Thanks!

*It wasn't as horrible as it could have been, but she is/was an extremely accomplished dancer and is only just now returning to it.

C. Wingate, #201: I'm amused that I knew exactly which two stories you meant even before I checked the links.

abi (200)/R.M. Koske (202): My boss used to say, "I could get hit by a bus!" all the time. One rather tense meeting it got on my nerves, so I whacked him (gently) on the arm and said, "There, now you've been hit by a Buss*. Stop saying that!"** Now he starts to say it, glances at me, and visibly changes his mind. (I tell him he could use 'truck' instead, but he doesn't.)

*same pronunciation
**no, I shouldn't have done it; yes, I regretted it afterwards; no, he wasn't angry; yes, everyone else present thought it was hilarious

Keith Richards is 65 today. Still going strong.

Have I ever mentioned that I love The Rolling Stones?

abi @ 200 ...
Otherwise, we would never have known - he just would have vanished. Others did; I sometimes wonder how many of them died as opposed to just drifting away?

I continue to wonder about the fate of some of the folk that vanished during the diaspora of the dot-com crash, and am often reminded of The Diamond Necklace.

Tatterbots...

p1. My recommendation isn't motivated from hope that she'll get a job; it's from hope that she'll get a good job, i.e. one that doesn't involve maintaining any of the code that I've ever originated.

p2. Thanks for spelling my family name correctly. This is a rare thing.

It's bad enough she's got a Ph.D. in physics... if they find out she's a C++ programmer, too, then at best they'll put her to work on some crawling horror of code that originated as a prototype in 1992 and it's been a serial killer ever since.

With a B.S. in physics and a single semester of C++ under my belt, I was hired to force FORTRAN to do things it was never meant to do. I think it went all right, considering.

I'm pinning most of my hopes on employers knowing that because I'll have a Ph.D, I can learn things and learn them well. Sometimes this seems like pretty weak sauce when I realize how much I don't know, especially in the field I'd like to get into. Then again, realizing how much you don't know is a well-known effect of working on a Ph.D. So.

xeger #206: I continue to wonder about the fate of some of the folk that vanished during the diaspora of the dot-com crash

Early retirement, obscured by the sad euphemism of "pro bono computer consultant", a mouldering resume decapitated in a futile attempt to stave off age discrimination ("Yeah, it would ooze a lot, heads do. But I could live with that.") Ramen noodle dreams filled with memories of dancing, sizzling dot-com steaks. Unread books, carefully doled out to last as long as possible (that clever plan dashed to bits by days-long reading binges). An internet connection clung to like a life raft from a sinking ship.

It's odd, but "vanished" is right. I can't think of any of my former colleagues who maintain a discernible internet footprint these days. "Many fall, but one remains."

David Goldfarb @ 197

Yes, I believe I did eat the PhD lollipop ... after displaying it proudly on my workdesk for a few days. I did the final filing process on an extended lunchbreak from my first post-grad school job, so it was an oddly surreal experience, partaking more of the flavor of "stop by the bank, pick up stamps at the post office, drop off the recycling, and file the dissertation." That's why having the filing office staff make a fuss over me was such a delightful surprise.

The first peer-group funeral I went to was for a college friend who was hit by a bus. In an odd way, I think that strengthens my affection for the expression when used as a serious caution (as opposed to a joke). Because people do get hit by buses and vanish from our lives. The concreteness of the reference makes me more likely to take the caution seriously (in those times when I'm not working on being completely in denial about mortality, that is).

Quotation help: some time ago, I remember here, I read a quote that was roughly, "To have a dog is to know that you will cry," that I remember as being Kipling or someone Kiplinglike. I cannot find it, and I've wanted it a few times since. A very cursory Google didn't turn it up, and anything more in-depth is not good for me right now (we have hit the 'you will cry' part of having a family dog) but does anyone know who said it, and what it actually is?

Diatryma - Is it this one? That's certainly Kipling. My sympathies to you and your family.

Dave @199: good to hear that you are making progress, even if you're going to be in the clutches of Scunthorpe General for a while.

Diatryma @212: I'd point to the same source as Sam Kelly, and extend my sincere condolences on your loss.

Diatryma @212:

My sympathies for your loss.

My condolences, Diatryma.

Diatryma, I'm so sorry. (I wish I could find the cartoon someone did of the dog slipping through the doggie door in the Pearly Gates, which comforted me after the loss of my dachshund Phoebe.)

Dave Bell

Good to hear you've survived your accident. Get well soon and stay in touch as best you can.

I just hate finding out indirectly and much later when old friends and acquaintances have died. About three years ago, quite by accident, I came across a website containing a eulogy to someone who had died almost a year before, less than a month after I'd last seen him. We weren't close, but we'd worked together about 15 years before, when he'd done some work for the lab I was in as part of a cooperative agreement with his PhD adviser. Not too long after that he made a name for himself in the field, and so we'd see each other once or twice a year at conferences, and sit and talk for awhile, or have lunch in between sessions. But to find out that when I saw him last he'd just had a round of chemo, and no one there noticed!

Do others also see Santa Krosp driving a team of pygmy mammoth on/in a Girl Genius Christmas wallpaper? Also check what has & hasn't changed in the paleofuturistic vision of 'Santa in 2007'.

Online amusing typos: Ending an article about police shooting someone, "A critical indecent investigation team is now investigating".

Weather note: the bad snowstorm finally arrived today (the 2 or 3 earlier in the week weren't much of a problem), and, as we've got plenty of food, and the heat isn't dependent on outside power, we're just holing up in the house and playing training games with the dogs. If the power goes out (common in storms here) we'll break out the flashlights and tell ghost stories.

Right now I'm upstairs, looking out past the deck at a swirling cloud of snow with Brahms Symphony #2 on the stereo; the more energetic passages suit the snow quite well. We've had about 4 inches so far today, with at least another 2 predicted*, so tonight we're going to eat downstairs with a pseudolog burning in the fireplace and the dogs curled up with us. I will raise a glass of wine to all of you out there, hoping your winter celebrations will be as warm and cosy.

* Might be more; the predictions are for the valley floor, and we're at about 500 feet, which usually translates to more snow.

On living with, loving & losing a dog – and much more besides – Walking With Zeke, by Chris Clarke. There can be comfort & help in healing thru' art such as this.

Dave Bell, keep as well as possible; heal & return. Scunthorpe has some little internet-related notoriety. Do the hospitalers know?

I'm looking at the same crappy weather that Bruce is.

REally, this is extraordinary, at least for Portland. I'm not terribly concerned about electricity or heat, but if need be I have a fireplace and some logs and lots of scrap paper. I charged batteries yesterday.

The apartment managers haven't bothered shoveling the walks. Every few hours I use a stiff broom to clear the fluff off of the stairs and walk to my car.

I know at least one person who was hit by a bus; I tend to use "tea cart" in place of bus, and also "devoured by bears" (or weasels) or "eaten by eels".

Have encountered at least one person with non-NorAm origins who considered the bears a real risk, which was mildly surreal. No one seems to have issues with the eels.

Lots of snow in Toronto; many fewer grumpy birds at the feeder today (it being clear and cold) than yesterday (snow and wind, but less cold). Doubt we'll lose power, but lots of charged lights and gas heat if we do.

As far as programming languages go, well, the one I'm nearly good at is XSL, which doesn't make lists. I suppose XSL would have to be druidism, because it's inextricably concerned with trees and turning one thing into another.

Diatryma, my sympathies. We hit that same wall two months ago with our 16-year-old pointer.

Yesterday an ornament fell off the tree and we both waited for the dog to start barking at it.

Bruce @ 219:

I suspect your friend was trying to have people not notice that he'd just had chemo.

Thanks, everyone. Jazzdog was a good old dog, and a good dog to grow up with.

Iowa is now... well, today wasn't so bad for me; fairly warm, snow coming down. Tonight could get down to negative eight (um, negative twenty-plus for sensible Celsius users) with winds of thirty-five miles per hour. I chiseled my car out before heading to a party tonight, and that took about half an hour. I still haven't found my windshield wipers. I'll dig them out with the Christmas Hatchet tomorrow.

And old reading by the late Carl Sagan, accompanied by a funny but appropriate selection of film clips:

Pale Blue Dot

Earl, #209, I have a neighbor who was in on AOL early and retired and doesn't work anymore. He seems to stay in his condo most of the time, except for the nine months or so when he'd lost some weight and dated a lot.

Diatryma, #212, I'm so sorry to hear that. We make them part of our family knowing they'll probably die before we do, but when the time comes, the loss isn't any less.

Graydon, #224, when I had some UKan fans staying with me a good while back and mentioned that someone had seen a black bear about five miles away, they were very nervous.

I found this interesting. The "Things You can't Say When Drunk" Particle includes the following:

Officers are also issuing general safety advice which includes: Always let someone know where you are going and when you expect to be back. Stick to busy well-lit streets and avoid deserted parks and dark alleys – even if it means taking the longer way home. Walk down the middle of the street if it is deserted. Think about what you would do if you felt threatened. Avoid passing stationary cars with their engines running and people sitting in them. If a vehicle pulls up suddenly alongside you, turn and walk in the other direction – you can turn much faster than a car. Consider carrying a personal safety alarm.

All of those are things which are constantly told to women as "how to avoid rape"; it's odd but also heartening to hear that sort of advice being given in a non-gendered context.

abi's #200 reminded me of back in the 1990's, when I was one of the members in a GEnie online screenwriting workshop, and one of the other members, Arnold Federbush, suddenly stopped contributing. Queries were posted online with no response, and no one was able to contact him offline.

Then, after a couple of months, I received the latest issue of DAILY VARIETY... and found Arnold's obituary in the back pages. (He'd never quite managed to sell any of his fiction screenplays, but had done some well-regarded documentary work earlier in life.)

He'd had cancer, apparently for a long period, but hadn't mentioned it to anyone in the workshop.

Some of the workshoppers felt a bit hurt by that, because they'd been left out of the loop by someone they considered a friend.

On the other hand, I suspect Arnold just didn't want to seem like he was looking for sympathy or pity. So he kept his personal problems to himself.

(Looking back, I think he did make a "goodbye", in a way, because one of the last things he put online was his long-time pet project, a semi-autobiographical screenplay about a young Jewish man's relationship with his Korean-American girlfriend, and the culture clash involved. A pretty damn good screenplay, too, with a number of laugh-out-loud moments.)

I'm of mixed mind whether I'd do the same in a similar situation. (I'm of an age where I tend to find myself expecting a Friggin' Serious shoe to drop, healthwise, one of these days or years, rather than just the standard aches, pains and discombobulations advancing age has made a far too regular part of current days.)

(I wish Arnold was still around. He was one of the best, most perceptive critics in that workshop, with a very "toughlove" attitude that, if it sometimes left an ego badly bruised, was also almost invariably right.)

(If Arnold Federbush's name seems familiar to some of the readers here on ML, it's likely because he had several science-fiction novels published in the 1970's.)

I hope you won't mind indulging my curiosity, since All Knowledge is Contained in Making Light:

Ikea in Atlanta closed early on Tuesday December 9th this year, and it is making me really curious. Is there a holiday that day? Would a chain like Ikea close a US store early to observe Anna's day*, the only holiday I can find for that date in Sweden? Or perhaps there was something more mundane going on in the area or with the store?

Suggestions on how to Google for the answer are also welcome. I'm going out there today, and I may ask an employee or two, but I'm not sure I'll get a good answer.

*Per wikipedia**, "Recognizes everyone named Anna, and marks the day to start the preparation process of the lutefisk to be consumed on Christmas Eve. "

**Yes, I know. But for this, I figure it is safe.

Caroline@208 writes: "With a B.S. in physics and a single semester of C++ under my belt, I was hired to force FORTRAN to do things it was never meant to do."

I feared as much would happen, and see? It's already begun.

May I humbly suggest that a self-directed course in Haskell would probably go a long way toward helping the physicist to remain in the service of Science and not to become tragically enthralled to some eldritch and terrible chimera of bad engineering and American management theory?

Caroline@208 writes: "With a B.S. in physics and a single semester of C++ under my belt, I was hired to force FORTRAN to do things it was never meant to do."

I feared as much would happen, and see? It's already begun.

May I humbly suggest that a self-directed course in Haskell would probably go a long way toward helping the physicist to remain in the service of Science and not to become tragically enthralled to some eldritch and terrible chimera of bad engineering and American management theory?

Marilee@229: ...when I had some UKan fans staying with me a good while back and mentioned that someone had seen a black bear about five miles away, they were very nervous.

I'm reminded of the time our elder daughter went on a trip to England with a troop of northern New Hampshire Girl Scouts. Part of the trip involved participation in some kind of joint Girl Scouts/Girl Guides camping event in the Forest of Dean, where our visiting Scouts were shocked (in a real violation-of-food-taboos kind of way) to see that the local Guides had no issues with taking food into their tents.

"Butbutbut you never take food into your tent! If you do, you're going to attract bears!"

Pause. Wide eyes on the Girl Guides.

"You mean you camp where there are bears?"

No particular order:

Debra Doyle @235, I've awakened after sleeping in a pickup canopy with no door to find cougar prints (one set, in motion) on the hood of the truck, so I'd laugh at the Guides except for my Puget Sound native inability to walk barefoot in rattlesnake country.

Bruce and Stefan, I awakened to an inch of ice on top of the total of fourteen inches of snow on the ground: four inches that fell Wednesday and the ten or so that fell all day yesterday. I do have electric heat, and also a driveway known as "the family curse:" narrow, long, steep, dropping off on the west into the well excavation, with three right-angle turns. All of that pales in comparison to the misery of being told by people from elsewhere that people around here are weanies about the weather, especially when the manager of the theater my son works at just moved here from Wisconsin or somewhere and thinks the state patrol is trying to ruin Christmas week boxoffice by telling people to stay off the roads.

The birds are skating on the ground under the feeder, and having to choose their perching twigs very carefully indeed.

Diatryma, I mourn your loss with you. Dogs are given us to teach us loyalty and to turn around three times before we lie down, (Thurber, I think) but they also teach us, over and again, that love leads inevitably to bereavement, and that the former, in the long run, is what lasts.

Reporting from outside of Portland, Oregon (also home of Bruce and Stefan), I accumulated about 10 inches of snow yesterday. It's really lovely, and for the moment I am home safe and snug. Alas, I'm stressed about Monday travel because I'm supposed to be flying out that evening. I do have chains for one of my cars, but due to an unfortunate series of events, that car got a flat on Friday night and I couldn't get the tire repaired. So it's got a spare on, but you can't put chains on the mini-spare, and my chains won't fit my other car....arrgh. It'll all work out, but I find myself very irritated.

R.M. Koske @ 232: My guess is that they shut down early for an employee holiday gathering, allowing everyone to attend rather than having some stuck at work while the rest got to party.

I was reading the discussion of the 100 greatest WB cartoons over at Boing Boing which reminded me of a question I've had for awhile. My local independent station was signed up with a package of LT and MM's which had some large gaps in it so there are a bunch I've never seen--and based on Ted Turner's reaction when he saw Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips I doubt I'll ever see them now. (As an amateur animation historian I'm lucky I got the laserdisc with BBNTN before it was pulled---on the other hand if I never see the one with the quail doing a psuedo-Benchley again it will be fine with me.) Anyway, if we leave out Tiny Toon Adventures (They had the Myna Bird successfully eaten by a werewolf, which caused my mind to close with a sharp snapping sound), was there ever a cartoon that established who was faster, Speedy Gonzales or the Road Runner? I've wondered about this for quite awhile, and figured that I'd get a more accurate answer here...

#238, Carol -

You guessed correctly. I did manage to find an employee who knew the answer (well, given what the answer *was*, that's to be expected, I suppose) and it was indeed for a holiday party. That hadn't occurred to me because I've never worked anywhere that did anything like that, and never expected a company the size of Ikea to do such a thing. It was a nice surprise.

Adding to #237: It is truly godawful out. Right now the noontime sleet layer is being covered with fresh fluffy snow.

I think I'll go brush off the steps. The less stuff to become ice the better.

I think I'll be taking the train to the airport on Tuesday evening.

Debra @235: As I discovered last night, there are much bigger things than bears to worry about in the Forest of Dean.

All: Warm and dry thoughts are winging your way. Just when I'd finished clearing the driveway, Boston got more snow, which then turned to rain, and then the temperature headed south of the freezing mark, making for a just delightful experience getting home and chiseling our tenant's car out, I've no doubt. I don't mind snow, but I really could do without ice.

Terry, I don't have independent transportation. I don't know which days will be good days in advance, so it's hard to arrange anything. It would be great to see you, though, so I'll keep it in mind.

Diatryma, I'm sorry for your loss.

My dad is doing better. He went home from the hospital today. After he recovers some more strength &c., they'll start talking about chemo. The tumor turns out not to be pancreatic cancer per se, but a high-grade sarcoma that started in the tissue surrounding the pancreas (or somewhere nearby). Good news is it isn't pancreatic cancer; bad news is that it's a very rare cancer that no one seems to know much about.

But he's doing better! We're in YAY mode right now.

Xopher,

I'm glad to hear your dad's cancer isn't pancreatic. Every message you've posted in this thread has reminded me of something my friend Ron Echeverri reprinted without attribution a few months ago. (He couldn't find attribution. Maybe someone here knows where it came from.)

Surgery has three rules.

1. Eat when you can
2. Sleep when you can
3. Don't fuck with the pancreas

I'm not kidding. Google it: these are established rules. You don't fuck with the pancreas because it's a poorly-encapsulated organ that, when inflamed, can't hold a stitch worth a good God damn, is a slurry of cells and enzymes that are trying to digest everything they can inside the body, is intimately involved with the superior mesenteric artery and vein, the celiac plexus, overlies the aorta, has a ductal system that must remain intact, is prone to form high-output fistulas, can trigger fatal systemic inflammation and —and— is so anatomically crucial that removal of the head of the pancreas can only be accomplished if you also remove part of the duodenum, gallbladder, part of the biliary tract and half the stomach.

Surgerizing the pancreas is like trying to remodel a house full of gasoline. And the house is made of Jell-O. And sits on top of a kindergarten. And it's on fire. And filled with bees. Don't fuck with the pancreas.

The particle "Things you can't say when you're drunk" messes up one of the phrases.

"Sorry, but you're not really my is" should read "Sorry, but you’re not really my type."

The thing I really don't understand is "no kebab for me." I'd love a nice kebab right now.

You must feel like you're on a roller coaster, Xopher. Hang on tight!

Xopher: I don't have independant transport either, at the moment.

I also don't seem to have any form of functioning email tonight, so I can't give you my phone number.

Xopher - your dad doing better is YAY indeed. May you all enjoy the time together, however long it may be for.

As you know, Jim #245: the kebab, in its extremely greasy, with-fries, from-a-suspicious-late-night-outlet-or-god-help-you-a-van form, traditionally holds the place in English culture of the inadvisable food consumed in the wee hours when the principle demand of one's alcohol-ruined mortal coil is for trans fats. I do miss it; the deep-fried spicy pork skewer and odeng soup just isn't the same somehow.

When I was in Scotland with the Territorials I was taught (as were the Canadians) of the mystical "kebab compass".

When stonkered one bought a kebab, and ate it as one walked. This would, we were assured, work to get one home.

After a night of several pints, and a couple of whiskies, I left, stumbled into a kebab shop; got the last one for the night (it turned out to be a huge slab of na'an, with spiced lamb, onions, etc. on it), and began to went my way back to Cameron Barracks (which were not fixed to solidly in my mind's eye), had someone try to filch a bit; had someone else fondle my hat (asking if it was Australian) and discovered, as I was just running out of kebab, I was back in familiar territory.

Plus, having the garlic mayo means you'll feel better the next day. Trust me.

Also, Terry Karney's post highlights my provincialness: I ought to have said British culture, not English. I'm having enough trouble explaining the difference to others (the UK/Britain/England/Ireland web of relations apparently being quite blurred together) that I ought to be wary about forgetting it myself.

Brief update; moved to ward 10. much confusion, keyboard shift seems dead, otherwise doing well. we bells are tough

Dave Bell @ 253... Glad to hear the bells are improving.

Dear Serge @ 254 ...
The -last- mental image I needed was Dave Bell's hospital bed doing a bell-ringer imitation, and bobbing up and down to hackneyed pseudo-carols...

xeger @ 255... Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings!

Ah hah!!! Had I been paying only a smidge more attention, have already pre-ordered Regenesis ... as is, I see a trip to my local shop coming up shortly...

In August 1914 the Army told my grandfather he was unfit for military service. So he went back the next day, dodged the medical, and joined-up anyway.

His Military Medal was gazetted in early 1919--you can find Charlie Bell of the Lincolnshire Regiment on The London Gazette website.

I do my best, but it's a hard act to follow.

Xopher, if you can get a bus into downtown LA, there's a farmers market (with hot and cold food stands too) in front of the Central Library, every Wednesday.

(I actually have Wednesday off this week, but there's a display of maps at the library I want to see. Need to check their hours.)

Xopher -

Glad to hear your dad's doing better, and hope you're enjoying the grey and rainy weather that passes for winter around her.

In case you haven't been acquainted with LAs myriad and obscure public transit options, here are a couple of resources:

Big Blue Bus

This is a Culver City/Santa Monica bus system. I haven't used it, but it looks like it covers some routes that the patchwork of the MTA doesn't.

Speaking of which:

MTA

This website is actually pretty helpful, and includes advice on point-to-point transport as well as general route maps. If you can get to Union Station ("downtown" LA) you can take the Gold Line (light rail) to Pasadena. The MTA also runs buses all around Pasadena.

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2008/3320

The suspicious, disturbing death of election rigger Michael Connell
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
December 20, 2008

Michael Connell, the crucial techno-lynch pin in the theft of the 2004 election, and much more, is dead at the age of 45. His unnatural, suspicious death raises serious questions about the corruption of the American electoral process that now may never be answered.

He was a prime suspect in all those disappeared e-mails, along with vote-flipping the vote in 2004 in Ohio, and much, much more--he seems to have been a virulent religious fanatic, on the Rove team out of religious anti-abortion zealotry..., He was supposed to testify this morning.... Reputedly he had been threatened by Karl Rove regarding revealing information....

Thanks for the sympathy, everyone.

I'm glad to hear about your father, Xopher. Nonpancreatic cancer still bites, but it's better than pancreatic.

I drove home in ill-advised weather, some of it two-lane, and kept thinking, "If I freeze to death, I'm going to have to write a note first saying I'm sorry Making Light you may mock me now." But my car stayed on the road, I called 911 for a flipped pickup even though I felt like I'd get in trouble*, and my side of the road wasn't the one covered in drifts, so yay.

*mental shorthand, I'm not sure for what

Paula Lieberman @261: If this were scripted, it would turn out that the plane crash and his 'death' was a cover to throw off his pursuers and ensure his full cooperation, to be followed by a new identity in the Witness Protection Program. Alas.

Tuesday I leave hospital and move to De Lacy House in Winterton for a form of convalescent care. Availability of Net access is unknown to me, as yet.

I am not dead yet

Dave Bell @179:
Best wishes for a speedy & full recovery.
And sympathies too to Diatryma & Xopher. I'm still trying to catch up* on all sorts of stuff.

*Speaking of which and apropos Open Thread, it turns out that 2008 will be a Leap Second year.

Today's NY Times science section (OK, mock me for reading it!) has an article about Obama's energy adviser Dr. Steven Chu that was interesting for several reasons. First, he has a lab in my old homeplace Emeryville CA -- I lived there 17 years, but left before the lab was established in '05. And one of the things the place is investigating, despite underfunding for the topic, is artificial photosynthesis. In the Capra movie I watched last week, "You Can't Take it With You"*, Jimmy Stewart had plans to do research into "what makes the grass green" until his mega-mogul dad talked him out of it. That could have led to photosynthesis studies, eventually.

*For those who haven't seen it, an entertaining flick. Jean Arthur lives in a motley household where her father and another guy build fireworks, with the help of a pet raven, and everyone can break out dancing.

Bruce E. Durocher, #239: My local independent station was signed up with a package of LT and MM's which had some large gaps in it so there are a bunch I've never seen--and based on Ted Turner's reaction when he saw Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips I doubt I'll ever see them now.

A lot of Warner Brothers cartoons have been released on DVD in the six-part Looney Tunes Golden Collection series, including many that WB can't or won't show on TV for various reasons--wartime themes, character designs so old they're now off-model, general datedness, and in some cases mild but still unpleasant racism. The DVDs started warning viewers about the latter with volume three.

was there ever a cartoon that established who was faster, Speedy Gonzales or the Road Runner?

During Warner Brothers animation's declining years the studio released a short called "The Wild Chase" in which Speedy raced the Road Runner while Sylvester and the Coyote tried to catch them. We never find out who's faster. In places the short recycled animation from older Road Runner cartoons; the rest is dispiritingly bad. It's on volume four of the Golden Collection DVDs. I recommend watching it with Paul Dini's commentary--he eventually gets bored and starts imagining the dialogue between Sylvester and the Coyote, and it's funnier than anything in the actual cartoon.

Xopher

Yay! I'm rooting for more good news.

Dave Bell

Keep us informed as best you can; it's always nice to hear good news of someone convalescing, rather than bad news of someone going the other way.

In a NYT review of My Vocabulary Made Me Do This, a collection of poetry by Bay Area poet Jack Spicer, the reviewer notes that he "roomed in the same Berkeley boarding house with a young Philip K. Dick" back in the 1940s.

Spicer was remembered in the Bay Area at least long enough for me to have heard of him a few years after he died, and the snippets of poetry in the review are interesting. I wonder if he and young PKD interacted in any way.

SeanH - 249 -
As you know, Jim #245: the kebab, in its extremely greasy, with-fries, from-a-suspicious-late-night-outlet-or-god-help-you-a-van form, traditionally holds the place in English culture of the inadvisable food consumed in the wee hours when the principle demand of one's alcohol-ruined mortal coil is for trans fats.

Here in Rochester, we call that a Garbage Plate, or "street meat" (the van form). Less useful for the purposes of compassing - but for a large portion of the year, you don't want to be wandering around downtown randomly anyways, because by the time you figure out where you're going, you're a frozen corpsicle...

(There are various places you can get kebabs in Rochester, but nothing like a British kebab shop. There might be a couple of street meat vendors that sell kebabs - I'm not sure, to be honest).

SeanH @249 and Scott @270: Around here, that would be the taco wagon, aka "roach coach". You don't see anything but Tex-Mex being sold from a mobile vehicle in this part of the country. They're very popular as lunch sources around construction sites, or in areas with lots of small retail businesses.

#271
One of my aunts sold breakfast tacos from her vehicle for a couple of years, to make ends meet. (Ingredients I recall: sausage, eggs, potatoes, lettuce, tomatoes.) She'd get up early, make a batch, and take them to a few construction sites in an insulated chest. (Some of the crews wouldn't eat anyone else's, and even chased off some other vendors.)

Lee #271:

Here in Austin is a large construction zone (not one individual site, but dozens) involving six builders. On some weekdays, it's an absolute cacophony of competing roach coach horns, as they cruise the streets, not only at lunch, but at morning and afternoon coffee breaks. (Possibly early supper as well.) I've also seen there a chap with an ice cream cart, hauling cold or frozen snacks along the alleyways. I can't find the picture I took to get what the cart said, but it was definitely Hispanic-targeted.

Hawai'i has lunch wagons. The staple is a plate lunch (meat, two scoops rice, scoop macaroni salad, possibly greens as a sop to healthy eating).

Linkmeister @ 274:

Also kimchee, or at least they offered it when I lived there in '76 and '77. I learned to enjoy it then, but now, I don't think I could tolerate it.

glinda, the key word is "offered." It's not an automatic item on the plate at most sites. From my point of view, that's good; I have never acquired a taste for kimchee (or poi, or taro, or lomi lomi salmon, or. . .)

The taco trucks around here actually sell some of the best Mexican food. Better than the cheese-drenched stuff you get at chain restaurants for sure, and cheaper by far.

Oh, we have lunch wagons as well, although they are primarily found at worksites, rather than on the city streets (the city won't license them for food service inside city boundaries, other than at construction sites - only the small trailer versions can be licensed as street vendors).

Most of the lunch wagons around here aren't that big - they're usually based on a pickup truck frame, with food in a cab on the back - some of them have a grill on one side, others appear to just carry pre-made stuff, kept warm (or cold) in insulated containers, and dispensed by the driver. Unlike the larger ones (or the trailers), the cook/driver usually works outside the cab - the side panels lift up to provide a little protection from the rain, but winters have got to be pretty miserable. (One exception to the "usually smaller" schtick - Nick Tahous has a roach coach built on an towed RV frame that is monstrous - it's almost a rolling Tahous, only no seating).

Oh, and I would love to see Hawai'ian style lunch trucks around here - especially, say, an ex-pat Philadelphian doing up proper cheesesteaks...

(There is one place in the city that does up proper cheesesteaks, Philly-style, to a level where a friend of mine (from there), doesn't complain about them. It is, of course, on the other side of the city from me...).

When I was machining we set our breaks by the truck. When we moved they couldn't get to us at the same time, so breafast moved 20 minutes later.

Lunch was still at the same time. I guess we were good business.

In DC, for years there's been just fake half-smokes and hot dogs, so DC has been changing some of the rules to bring other cuisines in to street carts. Washpost article. Here in Manassas, I see the Hispanics coming home with their lunch trucks.

Y'all need to read Jo Walton's Holy Birth Fanfic.

Consulting the MLES (Making Light Expert System):

I have noticed an increasingly common use of 'self-depreciating'* which I always thought should self-deprecating', as in ' self-deprecating humour'. Which should it be?

*There's a joke about the credit crunch in here somewhere.

...which I always thought should be 'self-deprecating'...

Soon Lee, self-deprecating is correct. I think people are thinking of "appreciate" and saying to themselves "the converse should be depreciate."

There are a lot of immobile trailers in Portland that dispense lunches of various derivations. There's one parking lot on 10th Avenue, I think, that rents out space to a few of them; they're all lined up in a row next to the sidewalk. One's Mexican, another's Thai, and a couple are strange fusion mixtures. I wonder that they can hold up against the competition; two blocks away is a block of restaurants most of which feature a cheap buffet lunch, one Indian (very good), one Persian (also very good), one Lebanese (extremely good), and a pretty good tacqueria around the corner.

Linkmeister, #285: And so it is, if you're talking about "appreciate" in the financial sense rather than the courteous. People are being tripped up here by the word having more than one common usage.

This is not connected to anything that came before, as nearly as I know. :)

When one spells out a word with diactrical marks, how should one refer to them? I mean things like "u with a circumflex" or "o with an umlaut". Is there a standard for such things?

I've always either pronounced them like that, or u-circumflex, e-acute, and so on. Or gone on to the end and then 'there's an acute on the the second e'. On the other hand, I've at least as often heard them referred to by description or nickname - "you know, that little pointy thing" or "those dots". Referring to the cedilla as a Sinclair may have been a purely local habit.

In Welsh, the circumflex is referred to as to bach (little roof) - a very common mistake amongst Welsh learners is to call it ty bach, which translates as "little house", and means "toilet". In a similar vein, "I" and "i" are usually spelled out as "ee-dot", to avoid confusion with the English "E". Analogous to "i grec" in French I suppose.

Drat. I wanted to go see "Milk" today. Instead, I've been volunteered to go see "Valkyrie" with my father-in-law while the girls go on their own cinematic explorations.

Those who dislike Eric Schwartz's song Me 'n' Jenny and the Lovely Marilu will probably also fail to appreciate John Hall's parody of it.

R.I.P. Eartha Kitt. With "Santa Baby" still playing on the radio. :-(

Lila @ 292 -
R.I.P. Eartha Kitt. With "Santa Baby" still playing on the radio. :-(

yeah.

:-( :-( :-(

Holiday binding notes:

I received a Dover copy of Manly* Banister's The Craft of Bookbinding for Christmas. The text† actually suggests Dover as a good source of books for rebinding. Further, the back cover copy proclaims,

A DOVER EDITION DESIGNED FOR YEARS OF USE!

We have made every effort to make this the best book possible. Our paper is opaque, with minimal show-through; it will not discolor or become brittle with age. Pages are bound in signatures, in the method traditionally used for the best books, and will not drop out. Books open flat for easy reference. The binding will not crack or split. This is a permanent book.

Except...this book is perfect‡ bound! There are no signatures. It does not lay flat. There's no point in rebinding it.

Oops. At least the paper is reasonable.

My partner received an actual sewn book: Mark Ronan's Symmetry and the Monster, from Oxford University Press. Six signatures with actual thread at the bottom. Of course, it's printed on almost-newsprint which was bound cross-grain.

sigh.

--
* The photography doesn't do the author's name justice.
† Dated 1975 and not originally published by Dover, who picked it up in 1993.
‡ See Abi's excellent overview for examples of common binding types.

And for Christmas, the Foglios show us the pure essence of comedy yet again....

Ralph @294:

The Craft of Bookbinding was one of my first binding books; more than any other, it got me into craft and fine binding.

My copy is also perfect bound, which is vexing.

Trivia point: Unless there were two Manly Miles Banisters born in 1914, our guy was also a minor speculative fiction writer in the 1940's, 50's and 60's.

abi @ 296: Binding, fiction, and lycanthropy. Neat!

It does seem like a good book. I've never really read anything; almost all I know is from classes, but I recognize a lot of the forms. Some things are jarring, like the offhand comment about most commercial books not being rebindable because the margins are so small one can't trim it much after resewing. Taking classes from a conservator trained half a century later, one of the first things I learned is that anything old enough to rebind is old enough to respect as an historical object, along with much grumbling at the damage done by 19th century binders casually taking 5 mm off some centuries-old book, sometimes several times through the years.

Manly Bannister: I also recognize that name from a book I had once called The Practical Encyclopedia of Crafts, as creator of many of the works of art therein shown.

This Open Thread is kinda old, but here's a link to what I did on my Christmas vacation: The Great Guánica Accidental Off-Trail Trek of 2008. I'm still healing, but it was a great hike.

Michael, #299, what a story! I'm glad the damage is minor, considering the possibilities.

Michael Roberts @ 299... Glad you made it back.

David Harmon @ 295.... I especially liked the following exchange ealier this week,

"Ah - you dance divinely... Such a pity my dear brother can't take a turn."
"Oh, he doesn't dance?"
"The poor fellow has two right feet."
"Don't you mean two left feet?"
"Oh, no... After the accident, we had to use what we had."

The damage doesn't feel so minor, today, Marilee. I itch!!! (My hate for urushiol burns with the heat of a thousand suns. Especially stealth urushiol from plants that shouldn't even have it. Mangoes are a great example of that.)

But yeah, it coulda been worse. In the end, we had a nice little adventure that compressed all the stress and fear of a major trip into four hours' time. It's a great way to bleed off the wanderlust until we have some more stability and money.

Michael, have you ever been to the Na Pali coast on Kauai? It also has knife-edged features.

And I'm glad you got out in time; when we lived at Roosevelt Roads my family wasn't as adventurous as yours.

Linkmeister - yeah, it looks a little like that, except on a scale of centimeters instead of hectometers. Those rocks look smooth at the human scale, at least in the (beautiful) pictures.

As to adventurosity -- we're not actually as adventurous as all that. But since we decided, after a disastrous series of decisions between 2002 and about 2006, to stay put in one place in the world until we're solvent, we've been sort of chafing. We haven't left the island in a year now and it's like coiling a spring. Combine that with the fact that staying put really has begun to make us solvent, and it's damned hard not to pack up and fly.

I'm miserable today, but dermatitis heals. A good story like this one is food for the soul, though. It's what life is. This last year has been very ... mundane.

Except for the whole "living in the tropics" aspect, of course.

Samuel Huntington has died. He died on Xmas Eve, but the announcement was only made today.

Runty little hamster may make Guinness World Records for the smallest hamster.

Michael Roberts, Linkmeister, et al. Mr. Banister also comments that leather bound books should lot be taken to tropical climes, for it greatly shortens their span. Can it be true?

They laughed at me. Said a library couldn't be built on the atoll. But I showed them. I showed them! I was triumphant. My temple to knowledge was a wonder of the world! Until the hurricane came. Now it's gone. My dream is broken and the sea, the sea is taking it back.

Leather was not a luxury in the tropics--leather furniture was shipped from factories in Massachusetts to South Vietnam during a certain "police action" decades ago, because the leather was the only fabric that would stand up to the climate and abuse.

(Source--the factory owner talking to my father--the shipment was in a warehouse there waiting to be delivered to based, and the factory got blown up.... meaning the factory then received a replacement order....)

Perhaps the glue used was breaking down in the leather-bound books, but it shouldn't have been the leather.

I would have thought the problem with leather in the tropics was mildew. Perhaps the furniture was treated to resist it in a way not known earlier.

#303 Michael

From the WWII official government issue songbook my father had, which I should have swiped when I had the chance...

"Wrap both your elbows up around your neck
And scratch, scratch scratch
Don't stop a second if you do by heck
Your troubles start to hatch
What's the use of all those sulfa salves
They never were worth much,
So wrap both your elbows up around your neck
And scratch, scratch, scratch!"

The block in Portland with all the food carts that Bruce Cohen mentioned at #286 was featured in the final episode of this year's "Amazing Race". The poor teams got a clue that they were to go to the "Alder street pod" (maybe it was "Alder cart pod"), and the strangers on the sidewalk that they asked all managed to think of this clump of food carts and give them directions. The teams had to find the Russian food cart to get their next clue. They then stood on the sidewalk yelling "does anyone know what 'the magic is in the hole means?'" This was instantly recognized as Voodoo Donuts, of course.

I think it is the biggest clump of food carts in Portland (though I've never heard it called a pod). There are at least a dozen carts arranged on all 4 sides of a surface parking lot. The Sugar Cube has excellent deserts -- it was written up in The Oregonian recently. I think the coffee and tea cart was voted best chai in Portland. There are the usual burritos, bento boxes, falafel sandwiches, salad rolls, etc. The Whole Bowl rice-and-beans+ is both tasty and healthy.

The Western Culinary Institute is across the street, so between classes there's usually a large clump of young people in chef's jackets and black and white checked pants slouched against the wall smoking cigarettes -- a sort of culinary gang ambiance that amuses me.

I'm in grouchy crone mode today; people are being very stupid and I don't want to talk to any more of them.

Item 1: the few driveways and private road access points which have been cleared were done so under the misapprehension that making mounds of snow across the intersecting sidewalks is a simply grand plan. This is bad enough where there's safe ways to go around, but in Lakewood yesterday people were being forced to walk in the street after leaving buses on a busy 35mph arterial.

Item 2: at my house, a certain young man (who has personally witnessed the ice that stays on our driveway long after it has thawed elsewhere starting with the time in kindergarten when he slid all the way down on his back) tried to drive the F-250 up the hill and fetched up in the briar patch.

Item 3: Forget the WASL or SAT. When I am God-Queen of Everything nobody gets out of high-school without being able to demonstrate proficiency with a shovel, hammer, screw-driver, crescent wrench and possibly a power drill, and a clear ability to identify circumstances where immediate muscular effort is vastly superior to waiting for the government to take action (see sidewalks and driveways, above).

janetl @ 313

a sort of culinary gang ambiance that amuses me.

"Warrrriiiiors ... come out and coo-oook!"

Monsters over the subways.

JESR @ 314... I for one welcome our God-Queen of Everything.

janetl @ 313: a sort of culinary gang ambiance that amuses me

Chef Side Story?

When you're a Chef,
You're a Chef all the way
From the first dish you wash
To your final soufflé ...

Right. "Food fight!"

JESR @ 314

Item 1A: This city seems to think it's OK to have streets that don't have any sidewalk, AND to plow those streets so the bike lines and verges are completely covered with snow, forcing pedestrians, and especially pedestrians with dogs on leash, to walk in the road. This is especially nasty where the roads curve and turn a lot, and commuters come around the curves at speed.

Invoking open-threadedness ... has anyone else noticed the the Acura ad this season that features an assortment of little kids joyfully playing with their new toys, and the very last kid in the red cape and goggles? Cute.

Speaking of open threadiness: anyone know where I can get a feather wig? I want something with black feathers, in the feather equivalent of a pixie cut.

I could make one of my own I guess, but it'd be a pain in the neck sewing all those feathers down and I wouldn't do as good a job as someone who does it all the time.

Bruce @319, we Suburban Americans are victims of a theory of land development prevalent from the end of WW2 on which held that windy streets with no sidewalks and lots of confusing courts, drives, and cul-de-sacs (culs des sac?) would make drivers go more slowly and keep the streets safe for children. Not so much, but we're stuck with the physical expression of the intellectual error. This is often compounded by the Kemper Freeman Doctrine, which states that pedestrians and transit usesr are, on the whole, people without sufficient income to afford the houses and retail products the People Like Us deserve, and need, therefore, to be discouraged at all turns.

Snow just makes the resulting inhumane landscape more unforgiving.

I wish I could find a study I read a few years ago about emergency response times in subdivisions of different designs; I know that a particular old single-entrance loop subdivision near me has a sort of dead-zone in the middle where houses burn down because trucks cannot get in quickly enough to save them.

JESR @ 322... Ah, the days of yore, when I lived in the countryside, on what was the busiest road of said countryside.... Going to the matinee movies during winters meant, for this then 10-year-old, a 1.5 walk with cars zooming extremely right by. I'm amazed that my parents let me do it. Of course, if they had not, I'd have been prevented from admiring such works of Cinéma as Italy's Zorro vs Maciste.

re 322: There was a definite shift in suburban thinking around 1967 which made driving/plowing much more hostile. Older subdivisions are much more connected and therefore are easy to run a plow around. The penalty for this, such as it is, is that they are also easier to drive through; so newer stuff tends to have low connectivity and lots of dead ends. (My neighborhood is old and dead-end-y, but in its case the excuse is that there's precious little land to begin with.)

Fast forward another decade, and keeping people from driving through starts to become an obsession. The root cause is that builders would throw a development up around older existing roads, the latter providing the connectivity to allow the wagons to get to market; but once the developers get through with them, they are now residential streets. Thus began the battles between the people trying to get around and the people trying to keep the traffic away from their driveways. It didn't help that as a rule those roads were never ever improved, even though the traffic on them was going to rise anyway because of the residents. So now we have all these through roads covered with speed bumps and other "traffic-calming" devices, to try to keep the commuters more annoyed than they would be stuck in traffic on the "main" roads. There's a particularly obnoxious example I traverse every day because there's a middle school off a side street connecting to one of these roads, so that the kids have to go over a couple of speed bumps in a bus no matter which way they come from. (My kids could walk except that the two neighborhoods don't connect (to keep people from driving through, of course).) The fire departments hate all this.

I'm having a cranky post-Christmas, so I'd like to point out to the Darwin fish particle that it's not the shape of the emblem on your car that is the problem, but rather that there's an emblem the car besides the one the manufacturer put there.

JESR @ 322

All true, but I don't live in the suburbs; I'm quite comfortably (by about 3 miles) inside the city limits of Portland. None of the older subdivisions on the west side of the city, most of which were incorporated 60 or 70 years ago, have sidewalks. I think it was a gift to the developers so they wouldn't have to spend extra money, and so the roads didn't have to be as wide, especially here in the hills.

C. Wingate @325:

Why does the manufacturer get a pass? Surely, if your vehicle is going to have an emblem, the choice should be yours, not the manufacturer's. (I recognize that some people want their car to proclaim the maker; others want their cars to proclaim Darwin, sushi, or their favorite sports team.)

Vicki @ 327: The car's maker or the owner's Maker.

Serge @323: Going to the matinee movies during winters meant, for this then 10-year-old, a 1.5 walk with cars zooming extremely right by. I'm amazed that my parents let me do it.

I was bicycling today along a busy street through the center of the city, and thought of Hemmingway running with the bulls. What, he could do that maybe once a year at best? (10-year-old Serge out-machos Hemmingway).

Rob Rusick @ 329...

Hey! Hey! Hey, hey, hey!
Macho, macho man (macho man)
I've got to be, a macho man
Macho, macho man
I've got to be a macho! Ow....

Popping in from visiting family to ask a quick question:

When I'm at home, on my own computer, I can click on any of the comments in the left hand column, and only the link to that comment will change color. It will also land me on that comment in the comment thread, and again, only the link to that comment will change color. I can see what I've read, and where I am in any given thread, by finding the most recent comment with a different colored link.

Whenever I come to Making Light on a different computer, be it a public one at the libary, my computer at work, or one at a friend's or relative's house, this doesn't work. As soon as I click on a comment in the left margin, all the links to comments in that thread, both in the left margin and in the thread, change color, and continue to change into the future. I.e., when I come back tomorrow, all subsequent links to comments in this thread will have changed color.

Why is this? What am I doing wrong? How can I fix this?

Or am I the only one?

Juli: I don't know. That's how my machine works (and when I get to the end of a thread and hit the permalink, it records the same way; which is how I keep track of how far I've been in a thread).

Carrie S, #321, I'm finding either feather wigs or pixie cut wigs. Here's a wig you could probably cut down.

C. Wingate, #325: Could you unpack that a bit more, please? I don't understand what it is that you're seeing as a problem. I thought the point of the Darwin-fish particle was to be amused at the extent to which they've proliferated.

Juli: It's a mystery to me, because I never have any idea where I am in a thread just by looking, I have to try to remember the number, or keep scanning back until I hit a familiar message.

On another, unrelated note, why o why do I pile up books under and next to my bed? Why don't I remember how much I hate rummaging under the dusty bed to to get them and put them away. I must have dug out a hundred books and herded them back to their shelves.

By the prancing of feet on my roof, it -could- be a dozen-or-so reindeer, rather than an equally implausible number of procyon lotor.

Then again, given the weather, I'm wondering if they've mutated, and developed suckers on their paws, to keep them on the roof in the first place...

I'm having a difficult time imagining a punishment severe enough to redress injustices spawned by people who file frivolous patent violation lawsuits.

Juli Thompson @ 331:

"When I'm at home, on my own computer, I can click on any of the comments in the left hand column, and only the link to that comment will change color. It will also land me on that comment in the comment thread, and again, only the link to that comment will change color. I can see what I've read, and where I am in any given thread, by finding the most recent comment with a different colored link."

That's exactly what I see when visiting ML via my laptop, which runs Windows Vista (Home Premium edition).

"Whenever I come to Making Light on a different computer, be it a public one at the libary, my computer at work, or one at a friend's or relative's house, this doesn't work. As soon as I click on a comment in the left margin, all the links to comments in that thread, both in the left margin and in the thread, change color, and continue to change into the future. I.e., when I come back tomorrow, all subsequent links to comments in this thread will have changed color."

Which is what I see on my home desktop system, which runs Windows XP.

My suspicion is that the difference is an artifact of the way each version of the Windows OS (or its included version of IE) handles this type of page view (at least, with the default settings). I also expect that several of the folks here know considerably more about the details than I do . . . and far more than either of us would be likely to learn by consulting any of the MS help functions, in any of the applications involved.

Joel Polowin @ 318... I thought those were lyrics from West Side Entrée.

In case you're interested, tonight Turner Classic Movies is showing 1958's From the Earth to the Moon. It is extremely freely adapted from Jules Verne's novel, but it's interesting in a cheesy kind of way. It has Joseph Cotten as the inventor whom General Grant begs to destroy all knowledge of his atomic explosive. Instead he decides to use it to propel a rocket to the Moon, where he plans to more safely test the whole thing.

Serge @ 340 -

I remember that one. It also used the music -- well, the "electronic tonalities" -- from Forbidden Planet.

Marilee: I hadn't thought of cutting it down, that's definitely an idea.

What mystifies me is that none of the costume shops in my area carry feather wigs.

Steve C @ 340... You noticed that too, eh? That makes for a rather disjointed viewing experience, but we do get George Sanders saying:

"What have I wrought?"

That being said, and in spite of the dismal SFX, it was more entertaining than 2008's TV remake of Journey to the Center of the Earth. Rather symptomatic is a scene in the latter where Rick Schroeder, playing the James Mason role, sees dinosaurs for the first time ever, and they're flying ones at that. His only reaction is to casually observe that some people have proposed that birds descended from dinosaurs. Too bad Gertrude the duck wasn't among the cast of that version, which should have been titled Boring to the Center of the Earth.

339: No, it's the culinary remake of "Guys and Dolls", in which Sky Masterson plays seven-card stud for a fortune in properly aged beef.
Yes, it's high steaks poker.

ajay @ 344... Coming soon, Guys and Rolls?

Serge @ 345: Not to be mistaken for Guy and the Valley of the Dolls?

re 334: What I'm saying is that there is something ironic/perverse/annoying about responding to a plethora of smug/annoying/snide fish stickers with even more of the same thing, just from some imagined other side. But then, I am born out of some ultra-WASP strain where the only bumper stickers that ever appeared on my parent's cars were college parking lot tags and "No To Marriott Proposal". If children should be seen and not heard, cars should be seen and not read.

re 337: How about suing their lawyers for barratry?

Juli Thompson (331): Theory: the other computers are have Internet Explorer, and at home you're using some other browser. All the versions of IE I've seen have that undesirable behavior.

Ginger @ 346... Maybe it's just me, but Guy and the Valley of the Dolls sounds like a set piece from Russ Meyer - the Musical.

Terry, Leroy and flowery tops, thanks for replying.

Mary Aileen, I think you are on the right track! Thanks.

Another datum on comment link colours —
Work machine: Windows 2000-based, Internet Explorer (with finely-honed IT defence staff & programs), all links to a visited thread change;
Home machine: Old PowerPC Apple Mac running OS X 10.4.x using either Safari or Firefox, colour changes only on clicked comments in visited thread.

Like others, I click on the last comment I read in a thread so I can start from there next time.

Arise, Sir Terry Pratchett.

Bill Higgins -- Beam Jockey #353: I wonder what Sam Vimes would make of that.

I note, by the bye, that Sir Ian McKellen has been made a Companion of Honour.

Bill Higgins @#353: I liked the crack: "...there's been at least four people promoted as 'new Terry Pratchetts' so for all I know I may not even still be me."

That wouldn't be a Sam Vimes line, but I can easily see some of the Discworlders being concerned about that... never mind the Alzheimer's, being used as an eponym calls for an "AIN'T DEAD YET" sign right there!

Something besides the title keeping PTerry (PSirTerry? SirPTerry?) & such warm these nights – Ecco Pratchgan!
Which includes the motto “I Aten't Dead”. (Knitting is involved: Flickr pictures.)

Tonight's episode of Leverage makes me think there's an SF person working on that show. At some point, the computer genius of Timothy Hutton's team of crimefighters has been hiding in a van for hours as part of a stakeout and he gripes that the only internet connection he could get is so bad that it took him 2 hours to download the latest episode of Doctor Who.

C. Wingate #348: re 337: How about suing their lawyers for barratry?

I would prefer that all patent attorneys be immediately disbarred subject to recertification by the EFF: if said attorneys cannot demonstrate that they can adequately emulate the presence of a conscience (sufficient to allow them to make the informed choice to resign when told to defend a frivolous patent), then their disbarment would be permanent.

Given sufficient attoseconds of omnipotence, fixing the problem of patent trolls would make it on to my "to do" list.

Serge @ #357:

That would be John Rogers, proprietor of Kung Fu Monkey.

JBWoodford @ 359... Thanks for the link. Heheheh.

I like the current top of the sidelights: "Who started it? - The Astroland shrine".

A while ago there was a discussion about humor, and I gave some of my personal thoughts and theories about it. I've just posted quite a long thing about them to my LJ. Just a pointer in case anyone is interested.

I just made a call to Georgia Power with a question about my bill, and the first thing I got was a recorded voice. The system they have is the sophisticated kind, where she says, "If you have questions about billing, say 'billing'," and then responds to what you say.

The reason I am mentioning it is because she has a southern accent. Not a heavy one, not an intrusive one, but a very very slight one. At first she sounds completely neutral and professional, and then one or two of her syllables ping my "accent" meter. It's nearly subliminal, and to my southern ear it makes her sound warm and friendly, which makes me think it must have been done on purpose. For some reason, I find the whole thing, including the notion that it is on purpose,* utterly delightful.

*Which is a bit odd. Normally I'd feel manipulated. I suspect I don't because they did such a good job of it.

RM Koske:

Could they just have chosen the person to do the original voice recordings based on her having a pleasant accent?

Remember that today marks the beginning of the SciFi Channel's traditional Twilight Zone marathon of the New Year. I am quite happy to see that today's schedule includes one of the show's sweetest episodes, One for the Angels.

Lewis J. Bookman, age sixtyish. Occupation: Pitchman. Formerly a fixture of the summer, formerly a rather minor component to a hot July. But throughout his life, a man beloved by the children, and therefore a most important man. Couldn't happen, you say? Probably not in most places, but it did happen in the Twilight Zone.

#364, albatross -

Oh, certainly. But it seems to me that it is a very specific and uncommon level of accent, and if they did that, they might have had to be looking for one like it. Pleasant and neutrally professional is (I would expect) easy to find and common. Pleasant with a heavier accent is probably also common here. But this bare tinge of southerness is so subtle and perfect I feel like it has to be a deliberate choice on someone's part. Perhaps the actress chose it for the tryout and they picked her, but I just can't imagine she doesn't have control over how much accent she uses.

It may very well be that I speak to folks who do the same all the time and I don't notice because I expect an accent (unlike on an automated system) or maybe the people for whom this is a natural level of accent "turn it up" when I'm around because they can hear *my* accent. But I don't register speaking to people with an accent that subtle normally. Combine that with it being Georgia Power, whose tagline is "A Southern Company," and it just looks deliberate to me.

R.M. Koske, #363: My guess is that, since they are in Georgia, they wanted someone who would sound professional without sounding completely alien to their customer base.

#353, #354: I expect a Discworld mention of yesterday's other Anhk-Morpork honoree, Robert of the Vegetation ...

Just for a minor update, my dad was sniping at my mother continually when I left, which means pretty much back to his usual self. He was also sitting up and eating, though not as much as usual, and walking back and forth with no help. I didn't notice any remaining yellow in his eyes or skin.

It turned out that the mechanical effects of the tumor were causing his immediate decline; they just had to stent some ducts ("Why is it always DUCTS?!"), and he began to recover immediately. What he lacks right now is hope. We're trying to convince him that the data don't justify his level of pessimism, which is the only argument that carries any weight with him.

Question for the writers here. I'm exploring the possibility of writing a non-fiction compendium of tips, hints, and hacks for amateur astronomers. I'd like to solicit these from amateur observers, and offer them the glory of acknowledgement (if they wish) but no other compensation.

Would I need to develop any kind of release form for the contributors, or would a simple paragraph in the reply to the contribution be sufficient?

After I get enough contributions to develop a proposal, I'd query a few publishers of general astronomy books (like Sky Publishing Corp or Willman-Bell) to see if the idea would fly.

Thoughts? Thanks!

Xopher: needs more duct tape?

Please forgive me if I sound too flippant; I'm trying for "mild clowning to relieve stress."

Rikibeth, if I weren't in the same mode, I wouldn't have quoted Galaxy Quest.

Vicki (327), "the manufacturers get a pass" for putting emblems on cars because they should be allowed to sign their work. If somebody really does not want the Chrysler name or corporate symbol on their car, I think it's really problematic for that person to be buying a Chrysler in the first place.

Problematic things *happen* of course. Back in the 1970s, I heard stories of autoworkers who bought Japanese cars because they were cheaper, and removed or concealed the makers' marks so their co-workers would not give them a hard time for being disloyal to the company. A "hard time" could be on the order of vandalizing the car or arranging for the person to be first in line for the next of many rounds of layoffs, so the incentives were pretty pressing.

I think the main problem with little aftermarket metal emblems happens with a situation like putting something that looks like a Chrysler emblem on a Toyota. (A couple of the emblems at the particle looked like the Chrysler star, from a distance.) I suspect that's the sort of thing comment 324 referred to. I don't think it's a problem with stickers, or aftermarket metal emblems that look nothing like any car emblems.

Emblems and such:

There's the OEM situation--Original Equipment Manufacturer, a term which can mean different almost contradictory things. There's the OEM which actually manufactures the product, there's the OEM who distributes suchs products, there's the term "OEM" used as an adjective to designated products made by usually completely unknown to the general public manufacturers (or if known, not known for making "relabeled" products)....

Anyway, Factory A manufactures products, Companies B, C, and D have contracts from Factory A's corporate owner AA which state that AA will provide Company B with X number of products labelled with Company B's brand names, Company C with Y number of products labelled with Company C brand names, and Company D with Z number of products labelled with Company D labels. The products may all have come off the same production line, and have mostly cosmetic differences, be sold through different channels, and have vastly different pricing.

And if the plant is in China, there there maybe be additional production of the same product line, often with the labels from the customers (Companies B, C, and/or D) applied, above and beyond the production commissioned by and delivered to Companies B, C, and D.... or, there is a fourth set of labels applied, with names very similiar to those of Companies B, C, and D.... "counterfeit" or "fake" goods in the sense that they got produced without the direction and permission of the brand name owners, in the same factory as the "legitimate" merchandise, but otherwise identical or nearly identical....

Then there are situations such as with the "Macintosh Toaster" -- long ago a company I can't think of the name of (NewTek--the name emerged from the neural net), came out with a product called "the Video Toaster" (the name started out as a joke, because the company let it be known that it was working on something that it expected would have a major effect making "desktop video" production affordable and available to home computer users. It used the term "video toaster" as a joke about what it was developing. Ultimately that became the official name of the product.

Anyway, the Video Toaster consisted of an Amiga 2000 personal computer with a couple dedicated boards from NewTek packaged up inside the computer and software that allowed the Video Toaster to do live video titling and superimposition of computer graphics ontop of a video signal--something that at the time was revolutionary for capability and price and compactness. The Video Toaster features also included advanced for the time graphics software including a paint program.

The Macintosh community in particular at the time was very jealous, and wanted the features and functionality to work on their Macintoshes. The Video Toaster, however, depended upon the Amiga system features and functionality and capability, and the Mac OS was not something that was usable as a host. The Mac community though also tended to be rabid about wanting Mac-only "solutions" and the idea of using some other type of computer offended, even incensed, the more voluble members.

What NewTek did, then was to offer a "Mac Video Toaster" which consisted of a Video Toaster box and a cable--the Video Toaster was a relabeled Amiga computer with the Video Toaster board inside, and the name plate reading Mac Video Toaster. It cost quite a more than buying an Amiga, the Video Toaster add-on product, and a cable to connect to a Macintosh... but it preserved the appearance of Macintosh purity....

On the other hand, seeing a car with a Borg Institute of Technology or What Would Xena/Buffy/Batman Do? window strip always makes my day. As did once seeing a beat-up MGB in Glasgow with a very old Omnia Extares with geoduc Evergreen bumper sticker.

Serge @357, the mention of Who set my offspring cackling with glee. That show is, in general, a gleeful experience, not least because the people they pull their cons on are all so very in need of a good smiting.

JESR @ 376... That show is, in general, a gleeful experience

It definitely is. With Leverage having many episodes left, and Fringe about to resume, and The Closer and Burn Notice about to begin their new seasons, I'd say I'm quite happy with what TV has to offer right now. There are also Galactica's final episodes, but I'm not sure where it'll go now that it got you-know-where.

Serge, let us not forget "Life," for those who like it (and I do) and "Dollhouse" about to start (fingers crossed six ways from Sunday that it has reached some sort of homeostasis of mutually self-cancelling curses). And, for those of us who are Hugh Dillon fans, or Enrico Colantoni fans, or Amy Jo Johnson fans, or get the whole comic-book aesthetic (not to mention the "psychological counselling at gunpoint" thing) of "Flashpoint," it's about to start again, too. Opposite "Dollhouse," which is one of the cursesI hope are mutually self-cancelling.

Oh: and "Chuck" will be opposite "House," so I may now be able to avoid the weekly slog through gross CGI, bad manners and worse medical ethics, since those are two of my husband's choices.

JESR @ 378... Life is still on? I thought so for some time and found it had been moved from Friday to Wednesday, but I heard it's on its way out.

Life's been picked up for the rest of the season and will be back in February. There was a lot of Not Getting It involved at Entertainment Weekly and TV Guide, and both of those publications/ websites have been assuming its early death for a season and a half now. Yet, as far as I can tell, it lives. At least until the end of s2. Beyond that, I make no guess. The TV industry, on the whole, is failing to cope with changes in mere reality.

Do anyone know of a list (however incomplete) of SFF writers who started off as fans? Or, a better set of google-y words to look for such information? I am having no luck at all.

(Hoping that the open thread encompasses such requests.)

JESR @ 380... I'm glad to hear. By the way, I don't understand why the show felt it necessary to replace Cruz's boss with someone even more nuts than he is. Maybe that's TV's attempt at realism. (Yes, I have a high opinion of my own boss - can you tell?)

Not to mention my new hot-favorite show, NUMB3RS -- and Eureka, which would be up there with it if we had cable. We're still working our way thru season 2 of the former on DVD, and waiting for season 3 of the latter to become available.

JESR, #378:...for those of us who are Hugh Dillon fans...

If you are a Hugh Dillon fan, and you haven't seen it, I strongly recommend Hard Core Logo. It's a mockumentary along the lines of This is Spinal Tap, but it's punk instead of metal, and its humour (and ending) is considerably bleaker. As a bonus, it co-stars Callum Keith Rennie, probably best known in these parts as a Cylon.

Lee #383:

Isn't there supposed to be a second half to Eureka 3? Or am I fantasizing?

(Count me in as a Leverage fan. If you combine Travis McGee, Mission Impossible, and maybe some Modesty Blaise ... I originally went there for Timothy Hutton. I stayed just because.)

joann (385): I certainly hope so. I'm very fond of Eureka.

joann @ #385 -- "If you combine Travis McGee, Mission Impossible, and maybe some Modesty Blaise"

Oh, now that's intriguing. I'll have to go look at our cable listings.

Please change my question at #381: Do anyone know to 'Does anyone know...' (And tell me why don't these things seem half as obvious on preview?)

Lee #383, if you're loving Numb3rs, you might enjoy the vid Math Prof Rock Star

And re #384, I second debcha's rec of Hard Core Logo, but I underline (twice!) her warning. Definitely Bleak! Not to be watched alone while feeling miserable and sad. It's not that sort of weepy.

debcha, Hard Core Logo came home with my daughter, but we've decided to finish the DVD of "Twitch City" which she gave me for Christmas first; I've been hanging out in the Canadian Six Degrees fandom for so long that I'm aproximately 99.9% spoiled for that film and would rather wait until Christmas is well and truly over. The Hugh Flu is epidemic in due South fandom, which I slid into via the Fourteen Valentines challenge back in early 2007.

I even went so far as to watch the amazingly bad "Murder on Her Mind" which, after several title-changes and recuts, ended up on Lifetime, simply for the Hugh Dillon Callum Keith Rennie casting (as the bad guy and the supportive husband, respectively). I have not, however, gone so far as to take the opportunity to watch "Ginger Snaps Back."

The way people move between media fandoms online fascinates me, even as I am immersed in it. I started out in BtVS and moved to Stargate Atlantis when several members of my flist started writing there; my interest in due South and C6D sprouted from the largely SGA Fourteen Valentines. I read and rec in The Sentinel, too, although I can't remember right now how that came about. (Probably from reading Eliade's archive, though).

Serge @382, I don't know why there was a cast change with the boss; I missed the end of the first season of Life. Donal Logue's character is, beyond a doubt,seriously nuts; what I like best about the show is how very nuts everyone is.

I wish they'd picked up the pilot before Claudia Black got pregnant and moved bact to Australia, though; she was originally cast as Charlie's wife (there's an unaired pilot with her), and would have had a much larger part in the story as originally written. Would have been interesting to see if she and Damien Lewis could have both stayed on-accent, though.

Paula Liberman:

As the purchasing agent for the 3rd largest Amiga dealer in the USA (and a major exporter of Amiga hardware and software for the rest of the world) I have to chime in here: the "Video Toaster" cover name had a bunch of tie-ins: the original story that they were developing a co2 laser system to etch logos onto toast for hotels, a follow-up that they were developing a jelly-jet printer for color, and my favorite, the offsite storefront where they did the development work in secrecy: it had an appropriately haz-mat name and in the front window you could see a coatrack with bright yellow haz-mat suits, one of which had a tear in it a foot long with a nearby sign that said "(1) Days Since Last Accident" so they wouldn't get salespeople. NewTek also had the coolest hold music on the planet (God knows I put in hours listening to it) that rotated every week or so, including the full orchestral version of the Johnny Quest theme.

The Macintosh community in particular at the time was very jealous, and wanted the features and functionality to work on their Macintoshes. The Video Toaster, however, depended upon the Amiga system features and functionality and capability, and the Mac OS was not something that was usable as a host.

Ever been threatened with a punch in the mouth because you told someone at a trade show that the Video Toaster you were exhibiting wouldn't plug into a Macintosh II because it didn't have the Amiga Video slot? I have...

sherrold @ #388, thanks for the video link! I don't watch NUMB3RS regularly but I dip into it every now and then to get my Charlie fix...since I'm still jonesing for Blair Sandburg. *waves sheepishly at JESR*

Life, oh yes, it's still on, and still doing it. On the other hand, My Own Worst Enemy has been cancelled, just as it was starting to really take off.

But there are other things to celebrate: True Blood, a potential antidote for the "Twilight" that's sweeping through the 'tweens and low 'teens*. And the new season of The Chooser is about to start up. And HBO has stated that In Treatment is coming back, but for some reason they're not promoting it at all.

* Sounds like last week's weather report.

Lila, the thing is, since only one season of The Sentinel is out on dvd, I mostly know the series from fan fiction. It's one reason I'd never write in that fandom. Not that I'm actually finishing anything in the fandoms I do feel familiar enough with to write in.

R.M. Koske, #363, I have to call that type of answering machine every now and then and they never understand me. Of course, that might be because I'm saying "Human. I want a human."

Marilee @ 395: I had one of those robotic machines call me*, and when it refused to understand my request for a human, I hung up on it.

*Thank you, Kaiser, for that little experiment.

JESR @ 390... Claudia Black in Life? I'd have loved to see that.

sherrold, #388: Oh, YEAH. *fans self*

joann @ 385... As far as I know, there is no 2nd half of Eureka's 3rd season in the works. I saw nothing on SciFi's site trumpeting it, nothing obvious anyway. I expect there will be a 4th season though. My favorite line from the 3rd season?

"So. An invisible killer drone."

"Yeah. Keeps getting better."

I got a laugh out of catching an ad for Clint Eastwood's Gran Torrino yesterday. I mean, there you have his front lawn upon which stand a few young and unproductive members of society, and Clint, pointing a shotgun, tells them "Get off my lawn"

JESR, you can take comfort that "Cypher" from Season One is about as good as they get. The only one I can think of that comes close is "The Sentinel, by Blair Sandburg" (series finale).

If they can put "Vampire Assassin" on DVD, surely they could spit out Sentinel Seasons 2 and 3.

JESR (#389): I came by my Hugh Dillon fandom linearly - I was a fan of his punk band The Headstones (people in the audience would throw lit cigarettes at the band, which Dillon would - mostly - catch and smoke), and then Hard Core Logo. Having been out of Canada for some years, I was a little surprised to discover how much his acting star had risen.

Incidentally, if you haven't heard, word on the street is that Bruce MacDonald is making not just one, but three sequels.

Serge @397, it would have been kind of perfect, wouldn't it?

debcha, most of the Headstones career matched up with what I was warned would be a period when I'd lose track of pop culture: I had my offspring in 1986 and 1988, and for a long stretch of the next ten years I had no money, no transportation, next to no TV reception, and a husband who was working obscene hours trying to make a living in the Community College system.

I'm hearing a whole lot of rumors about the HCL sequel/s; Daniel MacIvor especially drops random fat hints in his blog. How Dillon and Rennie are going to fit the production into their current schedules is going to be a challenge. Hugh has the lead in two current series- Durham County shoots in Montreal and Flashpoint in Toronto- and CKR is shooting a Battlestar Gallactica movie (or miniseries) and a weird cop show in Vancouver.

In other news, I'm feeling a little grumpy at the universe for two different reasons. As You Know, Bob, there's a viral marketing campaign being done for the puppet animated movie version of Coraline. Part of it involves 50 different boxes that have been sent to 50 different weblogs to drum up interest in the film. They've been nicely "aged" with stickers and appropriate surface treatment done, and each one has been packed with goodies like original production art, puppet body parts, and so on: the folks at ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive have been keeping track and have photos of most of the 22 that have surfaced. Superpunch has some good shots also. If you look over the list of recipients the common factor seems to involve animation or Neil Gaiman, but at least three of the boxes have been sent to blogs involving knitting. While I know that Making Light isn't ALL about knitting and is probably disqualified for a box, it does make word four in the description--I think that Laika could at least have sent Our Hostess a nice note...

The thing that really annoys me is in one of the posts from a box recipient--we'll skip who. He was sent two arms from one of the characters so he dissected one.

That's right. He dissected it.

One of my degrees is in History. To put it mildly, I have a thing about primary source material. Hacking up one of the parts of the puppets used for shooting is as close to it as you get in puppet animation. And yes, I know they probably made several dozen of each. I still don't like it. (I was also upset at a side mention in Neil Gaiman's Journal some years ago about when he stayed in Jim Henson's old place in London and saw rotting masks from The Dark Crystal setting in display cases, but that's time on thin latex when the house has been closed for years, not an active dissection, so I was less cranky at the time.)

Anyway the website is sensational, the trailers look good, and if you can avoid the occasional thought of Will Vinton (Lakia was created after Phil Knight took over Vinton's studio and forced him out: I've seen one discussion of a semi-yard sale on the grounds after Vinton left which gave me the impression that some of the Noid and California Grapes puppets up with a sales tag on a table) it should be a Good Thing.

JESR @ 403... Indeed. Like a modern Superman movie that'd star Gregory Peck and Katharine Hepburn as they were in their glory days.

Bruce E. Durocher II @ 405

That's right. He dissected it.

Yuck. There's a sense in which puppets are alive: the puppeteer imbues the puppet with a part of her mind when working the puppet. If you've ever watched a puppeteer take up her Aspect, you know what I mean. And, as much of a materialist as I am, that sight has left me feeling very uneasy about treating a puppet badly.

Lakia was created after Phil Knight took over Vinton's studio and forced him out:

I've been a fan of Vinton and his friends since they started showing their early stuff, like "Closed Monday", here in Portland. What information I could get about what was happening within the studio made me wonder if Knight just wanted the studio because his son was interested in animation, and he could get the kid a job if he owned it. Even if that isn't true, the whole operation of removing Vinton was really slimy. I'll admit that Will Vinton was not a good businessman, but ripping the studio off and not giving him a penny (in fact, making sure he didn't get out with anything by suing him for over a million dollars) was just disgusting.

I was working at Nike when that happened, in the same building where Phil Knight had his office. I used to see Phil on the stairs going to and from lunch; I don't think I've ever seen someone looking so uniformly morose all the time. Maybe he finally saw the extent of his karmic debt; I'd like to think so, anyway.

Serge, I am sitting here contemplating the levels of WOW present in that idea.

Ginger, #396, the only recorded calls I get from Kaiser are about my blood pressure. The problem is that they assume that I'm probably not checking it and not taking my pills. I listened and answered most of the way through once and since then have just hung up. I've had hypertension since I had the first renal failure (almost everybody gets hypertension when their kidneys don't work) and it's gradually getting better. I'm down to 30mg lisinopril daily and I started with three BP meds and a diuretic. I take my BP twice a day. Why have they, all of a sudden, decided I need to be interrogated about my blood pressure? I keep meaning to call Customer Service and tell them to cut it out.

Serge @ 406

With Cary Grant as Perry White and Raymond Massey as the Voice of Jor-El.

Which reminds me. I watched an episode of Smallville last night, for the first time in 2 or 3 years (the sat dish got knocked out by the tree that fell in the driveway, and we only get onair channels, and Eva's out of town. I needed something to watch while I cuddled with the dogs). Lana Lang and Lex Luthor both written out of the script (on vacation in the Phantom Zone, from what I could gather), and Jimmy Olsen marrying Chloe? About six new continuing characters, none of them in high school or college? What's up with that?

Open threadiness: Has anyone seen Juan Cole's list of ten big pieces of massively-underreported good news from the Arab and Muslim world? The article is definitely worth reading, IMO; I hadn't known about most of these.

Bruce Cohen @ 410... Cary Grant as Perry White

Perry to Lois:
"Howe does a girl like you get to be a girl like you?"

JESR @ 408... The closest I ever came to that was in Alex Ross's painted comic-book Kingdom Come, where he had older Bruce Wayne modeled after Peck. In Marvels, he had the original Human Torch modeled after Ron Ely. (And Susan Storm obviously was Donna reed.)

Sherrold @ 381:

Going by the previously published statements of many well-known SF/F writers, and the personal histories of several whom I have known, I would estimate that a substantial majority were fans (by at least some definitions) before they began selling professionally. This is a pattern that goes back at least to the 1930s (an era of teenage fans like Isaac Asimov, Fred Pohl, and Ray Bradbury), and seems to have continued ever since.

My local NPR station just said that a noted Science Fiction writer who was born in Russia and came to the US with his family when he was three "is celebrating his birthday today." I knew immediatly who they meant. I think the good doctor would dissapprove of the sloppy writing or lack of fact checking, although the assumption of celebration would, perhaps, amuse him.

JESR@416

Or maybe someone has discovered how to resurrect people...

:-)

Or someone could be giving him an Irish wake...though I think he might be looking somewhat the worse for wear at this point.

JESR @ 416... I guess this explains why he was also called the Good Doctor.

Has there ever been a more pretentious piece of lyric-writing than Jim Morrison's The End?

I'm listening to the eponymous Doors album for the first time in 30 years (well, technically I'm not; this is the 40th-anniversary remix with three bonus tracks); I'm becoming convinced that the genius in that band was Ray Manzarek.

Has anyone posted the news that there's a new Roger Zelazny crime novel being published in February?

Leroy @ 415

Ack. I just reread my post. What I meant to say was...

Does anyone know of a list (however incomplete) of professional SFF writers who started off as fan writers?

And it's taken me three tries now. Communication is hard.

Lila @ 392
(The vid used to end with a little clip comparing Blair and Charlie, but my collaborator didn't think it was funny. I think they were separated at birth.)

Bruce @407, wait, you're squicked buy a guy taking apart a puppet's arm, but not by the fact that the movie's PR department sent him just a couple of detached arms in the first place?

Hmmm, he probably shouldn't look at the Furby Autopsy or Furby Gurdy websites either, then.

Earl at #424 (and Avram, a little)

Furby dissection sites aren't the same; what Bruce is objecting to is the destruction of primary source material, i.e. the puppet. Furbies aren't historically significant.

I myself wonder about whether anyone's tracking provenance. Not a whole lot - but I'm not a movie buff.

I'm not bothered by extra car emblems/bumper stickers/whatnot, it's something to read at a red light.

But I do wonder about those vehicles with identifiable information stickers - sports, scouting, academics - with the kid's name and the league or school name, even church stickers, sometimes all on the same car. I've seen stickers that represent the family on the cars, too - little silhouettes that tell you gender and relative age. Hello, stalker helper!

(and Happy New Year, Making Lightians)

Margaret Organ-Kean @ 425...
Furby dissection sites aren't the same; what Bruce is objecting to is the destruction of primary source material, i.e. the puppet. Furbies aren't historically significant.

From what I've read about the boxes, it seems to me as though the folk that sent them out would find dissecting one of the arms somehow apropos to the spirt of creative discovery.

Margaret Organ-Kean #425: Furbies aren't historically significant.

Umm, I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on that one.

For that matter, if the puppet's dissection was properly documented and recorded, that seems to me a proper examination, or even transformation, of that "primary source material", rather than destruction.

Avram @ 423

I could try to cover that with bluster about how it goes without saying that I'm squicked by PR departments, but really, I was so bugged by the idea of the dissection that I didn't even think of that. Call me superstitious, it's just that I really do think of puppets as being at least conditionally alive. Oh, not Chucky though. He's just a block of wood.

Margaret Organ-Kean @ 425
Furbies may or may not be historically significant, they're just not living things. I hope. Would you want to live in a world where Furby Liberation was a real and present danger?

The BBC has just announced the new Doctor Who.

I saw the news and stared at my computer for a moment. Then I heard crickets and a tumbleweed rolled through my living room.

(But what the heck... for all I know he may turn out really, really well.)

Linkmeister @420, one of my dearest friends insists that LA Woman is a comedy album. Jim Morrison was capable of acts of enormous bombastic meaninglessness, indeed.

We caught a Doors special on one of our local PBS stations sometime before Christmas, where Grace Slick told a story of Manzarik taking the stage and doing the whole show by himself, including vocals, so I expect you're right.

About destruction /transformation/documentation of primary materials: I was taught that every archaeological excavation was an act of destruction, and that care must be taken to preserve either part of the site, or samples of every bit of it, including pit fill and colluvium, so that later researchers could go back to your samples and documents and reexamine them in light of new knowledge. Of course I live amidst utter destruction of every surface where I might excavate, where only actual human bones sticking out of the ground in such number that the site engineer can't bag them and take them to the dump will stop the heavy equipment, and the oldest standing structures of built culture are frequently used for firefighting practice (and the last Nisqually longhouse was probably blown up as an artillary target), so I may be too cynical to discuss muppet arms.

I was also taught to restore artifacts carefully, but to leave the mends obvious so as not to destroy actual wear patterns or counterfit perfect condition; that once led to an interesting conversation with an antique dealer in the seed bead aisle of Shipwreck.

Wesley, my daughter's reaction was "Who?"

I would like to point out, for I appreciate these small meaningless symetries, that the young man is Matt Smith XI on imdb.

Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) @430: Would you want to live in a world where Furby Liberation was a real and present danger?

It may start as a liberation movement, but where would it lead? (cue 'Terminator' theme music)

Why am I thinking of Doctor Bob, a quack who has gone to the dogs?

Presumably the film company has kept a sufficiency of the puppets; expecting J. Random Blogger to be custodians for posterity seems a little... unwise.

JESr @ #432, "where Grace Slick told a story"

Oh, I wish I'd seen that. When she quit Airplane, she dropped out of public view entirely.

Is York House Press a legitimate publisher? They've apparently picked up Angel at the Fence: The True Story of a Love That Survived, a Holocaust memoir that was revealed to be a literary hoax and dropped by Penguin Berkley in late December. The York House Web site is not particularly informative.

Wesley, #431:

Matt Smith does come across as a little young and emo in that interview. On the other hand, both Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant were brilliant, so I'm willing to give the production team (even absent Russell T. Davies) the benefit of the doubt until I see Smith in the role.

The after-market attachments to cars that puzzle me the most are the "In Loving Memory" rear window stickers, showing the message, a name, and usually some dates.

Some friend or family member died, so you publicize the event on your vehicle? Whatver happened to tombstones?

The message I get from too many of those stickers, expecially when they're on a brand-new vehicle, is "My brother died. So I bought a truck!"

Wesley, #431, he was in the two Philip Pullman mysteries that BBC had and PBS showed. The stories were not that good, but he was a good actor.

Earl @ 428

Oh, yes, Furbies in general are historically interesting. But not a Furby in particular. The puppet is interesting in the particular, as a unique item.

The Christmas Furbies first came out, my husband and I took one of the local puddle jumpers to see my folks. The stewardess very carefully made sure that we turned off all our electronic gear - and left the Furby on!

I was bemused by her assumption that serious electronics didn't come covered in plush.

Bruce@439, my partner and I have speculated that those "in remembrance" decorations on cars are the modern equivalent of mourning jewelry. Many people today don't wear jewelry at all in a daily setting, but certainly use their cars as the flashy status symbol equivalent. So it seems quite appropriate to me, if one is going in for a public announcement of one's mourning status or a daily reminder.

#391 Bruce

The Macheads around here were less impolite in their fervor and dedication and religiosity, although many of them were zealots and noxiously evangelizing nonetheless.

(Regarding Commodore and feelings towards Commodore: on the Deathbed Vigil or whatever the title of it was video done by Dave Haynie about the end of Commodore, which video had quite a number of people who had been Commodore employees in it, Jerry Crosson [spelling] who's an SF fan, was about the only one commenting about Commodore's management and such, whose words were relatively mild and could be quoted accurately without getting fined by the FCC if aired on commercial non-cable TV in the USA. Someone's later joke about Commodore was that if Commodore were selling sushi, it would market it as "dead fish."

I do remember was it Siggraph in Boston, the company that eventually changed its name to Elastic Reality had an Amiga and had covered over the name of the computer in its booth. Perry Kivolowitz, was it, was furious at Commodore and deliberately wanted the nameplate not showing.... ironically while his company was involved in the Amiga universe, he was an, er, colorful character. Once it went off to PC land (and Mac land, too? I don't remember if it did Mac stuff too, or not), the colorfulness disappeared and there was no longer any apparently hint that I heard of, of, call it whackiness, on the part of the management....

#420 Linkmeister

Skimming through various books about Morrison over time, it seems to me that he was a talented and narcissistic jerk....one who didn't even have the sense to have (or keep, perhaps) a reliable "trip sitter," and who was the sort of Sensitive New Age Jerk whose sensitivity seemed to go mostly in one direction. That is, his treatment of others seemed echoed in the comment that Jennifer Aniston made about her ex all these decades later, "He lacks a sensitivity chip" as regards treatment of other people.

Paula Lieberman, I've long divided the thin-skinned into the sensitive and the touchy: sensitive people perceive other's emotional responses as readily as their own, while touchy people mostly think their personal emotions are the real ones. It's the difference between "I'm sorry I hurt your feelings." and "How dare you cry because I ran into you with my car, you're ruining my day!"

Bruce Arthurs @ 439: I've never seen one of those. (They may not be common around Ottawa, or it might just be that since I'm usually on foot or on a bike, it's not the kind of detail that I pay a lot of attention to.) My immediate reaction to the image is that either the dear departed is stashed in the trunk, or that that vehicle is what did him/her in.

Paula @ #444, I may be generalizing too much, but it seems to me that the People-magazine part of the rock press back then was highly impressed that Morrison claimed he was influenced by Rimbaud, a French poet. Not some garden-variety American poet, but an honest-to-goodness furriner.

They made interesting music, but the lyrics weren't as magnificent as we thought they were.

There's an interesting story in the booklet of this CD (the 40th anniversary release): apparently all the previous albums up to this one were flat; the tape they used was running a bit slow. By the time they went back to the masters for this recording (2006) they had gotten a letter from a professor in Utah who concluded that the original 45 of "Light My Fire" was at the proper speed, but the album cuts were just a hair off. They checked, and he was right.

Linkmeister @ 447

it seems to me that the People-magazine part of the rock press back then was highly impressed that Morrison claimed he was influenced by Rimbaud, a French poet

I got that impression too. And I thought I heard "and *gasp*, Rimbaud was a decadent homosexual, as well!" echoing through the press' comments. But I notice that none of them seemed to remember that Rimbaud eventually stopped writing and became a dealer in coffee and weapons in Ethiopia. I guess that wasn't as romantic as being shot by a homosexual lover in Paris.

While looking for physical descriptions of jewel cases I ran across a blog that's new to me and found that the blogger had posted Chapter One of a fictional murder mystery entitled Murder in the Hundred-Acre Wood.

That was in November of 2007. There has been no Chapter Two through today's postings. That's unsatisfying.

Joel, #446, I've seen them in NoVA, and had much the same reaction as Bruce.

In the category of really neat toys: Plastic Logic E-Book. If I can get hold of one of these when they come out this year (widespread release is due out next year) I will hug it and squeeze it and call it George. I'll test it up, down, and sideways and shout the results from the rooftops. Unfortunately the only pricing that I've heard is "Competitive with the Kindle." I hope they're right: it sounds as if it has all the features I want in an E-Book reader...

Marilee, Joel, Bruce, re the "In Loving Memory of" decals or whatever they are on vehicles: they are ubiquitous out here in Hawai'i. I'll bet I see three a day, and I don't drive very far.

There's a comedian who drives a truck with an enclosed bed and parks it halfway up my hill. He or she uses white something (Nail polish? Paint? Something removable.) to paint messages on the back of the window of the enclosure. Right now it reads "Where's my bailout?"

BoingBoing's got an article on the top 500 worst passwords. You might want to change yours if it's on that list.

Unsurprisingly, many of them are rude words, but some are amusing, e.g. "8675309", "ncc1701", "trustno1" & "thx1138" to list a few

Linkmeister #452: she uses white something (Nail polish? Paint? Something removable.) to paint messages

Corflu, perhaps?

My idea of an "in loving memory of" car would be to buy the car that killed the loved one(s), have it processed by a baling car crusher, put the sticker on the resulting cube and display it as a memorial.

Soon Lee, #453: Well, I'm pleased to see that I appear to have more imagination than a lot of people; at least I chose fairly obscure SF from which to draw my passwords! OTOH, some of those sequences looked like perfectly acceptable random combinations -- I mean, zxcvbnm? What am I missing here, that enough people would use that to get it into the top 500?

And yes, I'd advise anyone who's using any of those to change it immediately. Now that the list is on BoingBoing, some phisher is bound to make a dictionary-attack script out of it.

Regarding zxcvbnm: I would guess that you don't look at your keyboard as you type?

Linkmeister @#449: Time to get your eyeglass prescription checked! :-) It looks to me like he posted that in November of 2008, after rescuing it from his personal archives.

DavidS @#456: Or perhaps he's using a Dvorak keyboard?

#420: I'm becoming convinced that the genius in [The Doors] was Ray Manzarek.

He wasn't alone. Robbie Krieger wrote all the hit singles.

I was once asked to sign a paper saying, among other things, that if I didn't agree not to use passwords that were the names of fantasy characters, the company would be in violation of the Sarbanes-Oxley act.

David Harmon @ #457, Ouch, you're right. Well, good. The more recently published the more likely Chapter Two is to be in the hopper. Who could have killed Owl?

I have no income to offset eyeglasses expense. I'll have to squint better. ;)

re the Amtrak particle: me and my big mouth

O Mighty Fluorosphere, come to my aid!

My nephew¹ was down from West Point² this past weekend, and at one point (sorry) I was teasing him by using the adjective 'Westpunctual' to describe the West Point way of doing things (which, like all institutions with long-standing traditions, is sometimes really smart, sometimes mindbogglingly stupid, sometimes just odd). That got an occasional eyeroll from him, but it isn't really good enough.

What I want is some sort of Latinate or Greek-derived adjective that means "of or pertaining to a western point" to use to tease him some more. I know that 'boreal' means "northern" (as in L 'aurora borealis'), but I'm uncertain of any other directions, and want to make sure this one stands up to rigorous examination (he's taking Chinese, not Latin, but I'm sure he knows someone who is); OTOH, keep in mind I'm using this to tease him, not in an academic paper or anything.

Of course, the more syllables it has, the sillier it will be when I tell him that the proper adjective for "of or pertaining to West Point" is X...to a limit of what I can remember. But then to actually use it a lot might be cumbersome.

Can anyone help? It has to be the sort of thing that a classically-educated English speaker endowed with pedantic whimsy might have employed at Oxford in, say, 1885, but need not, of course, be something they actually did use.

___
¹His mother is part of my family-by-choice, so he's my nephew even though he's not biologically related to me.
²And DAMN does he look spiff in that uniform; he has bright blue eyes, which the blued gray brings out dramatically.

Xopher #462:

Should probably involve "occidental". Got enough syllables for you?

Linkmeister at #447:

There's an interesting story in the booklet of this CD (the 40th anniversary release): apparently all the previous albums up to this one were flat; the tape they used was running a bit slow. By the time they went back to the masters for this recording (2006) they had gotten a letter from a professor in Utah who concluded that the original 45 of "Light My Fire" was at the proper speed, but the album cuts were just a hair off. They checked, and he was right.

That is indeed interesting. But "contradicting you, just to be polite," wouldn't a slow master tape sound sharp on proper playback? Do you mean "a bit fast," or do I misunderstand what you're saying?

Xopher, something with occidental might do the trick.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occidental

Bill, if it was running at the proper speed during the recording, but slow during the transfer, it would be flat.

Occidentipuntal?

Westpointilleux?

Xopher, #462: That description pretty much sums up 'Cantabrigian' (which I admit to using at every opportunity).

Serge, #468: Shouldn't that be 'Ouestpointilleux'?

DavidS, #456: *sheepish* Apparently not the bottom row, at least! And that also catches a couple of the others that were puzzling me.

debcha @ 469... Oui, oui.

Bill @ #464, from the booklet:

When the album was mixed at Elektra studios in New York, either the 4-track layback recorder was running slow or the stereo 2-track was running fast. In those days we recorded and mixed on Ampex & Scully tape recorders. The tension system was such that when a full reel of tape was on the left side of the recorder, known as the supply side, it would run at something approximating accurate speed. When the situation was reversed, where the large load was on the take-up side, the recorder would slow down because of the mechanical braking system, and this could cause the mix to progressively run slower. So, things could go flat or sharp depending on what part of the tape the mix came from.

Makes sense to me, particularly since I still own an old Teac reel-to-reel which I used to use a lot 30 years ago; I remember speed fluctuations when I used the auto-reverse function on the thing.

Bah. "either the 4-track playback recorder . . ."

Thank you, joann, Steve, abi!

Occidentipunctual is pretty good. Did Romans actually use words related to 'occidental' whenever they referred to the direction west?

Linkmeister 473: Yes, a layback recorder would be a blokflöte that can be played from a reclining position.

Michael Roberts @303: ...In the end, we had a nice little adventure that compressed all the stress and fear of a major trip into four hours' time. It's a great way to bleed off the wanderlust until we have some more stability and money.

"Noting cures camping fever quite like camping." —my mom

Xopher @ 474: Did Romans actually use words related to 'occidental' whenever they referred to the direction west?

If they did, I'm sure it was purely by occident.

C. Wingate @#461: Yeah, but as noted at the Particle link, this looks like straight-up police stupidity in any case. Has AMTRAK's publicity department weighed in on the incident?

Also, I'd just like to repost the single besy crack from that thread, ajay @#79:

The US is a nation at war. No - a Nation at War. It is vital to maintain the strength of the National Soul. Photographs of important bits of the nation (sorry, the Nation) steal important bits of the National Soul. Therefore, ban photographs to prevent attacks by foreign witch doctors.

But how else could they orient themselves?

Xopher @ #474, you sent me to Google, which sent me to a dictionary:

flute Synonyms
flute

n.

pipe, piccolo, whistle, woodwind, wind instrument, fife, tube, panpipe, recorder, fipple flute, Blokflöte (German), flageolet, transverse flute, direct flute, flûte-à-bec (French), German flute; see also musical instrument.

fipple? That may be today's new favorite word! ;)

The Connemara Gaeltacht west of Galway is a coastal strip of land where the Irish language clung on longer than anywhere nearby. Connemara Irish is recognized as one of the three dialects of surviving Irish, along with Munster and Ulster Irish.

In the Connemara Gaeltacht, the main road runs East-West, and the houses were all built facing south towards the sea. This was so much the norm, and the area so cut-off from other Irish speaking areas, that the local term for the front door is "doras theas", and for back door, "doras thuaidh", meaning South door and North door.

"I didn't see your father come in."

"He came in by the North door".

Niall @480:

That reminds me of the Dutch word for "countryside": platteland.

The language is so tied to the geography that the idea that the countryside could have hills, or the house a back door on another side, is inexpressible.

Neat.

B.Loppe @ 478... I guess the thread had to en-compass puns. I'm not to blame this time.

Serge @482:
I'm not to blame this time.

I'm sure you'll add your own t-West to the proceedings; it's the East you can do.

No, really, I'm not needling you.

Linkmeister @452: "In Loving Memory of" decals:

ObRef: Frozen Dead Guy Days, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_Dead_Guy_Day

Abi @ 483... At least I haven't been accused of committing a cardinal sin.

Xopher @462: Not strickly Latinate, but how about "Occidental Periodicity"?

There is a book called "The False Flat: Why Dutch Design is so Good" or something like that.

debcha 469: That description pretty much sums up 'Cantabrigian' (which I admit to using at every opportunity).

I see no sense in denying that you are a classically-educated English speaker endowed with pedantic whimsy. Not that you did; I mean I can well believe it.

(There but for the lack of a classical education go I. Dammit.)

I'm not classically-educated either, Xopher (quite the converse, really) and I sadly recognize that I score much higher on 'pedantic' than on 'whimsy.'

This discussion reminds me of Glenn Seaborg et alii, making new elements at UC Berkeley's cyclotron in the early 1950s. The took flak for naming elements 'californium' and 'berkelium' - "what's next, 'universitium' and 'ofium'?"

#489: "ofium"
Positive ions get parsed as nouns,
negative ions get parsed as past participles (e.g. "sodium chloride") and some positive ions are parsed as adjectives, (e.g. mercuric, mercurous)
What would the valence of a preposition be?

abi #481: There's a novel of Cees Noteboom's (wonderful surname, that) with the English title In the Dutch Mountains (the original Dutch title is the far more prosaic In Nederland).

Rob Rusick @ 433 writes: "It may start as a liberation movement, but where would it lead?"

I can answer that. Behold: FURBY MILITARY ACADEMIES: The Sovereign Republic Of Mapulto.

p.s. Yes, you can blame the Drieux for me finding that.