Mausoleum: The final and funniest folly of the rich. -- Ambrose Bierce

Re: (wfc) Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones (thread)

Posted: 1 Hour 20 Minutes ago by: Dimensional Traveler

I know that feeling. I do NOT have warm fuzzy feelings for the animals that I went to high school with.

Re: (wfc) Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones (thread)

Posted: 1 Hour 41 Minutes ago by: Dorothy J Heydt

(Hal Heydt0 Interesting to see someone looking forward to a high school reunion. I've spent nearly 60 years doing my best to make sure they can't ever find me again.

Posted: 4 Hours 13 Minutes ago by: The Horny Goat

Of course there is - my high school is planning a "Class of 1973" reunion for next September (and they've already got my money for my ticket) I'd say 6 months early is pretty much NON-unexpected.

Not Another Vampire Book

Re: YASID: Painting and its sound take over the world (thread)

Posted: 8 Hours 39 Minutes ago by: David Johnston

Gannon, Cassandra. Not Another Vampire Book (p. 11). Star Turtle Publishing. Kindle Edition. Parody of vampire romance novels where the unfortunate editor of the alleged worst romance novel ever written finds herself magically transpo

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 8 Hours 52 Minutes ago by: Mike Spencer

That's the one! TYVM. Can't find my Lieber books but found full text on line. All good. Thanks again. [Full exchange left quoted here for the record.]

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 10 Hours 33 Minutes ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Ophanim, to be specific. https://mythologyexplained.com/ophanim-in-the-bible/ No flying saucer, a type of angel. pt

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 11 Hours 24 Minutes ago by: Quadibloc

On my web site, at http://www.quadibloc.com/feat.htm I suggest that the Bible got the idea for the (old fashioned, with a ball) mouse before everyone else! Wheels within wheels, that can go back and forth or side to side, without turn

Re: YASID: Painting and its sound take over the world (thread)

Posted: 11 Hours 50 Minutes ago by: Christian Weisgerber

I'm pretty sure Erich von Däniken wrote it a few years earlier.

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 12 Hours 28 Minutes ago by: a425couple

Very well done! Good work! bout 1,110 results (0.60 seconds) Rump-titty-titty-tum-tah-tee, or why Fritz Leiber's short stories ... WordPress.com https://josephinereadersadvisory.wordpress.com › rum... Nov 13, 2011 — My favorite is, n

(WFC) Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef (Gods and Monsters, volume 1) by Cassandra Khaw

Posted: 13 Hours 6 Minutes ago by: Paul S Person

Long ago I acquired and read a few books on UFOlogy written by UFOlogists. OK, they were indeed nutters. Ezekiel's vision was definitely taken as a flying saucer episode. Desperation requires ingenuity.

Posted: 15 Hours 35 Minutes ago by: James Nicoll

Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef (Gods and Monsters, volume 1) by Cassandra Khaw Who orchestrated Ao Qin's daughter's is unclear. Failure to find an answer to that question? Death for unwilling investigator Wong. Successfully finding the answer

All your base are belong to us. (thread)

Re: YASID about alien contact that almost destroys humanity (thread)

Posted: 19 Hours 6 Minutes ago by: Robert Carnegie

Good luck getting that past the censor! Which may be a /good/ thing. :-) See also, very very carefully, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLIT_(short_story)> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Funniest_Joke_in_the_World> <https://en.wikip

Re: YASID: Painting and its sound take over the world (thread)

Posted: 19 Hours 14 Minutes ago by: Robert Carnegie

There's one substantial spoiling description by "Fred D" here <https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/5026857> with some differences. Maybe due to passage of time and to what each person chooses and don't choose to remember and to menti

YASID: Painting and its sound take over the world

Posted: 22 Hours 19 Minutes ago by: Jerry Brown

Fritz Leiber: "Rump-titty-titty-tum-tah-tee"

Re:_“The_Readers_Speak!_This_Blog’s_Readers’_F (thread)

Posted: 23 Hours 42 Minutes ago by: Mike Spencer

An artist is developing a style of painting in which he rolls out a large canvas on the studio floor, stands on a scaffold with a bucket of paint and a large brush. Dipping the brush in the bucket, with a sweep of his arm he flings a doll

Re:_“The_Readers_Speak!_This_Blog’s_Rea (thread)

Posted: 1 Day ago by: Andrew McDowell

I enjoyed and recommend Drake's RCN/Leary Mundy Series

Re:_“The_Readers_Speak!_This_Blog’s_Rea (thread)

Posted: 1 Day 2 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

And the other missing series is the 16 book Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. Starting with the awesome “Shards Of Honor", the series has been nominated for Hugos ten times and won five time, one Hugo for the entire saga.

Re:_“The_Readers_Speak!_This_Blog’s_Rea (thread)

Posted: 1 Day 3 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

A lot of people read and liked the Red Mars / Green Mars / Blue Mars trilogy by KSR. Lynn

Re: YASID about alien contact that almost destroys humanity (thread)

Posted: 1 Day 3 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

They are OK but not the best for me. James Nicoll reviews them all at: https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/reviews/contributor/1719 The missing series for me is the Pip and Flinx series by Alan Dean Foster. Lynn

YASID about alien contact that almost destroys humanity

Posted: 1 Day 4 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

_Crown of Infinity_, John M. Faucette

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 1 Day 5 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

YASID from https://best-sci-fi-books.com/contact/ "Hello, I read a book years ago and am trying to find it again. Here is the premise… Earth was starting to settle and explore far space. A species finds us and in no time almost erad

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 1 Day 5 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Yup. And many of the angels. Lynn

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 1 Day 5 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

Such celestial "wheel"-s featured heavily in Faith Hunter's "Rogue Mage" series.

Re: “The_Readers_Speak!_This_Blog’s_Readers (thread)

Posted: 1 Day 6 Hours ago by: Mike Spencer

Don't forget Ezekial and the flying saucer! 'Zekial saw a wheel Way up in the middle of the air praise God A wheel in a wheel way up in the middle of the air. The big wheel run by faith The little wheel run by the gr

“The_Readers_Speak!_This_Blog’s_Readers

Posted: 1 Day 6 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

Without having gone to the link, I would have said I had read "The Mars Trilogy".

Posted: 1 Day 6 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

“The Readers Speak! This Blog’s Readers’ Favorite Science Fiction Series” by Dan Livingston https://best-sci-fi-books.com/the-readers-speak-this-blogs-readers-favorite-science-fiction-series/ I have read: 12. The Pern series 11

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 1 Day 6 Hours ago by: Mike Spencer

Agreed it's not the Cameroi. That would be me. Huh. Me too. One of those 50+ y.o. recollections that the net is often miraculously able to verify, correct or even improve on. The Election Day story as I recall it was in a fat pape

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 1 Day 7 Hours ago by: The Horny Goat

I just finished reading that from March 13 forward and didn't see anything particularly more offensive than usual. Of course Adams has annoyed enough people along he way they'll be criticizing before he even puts pen to paper or moves h

Re: R.I.P. Eric Brown, 62, U.K. author (thread)

Posted: 1 Day 7 Hours ago by: Jack Bohn

A self-powered swimmer? Online sources say one can approach burning a Calorie per meter depending on mass, stroke efficiency, and speed. (One thing I remember from one of Randall Munroe's "What if"s is that a running human will be faste

Posted: 1 Day 9 Hours ago by: Daniel Goldsmith

i recently enough read his "The Serene Invasion", which was fine in a sort of deliberately non-engaging sort of way. it had a wonderful _idea_: what if you could no longer commit violence of any kind. problem was it never really looked int

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 1 Day 10 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Hey, we just need to change theology a little. When this post-apocalyptic world recovers from being in a caveman-like situation to the technical level experienced around the time of Christ, the world could witness the Second Coming of

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 1 Day 11 Hours ago by: Alan

You need to think that last statement through...

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 1 Day 11 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

NHL games are consistently sold-out? (Honest question -- I have no idea, though as a Southerner, Hockey is kind of an imaginary sport).

(review) Moira's Pen: A Queen's Thief Collection by Megan Whalen Turner

Posted: 1 Day 11 Hours ago by: Bice

That's a common complaint about the NHL. A lot of fans think they should switch to Olympic sized rinks because modern players are faster. Having more ice area available might also lead to more offense because it would be harder for defe

Posted: 1 Day 15 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Moira's Pen: A Queen's Thief Collection by Megan Whalen Turner A bounty of short pieces related to Turner's Queen's Thief series. https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/up-to-fate

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 1 Day 21 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

What does it stand for on a coin dated "44 BC" ? According to <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B.C._%28comic_strip%29> and <https://johnhartstudios.com/meet-the-artists/remembering-johnny/> most characters are named for and possibly based

Re:_“Texas_scientists_name_newly_discovered_anc (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 3 Hours ago by: artyw2@yahoo.com

My science olympiad competitors had to figure out how many calories an olympic swimming pool full of Coke would have. It is about a billion.

Re:_“Texas_scientists_name_newly_discovered_anc (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 5 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Yes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv9CkjkOyzo Lynn

Re: (tor dot com) Five Books About Magical Teachers and Mentors (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 6 Hours ago by: Titus G

I think the phrase is a reference to The Princess Bride.

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 6 Hours ago by: Titus G

My first thought for this category is The Magicians by Lev Grossman, a more thoughtful departure from the mainly drudge for young adults. (I was a fan of Lewis's Narnia when a child.) I reread The Magicians and the second of the then tril

Re:_“Texas_scientists_name_--_beaver_--_they_ar (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 6 Hours ago by: Titus G

snip Most definitely it should be raised but to what height I have no idea and I see no need to make it wider. The freakishly tall don't usually have the athleticism to perform elsewhere on the court and many six footers can easily dunk

Re:_Fwd:_“Texas_scientists_name_newly_discove (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 6 Hours ago by: a425couple

Buc-ee’s, the state’s wildly popular rest stop” https://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-scientists-name-newly-discovered-ancient-beaver-buc-ees-wildy-popular-texas-rest-stop discovered species of ancient beaver after Buc-ee’s, the chain o

Re: (tor dot com) Five Books About Magical Teachers and Mentors (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 7 Hours ago by: a425couple

Not sure, but off-hand I would figure him to be only 30 to 40 pounds. But, by the way, that soldier is in my opinion very foolish. Seems to me it could twist up and chomp off a finger very easily. With great irritation, I'm recalling the

Re: Inspired by something Sea Wasp said (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 8 Hours ago by: Dorothy J Heydt

(Hal Heydt) "A Succession of Bad Days" by Graydon Saunders (Vol. 2 of the Commonweal series. Vol. 3 also fits the subject.)

Re: (tears) Earthsearch by James Follett (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 8 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

He is on Facebook.

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 8 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Which has been in use in written SF for decades....

Re: Inspired by something Sea Wasp said (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 8 Hours ago by: The Horny Goat

OK you got me there - though again, if you live in an "organized area" (e.g. city, town, village, regional district) you pay them. That's at most 1% of the population - but I DID say 'isn't' so you're right and I'm not. However there ar

Re: “Texas scientists name newly discovered (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 9 Hours ago by: BCFD36

I haven't seen Sea Wasp post in quite some time. Is he still around somewhere?

Re: (tor dot com) Five Books About Magical Teachers and Mentors (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 10 Hours ago by: Christian Weisgerber

Never mind Josephoartigasia monesi--basically a giant pacarana--which is estimated to have come in at half a ton. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephoartigasia (Yes, I googled "largest rodent ever".)

Re: Fwd: “Texas scientists name newly (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 10 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

Don't forget Asprin, preferably via Foglio.

Re: (tor dot com) Five Books About Magical Teachers and Mentors (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 10 Hours ago by: Christian Weisgerber

Meanwhile at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_beaver | By the average weights known, it appears to be the world's second | heaviest rodent after the capybara, and is slightly larger and | heavier than the North American beaver. I

Re: "Sleeping Giants (The Themis Files)" by Sylvain Neuvel (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 10 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Congrats, zero for five. Dude, you rock in the esoteric books. Of course, there is the wonderful Harry Potter series. But I have a couple of more: 2. The Soulwood Series by Faith Hunter https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00S75OL96

Re: (tears) Earthsearch by James Follett (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 10 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Just about all of the authors are doing series now. Even Robert Forward. Readers generally like series and are willing to pay for them. Lynn

Re: (tears) Earthsearch by James Follett (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 10 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Well, until they space a certain guy. You know, we need a new saying for getting rid of troublemakers in space other than "walk the gangplank". Something like "space him !". Lynn

Pearls Before Swine: Crocs Air Beebee Review Reply

Posted: 2 Days 10 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Nope, a solid door. Lynn

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 10 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Pearls Before Swine: Crocs Air Beebee Review Reply https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2023/03/29 Yup, I agree with Zeeba, "Yum !" is not a review reply. Lynn

Re: (tor dot com) Five Books About Magical Teachers and Mentors (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 11 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

My SonicBlue ReplayTV DVR, circa 2000, let me move videos to a PC and burn them to disk. It also had the ability to automatically skip ads when showing recorded shows, a feature that led it into endless lawsuits, and eventually killed

Re: (tor dot com) Five Books About Magical Teachers and Mentors (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 11 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

Schooled in Magic - Christopher Nutall

My fiction: Space Guys Zero G repair parody?

Posted: 2 Days 11 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Obvious extensions: The Sword in the Stone - TH White A Wizard of Earthsea - LeGuin I'm guessing Harry Potter has been cancelled. pt

Re: "Sleeping Giants (The Themis Files)" by Sylvain Neuvel (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 11 Hours ago by: David Brown

https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/03/fiction-space-guys-adventure-part-20.html And the text for about 2/3rds of this; the setup is a social gathering in a living area inside a drive nacelle in a "gravity ring". Alek insisted on hol

Posted: 2 Days 11 Hours ago by: a425couple

OK. Thank you Lynn, for bringing up the topic of this book, and stating you were pleased by it. I had put it aside, while having irritations at it. I had not totally rejected it. It is still very handy, and I might pick it up again, but

Re: Texas_scientists_n (thread)

Re: (tears) Earthsearch by James Follett (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Back then? What is "usual" can change over time, after all.

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Good call. Things /definitely/ go down hill after a certain point is reached.

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

IIRC, this was to allow timeshifting. But, with VHS, it is possible to build an entire library of content that you can watch over and over again without paying the copyright holder anything. I'm not sure that's allowed. And I would be

Re:_Fwd:_“Texas_scientists_name_newly_discove (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 13 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Less confusing than "1.78:1" being a synonymn for "anamorphic" when the actual aspect ratio of the film as shown on the TV is 2.35:1, a fact not mentioned on the packaging? That solution may not be /ideal/, but the zoo of descriptions I

(tor dot com) Five Books About Magical Teachers and Mentors

Posted: 2 Days 13 Hours ago by: a425couple

also "North American beavers are the largest rodents in North America and the second largest in the world (South America's capybaras being the heaviest). They weigh between 35 and 65 pounds (16 to 30 kilograms), with the heaviest beaver o

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 14 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Five Books About Magical Teachers and Mentors You can't have student sorcerers without teachers! Well, you can but things may proceed more smoothly with mentors pointing the way. https://www.tor.com/2023/03/29/five-books-about-magical-

Posted: 2 Days 15 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

I've pondered if basketball could be improved by either raising the net to 15 feet (and making it slightly wider), or lowering it to 8 feet. Either would greatly increase the pool of people who could compete in the top echelon, since be

Re: Alford Van Ronkel, screenwriter (thread)

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 17 Hours ago by: Jack Bohn

See also: actor Rip Torn.

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 19 Hours ago by: Titus G

A few years ago, Aussie Rules was broadcast on NZ TV for only a season or two and I enjoyed it. I hadn't considered the possibility that fields would have different sizes. My second biggest gripe with many popular sports is that professio

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 23 Hours ago by: Gary R. Schmidt

I suspect the original may have been something about "Insula Ponte"[1] or somewhere. :-) Cheers, Gary B-) 1 - Pulled Ponte out of thin air, I think it's a region of current Rome, so I am presuming it was a valid insulae. :-)

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 23 Hours ago by: David Duffy

No-one has mentioned Olympic swimming pools (2,500 m^3) or, around here, "sydharb, also called a Sydney Harbour, approximately 500 gigalitres".

Re: âTexas scientists name newly discovered ancient beaver after Buc-eeâs, the stateâs wildly popular rest stopâ (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 23 Hours ago by: Gary R. Schmidt

You don't ever, ever scare a 'roo. The mongrel bastard's as likely to come for you as not! Cheers, Gary B-)

Re: (tears) Earthsearch by James Follett (thread)

Posted: 2 Days 23 Hours ago by: Robert Woodward

But significantly smaller than Castoroides ("giant beaver"), see <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castoroides>

Re:_“Texas_scientists_name_newly_discovered_ancien (thread)

Posted: 3 Days ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Was it at least a screen door?

Posted: 3 Days ago by: Quadibloc

This caused me to think that I had heard the name "Bucky Beaver" before, despite never having visited Texas. So I did a Google search. It turned out that Bucky Beaver was the mascot for the television commercials of Ipana toothpaste. An

Posted: 3 Days 1 Hour ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

That was one of the jokes in the arc I mentioned. Hart introduced a new Italian character Anno Dommina and had, um, Peter introduce the two: BC: Hello, Anno Anno: Goodbye, BC. It would be interesting to read that again, but it wasn't

Posted: 3 Days 2 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

One of the comments, "This is where Godzilla is from.". Lynn

Posted: 3 Days 2 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

So what does BC stand for then ? It is certainly not "because" or "be careful" or "basket case" or "be cool". Lynn

Posted: 3 Days 2 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

It was more than a theory in the last Hart years; it was explicitly acknowledged, though it hasn't been since as far as I know.

Posted: 3 Days 3 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

This fits with the fan theory that BC is set in a post apocalyptic future. Pt

Alford Van Ronkel, screenwriter

Posted: 3 Days 5 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

I was watching the opening credits to Destination Moon, and I noticed the name "Rip van Ronkel" turn up. I thought that was an obvious pseudonym, so I searched with Google, and was expecting to find that someone like Dalton Trumbo was help

Re: Over The Hedge: AI Filters (thread)

“Texas_scientists_name_newly_discovered_ancient_b

Posted: 3 Days 6 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Perhaps it should scare you that it doesn't care whether it gets it right or not. (And probably not many humans would meet your standard of work, anyway.) Or perhaps be scared that this is just the toy one that you play with for free,

Re: (tears) Earthsearch by James Follett (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 6 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

“Texas scientists name newly discovered ancient beaver after Buc-ee’s, the state’s wildly popular rest stop” https://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-scientists-name-newly-discovered-ancient-beaver-buc-ees-wildy-popular-texas-rest-stop

Posted: 3 Days 6 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Definitely. But they are on a spaceship and somebody opens a door ... Lynn

Re: Over The Hedge: AI Filters (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 6 Hours ago by: John W Kennedy

I asked ChatGPT to write a new poem to be inserted into Charles Williams’ “Taliessin Through Logres”, supplying it with the speaker, his audience, and the subject matter. Perhaps the verse would have passed muster at the Brill Bu

Re: Over The Hedge: AI Filters (thread)

Re: (tears) Earthsearch by James Follett (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 7 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Assuming such a ban can be passed before the AIs are in control anyways....

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 7 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

I haven't seen that one myself but my impression was it was more a remake of 'Lord of the Flies' than anything else.

Posted: 3 Days 7 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

But there is also no law preventing the companies that make movies and TV shows from buying up all the companies that make equipment that the public can use to record broadcasts and _removing_ such functionality from all their products

Over The Hedge: AI Filters

Re: (tears) Earthsearch by James Follett (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Over The Hedge: AI Filters https://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2023/03/28 I suspect that AIs will be banned soon. Energy usage, job loss, etc. Lynn

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Wait, I just saw a TV show / movie based on this. Very newish. One adult and 30 kids shepherding a generation space ship with 100,000 fetuses in it from Earth to a new star system. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9664108/ and htt

Posted: 3 Days 9 Hours ago by: Dorothy J Heydt

(Hal Heydt) Recording broadcasts isn't illegal, at least in the US. That was settled with regard to tape recorders and then reinforced in the Betamax decision.

BC: Runit Island

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

BC: Runit Island https://www.gocomics.com/bc/2023/03/28 Oh my. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runit_Island Lynn

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 10 Hours ago by: Christian Weisgerber

Well, Steven Soderbergh shot a whole movie, _Unsane_ (2018), on an iPhone. That one has an aspect ratio of 1.56 : 1, according to IMDb.

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 12 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Not to mention far too confusing for the average viewer.

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 12 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

Judging by what I see online, the first 9:16 movie can't be far in the future.

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 12 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Don't you size them by kangaroo hops? So if you want a bigger oval you scare the 'roo more?

Re: (tears) Earthsearch by James Follett (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

I may not have figured out "anamorphic" yet [1], but I did know that movie aspect ratios and TV aspect ratios were not the same thing. The confusion was with the author of the review. I don't know that I had figured out the difference

Re: (tears) Earthsearch by James Follett (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 12 Hours ago by: Jerry Brown

I recall the line "I've got hairs growing in other places too", which made teenage me giggle a bit.

Re: Inspired by something Sea Wasp said (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 12 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Ah, but there's a twist: The Earth that launched the ship isn't our Earth. Our Earth is the planet the travellers call Paradise, which they eventually settle. It's the old Adam and Eve gambit.

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 13 Hours ago by: Ahasuerus

It should be noted that not all eras are created equal. A 12-year-old discovering science fiction in 1950 would have been -- primarily -- reading SF classics first published in 1939-1949 as opposed to in 1926-1938. A 12-year-old discoveri

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 13 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Perhaps the original is Dorothy Parker's "“If all the girls attending [the Yale prom] were laid end to end, I wouldn't be at all surprised.” pt

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 13 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

In one of the Riverworld books, PJF or and editor at some point decided to convert measurements to metric, so the mountains at the edge of the valley were described as 'about 9144 meters high'. pt

Re: (tears) Earthsearch by James Follett (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 14 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

The article took that into account, and specified extended, stretched out armadillos, including the tail. pt

(shockwave reader) No Future In It by John Brunner

Posted: 3 Days 14 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 15 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

No Future In It by John Brunner A handful of short SF stories from early in Brunner's career. https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/we-all-shine-on

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 16 Hours ago by: Gary R. Schmidt

I know we don't, I was waiting for that... Cheers, Gary B-) (In deepest, darkest Mentone, Victoria, Australia. :-) )

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 17 Hours ago by: Hamish Laws

You think we limit ourselves to 1 size of oval for AFL?

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 20 Hours ago by: Charles Packer

At least the Jerusalem Post articles included enough information to reveal that it was the source of the absurd comparisons, not NASA. The infamous Chinese balloon a while back was something else. There it was the government that was the

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 23 Hours ago by: Gary R. Schmidt

That reminds me, "If all the dolly-birds in Chelsea were laid end-to-end, nobody would be in the least bit surprised". Cheers, Gary B-)

Re: (tor dot com) Five Authors We Wish Had Written More (thread)

Posted: 3 Days 23 Hours ago by: Gary R. Schmidt

Not all countries that use the metric are sportsball-of-that-sort-centric. How many Aussie Rules ovals is it? Lengthwise or crosswise? And if it's Rugby, is it League or Union, and does it really matter??? :-) And aren't Canadian Grid

Re: Inspired by something Sea Wasp said (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 5 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Speaking of A Canticle for Liebowitz: since the setup is essential to the plot, of course the convention is to suspend disbelief for at least one thing for a science-fiction story. But it can be noted that the scenario behind this book i

Posted: 4 Days 5 Hours ago by: David Duffy

A lot of the younger folks I have contact with look up to movies rather than books ;( most notably one series starting in 1977, which I was already too old to gain much satisfaction from. I guess that for a few more the Book of Gold is ac

Re: Philip Wylie's Last Work (thread)

Re: (tears) Earthsearch by James Follett (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 5 Hours ago by: David Duffy

His last novel _The End of the Dream_, has various plausible and less plausible environmental disasters coming one after the other,

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 5 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Clearly useful as suspensful listening for the kiddies, but of no interest unless one had heard it when one was young, and hence had a sentimental attachment thereto. John Savard

Re: Questionable Content: Robot AI Prehensile Tail (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 6 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Many years ago I worked for a small consulting company that interpreted seismic data for oil & gas exploration. This basically involved creating an initial "seismic" event on the surface (either explosives or 18-wheeler trailers with

Re: "Sleeping Giants (The Themis Files)" by Sylvain Neuvel (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 6 Hours ago by: Mark Jackson

https://i.stack.imgur.com/4HeZC.jpg

Re: (tears) Earthsearch by James Follett (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 7 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

I see what you did there. Lynn

Re: "Sleeping Giants (The Themis Files)" by Sylvain Neuvel (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 7 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Not exactly. But IIRC the crew do find their home system - minus home planet - populated by beings hairier than themselves. The ANGEL brains decided it was less trouble to raise and hormonize their new crew to mature human size but wi

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 7 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

That Transforms the situation. I may remember wrong, I think we get one of these per planet: <https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Fantastic_Four_Vol_1_64> Somewhat reminiscent of "The Sentinel", Arthur C. Clarke version, not X-Men version, b

Re: (tears) Earthsearch by James Follett (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 8 Hours ago by: Titus G

To ensure measurement to the nearest 0.1mm, the water should first be frozen. Inaccuracy may result if swimmers are not first removed.

Re: "Sleeping Giants (The Themis Files)" by Sylvain Neuvel (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Ah, a retelling of "The Planet Of The Apes" book from 1964. https://www.amazon.com/Planet-Apes-Pierre-Boulle/dp/B00005WN1S/ Lynn

Re: "Sleeping Giants (The Themis Files)" by Sylvain Neuvel (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Don't assume that all of the other robots are on Earth. Lynn

Posted: 4 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Somebody somewhere is going to find all the robot parts and put them together. Pandora's box comes to mind. The Manhattan Project comes to mind. *** S P O I L E R *** And it is just a matter of time until the Gala

Questionable Content: Robot AI Prehensile Tail

Posted: 4 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

It is roughly the same thing that Google was proposing to do. Lynn

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Questionable Content: Robot AI Prehensile Tail https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comicP11 You know, having a prehensile tail sounds cool until you want to sit down. Lynn

Posted: 4 Days 10 Hours ago by: Dorothy J Heydt

(Hal Heydt) It all brings to mind the irritation of badly done measurement conversions. Two specific ones come to mind... A good many years ago, some US VIP visited South Korea. The newspaper account stated that the pres was kept back

Crankshaft: Birthday Cake

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 10 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Crankshaft: Birthday Cake https://www.gocomics.com/crankshaft/2023/03/25 I've eaten a lot of birthday cake over the years. And I started reading Spiderman over fifty years ago. Lynn

Re: "Sleeping Giants (The Themis Files)" by Sylvain Neuvel (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 10 Hours ago by: artyw2@yahoo.com

I think if you tried to line them up, they would curl up in a ball which would alter the measurements somewhat. However "How many armadillos would you need to line up end to end to equal the length of the average asteroid" is the kind of

Posted: 4 Days 11 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

The title is plural. Maybe other countries found giant robot limbs and now we're in an international arm race.

Inspired by something Sea Wasp said

Re: OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting. (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 11 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

I read Have Space Suit, Will Travel in grade five, so 1972 or thereabouts? HSWT would have been about 14 years old then. An old timey classic of similar age to a modern day young reader would have been published in 2009.

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 11 Hours ago by: Jack Bohn

If I ever say "as long as 4 football fields," I follow it with "(in metric, 3.4 soccer pitches)."

Posted: 4 Days 11 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

Perhaps one or the other of you were confused about the impact of an anamorphic lens, where a 2.39:1 aspect ratio is warped to fit in a 35mm (1.375:1) frame and the projection lens reverses the warp. There was a lot of confusion vis-a-v

Posted: 4 Days 11 Hours ago by: Jack Bohn

A podcast once broached the topic: "How do you order your comics collection?" which really touched a nerve and had provided feedback for about every installment since then. One respondent admitted that for reprint collections, they somet

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Exactly.

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 12 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

Yes, they are. There are also hearing aids that support bluetooth and can feed the audio directly from a bluetooth source (such as an amplifier).

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

And I thought the Forces of Reason had won /that/ war when VHS tapes started being Letterboxed -- which leaves black bands at the top and bottom of the picture. Silly me. I ended up buying some /very/ well-liked movies three times: once

Re: "Sleeping Giants (The Themis Files)" by Sylvain Neuvel (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

And it still appears to be available on Amazon: [https://www.amazon.com/NAD-Stereo-Integrated-Amplifier-Bluetooth/dp/B01LYHN2B5/ref=sr_1_4?crid=24BJ9QXI8XR4F&keywords=nad+hybrid+digital+amplifier+c368&qid=1679932166&sprefix=nad+hybrid+di

OT: At least one journalist realizes how silly its getting.

Posted: 4 Days 13 Hours ago by: a425couple

------------------ I got pulled in, and was enjoying this book for a fairly long time for me / about 100 pages until an irritation kept growing.... Do you recall that cartoon with the two guys adrift, lost at see in an inflatable life bo

(tor dot com) Five Plot-Friendly Ways to Isolate Planets and Space Colonies

Posted: 4 Days 14 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

The growing tendency of journalists to relate the size of things in comparisons: 'as long as 4 football fields', 'as large as a MiniCooper', 'the size of a four year old' has been a minor irritant to me for a long time (yes, there are bet

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 14 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Five Plot-Friendly Ways to Isolate Planets and Space Colonies Need a pristine petri dish for your science fiction sociological experiment? Here are five ways to achieve that. https://www.tor.com/2023/03/27/five-plot-friendly-ways-to-iso

Re: YouTube is being very informative today (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 20 Hours ago by: The Horny Goat

1965 would be a bit before my time in SF but Enders Game also started in Analog - much later (1977) which is where I first read it. (That was during my student days and they had a special offer for subscriptions in the student union so I

Posted: 4 Days 20 Hours ago by: Charles Packer

I'd bet that the narrator of the video is also the author of the book. How in heck did it get 1.7 million views in 2 weeks? Oh, I see -- his channel has 1.82M subscribers. By contrast, an excellent physics presenter named Arvin Ash has

Re: Philip Wylie's Last Work (thread)

Posted: 4 Days 21 Hours ago by: Charles Packer

I lived in Santa Monica 1969-70 and remember the smog stinging my eyes as I rode around the LA area on my motorcycle. I see that Wylie died in 1971, a year after the Clean Air Act was signed into law by Nixon. That pollution has been gon

Re: Philip Wylie's Last Work (thread)

Posted: 5 Days ago by: Mike Van Pelt

I remember this! I used to watch "Name of the Game" semi-regularly. Three (I think) rotating casts, working for Gene Barry's magazine. I think I recall they used some SFnal communictions device.

Philip Wylie's Last Work

YouTube is being very informative today

Posted: 5 Days 3 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Philip Wylie wrote a controversial book on American politics with the title "Generation of Vipers". He also wrote "When Worlds Collide", which was adapted into a spectacular movie. Later on in his life, he shifted to writing novels about

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 5 Days 6 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

According to this video, from ingredients I probably have around the house, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0n1Q0CV-3A I can make the Philosopher's Stone, although the process may take years. And the directions are found in the Book of

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 5 Days 6 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

You should really go to rec.arts.tv. This get discussed there regularly. As for the showing a 4:3 image in a 16:9 space, when that is done people complain about how "the left and right sides are cut off! Where's the rest of my pictur

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 5 Days 6 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Just blurred, I think. The other other alternative is to create a version for 16:9 by broadcasting the 4:3 picture in the middle of the 16:9 space. I think I shouldn't describe how it bothers me when TV broadcasts shows as plain 4:3 w

"Sleeping Giants (The Themis Files)" by Sylvain Neuvel

Posted: 5 Days 8 Hours ago by: Christian Weisgerber

I watch almost all movies/TV shows at home with headphones. You would think this would make for optimal listening. Well... I think we are dealing with a complex, multi-dimensional problem. For starters, while movie mixes might be cre

Posted: 5 Days 8 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

"Sleeping Giants (The Themis Files)" by Sylvain Neuvel https://www.amazon.com/Sleeping-Giants-Themis-Sylvain-Neuvel/dp/1101886714/ Book number one of a three book science fiction series about giant robots. I read the well printed and

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 5 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Hilarious ! Lynn

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 5 Days 9 Hours ago by: Titus G

My computer and TV are heard through my NAD Hybrid Digital amplifier C 368 (2018 Vintage) which outputs stereo. I don't think I do. tough luck on hearing dialogue. Setting your source Thank you for the advice.

Re: (wfc) Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones (thread)

Posted: 5 Days 9 Hours ago by: Titus G

snip Perhaps more than a decade ago but I also enjoyed The January Dancer. I have not yet opened Up Jim River. snip

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 5 Days 9 Hours ago by: Titus G

Redshirts.

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 5 Days 9 Hours ago by: Titus G

Yes. I am happy to use sub titles if they exist. Something I hadn't considered as I have never used headphones. This sounds complicated. My computer and TV are heard through my NAD Hybrid Digital amplifier C 368 (2018 Vintage) which ou

Posted: 5 Days 11 Hours ago by: Lee Gleason

"Implosion" by DF Jones. Great ending. -- Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR Control-G Consultants lee.gleason@comcast.net

Posted: 5 Days 12 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

If I understand correctly, what provoked the lawsuit was an IA decision in 2020 to offer covid relief to people by removing the limit on simultaneous loans. So, one book bought, one book scanned, potentially an infinite number of simulta

Re: OT An Extra Benefit From Using My Kindle. (thread)

Posted: 5 Days 13 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

I read a story on that yesterday on the Win 10 News thingy. The problem appears to be that they were /buying/ copyrighted books, /scanning them/ without a license to do so, and then /lending/ them out to all and sundry. Several years ag

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 5 Days 13 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

That's what my touch-screen Kindle (the newer one) does. It is searching the dictionary and Wikipedia, which is not instantaneous (particularly Wikipedia which, of course, is not stored on the device). The "three dots" open up a menu inc

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 5 Days 13 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

The alternative is to stretch the picture out. Did the characters look ... wider than usual?

Re: OT: Tonight's film "First Man Into Space" (1959) (thread)

Posted: 5 Days 13 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

A lot of the movies I stream are in languages I am not particularly familiar with, so I have subtitles on quite often (if they aren't on automatically). Some of these are labled as [CC] but only have the dialog; others have various sound

Posted: 5 Days 13 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

They also put out /Armageddon/, known to be a large steaming cowpie of a movie. Criterion won its reputation in the LaserDisc market. My understanding is that they pioneered things like commentaries. They are, however, very reliable.

Posted: 5 Days 13 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

How do you say "I don't read books" without saying so? https://www.etsy.com/listing/888704204/bookcase-perfection-single-book-by Pt

(tears) Earthsearch by James Follett

Posted: 5 Days 14 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

I commented there: Mr and Mrs Harwell in the British mystery novel "Thrones, Dominations" live in an apartment that's pretty much a hotel. "The management even keep the cocktail cabinet fully stocked for us; we don't have a large one,

Re: (wfc) Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones (thread)

Posted: 5 Days 15 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Earthsearch by James Follett Starfarers return home generations after leaving, only to discover home is not what they expected. Or where. https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/home-again-and-feeling-right

Posted: 6 Days ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Indeed. The murder rates in Midsomer County, Cabot Cove ME, and St. Mary Mead are orders of magnitude higher than surrounding areas. Pt

Re: OT An Extra Benefit From Using My Kindle. (thread)

Posted: 6 Days ago by: pete...@gmail.com

That's cool. I find one vendor online selling actual ceramic Penrose tiles, but they're handmade, fairly large, and $45/square foot. I'm surprised no manufacturer Is making these. Perhaps it's because large blocks glued onto cloth grid

Posted: 6 Days 1 Hour ago by: Jay E. Morris

On my Samsung tablet with the Kindle reader if I long press on a word it highlights and brings up a menu bar above the word. A couple seconds later a dictionary and Wikipedia window appear at the bottom. I don't know if the delay is ju

Pearls Before Swine: Book Lover

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 2 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Pearls Before Swine: Book Lover https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2023/03/25 I guess that I am old fashioned since I arrange my books by the pile. Lynn

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 3 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

On 3/25/2023 9:01 AM, Andrew McDowell wrote:

Re: OT: Tonight's film "First Man Into Space" (1959) (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 5 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

I don't remember if I asked already - is it likely that TV on DVB-T, "Freeview", has monophonic sound when a show (obSF "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", "3rd Rock from the Sun") was made with better than stereo sound, but Freeview or my in

Re: OT: Tonight's film "First Man Into Space" (1959) (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 7 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

And just to prove I'm not kidding, here's a link: https://www.criterion.com/films/803-first-man-into-space John Savard

Re: OT: Tonight's film "First Man Into Space" (1959) (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 7 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Although it certainly _sounds_ like a movie that is not worth bothering with, somehow it managed to get on a DVD made by *Criterion*, of all people. So maybe, just maybe, it might not be all *that* bad. John Savard

Re: R.I.P. Eric Brown, 62, U.K. author (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 7 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Awful Grade B science-fiction films can sometimes be found online on places like YouTube or Dailymotion, because unlike recent blockbusters, their copyright is not so vigilantly defended. John Savard

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 7 Hours ago by: Christian Weisgerber

That rings a faint bell. I've read his novel _Engineman_ (1994) and the story collection _Blue Shifting_ (1995). I'm afraid, I don't remember anything about either.

Posted: 6 Days 8 Hours ago by: Jack Bohn

I hadn't thought of closed captions until one time when we had to keep the house quiet, but I *had* to watch Doctor Who. In addition, to helping with the mile-a-minute Tennant, they also indicated when the Murray Gold music pieces "Next

Alex (OT)

Re: R.I.P. Eric Brown, 62, U.K. author (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 8 Hours ago by: William Hyde

https://alexcartoon.s3.amazonaws.com/8304_22.03.23_web.jpg No talking dog, so there's no SF component. William Hyde

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 8 Hours ago by: William Hyde

While we are on the topic, Gloria Dea, actor and magician, died recently. Her SF connection was a role in the original "Plan 9" which she said was a lot of fun to act in. She was also the first magician to perform on the Las Vegas str

Posted: 6 Days 9 Hours ago by: Andrew McDowell

You were absolutely right to recommend Flynn's Firestar series - I very much enjoyed that series, which I think is much under-appreciated. I had assumed after reading "The Wreck Of The River Of Stars" that Flynn had turned to writing much

R.I.P. Eric Brown, 62, U.K. author

Re: (wfc) Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lenona

Not, of course, to be confused with the slightly younger actor from TV's "Mama's Family"! I'm in a bit of a rush, so... https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/mar/23/eric-brown-science-fiction-author-and-guardian-critic-dies-aged-62 http

Re: (wfc) Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 9 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Sometimes it is the person everyone liked, which flips the suspect list from too long to too short.

Posted: 6 Days 10 Hours ago by: David Johnston

Well, yeah, but almost never of anyone people really miss.

(OT) Breaking News from PW

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 10 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

"BREAKING: A federal judge has decided in favor of four publishers in the long-awaited copyright case Hachette v. Internet Archive. "There is nothing transformative about IA's copying and unauthorized lending of the works in the suit," the

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 11 Hours ago by: Jaimie Vandenbergh

First thing to try is make sure all your devices in the chain are set to whatever number of speakers you have, or all the way down to stereo. Mixes for TV often come as 5.1 which includes a centre channel - if you don't have one, tough

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 11 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

I would say that some of Taylor's books are like that.

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 11 Hours ago by: Robert Woodward

My unwritten hostile review would have included more objections than the three listed above. I would have had a few comments about the plot and characters as well. As for suggestions ... what about Michael Flynn's Firestar series (_Fi

Re: OT An Extra Benefit From Using My Kindle. (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

I didn't respond yesterday because I didn't feel like being snarky. But last night it occurred to me that there are things you can try -- if you are willing to live with them. Some people are not. 1. SDH/closed-captioning/subtitles --

Re: OT An Extra Benefit From Using My Kindle. (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

You are very much mistaken. But thanks for asking.

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

I find that works easier with my older Kindle (the one without a touch screen) as bringing up the dictionary is only a button-press away. With the touch-screen I have to 1. highlight a word it can find in the dictionary 2. press the thr

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 13 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

My new TV did that for a while -- then it died. I took it in for service under the warranty, and found that the unit I had been sold "as new" since it had been returned by the prior owner had been tampered with. It took some time, but To

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 14 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Some of these are not super recent but at least they are more recent than Doc Smith: Issui Ogawa, The Next Continent: the effort to build a facility on the Moon, despite technological and financial challenges. Planetes by Makoto Yukim

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 14 Hours ago by: Andrew McDowell

I have bought books by both Les Johnson and Travis S. Taylor in the hopes of finding a modern E.E.Smith - enthusiasm about science backed up by enough knowledge of it to show an (admittedly glamourised) version of research and ideally some

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 14 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

There's a cool trick one can do with binary bodies where during a flyby of a planet one of them ends up in orbit and the other ejected. I believe this is one of the explanations as to how Triton ended up orbiting Neptune. I can see why

Re: OT An Extra Benefit From Using My Kindle. (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 17 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

OK, let's say (1) the asteroid is stopped rotating AND is accelerated to a new trajectory by the same rocket. The rocket is nailed onto the asteroid, and it fires only when it's facing the right way for the desired course change, and it

Posted: 6 Days 17 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

I think he's Paul S. Person. But I may be mistaken.

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 6 Days 22 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Of course, though, this is now a post with a confusing title. Because only a few days later, a *real* momentous discovery has been made! https://kottke.org/23/03/a-potential-major-discovery-an-aperiodic-monotile John Savard

Posted: 6 Days 23 Hours ago by: Butch Malahide

Donald Wollheim's "Ajax of Ajax" is set in the Fore-Trojan Asteroids. https://archive.org/details/Future_v02n06_1942-08/page/n37/mode/2up

Re: OT An Extra Benefit From Using My Kindle. (thread)

Posted: 7 Days ago by: Lynn McGuire

We call them Feral Pigs. Lynn

Re: (wfc) Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones (thread)

Posted: 7 Days 1 Hour ago by: Default User

[searching names] That's one that didn't occur to me until I started using on e-reader, but it is really nice. I also like looking up words, especially when reading a British author. Brian

Re: OT An Extra Benefit From Using My Kindle. (thread)

Posted: 7 Days 1 Hour ago by: Default User

A good reminder for minor celebrities. If your people have you scheduled for a visit to a small town for some reason, find out if there have been a number of mysterious murders over the past few years solved by the local bookstore owner,

Posted: 7 Days 2 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Resizable fonts are a boon for us with older eyes. ptt

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 7 Days 2 Hours ago by: Dudley Brooks

Yay! One of my faves when I was a kid ... even though everyone in them was a Republican. But that was appropriate for the locale. Space Cat was my other fave.

OT An Extra Benefit From Using My Kindle.

Posted: 7 Days 3 Hours ago by: Titus G

Did Dimwire reply to this? Did he fully explain it to you by Writing in Tongues?

Posted: 7 Days 3 Hours ago by: Titus G

An Extra Benefit From Using My Kindle. I have just begun the four book series, Terra Ignota, where the first book is about 600 pages and having been binge reading Ruth Rendell's non Wrexford novels of two to three hundred pages each with a

Terra Ignota. Ada Palmer. (thread)

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 7 Days 3 Hours ago by: Titus G

Having read only 4 or 5 chapters of book 1, Too Like The Lightning, I see what you mean. The "too many ideas" is making reading rather slow because of the distractions and I am already aware that there will be levels beyond my literary com

Re: (wfc) Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones (thread)

Posted: 7 Days 5 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

So, you are saying that if the asteroid rotation is stopped using a rocket engine, that the rocks flying along with the asteroid will continue flying with the asteroid ? Um, not going to agree to that as the rocket engine will change

Posted: 7 Days 7 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

In _The Lord of the Rings_ there are happy reunions, such as when Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas find... well, that sort of ends up being "Let's go and face certain death in a hopeless war", so it's not absolute joy.

Re: (wfc) Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones (thread)

Posted: 7 Days 7 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

The Parker Solar probe is using repeated close encounters with Venus to lower its perihelion. Pt

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 7 Days 10 Hours ago by: William Hyde

As in "The Book of Dreams", by Jack Vance. Actually, in Vance's world it's best not to go to any gathering that doesn't consist of your nearest friends and relations. And even then... William Hyde

Re: (wfc) Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones (thread)

Posted: 7 Days 10 Hours ago by: Christian Weisgerber

When I watched _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_, the TV show, many cemetery scenes were black on black. That changed greatly once I switched from a poor CRT to a poor flat screen. I learned a lesson from that, which Paul S Person steadfastly

Re: (wfc) Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones (thread)

Posted: 7 Days 11 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

The anticipated sort, which admittedly can also turn out badly. For example, in any cosy mystery series, school reunions invariably feature one or more murders.

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 7 Days 12 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Is there some other kind of reunion?

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 7 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

I would probably have purchased the first antman film -- if they hadn't dragged the Marvel Avengers into it. No other recent Marvel film related in any way to the Marvel Avengers has even come close to meeting that criterion.

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 7 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

I don't watch a lot of TV (Black Mirror cured me of watching them when I couldn't sleep, which, since I was watching them to get back to sleep, is not entirely bad), but my guess would be any or all of these reasons: 1. It's stylish. 2

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 7 Days 14 Hours ago by: Jack Bohn

I wonder what experience led them astray, common sense being the layer of prejudice laid down before the age of twelve. Possibly a record turntable (kids! ask your older brother who's into vinyl!) with objects sitting on it held on by fri

Re: "Under the Stars of Druufon (Perry Rhodan #68)" by Clark Darlton, translated by Wendayne Ackerman (thread)

Posted: 7 Days 14 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

Then there is also the difficulty of stopping the rotation in the first place. It's not going to be instantaneous, so I suspect that all the "loose rocks" would simply slow down with the asteroid.

(wfc) Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones

Posted: 7 Days 14 Hours ago by: Don

***spoiler*** Darlton's short's a formulaic "boy and girl who don't like each other share a private comfy research ship where they rub each other the wrong way." It's blatantly obvious to casual onlookers how the two are actually soulma

Posted: 7 Days 15 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones An unexpected reunion proves unhappy. https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/shiver-in-my-bones

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 7 Days 23 Hours ago by: Robert Woodward

IIRC, the least fuel course would be: 1) Hohmann transfer to Jupiter (arriving ahead of Jupiter in its orbit around the Sun - takes years) 2) Inserting into a retrograde orbit around Jupiter 3) A fuel burn in Jupiter orbit to escape

Re: "Under the Stars of Druufon (Perry Rhodan #68)" by Clark Darlton, (thread)

Posted: 7 Days 23 Hours ago by: Robert Woodward

I was tempted when this was published to post a hostile review when this book was published. Newtonian Physics was violated right and left (at the velocities in question, Relativity isn't significantly different). 1) Rocks could only

Re: (review) The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman (thread)

Posted: 8 Days ago by: Lynn McGuire

Clark Darlton (actually Walter Ernsting) passed away in 2005. So I doubt that he will be writing any more SF. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Ernsting Since Wendy Ackerman taught German and French at the local junior college,

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 8 Days ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

Well this one was pretty recent, but I think I remember comics better than many people for some reason. Of course the trouble is finding the comic you remember. Google is pretty good for xkcd, and dilbert.com used to be amazing. Other

Re: (review) The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman (thread)

Posted: 8 Days ago by: Titus G

Damn. I thought that the "ways to fix it" referred to how I could fix it at home where I watch all films and series. One of my favourite TV series was "The Wire" but the dialogue was often impossible to hear. Does this have any practica

Re: "Under the Stars of Druufon (Perry Rhodan #68)" by Clark Darlton, translated by Wendayne Ackerman (thread)

Posted: 8 Days ago by: Titus G

Just curious. Do you remember these or search for subject relevance? I receive them by email but keep few. I don't observe such detail. Is the genie being defensive or just being a genie?

Re: "Under the Stars of Druufon (Perry Rhodan #68)" by Clark Darlton, translated by Wendayne Ackerman (thread)

Posted: 8 Days ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

I had to code on a German keyboard for a couple of hours once -- it was pretty traumatic. I think the Cardiff affair, the death of Khrest & particularly the death of Thora kind of pulled me out of the flow of PR a bit and made me start t

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 1 Hour ago by: Don

IMHO the "Thora Discovers Perrydise" short sublimely showcases Darlton's talent to type up the typical telegraphing tinsel town TV treatment. IOW, this short proves to me Darlton's potential to write a superlative _Star Trek_ sc

Posted: 8 Days 1 Hour ago by: Lynn McGuire

Oh yes, his "Warp Speed" book is definitely not hard science as he invents an FTL drive. But the "On To The Asteroid" is fairly hard science. Lynn

Ravenclaw Pride Day

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 1 Hour ago by: David Dalton

March 23 is Ravenclaw Pride Day, and if new/dark moon is the Raven, the early waxing crescent can be the claw. :-)

Re: (review) The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 1 Hour ago by: Dimensional Traveler

That hasn't stopped Mr. Taylor from writing some very implausible Sci-Fi science before.

Re: (review) The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 3 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

The last three books where the kid that time took the advice, weren't accepted for publication. :-) Likewise the poems by two guys who weren't stopped by The Ancient Mariner. Shorter, about how lovely the wedding was. The bride and g

"Under the Stars of Druufon (Perry Rhodan #68)" by Clark Darlton,

Posted: 8 Days 3 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Is it wrong to like the folded arms in panel two? Reminds me of movies with "Sinbad" in the title.

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 5 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

"Under the Stars of Druufon (Perry Rhodan #68)" by Clark Darlton, translated by Wendayne Ackerman https://www.amazon.com/Perry-Rhodan-Under-Stars-Druufon-68-Darlton/dp/B000HT4FGE/ Book number sixty-eight of a series of one hundred and

Re: (review) The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 6 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Are you a rocket scientist ? Both Les Johnson and Travis Taylor are for NASA. Lynn

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 7 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

https://xkcd.com/2741/

Re: (review) The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 7 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

The thing is they made a Star Wars movie instead of a Marvel movie. It's very apparent when they replay Lando/Cloud City and have Death Star archictecture & Empire tropes later. (It wasn't a great Star Wars movie, but nobody else is maki

Posted: 8 Days 8 Hours ago by: Titus G

That reminds me of John Brunner's The Traveller in Black a wish granting entity where the unexpected and disastrous consequences were deliberate IIRC.

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 8 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

It depends on what vector you start. Anything in a vaguely planet-like orbit, its very difficult. A cometary orbit, no so hard. Comets have been seen striking the sun numerous times: https://www.space.com/33651-comet-death-dive-into-sun-

Posted: 8 Days 8 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

I went to see the new Antman movie a couple of weeks ago myself, on a Saturday night. The first theatre I went to, the 6:45 showing was sold out. At the second theatre I tried, the 7:15 show had maybe 6 people in the theatre, including

Posted: 8 Days 9 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

It was nighttime.

Trying not to spoil this one.

Re: "Spybot! (Perry Rhodan #53)" by Clark Darlton (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 10 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

I haven't read it, I read a summary, but in Newton's physics or Einstein's, how does a spaceship accidentally crash into the sun? To reach the sun takes a /lot/ of thrust. (naq jbhyqag vg or fnsre gb tb ng avtug)

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 11 Hours ago by: Don

It's time to tack this thread towards tobacco pipes, cigars, and cigarettes in the Rhoverse. First, the back story: Ace (a publisher who killed off its profitable Perry Rhodan translations for no good reason) took it upon itself

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 11 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

The theatres where I work seem to be getting back to at least half capacity. It's a pity audiences were tending to be about 5% masked before I abandoned counting that parameter.

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 12 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

I've seen three so far this year, the most recent being the latest antman movie (I've not seen any of the prior marvel films). There were never more than six people in the 49 seat theater. Nice reclining seats, sound and picture were

Re: (review) The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 12 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Did I not see a Monday strip and then the end? That URL does contain date of March 12th, when a March 13th comic wouldn't be there anyway.

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 12 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Actually, the wish granting entity did but not convincingly enough.

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 12 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Note that my complaint was about the TV show the Expanse. Films may have issues too but it wouldn't explain why TV shows are so dark. (Wasn't there a late episode of Game of Thrones where many viewers complained their screens were enti

Re: (review) The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 12 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

I think they cancelled one actual movie that was not working and announced a new regime with the Guardians Of The Galaxy guy as the universe showrunner. Unfortunately that kind of cut the legs out from under three movies done under the o

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 13 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

I guess nobody ever told her to be careful what she wished for. n

(review) The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman

Posted: 8 Days 13 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Personally, I find the ... more plebeian ... sound systems make the dialog easier to hear. Provided, of course, that the people mixing the soundtrack actually /want/ it to be heard. A recent article on the decline of movie theaters note

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 15 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman A young girl wishes her way from 1960 to 1860, where she is immediately enslaved. https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/lose-your-way

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 15 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Yes. Upthread, some alternate sources can be found. pt

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 15 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/why-movies-so-dark-hard-to-see-batman-1235195535/ https://www.slashfilm.com/673162/heres-why-movie-dialogue-has-gotten-more-difficult-to-understand-and-three-ways-to-fix-it also: https://www.youtube.com

"Rocket Man" Taupin/John - Bradbury inspiration

Posted: 8 Days 21 Hours ago by: Kevrob

Was this the last D strip sent out "in the clear" https://web.archive.org/web/20230312203257/dilbert.com/strip/2023-03-12 Requests for later ones are being redirected to Adams' new front page.

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 8 Days 22 Hours ago by: Kevrob

[quote] The songwriter {Bernie Taupin} revealed: “It was actually a song inspired by Ray Bradbury from his book of science fiction short stories called The Illustrated Man. "In that book there was a story called The Rocket Man, which w

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 9 Days ago by: Robert Woodward

Really? Let's see now: 1) the spin of an asteroid is stopped and it ejects lots of loose rocks into space. Then the drive to move the asteroid elsewhere is activated. 2) at some point, the drive that was maneuvering this asteroid into

Re: Pearls Before Swine: Books On Tape (thread)

Posted: 9 Days 1 Hour ago by: Robert Carnegie

"Space travel isn't cut and dry"? Is this about hairdressing? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cut_and_dry#English https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/31/cut-and-dry/ "Although this form is listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, it is defi

Re: Pearls Before Swine: Books On Tape (thread)

Posted: 9 Days 5 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

I was imagining a PBS collection as an audio book..

Re: Does Listening Constitute "Reading" ? (thread)

Posted: 9 Days 5 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

You should have duct.

Re: Does Listening Constitute "Reading" ? (thread)

Posted: 9 Days 5 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Charles Dickens used to go around reading his stories to people - I mean in theatres, not if you met him in the street - so I think he'd say that it counts. But it's something other than reading. Is it too goofy to call it a storytellin

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 9 Days 5 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Maybe you have radio-show-length errands. Beyond a certain point of old, radios were not really portable, I think. Maybe as luxury. I've heard a modern "Saint" adaptation set in the 1930s where as scene setting, Saint and Pat pick u

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 9 Days 5 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

I was watching recently a YouTube video which tried to explain why so many recent movies are hard to watch or hard to hear on home TV sets these days. It has to do with them being filmed for the experience in movie theatres, where the ro

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 9 Days 5 Hours ago by: The Horny Goat

Agreed - you might enforce that for 10 years but beyond that - well let's just say such a scheme didn't work so well with respect to Germany 1936-39 mostly because by then the WW1 Allies had given up their will to resist a German leader

Re: Well OT. Fourbricks and Politics Was: (tears but also OT) The Popu.... (thread)

Posted: 9 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

A good new asteroid book is "On to the Asteroid" by Travis Taylor and Les Johnson. https://www.amazon.com/Asteroid-Travis-S-Taylor/dp/148148267X/ Lynn

Re: (tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt (thread)

Posted: 9 Days 9 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

The feeling is mutual. I don't deny that these lies have an element of truth in some of them... but that just makes them "a harder matter to fight". I mean, really. Poland is in NATO. Are Poland's cities being shelled? So it's obvious wh

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 9 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Yup, I read "The Little Prince" and saw the movie. I think that I read "High Justice". Lynn

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 9 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

I read "The Long Run" and "The Last Dancer" a LONG time ago. Yup, another friend told me that Daniel Keys Moran is writing again and has written a sequel to "The Long Run" and "The Last Dancer". But book is kindle only and I do not d

Re: An issue with the chronology of "Dune" (thread)

Posted: 9 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Bro ! Lynn

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 9 Days 10 Hours ago by: Spiros Bousbouras

I take it then that "born on Caladan" means biological birth rather than came into existence. If yes then I would say that Herbert is being unnecessarily "clever" with this passage.

(tor dot com) Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt

Posted: 9 Days 11 Hours ago by: -dsr-

Goodreads has The Long Run at 4.54/5, and Dune at only 4.26. Lynn, a shiny nickel says if you read The Long Run -- Daniel Keys Moran, it would be one of your top books of all time. He's now retired from his tech job to write full time.

Re: Well OT. Fourbricks and Politics Was: (tears but also OT) The Popu.... (thread)

Posted: 9 Days 14 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Five Vintage SF Stories From the Asteroid Belt Five old time SF stories suitable for fans of the Expanse. https://www.tor.com/2023/03/22/five-vintage-sf-stories-from-the-asteroid-belt/

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 9 Days 16 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Gadaffi was politically repressive. Very. And anti-Western. Very. And a state sponsor of terrorism. But he was more than a simple autocrat. A lot of the things he did (the Great Manmade River project, for example) and his social policies

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 9 Days 21 Hours ago by: Titus G

Although a bit apprehensive in regard to the size, (four books), I have book 1, Too Like The Lightning and was immediately enchanted by the first page, an introduction with publication permissions, recommendations and ratings including su

Re: YASID(s): Robot looks at doll's head... (thread)

Posted: 9 Days 21 Hours ago by: Thomas Koenig

Does not appear to have a search engine. I used to remember a strip from the past by a few keywords, search for it, and then share it on Teams. Now I'm restricted to xkcd, I guess.

Re: Well OT. Fourbricks and Politics Was: (tears but also OT) The (thread)

Posted: 9 Days 22 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

There's also the cartoon featured on this page... https://wearethemutants.com/2018/01/08/cartoons-by-ron-cobb-for-the-los-angeles-free-press-1965-1970/cartoons-by-ron-cobb-2/ A human, not a doll, is being held by the robot, but the huma

Re: YASID(s): Robot looks at doll's head... (thread)

Posted: 9 Days 22 Hours ago by: Titus G

You are beyond hope.

Re: Well OT. Fourbricks and Politics Was: (tears but also OT) The Popu.... (thread)

Posted: 9 Days 22 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Maybe the cover of an issue of _Creative Computing_? Ah, yes. The January 1980 issue. https://archive.org/details/CreativeComputingbetterScan198001 John Savard

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 9 Days 22 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Vicious lies. If Ukraine had been in NATO, then Russia couldn't have attacked it without starting World War III. So the Ukrainian people would have enjoyed peace. So naturally they had been wanting to join NATO. But Putin wanted to have

Re: Well OT. Fourbricks and Politics Was: (tears but also OT) The (thread)

Posted: 10 Days ago by: Robert Woodward

I am pretty sure that the serials were 3 part ("Dune World") and 5 part ("Prophet of Dune", with 2 covers).

Re: Well OT. Fourbricks and Politics Was: (tears but also OT) The Popu.... (thread)

Posted: 10 Days ago by: Titus G

https://fair.org/home/what-you-should-really-know-about-ukraine/

Re: (tears but also OT) The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich (thread)

Posted: 10 Days ago by: Quadibloc

Hey, I did read the book "Old Wounds" by Harold Troper. You should realize that most people are not going to view _you_ as the sane party to this debate, even if that is contrary to my usual record. I remember the FBI and other law en

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 10 Days ago by: Quadibloc

The achievements of the Green Revolution came as a surprise at the time. And since farming is a mature technology, it's not as if something like Moore's Law applies to it. Of course there is no doubt still room for improvement, but we c

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 2 Hours ago by: Titus G

Prior to my reply to Garrett Wollman, I had the vague idea that Stephenson had written something but looked up Snow Crash. I have read Diamond Age but a long time ago. Both of these Stephenson books were brilliant and I now intend to rea

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 2 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

I remember the character of Maude Findlay, played by Bea Arthur, commenting on a Gideon Bible in a hotel room that she didn't feel like science-fiction right now... John Savard

Re: (tor dot com) Five Authors We Wish Had Written More (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 2 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Yes; although Dune is not one of my personal favorites, it's still well-written, and I know it was immensely popular at the time it came out (or, at least, shortly thereafter, when it had a chance to become well known) and so this doesn'

Re: (tor dot com) Five Authors We Wish Had Written More (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 3 Hours ago by: Titus G

There seems to be so much to read that I am becoming fussier and more critical. I will leave the wild horse woman a while longer.

Re: (tor dot com) Five Authors We Wish Had Written More (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 3 Hours ago by: Titus G

Having read Tony Nance's post prior to this reply to you, I am even more hesitant to read of the wild horse woman as he has written that these last hundred pages were written by he of "They're Made Out of Meat" fame, Bisson.

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 3 Hours ago by: Titus G

snip Why am I not surprised? The Wikipedia article about Thank you for research.

Re: Well OT. Fourbricks and Politics Was: (tears but also OT) The (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 3 Hours ago by: Titus G

Those that don't understand science often conflate it with fantasy. I expect Paul S. Person will be able and willing to answer your questions.

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 3 Hours ago by: Titus G

Of course Gadaffi was bad. In fact he was evil to the extent that he refined wealthy Libya's oil before export pouring billions into reclaiming desert land unlike say poverty stricken Nigeria whose politicians and foreign oil companies

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 3 Hours ago by: Titus G

Based on number of sales, it might be but based on the number of sales dollars, perhaps Scientology literature would win? Dune would definitely be in my top twenty of all time.

Well OT. Fourbricks and Politics Was: (tears but also OT) The (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 3 Hours ago by: WolfFan

Oh? Where’s the science in talking snakes, four-legged insects, bats that are birds, city walls which collapse because someone played a trumpet, the Earth stopping, and then starting again, its rotation, sheep’s wool changing colo

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 3 Hours ago by: Titus G

Following Fourbrick's standard procedure, this reply has undocumented snippage to emphasise my position by removing context and highlighting apparent absurdities. It is an inappropriate post to this newsgroup I believe that if Nazi Germ

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 4 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Well, if one didn't mind being roasted in a nuclear inferno of flaming one could suggest that the #1 all time favorite science fiction book is... The Bible. But that one wouldn't be me.

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 5 Hours ago by: Dorothy J Heydt

(Hal Heydt I orginally read Dune as a pair of serials (a two part and a three part) in Analog. I'd rate it as decent, but it wouldn't make a favorite list.

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 6 Hours ago by: Chris Buckley

I have no problem with _Dune_ being the top book, and it's one of a handful of books that I would predict would win a reader's poll. I was much more surprised with _Rendezvous with Rama_ being number 2 on the list. I'm not sure I would

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 6 Hours ago by: Chris Buckley

If you want a very quirky, heavily political, very ambitious series, try _Terra Ignota_ by Ada Palmer. It certainly covers the societal issues in far more depth than Stephenson's book which was reasonably near future. Palmer's series is

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 6 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

Sure, but a mobile phone is not a cellphone, and nobody in the book spent their day hunched over one.

Re: Movie review: Twilight Zone The Movie and It's A Good Life (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 7 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

Of course not. The few readers of a blog are not a representative sample.

Re: (tears but also OT) The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 7 Hours ago by: Moriarty

Tangentially, the TZ movie lead to one funniest lines on the TV show "3rd Rock From the Sun". Sally Solomon: So how was your trip, sir? The Big Giant Head: Horrifying, at first. I looked out the window and... I saw something on the wing

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 7 Hours ago by: David Brown

This comes down to the difference between realistic "self correction" and the predictions of catastrophic famine that the instigators of the overpopulation panic constantly and gleefully made for the developing world in particular. A key

Re: An issue with the chronology of "Dune" (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 7 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

I was kind and gave "Lord of Light" 4 out of 5 stars. I really wanted to give it 3.5 stars. It was a drudge through a nasty planet. Lynn

Re: (tor dot com) Five Authors We Wish Had Written More (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 7 Hours ago by: Moriarty

The quote above means that Muad'Dib was born [came into existence] in the year 10,191, when the Emperor was 57 years old. The boy Paul, who became Muad'Dib, was born 15 years before that. That's what the "Do not be deceived" sentence allu

Re: (tears but also OT) The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 7 Hours ago by: Andrew McDowell

Searching through the article and the comments I am not suprised to see C.M..Kornbluth mentioned - but what about Douglas Adams? (both of heart attacks - cutting back further on this scourge would really pay off)

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 7 Hours ago by: David Brown

That's where I find myself wondering if Malthus was being willfully obtuse for some rhetorical point lost on us. It was obvious that there were vast territories wide open for development in North America alone. The actual "problem" was,

Posted: 10 Days 8 Hours ago by: Andrew McDowell

I think it's good enough to be at the top of that list, or at least fight it out with Foundation. At university, Zelazny's "Lord of Light" won top place in a survey.

Re: (tor dot com) Five Authors We Wish Had Written More (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 8 Hours ago by: Tony Nance

That all matches my admittedly fuzzy memories - thanks. The OP's original YASID rings no bells beyond the ones we both chimed, and I'm interested to know what story he's thinking of. - Tony

Re: (tor dot com) Five Authors We Wish Had Written More (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 8 Hours ago by: Tony Nance

Very interesting topic and article (and reader comments afterward). I didn't see Roger Zelazny mentioned in the comments, and he'd be high on my list. Iain Banks would also be high on my list (and he is mentioned in the comments). Tony

Movie review: Twilight Zone The Movie and It's A Good Life

Posted: 10 Days 8 Hours ago by: Tony Nance

It's fine, but it's also not very memorable[1]. Both here and more broadly, the general reaction way back when was "eh, okay". Miller had worked on it forever and eventually asked his editor to find someone to finish it. Terry Bisson ag

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 8 Hours ago by: David Brown

Here's yet another movie review, this time of Twilight Zone The Movie. https://trendytroodon.blogspot.com/2023/03/adaptation-insanity-one-where-scariest.html In the review, I say quite a bit about the remake of "It's A Good Life", but the

Re: Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ? (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 8 Hours ago by: William Hyde

I was lucky enough to be writing scientific programs for myself, or at least for research I was conducting with others. On my first Thanksgiving in Texas I filled the four day weekend writing a predator-prey model. I added feature afte

Posted: 10 Days 8 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

I note that Dune was originally published in 1965 and that you can still purchase a new MMPB. I have to admit that is one sign of a reader favorite book. Lynn

Pearls Before Swine: Books On Tape

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Pearls Before Swine: Books On Tape https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2023/03/21 Groan, dad joke warning. Lynn

Re: (tor dot com) Five Authors We Wish Had Written More (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Robert Heinlein talked about mobile phones in his 1948 book, "Space Cadet". Lynn

Is "Dune" really the reader favorite book of all time ?

Posted: 10 Days 9 Hours ago by: Bice

I read St. Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman in 2018 while I was going through all the Hugo winners. I really liked A Canticle for Leibowitz, so when I ran across Horse Woman in a used book store a couple months later, I grabbed it. I

Posted: 10 Days 10 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Is "Dune" really the reader favorite science fiction book of all time ? https://best-sci-fi-books.com/the-readers-speak-this-blogs-readers-favorite-science-fiction-books/ Dune is not even in my 23 books on my top ten list. Dune does hav

Re: Does Listening Constitute "Reading" ? (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 10 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Re: Does Listening Constitute "Reading" ? (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 10 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Yes, if the audio book is the full and complete version of the book. Many of the older audio books are abridged. I love listening to audio books if I am driving to Oklahoma, Florida, or California from Texas. Especially the action boo

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 11 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

I recall one occasion where a reference to a woman's 'assets' was expanded to 'Doctor of Divinity'. Pt

Re: (tor dot com) Five Authors We Wish Had Written More (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 12 Hours ago by: Robert Woodward

_A Spaceship for a King_ (later expanded to _King David's Spaceship_), written by Pournelle around the same time as _Mote in God's Eye_ and set in the same period, had them too (acted like the Apple Newton in that they recognized hand

Posted: 10 Days 12 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

I had not heard of the book before you mentioned it. From its title, I assumed that St. Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman was to A Canticle for Liebowitz as Bored of the Rings is to Lord of the Rings. And maybe it was X-rated as well.

Posted: 10 Days 12 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

I had the title wrong - definitely 'A Ticket to Tranai' has the medallions. pt

Posted: 10 Days 12 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

I found 'Polity..' on archive.org, in the June 67 Galaxy. Its not it.

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 13 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

"Polity and Custom of the Camiroi" was definitely the title I was thinking of, but no idea if it was the correct story. pt

Re: Does Listening Constitute "Reading" ? (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 13 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

So did 2001, a Space Odyssey. They at least functioned as TVs. When I finally saw a restored 70mm print a few years ago, you could see that they had IBM branding. pt

Re: Does Listening Constitute "Reading" ? (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 13 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

I find that my kindle's AI voice works very well without getting in the way with any "personality". (Of course there was that odd little experience where it rendered Buroker's habitual "Hmm." as "hectometers", which I took to be a mild s

Posted: 10 Days 13 Hours ago by: Harold Hill

It does depend. My library had (most) of the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey-Maturin novels narrated by Patrick Tull, and I loved those. I am similarly very fond of the Discworld books narrated by Nigel Planer (yeah, they have more done by Stephen

Re: Does Listening Constitute "Reading" ? (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 14 Hours ago by: Tony Nance

Hm - that's a very Lafferty-like title, and he did write a couple stories about the Camiroi, including "Polity and Custom of the Camiroi", which is indeed academic/report-like in structure, and which does touch on governing - but not the

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 14 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Listening to an audiotape of a book is one way of finding out what the book says. But, as you note, sometimes people leave an audiotape of a book playing while doing other things. Also, listening to an audiotape of a book is not proof of

(MilSF) The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

Posted: 10 Days 15 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

I seem to recall the original Mote had something a lot like tablets.

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 15 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley Join the army and fight for truth and justice! Or rather, for the corporation's bottom line. https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/one-step-from-earth

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 15 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age" for one. pt

Re: An issue with the chronology of "Dune" (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 15 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

The Gripping Hand was published in 1993. Cellphones had been around for nearly a decade by then. The Apple Newton was announced in 1992. pt

Re: (tears but also OT) The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 15 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Can't claim any Dune-lore, but "57th year of the Padishah Emperor" would usually refer to the 57th year of his reign, not the year he turns 57 years old. Does that help? pt

Posted: 10 Days 15 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

I am aware of some of the things he has said. Here is a comment on one of them from the web page I referenced on my site: March 18, 2014: In a speech justifying his annexation of Crimea, Vladmir Putin states: "Do not believe those who wa

Re: (tears but also OT) The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 16 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

I suspect you may be conflating a Shirley Jackson (-like?) story with another, which I vaguely remember. The title sounded like an academic paper 'Political Succession and Justice among the Chorlai', or something like that. The medallion

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 16 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

The West has indeed committed many sins against the Third World. From Leopold II in the Belgian Congo, now Zaire, down to the overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala, there is a sad record. But it would be a _non sequitur_ of tragic proportion

An issue with the chronology of "Dune"

Posted: 10 Days 18 Hours ago by: Don

Nr 63 "Die Mikro-Techniker" (The Microtechs), written in 1962, kick starts Perry Perry Rhodan's sfnal miniaturization revolution as an industrial policy of Die Dritte Mach (The Third Power) - coincidentally located in the Gobi Desert.

Re: Does Listening Constitute "Reading" ? (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 18 Hours ago by: Spiros Bousbouras

The following comes from the paperbak with ISBN 9780340839935. The book starts with To begin your study of the life of Muad'Dib, then, take care that you first place him in his time: born in the 57th year of the Padishah Empero

Posted: 10 Days 21 Hours ago by: Charles Packer

It depends on how good the narrator is. In discovering audio books when I had a 40-minute drive to work, I also discovered that the quality of narration of literary works was so uniformly high it just about ruined me from ever wanting

YASID: Election Day

Re: (tears but also OT) The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 22 Hours ago by: Mike Spencer

I posted this a decade ago, received no responses. Trying again. This story dates from the 60s or before and probably wasn't considered science fiction when published. Scene is election day in a small town. Opens with the current

Re: (tears but also OT) The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich (thread)

Posted: 10 Days 23 Hours ago by: Titus G

My practice is to snip overtly, using the word snip for brevity. When coward Savard is snookered, he snips covertly. For me it is a childish but interesting exercise to review what he snips. I worry that replying to Fourbricks might be a

Re: (tears but also OT) The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich (thread)

Posted: 11 Days ago by: Quadibloc

I'm sort of puzzled by this. If a *check from mortality* kicks in, then the BAD THING of population increase outstripping the increase in agricultural output has happened. Excessive population increase would have indeed caused some people

Re: (tears but also OT) The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich (thread)

Posted: 11 Days ago by: Quadibloc

You must have me confused with someone else. John Savard

Re:_“China_has_launched_hundreds_of_satellites_ (thread)

Posted: 11 Days ago by: Quadibloc

I cannot agree with that last sentence. The story was not a futuristic detective story aimed at people who wanted to read a detective story. It was about the dystopian world created by overpopulation. As its title even sort of hints. B

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 11 Days ago by: Titus G

"Always" is a big word. If you were a serious student of history like I am, you would know that the only archaeological record of caveman preparation for warfare is the unexpurgated documentary, "The Flintstones", in which can be seen the

Re: YASID(s): Robot looks at doll's head... (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 1 Hour ago by: James Nicoll

Thank you.

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 1 Hour ago by: Moriarty

That sounds sorta like John Scalzi's "Three Robots Experience Objects Left Behind from the Era of Humans for the First Time", which was adapted as "Three Robots" for the Netflix series "Love, Death and Robots". That won't be it though: f

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 2 Hours ago by: Titus G

snip I don't think I have come across that societal possibility for people and am interested. Would you please provide a title or two? (If more than two, please rank them :-))

Re: (tears but also OT) The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 2 Hours ago by: Gary R. Schmidt

Gentle correction, 'tis, "Beloved Son". Cheers, Gary B-)

YASID(s): Robot looks at doll's head...

Posted: 11 Days 2 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

There was also the assumption in the writing that started the whole meme that crop yield per acre could never be increased above what it was at the time and the no new farmland could ever be added to what existed at the time.

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 2 Hours ago by: Gary R. Schmidt

Hi, This is one of those YASIDs that probably has more than one answer... A vague memory of something read in the last fifty-odd went past, about a robot/cyborg/mecha/whatever holding a doll's head and trying to process just exactly wha

Re:_“China_has_launched_hundreds_of_satellites_ (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 2 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

https://www.amazon.com/2025-Report-Concise-History-1975-2025/dp/0025790900 According to reviews on the amazon link above, he predicted the fall of the soviet union and he coined 'telecommuting'. Will have to search out a copy.

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 2 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Hey, when I said "always" I meant it!

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 2 Hours ago by: Garrett Wollman

This reminds me of a couple of things: First, one of Asimov's F&SF essays, titled "What Truck?", published in the mid-80s, was about the SF writers who could have foreseen space travel but for one reason or another misunderstood the scie

Re: Does Listening Constitute "Reading" ? (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 3 Hours ago by: Jonathan Harston

Maybe not quite. There's a scene in the second Motie book where there's a meeting, which goes something like: Blaine waited slightly impatently as people synchronsed their pocket computers with the ship's systems, and waited for the beeps

Re: (tears but also OT) The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 3 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

I tend to listen to old radio plays and it's odd how episodes seem to be calculated to take one errand's duration to play. Or maybe it's not a coincidence. Maybe it was design.

Re: Does Listening Constitute "Reading" ? (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 3 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

I think you mean minimum doubling time. That said, you don't understand how to play Population Bomb Panic. A: The youngest person to have a baby was about 6. B: The oldest person to have a baby was about 66. C: The largest number o

Re: (tears but also OT) The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 4 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

I'd say yes. However, you need an app with skip back functions that let you repeat something you missed. I listen mostly to podcasts. Some technical, some current events, some SF (forex 'Escape Pod'). A few, such as 20,000 Hz, which i

Re:_“China_has_launched_hundreds_of_satellites_ (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 4 Hours ago by: David Brown

I have posted about this before, particularly in connection with the awful movie ZPG. Something that crossed my mind reading the linked review is that the limitations on population growth were always biologically obvious: Even if every fe

Re: (tor dot com) Five Authors We Wish Had Written More (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 4 Hours ago by: Titus G

:-)

Re:_“China_has_launched_hundreds_of_satellites_ (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 4 Hours ago by: Titus G

"A Canticle for Leibowitz" (not Liebowitz!), is one of my all time favourites and I rated "The Darfsteller" a solid 4 stars of 5. I have had a copy of "St Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman" for decades but for an inexplicable reason, per

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 4 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

So what's their excuse prior to the USA existing? :P

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 4 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

One suspects in part because writing a program has a definitive, objective goal to complete. School essays are more of a "WTF does the teacher want to hear?" exercise.

Re: (tears but also OT) The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 4 Hours ago by: Titus G

I also agree but I was never faced with programming deadlines. Not so sure on that aspect. When employed as a programmer, there was pride through accomplishment, through achieving compliance with the system analysts' specifications or l

Re: (tears but also OT) The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 5 Hours ago by: Titus G

snip Despite being disappointed with many of Harry Harrison stainless steel re-reads, I enjoyed re-reading Make Room, Make Room earlier this year. In an overcrowded New York with a population of 35m in 1999, (actual 9m), a dystopian tal

Re:_“China_has_launched_hundreds_of_satellites_ (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 5 Hours ago by: Titus G

snip snip Whilst the Chairman of the NY Port Authority that sold the twin towers only months before 9/11 to a Zionist Jewish US billionaire (a personal friend of the Israeli president and the owner of the third building that also mysteri

Re: Does Listening Constitute "Reading" ? (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 5 Hours ago by: Titus G

Given that the US spends more on offence than the rest of the world does on defence, it would be rather stupid of them not to.

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 5 Hours ago by: Titus G

snip I am biased as I do not enjoy audio books because when out walking I like to enjoy the peace and serenity of nature only interrupted by bird song or animal noise and when at home I read far more quickly than a book can be spoken so a

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 6 Hours ago by: William Hyde

Absolutely. More satisfying by far, also. William Hyde

Re: (tor dot com) Five Authors We Wish Had Written More (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 8 Hours ago by: Dorothy J Heydt

(Hal Heydt) Thinking back to my college years, I'd've found writting essays much more stressful than writing and debugging programs. Sort of side note... Another effort out there is the expand the number of people that understand comput

Does Listening Constitute "Reading" ?

Posted: 11 Days 9 Hours ago by: William Hyde

I sometimes speculate on what I would do if some time traveling group gave me the right to extend the life of one, and only one, artist from the past to seventy years. Normally I think Mozart, though I would like to give Schubert anoth

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 9 Hours ago by: BCFD36

These days, when it is not raining (and there hasn't been much of not raining since Dec 27 around here) I try to walk down to the San Lorenzo River and back. It averages a 14% grade so I really don't have to walk that far. Whilst on thes

Re: (tor dot com) Five Authors We Wish Had Written More (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 10 Hours ago by: Andrew McDowell

Unfortunately, it's not just Post-Modernism, and it is infiltrating what should be hard science. I have been reading the flagship magazine of the major American academic computer society, CACM, since the 1980s. I started this to read about

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 10 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

I think I saw another mention of Allison Tellure, likely in one of your columns, not so long ago. Hopefully, this mystery will eventually be cleared up to the extent consistent with her privacy. John Savard

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 10 Hours ago by: WolfFan

In several Drake stories. One of the Lacey stories had plant behavior as a major plot point; to be sure, Drake later commented that someone else had remarked that only someone who hated plants could have written that story. Drake’s

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 11 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

"If your property is not located in a city, town, district or village, it is in a rural area. When you own property or lease Crown land in a rural area, you will receive your property tax notice from the province's Surveyor of

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 11 Hours ago by: The Horny Goat

Why are you so surprised? There isn't a provincial level property tax anywhere in Canada (where the right to levy property taxes is the exclusive jurisdiction of municipalities) (In Canada there is no capital gains tax on the sale of yo

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 11 Hours ago by: The Horny Goat

True - but then so is Ukraine and as long as Putin remains in power I don't see that changing (mostly through emigration)

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 12 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

snip Long ago, Doonesbury had fantastic elements. Specifically, plants could talk. BJ Eddy being fired from his position as head tulip made the news. https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1976/11/30 It is possible that this is less a re

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 12 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

Dilbert, at least, lives in an SF universe with aliens, parallel dimensions, robot characters, & demons.

Re: R.I.P. Suzy McKee Charnas, 83 ("Holdfast Chronicles") (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 12 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

And I have less than zero interest in any of them. This is rec.arts.sf.written, how does dilbert or doonsbury meet the group charter?

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 13 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

I once read an assertion that "every book makes the NYT bestsellers list" -- the reason being that they (allegedly) have so many lists that there are plenty of slots to go 'round.

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 13 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

And I found most of them worth looking at. I still check Doonesbury, although I missed yesterdays because the URL didn't exist (per the server). I wonder if that will happen every Sunday from now on? That is, that only the old strips wi

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 13 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

People who own and have read the book might be interested in discussing it. People who haven't read it, don't own it, and have no intention of doing either might still be interested in reading the discussion. You are desperately trying

(tor dot com) Five Authors We Wish Had Written More

Posted: 11 Days 13 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

<snippo mucho> <including a list of domestic terrorist acts since 9/11> Well, it worked for the anti-abortion groups whenever one of their members committed a terrorist act. (All except the first -- but then, they clearly had enough int

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 14 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Five Authors We Wish Had Written More What it says on the tin. https://www.tor.com/2023/03/20/five-authors-we-wish-had-written-more/

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 15 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

For that matter, Poul Anderson's The Byworlder has an internet of sorts, filled with all the info you might want (almost). Hardcopy output only, though.

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 15 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Missing Man by Katherine MacLean features a radically fragmented society, although being pre-internet hers works physically. Everyone has their own neighbourhood and they do their best to ignore the others.

Re: OT: Tonight's film "First Man Into Space" (1959) (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 15 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Well, not the peaceful fall, at any rate. George Turner's Beloved Sun has a crew of intrepid (and largely doomed) starfarers return from Barnard's Star to discover that in the years they were gone, WWIII and what followed rearranged th

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 16 Hours ago by: Jack Bohn

Due to events in 1957, the word "satellite" was big in the news. Many people seemed to take it as a ten dollar word for "spaceship." This was the only monetary extravagance allowed for some filmmakers, and they ran with it. "The Attac

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 20 Hours ago by: David Johnston

Not every technological advance has narrative value. mRNA vaccines are actually pretty dull stuff. The COVID outbreak itself has narrative potential as a backdrop. You could do a story along the lines of a person confined for months

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 20 Hours ago by: Charles Packer

By the 1960s it was clear that all of recorded history could be vacuumed up and deposited in electronic memory banks. I would write about 2023 protagonists who use Big Data tools to discover that toward the end of the 19th century Britis

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 22 Hours ago by: Mike Spencer

In 1963, there were just as many crazy people as now -- gun freaks, believers in space aliens, demon possession or rays, haters of Jews, gays, blacks, whites, foreigners, abortionists or vegetarians, conspiracy freaks and religious fanat

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 11 Days 23 Hours ago by: Andrew McDowell

Science Fiction did not predict the fall of the Soviet Union, so the invasion of a westward looking Ukraine by an authoritarian but non-communist Russia would be so daring as perhaps to be difficult to sell. Precision munitions spotted by

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 12 Days ago by: Dimensional Traveler

As in anyone who commits a terrorist act can't possibly be a real conservative?

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 2 Hours ago by: Gary R. Schmidt

Cities?!?!? Cities?!?!?!?!? Nonsense, he'll claim they laid waste to entire *shires^Wcounties*!! Raped the sheep, killed all the women, and salted the earth after they passed. As well as denied that whatever was truly the chosen of s

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 3 Hours ago by: Hamish Laws

Yes, after all they burned and completely destroyed cities...

Re: (tears but also OT) The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 4 Hours ago by: David Johnston

I'll take that bet. I'm certain he'll go the No True Scotsman route.

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 4 Hours ago by: David Johnston

If that was the issue then economic boom times ought to reverse the trend. They do not.

Re: OT: Tonight's film "First Man Into Space" (1959) (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 4 Hours ago by: David Johnston

Whatever it was, it would have to be heavy on the internet since that's the most science fictiony thing about actual 21st century life. Sometimes I think about how far you'd have to go back in time for a modern story to work as science

Re: "Crimson universe (Perry Rhodan #67)" by K. H. Scheer, translated by Wendayne Ackerman (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 4 Hours ago by: Tony Nance

"may"?

OT: Tonight's film "First Man Into Space" (1959)

Posted: 12 Days 4 Hours ago by: Don

My previous perrypedia perusal of planet Grey Beast indicated Mahr wrote all the novellas set on Grey Beast. But, it turns out some stories, such as "Crimson," ephemerally use Grey Beast as a setting, mentioned only in passing.

“Out_Around_Rigel”_by_Robert_H._Wilson

Posted: 12 Days 6 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Showing in the UK on "Legend", that sounds interesting... what does Wikipedia say... "Working title: Satellite of Blood" I judge that this isn't a good sign. YMMV. By the way, the synopsis doesn't seem to mention a satellite per se.

"Crimson universe (Perry Rhodan #67)" by K. H. Scheer, translated by

Posted: 12 Days 7 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

“Out Around Rigel” by Robert H. Wilson https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20553/20553-h/20553-h.htm “An astounding chronicle of two Lunarians’ conquest of time and interstellar space.” First published in Astounding magazine in

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 YASID (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 8 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

"Crimson universe (Perry Rhodan #67)" by K. H. Scheer, translated by Wendayne Ackerman https://www.amazon.com/Crimson-universe-Perry-Rhodan-Scheer/dp/B0006WT6X4/ Book number sixty-seven of a series of one hundred and thirty-six space

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 YASID (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 9 Hours ago by: WolfFan

Ah. Thanks. I could have sworn it was RAH...

Re: R.I.P. Suzy McKee Charnas, 83 ("Holdfast Chronicles") (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 9 Hours ago by: Ahasuerus

It's Harry Turtledove's "Hindsight" (1984). https://turtledove.fandom.com/wiki/Literary_Allusions_in_Turtledove%27s_Work says that "Pete Lundquist" was based on Isaac Asimov, but I thought the character was closer to Poul Anderson. "Jim M

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lenona

I don't quite know how likely it is that her family paid a lot for a long obituary, but I'd assume that obscure writers don't get more than tiny death notices. (For those who couldn't see it, it's definitely an obituary.) There will al

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 YASID (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 9 Hours ago by: Don

Yes! Cellphone Culture changed the world as we knew it. Meanwhile the meta-verse fights for control of grandpa's websites... Danke,

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 10 Hours ago by: WolfFan

Been done, kinda. I can’t remember the name of the story or the author, but... Obvious RAH clone goes to obvious JWC clone with a manuscript... of a story that JWC has just published, under someone else’s name. They track down the

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 10 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Throwing crap into the Sun. Lynn

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 10 Hours ago by: Alan

Posting it here was ALWAYS pointless. None of us are ignorant of the existence of webcomics and Lynn didn't just post notable comics...

Re: A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963 (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 10 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

https://www.reddit.com/r/dilbert/ Lynn

Re: R.I.P. Suzy McKee Charnas, 83 ("Holdfast Chronicles") (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 10 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

Well, I said a while ago that everybody prognosticating missed Cellphone Culture. So that. Probably weave the Musk "Delos D. Harriman" story in as the plot. That lets you bring in Space, Social Media, War, Cars, & Politics. Hopefully

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 10 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

Well, we know her as having written possibly the most "70s" sf book ever, but was she generally well known? Did she hit the NYT bestsellers list?

A SF novel set in today's 2023, written in 1963

Posted: 12 Days 10 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

Also anyone here won't be able to read Heinlein without buying a book and so not be interested. And as Lynn said: https://reddit.com/r/dilbert

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 11 Hours ago by: Thomas Koenig

Suppose you're an aspiring SF writer 60 years ago, 1963. Through some *hand wave*, you get access to information about what has happened in the meantime - technology, major events, social changes etc, Internet, social media, you name it, an

Re: R.I.P. Suzy McKee Charnas, 83 ("Holdfast Chronicles") (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 11 Hours ago by: Alan

Don't get me wrong! I enjoyed Dilbert for many years. What I never cared about was Lynn's narcissistic need to post links to the webcomics he followed.

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 11 Hours ago by: Lenona

I understand that major newspapers often have good reasons for not printing longish obituaries - as opposed to tiny death notices - for a few days - even a week. But two and a half MONTHS, with the New York Times? What gives? https://www

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 11 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

One thousand Quatloos says he will respond that BLM has done much more and worse.

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 11 Hours ago by: WolfFan

It complained about my ad-blocker. Not interested enough to go to that much trouble.

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 12 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Wasn't dilbert.com ad-supported? Your actions definitely benefited Adams financially. If you can get over the unaccountable antipathy many Usenetters exhibit towards Reddit, you can (for the moment at least,) find New Dilbert posted the

Re:_“When_You_Should_Ban_Someone_From_Your_Convent (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 12 Hours ago by: WolfFan

That would be it. When Adams shut down the free site, I deleted Dilbert from my daily rotation. I am not now, never have been, and never will be, interested in financially supporting someone with his opinions. He is perfectly free to

Re: (tears but also OT) The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 12 Hours ago by: Kevrob

Oops. Sorry. I visit that site using NoScript and AdBlock, so never see that stuff.

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 12 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

"I don’t think it ever occurred to him to determine if in fact Catholics follow papal decrees that they find personally inconvenient." 1) We know that people who believe in a religion follow its teachings with zombie-like faithfulness; l

Re: (tears but also OT) The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 13 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

I think you are missing the point. The point is not that only those willing to pay will be interested, and they will have seen it already. The point is that posting it /here/ is pointless because anyone who isn't paying won't be able t

(tears but also OT) The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich

Posted: 12 Days 13 Hours ago by: Don

Three story lines with a population bomb narrative element come to mind. _The Lathe of Heaven_ (LeGuin) is arguably well known among Anglophonic aficionados of SF. A pop-bomb literary ingredient turns up twice (thus far) in PR. The

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 16 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich "Babies, Mr. Rico! Zillions of them!" https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/make-room-make-room Technically off-topic but a text that influenced a lot of SF authors.

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 16 Hours ago by: Thomas Koenig

I find it a pity that Dilbert is now behind a paywall. This will make many meetings more boring.

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 18 Hours ago by: Hamish Laws

Personally I'm in favour of not liking racism

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 22 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Three responses to this come to mind. 1) Russia has been oppressing Ukraine forever, and has never had to pay the toll for this abouse. Aren't you concerned about that? 2) This isn't abuse. It's cost recovery. 3) In any case, in order

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 12 Days 23 Hours ago by: David Johnston

August 5th 2012 Wisconsin Sikh temple mass shooting. May 2009: Assassination of George Tiller, Wichita Kansas November 2015: Mass shooting at Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs Colorado. November 28th 2014: Larry Steven

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 13 Days ago by: Gary R. Schmidt

It was amusing when it presented life in IT, through a glass, darkly, but it hasn't done that for a long time. I suspect most of us who followed it into this century due to habit will just drop off. I had a look at the new thing, and

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 13 Days 2 Hours ago by: Alan

Some of us never cared.

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 13 Days 3 Hours ago by: John Halpenny

Those who like Dilbert will pay. Those who like complaining will refuse to pay. Scott Adams will make money and get rid of the whiners. What's not to like. John

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 13 Days 5 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Shall we start with all the bombings and bomb threats against abortion providers?

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 13 Days 8 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Please name dates and places of these supposed Christian terrorism events. Lynn

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 13 Days 8 Hours ago by: David Johnston

The idea that you could keep oppressing Russia forever and never have to pay the toll for your abuse is ill-founded.

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 13 Days 9 Hours ago by: The Horny Goat

That would be one way to end 'global warming' though it would only take about 100-200 Hiroshima sized nukes in northern Siberia to accomplish that. Given the side effects it's not my idea of a 'solution'

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 13 Days 9 Hours ago by: The Horny Goat

Yes they are which is why if there was a serious Chinese-Russian falling out eastern Siberia could be in peril of changing hands. (Most of that territory had been Japanese occupied for at least part of the Russian Civil War and White occ

Re: (wfc) The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline (thread)

Posted: 13 Days 9 Hours ago by: The Horny Goat

I'd argue the Berlin airlift crisis and the Korean War played at least as much a factor as what you name. And the "joke" in West Germany in the 60s and 70s was that German towns had been built 10 kilotons apart.....and no question a lar

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 13 Days 10 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

People desperate to survive will of course be likely to be willing to do just about anything. And it's not surprising that the people of the First Nations will be regarded as less valuable for the project of rebuilding, being disadvantage

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 13 Days 11 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

The same could be said of Heinlein. Or any number of things.

Posted: 13 Days 11 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Perhaps the assumption is that these capsule descriptions of the new Dilbert strips will entice more people into ponying up $70 a year to be able to see the works of this newly unfettered great creative mind. Of course, that is not to c

R.I.P. Rolland Hein, 90, scholar of Rev. George MacDonald

Posted: 13 Days 12 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

I understand Texas has a similar problem with free-ranging hogs. :P

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 13 Days 12 Hours ago by: Lenona

I thought the name sounded familiar - and then I remembered that I read at least one of Hein's books. https://www.google.com/search?q=%22rolland+hein%22+books&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjE9eut8-X9AhWBkYkEHRn2DEcQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&bi

Re: Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter (thread)

Posted: 13 Days 12 Hours ago by: David Johnston

That was more than 20 years ago. In the intervening time period Christian terrorism has been a bigger problem.

Re: (tears) Midnight at the Well of Souls (Saga of the Well of Souls, volume 1) by Jack Chalker (thread)

Posted: 13 Days 13 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

There's no point to posting Dilbert any more. Those who are paying will see it anyway. The Rest of Us don't care anymore.

Posted: 13 Days 13 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

I also liked it, although the only two that I tend to re-read are WOS and TRoNB. I really wish he'd done an entire novel about Mavra and Obie bouncing around the universe - extending the first part of TRoNB before the fools started the

Today's momentous discovery

Posted: 13 Days 15 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Walter Brooks' Freddy the Pig (which feature a mystery-solving pig named Freddy) are in the public domain in Canada.

Re: [OT] Cro-Magnons Exonerated in Case of the Missing Neanderthals (thread)

Posted: 13 Days 19 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Soddit.

Posted: 13 Days 20 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

To note, humans get billing above grey squirrels in <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_squirrel#Enemies_and_threats> Also, a virus is mentioned, which greys tolerate better.

Re: YASID: Earthman in charge (thread)

Re: (tears) Midnight at the Well of Souls (Saga of the Well of Souls, volume 1) by Jack Chalker (thread)

Posted: 13 Days 20 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

There's a slightly similar incident described briefly in Star Trek novel _The Galactic Whirlpool_ by David Gerrold. "The MacMurray Encounter". From my memory, "Emperor MacMurray" of the small colony planet Noah picks a fight with any

Posted: 14 Days ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

I liked WOS, there was enough going on there that Chalker being Chalker was just one aspect of the story. I'd call it his best work.

Re: Deja vue all over again (thread)

Re: (tears) Midnight at the Well of Souls (Saga of the Well of Souls, volume 1) by Jack Chalker (thread)

Posted: 14 Days 1 Hour ago by: Default User

Yes, the title wouldn't tip me off. I've read at least one other anthology with the title. Brian

Re: "The Best Science Fiction Books for Beginners" by Dan Livingston (thread)

Posted: 14 Days 1 Hour ago by: Default User

I read all of them. It had of course many the trademark Chalker tropes. Once some of us on rec.arts.comics.strips were kind of joking about some those, not realizing that regular newsgroup participant Eva Whitley was Jack's wife. She was

Re: "The Best Science Fiction Books for Beginners" by Dan Livingston (thread)

Posted: 14 Days 1 Hour ago by: Default User

As I dislike Weber, that ommission bothers me not. The other two are fantasies. I'd suggest the first Murderbot story, All Systems Red. It's short, fast-paced with plenty of action, and has the endearingly snarky internal dialog. Bria

Re: Movie review: Colossus The Forbin Project evil computer movie (thread)

Posted: 14 Days 1 Hour ago by: Default User

I have read: Ender’s Game Rendezvous With Rama Slaughterhouse-Five Ancillary Justice The Left Hand of Darkness The Calculating Stars The Player of Games The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Gala

Re: [OT] Cro-Magnons Exonerated in Case of the Missing Neanderthals (thread)

Posted: 14 Days 1 Hour ago by: Don

"Your first three objections can be taken care of easily enough," Seaton replied positively. "No loss of temperature is possible through a zone of force-our own discovery. We can stop time with a stasis-we learned that fr

Posted: 14 Days 1 Hour ago by: Default User

Regardless, it never required modern humans to slaughter the Neadertals. In some forests in England, gray squirrels are replacing native reds. They don't kill them, in fact they rarely interact. It's just that the grays are able to out-c

Posted: 14 Days 2 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Well, until Scott Adams takes it down it is on Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/dilbert/ However, I suspect that Scott Adams is posting it himself since tomorrow's Dilbert is already up there. Lynn

Re: Dilbert March 12, 2023" (thread)

“Awakenings”_by_Patrick_Chiles,_free_sh

Posted: 14 Days 2 Hours ago by: The Horny Goat

So it's now behind a paywell eh? So in other words one more thing I used to get with my newspaper subscription I no longer get. Sad...

““Whatever_Happened_to_the_Bionic_Man?

Posted: 14 Days 4 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

“Awakenings” by Patrick Chiles, free short story https://www.baen.com/awakenings “Onboard the spacecraft Magellan, Daisy—an AI tasked with commanding the ship—encounters an unexpected problem. The sole human aboard, Jack T

Re: Young People Read Old Hugo Finalists: Blood Music by Greg Bear (thread)

Posted: 14 Days 4 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

““Whatever Happened to the Bionic Man?” by Robert E. Hampson” https://www.baen.com/bionic-man “Which brings us to March 2023, and the release of The Moon and the Desert, a book dedicated to a topic which greatly influenced b

Posted: 14 Days 4 Hours ago by: Default User

Most mobile browsers and some desktop ones like Firefox support Reader View. You'll see a little like text page icon to the right of the URL. Brian

YASID: Earthman in charge

Re: Movie review: Colossus The Forbin Project evil computer movie (thread)

Posted: 14 Days 6 Hours ago by: Default User

I saw this on another forum. It didn't sound familiar. I'd guess 60s or earlier. "Years ago I read a story of am aggressive earthling who came to a planet of very wise, peaceful non violent people. Eventually they realized they could not r

Re:_“China_has_launched_hundreds_of_satellites_to_ (thread)

Posted: 14 Days 6 Hours ago by: Brian McGuinness

On Friday, March 17, 2023 at 12:52:56 AM UTC-4, Robert Woodward wrote:

Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter

Posted: 14 Days 7 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

"Drudge Report" is unselective.

Re: Movies: Everything Everywhere All At Once first sf/ fantasy film (thread)

Posted: 14 Days 7 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Dilbert Reborn: Dogbert is now the CEO of Twitter https://scottadams.locals.com/post/3690833/dilbert-march-17-2023 Dogbert got the job so he can read private messages and blackmail his enemies. Lynn

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 14 Days 8 Hours ago by: Jack Bohn

One I should have remembered long ago: Fredric March for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"(1931). Monster Kids claim it, along with "The Shape of Water"(2017). I consider "My Fair Lady"(1964) science fiction, the sec

Posted: 14 Days 8 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Every state except for Texas pays power plants a capacity charge for connecting to the grid. Texas moved to an energy payment system only back in 1999 ??? when the for profit electricity providers (TXU, HLP, CSW, etc) were separated i

Wizard Of Id: Magically Delicious

Re:_“China_has_launched_hundreds_of_satellites_ (thread)

Posted: 14 Days 8 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Wizard Of Id: Magically Delicious https://www.gocomics.com/wizardofid/2023/03/17 Henry ! Lynn

Posted: 14 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ The best newspaper in the USA ! Lynn

Re:_“China_has_launched_hundreds_of_satellites_to_ (thread)

Posted: 14 Days 9 Hours ago by: David Johnston

The way he wrote people in general in this era of his career was a bit weird.

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 14 Days 10 Hours ago by: Orange Mike Lowrey

You do realize that article is from the Daily Mail, right?

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 14 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

But is bribing the power plants to do it a normal part of running the grid?

(wfc) The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

Posted: 14 Days 12 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

The fact that the Hawaiian Islands still have active volcanoes may be a factor too.

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 14 Days 14 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline Targeted once more, Indigenous characters struggle to avoid being processed into medical supplies. https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/dont-ask-forever

Re: Movie review: Colossus The Forbin Project evil computer movie (thread)

Posted: 14 Days 15 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

I looked into it a few years ago, mainly with the thought of using geothermal energy from the Big Island. Locals informed me that it had been investigated and considered too difficult. The nature of the ocean is different - a PR/US cable

Re: Movie review: Colossus The Forbin Project evil computer movie (thread)

Posted: 14 Days 16 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Well, we're just looking for automatic machinery, not a thinking machine. There's automation in "The Machine Stops" (1909). The Machine has self-repair features. That don't repair themselves. So... the title. It also has defences an

Posted: 14 Days 16 Hours ago by: Jack Bohn

I think "Spacehounds of IPC" had the word "computer," but it described a job, not a device.

Re: The menace from Earth (thread)

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 14 Days 21 Hours ago by: Charles Packer

artemis-unveil-scn/index.html> Incidentally, has there been an uptick in the past couple of weeks in which news items have contained the word "unveil" in their headlines or lede paragraphs?

Re: Movie review: Colossus The Forbin Project evil computer movie (thread)

Posted: 14 Days 22 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

While playing with the destinies of individuals as though they were just pieces on a checkerboard, in pursuit of some strange revenge for the sins of their distant ancestors... is clearly objectionable, there is *one* serious thing that

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 14 Days 23 Hours ago by: Robert Woodward

Didn't the "Skylark of Valeron" have some sort of computer?

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 15 Days ago by: Lynn McGuire

BTW, you are correct, I should have said there are at least five grids in the USA. Thanks, Lynn

Re: Movie review: Colossus The Forbin Project evil computer movie (thread)

Posted: 15 Days ago by: Lynn McGuire

The undersea cables can go quite a way. They are considering putting a power cable from the USA mainland to Puerto Rico, 1,500 miles. "Next Big Idea In Electricity: Subsea Cable From The Mainland To Puerto Rico" https://www.forbes.co

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 15 Days ago by: Gary R. Schmidt

There were robots in Goldin's spin-off based on "The Imperial Stars", but I am blanking as to whether they were mentioned in the original... Cheers, Gary B-)

Re: Movie review: Colossus The Forbin Project evil computer movie (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 1 Hour ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Hawaii has a separate grid for each island. The water depths between them, and the distances, make under sea cables impractical. https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Hawaii#Electricity In Alaska, the Willow–Healy Intertie connect

Re: Movie review: Colossus The Forbin Project evil computer movie (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 1 Hour ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

Still I don't think there were any computers or AI in the Skylark-verse, and only barely any in the Lens-verse off to the side. I said a couple of months ago that I think the only Robots/AI Smith ever did were in _Cosmos_, though I could

Re: Movie review: Colossus The Forbin Project evil computer movie (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 2 Hours ago by: Dorothy J Heydt

(Hal Heydt) By the time you get to _Skylark DuQuesne_, the scope is intergalactic and, in spots, interdimensional.

Posted: 15 Days 3 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Well - <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feeling_of_Power> (1958) has an interstellar war /being/ fought with computers governing weapons, but not evidently started by the computers. There's a link to read the story online. As I inter

Re: The menace from Earth (thread)

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 5 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Um, yes. He was referencing the title of that famous science fiction work for effect. Even as he was making a joke - the cameras on the space suits were there for safety or scientific purposes, and not because astronauts have been up to

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 6 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

There are five grids in the USA. You forgot Hawaii and Alaska. I do not know if the southern grid in Alaska extends up into the Fairbanks area but I doubt it. And then there are other grids in the protectorates. Puerto Rico has a s

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 7 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Yes, When I worked for TXU we had four steam boiler plants (350 MW, 350 MW, 425 MW, 425 MW) that could be started in 30 minutes if they were hot (steam turbine > 300 F) or 4 hours if cold. We also had fifteen GE Frame 7 gas turbines t

Posted: 15 Days 8 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

See my posting above. These statements are incorrect as Texas has DC interties with the east and west grids. Lynn

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 8 Hours ago by: Andrew McDowell

Difficult or not, a number of people through the ages have indeed argued against unbridled anger, and these arguments may be relevant unless you are prepared to claim that Trump was so much worse than Nero, Tarquin, Herod etc.. to render a

Re: (tor dot com) Five Stories About Precocious Young Wizards (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 8 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Right, I had forgotten about the Federal regulation excuse. Thank you for the reminder.

Re: Pearls Before Swine: Calculus Finals (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 9 Hours ago by: Andrew McDowell

One of my favourites, to the extent that I think I remember when and where I bought it. I was only vaguely aware of D&D so I enjoyed it in innocence of any connection to that. I was not long out of university and working in London while my

Posted: 15 Days 10 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

I see what you did there. The lower limit or the upper limit ? Lynn

Re: The menace from Earth (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 10 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

This is the real Menace From Earth. https://www.amazon.com/Green-Hills-Menace-Future-History/dp/1439134367/ Lynn

Scott Adams is living large now

Re: (tor dot com) Five Stories About Precocious Young Wizards (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 10 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Scott Adams is now saying stay away from woke and pronoun people. He is not wrong. https://scottadams.locals.com/upost/3685740/coffee-with-scott-adams-march-16-2023 I went ahead and paid the $70 to get through his paywall for a year.

Re: (tor dot com) Five Stories About Precocious Young Wizards (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 11 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

I tried to read it 40 years ago but set it down at the "now we all choose character classes" scene, so I couldn't say.

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 11 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

Does Feist's _Magician_ meet your criteria?

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 11 Hours ago by: Dorothy J Heydt

(Hal Heydt) Texas has refused to become part of either of the main US interconnect power systems in order to avoid being subject to some Federal regulations. So...yeah. A Texas thang. This leads to the problem that Texas can't get powe

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 12 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Have peaking power plants sit (expensively) on standby? Yes, it's a normal part of running a grid. https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant Pt

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 12 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

I don't _know_ but I suspect it is a "Texas thang". Mostly because Texas is its own electrical grid. There are three electric grids covering the US and users in a grid can, in theory at least, get power from anywhere else in that gri

(tor dot com) Five Stories About Precocious Young Wizards

Posted: 15 Days 12 Hours ago by: Jay E. Morris

He didn't say they weren't in working order, he said they were off line, temporarily shutdown. Now companies will be paid to keep them on line, available for an emergency.

Re: Movie review: Colossus The Forbin Project evil computer movie (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 12 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Five Stories About Precocious Young Wizards Five young mages who entertained readers with their harried puttering around. https://www.tor.com/2023/03/16/five-stories-about-precocious-young-wizards/

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

IIRC, Forbin finally succeeds! With help from mysterious alien strangers. Who turn out to be Colossus-level machines about to take over Earth. So Colossus, now gone, was our /defense/ against other, similar machines. So Forbin loses b

Re: Movie review: Colossus The Forbin Project evil computer movie (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 13 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Just out of curiousity, does anyone know if any /other/ State finds it necessary to do this? Or is these purely a Texas Republican "thang"?

Posted: 15 Days 13 Hours ago by: Don

Two tangential tales come to mind. But both likely fall outside of David's scope. _The Adolescence of P-1_ (Ryan) is commonly associated with _Colossus_. P-1's arguably more indirect and intelligent than omniscient omnipotent Coloss

Re: Movie review: Colossus The Forbin Project evil computer movie (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 13 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

While I would find it difficult to argue with that point of view were the question cast in terms of what Donald Trump deserves, it should have been clear from my post that I was instead looking at the matter from the perspective of what

(review) Tuyo (Tuyo, volume 1) by Rachel Neumeier

Posted: 15 Days 14 Hours ago by: Jack Bohn

The only book I'd run across was _The Fall of Colossus_, which tells the two stories of another attempt by Forbin's anti-Colossus project, and Dr. Markham, who is separated out as part of one of Colossus's experiments to try to understan

Re: Movie review: The Lift, killer elevator as decentralized AI??? (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 15 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Tuyo (Tuyo, volume 1) by Rachel Neumeier Two men from dissimilar cultures contend against an evil sorcerer. https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/lets-be-friends

Re: (translation) Japanese Fairy Tales edited by Yei Theodora Ozaki (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 16 Hours ago by: Jack Bohn

I used to work for a place that had a warehouse where apparently the calculations showed motion-detector circuitry and a timer to control the lights down the central aisle would be paid for by the savings in electricity (hey, it's better

Re: “China has launched hundreds of satellites (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 18 Hours ago by: Greg Weeks

Here's the scan the PG edition was made from. The PG edition is quite old and they weren't doing illustrations or even HTML then. http://durendal.org/jft/ Greg

Re: Movie review: The Lift, killer elevator as decentralized AI??? (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 21 Hours ago by: Charles Packer

says-China-developing-anti-satellite-missiles-electronic-jammers- lasers.html Sounds more like Gen. Buck Turgidson in "Dr. Strangelove."

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 15 Days 22 Hours ago by: Charles Packer

True. Subsequently I searched beyond this and learned that while they were invented that early, it wasn't until the 1960s that automatic elevators became ubiquitous. A search of newspapers.com confirmed it. Ads for apartments that mentio

Re:_“China_has_launched_hundreds_of_satellites_ (thread)

Posted: 16 Days ago by: Robert Woodward

I view that as a variant of (2).

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 2 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

China has _always_ been preparing for war.

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 2 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

The phrase that comes to mind is "Paying for the ability to _have_ electricity output." If you aren't willing to pay to keep the facilities that make electricity in working order, you aren't going to have electricity. Seems pretty sel

rec.arts.sf.written Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) by Evelyn Leeper

Posted: 16 Days 2 Hours ago by: Kevrob

[snip] I couldn;t take her seriously going back to the days of her "The Beauty Myth." As TV political pundits went, she was a babe. 1993 photo @ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/can-finally-admit-naomi-wolf-rubbish-a

Re:_“China_has_launched_hundreds_of_satellites_to_ (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 3 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

http://leepers.us/evelyn/faqs/sf-written.htm "rec.arts.sf.written is a newsgroup devoted to discussions of written SF. It is a high-volume newsgroup and this article is intended to help reduce the number of unnecessary postings, the

Posted: 16 Days 4 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Isn't this _You Only Live Twice_? The movie, not the book.

The menace from Earth

Re: Movies: Everything Everywhere All At Once first sf/ fantasy film (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 4 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

CNN reports that from now on, Earth astronauts visiting alien planets are required to wear body cams. <https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/15/world/nasa-spacesuits-moon-artemis-unveil-scn/index.html> I'm sure we're all ashamed that this is ne

Movie review: Colossus The Forbin Project evil computer movie

Posted: 16 Days 5 Hours ago by: David Brown

The movie only had a limited release in US theaters, which I discussed in my review. That used to be pretty typical for both "arthouse"/ foreign films and low-budget sci fi and horror movies. In the modern landscape, it can be regarded as

“China_has_launched_hundreds_of_satellites_to_tar

Posted: 16 Days 5 Hours ago by: David Brown

Here's yet another installment of my series on robots and AI, a review of The Forbin Project (I know, the UK title), which is based on a novel. I'm a little curious if anyone here can say how the movie compares to the book, as well as where

Re: Movies: Everything Everywhere All At Once first sf/ fantasy film (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 5 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

“China has launched hundreds of satellites to target US: Space Force chief says Beijing is developing anti-satellite missiles, electronic jammers, lasers and technology that can MOVE rival orbiting platforms” https://www.dailymail.

Posted: 16 Days 5 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

My reply was made after just reading that review's last paragraph, where you were saying that it was not to be expected the movie would have a long run in theatres. John Savard

Re: "organlegger" (thread)

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 5 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

It's on Snippet View for Canadians, but I found the volume on the Internet Archive... https://archive.org/details/dli.calcutta.03489/ It turns out its a publication from India, rather than something by Nazi sympathizers in the U.S. or

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 6 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

The problem with winter time electricity consumption in Texas is that the weather is either moderate or cold or bitterly cold. The forecasts are worthless a week out so ERCOT must be prepared. It costs money for power plants to be ma

R.I.P. William Hezlep, 86, in Oct. 2022 (playwright/fantasy author:

Posted: 16 Days 7 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

The real issue is that universities and colleges have gotten out of the mindset of "We are here to educate" and into the mindset of "We are here to be the most prestigious!" So in pursuit of that prestige they compete to hire professor

Re: Movie review: The Lift, killer elevator as decentralized AI??? (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 7 Hours ago by: Lenona

Education "William Hezlep received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Westminster College in 1961. In 1965 he obtained Master of Arts from Wayne State University. In 1973 he earned his Doctor of Philosophy from Wayne State University." C

Re: Pearls Before Swine: Calculus Finals (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 7 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Oh, "tv"? Doctor Who, "Silence in the Library". I think. (Not the 1970s story. Perhaps another one was. "The Horror of Fang Rock" has one big light...) And "The Nine Billion Names Of God". Or when I turn out the light switches in w

Posted: 16 Days 7 Hours ago by: artyw2@yahoo.com

When it came to math, Calculus was my limit.

R.I.P. Dale Bick Carlson, 86, in Jan. 2022 ("The Mountain of Truth," 1972)

Posted: 16 Days 8 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Oh, I don't think we do /that./ ;-)

Posted: 16 Days 8 Hours ago by: Lenona

She lived in Madison, Connecticut. https://www.zip06.com/obituaries/20220125/3781/ (with photo) We are sad to announce that on Jan. 23, Dale Carlson, 86, of Madison, born in New York City, NY, passed away. Dale is survived by her sister

(Bundle of Holding) KoDT Trouble 4

Posted: 16 Days 9 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Of tangental interest: KoDT is a long running comic about the misadventures of tabletop roleplaying gamers. Bundle of Holding: KoDT Trouble 4 Knights of the Dinner Table: Bundles of Trouble V31-40 https://bundleofholding.com/quick/KoDT

R.I.P. John Jakes, 90

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lenona

He died in Sarasota, Florida. https://groups.google.com/g/alt.obituaries/c/-vFH_1tVNfU (death notice and more - note what I quoted about Time Gate) From Wikipedia:

Posted: 16 Days 10 Hours ago by: Magewolf

Or it would be cheaper and easier to just cut out all the college degree overreach. I was about to write most of the jobs where I work would not need degrees when I was young but thinking about it for us it would be less than half since

Posted: 16 Days 10 Hours ago by: BCFD36

[stuff deleted] [stuff deleted] Contempt for the former president cannot be excessive. Not even if Colbert wished on him flesh eating syphilis and nercotizing tracheal gonorrhea.

Re: Press release (thread)

Re: Movie review: The Lift, killer elevator as decentralized AI??? (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 12 Hours ago by: Don

Here's hoping your Sentient Chili lyrics don't earbug me the next time my motor memory (it has a mind of its own) wants to play "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" on my Synthesizer and Electric Piano combo. LOL. Danke,

Re: Movie review: The Lift, killer elevator as decentralized AI??? (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

One of our modern automatic safety elevators had that problem for a while. When a Manager (who had been in the Army and really should have known better) pointed out that it had been inspected just a few months ago, /I/ pointed out that

Re: Movie review: The Lift, killer elevator as decentralized AI??? (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 12 Hours ago by: danny burstein

[snip] One of my favorites!, and, as it turns out, this was both a theatrical film [a] and also a tv movie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_Man_(1971_film) [a] I was 99 % sure I had seen it in the theatre, but all ref's I found unti

Posted: 16 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Sequential hallway lights going out are /still/ not an unknown allegedly-special effect. They may even be one of the items that led to my using "special defects" instead of "special effects". I should think so!

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

I very likely did mean "snogging". Note that, IMHO, this is a British experession, presumably meaning "necking". I don't think the hug counts. Percy is older, and becomes quite an idiot later on at the Ministry. So, yes, Book Four it m

Re: Movie review: The Lift, killer elevator as decentralized AI??? (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

The reality in at least some cases seems to be: 4) No actual proof was ever presented and the lawyers are now in deep doo-doo as a result of wasting the Court's time and abusing the Judicial system.

Re: Movie review: The Lift, killer elevator as decentralized AI??? (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 13 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

The World Is A Very Big Place. I've encountered elevators designed without interior doors, and fully automated versions have been around since 1900, per Wikipedia. pt

Posted: 16 Days 13 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Back in the mid-60s, I occasionally encountered (brand new) elevators in Sweden with no interior door. The exterior door was a more or less normal swing-out door (presumably with interlocks), and the interior was flush with the wall, a

Re: Press release (thread)

Re: Movie review: The Lift, killer elevator as decentralized AI??? (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 13 Hours ago by: Chris Weber

"Sentient Chili…" is also available as an e-book from Barnes & Noble and from Smashwords: Sentient Chili and Stranger Filk: Lyrics to 107 Songs of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Fandom by Chris Weber | eBook | Barnes & Noble® barnesan

Re: Movie review: The Lift, killer elevator as decentralized AI??? (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 13 Hours ago by: rkshullat

Or we're old enough that "modern" is not equivalent to "21st century". Robert

(translation) Japanese Fairy Tales edited by Yei Theodora Ozaki (Translated by Yei Theodora Ozaki)

Posted: 16 Days 14 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

At least in the elevator in the hotel Arisia used, the sensors did not run continuously up the door edge.

Re: Movie review: The Lift, killer elevator as decentralized AI??? (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 15 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Japanese Fairy Tales edited by Yei Theodora Ozaki (Translated by Yei Theodora Ozaki) Almost two dozen Japanese fairy tales, amended for Western eyes. https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/tell-me-a-story

Re: Movie review: The Lift, killer elevator as decentralized AI??? (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 16 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

As I think I've said here before, the scariest one I've seen & ridden was a "Pater Noster" elevator in a German/NATO government building in Frankfurt in the early '90s. It's probably still there.

Re: Pearls Before Swine: Calculus Finals (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 21 Hours ago by: Charles Packer

This newsgroup must come from a strange planet, to have experienced "modern" elevators that aren't blocked from moving while the door is open and "WWI era" elevators with modern buttons.

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 16 Days 23 Hours ago by: Robert Woodward

You were taking Calculus. Pig was not. Let's try a different nightmare final: Chinese history - Han Dynasty (Western Han, the Wang Mang interregnum, Eastern Han). Or perhaps a Basque language course final.

“The_Readers_Speak!_This_Blog’s_Readers

Posted: 17 Days ago by: Robert Woodward

While defending Quadi is not comfortable, what false facts? DJT certainly demeaned any number of medical experts and promoted quack cures for Covid-19. He also claimed election fraud, but judges weren't buying it. I see several possib

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 17 Days ago by: Lynn McGuire

“The Readers Speak! This Blog’s Readers’ Favorite Science Fiction Books” by Dan Livingston https://best-sci-fi-books.com/the-readers-speak-this-blogs-readers-favorite-science-fiction-books/ I have read 20 of the 24: 24. Slaught

Posted: 17 Days 1 Hour ago by: Joy Beeson

We could start by allowing no-frills colleges to flourish. My nephew and his wife would have liked to have more than two children, but that was as many as they could educated.

Pearls Before Swine: Calculus Finals

Posted: 17 Days 2 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

IIRC, the Metaverse in Neal Stephenson's _Snow Crash_ is laid out that way? But, I think the book is not entirely a serious one. The main character [citation needed] is named Hiro Protagonist. In William Gibson's _Virtual Light_, ther

Re: Movie review: The Lift, killer elevator as decentralized AI??? (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 3 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Pearls Before Swine: Calculus Finals https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2023/03/14 I have taken five Calculus finals and passed them all, no nightmares. Now going to school or work naked, yeesh. Lynn

Posted: 17 Days 3 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

BBC radio just replayed a 1968 comedy show featuring a film pastiche, "Thoroughly Modern Willie". <https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b007w4df> They combine the elevator that only runs if you're dancing, with, "...Shouldn't we have got on

Posted: 17 Days 4 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

An issue? And you may mean "snogging". Or not. Wizard description of Muggle behaviour is hilarious, but I think wizards and witches actually have this behaviour. Let's see. I think Hermione gives Harry a friendly hug in book one whil

Re: Movie review: The Lift, killer elevator as decentralized AI??? (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 4 Hours ago by: Hamish Laws

Nah, it's just to try and grift more money

Re: Young People Read Old Hugo Finalists: Blood Music by Greg Bear (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 4 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

One of my jobs involved a venerable cargo elevator without much in the way of safety features (although I think the gate would not unlock unless a car was at the floor) or automatic controls. Getting it to line up nicely with a floor was

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 4 Hours ago by: Nils Hammer

I remember vividly thinking we need to establish comm with the nantîtes, convince them humans are valuable and bad behavior is doomed to meet flames.

Re: Movie review: The Lift, killer elevator as decentralized AI??? (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 4 Hours ago by: Hamish Laws

I don't see them triggering a nuke Escalating by using one in Ukraine is extremely likely to get more intervention from NATO nations (and allies) The intimidation factor of an atmospheric nuke test isn't worth the fallout in either a p

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 5 Hours ago by: Nils Hammer

There was a 1970s v movie where an automated building is taken over to frighten and murder a person. Sequential hallway lights going out was the main effect. At ~4 years old my family got into an unmarked WWI era elevator. It ran at high

Posted: 17 Days 6 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

*WHOOSH*

Re: Young People Read Old Hugo Finalists: Blood Music by Greg Bear (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 7 Hours ago by: David Johnston

Linear cities have been tried before. They're stupid.

"The Hollow Hills" and "The Crystal Cave"

Posted: 17 Days 7 Hours ago by: Joy Beeson

Comment before reading: the text slopped off the white space allowed for it, which made the end of each line hard to read. So I hit ctl- a few times to make it fit in the white space, and it was too small to read. So I hit "no

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 8 Hours ago by: Andrew McDowell

Prompted by James, I have reread "The Hollow Hills" and "The Crystal Cave", by Mary Stewart. These are historical novels of the time of King Arthur (shortly after the Roman withdrawal from Britain), aiming at a sort of realism, except for a

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 8 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Are you really going to use a nuclear test to bet on ? You know, there are casinos, dog tracks, and horse tracks across the nation that you can bet on. Me, I am not interested in betting on stuff that I cannot even partially control.

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 8 Hours ago by: Andrew McDowell

(Much trimmed because I find this idea striking) My own motto, typically applied to myself, is "even fools have to make their own decisions" because even if you decide to slavishly follow somebody else's advice, you have to decide who to f

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 9 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

What odds are you giving that such a test will not take place in Russia?

Posted: 17 Days 9 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

.....

Re: "organlegger" (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 9 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

When checking Google Advanced Book Search for 'first appearance' of terms, you have to be very careful to look at the image as a sanity check. Its quite common for the dates Google has for a work to be wildly wrong. A general familiar

Posted: 17 Days 10 Hours ago by: John Halpenny

Book burning was effective before the printing press because there were very few books and it might be possible to find them all. Book burning will come back when everything is online and it becomes possible to search for and take dow

Re: "organlegger" (thread)

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 10 Hours ago by: Ross Presser

This sent me on a chase to find the earliest appearance. One false answer is 1934, as claimed by Google in this search (I see it as the fourth hit) https://www.google.com/search?q=organlegger&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A1%2F1%2F1900

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 11 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

You seem to know a lot of false facts. Lynn

Re: "The Forever King" by Molly Cochran and Warren Murphy (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 11 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

I was talking about disarming the 24,000+ nuclear weapons from Russia. They have not used any of those in a LONG time. But, since Russia just removed itself from the atmospheric test ban treaty, I expect to see an atmospheric test of

Re: Movies: Everything Everywhere All At Once first sf/ fantasy film Oscar winner??? (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 11 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

"The Forever King" by Molly Cochran and Warren Murphy https://www.amazon.com/dp/1515346226 Ugh, that is not good about volumes two and three not being good. I am going to try volume two even though it is only available used. Volum

Posted: 17 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Which, if memory serves, was so upsetting to the People in Charge that they then created a "Best Animated Picture" category to make absolutely certain that no animated film /ever/ got treated like a real film and nominated for Best Pictu

Re: Dilbert_March_12,_ (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

When whoever did it cancel's em, they really /cancel/ 'em.

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

It's been too long since I read it, but weren't these /older/ teenagers? Teenagers who, after a few years, weren't teenagers any longer? On a related note, in one of the allegedly-special features that came with the DVD of /The Hunger G

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 12 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Of course, though, after healing the demographic imbalances caused by past aggressions and genocides and the like, so that the size of each ethnic group's population relative to that of the others is what it should have been, presumably

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 13 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Of course, if we discover FTL travel, and there are billions of Earthlike or at least terraformable planets available that are not owned by other intelligent life, then appropriate priorities for spots on the ships going out can achieve

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 13 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

I remember the name Naomi Wolf, but offhand at the moment I am not familiar with her work. I do tend to be of the opinion that having an open mind should be a privilege reserved for those with the intelligence and background to examine

Posted: 17 Days 13 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

I can dream, can't I? However, you are entirely correct. We almost certainly will instead have to live with the unpleasant circumstance of the present world imbalance, where aggressors have impunity for their misdeeds. So here's my rea

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 13 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

Yeah, right. Trump's only goal is to claim his project is bigger than the Saudi's. https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/saudi-arabia-building-100-mile-long-linear-city

Re: "The Forever King" by Molly Cochran and Warren Murphy (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 13 Hours ago by: Dorothy J Heydt

(Hal Heydt) At least as far as conventional arms go, Ukraine is doing a pretty good job of disarming Russia. (Or, conversely, one might claim that, through the use of consistently stupid and ineffective tactics, Russia is doing a fine jo

Posted: 17 Days 14 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

Yes. The first book of the Arthur Blessing series is excellent. The subsequent volumes were disappointing. I did have a fondness for the Chiun and Remo books back in the day.

[OT] A Flying Car in Every Garage

(tor dot com) The Tricky Art of Derivative Fiction

Posted: 17 Days 14 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Where are our flying cars? This is the question often asked, sometimes facetiously, about how "the future" hasn't lived up to the expectations set by its depiction in popular science fiction. The following video must be described as off-t

Re: Movies: Everything Everywhere All At Once first sf/ fantasy film (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 14 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

The Tricky Art of Derivative Fiction Mere knock-off or the foundations of a genre? The difference is significant. https://www.tor.com/2023/03/14/the-tricky-art-of-derivative-fiction/ via @tordotcom

Re: Movies: Everything Everywhere All At Once first sf/ fantasy film (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 14 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

I'm the 1939 "The Wizard Of Oz" lost out to "Gone With The Wind" though it did bring home a "Best Original Score". Just wait until animated movies move to AI voices..

Re: Movie review: Zathura and science fantasy (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 15 Hours ago by: Jack Bohn

Well, even Shakespeare wrote fantasy, see "Hamlet"(1948) which took Best, and won Olivier Best Actor (nomination for director). The others that leap to mind: Orson Welles's "Macbeth" and the 1930s star-studded "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 16 Hours ago by: Jack Bohn

Under the editor after Baen, but there are indications that it was bought by him. (Not sure if I can phrase that so it doesn't sound like a conspiracy chaser.) Indeed, the solution was not to ban jogging (sooooo seventies!), but, to al

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 17 Hours ago by: Hamish Laws

Naomi Wolf hasn't found a conspiracy theory she didn't buy in at least the last 10 years

Posted: 17 Days 23 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

It is Quaddie. How is he going to disarm Russia again ? Lynn

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 23 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

We should stay in our own present time. The day of my grandmother's family setting out coal oil lamps each night when the sun went down are long over. Most night time lighting is provided via LED lamps now, very efficient. And the k

Re: Movie review: Zathura and science fantasy (thread)

Posted: 17 Days 23 Hours ago by: Andrew McDowell

I must admit to being somewhat surprised by this, but it appears that some people are actually changing their minds about the significance of the events of Jan 6th in the light of new information https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/dear-conse

Posted: 18 Days ago by: Robert Woodward

You appeared to have missed the implications of my use of "rotation rate .... was increasing". It wasn't evanescent.

Posted: 18 Days ago by: pete...@gmail.com

I distinctly recall that in TiTs, some people, realizing they weren't going home soon, paired up and started baby making. Pt

Re: "The Forever King" by Molly Cochran and Warren Murphy (thread)

Posted: 18 Days ago by: Quadibloc

Of course he meant - Also, it's a juvenile, so of course none of the teenage characters depicted in it will ever be shown to have sex on their mind. Well, at least in some senses. Archie comics were considered to be safe reading for chil

Re: Movies: Everything Everywhere All At Once first sf/ fantasy film (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 1 Hour ago by: Lynn McGuire

"The Forever King" by Molly Cochran and Warren Murphy https://www.amazon.com/dp/1515346226 Yes, apparently so. https://www.amazon.com/stores/Warren-Murphy/author/B000APEJD4 Lynn

Re: "The Forever King" by Molly Cochran and Warren Murphy (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 1 Hour ago by: Hamish Laws

It's Quaddie, you're a human You expect him to understand you?

"The Forever King" by Molly Cochran and Warren Murphy

Posted: 18 Days 2 Hours ago by: Joe Pfeiffer

That's the Warren Murphy of Destroyer fame?

Posted: 18 Days 3 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

"The Forever King" by Molly Cochran and Warren Murphy https://www.amazon.com/dp/1515346226 Book number one of the three book fantasy series. I read the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback published in 1

Posted: 18 Days 3 Hours ago by: Jonathan Harston

How many teenagers have you met? :)

Posted: 18 Days 3 Hours ago by: Jonathan Harston

It seems to be not "this is the last Dilbert comic available to the general public", but "this is the last time *ANY* Dilbert comics will be available to the general public". For the first statement to be true, the dilbert.com site would r

R.I.P. Anne E. Neimark, 87, in Dec. 2022 (Tolkien biographer)

Posted: 18 Days 4 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Personally I agree with those but I take either so long as we stop bouncing back and forth.

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 4 Hours ago by: Lenona

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/legacyremembers/anne-edwards-loeb-obituary?id=38351924 (with photo) Anne Edwards, age 87, formerly of Lincolnwood, IL passed away peacefully on Thursday, December 1, 2022. Consistently inspiring many

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 6 Hours ago by: Lenona

That reminds me of a few things. One: A common saying (by more than one party) is "if you can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em." But...but...imagine if the birthrate among the poor suddenly dropped by half. Obviously, things would become

Re: Movie review: Zathura and science fantasy (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 6 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

The natural gas / fuel oil steam plants are an average of almost 60 years old. They were built in the 1950s to 1975. They take anywhere from a day to a week to get started. They are around 40,000 MW. The natural gas / diesel gas tur

Posted: 18 Days 6 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

No laws of physics are being defied here. While the total angular momentum of the system, being isolated in space, must be constant, it is possible for momentum to be transferred between the colony structure and the people who inhabit it

Posted: 18 Days 6 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Oh, ho! So that's what this was all about. He didn't just lie on the couch for a nap for one hour. Well, it truly is that time of year. John Savard

Re: Movies: Everything Everywhere All At Once first sf/ fantasy film (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 7 Hours ago by: Jay E. Morris

And while many believe that we should live in the future, there are those that advocate sticking to our own time.

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 7 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

How is your take-away from my review that it was bad? I said pretty much the opposite.

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 7 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Note that we had two extreme freezes this winter and did not have rotating power outages. ERCOT did not cut the power to the natural gas fields or the electric pipeline compressors this time. ERCOT was able to serve the 74,000 MW loa

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 7 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

That article has several misstatements in it. The problem in Feb 2021 was that ERCOT shut off the power to the natural gas fields and electric pipeline compressors and cratered the natural gas system. By the time ERCOT realized what t

Re: Movies: Everything Everywhere All At Once first sf/ fantasy film (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 7 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Nope. Lynn

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 8 Hours ago by: David Brown

I don't consider it "bad", nor do I gather that's the opinion of the other reviewer. What it is is a film for niche audiences. For that and other reasons, I find it unfortunately likely that it's long term legacy will be as an Oscar winner

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 8 Hours ago by: rkshullat

I think the short summary is that everybody wants it fixed but nobody wants to pay for it. Texas politicicians are as stupid, but not so stupid as to believe that legislating things makes the cost go away. It will have to get much more fr

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 9 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Apparently the important Texans don't believe it ever gets below freezing in Texas.

Re: Movies: Everything Everywhere All At Once first sf/ fantasy film (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 9 Hours ago by: William Hyde

Our windmills do work. My complaint above was about the expensive incentives offered. The whole program cost far too much (mind you, the gas plant fiasco cost more). But at least it got us off of coal. Aside from the reduction of g

Re: Movies: Everything Everywhere All At Once first sf/ fantasy film (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 9 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

If it were that bad, one would expect that it would have had a hard time winning Oscars. Of course, there's that "Oscars So White" controversy, but for all I know that issue may not arise, because maybe all of this year's other nominees

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 9 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Given that Star Trek won't be able to afford Michelle Yeoh any more, now that she's a Best Actress winner... I think we can dismiss the theory that Discovery ended after a successful five-year run because it was too "woke". John Savard

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 9 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

I am 100% against the United States converting to something other than democracy. However, it's the Republican Party, beholden to Donald Trump, that poses a threat of that. Voter suppression, the January 6th coup attempt... John Savard

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 9 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

I'm well aware that to expect a defeat of Russia is unrealistic. So we will just have to keep up the delicate balancing act of aiding Ukraine, without giving Putin an excuse to start a nuclear war. However, it looks as if our only hope

Re: Movies: Everything Everywhere All At Once first sf/ fantasy film (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 10 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

And there are indigenous people in Siberia too, so using that as a way to resettle the people of North America doesn't seem to be an option instead of giving it to Korea... John Savard

Re: Movies: Everything Everywhere All At Once first sf/ fantasy film (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 11 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

it won for best VFX. and was nominated for Direction, Original Screenplay, and Art Direction. pt

Re: Movies: Everything Everywhere All At Once first sf/ fantasy film (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 11 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

"2001" got some noms and one minor win I believe. "Star Wars" got a nom.

Movies: Everything Everywhere All At Once first sf/ fantasy film

Posted: 18 Days 11 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

Here's my review from 30 April 2022: Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Everything Everywhere All At Once I had not heard of "Everything Everywhere All At Once" until I googled "movie times" a

Posted: 18 Days 12 Hours ago by: David Brown

Here's something I didn't remember if I posted here, a review of Everything Everywhere All At Once that I posted during its under the radar theatrical run, which is now best picture winner. Seeing a movie I would watch go this big is, to pu

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 12 Hours ago by: -dsr-

I see it as an $8 ebook. The fact that it hasn't had a paper printing in some years seems unremarkable. -dsr-

Posted: 18 Days 12 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

I wonder whose finger would be on this button, seeing as North America would be populated only by full-blood Native Americans/ First Peoples/indigenous, with everyone else (including Quaddie) dispersed back to Europe/Africa/Asia. pt

Re: Types of Trilogies (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Not to dispute the facts, which are fine, allow me to point out: -- LOTR was published in three parts because, in post-WWII Britain, paper was still hard to get and the Publishers weren't sure it would sell. It sold. -- Examples of typ

Re: Dilbert_March_12,_ (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

I tried it this morning. I got three choices. One was the new Dilbert. Choosing that brought up ... a different site, in which I have no interest. Goodbye Dilber, RIP.

Re: "The Horror: Perry Rhodan #66 Paperback" by William Voltz, translated by Wendayne Ackerman (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

When I reread those available on Kindle some time back, I believe this was one of at least two that I found myself reading again for the very first time. My memory of them had ... mutated ... over the years.

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 13 Hours ago by: Don

Overthinking is always a possibility. The simplified provenance of PR's sixth-dimension as a hyperspace's hyperspace by induction seemingly honors Occam's Razor. Yet Mahr did major in physics. Regardless of the route taken by PR to

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 13 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

But ... but ... but ... those States are run by competent persons. At least insofar as generating electricity goes. Texas is run by ... Texans.

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 13 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Too bad the assertion was about requiring the /rate paid/ to be the same for everyone (in the same taxing jurisdiction). No State property tax?

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 13 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Aristophanes wrote /The Birds/ about 2500 years ago. It's nice to know that Cloud Cuckoo Land still has some occupants.

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 13 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

He's talking about what happened after WWI. Germany was allowed a very small military. Germany and Japan were allowed/encouraged to rearm as part of/after their extensive re-education. This is why there was no WWIII one generation (1

Posted: 18 Days 13 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

So do texas fossil fuel power plants, apparantly. "Natural gas power generating facilities had equipment freeze up and faced shortages of fuel" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis Note that northern plants don't hav

Re: (tears) A Cupful of Space by Mildred Clingerman (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 13 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Congress can't make up its mind whether to ban time travel or not.

Posted: 18 Days 14 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

It's wildly out of print but at least print runs were huge back then so copies have survived. However, all the contents of this collection and more can be found in the far more recent The Clingerman Files.

Re: Types of Trilogies (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 15 Hours ago by: -dsr-

Your type three is common for new authors: the first book needs to stand alone in the case that it does not sell well enough to justify the followups, but well enough not to poison the market for that author. There are six-book series w

Posted: 18 Days 16 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Perhaps our standards of what is prurient differ. It is a long time since I read it. But I may do so soon, having been reminded.

Re: Types of Trilogies (thread)

Posted: 18 Days 17 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

I'm in doubt that the categories are useful. Certainly it's fuzzy whether a book series belongs in one set or another. And the books are usually published one at a time, although stories for children may be released as a series at the

Posted: 18 Days 22 Hours ago by: Mickmane

The following seems to have gotten lost, I can't find it on google groups, and didn't get any messages at all yesterday (today it said 'no longer on server' to a bunch of messages). So, reposting it. On 11.03.23, jdnicoll@panix.com

Types of Trilogies

Posted: 18 Days 23 Hours ago by: Robert Woodward

These (including some 4 book series) come in several types. There are ones that are really one BIG book that was divided into 3 (sometimes 4) segments for publication (e.g., _Lord of the Rings_). Some, while there is an overall plot arc,

Posted: 19 Days ago by: Lynn McGuire

Obviously I need to reread TITS. Lynn

Posted: 19 Days 1 Hour ago by: WolfFan

Caroline telling white boyz where to get off, and getting away with it, ain’t very 1950s. Girlz wondering about with knives ain’t very 1950s. Wasn’t out of the blue. Once it was established that Jack was a girl, it was bloody ob

Re: (tears) A Cupful of Space by Mildred Clingerman (thread)

Posted: 19 Days 1 Hour ago by: WolfFan

Yes, it is. Roddie’s sister was military. Roddie thought that Jackie was a guy. The whole point of the system was to colonize distant planets. Caroline was a Zulu. Caroline advised the first mayor that he’d better send several big

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 19 Days 1 Hour ago by: David Brown

I own this book, though I don't think I've read it since I took it on road trip around 2000. I've found it an interesting comparison piece with The Best of Margaret St. Clair. The latter author was really a straight up dark fantasy/ horro

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 19 Days 2 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Windmills suck in Texas. The blasted things freeze up below 25 F in Texas since the owners did not install heaters. And the wind stops blowing when the temperature goes above 105 F. Useless. The windmill output dropped from 38,000

Posted: 19 Days 2 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Germany was ENCOURAGED to rearm. The USSR menace was very real in the late 1940s through 1980s. Japan has been encouraged to rearm also even though it is still a USA protectorate. That one button push will fire off thousands of nucle

Posted: 19 Days 2 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

The book was never clear if she was a ghost or he had brain damage from the transfer. He felt tremendous guilt from inhabiting her body so the psychological trauma might have generated the ghost also. Lynn

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 19 Days 3 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

I think you and I read different books. This is "Tunnel In The Sky", not "Starship Troopers". Lynn

Posted: 19 Days 3 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Texas does not have a state property tax. Or a state income tax. Or a state death tax. Or a state wealth tax. All property taxes in Texas are from the local governments: county, school, city, levee, MUD, hospital, flood, etc. The s

Posted: 19 Days 3 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Based on the first comic that I saw, there will be four letter words and Dilbert climbing out of a trash can saying What The Frack. Having potty words will not make the strip any better. Lynn

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 19 Days 3 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

The next experiment is to go back one hour in the past. Lynn

Posted: 19 Days 3 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Quaddie does not believe that he would be one of the first get a personal firing squad should we lose our Republics in North America and convert to socialism or communism. Just about everyone with college degree will be executed in th

Posted: 19 Days 3 Hours ago by: David Johnston

It's not that it was prurient. It's that it was boring.

Posted: 19 Days 5 Hours ago by: Christian Weisgerber

The protagonist's older sister, IIRC? And didn't that sound a lot like a segregated branch of the military? He mistook one particular girl for a boy, because going into a survival situation she had opted for short hair and body armor.

Posted: 19 Days 6 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Will the new Dilbert be powered by slow electricity?

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 19 Days 7 Hours ago by: WolfFan

Off the top of my head... 1. Girlz in the military. Lots of idiots object to that. 2. Our Hero has trouble distinguishing girlz from boyz. Other idiots have problems there, and still others have problems with that whole gender thing.

Posted: 19 Days 7 Hours ago by: Jay E. Morris

The Texas State constitution does not require anyone to pay property tax. From https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/property-tax/basics.php The Texas Constitution and statutory law authorizes local governments to collect the tax. The s

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 19 Days 7 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Interesting. That is one of his juveniles; I don't recall it being objectionable for any reason. John Savard

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 19 Days 7 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

On the other hand, North Korea was in the Anyang Protectorate. As there are Koreans scattered in parts of Russia and China, once these two despotic regimes are ended, perhaps its extent forms an indication of where the new boundaries of

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 19 Days 7 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

But we now know exactly what mistakes were made back then. Germany was permitted to rearm. Now, we don't have to make that mistake. If, after Russia has paid its debts, and the occupation troops have been withdrawn, it takes one step

Posted: 19 Days 7 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

But at least Tibet was independent! John Savard

Re: “Dilbert_March_12,_2023" (thread)

Posted: 19 Days 8 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

There is not anybody in that strip I want to see in less clothes!

“Dilbert_March_12,_2023"

Re: "The Horror: Perry Rhodan #66 Paperback" by William Voltz, (thread)

Posted: 19 Days 8 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

“Dilbert March 12, 2023" “This is the last Dilbert comic available to the general public. Starting tomorrow (March 13, 2023) the Dilbert comic will only be available here at scottadams.locals.com.” "And it will be spicier.” htt

R.I.P. Ignacio López Tarso, 98, Mexican actor ("Mac

Posted: 19 Days 9 Hours ago by: Christian Weisgerber

I'm biting my tongue here. Let's just say, there is some further back story that will eventually be revealed. (In reality, of course, things were retconned by the writers.) You are overthinking this. It's just an escalation in the be

Re: "The Horror: Perry Rhodan #66 Paperback" by William Voltz, translated by Wendayne Ackerman (thread)

Posted: 19 Days 11 Hours ago by: Lenona

"Poor and hungry peasant Macario wishes to have a good meal for All Saint's Day. After his wife cooks him a turkey he has three apparitions: The Devil, God, and the Death." https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0529964/ (the rest of his career) S

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 19 Days 11 Hours ago by: Don

Tolot makes me marginally envious of Haluter anatomy and physiology. But the best thing of all about Haluters is how they intentionally abandoned all ambitions to rule the Milky Way "island" as their own galactic empire; in the words of

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 19 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

That's the question -- what, exactly, is being reviewed?

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 19 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Our electric utility is talking about improving and strengthening the infrastructure and increasing the (non-fossil-fuel [1]) supply to accomodae the switch to heat pumps and home-charged electric cars. Greater demand requires greater

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 19 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Dream on. Even when they were at their weakest, all Westerners could manage were a few treaty ports and trading enclaves. China was never conquered by the West -- until Mao took over, Communism being as Western as Capitalism. Japan, of

(tears) A Cupful of Space by Mildred Clingerman

Posted: 19 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Actually, when I took Arabic in the Army at DLI, we were an "AE" ("Arabic, Egyptian") class and the other major choice was "AI" (Arabic, Iraqi). We all learned Modern Standard Arabic, the language of newspapers and other culteral artif

Posted: 19 Days 14 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

A Cupful of Space by Mildred Clingerman An assortment of speculative fiction stories by a star of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Colliers, and Good Housekeeping. https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/a-drop-of-water-in-an-endless-sea

Posted: 19 Days 17 Hours ago by: Andrew McDowell

There is a timeline in which I joined Burroughs Cumbernauld in the early 1980s - it might have been good for my character but I am happy for the decision not to join them. Unisys is still around, so your shares might be worth something. I

Re: Movie review: The Lift, killer elevator as decentralized AI??? (thread)

Posted: 19 Days 19 Hours ago by: The Horny Goat

Glad you spelled that out - I spent 4 years with Burroughs in the mid 1980s (before I bailed to join the family business) - never did sell my shares so suspect they're worth at most 5% of what I paid for them as they got busted for procu

Posted: 19 Days 19 Hours ago by: Charles Packer

By the way, does anybody know when the Empire State Building went to push-button elevators? The accuracy of my memory of childhood hangs in the balance. In 1956 my older cousin was employed as an elevator operator in that building. But

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 19 Days 19 Hours ago by: The Horny Goat

Sounds a bit like my first experience with programming though we were required to get "job cards" identifying our run which printed full page identifiers on the print outs saying whose job it was. We fed our cards into the auto reader an

Posted: 19 Days 19 Hours ago by: The Horny Goat

I'm obviously not a Texan but in our jurisdiction we have both property taxes and a 'home owners' grant'. The taxes are all at the same rate while the HOG is a fixed rate though houses assessed over a certain figure lose part of their 'g

Posted: 19 Days 20 Hours ago by: Charles Packer

Until the next time...

Posted: 19 Days 21 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

Dear Lord! What have I wrought? I must go back. I must tell them! No, it is too late. It is done.

The experiment is a success!

Posted: 19 Days 21 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

I have arrived one hour in the future.

Posted: 19 Days 23 Hours ago by: Hamish Laws

Damned near all projects take longer than scheduled for various reasons (largely person based) There's no single technological solution that would prevent the failure/delays of most projects (and where a particular technology does help the

Re: Dahl & Fleming at least are decently dead: Now they're here for Stine (thread)

Posted: 20 Days ago by: Lynn McGuire

Not all of Heinlein's books are available new: https://www.amazon.com/Tunnel-Sky-Robert-Heinlein/dp/1416505512/ Lynn

Re: Dahl & Fleming at least are decently dead: Now they're here for Stine (thread)

Posted: 20 Days ago by: Hamish Laws

The issue here is that the publishers are doing it without the author approval Barring an extremely shit contract (which is quite possible, a hell of a lot of authors get stuffed over) this is a massive legal own goal by the publishing co

Re: Dahl & Fleming at least are decently dead: Now they're here for Stine (thread)

Posted: 20 Days ago by: Quadibloc

When the book was still under copyright, they, by the sheer force of being a provincial government, thus with jurisdiction over the civil law, grabbed half the royalties of the author's estate, on the grounds that the work was making mon

Posted: 20 Days ago by: Quadibloc

I, for one, can't wait to see what they will do with Farnham's Freehold. John Savard

Posted: 20 Days ago by: Quadibloc

Maybe just something about the reputation of Heinlein's oeuvre in general, because of his best books, and not necessarily anything about _this_ book? John Savard

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 20 Days ago by: Quadibloc

My recollection of the book, hazy though it is, is that the sexual matters touched upon were not dealt with in a prurient or pornographic manner. Instead, as a normal heterosexual male, he was originally repulsed by the idea of engaging

Re: Dahl & Fleming at least are decently dead: Now they're here for Stine (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 1 Hour ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/937/ Pt

Re: Dahl & Fleming at least are decently dead: Now they're here for Stine (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 1 Hour ago by: pete...@gmail.com

What did they do? The book is free and clear in the US and Canada, but the maker of dramatizations in the 80s and 90s is claiming that a current adaptation is using elements he Invented, and to which he holds copyright. Pt

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 1 Hour ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Note that that book began life as a Twilight fanfic. Pt

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 2 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

That sounds much like the Allied approach to reparations from Germany at the end of World War One. As just as it may be, it didn't work well. Pt

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 2 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Tang Dynasty China might disagree. https://tinyurl.com/3z3av4xc

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 2 Hours ago by: Jay E. Morris

This is universal of course, not just books. The [gadget] was perfect and did everything I wanted better than anything I've ever used, but the shipping box was all beat up. Two stars.

Posted: 20 Days 4 Hours ago by: William Hyde

Ontario, anyway. The problem is familiar, aging infrastructure, no political benefit in being the one to fix it. Because look what we did! Tax Cuts! Windmills! To be fair, 2023 has been good so far, at least in my area. But an earlie

Posted: 20 Days 4 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Well, having her ghost in effect haunting her body after the transplant was, of course, a shocking lapse into pseudoscience and supernaturalism. In the court case, having the protagonist lie and say that he was perfectly comfortable bein

Re: Dahl & Fleming at least are decently dead: Now they're here for Stine (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 4 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

That's not surprising, since Heinlein himself was a nudist. Well, I will freely admit that I am so dense that I have no understanding of its role whatever. Not to say that I am so dense as to miss the presence of sarcasm here. John S

Re: Movie review: The Lift, killer elevator as decentralized AI??? (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 4 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Wouldn't that be primarily because Pride and Prejudice was by Jane Austen, who died in 1817, over two hundred years ago? Thus, the publishers of unedited editions of Pride and Prejudice owe nothing to the estate of Jane Austen for much t

Re: Dahl & Fleming at least are decently dead: Now they're here for Stine (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 4 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

If the doors or gates aren't automatic then you may need an operator to manage them safely. There's an elevator operator character briefly in _Brave New World_ (1932, in the far future). "The liftman was a small simian creature, dres

Re: Dahl & Fleming at least are decently dead: Now they're here for (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 5 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Oh, of course he does. This is about still being able to sell the books, not about cheating the author out of his royalties. Now, if the author actually owned the copyright - which tends not to be the usual practice - that would be eve

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 5 Hours ago by: David Johnston

I can't give 50 Shades of Gray a desperately needed rewrite and sell it as my own work.

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 5 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

I was replying to a comment which seemed to me to be about the loss of mainland China's manufacturing capacity, and its effect on the world economy, _not_ to a statement about Taiwan. So your comment would be better addressed to _his_ pos

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 5 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

And this is why it's very unfortunate that Russia has nuclear weapons. The right kind of peace would involve Russia being in ruins, and permanently banned from having any kind of industry that could be used for war purposes (i.e. manufac

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 5 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Ireland, of course, suffered terrible abuse under British rule. But the recent "Troubles" weren't even about _that_, but instead about the IRA exploiting these unpleasant memories to try and set up a new state in Northern Ireland with th

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 5 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Hey, that's great too. It would mean that America would be able to give up the idea of building a wall, and some people from Mexico could be allowed to legally immigrate to the United States! John Savard

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 6 Hours ago by: The Horny Goat

That's the whole point of both China / Taiwan and Russia / Ukraine. Neither has the power to conquer but both have the power to trash. I recently heard a video suggesting the cost to rebuild Ukraine (even if the fighting ended immediat

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 6 Hours ago by: The Horny Goat

And which major Western or Islamic power hasn't previously had significantly more land than it currently does? (Until 1991 I would have said Russia but now even them - China is more or less at it's largest ever borders since the Mongols

Re: "The Horror: Perry Rhodan #66 Paperback" by William Voltz, (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 6 Hours ago by: The Horny Goat

Of course it was just as the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland were about most anything other than a holy dispute over the catechism.

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 6 Hours ago by: Christian Weisgerber

.... where he wrote most of the installments featuring the character of Don Redhorse, a Terran of Native American ancestry. I remember liking those stories a lot, and I think this was indeed the first time that Voltz registered as a dis

Re: (tor dot com) Four Books About Living Gods Working in Mysterious (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 6 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

60% of worldwide computer chips are made in Taiwan. 80% of the chip blanks are made in Taiwan. The damage to the world's economy will be immense. The average vehicle has over 100 computer chips in it (daughter-boards) according to F

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 8 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Those are the best kind of miracles because they can't be disproved!

Re: (tor dot com) Four Books About Living Gods Working in Mysterious Ways (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 8 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Mesopotamian Arabic.

Posted: 20 Days 8 Hours ago by: Andrew McDowell

I would be pretty surprised if it originated with Trump himself, but enough people took to referring to him as "God-Emperor" that the acronym GEOTUS (as opposted to POTUS) was sometimes used. As far as I can remember, God-Emperors have bee

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 8 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

So his first critic, Virgina Heinlein, had no sway at all ? BTW, I think that Heinlein was remarkably prophetic and am awaiting the news release of the first brain transfer. His labeling these years as the "Crazy Years" seems to be fa

Posted: 20 Days 8 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

We, as in Canada ? If so, sorry. Life is difficult and constant unlimited electricity makes it easier. Lynn

Posted: 20 Days 8 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Reflecting, I think "a man's brain is transplanted into a dead woman's body, confusing the woman's friends" counts as a plot. And perhaps so does the sexual exploration. And the woman's ghost is haunting the body, or the new brain at l

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 8 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Could this be an example for David Brown of "bad science that spoils the book"?

Re: (tor dot com) Four Books About Living Gods Working in Mysterious Ways (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 9 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

It would be in Iraqish, of course. Ah.

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 9 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Vladimir Putin has had the word "miracle" attached to him by people who should know better. Apparently he himself said that his Crimea bridge was a miracle. Then someone blew it to bits. It's been repaired, but that doesn't seem to be

Re: Movie review: The Lift, killer elevator as decentralized AI??? (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 9 Hours ago by: William Hyde

When I first moved to Texas I was shocked at the frequency of power outages, even accounting for the occasional hurricane remnant hitting College Station. However, we have since caught up with you. William Hyde

Posted: 20 Days 10 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Elevators were around since ancient times, but were rare until the Industrial Revolution. Early examples were quite dangerous. In the mid 1800s, Otis patented the first 'safety elevator', and put his own life on the line to demonstrate it

Posted: 20 Days 11 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

I think it shows that he thought he knew how women think, feel, and otherwise operate but in fact had /no idea whatsoever/. Self-delusion produces bad novels.

Re: Crankshaft: Screaming Service (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 11 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

I suspect /all/ of the services available with Prime are also available separately.

Posted: 20 Days 11 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

What, you thought the autocompler and the grammar checker /talked/ to each other? alternately: What, you didn't realize the whole point of both is to irritate the user as much as possible?

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 11 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Doesn't seem to say anything about text completion or how to turn it off, though. Doesn't sound related to the annoyance I am seeing at all.

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 11 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

When the pandemic slowed the release of movies down, I found it necessary to lower my standards a bit in terms of ratings. I found that many lower-rated films (how many tended to track generally with the lowness of the rating) were wort

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 11 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

AFAIK, RC (and others with strictly conditional standards of conduct for staff and faculty) schools aren't firing people for being divorced, or even divorced and remarried, as they were in, say, the '50s. They aren't even firing homosex

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

But Kosovo contains the /only/ historically important Serb battle. OK, they lost, but still ...

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

But what will we do for workers? Russia and China aren't the /only/ countries experiencing a decline.

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 12 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

OK, that's very possible -- it was a *long* time ago!

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 12 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

And so Russia is _not_ dead. The dead are quite incapable of lashing out at anything. Instead, it is very much a living menace, capable of causing serious harm. John Savard

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 13 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

For a value of "trash" that means "reinvigorate", some might say, although there would certainly be painful short-term adjustments. If Americans bought radios and TV sets and smartphones that were made in the USA, there would be plenty

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 13 Hours ago by: Andrew McDowell

If you're looking for an ending, it's a satisfactory conclusion; the first book pretty much starts with the existence of a starbook that might reveal the way to fabled Earth, if you are enough of a conspiracy theorist to believe it, and th

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 14 Hours ago by: Ahasuerus

[snip-snip] [snip] There are two issues that I frequently have with the way SF authors depict humans in alternate history and near future (including "futures past") scenarios: 1. "Human society/technology ca. YYYY did not work this way."

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 15 Hours ago by: Hamish Laws

could also have something to do with European powers + the US redrawing the map again Also there were jewish terrorist organisations operating in the area before Israel was established and Mossad has always been active in assassinations

Re: Movie review: The Lift, killer elevator as decentralized AI??? (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 15 Hours ago by: Chris Buckley

How convenient for you that you snipped what the claims are and all the supporting evidence. I admit I'm surprised that you consider the FBI and Justice Department not to be "credible". And how convenient for you that you snipped all of

Re: Dahl & Fleming at least are decently dead: Now they're here for Stine (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 15 Hours ago by: Jack Bohn

My mental index crosses "elevator" and "sf.written" only at the HHGttG entry and that the Ellison/van Vogt collaboration "The Human Operators" got its title from one of them hearing an old lady saying she missed the human operators on el

Posted: 20 Days 15 Hours ago by: Jack Bohn

Would make for an interesting case. English may be rich enough that you could substitute for every word except a, an, and the. I suspect it would be an obvious "derivative work" if you tried that as a strict experiment. The important

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 16 Hours ago by: Hamish Laws

My recollection is that he had health issues and couldn't go through the normal editing process so IWFNE is pretty close to published as a first draft

Posted: 20 Days 22 Hours ago by: Robert Woodward

I thought that the Rose-Worlds blockade of Earth was blown away ... checking my copy ... that's still my reading of the last chapter.

Posted: 20 Days 23 Hours ago by: Robert Woodward

IIRC, I was involved with some Fortran only projects (would a software project involving 20 people over several years be giant?) that went over budget. Things happen.

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 23 Hours ago by: Dorothy J Heydt

(Hal Heydt) Anson. He'd gotten famous enough that no one could get away with editing him.

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 20 Days 23 Hours ago by: Dorothy J Heydt

(Hal Heydt) Both Russia (as run by Putin) and China have the same attitude. Any area that has been at any time in history, been part of the country, they believe should be part of the country *now* and into the future. Hence the current

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 21 Days ago by: Lynn McGuire

I am reading pure fantasy at the moment, "The Forever King". https://www.amazon.com/Forever-King-Molly-Cochran/dp/1515346226/ Lynn

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 2 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

I really enjoyed these at the time, and figured eventually there would be some more. My memory is that the ending left Silence in a pretty good place, but a lot of the ongoing action, like the Rose-Worlds blockade of Earth, was unresolve

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 2 Hours ago by: Tony Nance

Exactly - both paragraphs. Sometimes people complain about stuff that would be a feature from my view, and sometimes they complain about stuff that has nothing to do with the actual book. Tony

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 2 Hours ago by: Tony Nance

I assume he was talking about the Silence Leigh trilogy: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?615 Tony

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 2 Hours ago by: Tony Nance

I agree with pretty much everything you said, but we apparently had different intensities/weights, Also, it seems to me that the flaws you cite aren't so much "human" as "here are some annoying things the characters did, and the charac

Posted: 21 Days 2 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Realistically, we would be incredibly lucky if China only trashes Taiwan during its collapse. Considering how much of the world's manufacturing is done in China I expect it will trash the world economy.

Re: Dahl & Fleming at least are decently dead: Now they're here for Stine (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 2 Hours ago by: John Halpenny

These days it seems pretty common to read about giant projects delayed or hanging up due to software issues. None of these new projects are written in Fortran. Just saying. John

Re: (tor dot com) Four Books About Living Gods Working in Mysterious Ways (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 3 Hours ago by: John Halpenny

If the new books have different words but similar ideas, does the author still get paid? John

Re: Movie review: The Lift, killer elevator as decentralized AI??? (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 3 Hours ago by: WolfFan

Vlad the Invader; people fear him, but don’t worship him. The Former Guy: people worship him. Still.

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 4 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

An elevator can kill without being sci fi. Doing it /deliberately/ slips into horror. There was an "X-Files" incident. In _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_, there's lifts with a sense of self preservation, but that starts as a r

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 4 Hours ago by: Kevrob

[snip] Remember this one? [quote] The Russians also tended to follow the maxim that ''What’s mine is mine; what’s yours is negotiable,” .... [/quote] - Former Ambassador and Lt. Gen. (ret.) Edward L. Rowny https://www.realcl

Posted: 21 Days 4 Hours ago by: Kevrob

[snip] Yeah, now. Was that the case before, say, 1975? Hardly. Russia is certainly underperforming in Ukraine, compared to the reputation of the old Soviet Union. China as much better tech than in the period we were discussing. I

Re: (tor dot com) Four Books About Living Gods Working in Mysterious Ways (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 4 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

So are there any real people here now?

Posted: 21 Days 4 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

I think there's more to it, and, who?

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 5 Hours ago by: WolfFan

There are two Heinlein novels which I have read only once. One is “I Will Fear No Evil”.

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 5 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

If you ain't growing, you are dying. There is no such thing as maintaining the current status for countries. And as you have pointed out, Russia has lashed out at Ukraine causing million(s) of young men to flee Russia. Lynn

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 6 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

Rhetoric, not fact. Yes, there is a demographic decrease in most first and second world countries. Given current economic structures built on the idea of infinite growth, that is indeed a problem. It, however, in no way imply that e

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 6 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Yup. I am hoping that China does not trash Taiwan on its way down. Lynn

Posted: 21 Days 6 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Just for 96 hours in Feb 2021 as the electricity was rationed to those who needed it the most during the 47% shortfall in generation (45,000 MW) versus demand (85,000 MW). And the biennial hurricanes. We did have natural gas at my hou

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 6 Hours ago by: David Johnston

So was the Puppet Masters. It was nudism defeating Communism in 1951. The Door Into Grooming was five years later. There's still time for the manga. After all, the movie only came out a couple of years ago. I noticed once that nudis

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 6 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

And one notes the damage to others from the "dying" countries thrashing around.

Posted: 21 Days 6 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Humph. I hadn't heard that but somehow I am not surprised by it.

Re: Crankshaft: Screaming Service (thread)

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 7 Hours ago by: John W Kennedy

It’s also available on its own (i.e., with Shudder apps for iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV, and, I suppose, non-Apple gear, too.

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 7 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

90% of everything....

Posted: 21 Days 7 Hours ago by: William Hyde

I usually read the one and two star ratings. Often the things people complain about sound good to me, so I go on to read the four star ratings. If these make sense I buy the book. The bad reviews for Alexander King's "Mine Enemy Gr

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 7 Hours ago by: William Hyde

A reread of a disliked novel by an author I like generally improves my opinion of the book. Not this time. At most, two stars on the five point scale. William Hyde

Movie review: The Lift, killer elevator as decentralized AI???

Posted: 21 Days 7 Hours ago by: William Hyde

In fact he wanted Spain back. As the old saying goes: "What's yours is mine and what's mine is me own". William Hyde

Re: Questionable Content: Semi-feral Scientist (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 7 Hours ago by: David Brown

I got in one post this week, continuing my robot/ AI series with The Lift, the actual killer elevator movie. My only addendum, was the deadly elevator trope ever much of a thing in published sci fi, or was this entirely a movie/ TV thing? h

Posted: 21 Days 7 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Yup, that is on today's post, #5,000. I did not realize that QC was hitting 5,000 comics, very impressive. I have been reading since around 4,000 or so. https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comicP00

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 7 Hours ago by: Jack Bohn

What's particularly annoying is when I notice it is autocompleting a long word or the next couple of words and I hit Tab, then the grammarchecker flags the word. I'm like, "You're the one who suggested it!"

Posted: 21 Days 7 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Russia is dead, China is dying. Both are undergoing population implosions. https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/03/04/russias-population-nightmare-is-going-to-get-even-worse and https://www.cfr.org/blog/chinas-population-decline-not

Posted: 21 Days 7 Hours ago by: Ahasuerus

[snip-snip] Nudism would have popped up a lot earlier if Heinlein had been able to convince Campbell to publish _For Us, the Living_. To quote Chapter 20 of volume 1 of Bill Patterson's biography: Heinlein disagreed: Heinlein had more

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 7 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

4.3 out of 5 stars on Big River (440 reviews). You can still buy a new MMPB copy so that says something. https://www.amazon.com/I-Will-Fear-No-Evil/dp/0441359175/ Lynn

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 7 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Here is the problem with ratings below 4 out of 5 stars. https://xkcd.com/1098/ People are herd mentality. Anything below a certain level, 4 out of 5 stars, is judged to be crap. Lynn

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 7 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Which book trilogy are you talking about here ??? Thanks, Lynn

Posted: 21 Days 8 Hours ago by: Kevrob

This totally ignores an underlying cause of the oil shiekdoms wanting to break those contracts: the inflation of the 1960s and 1970s, which culminated with Nixon severing the link between the US dollar and gold for foreign holders of th

Re: Movie review: Zathura and science fantasy (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 8 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

It serves admirably to prop up a sagging couch until it can be replaced. Otherwise, it's virtues are well-concealed. Nudism popped up before in RAH. I think the time travel novel explicably not adapted intoo a manga called MY BEST F

Posted: 21 Days 8 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

"Jogging Up Main Street" by Thomas Wylde, which appeared in the November 1977 Galaxy, then edited by John J. Pierce. Baen's last Galaxy was October 1977. As I recall, they got letters about the Wylde. I am interested to note that thi

Posted: 21 Days 9 Hours ago by: Andrew McDowell

I have been familiar with the idea of the Real Programmer from University, but my goal has always been, not to write Real Programmer code, but to write a programming version of what I take to the style of the pulps: clear description of th

{Quora] I Will Fear No Evil

Re: Dahl & Fleming at least are decently dead: Now they're here for Stine (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 9 Hours ago by: David Johnston

What do people think of Robert E. Heinlein's 1970 novel 'I Will Fear No Evil', in which a rich dying old man has his brain transplanted into the body of his beautiful young female secretary? David Johnston Feb 24 Most of them think it wa

Re: Dahl & Fleming at least are decently dead: Now they're here for Stine (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 9 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

OK, I guess I see what you're saying more now. So yes, I would agree that the books were edited for ebook release not particularly recently (I think 2018 was the date I saw), and people are just noticing now because it's a hot topic. To

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 10 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

I'm supposing that these books were edited in the publisher's office, starting in 1992. Apparently they have been edited again. I'm reading this as that the text underwent some revision for the release as e-books, and if this happened b

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 10 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

I wondered!

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 10 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

And even if that were possible it couldn't happen because retailers with multiple outlets charge higher prices in the outlets in poor neighborhoods. They usually claim it is to offset increased theft in those areas.

Re: (tor dot com) Four Books About Living Gods Working in Mysterious (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 10 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Saddam's political party started out literally as a WW2 Nazi party local to the Middle East and actively supporting the Third Reich in its war on the rest of Europe.

Posted: 21 Days 10 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

As I recall it, this was Turtledove's second take (the frist being in a series of shorts in "Analog") on _The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind_. This time, however, the gods providing the voices were real.

Re: Movie review: Zathura and science fantasy (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 10 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/07/microsoft-updates-its-edge-web-browser-with-built-in-a-i-capabilities/

Re: (tor dot com) Four Books About Living Gods Working in Mysterious (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 11 Hours ago by: Robert Woodward

I was thinking about that story; but they were cheating. Wouldn't that story need an absolute frame of reference to work? For that matter, there was a story in, IIRC, Galaxy in the 70s (can't remember if it was during or after Jim Bae

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 11 Hours ago by: a425couple

Or, I'd suggest another that fits the specs. "Between the Rivers" by Harry Turtledove. https://www.amazon.com/Between-Rivers-Harry-Turtledove/dp/0812545206 one review that greatly liked it: LucMee 5.0 out of 5 stars A perennial favorit

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 11 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

I don't know about the first but the news suggests utilities are at best a sometimes thing in Texas.

Posted: 21 Days 11 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Well, I suppose it's /possible/ that people don't wear clothing or have utilities in Texas. But even then ... your doubt is valid.

Posted: 21 Days 11 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

It makes maintenance a nightmare, you have to leave very clear comments to explain what's going on, for yourself as well as others. You also have to, before you reach the modified code, make certain that it is in a known state. I refer

Re: Crankshaft: Screaming Service (thread)

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 11 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

I don't recall their names ("Shudder"?) but Prime has a few add-ons that appear to specialize in horror films.

Posted: 21 Days 11 Hours ago by: Alan

Yup. Pretty much spot on.

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 11 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

You are correct -- and that's a good thing. I did solve my "EternalSeptember won't accept fancy quotes" problem, BTW. Then EternalSeptember timed out a couple of times. And I mean timed out -- multiple tries from Agent before reportin

Posted: 21 Days 11 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

An explicitly whites-only bill wouldn't pass today even in TX. The proposer is using home ownership as a proxy instead. But the bill is ineffective anyway. A few hundred bucks/year/kid isn't going to change anyone's family plans. Pt

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 11 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

I leave the morality of it to you, but it is certainly ill-advised.

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 11 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

I think we can conclude that this is just grandstanding for the base, rather than a serious attempt raise the birthrate. It's effectively restricted to too few people, ie the ones the base think are the 'right kind', married, heterosexual

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 11 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Honesty isn't what they are after. Hell, getting it approved isn't what they are after. /Publicity/ is what they are after. I generally vote Democratic (as do a solid majority in my area), but that doesn't mean I can't recognize left-wi

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Right. The issue I was addressing was whether it would be limited to WASP couples -- an issue which % home ownership has no relevance to.

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

When the "base" invades the legislature and prevents it from doing business, then it is serious.

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

That's no surprise. But nice to know. Well, that's lets a very large number of people out, given the divorce rates since divorce was made more easily available in the 50s. So, the Texas State Constitution does /not/ require everyone

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 12 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Wikipedia summarizes OBLs 2002 'Letter to America' thus: "These motivations were published in bin Laden's November 2002 "Letter to America",[4][5] in which he said that al-Qaeda's motives for the attacks included Western support for at

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 12 Hours ago by: WolfFan

Ah. The man who has $100 in his bank account pays the same 0% tax on his $100,000 bill for cancer treatment that the guy who has $1,000,000,000 in his bank acount... rather than having the bill paid by the government health services a

Posted: 21 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

It also ignores the fact that the Mongols are the ones who destroyed the Muslim civilizations in Central Asia, not the Crusaders. 9/11 would have made a /lot/ more sense, historically, in Ulan Bator. Or perhaps Beijing, as China was con

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 12 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Yeah, I also used to make extended versions of indexed instructions, where the table extended longer than the index could reach. Pt

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

And this matters ... how? We aren't discussing the proposition "all religions start wars". We are discussing whether 9/11 being revenge for the Crusades, or even for supporting Israel, makes any sense at all.

Re: (tor dot com) Four Books About Living Gods Working in Mysterious Ways (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Israel's behavior has indeed become unacceptable and ultimately suicidal. And stokes well-motivated hatred. But Israel was hated before it was born. It was hated because it was for Jews, and a lot of Muslims can't have that. Nice, quiet

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 12 Hours ago by: WolfFan

So... does that mean that Pony-Boy Puta is a celebrity while the Orange-u-tan is a god?

Re: Dahl & Fleming at least are decently dead: Now they're here for Stine (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 12 Hours ago by: Kevrob

Even if we don't blame it on Islam, per se, there is the political doctrine known as "Islamism." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamism Sorta like the difference between members of mainstream Christian sects and the Rushdoonian Dom

Re: Dahl & Fleming at least are decently dead: Now they're here for Stine (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 13 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

Thanks! That confirms that there's no dispute that the text has been changed.

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 13 Hours ago by: Don

You can try <https://archive.ph/Sg8rr> if you feel like it. Danke,

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 13 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

Which was far more about territory than religion.

Posted: 21 Days 13 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

I doubt it.

Posted: 21 Days 13 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

That would have been a system designed/built before 1965, since all the Burroughs systems thereafter were solid state (transistor first, then custom SSI logic (BCML) followed by TTL, followed by ECL) rather than vacuum tube/valve.

(WFC) The Lies of the Ajungo (Forever Desert, volume 1) by Moses Ose Utomi

Posted: 21 Days 14 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

In this case, encouraged is the proper term. The Burroughs documentation itself suggested it.

Re: Dahl & Fleming at least are decently dead: Now they're here for Stine (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 14 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

The Lies of the Ajungo (Forever Desert, volume 1) by Moses Ose Utomi A young man sets out to save his city, only to discover he misunderstood the true nature of the problem. https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/nor-any-drop-to-drink

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 14 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

Not sure what you're saying here. My takeaway is that the hardcopies from 1992 deinitely have different text than the current e-books. That certainly seems to be the gist of what "The Times" is saying https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article

Re: (tor dot com) Four Books About Living Gods Working in Mysterious Ways (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 14 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

I expect _Brave New World_ is not what you have in mind. Lots of babies, no parents. Other drawbacks.

Re: Dahl & Fleming at least are decently dead: Now they're here for Stine (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 14 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Ineffable. No, not really. I say the word "god" doesn't apply unless people /know/ you're a god. If you aren't being worshipped then you are just a celebrity.

Posted: 21 Days 14 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

I expect they were edited in 1992 before any child saw them. This is somebody just looking for attention; either the publisher, or the newspaper, or your blogger.

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 15 Hours ago by: Torbjorn Lindgren

The somewhat recent examples of galaxies which don't appear to have much if any dark matter (contradicting most "modify gravity" explainations) and galaxies where the visibile matter and gravity effects are far OFFSET from each other (Bul

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 15 Hours ago by: Hamish Laws

You really should look at what's happening in Israel and Palestine before you go off on a bullshit rank Because Israel is killing Palestinians, destroying their housing, blocking medicines, supplies etc...

Posted: 21 Days 16 Hours ago by: Ahasuerus

[snip-snip] 4.8/5, of course. Amazon's scale is 1-5.

Matthew Hughes episodic autobiog

Re: Questionable Content: Semi-feral Scientist (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 16 Hours ago by: Jaimie Vandenbergh

Kinda OT but at least as entertaining as his Vancian SF writing, and as believable as James' life stories. https://medium.com/@matthewhughes_18174 He's been doing these as irregular patreon links for a few years, but now he's aiming to ad

Re: Movie review: Zathura and science fantasy (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 16 Hours ago by: Jaimie Vandenbergh

From Jeph's latest Patreon post: --- I’ve seen some speculation that the comic is wrapping up- that is not the case. I have no plans to end QC. The comic has changed focus many times over the course of its lifespan. That’s what has k

Posted: 21 Days 20 Hours ago by: Klaus Meinhard

The Long Way Home by Fred Saberhagen.

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 22 Hours ago by: Andrew McDowell

I have heard of self-modifying code being used on a large machine - I think IBM 360 - for performance, because of the time taken for indexed versions of instructions - or perhaps paucity of index modes - I can't remember much about the 360

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 21 Days 22 Hours ago by: Andrew McDowell

(Others trimmed) I have the trilogy as three separate books and really enjoyed them - I have reread them multiple times - a bit of a guiltly pleasure because the FTL system and world-building is really fantasy, based on alchemy, rather tha

Posted: 22 Days ago by: Ahasuerus

My "1-10" rating system is as follows: 10: superb 9: excellent 8: very good 7: good 6: decent 5: mediocre 4: bad 3: very bad 2: awful 1: abysmal 7 is "good", which I wouldn't call harsh.

Re: Deja vue all over again (thread)

Re: Movie review: Zathura and science fantasy (thread)

Posted: 22 Days ago by: Titus G

As a hoarder of such things, I still have an Amiga though it hasn't been plugged in for many years. It was used for games and music composition (of dubious quality).

Re: Movie review: Zathura and science fantasy (thread)

Posted: 22 Days ago by: Quadibloc

And this, of course, means that it has something in common with science-fiction works I have read - by one of Lynn McGuire's favorite authors. A fellow sits down one day, and says to himself... "I'd like to write _this kind of story_,

Re: Questionable Content: Semi-feral Scientist (thread)

Posted: 22 Days ago by: Quadibloc

James Nicoll wrote, in that review you mentioned, "After all, any life-support system that can keep thousands of people alive in deep space should be able to do the same on Earth, and do so for many more humans than the few who made it

Re: Movie review: Zathura and science fantasy (thread)

Posted: 22 Days ago by: Freezer

If I don't reply to this BCFD36 post, the terroists win. I hope Jeph is going for a cast herd type comic like Something Positive. Moving everyone to Cubetown seems a bit too "We ran out of ideas." Frankly I still think he should run w

Re: Movie review: Zathura and science fantasy (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 1 Hour ago by: Quadibloc

Interesting. Certainly that propulstion method is... so extremely implausible as for it to be likely that the implausibility was _intended_. And, of course, if it's intended, it could be forgivable as well, if the author's reason for

Re: R.I.P. Bert I. Gordon, 100, director of "Village of the Giants" (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 3 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Posted: 22 Days 3 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Reading on, "He was called Mr. B.I.G." But not all of his films were about giant things or people. Most of them?

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 3 Hours ago by: Dorothy J Heydt

(Hal Heydt) Heh... My first programming class at Cal was FORTRAN *and* ALGOL. In nine weeks. So long as it is adequately commented, I have no problem with a computed goto. Nor with a COBOL "GOTO ... DEPENDING ON ...".

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 3 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Dude, harsh scoring for an awesome novel. 98,127 people on Big River disagreed with you and gave Project Hail Mary a 4.7 out of 5 stars. https://www.amazon.com/Project-Hail-Mary-Andy-Weir/dp/0593135229/ Here is my review: "A standa

Posted: 22 Days 4 Hours ago by: Ahasuerus

I posted a mini-review of _Project Hail Mary_ last year: This novel was similar to _The Martian_ in a number of ways. A human is stranded millions of miles away from Earth and needs to use science and engineering in order to accomplish h

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 5 Hours ago by: Titus G

That was fun but necessary because of limited memory mainly taken up by the loaded program. I don't remember the Burroughs model my bureau employers had but it was about 1970, input from punched cards and paper tape, storage on eight foot

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 5 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Don't forget the muslim attempted invasion of Austria, under 400 years ago in 1683. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vienna Lynn

Posted: 22 Days 5 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

In Texas, we exempt sales taxes on unprepared food, water, and medical. That generally evens things out. Lynn

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 5 Hours ago by: Chris Buckley

"Encouraged" seems a bit strong, but definitely "allowed to when required". Programming small memory systems was a different world that didn't quite fit Dijkstra's model! Chris

Posted: 22 Days 5 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

The Texas legislature is meeting from Jan 2 to May 31 this year. They only meet every other year. The result is total craziness. Herding cats is easy by comparison. Austin, Texas inhabitants are advised to watch over their children

Posted: 22 Days 5 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

Perfectly normal for small memory systems of that era. The Burroughs B300 had 3-operand instructions, but not all instructions used all three operands. The programmer was encouraged to use the unused (and ignored by the CPU) operands f

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 6 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Given the fossil record, the correctiions that have to be made in designing particle accelerators and satellite geolocation systems, the photelectric effect... and a few other things... to suggest that either the theory of evolution by

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 6 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

It's certainly true that the Muslims were fundamentally the aggressors in the overall conflict. That doesn't mean, though, that the Crusades weren't questionable. The original Muslim aggression was beaten back. Peace treaties were sign

Posted: 22 Days 6 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

That is unsupported by any credible source of information. Of _course_ it helps if one defines the liberal press as trustworthy, and the Republicans as worthless liars whose words hold no weight whatever. Explaining _why_ I came to such

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 7 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

I did read something recently that speculated a 'double big bang', where the second created a parallel dark-matter universe. Yeah, here 'tis: https://gizmodo.com/dark-matter-big-bang-hidden-universe-physics-1850199134

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 7 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

nstitutional. While true, it's a bit misleading as those folks are generally hit harder by consumption (sales), fuel, utility, telecommunications taxes, import tariffs, et alia.

Re: (tor dot com) Four Books About Living Gods Working in Mysterious Ways (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 7 Hours ago by: Tony Nance

Ha! Yes, humans ruin everything.[1] Agree that the human protagonist in Project Hail Mary had a few cringey moments, but (to me) there weren't many - at least, I didn't mind him at all. Tony [1] Except when they don't.

Re: (tor dot com) Four Books About Living Gods Working in Mysterious (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 7 Hours ago by: Tony Nance

Interesting examples, thanks - I've only read the Stewart. Several other examples come to mind, and many of them are mentioned in the comments after your essay. A few that aren't include - Erikson's Malazan books - a few Zelazny like Am

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 7 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Wait, where is the fifth book ? So, the fifth book could be "The God Engines" by John Scalzi. Or, "Dies The Fire" by S. M. Stirling. Or, "Spanish Mission (Hope Blackwell)" by K.B. Spangler (if Coyote is a God). https://www.amazo

Posted: 22 Days 7 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

And of course OBL's objection to the Crusades completely ignores the Muslim invasions of the Balkans and Iberia a few hundred years prior.

Posted: 22 Days 7 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

At the moment I believe the definition of Dark Matter is "A label for the unknown factor causing these effects that we haven't identified yet." I.E. we don't know what is causing these observed phenomena but until we do we are calling

Posted: 22 Days 7 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

That is just ... wrong. Lynn

xkcd: Presents for Biologists

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 7 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

xkcd: Presents for Biologists https://xkcd.com/2747/ It would have to be snakes. Explained at: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2747:_Presents_for_Biologists Lynn

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 7 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Twenty years ago it was just grandstanding. Today it is serious.

Re: Young People Read Old Hugo Finalists: Blood Music by Greg Bear (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 8 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

As I recall I said I suspect the legislator would like to limit it to WASP couples. And non-hetero couples _are_ excluded from the provisions of the bill from what I read as the children would have to be the natural born offspring of

Re: Dahl & Fleming at least are decently dead: Now they're here for Stine (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 8 Hours ago by: Jaimie Vandenbergh

Down to just two Young Readers? That's a shame, I was looking forward to more comments on this one. Cheers - Jaimie

Posted: 22 Days 8 Hours ago by: Tony Nance

I saw somewhere (and it is verified on the Penguin website) that Penguin has decided to publish both versions of 17 Dahl stories, with Penguin being the imprint for "Classic" versions: "... We recognise the importance of keeping Dahl’s

Posted: 22 Days 8 Hours ago by: Jaimie Vandenbergh

You're using Agent. There's no way that does predictive text. If you're seeing it on your phone/tablet, check your keyboard settings to disable it. That's a keyboard-software-provided feature. Elsewhere? You have some terrible software

Crankshaft: Screaming Service

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 8 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Crankshaft: Screaming Service https://www.gocomics.com/crankshaft/2023/03/09 OK, that was funny. Lynn

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 8 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

My thought also. Lynn

Re: (tor dot com) Five Tough, Rough, and Rugged Heinlein Stories (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 8 Hours ago by: Titus G

snip You are addressing Fourbricks-In-An-Otherwise-Empty-Skull who fervently subscibes to the belief that anything that questions US propaganda is by definition a lie and harmful to World Peace and Freedom.

Re: (tor dot com) Crooked Houses and Bizarre Buildings: Five Stories (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 8 Hours ago by: Titus G

On 4/03/23 08:56, William Hyde wrote:

Posted: 22 Days 8 Hours ago by: Titus G

In the 3 star The Bookstore at the End of America by Charlie Jane Anders, the building is an integral part of the setting and plot. In the 4 star Piranesi by Suzanna Clarke, the bizarre building is an integral part of the plot and also

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 8 Hours ago by: William Hyde

This is not true. Dark matter was originally intended as a possible reason for galactic rotation rates as long ago as the 1970s. However, other gravitational anomalies have been observed since which can be explained with dark matter in

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 8 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

I'm confused - how does '5% across the board' apply only to the rich? [I'll put aside the just passed, and grossly unfair, 'millionaire tax' in MA] Also, while it might not be constitutional at the state level, at the Federal level, 40%

Posted: 22 Days 8 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

I always wonder when I so whackazoid proposals like this from legislators, to what extent they are serious, and to what extent its just grandstanding for the base. pt

Posted: 22 Days 8 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Port 119 is just part of the problem. We also filter protocols, and much else, including SSL decryption at the firewall. My employer is a high value target, and takes potential routes of data exfiltration very seriously. pt

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 8 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

I'd like to add that your complaint about evolutionary 'just so stories' has some merit - there are a lot of potential evolutionary paths which can lead to a given adaptation, and its not always clear which occurred. But that doesn't me

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 10 Hours ago by: Robert Woodward

My somewhat cynical opinion is that the legislature, by calling it "an excise tax" was giving the Washington State Supreme Court an excuse to call it constitutional. Personally, I think if they passed a flat tax on non-wage income (e.

Posted: 22 Days 11 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

The state in question is the nutty state of Texas. https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/html/HB02889I.htm "Qualifying married couple" means a man and a woman who are legally married to each other, neither of whom have e

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 11 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

It's also not limited to GG (no, you never said it was). And (right, wrong, or OK but not what I had in mind) it's annoying as sh*t. Any idea how to turn it off?

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

That won't fly here; in fact, the form currently waiting for the State Supreme Court to it unconstitutional only applies to the rich. IOW, Most of Us would have a tax rate of 0%, and that ain't constitutional. Well, unless our Supreme C

Posted: 22 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Sadly, the item to be proved is that the State legislator in question means, when he proposes a property tax deduction, to limit it to WASP couples. IOW, the assertion is that even the non-whites who own their homes (not to mention non-

Posted: 22 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Well, since "dark matter" can only be detected by means of the very theoretical discrepancy it is intended to resolve, that is hardly a surprise. /Something/ is causing the discrepancy. But whether "dark matter" is doing so or the theor

Posted: 22 Days 12 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

There are usenet provides that provide access over port 443. https://support.usenetserver.com/kb/article/298-server-and-ports/

AI creeping in everywhere....

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 13 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

I use Google Groups, which I realize is déclassée with many usenetters, but it gets through my company firewall, which port 119 won't. Just today, I'm starting to see it using predictive text. As I type, GG will propose the finish of the

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 13 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

It would raise revenue for the state. Taxes aren't always intended to address social issues. MA has a flat 5% income tax across the board, for both residents and non-residents. Some of my coworkers who live in NH but worked in MA, got a

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 13 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

White households that own their dwelling: 74% Black households that own their dwelling: 44% When does 'overwhelming evidence' become 'proof'? pt

(review) The Last Man on Earth edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg & Charles G. Waugh

Posted: 22 Days 14 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cities_in_Flight#A_Clash_of_Cymbals/The_Triumph_of_Time

Dahl & Fleming at least are decently dead: Now they're here for Stine

Posted: 22 Days 14 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

The Last Man on Earth edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg & Charles G. Waugh What if _you_ were the last person on Earth? Would you finally be able to find a parking spot? https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/lift-me-somehow

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 15 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

https://victorygirlsblog.com/goosebumps-books-getting-woke-edits-without-author-approval/ The Times of London discovered that what has been happening to the Roald Dahl collection and the James Bond novels was now happening to the kids

Posted: 22 Days 16 Hours ago by: Chris Buckley

What lies were being spread? Be precise. What harm is being caused? Who is it fault for this disinformation? What is the disinformation being spread? My claim was that this time it was the Democrats spreading it, and the liberal pre

Posted: 22 Days 23 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Back when I was writing 6502 assembler, I used self modifying code to effectively emulate computed gotos. Pt

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 23 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

I learned it in college, but haven't used it since. But then, by some standards, I'm ancient. Pt

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 22 Days 23 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

OBL regarded non-Muslim armies in KSA as new Crusaders. Pt

Re: Movie review: Zathura and science fantasy (thread)

Posted: 23 Days 1 Hour ago by: David Johnston

The Judge Dredd character? I don't recall demographic collapse being one of Mega City One's many problems.

Re: R.I.P. Bert I. Gordon, 100, director of "Village of the Giants" (thread)

Posted: 23 Days 3 Hours ago by: David Brown

I would really agree with your earlier comment that the movies aren't comparable except as personal taste. I would have to watch it again to say more than I have, and I still don't think it would be suitable for what I "do" as a reviewer.

R.I.P. Bert I. Gordon, 100, director of "Village of the Giants"

Posted: 23 Days 4 Hours ago by: David Brown

I reviewed a few of his movies, a lot fewer than might be expected. He was in all likelihood one of the more competent actual B movie producers. This was the closest thing I did to a "tribute". And yes, he did do a '70s sex comedy... https

Posted: 23 Days 4 Hours ago by: Lenona

To my surprise, he directed "Secrets of a Psychopath" in 2015 - more than a quarter-century after his previous movie! https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0330026/ In a rush, so... https://www.globalvillagespace.com/Entertainment/bert-i-gordon-di

Re: "The Horror: Perry Rhodan #66 Paperback" by William Voltz, translated by Wendayne Ackerman (thread)

Posted: 23 Days 5 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Sorry, I misspoke. It is not CLANG, it is LLVM. https://www.llvm.org/ Specifically, the FLANG project. https://github.com/flang-compiler/flang Lynn

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 23 Days 5 Hours ago by: Don

Voltz's directional development doesn't surprise me in the least. "The Horror" ranks as one of my PR favorites (thus far). Voltz seems to come into his own in _Die Meister der Insel_ Zyklus, where the coincidentally named Planeten H

Posted: 23 Days 6 Hours ago by: Chris Buckley

Do you have a cite for that? I haven't seen that before! He said on several occasions, both before and after, that he was going to attack the US to drive it off its military bases in Saudi Arabia. He also had mentioned the Iraq sanction

Posted: 23 Days 6 Hours ago by: BCFD36

Yes, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Re: "The Horror: Perry Rhodan #66 Paperback" by William Voltz, (thread)

Posted: 23 Days 6 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Well that's a name that inspires confidence. :P

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 23 Days 6 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

I thought it was a new author but I did not check. Thanks, Lynn

Posted: 23 Days 6 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

I did say "I believe" as in I wasn't sure. The original article I read may have had information on that but I don't remember.

Re: "The Horror: Perry Rhodan #66 Paperback" by William Voltz, (thread)

Posted: 23 Days 8 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Intel supports two Fortran compilers, it's old classic Fortran compiler, iFort, and the new Fortran compiler from CLANG. Intel just freewared both compilers in 2022 so I am wondering how long they will be supported. The other major F

Posted: 23 Days 8 Hours ago by: Christian Weisgerber

The first installment written by William Voltz, pen name of Wilhelm Voltz. An inconspicuous beginning from the author who would eventually run the series and give it a major new direction. His literary career was cut short by his untim

Posted: 23 Days 8 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

I have many computed goto statements in my chemical process simulation calculation engine that is written in 740,000 lines of F77 and 50,000 lines of C/C++. Computed gotos are so useful that the GCC C/C++ compiler has added support fo

Posted: 23 Days 8 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Was a compiler available that supported a newer version of Fortran with a CASE statement in it? John Savard

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 23 Days 8 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Although it certainly is true that Fortran is not as widely used as it once was, it is not a language no longer actively supported by computer manufacturers. It is _still_ the language of choice for scientific computing. Fortran 90 and

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 23 Days 8 Hours ago by: The Horny Goat

Actually "90% of all terrorist caused deaths in the US" doesn't filter out terrorist caused deaths done by foreign nationals in the US. One definition includes 9/11 (done by foreign nationals but definitely taking place in the US). You'

Re: Questionable Content: Semi-feral Scientist (thread)

Posted: 23 Days 8 Hours ago by: The Horny Goat

I well remember the morning of 9/11/2001 when my wife asked me who I thought might have done it. I said there were really only 2 groups of people who had done suicidal attacks "and the Japanese haven't done too many since 1945..." (I w

Posted: 23 Days 8 Hours ago by: BCFD36

I think I worked with a few at NASA Ames. One should never have been found.

Posted: 23 Days 8 Hours ago by: BCFD36

My first programming class at Cal was FORTRAN, using punched cards we had to give to the guy behind the counter. When I left Lockheed in 2014, the AEHF program (and others) was still using a simulator written in FORTRAN. I did some bri

Re: "The Horror: Perry Rhodan #66 Paperback" by William Voltz, translated by Wendayne Ackerman (thread)

Posted: 23 Days 8 Hours ago by: William Hyde

At the moment it seems likely that dark matter exists. used That you intended this is not at all clear from your post. BTW I have read with some pleasure Peter Medawar on psychoanalysis. Three rather big things. If we were in the

"The Horror: Perry Rhodan #66 Paperback" by William Voltz, translated

Posted: 23 Days 9 Hours ago by: Don

https://www.perrypedia.de/wiki/Das_Grauen A double cross followed by another double cross is one way to describe this novella. "The Horror" fits the form of _And Then There Were None_ (Christie). One crew member at a time succumbs

Questionable Content: Semi-feral Scientist

Posted: 23 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

"The Horror: Perry Rhodan #66 Paperback" by William Voltz, translated by Wendayne Ackerman https://www.amazon.com/Horror-Perry-Rhodan-66/dp/4411660490/ Book number sixty-six of a series of one hundred and thirty-six space opera book

Posted: 23 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Questionable Content: Semi-feral Scientist https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comicI98 I had a big laugh with “This baby scientist was found abandoned in a dump…”. Lynn

Re: Dilbert is now Dilbert Reborn (thread)

Posted: 23 Days 9 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

As I recall, Dilbert I was killed by mother nature and cloned back to life by the garbageman as Dilbert II (Dogbert tried first, but found that Dilbert's cloning notes only produced bad chile-con-carne). The PHB is at least V2 now as wel

Dilbert is now Dilbert Reborn

Posted: 23 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

"Dilbert reborn. This isn’t the first time in the strip that The Garbageman has been required to step in to “rebirth” Dilbert. That gag goes back to the early days of the strip." https://bleedingcool.com/comics/scott-adams-retu

Over The Hedge: Born Caged

Posted: 23 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Over The Hedge: Born Caged https://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2023/03/08 Trixie is a great name for a female lion. And I will pass on the movies. Lynn

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 23 Days 9 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

I and one of my employees write Fortran every day. Lynn

Re: Movie review: Zathura and science fantasy (thread)

Posted: 23 Days 11 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Given how property tax works, I don't think that's even possible. But I don't have to worry about that. Our State Constitution is quite clear: taxes must be the same rate for all taxed entities in a given taxing district. Which is why

Posted: 23 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Sadly, the person I was responding to hasn't seen the original /Jumanji/. And your preference for simplistic children's live-action films over those attempting to do a bit more is -- your preference, to which you are entitled. Perhaps

Posted: 23 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

<snip-o-rama -- I missed this yesterday> I never said it did (explain anything away). And, yes, like dark matter, it could turn out to be an epicycle, used by Copernicus (as by Ptolemy before him) to make the theory fit the observatio

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 23 Days 12 Hours ago by: Dorothy J Heydt

(Hal Heydt) FORTRAN has been around teh block a few times, but one can still (easily) get FORTAN compilers. Last I looked there were at least two that will run on Raspberry Pis. I suppose that FORTRAN might be a bit difficult for a prog

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 23 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Ah, blaming the victim. Sorry, no sale! And, besides, what was /actually/ cited by Bin Laden was the Crusades. The USA had nothing to do with the Crusades.

Posted: 23 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

That's because we aren't going out of our way to antagonize them. It's still the terrorists who are responsible for the deaths, to be sure.

(tor dot com) Four Books About Living Gods Working in Mysterious Ways

Posted: 23 Days 12 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

There is quite a bit of active Fortran development still being done, and it's not difficult for any good programmer to learn Fortran if necessary.

Re: Movie review: Zathura and science fantasy (thread)

Posted: 23 Days 13 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Four Books About Living Gods Working in Mysterious Ways What it says on the tin, with the added twist that I read this more or less one after the other, without setting out to read books about interventionist gods. https://www.tor.com/2

Posted: 23 Days 14 Hours ago by: Jack Bohn

I like the term "thematic sequel." On some lost site, some reviewer, having watched "The Mad Genius"(1931) close upon "Svengali"(1931) enumerated three ways to cash in on the success of a popular movie: sequel, remake, and ripoff. "The

Re: Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 (thread)

Posted: 23 Days 14 Hours ago by: Bill Gill

A few years ago I took a C++ course at the local community college. The teacher was an engineer from a company that builds high end flight simulators. He told us that they still use Fortran for some of their programming, particularly th

Posted: 23 Days 14 Hours ago by: Ahasuerus

[snip-snip] The aliens and the science puzzles were fun. But why did the author have to add humans to the mix? It was just like Adrian Tchaikovsky's _Children of Time_: great aliens, fun science, cringey humans. Clearly humans ruin every

OT - The old ones built it....

Re: Movie review: Zathura and science fantasy (thread)

Posted: 23 Days 21 Hours ago by: Andrew McDowell

From https://www.navylookout.com/snapshot-the-royal-navy-escort-fleet-in-march-2023/ Supporting them in service requires all kinds of workarounds, for example, the engine management software runs Fortran – an ancient programming language

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 1 Hour ago by: David Brown

I chose the description "thematic sequel" as the best description of the relationship between Jumanji and Zathura. The other major example, which may well have had a hand in establishing the term, was George Romero's "trilogy" of Night o

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 2 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

One could argue that, but OBL and others in his group explicitly linked 9/11 to the blasphemy of non-Muslim soldiers being present in the land of the Two Holy Mosques. Pt

My fiction: Marx Space Guys adventure tech and alternate history

Posted: 24 Days 3 Hours ago by: William Hyde

I greatly admire P.D. James. But Aldiss did it first, and the similarities are striking - going beyond the premise and location. Except that she put in some christian mysticism while Aldiss stuck to SF. William Hyde

Re: (tears) Tornado Alley by William Tuning (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 4 Hours ago by: David Brown

I ended up doubling these again, the latest two installments of my Space Guys rocket punk adventure. The first is finally laying out some weapons and other tech. The second is just dumping out back story and alternate universe pop culture.

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 5 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

Or just drop it from above the tornado directly into the eye?

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 5 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

Ask Lord Balfour.

Posted: 24 Days 5 Hours ago by: Lynn McGuire

Is he not talking about this book ? "A modern science fiction classic from an acclaimed bestselling author: The year is 2021. No child has been born for twenty-five years. The human race faces extinction." https://www.amazon.com/Ch

Posted: 24 Days 5 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Indeed. There are reasons why dark energy and dark matter have come to be suggested as explanations for certain cosmological observations that suggest that gravity isn't acting quite as expected over long distances. Had those observati

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 6 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

Proverbs 26:18-19 And now I see he told the Washington Post: "“I shook the box intentionally. I did not realize how hard I shook it." If he doesn't realize that people feel strongly about racism nowadays, he has not been paying at

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 6 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

And how is that misconduct on the part of Twitter? They have a perfect right not to allow their social media platform to be misused for spreading lies with the intent of causing harm. I'll have to look up the details to see if this i

Re: (tor dot com) Five Books About Failed Adventures in Terraforming (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 6 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

The United States of America helped Kuwait defend itself from aggression, and helps Israel defend itself from aggression. If people are angry about that, clearly they're perverse, and something is wrong with them. Why is so much of the

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 6 Hours ago by: William Hyde

He is portrayed as a good captain, so in the book context listening is the right thing to do. I believe that the ship at the time was in orbit about a planet, so the chances of collision are higher than in interstellar space, and the re

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 7 Hours ago by: William Hyde

I think you mean "Greybeard". William Hyde

Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023

Posted: 24 Days 7 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

The state could subsidize them but that's communism. A more acceptable approach would be groinal pain clamps that deliver a slowly increasing discomfort to adults who have not have new- borns in, oh, let's say the last 8 months. Start at

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 8 Hours ago by: Tony Nance

Highlights and Lowlights - JanFeb 2023 I think there are no spoilers, not even minor ones. If something does seem spoiler-ish, it happens early in the book in question and is front-and-center. Books are listed in reverse chronological

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 8 Hours ago by: Andrew McDowell

I suppose you might consider "Ethan of Athos" (Bujold) as related in some way. Perhaps the most relevant part is the background worldbuilding - since the population in question does not have a strong maternal instinct, people get social cr

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 9 Hours ago by: Dorothy J Heydt

(Hal Heydt) IIRC, they became hermaphrodites long after "The Naked Sun".

Re: (tor dot com) Crooked Houses and Bizarre Buildings: Five Stories Featuring Architectural Oddities (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 11 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Trying? It's already baked in. Home ownership is required to pay property taxes, and while 74% of white non hispanics own houses, only 44% of blacks do. I'd rather see something like '$1500/month grant to every child under 18'. Pt

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 11 Hours ago by: Robert Woodward

The books in which it appeared in all of its dubious glory exist.

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 11 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

IIRC, one of the later books reveals that the occupants were ... hermaphrodites. Meeting other people was /not/ required.

Re: Movie review: Zathura and science fantasy (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 11 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

At this point I am feeling an overwhelming need to point out that one of the American states has a local legislator proposing a bill to reduce a married, heterosexual couple's property taxes by 10% for each non-adopted child they have.

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 11 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

I've seen the original /Jumanji/, the first "sequel", and /Zathura/. /Zathura/ is -- well, as you describe it. It works as science fiction, but whether it is or whether it is fantasy is harder to say. At least, based on what I remember

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 11 Hours ago by: Dimensional Traveler

T24gMy83LzIwMjMgODo1NyBBTSwgUGF1bCBTIFBlcnNvbiB3cm90ZToNCj4gT24gTW9uLCA2 IE1hciAyMDIzIDEyOjMxOjE2IC0wODAwLCBEaW1lbnNpb25hbCBUcmF2ZWxlcg0KPiA8ZHRy YXZlbEBzb25pYy5uZXQ+IHdyb3RlOg0KPiANCj4+IE9uIDMvNi8yMDIzIDk6MjEgQU0sIFBh dWwgUyBQZXJzb24gd3Jvd

Re: (tears) Tornado Alley by William Tuning (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 11 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

One might also argue that 9/11 wasn't "Muslim" terrorism so much as it was a reaction to interference in the middle east by the USA.

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 11 Hours ago by: Andrew McDowell

On the theory that a vehicle is less likely to be influenced by wind speeds which are mere fractions of its own airspeed, perhaps a hypersonic missile could deliver the required accuracy (whether you can do anything useful with that accura

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 11 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

A pretty decent article, which handily mentions James' own 2018 contribution to the field, without him having to blow his own horn: https://www.tor.com/2018/06/11/why-are-there-so-few-sff-books-about-the-very-real-issue-of-population-d

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 11 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

Only if the statement "cats can be trained to use litter boxes" is relevant to the topic "how to housebreak your dog".

Posted: 24 Days 11 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

I was trying to not be attacked for exaggerating. Thanks for taking on that burden. My last line, of course, only makes sense if you remember Ronnie's reaction to the early abortion clinic bombings. As to the statistic ... I'll see how

Re: You_Get_NOTHING_b (thread)

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 12 Hours ago by: Paul S Person

The very /existence/ of the alt-right shows that we have not, in fact, put this sort of thing behind us. Well, not /all/ of us have, anyway. This is because elite modernist/liberal types are as detached from reality as alt-right types.

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 12 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Wikipedia finds 20 Muslim terrorist attacks in the EU during 2014-2020, killing 386 people. Not trivial. The US has actually managed much better. pt

Re: ?You Get NOTHING? by Sarah A. Hoyt (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 12 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

Muslim-American domestic terrorism exists, but its at a very low level, and dropping. https://tcths.sanford.duke.edu/2021/01/14/muslim-american-involvement-with-violent-extremism-2001-2020/ pt

Re: (tears) Tornado Alley by William Tuning (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 12 Hours ago by: Dorothy J Heydt

(Hal Heydt) How would Ukraine's membership in NATO be likely to affect Russia's choice to attack, knowing that Ukraine could invoke Article 5 and bring *all* of NATO into the conflict?

Re: âWhen You Should Ban Someone From Your Convent ionâ by Michael Z. Williamson (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 12 Hours ago by: pete...@gmail.com

We have those[1], but a tornado represents special challenges. 'Control surfaces' would have difficulty providing accurate guidance in the high-wind environment of a tornado. There are very high winds *outside* the funnel. [Aside: Think o

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 12 Hours ago by: WolfFan

I doubt that. That’s just as stupid. I think that Canada has to be condemned for allowing John Savard to roam loose, given his attitude towards vatgirls. Canada can redeem itself by sending Savardists to Baffin Island, so long as p

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 12 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

https://longnow.org/ideas/the-heresy-of-decline/ As a consequence of which, I just checked to see if my prefered academic library has a copy of the _first_ edition of The Population Bomb... which it does. It seems to me, though, that m

Re: (tor dot com) Crooked Houses and Bizarre Buildings: Five Stories Featuring Architectural Oddities (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 13 Hours ago by: WolfFan

Only if you don’t count terror attacks mounted by, say, the IRA& associated murderers. The IRA has cooled down, lately, but can easily boil over again. And, of course, you’re restricting the to ‘western industrialized countrie

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 13 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

Mark raised it and turned it into a hotel/theme park.

(Merril's Greatest SF) Judith Merril's The Year's Greatest SF series

Posted: 24 Days 13 Hours ago by: Scott Lurndal

How about when NYC Mayor Amalfi pressed the restart button?

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 14 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Judith Merril's The Year's Greatest SF series In which I launch a comprehensive revisit of the 20th century's only annual Year's Best SF anthology series helmed by a solitary woman. https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/post/judith-merrils-the-ye

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 14 Hours ago by: Quadibloc

This is true, but in the context of 9/11, as opposed to domestic terrorism, it could be considered misleading. Or rather, in the context of the Munich Olympics, the Achille Lauro, 9/11, and numerous other incidents of that nature. It ce

Re: [OT] Newspapers Across the Country Drop Dilbert (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 15 Hours ago by: WolfFan

No. It was a statement about _domestic_ terror events. And it was perfectly factual. Timmy McVeigh was a domestic terrorist. He was right-wing. He blew up a Federal Building, killing _children_ in the day-care center, for political pu

Re: (tears) Tornado Alley by William Tuning (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 15 Hours ago by: WolfFan

Not a _domestic_ terror incident. #1 _domestic_ terror event would be Timmy McVeigh blowing up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. That’s way above terror events such as the Weather Underground and Puerto Rican Nationalists, who

Re: (tears) Tornado Alley by William Tuning (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 20 Hours ago by: Charles Packer

Well, I see from Wikipedia that the film had references, if not influences. To the "Wizard of Oz," that is: some instrumentation named Dorothy and a dog named Toby (close enough to Toto?).

Re: Dahl: The future is certain; it is only the past that is unpredictable (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 21 Hours ago by: Johnny1A

Hmmm...I wonder if this story was the inspiration for the movie _Twister_ from back in (IIRC) 1996? I ask because the female lead in that movie, played by Helen Hunt, likewise was traumatized at an early age when her father was killed in

Re: Dahl: The future is certain; it is only the past that is unpredictable (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 21 Hours ago by: Johnny1A

Then take a good look at anything you're storing on-line, or in any storage format that is susceptible to remote rewrite, and ask yourself if you really want it left untouched. If so, take steps to protect it, because there are a _lot_ o

Re: “You Get NOTHING” by Sarah A. Hoyt (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 21 Hours ago by: Johnny1A

Not entirely. It's true that poor neighborhoods are more likely to be dangerous than wealthy ones, but it's also true that the majority or poor neighborhoods are also fairly safe. It's _specific_ poor neighborhoods that tend to be dange

Re: ?You Get NOTHING? by Sarah A. Hoyt (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 22 Hours ago by: Johnny1A

In theory, yes. In practice, probably not. One of the reasons Putin and his supporters believed they could take Crimea was precisely that the Western elites discounted the possibility in the first place. That kind of thinking would li

Re: (tor dot com) Five Tough, Rough, and Rugged Heinlein Stories (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 22 Hours ago by: Johnny1A

Yes, but adding _more_ places where the two sides abut directly is still a bad idea. Especially when Ukraine is more likely than most to find themselves embroiled in war with Russia.

Re: (tor dot com) Five Tough, Rough, and Rugged Heinlein Stories (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 22 Hours ago by: Johnny1A

_Friday_, IMHO, is a strange mix of RAH's best traits and some of his worst tropes. His exploration of the Shipstone and its implications, the portrayal of a balkanized North America, etc. were sfnal classic, and there's an interesting s

Re: (tears) Tornado Alley by William Tuning (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 22 Hours ago by: Johnny1A

I had noticed myself that the fate of Holly and Jeff is open to doubt, given the subsequent history on that universe. Luna City probably did not function during the time of the American theocracy, (not that RAH's American theocracy conce

Re: Dahl: The future is certain; it is only the past that is unpredictable (thread)

Posted: 24 Days 22 Hours ago by: Robert Woodward

The bombs were delivered by toss bombing, see <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toss_bombing>. Of course, they were still flying in a very active storm system which means that the airplanes were suffering rather extreme stresses. However

Re: (tor dot com) Crooked Houses and Bizarre Buildings: Five Stories (thread)

Posted: 25 Days ago by: Quadibloc

Although that's odd, given that he was Jewish himself, unlike Roald Dahl, he hardly needs to be discredited any more than he already is. John Savard

Re: (tears) Tornado Alley by William Tuning (thread)

Posted: 25 Days 2 Hours ago by: Gary R. Schmidt

At least it didn't burn down, fall over, and *then* sink! Cheers, Gary B-)

Re: "Renegades of the Future (Perry Rhodan #65)" by Kurt Mahr, translated by Wendayne Ackerman (thread)

Posted: 25 Days 3 Hours ago by: James Nicoll

Tuning begins his thrilling adventure with senate hearings over funding, so I suspect he wouldn't give into human vanity like that.

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 25 Days 3 Hours ago by: Don

My followup to your previous installment review noted the diversity of fauna on Grey Beast and conjectured only planet Tolimon's galactic zoo is more diverse. On second thought, PR's Venus also contains more fauna than Grey Beast. Lynn Mc

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse? (thread)

Posted: 25 Days 3 Hours ago by: David Johnston

Demographic decline to human extinction is a feature in a several of several science fiction manga reflecting the fact that it looks like the Japanese population will be reduced to less than half by the end of the century. But I've onl

Re: (tor dot com) Five Books About Failed Adventures in Terraforming

Posted: 25 Days 3 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

And _Children of Men_. In a different situation, I don't remember which exactly, but I may have recent-ish-ly read one or more books where a new human colony planet takes making babies quickly (in the old fashioned way) as a priority.

Re: (tears) Tornado Alley by William Tuning

Posted: 25 Days 4 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Oh, so this is actual collisions. At interstellar speed. That bang on the spaceship hull. Well... are you saying you wouldn't be listening? Does the story imply that listening does any good? (I'm not contradicting myself.)

Posted: 25 Days 4 Hours ago by: Robert Carnegie

Maybe planes with pilots are cheaper, like in that Isaac Asimov story.

Re: âNaming Dilbert 2.0â

Re: What books have dealt with fighting demographic collapse?

Posted: 25 Days 4 Hours ago by: ted@loft.tnolan.com

Try turning off Javascript. That makes a lot of things better & faster, except those that won't work at all.